by P. E. Ryan
“And you hate it, right?”
Garth nodded.
“You know what’s funny about that? Your dad always wanted your hair. He said it even when you were a baby.”
“Really? I’d have traded with him in a heartbeat.”
“The grass is always greener,” she said. “You want to include this one?”
“Actually, can I put that one in my wallet? It would be nice to carry around.”
“Sure.” She handed him the snapshot. Like so many of them it was, as Lisa would have put it, “old school”: perfectly square with a white border. One of the corners was bent back, and a crease ran vertically up the middle, causing some of the picture to have flaked away over the years. “Just be careful with it. It’s already pretty beaten up.”
He set the snapshot to one side, then reached into the pile for another. “Here’s a baby shot. Both of them.”
Two large, round heads dominated the picture, both smiling. In the background, a white shirt and an anonymous necktie—the chest of whoever was holding them, probably Grandpa Rudd.
“Butterball cheeks,” his mom said, and sighed. “We can put that one near the front, if you want.”
“Does it make you sad, looking at all these?” he asked.
“Yes and no. How about you?”
He ran his eyes over the pile. “I don’t know. I guess not as sad as if they were pictures of us. These are like getting a glimpse of the kid I didn’t get to know. Does that make sense?”
“It does. To be honest, anytime I think of your dad—not about the accident, but about him—it’s both happy and sad. They’ve almost become the same feeling. And I think of him about a thousand times a day.”
“Happy and sad rolled up together all the time?”
She was holding another snapshot—this one taken from the front seat of a car, looking into the back, where his dad sat clutching a stuffed penguin. She sank back into the couch and lowered the snapshot to her lap. “I think that’s what grief is, when you really love the person who died. That’s what I’ve come to believe, anyway. You miss him a lot, don’t you?”
Garth nodded. “Mike and I drove out to the cemetery, the day we went to the mall.”
“You did? I didn’t know that.”
There’s a lot you don’t know about, he thought. “He wanted to visit the grave. I thought he was going to cry, at one point.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
“That we went?”
“That he nearly cried.” She set the snapshot back onto the pile, sifted through for another. “Forget I said that.”
The remark begged for a follow-up question, but Garth could tell from the expression on her face that she really did want him to forget it. Cautiously, he said, “Mike…talked to dad. At the grave.”
“People do that.”
“I’ve seen people do it in movies,” he said. “Not in real life.”
“Honey, your dad was very proud of you. You should keep that in mind whenever you’re feeling sad.”
That was about the last thing he wanted to keep in his mind at the moment. His dad wouldn’t have been proud of all the lying Garth had been doing lately. Garth slid the picture into the clear plastic sleeve and brushed his hand through the pile, eager to change the subject. “Did Dad and Mike not get along, as grownups? There are almost no pictures of the two of them together after, like, seventeen.”
His mom glanced toward the front door, as if worried Mike might walk through it at any second. She lowered her voice. “They fought some. The fact is, I think they just turned into very different people. Which is normal. They were twins; they weren’t two halves of one thing.”
“Except when they were an egg.”
“Of course. But who you are as a child, even as a teenager, isn’t necessarily who you’re going to be as an adult. And you can’t be compatible with everyone; that’s not realistic.”
“Is that how Dad put it? That they weren’t compatible?”
“No. That wasn’t your dad’s style. He would say, ‘Mike’s got his head in the clouds.’ Or ‘He’s living in a fantasy world where people have no responsibility.’ Things like that. He didn’t like the fact that they’d grown apart, but he didn’t know how to change it.”
“So”—he pushed his fingers through the snapshots and found one of his dad and Mike, around ten years old, each holding wrapped presents—“what about you?”
“Me?”
“Do you get along with Mike?”
“What a question,” she said. “He’s your uncle.”
He studied her, waiting for more.
“He’s just visiting, anyway. So even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
“That doesn’t sound very glowing.”
“Don’t bait me.” She smoothed her hands over her legs and then leaned forward, flipping back a leaf of the album to look at the page they’d just completed. “It was very thoughtful of him to give us all these photographs of your dad.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, of course I get along with Mike. Do I think he’s the most mature man I’ve ever met? The most levelheaded? No. But he’s family.” She flipped another page, then another, back to the first one they’d done: a half-dozen baby pictures were anchored behind the plastic. Six pairs of smiling, “butterball-cheeked” infants indistinguishable from each other. “He showed up out of the blue, we welcomed him in, and that’s the way it should be. And I’m very thankful for how he’s helping out. At the same time”—she glanced toward the door again—“I’m glad he’s not sticking around indefinitely.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, the more I observe, the more I start to agree with your dad. Which is something you don’t ever need to repeat.”
“I won’t.”
“Let’s put it this way: he’s no role model.”
10
Mike stood before Garth’s closet, one hand holding a coffee mug and the other extended toward the old Halloween costumes. He looked like someone giving a pitch at a board meeting—save for the fact that he was in a T-shirt, and barefoot. And the idea he was pitching was insane.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Garth said.
“Just hear me out. Cute equals money. If a charity drive—any kind of charity drive—gets little kids involved in the actual money-raising, the results double. Triple, sometimes. I know it’s a sensitive subject, but you could easily pass for thirteen. And in the right outfit, because of that thing we’re not supposed to mention, you could pass for even younger.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome. You should take it as a compliment, you know. When you’re forty, you’ll probably look twenty-nine.”
“I’d die,” Garth said. “I’d drop dead on the spot if someone I knew saw me wearing one of those things.”
“Which is another reason why we’re not doing this in town. And we’re not talking about putting you in a diaper or a dress. It’s just an old Halloween costume.”
“I know, but…come on, Mike. Get real.”
“I am getting real. I’m getting very real, and I know what I’m talking about. We’re doing this to boost up your college fund, remember? To ease the burden on your mom?”
Garth was sitting on the edge of his bed. His body had gone stiff when he’d heard Mike’s proposal. Now, as his eyes ran over the costumes, he felt his shoulders droop with a weight that was part surrender, part dread. “Which one?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
Hutch started barking from the backseat of the Camaro as soon as they emerged from Bone Sweet Bone.
“Okay,” Mike said, keeping a firm grip on Mr. Smith’s leash, “let’s all play nice.” Mr. Smith—a mid-sized, wire-haired mystery breed that’d been at the shelter for nearly six months—was panting and straining at the end of his tether. When he heard Hutch’s bark, he began to whine.
Garth was carrying a Scottie-cum-dachshund named Tuv
a. She squirmed in his arms and struggled to get free, but he knew from experience that she was a zigzagging nightmare to walk. “You’re going for a ride,” he told the dog, nudging the top of her head with his chin. “A little adventure.”
“They’re not going to fight, are they?”
“I think they just need to smell each other.”
And that’s just what they did, thoroughly vacuuming one another’s bodies from head to tail once they were all in the backseat. Mr. Smith seemed to take an instant liking to Hutch and settled down to licking the aging spaniel’s ear. Tuva, done sniffing, tried to bound over the console into Garth’s lap. Garth blocked her with his hand.
“What’s he, antisocial?” Mike asked as he backed the car out of the parking space.
“She. And, yeah—sort of. I think she had it in her head she was going to be leader of the pack, but Hutch beat her to the punch by having the home-field advantage and making the most noise.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s obvious. Now her ego’s bruised and she doesn’t want to witness their bonding.”
Mike pushed his lower lip forward, impressed. “Wow. You’re like a dog shrink.”
Tuva’s front paws landed on the console again. Garth looked directly into her eyes and touched a finger to her nose. “You are going to fall if you stay like that.”
“I’m going to start calling you the Dog Whisperer,” Mike said, then turned onto the main road, causing Tuva to flop backward.
Garth reached between the seats and helped her up alongside Mr. Smith. “So what exactly is the ‘cause’ this time?”
“Helping these poor, disease-ridden animals get the medical treatment they need.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey, I forgot to tell you,” Mike said “Adam called this morning while you were in the shower.”
“Are you serious? Why’d he call you?”
“What can I say? He likes me. He called to talk to you, of course. You still haven’t given him your home phone number, have you?”
“He never asked for it.”
Mike rolled his eyes.
“What? I didn’t want him calling and Mom getting suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what? He’s a friend; he’s calling. There’s nothing to be suspicious of.”
“I’ve never done this before—with anyone,” Garth confessed.
“Well, he asked for you, I told him you were in the shower, and he said for you to call him back.”
“But how did he get your—”
“It was on his phone from when you called last week. Are you going to ask him on another date?”
They passed a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!
“Look at that,” Garth said, pointing. “What does it even mean? Rise to what?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but isn’t that sick?”
“You sound like your friend. What’s her name? The one who doesn’t like me.”
“Lisa. She doesn’t dislike you, she’s just very…vocal about how she sees the world.”
“I understand,” Mike said. “‘Artists’ are historically temperamental.”
More air quotes. Garth didn’t feel like discussing Lisa with Mike any more than he wanted to discuss Mike with Lisa. They were polar opposites, with Adam running like an equator between them. “I didn’t officially ask him out in the first place. You asked him over to watch a movie.”
“Admit it, you’re dying to see him again. And he wants to see you, too. Do the math.”
“I’m bad at math,” Garth said. “It’s my worst subject.”
“You know what? When I was your age, and it was summer, my worst subject was the last thing I cared about. I just wanted to have fun.”
That said, he gunned the engine, barreling them toward their next destination.
They set up shop in front of a superstore in Gum Springs. Mike unfurled another banner (THE NATHAN MALLARD DOG RESCUE MISSION it read, and below that, in smaller letters, CELEBRATING TEN YEARS OF SAVING PRECIOUS CANINE LIFE), book-ended the fishbowl with two Snoopy dolls still bearing their price tags, and laid out another plate of Tootsie Pops. Finally, he took Hutch’s and Mr. Smith’s leashes from Garth’s hands (leaving Garth with Tuva) and tied both dogs to the bike rack next to the table. Mr. Smith took advantage of the proximity and began nuzzling Hutch’s neck. Tuva, jealous and riled all over again, panted and strained at the end of her own leash, snapping Garth’s arm.
“Who’s Nathan Mallard?”
“No idea,” Mike said, straightening a fresh stack of pamphlets in front of the fishbowl, “but it sounds authentic, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Sure you would. You’re a professional. Speaking of which—time to suit up.”
The moment of dread. Garth had his backpack with him, and after a cautious glance around, he hesitantly tugged the zipper open and reached inside.
An hour later—what felt like an eternity when you were dressed in a hooded, pointy-eared Scooby-Doo costume you hadn’t worn since you were ten—the bowl was well on its way to being filled with cash.
“In the early stages, the evidence is in the tail,” Mike was speak-hollering. “Soreness. Inflammation. Mid-stage, you can see irritation on the bottoms of the paws. But tropolitis does its primary and most debilitating damage to the joints. Have you ever seen the joy in a dog’s face when it runs? Of course you have. But have you ever seen the sadness, the confusion in the face of a dog that can’t run? It breaks your heart. That’s what these dogs—and many others like them—will have to face without proper professional treatment.”
“They look perfectly healthy to me,” said a stocky man in a checkered blazer.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Mike retorted. “Because they feel lousy. If their blood work is any indication, that is.” He tried to hand the man a pamphlet.
The man didn’t take it. “That one,” he said, nodding toward Garth and winking, “looks fit as a fiddle.”
“And so he is. But honestly, sir, there’s no joking about tropolitis. We lost two in the past week alone.”
“You lost two what?”
“Dogs.”
“I hope you find them.” The man wandered off into the parking lot.
“Tightwad,” Mike muttered. “Notice he didn’t even have any shopping bags? Guys like that have got nothing better to do than window-shop and be cynical.”
Garth didn’t respond. The material of the Scooby-Doo costume was nylon but felt more like plastic; despite the relatively cool day, he was already feeling warm and starting to itch. For better or for worse, Mike had nixed the plastic dog mask, thinking Garth would look more “adorable” with his face showing. Then he’d produced a can of shoe polish from his pocket and blackened the tip of Garth’s nose.
“And you’re from where?” asked a man with a ponytail and a goatee.
“The home office is in Shokan, New York, but we have missions in five different states,” Mike replied smoothly.
“Shokan’s near Woodstock. My sister has a pottery store there.”
“Does she? Woodstock’s a beautiful town.”
“She’s an earth lover but an animal hater. I always thought that was kind of a contradiction.”
“Seems like it to me. No disrespect toward your sister, of course.”
“None taken.” The man reached for his wallet.
As he was dropping money into the bowl, a little girl asked, “Can I have one?” She wasn’t looking at the dogs; she was looking at the Tootsie Pops.
“Absolutely,” Mike told her. “These little guys want you to have a lollipop.”
The girl reached out and took three. As she stuffed them into her pocket with her right hand (her left hand was clutching a Milky Way), her mom sighed and opened her purse.
And so it went. The banner snapped back and forth in the warm breeze. The dogs sniffed around the asphalt, wagge
d their tails at anyone who approached the table, and lapped up water from the metal pan Garth had had the foresight to bring from the shelter. Nearly everyone who passed by took notice of the display. Most people lingered to find out a little more. And many of them searched their pockets/wallets/purses/souls and managed to produce some sort of donation. By Mike’s count, they’d made over four hundred dollars in the name of meninosis. Garth had no idea how much money tropolitis was bringing in now, but in terms of the attention they were getting, it seemed clear that people’s love for sick dogs outweighed their love for sick children.
“You seem a little distracted,” Mike commented during a stretch when there was no foot traffic around them.
Garth switched Tuva’s leash to his opposite wrist. “What do you mean?”
“You just seem to be someplace else.”
I wish. “What do you want me to do?” He glanced down at his brown nylon-clad body. “Bark? Sniff butts?”
“Be present, you know?”
“I’m present,” Garth waved the hand that wasn’t clutching Tuva’s leash. “Woof.”
“The point isn’t to act like a dog. The point is to be—”
“Cute.”
Mike steered a finger toward him. “Bingo.”
“…was his name-o,” Garth muttered.
“Here they come.”
A family of five had emerged from a Suburban and was approaching the store. The young boys immediately rushed up to the two dogs chained to the bike rack and began fawning over them, while their sister held back. She was around twelve years old and had a sneer set into her face that looked practiced. When her dad stopped at the table and asked Mike about tropolitis, she said, “Oh, please.”
Mike launched into his spiel—but he didn’t get far before the mom gasped and put her hands up over her ears.
“I hate hearing about suffering,” she declared.
“I understand,” Mike said. “And these little guys do suffer.”
“I can’t stand it,” the woman declared.
“Neither can I.”
The girl renewed her sneer, then asked, “If they’re so sick with this gross disease, why not just put them to sleep?”