How I Got a Life and a Dog

by Art Corriveau

  Rats! A dead end. “Oh,” I say. “You don’t know which agency, do you?”

  The receptionist shakes her head. “I think they said it was the place where Reggie got trained. His new family only had him for a few weeks,” she says. “And then the father got an unexpected transfer for work. They couldn’t take Reggie with them because it was overseas. It was all very last-minute and they were really sad about bringing him here to the shelter.”

  “Oh,” I say again. But it’s not a total dead end. I’ve learned something new: Old Alf didn’t lug Reggie off to the pound. He took Reggie back to the local guide-dog school where he was trained. That should be pretty easy to find. I mean, how many could there be in Boston? “That’s OK,” I say, trying to play it cool. Because suddenly I feel like a real detective. “I was just passing by.”

  “How’s Reggie working out?” she says. “He’s such a sweetheart.”

  “Everything’s great,” I say.

  “Oh good,” she says. “We love it when matches work out.”

  “We definitely won’t need to be returning him before the end of his trial period,” I say for good measure. Not if I can help it, anyway.

  I hail another cab once I’m back on the street. I tell the driver the address of my school in Charlestown. My stomach starts to growl as soon as we pass the public library. It’s only then that I remember I forgot to sneak my lunch bag out of my locker.

  tiptoe over to my locker to grab my lunch and wolf my sandwich before turning up late to Señorita Alvarez’s class. Someone has drawn a big nose in brown marker across the front of the locker, then circled it in red marker and put a red slash through it.

  I sigh. I open the door. I grab my sandwich out of the bag and take a big bite.

  “Young man! What are you doing out here?”

  Oh great. The school secretary.

  “I was at the dentist,” I say. But I don’t even sound like I’m speaking English because my mouth is full of PB and J and my tongue is sticking to the roof.

  “Do you have a note?” the secretary says.

  I reach into my pocket for my fake excuse. When I try to hand it to her, she’s staring straight at the marker graffiti on my locker.

  “Did you do that?” she says, pointing.

  I shake my head.

  “Well, who did?” she says.

  “Hi, Mrs. Johnston.”

  We both look around. It’s Rita, coming down the hallway, saying good-bye to someone on her pink cell phone.

  “Hi, Rita,” the secretary says. “The baby sick again?”

  Rita nods. “Mom needs me to get back to the house and babysit Julio so she can take the niño to the doctor. I’ve cleared it all with Mrs. McClafferty. She gave me a bunch of homework to do.”

  “I hope the doctor figures out what’s wrong,” Mrs. Johnston says.

  “Me too,” Rita says, staring at me.

  That causes Mrs. Johnston to remember she was chewing me out about the graffiti on my locker. “Vandalizing school property is a serious offense,” she says. “It could mean immediate suspension. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I didn’t do it,” I say.

  “Come with me,” she says. “You can explain that to the principal.”

  “But I’m late for Spanish,” I say.

  She grabs me by my arm.

  “He didn’t do it,” Rita says.

  “This matter doesn’t concern you, Rita,” she says, dragging me about a foot.

  “But he didn’t, Mrs. Johnston,” Rita says. “That’s been there ever since I can remember. Haven’t you ever noticed it before?”

  “No,” Mrs. Johnston says, unsure. “Do you know this student, Rita?”

  Rita gives me the up-and-down.

  I feel myself going red.

  “No,” she says. “I’ve never spoken to him before in my life. He must be new.”

  She walks off down the hallway, dialing a number on her phone.

  “Get to Spanish class,” Mrs. Johnston says to me.

  inally I’m in my carrel and reading up on guide-dog training schools. I didn’t catch much of the rest of Spanish. And now I’ve got a little bit of a headache, thanks to Mrs. Atkins’s music class—twenty-five kids pounding out “Oh, Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?” on the xylophone for an hour.

  Turns out only sixty percent of the dogs make it through school. The rest flunk out and need to get placed into ordinary homes. I guess that’s why every school seems to have an adoption agency. Plus most of these agencies find homes for any of the dogs who do graduate from their school but don’t work out on the job. That must be the category Reggie is in.

  I ask Ms. Klee if I can go online to look up the phone number of the nearest guide-dog training school, so I can interview someone for my project. She has no problem with that. Nor does she have any problem when I hand her the fake dentist appointment note and ask to be excused twenty minutes early. She just smiles and says, “TGIF.” That means Thank God it’s Friday. But I don’t actually see what’s so great about the weekends—not now anyway.

  In my old neighborhood, weekends were great. I got to play all day Saturday with Marky. We were building a tree fort with his dad just before I moved. His dad got every weekend off from the base. He spent most of the time hanging out with Marky and his brothers and me. We had some fun times together. We all used to camp out in the backyard. I mean camp out for real. Marky’s dad had an official army tent and mess kits and everything. We even cooked our own food on a hibachi. That’s when Marky’s mom would usually call up my mom for a girls’ night out.

  My own dad works a lot on the weekends.

  I duck out of the library, dash through the empty corridors, and cut across the playground ages before the final bell—when Timmy Burns will be hunting me down.

  Wouldn’t it be cool if Dad called Mom at work today, asking if I could come out to Littleton this weekend to help him set up his new apartment. Wouldn’t it be great if Mom were in a good enough mood to say, Sure, I don’t see why not—except Nicky has a dog now. Wouldn’t it be even greater if Dad said, No problem, the more the merrier. Then Reggie and I would be spending Saturday doing something fun, instead of laundry at the strip mall and groceries at the Supa-Sava. Dad and I always had fun when it was just him and me—like that day we did the Freedom Trail followed by the All-Star Wrestling Extravaganza at Boston Garden. Well, maybe not always fun, but most times.

  I hoof it back to Eden Street, hook Reggie to his leash, and take him for a walk around the block. I apologize to him for cutting our rounds short today, but I’ve got an important call to make before Mom gets home.

  The operator at the training school asks me how she can direct my call. I tell her I’d like to speak with the person in charge of placing retired guide dogs in people’s homes. She asks me to hold while she transfers me to their adoption department. Suddenly I’m listening to boring classical music, like the kind I get stuck hearing in rush-hour traffic with Mom. While I wait, I see if there’s anything to eat in the fridge. It seems like forever before another lady finally comes on the line. I ask her if she ever placed a retired shepherd named Reggie in my neighborhood. She wants to know who’s calling, please. I tell her I’m Reggie’s new master.

  “Mrs. Pendleton?” she says. “I didn’t recognize your voice.”

  I try not to get annoyed. “The Pendletons had to move away suddenly,” I say. “We got Reggie from the pound.”

  “Oh, I see,” she says. “How may I help you, Mrs.—?”

  “Nicholas,” I say, going with the flow. I can’t wait for the day my voice starts to change. “I’m trying to locate Mr. Santorello, Reggie’s former blind master,” I say. “I’d like to ask him a few questions about Reggie.”

  “I’m afraid I am unable to discuss the personal information of any of our clients,” she says. “We adhere to a strict privacy policy here.”

  “Oh, it’s OK,” I say. “Alf Santorello and I go to the same butcher
shop in the North End.”

  “Perhaps I can try fielding your questions?” she says.

  Rats! She’s definitely not going to leak Old Alfs current whereabouts. But I may as well fish for more info about Reggie, since I’ve got her on the line and she’s pretty much admitted he came through her agency. “Well, for one thing,” I say, “I’m curious to know why Reggie got retired.”

  There’s a long pause. I’m pretty sure I’m using the right lingo. According to my research, “retired” is the word all the training schools use when a guide dog gets fired on the job. There are all sorts reasons for early retirement: Dogs develop a medical disability, they’re not smart enough to begin with, they don’t like to follow their masters’ orders once they’re trained, or they lose their tempers. They’re called career-change dogs, then. But really they just get busted down to the status of regular dog and stuck with a normal family like mine. Well, one that can see, anyway.

  “If you’re having a problem with Reggie,” the lady finally says, “we’d be more than happy to take him back, Mrs. Nicholas. We have quite a waiting list. In fact, the Pendletons waited over a year before Reggie became available. Which is why I’m really surprised to hear they didn’t contact us—”

  “No, there’s no problem,” I say. “Except for his hips. But I’m giving him bones from the butcher shop.”

  “You need to watch the right one in particular,” she says.

  “Is that why Reggie was retired—on a medical disability?”

  “I suppose you have the right to know the particulars of Reggie’s reassignment,” the lady says. “Even if you didn’t acquire him through us. But since the matter is a delicate one, I would really prefer to discuss it in person. Perhaps you could make an appointment—”

  I hear Mom’s key in the lock. I hang up. I grab my pitcher of fruit punch from the fridge, trying to act natural.

  “Were you just on the phone?” she says, as soon as she gets to the kitchen.

  “Nope,” I say.

  “I swear I heard you talking with someone in here,” she says.

  “I was just telling Reggie what a good boy he is. Wasn’t I, fella?”

  He looks up from his bone with one of those What did I do? expressions.

  “Oh,” she says. “God, what a diabolical day I’ve had!”

  “TGIF,” I say. “Hey, speaking of phone calls, Dad didn’t call you at work to set up something for this weekend, did he?”

  “What do you think?” she says. She hauls her jug of vino out of the fridge. She hesitates before reaching for a wineglass on the drying rack. “He did e-mail me, though. He wrote that he forgot he had some big sales conference in Las Vegas this weekend. He promised to set something up as soon as he’s back.”

  “Oh,” I say. I take a gulp of punch.

  There’s so much on the tip of my tongue. But I don’t go there. What would be the point? I just put another check mark next to Mom in my mental log.

  ey, wait a minute,” I say. “You missed the turnoff to the Supa-Sava.” We’re headed for the community college, as though we’re on our way to Dr. Holkke’s in Cambridge.

  “I have to swing by the office,” she says. “I left my paycheck on my desk. I need to cash it before we can buy the groceries. Plus we need quarters for the machines.”

  We used to have a whole laundry room in our old house back in Littleton.

  I turn on the radio. She’s left it on the rock station again. This particular hair band is supposedly in some sort of purple haze.

  “Hey, how’s that project at school going?” Mom says, turning the volume way down. “It’s about dogs, right?”

  Not just dogs. Guide dogs. “Fine,” I say.

  “Well, tell me about it,” she says.

  “How long are we going to be at your office?” I say.

  “Oh, not too long,” she says.

  I don’t like the sound of that. I turn the radio back up.

  A few minutes later we’re crossing the Charles River at the Salt and Pepper Bridge. (That’s not its real name, by the way. It’s the Longfellow Bridge. Supposedly, it got that nickname because the little towers holding it up are shaped like salt and pepper shakers.) I like the view from the top. You can see the whole city: Beacon Hill, where the capitol dome is; the skyscrapers of Downtown; the skyscrapers of Back Bay, sailboats darting up and down the river. It’s a bright, sunny day with lots of puffy white clouds. It looks just like a postcard of Boston, instead of the real thing. Chugging up the other side of the Charles, I spy one of those duck boats that go on water as well as land. Man, am I dying to take one of those tours!

  On our left, a Red Line train pulls alongside our car. The T crosses over the Charles at the Salt and Pepper Bridge. I pretend we’re racing it. The best part is, I know we’ll beat all those grown-ups inside reading newspapers, because the train has to slow down for its next stop at the end of the bridge.

  Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re guaranteed to win at something.

  We make a right turn onto Charles Street and pull into an alley, which is also the Ambulance Chasers’ parking lot. Mom takes the space next to a black Benz convertible. So Chaser Junior must be inside.

  “I’ll wait out here,” I say.

  “Come in and say hello,” Mom says.

  “Do I have to?” I say.

  “It’s not going to kill you to be polite,” she says. She waits for me to open my door. I don’t. She sighs. “Whatever,” she says, going all stony-faced. “Do whatever you want.” She opens her door and gets out, leaving the keys in the ignition.

  I turn up the radio. Way up. I blast some song about a free bird for a couple of seconds, then I get out too.

  As if I really have any choice.

  Chaser Junior is chatting with Mom at her desk. He’s wearing one of those tracksuit getups that make the sh sound when you walk. Usually he wears a shirt and tie to work. Sometimes the tie doesn’t quite reach over his belly.

  “How you been, Sport?” Chaser Junior says. He calls me sport, which I hate, and ruffles my hair, which I also hate. “I was just telling your mom this is the last place I’d expect to find the two of you on her day off.”

  “We’re only here to pick up her paycheck,” I say. “Then we got stuff to do.”

  Chaser Junior laughs. “Terrific day out there. I was just saying to your mom it’s a crime to be wasting it on errands.”

  Mom tells Chaser Junior he’s right, we really ought to be taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather somehow—does he have any suggestions? Chaser Junior winks and says, as a matter of fact, he was just on his way out to pick up his own boys and take them over by the river to the Esplanade. They’ve made a really nice park for kids over there, he says, with a skateboard ramp and community boating and kite flying—the works. He says lots of single dads take their kids on weekends to throw a ball around, eat a couple of hot dogs, have a few laughs.

  He should know, I guess. He’s going on something like his fourth wife.

  “So how about it?” he says suddenly. To me.

  “How about what?” I say.

  “You want to come along? I bet we could convince your mom to let you out of doing those errands. I got two nice boys, just about your age.”

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Mom says.

  “We could all go bowling afterward,” Chaser Junior says. “Grab a pizza and a pitcher of root beer at the alley for lunch.”

  “I’ll be out in the car,” I say, heading for the door.

  Because I am so totally out of there.

  I turn the radio back on. It’s a song about an evil woman. I try to find a decent station, one without hair bands or classical music or people talking about how lousy the Red Sox are. I can’t. So I start switching the dial every time there’s a commercial, which is a lot. Finally Mom comes out of the office. I can tell by the look on her face I’m in the doghouse. I turn the radio off.

  “That was so rude!” s
he says, slamming the car door. “He was only being nice.”

  “He was not. He was being totally sketchy,” I say.

  “Well, you hurt his feelings,” she says.

  “What do you care?” I say. “You call him names behind his back.”

  “Oh, he’s not so bad,” she says.

  “Fine,” I say. “You go fly a kite with him in the park.”

  She starts the engine and throws the stick shift into reverse. “I can’t win!” she says. “I just thought it might be nice for you to be around a few guys for a change.”

  “Well, then let Dad have me for the weekend,” I say.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as funny that there’s always some last-minute reason why my weekends with him don’t work out?” I say.

  “That’s not because of me,” she says. “I told you, he e-mailed me at work to say he had some sales thing in Vegas this weekend.”

  “Right. And last Friday he called you at work to say he had colleagues visiting from out of town he needed to entertain. And the Friday before that he texted you at work to say he’d just come down with the flu.”

  “I don’t believe this!” she says. “Fine. Next time, I’ll make him call you at home so you can hear it from him directly. I’m sick and tired of being the bad guy.”

  She peels out of the parking lot. We drive all the way to the bank, then the laundromat, in total silence. But by the time we pull into the strip mall parking lot, she doesn’t look mad anymore. She looks worried. She reaches over and pulls my ear. She says she knows this has been hard on me. She really will get my dad to call me when he gets back from Vegas. And she’s sorry about Chaser Junior; she was just trying to help.

  I nod OK. We’ve got shopping and laundry to do.

  The Supa-Sava is mobbed by the time we finally get inside. Mom puts me in charge of driving the cart like nothing ever happened. I don’t really pay much attention to what she loads into it. I’m still fuming. I just concentrate on avoiding head-on collisions with little old ladies who are clueless about the rules of the road. Anyway, we’re on our way to checkout in record time.