Keepers

by Gary A Braunbeck

  Someone wanted to make damn sure I got this right away. This same someone also (or so it seemed) did not want me to know who’d sent it until after I’d opened the thing.

  We live in anxious times; terrorist attacks, mailorder anthrax, letter bombs, all sorts of unspeakable horrors delivered right to your door—or so say the paranoia-mongers who know a populace kept on edge is a populace easily manipulated. I try not to buy into the fear, because once it’s got a hold on you, it grinds your voice under its heel until your spirit is mute.

  I put down the blanket and opened the package. I only wanted to find out who’d sent it, if it was some kind of practical joke, then I’d go take care of the dog and hopefully get to the group home in time to take Carson to the movie. Just a few extra moments without the blood of another living thing on my hands or clothes. It didn’t seem unreasonable.

  Inside was a large, well-taped and well-packed cardboard box that revealed two layers of bubble wrap and packing peanuts before finally unveiling the first of its treasures: five record albums, sleeves undamaged, LPs in perfect condition. Steppenwolf 7, Yes’s Fragile, The Best of Three Dog Night, Neil Young’s Harvest, and the masterpiece of masterpieces, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.

  I stared at the albums in wonder. I’d long ago lost my copies of the records, had replaced them on (in order) reel-to-reel, 8-track, cassette, and CD. Who the hell would be sending me mint-condition copies of albums in a format no one listened to anymore?

  Beneath the albums, each in a clear plastic protective sleeve, were several 45 rpm records: “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl),” “Join Together,” “Don’t Want to Live Inside Myself,” “Ode to Billy Joe,” “They’re Coming to Take Me Away (Ha-Ha!),” “Cherry, Cherry,” and at least a dozen others I’d heard on the radio while growing up. God, the memories that were brought back just seeing the titles on the old record labels—Decca, Dunhill, RCA, Cotillion and Reprise … a shorthand history of 1970s popular music, here in my shaking, blood-tinged hands. Growing up, I’d become something of an expert on the various changes made to their labels by record companies over the years—the loss of the multicolored lines on the Decca label, the way the Reprise logo got smaller and smaller, how Capital went from black to the coolest green with its circle-within-a-circle to just a boring shade of pea-puke that shamed my turntable’s aesthetic. I was the only person I knew of who noticed or even cared about trivialities such as this—

  —except for Beth.

  Beth.

  I looked through the LPs and 45s once again, my arms shaking more and more as it began to dawn on me that these records were not thrown into this box at random; they were selected with a great deal of attention, a private meaning in their arranged order, chosen as she’d choose them.

  Or would have.

  All of these had been among Beth’s very, very favorite albums and songs. Beth, my first and truest friend; Beth, whom I’d loved more than anyone else before or since; Beth, whom I’d last heard from one sweltering summer night over twenty years ago; Beth, who’d been missing and presumed (later officially declared) dead for a majority of my adult life.

  For a moment her face superimposed itself over the old man’s, and why not? I’d been the last person to see either of them alive.

  Over the years I had managed to convince myself that Beth wasn’t really dead, she’d just run off to some exotic foreign place without telling anyone and was living there under an assumed name, maybe as an artist, or underground writer, or something just as gloriously bohemian. That would suit her; just say, “Fuck you!” to the world at large and vanish into a new country, a new identity, “finding herself” until she was confident enough to come back and say, “Ha! Fooled those complacent smirks right off your faces, didn’t I? Boy, have I got a story to tell you!”

  I gently placed the records aside, making sure to stack them so they wouldn’t slide off onto the floor; already I was planning on pulling my Gerard turntable out of its box and hooking it up to the stereo so I could listen to them until I hit the city limits of Sloppy Nostalgia (our motto: “Wax with us or wax the damn car!”).

  Underneath another layer of bubble wrap were books, hardcover and paperback; Judy Blume, Kurt Vonnegut, a first edition of Stephen King’s Carrie, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, a bunch of old comic books—Spider-Man, Prince Namor: The Sub-Mariner, Hawkman, Ghost Rider #1.

  Heaven; I was in heaven.

  There was a 9 × 12 clasp envelope sandwiched between two of the comic books. I opened it and dumped the contents onto the coffee table.

  The first thing to spill out was a present I’d gotten Beth for her twenty-first birthday—a thin gold necklace with a small cameo that opened to reveal a photograph of me and her standing in front of a King’s Island roller coaster, taken at one of our yearly summer outings when we were still young enough to believe such trips were what made living worthwhile; next were two condoms, still in their sealed packets (the empty third packet was taped to them); a pair of crescent moon–shaped earrings; a half-empty pack of Benson & Hedges Menthol 100s; a program from a community theater production of Pippin; and, most telling of all, a pair of tattered Valentine’s Day cards: the first one I had given Beth when she was eighteen and I was twelve: “I Love You Best of All!”; the second was one she had given me shortly before I turned eighteen: “Just wait until you’re legal!”

  I could still smell a trace of the musk oil with which she’d doused the card, the same musk she used to daub behind her ears and on her neck. It was still the sexiest aroma ever created. At least that’s what memory had me now believing.

  If I’d had any doubts about who’d sent the package, this card erased them.

  Beth was alive.

  I suddenly remembered a quote from the poet Oscar Wilde: “One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour.” God, how true that was.

  Beth was alive.

  So much had already happened today that I couldn’t fully absorb the meaning of that, and so much was still happening that, for the time being, I didn’t have the time to absorb its meaning.

  I folded the envelope and was about to toss it among the other goodies when I felt something else inside, wedged into a corner at the bottom. I reached in and scratched away with my fingernail until the object came loose.

  I opened my hand and looked at what lay nestled in my palm.

  At first, nothing registered; there was only a vague—

  —grabbing my shirt and pulling me toward him, blood seeping into the cotton of my shirt as I lifted the bowler and showed him that it was undamaged, looking into my eyes, his lips squirming in a mockery of communication, sounds that were a burlesque of language, but there was something there, something that drew him to me or me to him, and he turned his head ever so slightly to the right and I saw—

  —impression of memory, a needling sense that this thing was supposed to mean something to me. I felt I should recognize it—perhaps the part of me that did recognize it hadn’t gotten to the light switch yet—

  (No, not yet, but I’m making my way there, pal, you can count on that.)

  —but there was nothing.

  Wait, scratch that.

  There was something but it was ether for all the good it did.

  I stared at it for a few more moments, and then was suddenly so … weary. That’s the only word that even comes close to describing what overtook me. I was at once so exhausted and drained that the idea of making it to a chair or my bed was as fantastic to me as the Fountain of Youth must have seemed to the critics of Ponce de León. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move again. It was the first time in years I’d felt so completely emptied and done.

  The stillness in my center was cold and without affection. I felt divided, alone, and dissociated from everything—surroundings, thoughts, sensations; even my body was just so much fodder, a too-fragile, too-temporary, carbon-based cosmic joke o
f dying cells and memories that would vanish into humus once it was placed into the ground and left as an offering upon which the elements could feast.

  (Mayday, Mayday, we’re losing contact with you, pal, can’t let that happen …)

  What brought me back was the soft, muffled whine of a ghost.

  The dog; I’d almost forgotten about the poor thing.

  FIVE

  Blanket in hand, I stood in the center of the house and waited for her to make another noise; she did, but there was no way to tell from which direction it was coming, so I went out the back door and began searching around the house, then the bushes surrounding my backyard, and finally, once again, the front.

  There was a fresh smear of blood on the bottom step of the front porch.

  She’d tried to crawl up to the door sometime while I was going through the package from Beth.

  I searched the periphery of house twice more; every so often I’d hear a weak and ragged breath and thought I had zeroed in on her hiding place, but each time I was certain I’d found her there was only a mass of absence with speckles of blood left behind. After nearly ten minutes of this—and no sounds from her—I noticed a few of my neighbors were trying not to be too obvious as they peeked out their windows at my odd behavior and bloody clothes. It occurred to me—Mr. Slow-on-the-Uptake—that it might be a good idea to change out of these clothes if I was going to continue skulking through the bushes in daylight … which was now waning fast, as was my energy and resolve.

  I called out for the dog a few times with no results, then started back inside to shower and get a change of clothes when I remembered the crawl space behind the trash cans at the back of the house. I hadn’t thought of that damn thing in ages.

  I made my way around and, sure enough, two of the trash cans had been pushed apart. I squatted in front of the opening, tilting my head at a nearimpossible angle to see if I could catch a glimpse of her. I couldn’t, so I put the blanket on top of the nearest can and crawled through the opening.

  A few years ago I had a major plumping mishap that resulted in my having to move into a hotel for a week while a team of overpriced-and-worth-every-damn-cent-of-it “septic professionals” (that’s what they asked to be called, don’t ask me, I just live here) tore out and then replaced nearly half the pipes in my house. Part of that involved ripping up a small section of floor between the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom in order to run a separate flowline to the new emergency sump pump. Fun, fun, fun. To avoid ripping out any more flooring than absolutely necessary, they asked for and received my permission to dig a tunnel underneath my back porch, one that would run its entire length, starting underneath the guest bedroom and emerging in the back beside the steps.

  I was entering at the exit point. Crawling in from behind the trash cans, the ground was fairly level, but I knew about eight feet away there was sudden drop of nearly two feet which could take you by surprise and even cause injury if you didn’t know it was there. I hoped the dog hadn’t made it that far. The idea of having to pull her ass-first out of that little pit in the dark, in the mud, and with little more than three feet of width in which to do it, was not what I’d had in mind when I got out of bed this morning.

  I smelled her about six feet in.

  Digging into my pants pocket, I pulled out my cigarette lighter and struck up the flame.

  She lay three feet ahead of me, on her side. She had somehow managed to get herself three-quarters of the way turned around (so as to face the way out) before she collapsed.

  I whispered to her but she didn’t respond.

  Pulling forward with my elbows, I pushed the lighter up and out until I could see its flame reflected in her eyes.

  Her gaze was unfocused and glassy. Her sides no longer heaved. No sound at all came from her, save for the kneading of the maggots in her wound. If she wasn’t dead yet, she would be soon; minutes, possibly. Definitely within the next few hours.

  I felt immediately sick—not so much nausea as bile-flavored regret. If I hadn’t been so lost in the 70s nostalgia craze-in-a-box I might have caught her in the front yard and prevented her from ending up here in the damp, dismal darkness. And if I’d ignored my boss and fixed that door right then and there—

  (See how easy it is to take a stroll down Amnesia Lane, pal? Why keep running away? Why not just take a deep breath and dive in, head-first?)

  —I keep telling you: Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

  “I’m so sorry, girl,” I whispered to the dog.

  She grunted.

  “Hello, you,” I said. “I didn’t think you were still with us.”

  This time she actually blinked, then raised her head a little and issued a soft whine. I could see the blood clotting in one of her nostrils and a layer of something once moist but now desiccated and bruise-hued coating her lips.

  Water.

  I couldn’t do anything else for her while she died, but I could get her something to drink. There was no way I’d be able to wrestle her from under the porch without hurting her worse or her tearing and biting the hell out me; even if I could manage it, so much time would be lost that she’d die in the car on the way to the vet’s.

  No, let her die here, with a cool drink on her tongue and someone near to mark the moment of her sleep.

  I began to reach toward her, thought better of it, then said: “I’ll be back in a few minutes, girl, okay? You just rest there, that’s right, rest. I’ll bring you something to drink.”

  I had to crawl out backward, so it took a minute or so. The farther away from her I got, the softer her whining became. The strange thing is, the softer her whines, the more they became the only sounds I could—or wanted—to hear.

  I found a large, clean mixing bowl and filled it to the rim with water and ice cubes, then scavenged some leftover steak from the refrigerator. Maybe she wanted a last meal, maybe not, but goddammit, if she was going to die underneath my porch she was going to have a choice about it.

  Back outside and crawling, this time with a flashlight to guide the way as I pushed the bowl of water and plate of food forward inch by muddy inch.

  She’d moved again, forward this time, about a foot and a half. The flashlight beam caught her eyes and turned them into a pair of small glowing embers. They moved left, right, then vanished for a few moments as she closed, then reopened them.

  “Here you go, girl. You hungry? Got’cha some water, nice and cold.”

  She pulled forward, using only her front paws. Her back legs were splayed behind her, limp and useless. The fur surrounding her eyes was drenched in thick, mucus-like tears. Even in agony she recognized a treat, knew that this was Something Special. I pushed the bowl and plate closer. She looked at my hand and growled, so I let go and pulled away as she lifted her head over the water bowl and tested it with her tongue. She remained like that for a moment, head dangling over the bowl, some of the water dripping from her mouth, breathing heavily.

  I remembered a scene from some movie one of the employees had been playing on the display monitors today: a little girl running away from home encounters a dog whose owner beats it mercilessly, then ties it to a pole in the backyard during a rainstorm. The girl waits for the owner to finish beating the dog and go back inside, and once she’s alone with the animal she unties the rope holding it in place and tells it to go, but it won’t. It looks at her in utter confusion as she tries to get it to leave, pulling at it, pushing at it, pleading with it to go, to get away, but it only sits there, staring with longing in its eyes at the house where its owner lives. “You can’t love him,” she weeps. “You can’t, you just can’t!”

  “Did you love them?” I whispered to the dog under my porch. “Did you sit in rainstorms and cry for them to bring you inside? Did you love the belt they used on you? Did you lick their hands when they were done?”

  Her ember eyes (brown with gold flecks, I saw for a moment), met mine and she started drinking the water in earnest. I moved the flashlight beam to see if I could make out
what was etched on her collar tag but her head was too low.

  “I’ll do what I can for you, if you’ll let me.” I reached toward her again; this time, she lunged, snarling, jaws snapping. I jerked back and up and slammed the top of my skull against one of the pipes. The world went supernova before my eyes, and by the time the pain had fully registered I was staggering back to my feet behind the trash cans.

  Gripping my head, I dropped the flashlight and teetered against the largest can, knocking it over and falling on top of it. The supernova faded into the light of a single star rolling back and forth, back and forth, slowing as the universe imploded, slowing, then lay there glaring at me.

  I got to my knees and grabbed the flashlight, turned off the starlight, and stumbled back into the house. Maybe dogs preferred to die the same way as elephants; alone, in some private place with the darkness as their benign, final, best friend.

  My chest hitched and my throat constricted. God knows I wanted to cry for both her and the old man, but I couldn’t. Dad: Crying’s for girls, boy; Mom: Don’t let anyone see you like this, I’ll never hear the end of it from your father.

  Water.

  Beating down as hard as possible.

  Let her drink it; let it cleanse me.

  SIX

  Fifteen minutes later I stood in the kitchen dressed in clean clothes. The water had been hot to the point of inflicting damage. I’d scrubbed at my hands, arms, and chest until the skin was raw but even now I could still feel the old man’s blood on me. My flesh was tender and pink and still held a sheen from the water; I’d never looked as clean. But the blood was still there, somewhere under the skin, becoming a part of me, linking me to his image, the absurdity of his last moments, and to his corpse which now lay in some cold basement draining out into the corner holes of a silver table.