by Paul Griffin
“What is?”
I hear somebody on his end yell, “Vaccuccia, twelve minutes.”
“Cheech, hang in, kid. And tell Ma I love her like a crazy person.”
“We still have twelve minutes.”
“I gotta call Mack.” The Skype window boinks, and he’s gone.
THE FIFTY-SIXTH DAY . . .
(Thursday, August 6, morning)
MACK:
The test was yesterday. I know she crushed it. A month or so from now, she’ll be okay. She’ll be busy with a new school, new friends. A new man. Good.
They gave me a message paper, hand-scripted. Takes me a bit and some to make it out. Says Tony Vaccuccia will try to call Mack Morse next Sunday 8:00 p.m.
Takes me even longer to scratch out that I hope Tony’s doing good, that I’m sorry for everything, and he can’t call me anymore. I have no idea if I spelled one word right. I can’t send it, because I don’t have a stamp. Maybe they give you one. I don’t know. I never tried to send a letter from being locked up before. I don’t have Tony’s address either. How do I get it without asking Céce for it?
Wash has a pal in the K-9 training center. I pet the dogs and memorize their faces, close my eyes, let the being of each dog into me. The sun’s warm through their hair. We play chase while Wash and the trainer hash. Wash nods with his lips bunched. “Mack, come here a second.”
I jog over. “’Sup?”
Trainer says, “Can you write? I’m talking numbers, one to ten. That’s all you have to know.”
“Yeah, I can write one to ten. Can you?”
“I’m wondering if you would like to evaluate these dogs for me,” he says.
“Say again?”
“You take the dogs to that isolation cage over there, one at a time, okay? You say ‘sit,’ and then ‘up.’ If the dog don’t do it, I need you to note it.”
“I can train them to sit, if you want.”
The man gets an attitude with me. “No, no, no. They already been schooled. We just need to monitor them to see how much that learning is sticking. ‘Sit’ and ‘up’ them ten times in a row. Mark down how they do.”
“All right, then.”
“Good.” Dude hands me his clipboard and a pencil wrapped fat with orange glow tape. “Dogs’ names are on their collars. Thanks, little brother. You just made my lunch break an hour longer. They have that Judge Judy running back to back now most afternoons. I am addicted to it. You all excuse me, I’m gonna get back to the hutch before the next trial starts.”
“Wash?”
“Yup?”
“I remember what I wanted to say. That time by the bleachers there.”
“All right?”
“Thanks.”
Wash shrugs, looks away to the guard tower, spits through a V-gap in his teeth. He’s a real good spitter.
(The next morning, Friday, August 7, the fifty-seventh day . . .)
Twenty German shepherds. Yesterday, they averaged a little better than fifty percent retention on the obedience training. But today they’re worse. I chuck the clipboard and go to hands and knees. I show the dogs by example what sit and up mean.
Corner of my eye is Wash. He studies me acting like a dog. I teach them sit by lifting their chin and pressing down on their backside. I feed them snuck breakfast bread bits for rewards. End of the second session, the sheps are up to eighty percent.
“You German?” Wash says.
(The next morning, Saturday, August 8, the fifty-eighth day . . .)
End of the third session, every dog is a hundred percent solid on sit and up.
Guard comes over. “Morse, you got a phone call.”
I eye Wash. He’s squinting at me.
“Who is it?” I say.
“Didn’t say,” the other guard says.
“I know who it is anyhow,” I say.
“Then why’d you ask?” guard says.
Wash walks me to a phone bank. I have to make myself do this. “’Lo?”
“Mack?”
“Please, don’t call anymore, okay?”
“Please, baby, I just wanted to tell you—”
“Céce, I can’t do this, okay? You can’t come anymore either. I’m begging you. I gotta go.” I hang up.
Wash walks me back to my solitary hitch. He doesn’t ask me about my business. I want to tell him about her, but what’s the point of spreading the pain?
I almost asked how she did on the test. Almost told her I’ve been so worried about her, that I was sorry. I almost told her a lot of things.
“Wash, you mind I call somebody? The detective offered me three free calls after I got arrested.”
“And you didn’t use them?”
“Not a one.”
Wash frowns. “I would have to listen in on the call.”
“That’d be fine. Not planning any break. Just want to drop a quick hi on Boston is all.”
Wash nods. “You know how it is, though. Folks are different when they get out.”
“Not Boston.”
“Got to know him pretty good, did you? You only spent a few days with him, though, right?”
“Sometimes that’s all you need.” I hand him the paper scrap of Boston’s number from my pocket. I’d nearly sweated the numbers to a fadeout. Wash hands me the receiver and picks up another to listen in.
Lady picks up. “Bueno?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’d like to speak with Boston?”
“Who?”
“Rafael, I mean. Sorry. Me and Bos, Rafael know each—”
She yells off, and the phone thunks like it got dropped, and then there’s, “Yo?”
“Boston?”
“Yeah?”
“Mack.”
“What?”
“It’s Mack. Mack Morse?”
There’s a little quiet, and then, “Oh, yeah. Hey.”
“Yo Boston, how you doing, brother?”
“Good.”
“Yeah, huh? I’m doing real good too. Yeah, man. You ain’t gonna believe this, but I got me a job training dogs, yo. Ain’t that crazy?”
“Cool-cool, listen, my moms don’t like me on the phone.”
“Sure-sure, I understand. I call you when she ain’t around then.”
“Mack? Like, good luck, you know?”
“Yeah. You too. Yo Boston, maybe I’ll—”
Click.
I cradle the receiver. Wash cradles his.
“Moms don’t like him on the phone.”
“I heard.”
“I’ll try him another time, maybe.”
“I expect we could work that out,” Wash says.
“I’m real excited to see what your pal in K-9 thinks of the dogs now.”
The K-9 trainer dude studies my chart. “They came a long way, huh? Aw, now, wait. You didn’t train them did you?”
“Well.”
“Son, please, do not train these dogs. Serious. This is a very specific program. I told you not to do that.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I’m real sorry. I am.”
Trainer flips through the evaluations. “Well, the paperwork don’t lie. If these dogs are at a hundred percent obedience, I have to promote them to bomb detection drills and get them one step closer to the street.” He leads the dogs away.
One dog turns back. She runs to me, rolls over at my feet, and whimpers for a belly scratch.
“Heya, come !” the trainer says.
“Wash,” I say, “you know these dogs are being trained for the bomb hop?”
“I was thinking narcotics seizure. That’s what they used to train them for. With the wars on, I suppose the bomb sniffing should have occurred to me.”
“I heard they have robots to bomb sniff now, and I heard they do it better,” I say.
“I think I heard that too.”
I spit, because sometimes I just spit when I don’t know what else to do. “You got a dog at home?”
“Two,” he says. “You got some spit on your shirt there.”
<
br /> “Thanks. What kind, pits or rotties?”
“Mutts.”
“The best.”
“Yep,” Wash says, and I say yep too. We watch the last dog hustle toward the kennels.
This other dude in solitary, I haven’t seen his face, because they take us out at different times. He’s a screamer. He was a pounder too, head on the door, till they put him in the burrito bag. They had to, because he kept yelling he was going to cut himself. Everybody used to tell him shut the fuck up, they were gonna kill him, but that just made him scream louder. He’s screaming now. I can’t tell where we are between sunset and sunrise. I sleep with my hands cupped over my ears. My dreams are staying vivid. She asked me once, all quiet and sweet and even a little hesitant . . .
“Do you want me to teach you words?”
I throw a chewed tennis ball deep, toward the fence. We’re on the west side of the reservoir, where nobody goes. Pits aren’t real great at fetch. They get the ball and then they want you to chase them.
It’s just dawn and muggy. Me and Boo have been picking her up for morning walks. She’s always waiting out on her stoop. She comes running as soon as she sees us.
“Words, huh? Not real sure I need to know fancy words.”
“You don’t.” She has her study book with her. “Most of the ones in here are junk, but there are a few really good ones. Might be good to know them. For when you’re in school.”
I shrug. “I guess that’d be fine. If you teach me the good ones. Hit me.”
“Execute,” she says.
“Yeah, uh, I already know that one.”
“Not like that. Anthony executed the mission and was ready for the next one.”
“Execute means complete. Cool.” It’s nice, not feeling stupid for a minute. I throw the ball. Boo jets after it. “Yeah, that’s a good one.”
“I’m gonna kill myself,” the kid in the burrito bag wails.
“Then do it already!”
(The next night, Sunday, August 9, the fifty-ninth day . . .)
At 8:00 p.m. Tony calls. I want to hear his voice, to hear he’s good, to tell him about the dogs. But we won’t talk like that. He’ll just yell at me. How he trusted me, and what did I go and do but break his sister’s heart?
I’d rather pretend we’re still friends. Better I remember him the last time I saw him, at the airport, that grin—
“Do you want to take the call or not?” guard says.
“Not.”
(The next morning, Monday, August 10, the sixtieth day . . .)
The next batch of dogs are sharp. Hundred percent memory retention.
I untrain them, again by example, teach them to run when they hear “Sit.”
Wash frowns. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
By lunch the dogs are rolling around, digging holes in the training field. The K-9 trainer smiles as he thumbs through the dogs’ evaluations, every one a failure. “These were A-list dogs, my friend.”
“Paperwork don’t lie.”
“What you in here for?”
“Murder in the two.”
“Me too,” he says. “I had you figured for one of those wily types. The way you have the dogs fawning and falling all over you? I think you might do real well for yourself when you get out.”
“The world will blow herself up before I get out of here.”
“How old are you?”
I tell him, and he pats my shoulder and tells me in Spanish to take it easy, and I say him too, and he chuckles on his way back to the kennel building.
“Doesn’t even seem mad,” I say.
“He’s a good man,” Wash says. “I don’t suppose he wants to be sending those dogs out into the world any more than you do. Tell you one thing, though.”
“Tell it.”
“That old man right there is a longtime inside lifer. He worked hard to become a trusty. If he loses this gig, he’s back working in the shop, maybe the laundry. He has a little autonomy out here in the kennel runs. A little self-respect. Whether he’s here or not, somebody is going to do this work. He has got to make sure these dogs perform.” Wash eyes me. “You just geniused yourself out of a job.”
THE SIXTY-FIRST DAY . . .
(Tuesday, August 11, morning)
CÉCE:
We’re at Curves, arm curls. “You gonna take it again?” Marcy says.
“Nope. I’m more comfortable with people having low expectations of me.”
“Good. I’m like, losing friends all over the place. What is wrong with people?”
“They don’t like seeing embarrassing pictures of themselves on your Facebook page.”
“What the flip do you know, Céce? You’re like the laziest status updater in our grade. By the way, I’m getting a lot of friend requests with the snap of you and the murderer making out as my profile pic.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“Tell me you didn’t go there again. Oh. My. God. You gotta move on already.”
“Stop! Telling me! What to do.”
“You don’t have to get spastic about it.”
“I wish I told him.”
“Told him what?” she says.
“That I love him.”
“Cheech, get yourself the black Chucks, put a safety pin through your eyebrow, and make every song on your Nano an emo ballad. Snap. Outofit. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”
“He never would have hurt me.”
“Right, because you’re so not hurt now.”
My biceps are burning. “I hate exercise.”
“That’s why they call it exercise, duh.”
“Wha?”
“Let’s go smoke a bowl.”
“I was thinking more like let’s hit the diner for cheesecake breakfast.”
“Compromise: We hit the diner and smoke a bowl.”
I go in for the takeout while she lights up behind the Dumpster. My one day off and I’m trapped in Marcy’s sucky, depressing life. She drags me to the city pool. Bazillion little kids screaming, sounds like ninety-nine cats shredding each other. All the guys are getting up into this one girl’s grill. She’s wearing a shoelace for a top.
“Hate lying out,” I say.
“Take off your towel,” Marcy says. She’s sweating in her long-sleeve T-shirt. “C’mon, advertise the globes, girl. Get the cutie-pies looking our way. Wait, that dude is totally mackin’ on you.”
“He’s leering and he has a ball of socks tucked into his suit.”
“Those are socks? Those are socks. Ew, here he comes.”
“How you doin’, Mami?”
“Gag,” Marcy says.
He moves on to the next towel. “How you doin’, Mami?”
“This sucks.”
“Why you gotta be so stank, Cheech?”
“I don’t want to be. I don’t know what I want to be.”
“Take off your towel.”
“I’m gonna get a knish.”
“If you lost like fifteen to seventeen pounds, you would be like twenty-second-prettiest in our grade. Serious. Wait, twenty-third. By the way, can you tell Carmella to stop trying to push her crappy cornbread on the customers? They chew it in front of her, and then when she turns away they spit it into their napkins. You gain ten pounds just looking at it, shit is like all butter. Serious, Céce, have you tasted it?”
“Marce, you ever feel like you’re just kind of floating along?”
“All the time.”
“Anthony is on his way to getting shot at, and we’re poolside.”
“Where you going now? You better not be going back to that prison. Céce Vaccuccia, wait up. Céce.”
(Tuesday, August 11, afternoon)
MACK:
“You sure, son?” Wash says. “She came an awful long way again now, right?”
“Wash, if I go down there, you know what’s gonna happen.”
“I expect she’ll say hi, you’ll say hi, you take it from there.”
“It’ll
be like cutting a healing wound. She’s almost through it. Another month, she won’t even remember me.”
“How about you, though?” he says.
“How’s that?”
“How you going to be in a month when she stops visiting?”
“I’m not goin’ down there.”
“Her mother’s here too,” Wash says.
“Bad to worse.”
“Guard in the center says she brought some pretty interesting baking. Says they look like goblin squares, but that they taste just fine.”
“They’re snowmen. Christmas cornbread.”
“In August?” Wash says.
“I know. No, sir. I have to stick to my plan.”
Wash nods. “Okay. Then let’s go see the AW.”
“The AW?”
“We’re looking to become part of a statewide program called You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks,” the assistant warden says. “These Old Dog folks are interested in helping exceptional men and women segue to community-service-oriented careers after they finish their bids.”
“What does segue mean?”
“Transition. Move on.”
“Warden, I ain’t segueing to anything anytime soon.”
“Kid, I’m fifty. Trust me, time has a way of passing faster the older you get. Now, we’re not even publicizing this yet, because we don’t know if we’re going to be accepted into the program. The program directors are giving us a trial run, and then they’ll evaluate whether we’re up to hosting the show. This is a one-shot deal. They’re giving us one dog. That’s it. We do right by this dog, we get more dogs, more chances for our people to be part of the program. On the other hand, if we blow this, they’ll take the program someplace else. Lots of prisons want to be a part of this, so we have to be perfect. This is a highly competitive situation. They like the trainer to be at least thirty years old, but I have to go with my best chance for success this first time around. Mack?”