Dog Tales

by Jack Dann

  “Egan, Friend’s going to help you now. He told me that today when you were walking with Kathleen. He said I could tell you.”

  “Really? What’s he going to do?” I smiled, thinking she was about to launch into another of her wacky stories over the phone. I liked hearing her voice, liked her being in the room with me then.

  “He’s going to do a lot! He said he’d been thinking about the best thing he could do for you, but now he knows. I can’t tell you because it’s going to be a big surprise.”

  “What does his voice sound like, Jazz?”

  “Kind of like Paul McCartney.”

  ###

  Every couple of days, Kathleen and Friend came by to visit. Most of the time it was just the three of us, but once in a while Jazz felt well enough to come down and join us. When that happened, we’d all sit together for a while, then I would take my stroll around the grounds with Kathleen.

  Jazz didn’t say anything more about Friend talking to her, but the Paul McCartney part sent Kathleen into howls of laughter when I told her the story.

  Kathleen turned out to be a genuinely nice woman who did whatever she could to make life happier for both Jazz and me. Of course that niceness and consideration made me fall completely in love with her, which only complicated and made matters worse. Life had begun to show it had an extremely cynical sense of humor.

  ###

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  Eyes widened in fear. “No you don’t.”

  “Oh, but I do, Egan.” she said to me. To me. “When you come home, can we live together?”

  I looked across the lawn. Jazz and Friend were way over there. Jazz raised her arm slowly and waved it back and forth: her sign that everything was all right.

  ###

  The night before I left the hospital for home, I went to Jazz’s room for a last visit. Some innard had once again betrayed her, and she looked terribly tired and pale. I sat by her bed and held her cool hand. Although I tried to dissuade her, she insisted on telling me a long new installment about Sloothack, the Fire Pig. Like Jazz’s family, Sloothack was from Yugoslavia; way, way up in the mountains where sheep walked on their two hind legs and secret agents from all countries hid out between assignments. Jazz was crazy about secret agents.

  I’d heard a lot of Slooth stories, but this last one was a dilly. It involved a Nazi tank, the lakes of Plitvice, Uncle Vuk from Belgrade, and a leather window.

  When she was through, she looked even paler than before. So pale that I was a little worried about her.

  “Are you O.K., Jazz?”

  “Yes. Will you come and see me every week, Egan, like you promised?”

  “Absolutely. All three of us will come if you’d like.”

  “That’s O.K.—maybe just you and Friend in the beginning. Kathleen can stay home if she’s tired.”

  I smiled and nodded. She was jealous of the new “woman in my life.” She knew Kathleen and I had decided to try and live together. Maybe I had the guts to drop my self-pity and fight to make things work the right way. I was certainly scared, but just as eager and excited about the chances and possibilities.

  “Can I call you when I need you, Jazz?” I said it because I knew she’d like hearing she was needed even when lying in bed, weak as a mouse.

  “Yes, you can call me, but I’ll have to call you, too, to tell you what Friend says.”

  “Yeah, but how will you know what he says? He’ll be over at my house.”

  She scowled and rolled her eyes. I was being dumb again. “How many times do I have to tell you, Egan? I get messages.”

  “That’s right. What was the last one?”

  “Friend said he was going to fix you and Kathleen up.”

  “Friend did that? I thought he did.”

  “Yes, you did some, but he did the rest. He said you needed some help.” She said it with such conviction.

  ###

  What surprised me most about what followed was how quick an easy it was to get used to an entirely different life. Kathleen wasn’t an angel, but she gave me all the kindness and space I needed. It made me feel both loved and free, which is a pretty remarkable combination. In return, I tried to give her what she said she liked most about me: humor, respect, and a way of seeing life that—according to her—was both ironic and forgiving.

  Actually, I was living two entirely new lives: one as a partner, the other as one of the disabled. It was an emotional, often overwhelming time, and I don’t know if I’d ever want to repeat it, although much of it was as close to the sublime as I’ll ever get.

  Kathleen went to work in the morning, leaving Friend and me to our own devices. That usually meant a slow walk down to the corner store for a newspaper and then an hour or two outdoors in the sun on the patio. The rest of the day was spent puttering and thinking and learning to readjust to a world that had been knocked slightly off-center for me in many different ways.

  I also talked frequently with Jasenka and went to visit her once a week, always with Friend along for the ride. If the weather was bad and Jazz couldn’t come outside, I’d park Friend with Nurse Dornhelm at the reception desk and pick him up on my way out.

  One afternoon I entered her room and saw a mammoth new machine clicking eerily and importantly away by the side of her bed. The tubes and wires that connected her to it were all either silvery or a vague pink. But what really clubbed my heart were the new pajamas she was wearing: Star Wars pajamas with two-inch high robots and creatures printed at all angles and in all colors everywhere. She had been talking about those pajamas for a long time; from before I left the hospital. I knew her parents had promised them to her for her next birthday if she was good. I could only surmise she had them now because of the new machine; because there might not be another birthday.

  “Hey Jazz, you got the new jams!”

  She was sitting up very straight and smiling, happy as hell, a pink tube in her nose, a silver one in her arm.

  The machine percolated and hummed, its green and black dials registering levels and drawing graphs that said everything but explained nothing.

  “You know who gave them to me, Egan? Friend! Friend sent them to me from the store. They came in a box in my favorite color—red. He got my pajamas and he sent them to me in a red box. Aren’t they beautiful? Look at R2D2. Right here.” She pointed to a spot above her belly button.

  We talked for a while about the pajamas. Friend’s generosity, the new Star Wars figure I’d brought for her collection. She didn’t bring up the subject of Kathleen, and neither did I. Although she approved of Kathleen in a brusque, sort of sisterly way, Jazz had no time for “her” now because our time together was so much less than before. Besides, Jazz and I had a separate world of our own we shared that consisted of hospital gossip, Friend gossip, and Jasenka Ciric stories, the latest of which, “A Pet Mountain,” I had to hear once again from start to finish.

  “ ‘And then Friend gave Jazz the pajamas and they all hopped into bed and watched television all night.’ ”

  “Friend really gave you them, Jazz? What a great guy.”

  “He is! And you know what, Egan? He told me he’s going to fix it up so you win that contest.”

  “What contest?”

  “You know—the one from the magazines? The one you told me about last time? Million Dollar FlyAway?”

  “I’m going to win a million bucks? That’d be nice.”

  She shook her head, eyes closed, and moved the pink tube to one side.

  “No, not the million dollars. You’ll win the hundred thousand dollars. Fourth Prize.”

  A few minutes later (after we’d decided how I’d spend my winnings), Mr. and Mrs. Ciric came in. The scared look on both of their faces when they saw the new machine told me it was time to go.

  Out in the hall, Mrs. Ciric stopped me and gently pulled me aside. She looked at my crutches and touched my hand.

  “The doctors sa
y this new machine will do wonderful things, but my husband, Zdravko, he doesn’t believe them.”

  Having spent so much time with Jazz, I felt comfortable with Mrs. Ciric and hugely admired her for having the strength to face this constant sadness every day of her life.

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s that machine or just those new pajamas, but I think she looks really fine today, Mrs. Ciric. There’s certainly a lot more color in her cheeks.”

  Looking straight at me, she began to cry. “I bought those for her for her birthday, you know? Now, I don’t like to think about her birthday, Egan. I wanted her to have them now.” She tried to smile. Then, unembarrassedly, wiped her hand across her nose. “Mothers are very stupid, eh? I saw Friend downstairs. I said to him, ‘Shake hands!’ and he did right away. Jasenka, you know, loves him very much. She says he calls her up on the telephone sometimes.”

  She turned and went back into the room. As I walked away, I pictured her and her husband standing over that complicated bed, watching their daughter with helpless eyes, trying to figure out what any of them had done to deserve this.

  ###

  A few weeks passed. I went back to work. The new machine did help Jazz. Kathleen finished moving the rest of her stuff into my apartment.

  One of the television networks calls and asked if I’d be willing to go on a show and talk about how I’d saved Friend. I thought it over and decided against it: there had been enough hoopla in the newspapers already, and something deep inside told me capitalizing on this wasn’t the right thing to do. Kathleen agreed and gave me a nice hug to seal it. I consulted Friend while he lay across my lap one evening, but he didn’t even lift his head.

  Life wouldn’t ever really return to the normal I had once known, but it did take its foot off the gas a little, slowing to cruising speed. Things weren’t going by in such a blur anymore, and that was good.

  The last glimmer of craziness came in the form of a large registered letter from The Truth, that god-awful newspaper that sports headlines like “I GAVE BIRTH TO A TRUCK” and is sold in supermarket checkout lines everywhere.

  An editor offered me two thousand dollars for the exclusive rights to my story. But, according to him, it wasn’t “quite vivid enough,” so The Truth wanted to spice things up a little by saying Friend was either from outer space or The Lost Continent of Atlantis, et cetera, et cetera . . .

  I wrote a very nice letter back saying I was all for it, but my dog had sworn me to secrecy about certain crucial matters of state, so I wasn’t at liberty to . . .

  ###

  “Egan?”

  “Jazz? Hi, pal! How are you?”

  “Not very good, but I had to call you up and tell you what Friend just told me.”

  Unconsciously, I looked around for the dog. He was on the other side of the room, looking straight at me. It made me feel a little funny.

  “He’s there with you, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, Jazz, he’s right here.”

  “I know. He said to tell you there’s a man outside who’s watching your house. Be very careful because he’s a secret agent!”

  “Now, Jazz—” I took a deep breath and stopped short of giving her a lecture over the phone about lying. It was all right to say Friend talked to her sometimes. “Watch out for the creep at your door” stuff wasn’t all right.

  “Uh-oh, someone’s coming, Egan. I have to go. Be careful!”

  I hung up after she did. Standing there looking at the receiver, I wondered what I should do. Against my better judgment, I hobbled to the window and looked out. Naturally no one was there.

  Then the doorbell rang. It scared me so much, I dropped one of my crutches.

  “One second!” Bending to pick it up, I felt my heart drumming in my chest. There are moments in life when, for the smallest reason, you’re filled with such dread or shock that there’s little room left inside for anything else. What’s most annoying is the smallness of the reason: the phone ringing you out of the trance of a good book, a person coming up behind and tapping you lightly on the left shoulder . . .

  My hand was so fluttery, I couldn’t even pick up the damned crutch for a long few seconds. The doorbell rang again.

  “I’m coming! Wait!”

  “Mr. Moore?” A postman stood there with a clipboard in his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Registered letter. Sign here.” He looked at my leg as I shifted my weight to take the clipboard.

  “I read about you in the papers. Where’s the dog?”

  I signed and handed back the clipboard. “Somewhere around. Can I have the letter?”

  “Yeah, sure, there you go. That must be some dog for you to do a thing like that.”

  His tone ticked me off, and he wouldn’t stop looking at my leg. Some secret agent! I didn’t even look at the letter. I just wanted him gone, the door closed, and my heart to calm down.

  “Did you get a reward or something?”

  “For what?”

  “For saving your dog! You know, from the ASPCA or something.”

  “No, but I’ll tell you something. He’s going to take me to Mars with him the next time he goes!”

  I looked right at him and smiled as insanely as I knew how. He took a step backward and beat it out of there lickety-split.

  * * *

  After I read the letter, I called Kathleen at work and told her I’d won ten thousand dollars in a contest.

  There was silence on the other end. I could hear typewriters clacking in the background.

  “Jazz told you that before.”

  “Yeah, but she said I’d win a hundred thousand, not ten. Not ten!” Too loud, too scared. I closed my eyes and waited, hoped for Kathleen to break the silence.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Um, Friend just came into the room.”

  He padded across the floor and sat down under the telephone table without looking at me.

  “Kathleen, how come my dog is suddenly making me nervous?”

  “And how come there’s this money?”

  ###

  That evening both of us went to the hospital to visit Jazz. We left Friend at home, asleep in his favorite chair.

  There were more tubes this time. The same machine as before, only a great many more tubes sprouting out from different parts of it, sneaking under the covers to her body.

  She looked very ill. So much so that the first thing that came to mind when I saw her was: she’s going to die. Cruel and true and obvious: she was going to die.

  The left side of her mouth crawled up a notch in a tiny smile when she saw us. It was the tiredest, most resigned smile I had ever seen.

  Kathleen stood in the doorway while I crossed to the bed. Jazz’s eyes went from me to Kathleen to me again, watching to see what we would do.

  I propped the crutches against the wall and maneuvered down into the chair next to the bed.

  “Hiya, kid.”

  The smile again and a finger wiggle from one of the hands lying crossed on the small hill of her chest.

  “You won, didn’t you?” The voice was thick and coated with phlegm.

  I’d planned to be funny but firm when we spoke, but my plans were no match for her broken energy. Death was in charge here; she was its deputy, so she held all the cards.

  “Can I talk to you alone, Egan?”

  It was said so quietly that I was sure Kathleen couldn’t have heard, but I winced anyway.

  “Kat, would you mind if we were alone for a bit?”

  She nodded, her face a mix of pity and confusion. She left, closing the door silently behind her.

  “Kathleen sees another man sometimes, Egan. His name is Vitamin D. Sometimes she says she’s going to work, but she goes over to his house instead.” She watched me while she spoke, her eyes vacant, her voice untenanted by any kind of expression. Then she reached over and took my hand as gently as you pick up a pin that’s fallen to the floor. “Just ask her. Friend told me before. He said you
should know.”

  Our drive home was silent. The wind had picked up, and everything would whip back and forth for a while and then stop dead.

  It was my night to make the dinner, so I went straight to the kitchen as soon as we got back to the apartment. Kathleen turned on the television in the living room. I heard her say something to Friend that sounded like a greeting.

  I poured water into a pot for spaghetti and thought about the ten thousand dollars. I put butter and minced garlic into a frying pan and thought about Vitamin D, whoever that was.

  “Oh damn! Friend, take that off! Friend! No!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Friend just jumped up on the couch with his bone. He made a spot. I’ll get it.”

  She came into the kitchen shaking her head. “That beast! I keep telling him not to do that. It’s the only time he ever growls at me.” She was smiling and shaking her head.

  “He’s used to my old couch. It didn’t matter much on that one.”

  She made a big fuss at the sink getting a rag, the cleaner, turning on the tap. “Well, this is a new couch and a new day!”

  “Kat, stop for a moment, will you? I want to ask you something. Do you know a guy named Vitamin D?”

  “A guy named ‘Vitamin D’? No, but I know the guy who started it. Victor Dixon. He’s the lead guitarist.” She turned off the tap and squeezed the rag into the sink. “How do you know about Vitamin D? You never listen to rock.”

  “Who’s Victor Dixon?”

  “An old boyfriend of mine, who started that group. They’ve just begun to make it. They’ve begun showing their first video on MTV now. Did you see it?”

  The water came to a boil. I wanted to drop the spaghetti in, but I couldn’t right then. Too . . . scared?