T.C. Boyle Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle, Volume II

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

  He didn’t want to wear the dogs out so close to their next match, so he clocked half an hour on the treadmill, then put Zeus in the pit he’d erected in the back corner of the barn and had Joey bait him with one of the rabbits, after which it was Zoltan’s turn. Finally, he took the Lab out of her cage, taped her jaws shut and let both dogs have a go at her, nothing too severe, just enough for them to draw some blood and get the feel of another body and will, and whether it fought back or stood its ground or rolled over to show its belly didn’t matter. Baiting was just part of the regimen, that was all. After five minutes, he had to wade in and break Zeus’ hold on the animal. “That’s enough for today, Joey—we want to save the Lab for maybe two days before the match, okay?”

  Joey was leaning against the plywood sides of the pit, his expression unreadable. There was something in his hair—a twig or a bit of straw the dogs had kicked up. He didn’t say anything in response.

  The Lab was trembling—she had the shakes, the way dogs did when they’d had enough and wouldn’t come out of their corner—and one of her ears was pretty well gone, but she’d do for one more go around on Thursday, and then they’d have to answer another ad or two. He bent to the dog, which tried to look up at him out of its good eye but was trembling so hard it couldn’t quite manage to raise its head, clipped a leash to its collar, and led it out of the pit. “Put her back in her cage,” he told Joey, handing him the leash. “And you can feed and water her now. I’ll take care of Zeusy and Zoltan. And if you’re good, maybe later we’ll do a little Chicken McNuggets for lunch, how’s that sound? With that barbecue sauce you like?”

  He turned away and started for the house. He hadn’t forgotten the note in his pocket—he was just waiting till a reasonable hour (ten, he was thinking) before he called her, figuring she’d been up even later than he and Steve. Call me, she’d written, and the words had lit him up right there on the street as if he’d been plugged into a socket—it was all he could do to keep himself from lurching back into the hotel to press his face to the glass and mouth his assent. But that would have been uncool, terminally uncool, and he’d just floated on down the street, Steve ribbing him, all the way to the car. The mystery was the reference to the cats and he’d been trying to put that together all morning—obviously he and Joey must have answered an ad from her at some point, but he couldn’t remember when or where, though maybe she did look familiar to him, maybe that was part of it.

  He crossed the yard and went in the kitchen door, but Steve was sitting at the table in the breakfast nook, rubbing the bristle of his scalp with one hand and spooning up cornflakes with the other, so Royce stepped out back to make the call on his cell. And then, the way these things do, it all came back to him as he punched in the number: the kittens, a potted bird of paradise on the landing, the condo—or no, duplex—she was looking to buy.

  She answered on the first ring. Her voice was cautious, tentative—even if she had caller I.D. and his name came up it wouldn’t have meant anything to her because she didn’t know him yet, did she?

  “Hi,” he said, “it’s me, Royce, from last night? You said to call?”

  —

  She liked his voice on the phone—it was soft and musical, sure of itself but not cocky, not at all. And she liked the fact that he’d been wearing a nice-fitting sport coat the night before and not just a T-shirt or athletic jersey like all the rest of them. They made small talk, Missy brushing up against her leg, a hummingbird at the feeder outside the window like a finger of light. “So,” he said after a moment, “are you still interested in looking at property? No obligation, I mean, and even if you’re not ready to buy yet, it would be a pleasure, a privilege and a pleasure, to just show you what’s out there . . .” He paused. “And maybe buy you lunch. You up for lunch?”

  He worked out of an office on a side street off Ventura, not ten minutes from her apartment. When she pulled up in the parking lot, he was there waiting for her at the door of a long dark bottom-heavy Suburban with tires almost as tall as her Mini. “I know, I know,” he said, “it’s a real gas hog and about as environmentally stupid as you can get, but you’d be surprised at the size of some of the family groups I have to show around . . . plus, I’m a dog man.”

  They were already wheeling out of the lot, a book of listings spread open on the console between them. She saw that he’d circled a number of them in her price range and the neighborhood she was hoping for. “A dog man?”

  “A breeder, I mean. And I keep this vehicle spotless, as you can see, right? But I do need the space in back for the dogs sometimes.”

  “For shows?”

  A wave of the hand. They were out in traffic now and she was seeing him in profile, the sun flaring in his hair. “Oh, no, nothing like that. I’m just a breeder, that’s all.”

  “What kind of dogs?”

  “The best breed there is,” he said, “the only breed, pit bull terriers,” and if she thought to ask him about that, which she should have, she didn’t get the chance because he was already talking up the first property he’d circled for her and before she knew it they were there and all she could see was possibility.

  Over lunch—he took her to an upscale place with a flagstone courtyard where you could sit outside beneath a huge twisting sycamore that must have been a hundred years old and listen to the trickling of the fountain in the corner—they discussed the properties he’d showed her. He was polite and solicitous and he knew everything there was to know about real estate. They shared a bottle of wine, took their time over their food. She kept feeling a mounting excitement—she couldn’t wait to call her mother, though the whole thing was premature, of course, until she knew where she was going to law school, though if it was Pepperdine, the last place, the one in Woodland Hills, would have been perfect. And with the sun sifting through the leaves of the trees and the fountain murmuring and Royce sketching in the details of financing and what he’d bid and how much the attached apartment was bringing in—and more, how he knew a guy who could do maintenance, cheap, and a great painter too, and didn’t she think the living room would look a thousand percent better in maybe a deeper shade of yellow, gold, really, to contrast with the oak beams?—she knew she would get in, she knew it in that moment as certainly as she’d ever known anything in her life.

  And when he asked if she wanted to stop by and see his place, she never hesitated. “It’s nothing like what you’re looking for,” he said, as they walked side by side out to the car, “but I just thought you’d like to see it out of curiosity, because it’s a real sweet deal. Detached house, an acre of property, right up in the hills. My roommate and I, we’re co-owners, and we’d be crazy to sell, especially in this market, but if we ever do, both of us could retire, it’s that sweet.”

  The thing was—and he was the one to ask—did she want to stop back at the office for her car and follow him? Was she all right to drive? Or did she just want to come with him?

  The little decisions, the little moments that can open up forever: she trusted him, liked him, and if she’d had any hesitation three hours ago he’d more than won her over. Still, when he put the question to her, she saw herself in her own car—and she wouldn’t have another glass of wine, though she was sure he was going to offer it when they got there—because in her own car she could say goodbye when she had to and make certain she got to work on time. Which on a Sunday was eight p.m. And it was what, three-thirty now?

  “I’ll follow you,” she said.

  —

  The streets were unfamiliar, narrow twisting blacktop lanes that dug deeper and deeper into the hills, and she’d begun to wonder if she’d ever be able to find her way back again when he flicked on his signal light and led her onto a dirt road that fell away beneath an irregular canopy of oaks. She rolled up her window, though it was hot in the car, and followed at a distance, easing her way over the washboard striations that made the doors rattle in their frames.
There was dust everywhere, a whole universe of it fanning out from the shoulders of the road and lifting into the scrub oak and mesquite till all the lower leaves were dulled. Mailboxes sprang up every hundred yards or so, but the houses were set back so you couldn’t see them. A family of quail, all skittering feet and bobbing heads, shot out in front of her and she had to brake to avoid them. Scenery, a whole lot of scenery. Just as she was getting impatient, wondering what she’d got herself in for, they were there, rolling in under the shade of the trees in front of a low rambling ranch-style house from the forties or fifties, painted a deep chocolate brown with white trim, a barn set just behind and to the right of it and painted in the same color combination.

  The dust cleared. He was standing there beside the truck, grinning, and here came the boy—Joey—bouncing across the yard as if he were on springs. She stepped out of her car, smelled sage and something else too, something sweet and indefinable, wildflowers she supposed. From the barn came the sound of dogs, barking.

  Royce had an arm looped over Joey’s shoulder as they ambled toward her. “Great spot, huh? You want end of the road, this is it. And you should see the stars—nothing like the city where you get all that light pollution. And noise. It’s quiet as a tomb out here at night.” Then he ducked his head and introduced Joey—or reintroduced him.

  The boy was taller than she’d remembered, his hair so blond it was almost white and cut in a neat fringe across his eyebrows. He gave her a quick smile, his eyes flashing blue in the mottled sun beneath the trees. “Hi,” she said, “bending to take his hand, “I’m Chelsea. How are you doing?”

  He just stared. “Good.” And then, to Royce, “Mr. Harlock’s been ringing the phone all day looking for you. Where have you been?”

  Royce was watching her, still grinning. “Don’t you worry,” he said, glancing down at the boy, “I’ll call him first chance I get. And now”—coming back to her—“maybe Chelsea’d like to sit out on the porch and have a nice cold soda—or maybe, if we can twist her arm, just one more glass of that Santa Maria Chard we had over lunch?”

  She smiled back at him. “You really have it? The same one?”

  “What you think, I’m just some amateur or something? Of course, we have it. A whole case straight from the vineyard—and at least one, maybe two bottles in the refrigerator even as we speak . . .”

  It was then, just as she felt her resolve weakening—what would one more hurt?—that the screen door in front sliced open and the other guy, the taller one from last night, stuck his head out. “It’s Marvin on the phone,” he called, “about next week. Says it can’t wait.”

  “My roommate, Steve,” Royce said, nodding to him. “Steve,” he said, “Chelsea.” He separated himself from her then, spun around on one heel and gestured toward the porch. “Here, come on, why don’t you have a seat out here and enjoy the scenery a minute while I take this call—it’ll just be a minute, I promise—and then I’ll bring you your wine. Which, I can see from your face, you already decided to take me up on, right?”

  “Okay, you convinced me,” she said, feeling pleased with herself, feeling serene, everything so tranquil, the dogs fallen silent now, not a man-made sound to be heard anywhere, no leaf blowers, no backfiring cars or motorcycles or nattering TVs, and it really was blissful. For one fraction of a moment, as she went up the steps to the porch and saw the outdoor furniture arrayed there, the glass-topped table and the armchairs canted toward a view of the trees and the hillside beyond, she pictured herself moving in with Royce, going to bed with him and waking up here in the midst of all this natural beauty, and forget the duplex—she’d be even closer to school from here, wouldn’t she? She settled into the chair and put her feet up.

  And then the door slammed and Joey, having bounced in and back out again, was standing there staring at her, a can of soda in his hand. “You want some?” he asked, holding it out to her. “It’s good. Kiwi-strawberry, my favorite.”

  “No, thanks. It’s a tempting offer, but I think I’ll wait for your uncle.” She bent to scratch a spot on the inside of her calf, a raised red welt there, thinking a mosquito must have bitten her, and when she looked up again her eyes fell on the cage standing just outside the barn door in a flood of sunlight. There was a dark figure hunched there, a dog, and as if it sensed she was looking, it began to whine.

  “Is that one of your dogs?” she asked.

  Joey gave her an odd look, almost as if she’d insulted him. “That? No, that’s just one of the bait animals. We’ve got real dogs. Pit bulls.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, the distinction he was making—a dog was a dog as far as she was concerned, and this one was obviously in distress. “Maybe it needs water,” she said.

  “I already watered her. And fed her too.”

  “You really like animals, don’t you?” she said, and when he nodded in response, she added, “And how are the kittens doing? Did you litter-train them? And what are their names—you name them yourself?”

  She was leaning forward in the chair, their faces on a level. He didn’t answer. He shuffled his feet, his eyes dodging away from hers, and she could see the lie forming there—bait animals—even before he shrugged and murmured, “They’re fine.”

  Royce was just coming through the door with two glasses of white wine held high in one hand and a platter of cheese and crackers in the other. His smile died when he saw the look she was giving him.

  “Tell me one thing,” she said, shoving herself up out of the chair, all the cords of her throat strung so tight she could barely breathe, “just one thing—what’s a bait animal?”

  —

  The darkness came down hard that night. It was as if one minute it was broad day, bugs hanging like specks in the air, the side of the barn bronzed with the sun, and then the next it was black dark. He was out on the porch, smoking, and he never smoked unless he was drunk, and he was drunk now, because what was he going to do with an open bottle of wine—toss it? He hadn’t made Joey any supper and he felt bad about that—and bad about laying into him the way he did—but Shana would be here soon to pick him up and she could deal with it. Steve was out somewhere. Everything was still, but for the hiss and crackle of Joey’s video game leaching down from the open bedroom window. He was about to push himself up and go in and put something on his stomach, when the Lab bitch began to whine from across the yard.

  The sound was an irritant, that was what it was, and he let out a soft curse. In the next moment, and he didn’t even think twice about it, he had the leash in his hand. Maybe it didn’t make sense, maybe it was too late, but Zeus could always use the exercise. And when he was done, so could Zoltan.

  (2010)

  In the Zone

  People told her she’d get cancer in her bones, that the mice were growing into monsters the size of dogs, that if she planted a tomato or a cucumber in her own garden she wouldn’t be able to eat it because of the poison in the ground. And the mushrooms she loved so? The ones that sprouted in the shady places after a rain, the big brown-capped porcini that were like meat in your mouth? They were the worst. They concentrated the poison and put it in your body where it gathered and glowed and killed you dead. Was that really what she wanted? Was she touched in the head?

  Well, no, she wasn’t. And when the opportunity came to move back to the deserted ruins of her village after living for nearly three years in an inhuman space in a crumbling apartment block for evacuees in Kiev, she took it. Leonid Kovalenko, sixty-seven years old and with a pair of ears as big as a donkey’s, who’d been a friend of her late husband, Oleski, and whose wife wouldn’t budge from the apartments because she was afraid, knew of a man with a car who knew of a border guard who, for a bribe, would let you in. Back in. Where you belonged. Where the forest was cool and moist and striped with shade and the smoke unfurled from your chimney like a flag all twenty-four hours of the day so that when you went out to the wel
l on a moonlit night you could see it there, a presence, hovering above the roof on the suspired breath of your ancestors.

  “How much do you want?” she asked Leonid as they browsed among the inferior cabbages and pulpy potatoes at the market, rutabagas like wet cardboard, overpriced honey in a jar without the comb. “Because I have little.”

  He shrugged, weighing a cabbage in one hand while rich people, the educated rich and the corrupt rich alike, went by on the street in their automobiles that roared and belched and gave back the sun in glistening sheets of light. “For you?” he mused, gazing at her appraisingly from beneath the overgrown hedges of his eyebrows. He was a hairy man, hair creeping out from beneath his collar and sleeves, curling out of his nostrils and the pits of his great flapping ears, nothing at all like Oleski, who was smooth as a baby till the day he died, but for his private hair and his beard that came in so sketchily it was barely there at all. “For you,” he repeated, as if the deal had already been struck, “a little is more than enough.”

  *