Me & Mr. Cigar

by Gibby Haynes

  To Lytle, Oscar’s fall—push?—from the SoHo rooftop seemed like five minutes ago. People screaming. People running. Ambulances and a whole bunch of cops. A bizarre disagreement over dog ownership had resulted in unspeakable tragedy. Two people were lost. Lytle didn’t know the other guy. Euro-dude left before the police arrived, Rachel said she didn’t see “the accident” and Invisible Man just faded into the nothing.

  After the authorities left and ambulances slowly pulled away, Lytle sat with Rachel for an hour or two. She was catatonic. He was much the same. Staring in disbelief while petting a magical dog. Near midnight, he found himself downstairs, walking toward the truck with Mr. Cigar. A lame attempt to escape.

  They made their way out of the city. Back to Texas, where the music most certainly would play . . . for the both of them.

  Lytle drove until he was exhausted, then another hundred miles, passing out for a few minutes—cycle and repeat. Driving on. Halfway between Nashville and Memphis, he finally gave up. Following a Waffle House–sedative breakfast, he collapsed at a rest stop. Dreaming of nothing. Guarded by Mr. Cigar. Following the much-needed sleep, they were then back on the interstate, heading into an ominous horizon of gray-green thunderclouds. Eventually, they found themselves under the overpass, waiting for a break in the storm . . . about three hours from home.

  Cigar had been nervous, pacing—back and forth, left and right—ever since Texarkana. After the pair were sidelined by the deluge, he leapt from the truck, ran to a damp patch of sand then began barking loudly while pawing intently at the dirt. Lytle remained inside the truck, unblinking and fragile, seeing nothing other than Oscar’s body, lying thirteen stories below.

  Something about Mr. Cigar’s demeanor, however, prompted Lytle to snap out of it and see what the hubbub was all about.

  Lytle got out of the truck and to his amazement, right below Cigar’s barking muzzle, the letters O-S-C-A-R were clearly scratched into the pliable sand.

  “Oh, ma-a-an,” Lytle mournfully elongated.

  Then he crumbled. Seeing the name pawed into the earth, he assumed two things: this was a trick Oscar had taught his four-legged compatriot, and, of course, Mr. Cigar truly missed their mutual friend.

  “I love you, buddy-y-y-y,” Lytle added, longer and louder, echoing through the concrete shelter. Sorrow had finally hit its mark. Big tears now. Big enough to drain the Texas sky. The clouds above the overpass cracked as bright sunlight mercifully sang through the waning storm. The tears kept rolling down the young man’s cheeks and the devil was beating his wife.

  His phone rang.

  It was Carla Marks.

  Lytle hesitated . . . then answered, “Carla?”

  “Hey, sweetheart. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” a sobbing Lytle replied.

  “Aww, honey, things aren’t as bad as you think they are. You should come by IBC before you go home, sweetie. I talked to your mom, and she’s fine with it. She’s okay for as long as it takes. We actually have a LoJack device on the video net unit and know where you are. Just be careful. I love you. Try not to be sad. It’s weird, I know. Listen to some Nirvana or Patsy Cline, something Oscar would like. Just no opera . . . I’ll see you in a couple of hours?”

  “Okay, Carla.”

  “I promise you it’s going to be all right,” soothed Carla. “Just come by IBC. How’s Mr. Cigar, by the way? Is he behaving oddly?”

  Lytle paused. “Well, actually . . . it was raining so hard we stopped under an overpass, and Cigar got out and scratched Oscar’s name in the dirt. It’s crazy; I know it must have been some trick Oscar taught him . . . but it seemed so real, like he was doing it himself.”

  “That’s interesting, Lytle,” Carla murmured. “Mr. Cigar is quite a dog . . . I’m looking at the weather near you, and it’s clearing up. Take your time and I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Lytle, strangely relieved, got back on the road with Patsy Cline, Cigar and his last twenty dollars for gas.

  In no time Lytle arrived at the Itty Bitty Corporation, parked near the front door and walked inside with the video unit and Mr. Cigar in tow.

  A waiting Carla abruptly barked like a dog at Mr. Cigar. Then she gave Lytle a big hug and said, “Welcome, sweetheart.”

  Mr. Cigar barked back.

  Lytle was confused, to say the least.

  Carla gestured—the palms-out, fingers-up, wait a second, it’ll be cool deal—and added, “Follow me upstairs. You’re gonna freak out.”

  Dumbfounded, Lytle shadowed her down the hall and into a stairwell. Every now and then, Carla barked, apparently into the ether. Again, Mr. Cigar barked back. Carla smiled. When they reached the top, Carla opened the door onto the roof—kind of like the roof in SoHo, but no feds or family members.

  “Mr. Cigar has had quite a wild life, Lytle,” Carla began. “Well . . . I’ll just cut to the chase. The best way to describe it is . . . Oscar is now Mr. Cigar.”

  Lytle blinked at her. “What?”

  Cig barked, and Carla barked back.

  “Lytle,” she said, “I don’t know if Oscar ever told you, but I’ve been able to talk to animals since I was a child.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lytle replied nervously, his eyes darting between Carla and his best friend’s beloved pet. “Oscar told me about it, but I thought that it was more of a symbolic I know nature kind of thing . . .”

  “No, Lytle. I can actually talk to animals. Insects too.”

  “Jesus, Carla, what do bugs say?” Lytle heard himself ask.

  “More than you would think,” she answered. “Much more. Not so much individually. But as a group, there is a wealth of information. Anyway . . .”

  “So my best friend is a dog now? What about girls?”

  “Lytle,” Carla scolded mildly.

  Mr. Cigar growled.

  Carla, clearly prepared, motioned toward a shallow box of sand placed here for the occasion.

  “Lytle . . . Ask Oscar or Mr. Cigar any question you want,” she said. “Something only Oscar would know. At least something a dog wouldn’t know. And keep it to a two- or three-word answer. You can’t write a book in this sandbox.”

  Lytle, brow furrowed, bent down and extended a hand to the dog. In a condescending tone, he said, “Okay, buddy . . . shake.”

  “Lytle!” Carla chided, this time more sternly.

  Cigar remained motionless, growling.

  “I’m sorry,” Lytle offered in frustration. He straightened, his throat tightening. “It’s just that it’s really kind of hard to take seriously. My best friend died—like last night.”

  “I know but not really,” Carla interrupted. Her face softened. “Oh, honey. Just ask Oscar a question.”

  Accessing memory, eyeballs skyward, Lytle paused for a two-count then doubtfully said, “Okay, dog, dude, whatever . . . What’s my middle name?”

  Mr. Cigar flexed to the sandbox and scratched out the letters D-U-M-B-A-S-S. He stared defiantly back at Lytle.

  Carla chuckled. “Lytle, I’m afraid you walked into that one.”

  Lytle shook his head. He wasn’t convinced. Maybe he didn’t want to be convinced. “Yeah, but that could still be a—”

  Before he could finish, before the word “trick” came out, Cigar had scratched F-A-L-S-T-A-F-F in the remaining space.

  “Holy shit, buddy. Is that really you?”

  Cigar wagged his tail madly and ran at Lytle. Jumping into his arms, not licking his face.

  “Holy shit,” Lytle repeated, a true believer now. Astonishment and joy melted away any lingering sorrow. He turned to Carla. “But . . . how?”

  She beamed. “I told you Cigar had an interesting life, Lytle. I’m sure that, eventually, all will be revealed, and I’m also sure that we’re all going to have an interesting life . . . together. Now come over here and check this out.”


  Carla walked to a ten-foot-square piece of what looked like Astroturf laid out on the Itty Bitty rooftop. She asked for all to have a seat in the middle—Carla and Lytle cross-legged, Oscar the dog between them. The surface was soft and cushiony.

  “Here’s the freaky part,” Carla said. “I call it the MC-5.” She snapped her fingers.

  At the sharp noise, the entire rug thing rose five feet into the air—somehow keeping all on board, in perfect balance, gliding toward the edge of the building.

  Lytle, now reeling from this psychedelic information overload, obscenely crescendoed a stream of “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!”

  “Yep . . . the Magic Carpet Five!” Carla announced proudly. She shrugged. “The first four versions were duds.”

  “How the fuck, Carla?” Lytle asked, peering over the edge. The ground far below.

  “Good question, Lytle. It’s kind of complicated, but it began with a wonderful conversation I had with a group of hummingbirds . . .”

  Lytle sat in silent wonder, beaming incredulously as they floated forward into a gorgeous magenta-orange Texas sky, known in this neck of the woods as a “cowboy sunset”—a reference that surprisingly had nothing to do with football, cheerleaders or oil. Slowly returning to a state of realization, gazing wide-eyed to the west, Lytle spoke in a serious monotone. “Guys? We’re gonna rule the fucking world.”

  Oscar/Cigar barked for several seconds. Carla smiled then barked in response. Oscar began to wag his tail.

  “What did he say?” Lytle whispered.

  “He said, ‘Don’t think “world,” Lytle. Think “universe”!’”

  “And what did you say back?”

  “I said, ‘Don’t be silly, guys. We’re not going to rule the universe. We’re going to fix it.’”

  Lytle Falstaff Taylor laughed. He closed his eyes and let the warm Texas wind rush over his face. “Wow, Carla, where do we begin with that one?”

  “At the end, Lytle,” she said. “Right at the end.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to mother and daddy-o and the rest of the crew on Buxhill Drive for providing a place of comfort that will forever be there in times of need . . .

  Thanks to Daniel E, my editor, for providing literary, monetary, and psychiatric assistance during the production of Me & Mr. Cigar . . . and to the entire Soho Press crew—especially Publisher Bronwen, Publicist Paul, Design Genius Janine, Sharp-Eyed Rachel, and Kindred Spirit Mark—and on top of that, everyone on the Children’s Sales Force at Penguin Random House.

  Thanks to these authors and likeminded souls: Jeff Zentner, Garth Stein, Geoff Herbach, and Blake Nelson.

  Special thanks as well to the Richardson Independent School District . . . I owe you at least $5,000.

  Special no-thanks to Jerry Kramer, who was clearly offsides in the waning moments of the ice-bowl goal-line stand.

  Thanks also to my bandmates, the Butthole Surfers, and to Dandy Don Meredith (the inventor of the bomb) and Bob Hayes #22 (the fastest man on earth).