Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  Then they were gone, pelting down the street away from him. They barked to each other, their voices growing softer with distance until they were just part of the background of the city. Alexander listened to his own breath, half expecting it to stop. It didn’t. Another car drove by, slowed, and then sped away. He felt a vague obligation to scream or weep. Something. The pigeon launched itself from the wire above him and flew away, black against the bright sky.

  Some time later, he thought to pull the cell phone from his pocket and call 911. The blood made dialing hard.

  The effort of going home exhausted him. The effort of being home. Alexander had spent weeks in his nightmare, and all his things waited for him, unchanged. It was like walking into his room in his parents’ house and finding all his books and clothes from high school still where he’d left them. The artifacts of a previous life.

  Erin had stacked the mail neatly on the dining table. Alexander sat there, his new aluminum cane against his leg, and went through it, envelope by envelope. Dickens capered and danced and brought his old fetch toy, a ragged penguin. Alexander only had the energy to toss it halfheartedly across the apartment a few times, and Dickens seemed to recognize his lack of enthusiasm. The little dog hopped up on the couch with a sigh and rested his head on his forepaws for the rest of the evening.

  In the morning, Alexander took Dickens on a quick walk around the block, focusing on getting out to the street and back again as quickly as he could, trying not to feel anything more than impatience. Then he fed the dog, fixed himself a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, and called a taxi to carry him to work. The indulgence wouldn’t work as an everyday occurrence, but for his first day back to the office, he didn’t want to push.

  And, secretly, it meant one more day before he had to walk down past the strip mall, past the parking lot. Better to spend a few dollars and treat himself gently. There would be plenty of time to face unpleasant memories later, when he had more strength.

  As soon as he sat down at his desk and turned on his computer, guilt pressed against him. Eight hundred unread e-mails tracking back to that day. Messages from people he’d worked with for months or years with subject lines like “Third attempt” and “I’m running out of time here.” His morning wove itself out of apologies and lists of deadlines that had already passed. He tried to lose himself in the cost of roofing tiles and the weight tolerances of flooring.

  The physical therapist had given him exercises to do throughout his day, gentle stretches that would help to keep the scars from adhering where they shouldn’t, would get him back as much range of motion as possible. It wouldn’t be all it had been, but mostly. Probably. Enough. He had his toes on a thick hardback book to gently stretch the reattached tendon when Michael from bookkeeping popped his head in the office door. Alexander felt a flush of embarrassment that bordered on shame.

  “Alexander. You got a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said, pushing the book under his desk with a toe. “What’s up?”

  “Little thing,” he said, and ducked back out. Alexander took up his cane and followed.

  It could have been worse. It could have been the whole staff. Instead, there were just four of them: Michael, Robin from HR, Mr. Garner, and Erin. They didn’t half fill the breakroom, and the little tray of cupcakes, with one frosted letter on each, spelled out WELCOME BACK. Everyone smiled. The sweetness of the cakes went past mere sugar into something artificial and cloying, and Alexander got a cup of the bitter work coffee to make it bearable. Mr. Garner joked about how badly things had fallen behind without him. Robin said it was all just awful without ever quite saying which it she was referring to. Erin stayed politely quiet, a sympathetic look in her eyes saying I warned you they were going to do something. Alexander sat on the metal folding chair, nodding and smiling and trying to be touched and grateful. When it was over, he went back to his office, leaning on the cane more than he had before. He could feel the sugar crash coming and the coffee left him jittery. Probably the coffee.

  He tried to catch up on his e-mail, but it was too much. In the end, he composed a little canned response that he could copy into the reply field whenever he needed to: “I’m very sorry for my late response, but I have been out of the office for a medical situation and have only just returned. Please rest assured that my full efforts and attention are on this issue, and I will be back on track shortly.” It wasn’t even a lie, quite. The bland, conventional phrasing would have annoyed him before. He’d hated the insincerity and falseness of etiquette that everyone knew was just etiquette. Now, it felt safe and familiar. Something happened, but it was over now. He was moving on. He was putting it in the past. Everything that had happened could be put in a box marked “medical situation” and the lid nailed shut.

  “Hey,” Erin said. “Sorry about that.”

  “Well. Can’t say you didn’t warn me.”

  “They mean well.”

  “I know,” Alexander said. “And I appreciate the thought, it’s just…”

  “Yeah.”

  She stood, neither in the room nor out, her expression friendly. The moment stretched just a little too long. If Alexander wasn’t looking to talk, it wasn’t an invitation. If he did want to, then it was.

  “They didn’t find them,” Alexander said. “The dogs? They never found them.”

  Erin stepped into the room, sat in the chair beside Alexander’s desk. Alexander’s fingers hovered over his keyboard, then folded into fists and sank slowly to his lap. A telephone rang in someone else’s office.

  “It bothers you,” Erin said.

  “I keep thinking about how they’re still out there, you know?” Alexander said. “I think maybe the pound picked them up and put them down and never knew they were the ones. Or maybe they were a pack that was just moving through the city and didn’t really belong here. Or maybe…”

  “Or maybe they’re still out there,” Erin said, speaking into the pause. “Maybe they belong to people in the neighborhood. Maybe they’re sleeping on one of your neighbor’s couches.”

  “Like that,” Alexander said. He felt his hands shaking a little, but he couldn’t see the tremor. “I don’t know how we do it.”

  Erin took a breath and let it out slowly.

  “You get people, you get dogs,” Erin said. “Strays, yeah. But pets. People love their pets. Seriously, there are probably more dogs in this town than cars.”

  “I know. I’ve had a dog my whole life. At least one. It’s not like I expected them to—”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Erin said. “We’ve always lived with predators. Before dogs were dogs, they were wolves. I mean, that was a long-ass time ago, but they were wolves. And no matter what, some of them are always predators.”

  “Yeah,” Alexander said.

  “Most of them aren’t, though. Most dogs go through their whole lives and never bite anyone. And how many therapy dogs are there, right? Seeing-eye dogs. Companion dogs. Most dogs are good.”

  “About how many, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Four out of five?”

  “So for every ten dogs you see…”

  “Yeah. A couple.”

  The air conditioner hummed. Someone walked past Alexander’s door, bitching about the copy machine. On the street, a truck lumbered around the corner, its brakes screeching metal against metal. Erin leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Alexander was afraid she would reach out, touch his shoulder or his knee, but Erin only waited.

  “I don’t know how we do it,” Alexander said again, more softly.

  The afternoon was the worst. The pain ramped up a little, but more than that, Alexander’s mind seemed to fall into a haze. The documentation he was working on seemed to mean less and less, the price and weight tolerance for one set of hinges started to look the same as the one before. The information didn’t fit the allotted spaces, and Alexander couldn’t remember how to make AutoCAD resize them. He tried to walk to the bathroom without his cane, which turned ou
t to be optimistic. Everything felt too hard, too forced, like something he should have been able to do but couldn’t. By three o’clock, the exhaustion robbed him of anything resembling productivity. He sat at his desk making a list of everything he had to do instead of doing it. Eventually, the hour hand moved far enough that he could go home without it feeling like a rout. He called for a taxi. Next week would have to be different. He’d feel better.

  At the apartment, Dickens leapt and bounced, running in a tight circle the way he had since he was a puppy. Alexander collapsed on the couch, closed his eyes. When he heard nails scratching at the front door, he shifted his head, opened his eyes. Dickens looked at him, at the door, at him again. He needed to go for a walk. It was almost more than Alexander could stand. He swallowed his exhaustion and his fear and forced himself back up.

  Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

  The week passed slowly, old patterns slowly remaking themselves in slightly altered forms. He took himself to the lunch bar at the side of the fancy steak house across from the office. Meetings became more and more comprehensible as he put together what he’d missed during his time in hospital. His still-healing wounds bothered him less; he found ways to move and sit and stretch that worked with the new limitations of his body. Every morning and evening, he allowed himself the luxury of a taxi, swearing that this would be the last, that he’d get back to being responsible with his money next time, and then changing his mind when the next time came.

  He hadn’t thought to dread Sunday until Sunday came.

  The late morning light spilled in through his bedroom window, making spots of white too bright to look at on the bed. The night before had been a movie streamed off the Internet, a couple rum-and-cokes, and a bag of Cracker Jacks for dinner. Between that and skipping his evening stretches, his body felt tight and cramped, the complex of scars in his belly and down his thigh pulling at his healthy flesh like something jealous. Lolling at the edge of sleep, he smelled the hound’s rank piss, but the illusion faded as he came to, leaving only a bright panic behind it. Dickens lay at the foot of the bed, black eyes focused on Alexander. Even perfectly still and trying not to disturb, the delight and excitement showed in the little dog’s eyebrows and the almost subliminal trembling of his body. Even then, the penny didn’t drop for Alexander until he sat up and Dickens leapt off the bed and ran, nails clicking against the wood, for the front door.

  It was Sunday morning, and Sunday morning was the dog park. Alexander rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes as Dickens raced from the front door to the bedroom to the door to the bedroom. Dread spilled in his chest like ink, but he pulled himself up from the mattress and forced a smile.

  “Yes, I know,” he said to Dickens, capering at his feet. “I have to put some clothes on, right?”

  Dickens’s bark was high and joyful. Alexander brewed himself a cup of coffee, showered, pulled on his sweats and sneakers. Without meaning to drag things out, he still didn’t reach for the leash until almost one o’clock in the afternoon. Cool air tightened Alexander’s skin, and the trees that lined the streets were giving up their green for red and gold and brown. It wouldn’t be many more days before some wind came and knocked the dry leaves into the gutters, but they still held on for now. Dickens strained at the leash, choking himself a little with eagerness. Alexander focused on breathing, staying calm. They’d gone to the dog park hundreds of times. This wouldn’t be any different. He’d take Dickens through the gate, let him off the leash, and wait, visiting with the other people there or reading the news off his phone, while the dogs ran and jumped and chased each other. Then, eventually, Dickens would trot back to him, scratch at his shin, and they’d go home together. The same as always. The same as ever.

  Half a block from the park, the first sounds of barking reached him. Alexander’s body reacted like a sudden onset of the flu; his hands went cold, and he started to sweat. Nausea crawled up the back of his throat. Dickens tugged at the leash, pulling him on, and he set his teeth and forced one foot ahead of the other until they were at the gate. Inside, half a dozen animals ran in a pack over the grass and mud. Red tongues lolled from mouths filled with sharp ivory teeth. Muscles bunched and released along the flanks of a Doberman pinscher, the animal’s claws digging at the turf, throwing bits of mud and grass behind it. They were all so fast. Their barking was joyful and rich and inhuman. Bestial. Alexander’s vision dimmed at the sides. Narrowed. His heart was tripping over too fast. His breath shook like a storm.

  Dickens scratched at the green-painted iron gate, both forepaws working too fast to follow, then looked back at Alexander, expectant. Confused. Alexander gagged, the taste of coffee and vomit at the back of his mouth. He stepped back, dragging Dickens with him.

  “Come on boy,” Alexander said, the words shuddering. “Let’s go. Let’s go home.”

  Dickens set his feet on the sidewalk, head low and pulling back against the leash. Alexander yanked harder than he’d meant to, and the little dog sprawled. Dickens’s eyes registered surprise, then confusion, then hurt. Alexander turned, his teeth gritted tight against the nausea, his arms and legs shaking, and pushed for home. After the first few steps, Dickens stopped pulling back on the leash, but he didn’t dance or caper anymore. Just walked along behind, his gaze never rising above knee height.

  Alexander sat at the little kitchen table for a long time, his hands on his thighs. His mind felt empty and raw. Sandblasted. Dickens didn’t come near, didn’t press his nose into Alexander’s lap. Instead, he curled up on the couch where he wasn’t supposed to be and looked away. The sun shifted, the angles of the shadows growing thinner, the light turning darker and red. Near sundown, Alexander became aware that his bladder was screamingly full, pulled himself up to standing, and made his way back to the bathroom. He sat on the toilet, head in his hands. Guilt and shame and a bone-deep exhaustion made the early evening feel like midnight. If it hadn’t been for the autonomic demands of his body, he’d have sat still as a stone until morning.

  He took a shower, the hot water making his skin pinker, the pale scars white by comparison. When he got out, he stood in front of the mirror for a long time, his gaze tracing what damage could be seen. The bedroom clock told him it was just past seven, and he had to check his phone to convince himself it was true.

  Dinner was a frozen serving of butter chicken run through the microwave until the apartment smelled rich with it, and a glass of ice water. There were sitcoms on TV, so he sat there, letting other people’s laughter wash over him, and joining in by reflex. Before, he would have gone out to a bar, maybe. Gotten together with friends. Tried his spotty luck with his online dating service. Every option seemed impossibly hard. And more than that, dangerous. If he did something, he might lose the quiet numbness in his head, and he still wanted it. Still needed it.

  By the time the evening news came on, he felt almost like himself again. Still fragile, but himself. He cleaned the dishes, put on some music. He needed to get up a little early. He was going to take the bus, and he wanted to leave a little extra time to walk there.

  Dickens hadn’t moved except to shift from time to time. Alexander knew he should have made the dog get down from the couch, but that little breaking of rules seemed important; an apology for the shortcomings of the afternoon. After all, if one pattern had changed, maybe they all had. Maybe everything was up for grabs. Alexander finished cleaning, put a bowl of food down for Dickens, and listened to the soft sounds of the dog eating. He wasn’t looking forward to the walk that would follow. It was cold outside now, and dark. When the little steel bowl was clean, Dickens walked over to the leash and looked up at him.

  Alexander hadn’t meant to hesitate, but it was there. That little half beat that marked the difference between enthusiasm and reluctance. Dickens sighed and went back to the couch.

  “No, hey,” Alexander said. “Come on, guy. It’s walk time.”

  Dickens hopped up, curling himself in toward the armrest with his tail
tucked under him. Alexander picked up the leash.

  “Come on. It’s okay. We’ll just go and—”

  His fingertips touched the familiar fur of Dickens’s back. The little dog whipped around, teeth snapping. Alexander took a fast step back, staring down at Dickens. The world seemed to go airless. The small tufted eyebrows showed resentment and guilt. Grief. Or maybe they didn’t and Alexander was seeing them there because he’d have seen them anywhere, everything in the world a sudden mirror.

  “Okay,” Alexander said and put the leash back where it belonged. “All right, then.”

  Dickens sighed and turned away again, muzzle to the armrest, back to the room. Alexander went to the bathroom in silence, brushed his teeth, changed into the old sweats he used for pajamas. He didn’t sleep for a long time, and when he did, it was a thin, restless kind of sleep. He woke in darkness to a dry sound. It came again. Nails, scratching at something. Once, and then a breath, and then again. It wasn’t the sound of any activity, just a message. He got up, walking out the front room. Dickens sat in front of the door, one forepaw lifted. As Alexander watched, he scratched again, then turned to look up, sorrowful. Alexander felt a thickness in his throat.

  “Hey, guy,” he said, pretending not to understand. “What’s up?”

  Dickens scratched the door.

  The moment seemed to last forever until it was suddenly over. Alexander turned the dead bolt, pulled open the door. The street was blackness with occasional dull orange streetlights. It smelled like rain coming and the chill of autumn. Dickens licked the top of Alexander’s foot once, then trotted out, nails ticking against the pavement like hail. Alexander watched until Dickens went into the pool of light under one of the lamps and into the darkness on the far side, then closed the door and sat up, waiting. When dawn came, he understood that Dickens wouldn’t be back. He’d put up “Lost Dog” flyers, he’d make trips to the pound to look through cages for the familiar face. The only thing he wouldn’t do was find him. The world was broken, and he and Dickens had both been wrong to expect that the old pieces would still fit.