by Paul Hawkins
*
His cruddy car raced through the night and soon arrived at the old abandoned factory. It was surrounded by squad cars, but it was easy enough for Wainwright to turn off his headlights and make his way unnoticed around to the back. He pulled to a stop in the large empty lot where trucks and train cars used to berth and climbed up on one loading dock and tested the metal door beside it. It creaked open. One by one he hoisted his wiener dogs up on the platform beside him and then they all went into the cavernous dark empty building.
Once his eyes adjusted Wainwright could see old abandoned scaffolding and machinery throughout the place.
“Look,” Wainwright yelled into the emptiness, “I don’t want any trouble. I just want my dog back.”
First silence met him, then crazy laughter, far away at first but then coming closer. Wainwright braced himself in his best pugilistic stance, and a burger-headed figure slowly emerged into a small patch of moonlight coming through a broken-out window. Once the figure had appeared, however, the voice that came out of it was not defiant but scared.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he laughed. “It’s all a crazy joke in a crazy world. I can’t believe what I’ve gotten myself into.”
Wainwright paused; he felt his fists lower slightly. He saw Trixie at the fellow’s side. He gestured for her and she came to him. The man just stood there.
“I took it too far,” he said in a shakey, nervous voice – half-laugh, half-sob. “And now I’ve made a hell of a mess for myself. You should just get the hell out of here.”
But Wainwright didn’t. Instead he walked a little ways away and sat on an old metal bench, and his cloud of dachshunds circled his feet. He patted at the bench for his burger-headed counterpart to sit beside him.
“What’s your name, son?”
“What’s it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Sure it does, old man!”
Wainwright pulled off the top of his costume so that he was no longer a leering kooky hotdog head but just a guy. He tried to straighten his hair a bit, and he propped up his glasses.
“Look, I know life can be cruddy. And I know I told a lot of pie-in-the-sky whoppers that could only lead a kid like you to disappointment. I’m sorry son.”
Burger Guy looked at him, and there was something in the sincerity of Wainwright’s voice and the calm look of his seven dog’s brown eyes that got past his armor. The man walked slowly toward him, and when he was a few feet away he paused and took off his giant burger head. He was little more than a pimply faced kid.
“My name’s Bill.”
“Hi Bill. I guess you know I’m Alan, but that name’s never felt more worthless in my entire life. Have a seat, son.”
The boy stared at him but then took a seat. Some of the dogs moved to sit at his feet, including Trixie, who nuzzled at his ankles.
“Go ahead – pick her up.”
The boy did and the dog curled into his elbow.
“You must have treated her okay when you had her. I trust that dog’s instincts more than any lie detector test.”
The burger kid petted the dog. “I can see why you like them.”
“Sure - Dogs help people. Science shows they even lower people’s blood pressure, but I don’t need some egghead to tell me that. Dogs heal people.”
“Yeah, but they can’t get me out of this mess.”
Wainwright thought for a while. “Maybe they can. But first let me tell you this: I know life can be cruddy. It was cruddy for me for a long time. I was doing my kids’ show for fifteen years but after the first six months I was just going through the motions. I lied to kids – I lied to you. I got apathetic and satisfied with good enough and hollow. My wife left me and all I had left was a pregnant wiener dog named Gladys. But I took care of Gladys and she took care of me, and I raised those seven puppies of hers, and they gave me a purpose, even if it wasn’t much of one. I took care of them and they took care of me.”
The boy nodded as he held Dixie in his lap. “I know what you mean. I had meant to do something mean to this dog, but the second she looked up at me with those big brown eyes I just couldn’t. And when I stopped trying to fight her she let me pet her, and she soothed me. There’s not a drop of hate in her whole long body.”
Trixie nodded. She pushed her muzzle into the crook of the kid’s elbow.
Wainwright agreed. “Look son, let me tell you how it is: life sucks, and the system is no damned good, but it only has as much power over you as you give it. You made me realize that. I let the scraps of fame they threw me go to my head – a little glory, a little recognition, a whole lot of waived parking tickets. I let it make me think I was somebody special. But I’m not special unless I care for those close to me. Now you can have somebody close to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trixie’s pregnant.”
The boy’s jaw fell open slightly.
“Not sure who the father is, but she and Rusty have been awfully chummy lately.”
They looked down at the wiener dogs and the rusty one suddenly became absorbed in a study of his paws.
“Five or six puppies on the way.” Wainwright continued. “Think you can handle that, son?”
“You mean..?”
“I mean I want you to take care of her. Look, you’re young and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You just have to learn to believe in yourself and be responsible for something that looks up to you. Trixie trusts you. You’ve got a good heart, kid, one that got set off the tracks by a rotten life. But I am giving her to you, and you to her. And one other thing – I am going to help you escape.”
“But this old factory’s surrounded.”
“You just leave that to me.”
“Okay.”
Wainwright leaned forward. “Look – I got a second chance from these mutts and now you’re going to get one. Listen to me: don’t let anybody tell you how life has to be. They tell you it’s a drudge, but I say you make it a ball. You understand me?”
“I think so.”
“Remember this moment – it’s the first day of your second chance at life. Break the chains – be who the person you were meant to be. Thumb your nose at all of them, forever. Make life a ball. I’m giving you that chance. Run boy, run. Get that ball.”
The young man nodded, but the seven dachshunds’ heads pivoted this way and that in search of a ball that was nowhere in sight.
“Now listen here,” Wainwright said. “I have a plan…”