“What are you looking for, son?” the man says.
“I’ve got a dog,” I say.
“What’s he need?”
“Almost everything.”
“He got a collar?”
I shake my head.
“He needs a collar.”
The man walks to a whole rack of collars. “Is he a big dog or a little dog?”
“Medium.”
He lifts up a red leather collar. “Is this one long enough?” He wraps it around in a circle and I think about Buddy and whether it would fit around his neck.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“You got a tag?”
“A tag?”
“You need a tag. You need to put his name on it and your phone number so if he runs off, they can find you.”
“Buddy can’t run. He’s only got three legs.”
“He’s named Buddy? I’ve got a tag with that name already on it.” He shows me a whole display of name tags. Sure enough, there’s one that says Buddy. It’s silver, with the letters already scratched into it.
“I’ll take it,” I say, and I hand him the money.
When I put it on Buddy, he stands up straight like he thinks he’s really somebody’s dog now.
“You the man,” I say to Buddy.
“Rruff!” Buddy says.
And I think that means, “You, too, Li’l T.”
15
By the end of July, I’m about worn out with mowing yards. Some people don’t call me anymore. Some people call me twice a week. J-Boy’s mama calls me once and I mow the yard, but then she says she don’t have the five dollars and she’ll send J-Boy with it tomorrow. He don’t never come. Daddy says I got to just write that one off and I don’t have to go back if she calls again, which she don’t.
Mrs. Washington wants me to come inside every time I go. She gives me a cold drink and we read a letter—might be a new one, might be an old one. She don’t care. She just picks up one laying in the pile and hands it to me. She’s starting to feel happy because her nephew says he’s coming home soon.
I’m getting tired of pushing the lawn mower around and around the yards. I’m getting tired of watching cartoons on the TV. I’m getting tired of hearing Tanya singing.
Mama’s always telling me to sit up straight at the table. Daddy’s always telling me to chew with my mouth closed. Granpa T’s saying how did I get such big feet. Tanya’s saying why do I take up the whole sofa when we’re trying to watch TV.
Buddy don’t say anything. Buddy lays beside me under the tree. I scratch behind his ears. I throw him the ball a time or two. He listens to my stories. When I go inside, I smell him on my hands and I don’t want to wash it off.
The days are slipping by and I feel like I’m half asleep most of the time.
Then the next time I go to mow at the church, I can’t hardly believe my eyes. Brother James rolls out a brand-new lawn mower with a bag on the back. He shows me how to unhook the bag and dump the cut-off grass in these special new trash bags he bought. That mower whips around that churchyard so fast I feel like it’s pulling me instead of me pushing it. I fill up those trash bags before you know it, set them behind the church for trash day, and get home with a box of Buddy treats before I feel like I’m hardly gone.
“Granpa T,” I say at dinner that night. “You got to get one of those new lawn mowers. Ask Brother James how much it costs.”
“Don’t matter how much it costs,” Granpa T says. “I ain’t spending money on a lawn mower when I got you to do the job.”
“Maybe I’ll buy it,” I say. “Maybe I’ll save up my money next summer and get a fancy lawn mower and can’t nobody use it but me.”
“You have to share,” Tanya says. “Daddy said so.”
“You want to mow the lawn?” I say.
She gets all quiet.
“You can mow the lawn if you want to,” I say.
“Stop it,” Mama says. “Now you’re teasing her.”
I swear the tip of Tanya’s tongue is sticking out at me. “Mama,” I say, and start to point.
“Your feet are in my way again,” Granpa T says.
I put down my hand. I move my feet. We all just keep on eating.
Next Saturday I decide to try an experiment. I decide to let Buddy come with me, all the way to the church.
We go slow. He takes a long time, sniffing at the tree trunks and barking at the squirrels. Once, he starts to take off after one but I holler, “Stay!” and he stops just like that and comes limping back and plops himself right down beside me!
“Good dog,” I say, and rub up around his ears. “Who taught you that, Buddy? Where are you from?”
Buddy don’t say nothing. He just sits there panting in my face and then he takes a little lick and I laugh and off we go again.
It takes us about three times as long to get to the church but I figure it’s worth it. I’ve got somebody to talk to while I do my work. I drag open the shed door and show off that brand-new lawn mower to Buddy. He sniffs its wheels and checks out the bag on the back. While I gas it up, he’s poking it with his nose and almost tripping me when I go to put the can away. Then I lay my hand on the cord and he hops to the back of the shed and sits down and waits, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his ears stretching up to listen.
“Rruff!” he goes when the motor starts. “Rruff, rruff! Rrruff!” But he don’t move. He just sits there and barks and waits.
I roll that lawn mower out and I start my circles. After a minute, Buddy peeps out of the shed to watch. When I head to the front, Buddy edges around the corner and sits himself down on the church steps just like he does when we’re going house to house. Every time I come close, he lifts up his head and looks at the mower and gives a little “Rruff!” like he’s saying, “Good job, Li’l T. Thank you for my food!”
When I’m all done, I go in the back to get those special bags. Brother James bought a wire rack you hook the bag on to hold it open. I’m searching all through that shed and can’t find it. I’m saying, “Where did I put that rack last Saturday?” and then I see it, stuck up in the corner and almost invisible in the dark. I grab the rack and the bags, and then I hear Buddy start barking.
Buddy’s barking up a storm. He’s barking like that churchyard is full of squirrels. He’s barking like he’s going to tear out every one of their throats twice over. He ain’t drawing breath. He’s just barking and barking.
I throw down the stuff and I tear around the church to the front, and I see why.
Buddy’s standing up on his three legs on the church porch tied to the post with an old piece of rope and two boys are pushing that lawn mower down the street.
“Hey, you!” I yell. “Hey, you!”
They turn around, and I see one of them is J-Boy.
“What’re you doing with that lawn mower?” I yell.
They turn back around and keep on pushing.
I start running after them.
“J-Boy,” I’m yelling. “J-Boy, what are you doing with that lawn mower?”
Buddy’s barking and barking and pulling at that rope.
I’m about to catch up to them.
“Leave that lawn mower alone,” I’m yelling. “That’s the church’s lawn mower!”
Buddy’s voice is practically going hoarse with barking.
And then I’m there, and I shove J-Boy off to one side, and he falls down, and that other boy takes off down the street, and J-Boy is laying there on the sidewalk with his forehead bleeding. Then he looks up at me and says things I can’t write down.
“Go home,” I say, and I watch him get up.
Buddy’s still barking on the church porch.
“Be quiet, Buddy,” I say.
Buddy stops barking and stands th
ere looking at us like we’re just a little bit too far away to suit him.
“I should have shot that dog,” J-Boy says. He grabs hold of something under his shirt. “I’ve got a gun,” he says. Then he turns around and walks off down the street. He holds up his hand just before he turns the corner, and I know he ain’t giving me no good-bye wave.
Daddy shakes his head when I tell him about J-Boy.
Mama says she doesn’t care if he’s last person on earth, I’m not going to pass the time with him anymore. I’m not sitting next to him at school. I’m not sitting next to him on the bus. I’m not nodding to him on the street. He’s not welcome in our home. If she catches me looking his way, she’s going to beat the living daylights out of me because he’s bad people.
Granpa T says J-Boy can’t help it with his mama like she is.
Mama says that’s one thing but her boy being friends with him is another thing and she is not going to have it. Her boy is going to stay off the streets. He’s going to graduate from school. He’s going to go on to college if he can. He’s not going to run with the drugs and the guns and end up—and then she starts crying and Daddy says it’s all right now. Li’l T is going to be just fine.
And then I say I can’t stand J-Boy anyway and why would I want to run with him and ain’t it about time for Baby Terrell to go to bed. And she wipes her face and says if I’m so worried about him getting to bed on time maybe I ought to clean up the kitchen so she can put him down. And I say, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
And finally everything’s quiet.
I clean up, and then I go out and sit next to Buddy in the dark of the shed. He snugs up next to me. I bury my fingers in the fur behind his ears and I tickle the ends of that caterpillar eyebrow.
We sit still, listening to all the whispering nighttime sounds. A pecan dropping on the shed roof. Somebody playing a radio down the street. Some lady calling her kids. The air conditioner kicking on. Something rustling in the pile of paint cans stacked up in the corner. When a car rolls by, we can feel the bass beating in the wood walls around us.
I hear Buddy breathing. I feel his soft fur and the muscles growing stronger and stronger under his skin. I hold my hand up to my face, and I smell his smell, and I think, It’s okay, Mama. It’s all going to be just fine.
16
I can’t believe it when I look around and it’s time for school to start up. Mama’s going through all my school clothes and fussing about how they don’t fit and what are we going to do. Daddy says we forgot about the glasses I’m supposed to get, and I promise to sit on the front row.
Tanya’s sitting around with her thumb in her mouth because she’s starting kindergarten for the first time and she’s scared.
“It’ll be okay,” I tell her. “Just don’t sing unless everybody else does.”
Daddy takes me aside the last Saturday of the summer and he says, “How much you got saved, son?”
I say, “I’ve been spending my money on Buddy.”
“You ain’t spent it all on that dog, have you?”
“I’ve got fifty dollars,” I say.
Daddy nods his head real slow. “That ain’t much,” he says.
“I know.”
“But it might be just enough if I pitch in half,” he says. Then he smiles. “Come on. Let’s go shopping.”
I can’t believe it. Daddy takes me to the secondhand store down on Esplanade and the lady there says they got a whole stack of bikes in the back. We go back there and they’ve got red ones and blue ones and purple ones and orange ones.
Daddy makes me ride them around to try them out. “Which one fits you best?” he asks, and I say, “The red one.”
We push it up to the front and the lady says, “That’ll be eighty dollars on the nose.”
Daddy slides two twenties on the counter, and so do I.
She starts counting it out, and Daddy says, “You’re sure that bike is exactly eighty dollars? He’s been mowing lawns all summer to get that money.”
The lady looks at me. “What section did you take that bike out of?” she says.
“The very end,” I say.
“Why you didn’t say so to start?” she says. “That’s the sale section. Those bikes are only sixty dollars.” And then she gives me back a twenty.
We’re putting that bike in the car and Daddy’s tee-heeing and I’m grinning so big I think my face is going to split open.
“Sale section,” Daddy says. “What do you think about that!”
When we get home, all you-know-what’s broke loose.
Baby Terrell’s bawling and he’s bleeding. Mama’s screaming. Tanya’s crying. Granpa T’s yelling.
Daddy jumps out of the car. He goes running up the steps.
“That dog!” Mama’s screaming.
She’s holding Baby Terrell and looking at where he’s bleeding on his forehead and on his foot. “That dog!” she screams again.
“What about the dog?” Daddy says.
“He bit the baby,” Granpa T says.
I stop right where I am, pushing my new bike through the gate.
“Buddy bit Baby Terrell?” I say.
“Sorry, son,” Granpa T says. “We can’t have that.”
“What do you mean?” I drop the bike and run back to the shed.
The door’s shut and somebody’s nailed Buddy’s sign board across it. I hear Buddy inside, whimpering and crying.
“Buddy,” I say through the door, “what happened? What happened, boy?”
Then Daddy’s calling from the house. “Come in here, Li’l T,” he’s saying.
I go inside. Mama’s washing Baby Terrell off in the sink. He’s covered in dirt and blood. She’s hugging him up every once in a while and kissing the top of his head.
“What happened?” I ask again.
“The dog bit the baby,” Daddy says.
“He’s out of here,” Mama says. “He’s gone tonight. I don’t care where you take that dog. I don’t care what you do with him. Shoot him. You hear what I’m saying? Get the gun out from under the mattress and shoot his brains out!”
Daddy puts his hand on Mama’s arm. “Take it easy, now,” he says.
“I say shoot him!” she says again, and I see she’s got big old tears rolling down her cheeks. She’s got dirt and blood smeared all across her apron.
Tanya’s sitting on the floor in the corner, crying and sticking her thumb in her mouth. She’s got on one of Mama’s aprons and red shoes with glitter all over them.
“Just shoot him,” Mama’s saying over and over.
Then all a sudden, Tanya stands up and yells like she’s in a whole different room, “But—it—ain’t—his—fault!”
Everybody stops. Everybody looks at Tanya.
“What are you saying?” Granpa T says.
Tanya flops back down on the floor and sticks her thumb in her mouth and cries so hard her whole body’s jerking around.
“What are you saying, baby girl?” Daddy says.
She takes her thumb out and looks up at Daddy and says, “You can’t shoot him. You can’t shoot Buddy.”
“He bit the baby—”
“Baby Terrell was about to stick his hand in a rat’s nest!” Tanya yells with her eyes all squinched up. “And Buddy stopped him.”
Mama spins around like she’s on the dance floor. Water goes flying across the kitchen. “What did you say?”
“We were playing with Buddy in the shed.” Tanya’s talking fast as she can. “I was singing and Baby Terrell was making a pie with the dirt. I gave him Buddy’s bowl and he started spooning dirt into it. Buddy came over to see what was happening with his bowl. Baby Terrell took his spoon and whopped Buddy on the head. Buddy went ‘Elp!’ and slid back away. Baby Terrell laughed and crawled after Budd
y and whopped him again and Buddy said ‘Elp!’ again and stood up and headed toward the door.”
Tanya stops long enough to suck in three big breaths, then she starts up again. “Baby Terrell went crawling across the floor toward Buddy. He was crawling past the paint cans. He saw something, and he stopped, and he crawled over and started to climb up. He was reaching. And then Buddy came barking back into the shed. He grabbed Baby Terrell’s foot and he pulled him off the cans and Baby Terrell fell and hit his head and he started screaming and—”
She just stops. Her eyes stay squinched up.
“There’s a rat’s nest out there?” Daddy says to me.
“I heard something,” I say.
“I saw them,” Tanya says, and her eyes pop open. “When Baby Terrell fell he knocked the paint cans down and two big old rats went racing across the floor right in front of me and under the wall. And Buddy was limping after them and barking up a storm, and Baby Terrell was bleeding and—”
Then Tanya starts crying again and shaking and laying on the floor. Those red shoes are falling off her feet.
Mama looks at Tanya. Daddy looks at Mama. Granpa T looks at Daddy.
“Why didn’t you tell me that to start?” Mama says.
Tanya don’t answer. She curls up in a ball and starts hiccupping.
“Why were you just yelling, ‘He bit the baby! He bit the baby!’?”
Baby Terrell’s sitting in the sink splashing in the water. Granpa T walks over and takes him out.
“He needs a diaper,” Mama says.
“I reckon I know that,” Granpa T says, and walks out carrying the baby and talking in his ear. Baby Terrell starts laughing.
Mama looks at Daddy. Then she looks at me. “I changed my mind,” she says. “Don’t shoot him.”
Then she rips off her apron, stomps up the stairs, and slams the door to her room.
Tanya sits up. She’s hiccupping so hard she can’t hardly slip her shoes back on.
“What were you doing all that time?” Daddy says. “Singing?”
Tanya covers her face with her hands.
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