Rotten (9780545495899)

  Mom and I are already waiting at the living room table by the time Greg comes inside. JR is over in his spot, still licking the biscuit off his lips and probably wondering where that pizza roll is. Greg takes a seat like he’s sitting down to dinner. JR’s head pops up and then disappears again, like a periscope. I think that’s pretty good, considering the racket he made before.

  “Well, hell,” Greg says.

  “Yep,” Mom says.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “Listen,” he says to Mom. “There’s something you should know. The former owner, the guy who had him before you —”

  “The guy he was taken away from?” says Mom. She has a look of total disbelief on her face. Mine is just total confusion.

  “Yep,” says Greg. “Well, they got him to file a deposition.”

  “You’re serious?” I say.

  He looks at me in a way that makes it clear that he is. Now I understand where Mom’s disbelief came from. The psychopath who kept JR chained to a tree, covered in ticks, has filed a deposition. Greg doesn’t say what’s on it, but he doesn’t really need to. I can guess what it says already: dangerous dog, always biting, chained up to protect the public.

  I push my chair back and stand up, but I don’t have anywhere to go. They watch me as I sit back down. I bet that guy’s just like Mars’s family. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re related, and I’m 1,000 percent sure they’re promising him a cut of the money. Money we don’t even have, but try telling them that. I bet all they see is my mom dressed up nice, coming from work or going to it.

  “It’s safe to say that this guy is ‘not unknown to the court,’” says Greg. “But that deposition is still strike two.”

  Right, I think, because even the absolute worst people still count more than any dog. Mom must understand it, too, because she just nods.

  “And you know they’re asking for some significant damages,” he says.

  “For what? I gave him the frickin’ bandages for free!”

  Greg looks over at me.

  “Bannnn-daaaaa-gessssss,” I say, drawing it out. “It wasn’t even that bad a bite.”

  I can tell that there’s something else. I can see him deciding whether or not to clue me in. Mom calls Greg “maddeningly vague,” and she’s being nice.

  “They’re claiming possible nerve damage,” he says.

  “Wait, what?” I say.

  “Which is either smart or true,” he says.

  “Neither one of those sounds like Mars,” I say.

  “Still and all,” he says. “The complaint says a ‘persistent tingling in his hand and wrist.’ Or something like that. It’s kind of the classic, because it’s hard to prove but just about impossible to disprove.”

  And right there, I can see the genius of it. I wonder if it was Mars’s idea or their lawyer’s. Not for a second do I consider the possibility that it might be true. I could see using a line like that to get out of gym or something, but this is serious. This is real. I am so mad at Mars right now, I could tear him in half. This whole thing bites on so many levels.

  “But —” I start. Suddenly, I have a million more things to say, like how Mars wouldn’t look me in the eyes downtown and how there’s no way that bite requires a sling, so if he’s lying about that … But Greg raises his hand in a stop sign and says, “Doesn’t matter.”

  I really wish people would stop saying that to me.

  “End of the day,” Greg says, “that boy was bitten, and they got someone else, even if it’s not much of one, to say the dog’s a biter. And he’s a Rottweiler, which is, you know, one of those species: a ‘bully breed.’ Would be worse if he was a pit bull, but it would be a whole lot better if he was a Lab or something.”

  That doesn’t seem fair. JR is afraid of his own shadow half the time. He’s the opposite of a bully, so why should his breed matter? Mom starts to say something, but Greg gives her a stop sign, too. That makes me mad, because this is our house and she’s my mom and this is all insane.

  He takes a deep breath. “Bottom line,” he says, and we lean in.

  Right at that moment, I remember something. It’s not like it is on TV. Greg doesn’t think that way, and courtrooms don’t operate that way. There’s not going to be any high-tech crime-scene investigation or any dramatic last-second testimony. He just said it: That scumbag former owner filed a deposition, which means he’s not even going to be there.

  “We’re going to go ahead and try to settle,” he says. There it is. “They may not agree right away, may want to go to court. Or they might jump at it. It’ll come down to the money, either way. This is the way to play it.”

  I lean back. This show is over.

  “Good news and bad news,” he says.

  We let him choose.

  “Good,” he says. “Homeowner’s insurance should cover most of it. I’ve been coordinating with the company, looked over your policy, and it’s not too bad. Policy limit’s a little low for this, but hopefully that won’t matter.”

  Now it’s Mom’s turn to lean back. I know she was worried. I know she was thinking we’d lose the house. I was worried about that, too. “But the rates will go up, regardless,” she says.

  It’s not a question, so Greg doesn’t answer.

  “Is that the bad news?” I say. I’m just hoping.

  “Bad news,” says Greg. “The judge will decide what to do with the dog.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what to do’?” I say, but that’s not really a question, either. He means whether to have him put to sleep, and I know this is my fault. It’s my fault because Mars is my friend. Or he was.

  “How can they just —” I say. I can’t say it for some reason.

  “Same as the money,” Greg says, shrugging a little. “A dog’s just property. I know you don’t see it that way, but in the eyes of the court …”

  I look away and Greg waits for me to look back. I guess he figures I need to hear this.

  “If they agree he’s dangerous, presents a threat to public safety … You want my advice,” he says, “get yourself a new dog.”

  I don’t want his advice.

  “Maybe try something smaller this time….”

  “We already have a dog,” I say.

  “Take it out of the judge’s hands,” he says. “Show some responsibility. Might help.”

  Now he leans back. He might as well. He’s laid it all on the table.

  I look over at Mom. She looks serious. “I can’t believe they’re doing this,” she says. “I’ve known them for ten years. I’ve always been …”

  It seems amazing that I’ve known Mars for that long. I try to remember the first time he came over here, and come up with an image of him sitting in the front room, maybe first or second grade, fishing the last Dorito out of the bag.

  Greg looks over to the far end of the room, where the top of JR’s head is just visible. Mom and I both follow his eyes. Look at that, I want to say, he is already so much better with people — so much! I want to say that to Greg, but I don’t. It’s another one of those things that cuts both ways.

  “Seems like a nice enough dog, and it’s a nice thing you did, getting him from the shelter like that,” says Greg. “Still, I think you need to seriously consider it.”

  Mom looks up. “I don’t think that’s something I can do,” she says.

  “Me neither,” I say, not like anyone asked me.

  Greg pushes his chair back and stands up. The last thing he says is: “Judge might do it for you, regardless. I am sorry.”

  It’s not even noon when he leaves, but the day already feels like a total waste.

  I turn to Mom: “Why did you say ‘don’t think’ you can?”

  She looks over at me, but her eyes are a million miles away.

  “What’s that?” she says.

  “Unbelievable,” I say and walk out.

  I hear the car pull out of the driveway in the middle of the afternoon. Mom didn’t even tell me where she’s going, which is
pretty unusual, but I guess it’s that kind of day. Meanwhile, I’ve been lying like a lump in the front room for hours, half watching TV.

  I still have three books I’m supposed to read before school starts. That’s tomorrow, so that’s pretty much not going to happen, but I figure I can power through one of them. I’m not going to get anything done lying on this couch, so I grab the thinnest book and head for the living room.

  I sit in the chair closest to JR’s spot, and he raises his head. I ask him where Mom went, but he’s not saying.

  “You’re only fifty percent hers, you know,” I say. “If you round down, that’s zero.”

  He drops his head again, and I go back to my book. It’s Hiroshima by John Hersey. I figured that was a metaphor, but, nope, it is actually about Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on it. I wonder if I made the wrong choice for a while, but it really is a short book and by then I’m already on page forty. I’m a pretty fast reader.

  On page sixty-three, JR comes over and sits next to my chair. I don’t know if he’s leaving his spot or just expanding its edges a little. I reach down and sort of ruffle-scratch the fur between his ears. It’s not something I would’ve tried even a few days ago, but I figure he didn’t come over here to bite me and it turns out I’m right.

  If someone were to walk by the living room window right now, well, 1) it would freak me out. They’d have to be standing in the backyard to be looking in. But 2) they’d just think they were looking at a normal kid and a normal dog. I’m doing my homework, and he’s curled up next to my chair.

  The rest of us are freaking out about the lawsuit, but JR doesn’t really know what’s going on, and I’m sort of hoping he never has to. Mom has been gone for a few hours now, and I let myself think — at least I let part of me think — that she’ll take care of this. Maybe she’s taking care of it right now, talking with Greg or whatever, just like she’s always taken care of things for us.

  By the time she gets back, JR is asleep and I’ve had enough of gruesome radiation burns and skin falling off and am ready for dinner. And sure enough, she comes back with a few bags of food and no explanation, as if buying forty bucks’ worth of groceries took three and a half hours. This isn’t one of those no-news-is-good-news situations, though. I figure if she’s not telling me something, it’s something I don’t want to know. Plus, I’m hungry.

  I head back to the front room after dinner, and when I walk past the clock, I realize I’ve got twelve hours until school starts up again. Between the people I’m not talking to, the ones who aren’t talking to me, and the ones I haven’t seen since the last time we were all there, tomorrow is going to be a total train wreck. I sit down on the couch, and the two books I didn’t read are just looking at me. They’re trying to blame me for passing them over, but I know it’s their fault. Try being 160 pages, I want to tell them. Try being about nuclear destruction. Then we’ll talk.

  I watch some TV, but the books keep staring. This time they have a point. It’s highly unlikely that I’m going to be tested on episode three of the Seven Ages of Rock. I reach over and pick up Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, but the thing is thick as a brick.

  There’s a knock on the side door, the one closest to where I am. I wait to make sure I’m not just hearing things. Whoever it is knocks again: one, two, three times. In case there was any doubt left, JR starts barking and I hear him heading down the hall. I get to the door a few steps before him and shield him off with my legs as I crack open the door. I am not at all prepared for who it is.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says.

  It’s Janie. I can see her boxy little hybrid parked at the very end of the driveway, the back wheels practically in the road. Those things are quiet.

  “I didn’t, uh,” I start. “I didn’t expect.”

  It’s not a full sentence, but it’s close enough.

  “You never do,” she says. “But I thought, you know, you’ve humiliated yourself enough at this point.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s probably true.”

  JR is working his way around, trying to stick his head out the open door, and I have to sort of hip-check him to keep his nose pinned against the door frame. He’s built like a bulldozer and crazy strong.

  “That your new dog?” she says, lifting her head up and to the side to get a better look.

  “Nah,” I say. “I have no idea who this is.” I give him another little hip check and try to figure out how I’m going to let Janie in.

  “I hear he bit Mars’s arm off,” she says.

  “He should’ve.”

  “Sorry for the surprise,” says Janie. “I won’t be here long.”

  Things have calmed down now. JR stopped barking and went back into eek-a-person mode as soon as she made it in the door. He doesn’t retreat back into the living room, though. He sticks around. It reminds me of that first night, when I fell and he barked at me, except this time, it’s my legs he’s hiding behind instead of Mom’s.

  Janie kneels down and holds her hand low to the ground, palm up. I’m not really sure what she’s doing, but JR seems to know, because he takes a few steps toward her.

  “You have to be careful with him,” I say. “He’s a rescue and —”

  And then he makes a liar out of me by sniffing Janie’s hand. She takes her time and lets him. Then, just like that, she brings her other hand up and pets him.

  “He’s not so bad,” she says. She’s looking at him when she says it and she draws the word bad out like baby talk for his benefit.

  “I think it’s mostly men he has a problem with,” I say.

  “I know how he feels,” she says, standing up.

  Walked right into that one. Mom ducks her head into the hallway just long enough to say hi to Janie. When Mom leaves, she takes JR back with her.

  Once it’s just Janie and me, the mood changes a little. The temperature drops, basically. She was friendly enough at the door, but it’s pretty clear this is going to be a Serious Talk. I know I have it coming, but I hate these on principle. I sit down on the couch and I’m sort of hoping she will, too, but she sits in the creaky, old chair next to it.

  “How’s the garden store?” I say.

  “Not too bad,” she says. “Today was my last day. You’re lucky you didn’t catch me when you didn’t.”

  “It take you all day to think of that?” I say.

  “Actually,” she says, “I thought of it while you were walking back across the parking lot.”

  “Yeah, I forgot something over there.”

  “What’s that?” she asks.

  “My pride.”

  “Don’t joke,” she says. I put my hands up like, OK, OK, but she started it.

  “Did you mostly work inside, or outside with the plants and flowers and stuff?” I say.

  “Little of both. It wasn’t bad on nice days. Not exactly a dream job, but whatever.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So how was your summer?” she asks. I expected it, but somehow it still catches me off guard.

  “Uh,” I start, but she shoots me a look like: whatever comes out of your mouth better be the truth. So I shut my mouth again, because that way, at least it’s not not the truth.

  “Uh-huh,” she says.

  I’m about to try again, but I hear JR trotting back down the hall. I guess he slipped through Mom’s defenses. I think he’s going to come in and sort of let me off the hook, but all he does is poke his ginormous head in the room, look at us for a second, and then turn around and head back down the hallway.

  “Just checking in,” I say.

  “I like your dog,” she says.

  “It’s not true, you know. With Mars.”

  “I figured,” she says.

  “I mean, he did bite him, but Mars was a total dick and basically made him.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “That sounds about right.”

  “And now he’s making all kinds —”

  “Listen!�
�� she says, and I shut up. “We still need to talk, all right? Like, a real talk? And it’s pretty clear that’s still way too much to ask for, which is completely ridiculous, but whatever, I don’t know what I even expected. We’re back to school tomorrow, and people are going to be asking me what’s going on, and I don’t even know what to tell them. And that sucks.”

  It’s all true, but I’m not sure which part to respond to first, or how. It amounts to me saying nothing for a little too long, which basically proves her point. She exhales in that let-down way, picks up Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and says, “You read it?”

  I shake my head no.

  “I read another one today,” I say. “Hiroshima.”

  She makes a face, maybe because she didn’t like the book or maybe just because it was so gruesome. I’m glad we have the same reading list, though. It means we’ve got the same English teacher. If we have him the same period, it could either be really good or a full year’s worth of incredible awkwardness. I’m willing to take that chance.

  “I found the movie on demand,” I say. “I was thinking of watching it….”

  “Sounds like entertainment gold,” she says.

  She stands up, so I do, too.

  “And anyway,” she says, tossing the book back down on the table. “I’ve read it.”

  Of course she has. She’s always been a better student than me.

  “They give you the hybrid?” I say as she heads toward the door.

  “Made me buy it for five hundred bucks,” she says. “Paid them last month.”

  “That’s a good deal,” I say, like an idiot. “I always liked that car.”

  “Good,” she says. “Then you can watch it drive away.”

  And I do. I stand there at the door, watch the headlights come on, and watch her back out and drive away. After that, I head back to the couch to order Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Turns out it’s a miniseries — 240 minutes long! I make it through the first episode and half of the second — only two and a half to go — but I still have pretty much no idea what’s going on. The actors are trying to out-British one another, and I was thinking about what Janie said the entire time.