Keepers ch-2

by Gary A Braunbeck

  Which meant the site of the old Farmer’s Building and Loan.

  Less than two blocks away.

  Without realizing it, I had already walked two-thirds of the same route my dad had covered every Downtown Sunday when he was a child.

  It wasn’t exactly like following in his footsteps, and it wasn’t as if he’d known I’d overheard him that night or would ever know now what I was about to do, but I’d just been given the chance to honor his memory by retracing his steps through one of his best memories.

  How could I not walk over there?

  It would be nice to say that I saw the square in a completely different light, much as I had the Old Soldiers and Sailors Building, but the truth was this area of Cedar Hill looked and felt just the same to me as it had any of the hundreds of times I’d walked these streets; tired-looking though dependable brick- and wood-fronted buildings, some with shingled roofs, some with aluminum, others-old war-horses who’d stood the test of time and the seasons and were damned proud of it so why change now-still sporting thick layers of tar paper over two-by-fours: the sturdy, inoffensive banality of a small Midwestern downtown. Nothing about its current state, nor the way it existed in my own childhood memories, made it special.

  What did make it special was knowing that, back there, just over that way, fifty or sixty years ago, the child who would grow up to become my dad had come along this exact path, walked past many of these same storefronts, and had probably used the same crosswalk I was approaching.

  Maybe this could serve as some small gesture of thanks.

  I passed the Hallmark store, the shoe store beside it, and was moving toward the crosswalk when a man in his thirties who’d been walking ahead of me suddenly veered to the right and kicked a small cat that had been pacing him for a few yards. The cat wasn’t being pushy or annoying, wasn’t running figure-eights between his feet as he tried to move along, it was just walking beside him, minding whatever passed for its own fuzzy business, when this jerk, for no apparent reason, decided to swing around and drop-kick it into a doorway.

  The cat reeled ass-over-teakettle, spitting out one of those uncanny, almost macabre screech-yowls of pain and fear that you can feel all the way in the back of your teeth, then hit the doorway with a solid whump! before spin-rolling back onto its stomach, legs splayed. It scrabbled its claws against the concrete but quickly found enough purchase to stand and shake some of the What-the-hell-was -that- about? from its stunned and wide-eyed face. It narrowed its eyes, licked a corner of its mouth, gave the tiniest of shudders, and then released a thin, dinky meep noise so full of confusion and physical hurt that I was ashamed to be a member of the human race in its presence. It looked up at me and blinked as if to ask: Did I offend? Please don’t hurt me. I’ll give you rubbies.

  I walked toward it, slowly, then knelt down and held out my hand. The cat gave my fingers a perfunctory sniff, then-in obvious pain-leaned forward to rub itself against my hand, the metal tag on its collar clicking against my watch band.

  “Bad day?” I whispered to it.

  Before the cat had a chance to answer I glanced up to see where Drop-Kick had disappeared to: he was turning down an alley between two buildings near the corner of the crosswalk. He’d never given the cat a second thought, just kicked the shit out of it to break up the dreary routine of his day and then kept going without so much as a backward glance.

  It’s good to be exposed to such naked, unself-conscious displays of compassion; it enriches one.

  I never stopped to consider that something might go wrong (whatever part of my mind that governed rationality was still wandering around back at the cemetery); I just rose to my feet and followed him double-time into the alley.

  He sauntered along, then stopped for a moment, stretched his back, and knelt down to re-tie one of his shoelaces.

  That’s when I took him.

  I ran forward, pulled back my right leg at the last moment, did a half-pirouette, and threw everything I had into the kick; my foot connected solidly- wham-o! -with his ribs, knocking him back and down in a fast blur of flailing hands and other equally befuddled body parts. The side of his skull smacked against the alley floor and for a moment I thought he might have been knocked unconscious, but then he shook head, winced, and pressed both hands against his ribs, groaning.

  I glowered over him. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that hurts? ”

  “Oh, man… ow!-what the fuck’re you… oh, man…”

  I thought I heard the soft crackle of chipped bone scraping against chipped bone; I know that wasn’t the case, but for that moment imagining that I did hear his damaged ribs whimpering under his skin filled me with a gleeful, nasty sort of satisfaction every person should feel once during their life, if only to know they never want to experience it again.

  His face reddened under a fresh wave of pain, then he pulled in a deep breath and looked at me. “I’m gonna fuck you up, asshole.” And he began to stagger to his feet.

  The smart thing to do was run.

  So, naturally, I just stood there.

  He slipped, his back pressed against the wall, then he caught his balance and shoved forward with one of his hands; as he did this he looked quickly up and down the alley to make sure there weren’t going to be any witnesses to the plague of biblical proportions he was about to unleash on my face; left, right… and then a slow double-take: Huh? What the-?

  At both ends of the alley, sitting almost unnaturally still but with oh-so-attentive eyes, a group composed equally of dogs and cats of various sizes watched us with stark, unblinking interest. There must have been over a dozen animals in all.

  Drop-Kick had almost fully pushed himself away from the wall when I shot out a foot and kicked his leg from underneath his bulk, sending him crashing ass-first to the ground one more time.

  I stared at him, parted my hands before me- Well? -then turned and walked out toward the crosswalk.

  The animals at this end of the alley moved so I could pass, but none of them seemed in any hurry to leave.

  At the corner, the injured cat-now moving a bit more steadily-came up to me and rubbed its face against my leg. I smiled at it, thought about just picking it up and taking it home with me, then looked up when I heard the signal click over to “Walk.”

  I stopped with one foot off the curb.

  Across the street at the Farmer’s Building and Loan, an old hound dog sat on the top concrete step staring directly at me.

  I knew this wasn’t the same hound dog from my dad’s childhood, I did, really, but there was an odd moment between seeing it and allowing its presence to fully register when I thought, Maybe…?

  I shook it off but didn’t move to cross the street.

  I looked down at the cat by my leg. It blinked at me, seemed to outwardly sigh, then turned its head in the dog’s direction.

  From the top of the steps, the dog looked from me to the cat, and for the next few moments I just kept moving my gaze between them; the dog, the cat, the dog, moron with his leg cocked up in the air.

  I pulled my foot back onto the curb just as the dog released a short, sharp bark. The cat, in response, moved its head up and down. They looked at each other once again, the dog licked its nose, and the cat blinked one eye.

  Winked, rather.

  The cat winked at the dog:

  This meeting is concluded and the board has decided that rubbies were, indeed, the proper course of action under these circumstances…

  The dog barked again, three times, much louder, and the cat released a long, high yowl, this one of the “Just-letting-you-know-I’m-here” variety.

  When I looked at the cat now, I noticed for the first time the small blue plastic tag attached to the back of its ear.

  In the back of my brain, something fumbled for a light switch and cleared its throat: Ah-hem. Hello. Over here. Anybody?

  Where did I know this from?

  Across the street, the hound dog lay down, its great floppy ears spreading out on eit
her side of its head. I could not make out whether or not it also had a blue tag attached, but that thought fled with its tail between its legs as soon as I heard the guy back in the alley cry out.

  The animals had moved into the alley and surrounded him. He was still ass-down against the wall, and a couple of the larger dogs-one of them a seriously grim-looking German shepherd-loomed on either side of his head, their noses so close to his ears I wondered if he could hear anything besides their wet, heavy breathing. The rest of the animals pressed near his sides and legs; every few seconds one of them would reach up and gently swat him with a paw, seemingly just to watch him jump or hear him yelp.

  He saw me looking and said (not loudly, but with great panic nonetheless): “Hey, buddy… no hard feelings, okay? Could you”-He jumped as the German shepherd, with a low snarl, nuzzled his face for an instant-“gimme some help here? Call the cops or the fuckin’ pound or Wild Kingdom or someone?”

  Though there was nothing overtly threatening in the way the animals stood, there was no doubt in my mind that this guy was going to be in a lot of painful trouble if they decided they didn’t like him; at least half of them, as far as I could see, had a small blue plastic tag attached to the back of their ear.

  Hello? Anybody home? (Tap-tap) Is this thing on?

  The cat nudged my leg again, then growled. Not at me; at the animals in the alley.

  I remember this next very clearly: The animals, as one, turned their heads to look at the cat, the cat gestured with its head toward the hound dog across the street, and as soon as the animals’ attention was on the dog, it rose from the steps and crossed the street to take its place on my other side.

  It sat there for a moment, then yawned, shook itself, and licked my hand.

  The animals in the alley focused their full attention on me. If they’d had arms, those arms would have been parted before them, silently asking: Well?

  Life gives you many odd and marvelous gifts on a daily basis, if you take the effort to notice: the tinny, distant chords of music from an approaching ice-cream truck; the geometrically perfect formation held by a gaggle of geese as they fly overhead; being the first person in the morning to see the streetlights turn off; scanning through radio stations on a car radio and suddenly coming across a favorite, back-then song you haven’t heard or thought of in twenty years; the sound made by your teeth as they bite into a fresh apple; the scent of newly baked bread or pastries wafting from the door of a bakery; the way an attractive woman passing you on the street holds eye contact a few moments longer than is really needed… gifts. Common enough, but strange and wonderful when you catch them.

  And then there are rare moments when the odd, strange, and marvelous gifts decide to tag-team your ass: getting a phone call from a person you’ve only just thought of after many years, and finding that they’d only just now thought of you, as well, and figured what the hell; finding an old photograph that you had convinced yourself long ago you’d imagined as having existed; knowing exactly, precisely what someone is going to do or say several minutes before they do; or finding yourself in the middle of a downtown square one afternoon with a dozen animals silently asking if they should let this guy walk away unharmed or not, it’s your call.

  Gifts wonderful and strange and not to be questioned too much when they’re bestowed upon you.

  I almost laughed from the craziness of it, then simultaneously shook my head and waved my hands forward in a quick gesture of dismissal: He’s not worth it.

  I turned to go. The hound dog and cat where nowhere to be seen.

  When I looked back down the alley not three seconds later, Drop-Kick was completely alone. The animals had vanished as silently and as quickly and totally as they’d appeared.

  He looked at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

  For some reason I had the sense Dad had just said You’re welcome to me.

  I shrugged at Drop-Kick and walked off toward St. Francis de Sales where my widowed mother waited among the mourners for her son to return and Mabel was probably chewing through the back of a chair because she still didn’t have her smokes.

  Just as some mistakes are too monstrous for remorse, some moments of wonder are too sublime for anyone who wasn’t there to understand. I never told anyone about what happened that afternoon; it was mine, only mine, and would always remain so.

  Beth and Mabel stayed at our house for a couple of days until things started to settle, but despite all good intentions we started getting on each other’s nerves. There are, in my opinion, three stages to helping the grief-stricken: 1) Is there anything we can do?; 2) What else do you need?; and 3) Christ, what is it now?

  We were skirting dangerously close to stage three when Beth pulled me aside one night and said we needed to talk. Mabel was in the living room teaching Mom to play pinochle, so we decided to sneak out for something to eat. We ended up at the A amp;W Drive-In where a roller-skating waitress brought us a tray of root beers, hot dogs, and onion rings. There was something comforting in the way that plastic tray hung on the side of the car window, something of the old days, high school weekends, all-night record parties, dancing with your girlfriend in the autumn moonlight, maybe stealing a kiss in the lilac shadows.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Like maybe you want to smother me in my sleep but are too polite to say so.”

  She smiled. “For as big as that house is, it has sure seemed cramped the last day or so, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I took a bite from the steaming hot dog. It tasted like the end of all summers.

  “I think Mabel and I should go back home tonight.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “No, not really. I mean, no, not at all. I understand.”

  “It’s just… you and your mom need some time alone. We’ve done all we can but we’re just getting in the way.” Which was true; I’d lost count of how many times I’d nearly walked in on one of them in the bathroom or opened the refrigerator to find my last bottle of Pepsi had been drunk by someone else.

  “Can I call you if I need you?”

  “Of course. Any time, you know that. And you’re still going to give Mabel rides to and from work, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So it’s not like we’re never going to see each other ever again.”

  There was something she wasn’t telling me and I said as much.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” she said, not looking at me. “You remember all the stories I told you about my mother? How she was this famous stage actress?”

  “Let me guess-you were lying?”

  “Wow. You figured that out on your own and everything- of course I was lying. My mother is an old barfly who’d screw a crippled walrus if it bought her a drink. The last Mabel or I heard, she was living in a flop house in Kansas City with some biker. That doesn’t matter-the thing is, I always sort of wanted to try my hand at being an actress. I did some plays in high school and I wasn’t bad-”

  “-you never told me you were in any plays. I would’ve come to see you if-”

  “-I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of you, all right? But things are a lot different now. I want to do something else in my life, something different, something… I don’t know… more. Welsh Hills Players are having tryouts for Pippin next week and I thought I’d give it a shot.”

  “That sounds great! ” I said, turning toward her and taking her hand. “ Man, I bet you’ll have fun.”

  “The thing is, there might be a lot of rehearsals, which means a lot of evenings where we won’t get to see each other, and I don’t want that to be a problem.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t see why it should. I could even come and watch you rehearse, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “God, no. Just promise you won’t laugh at me.”

  “I won’t. Or if I do, I’ll go outside where no one can see me.” I leaned over and kissed her. “What brought
on this sudden desire to return to the stage?”

  “The way your dad died.”

  I stared at her. Ever since the night of the call I had tried not to think about the manner in which he’d died. Dad operated a massive punch-press. It had all but cut him in half when he’d fallen in. I knew that everyone said he’d died instantly, but what the hell does that mean, really? If he’d lived long enough to see those teeth grind down a second time, it was too long. It had to have been agonizing, the pain and fear. Laying there with your guts oozing out, watching as this massive roof of iron teeth came down at you.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Remember how you told me he’d wanted to raise chickens for a living, be a farmer? I kept wondering if that was the last thing that went through his mind when he died: ‘I should have raised chickens like I wanted to.’ And it made me so damned sad. To die knowing that you were never really happy, feeling like maybe you’d wasted your life and no one would give a damn or remember you.”

  “Please stop,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  I was starting to cry again and didn’t want to. I’d wondered the very same things. Maybe if he’d gone ahead and tried his hand at farming, he would have been happier, would have felt that his life was worthwhile, wouldn’t have started drinking so much.

  “Just… don’t talk about Dad anymore right now, okay?”

  She reached up and wiped a tear away from my eye. “Okay.”

  We sat in awkward silence for a few moments, then-for some reason, maybe because it was the first non-Dad related thing to pop into my head-I asked her something that had been on my mind, off and on, for a while: “What was in that package you mailed?”

  She tilted her head and blinked. “What package? When?”

  “The day we took the dogs out. You went in that back room and you had a package when you came out.”

  She gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t know what you’re… are you sure I had something?”