The Courts of Love

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “Why won’t you stay here?” his mother asked, but there was relief in her voice and William heard it.

  “Because I’m tired of the way people look at me. I want to go somewhere where it isn’t known.”

  “It will be known,” his father said. “It will be suspected. If you go away, go to San Francisco, somewhere where there are other people of your persuasion.” His father was angry because his mother had left the money to William instead of him. It was a slap in the face from his own mother. She had known William’s lifestyle and still she had left it to him. It was because he had gone out to the nursing home every afternoon and talked to her. At least she hadn’t had to know about the disease. William’s father sighed, thinking of the one good thing about his mother’s death. At least she didn’t know her only grandchild had the plague.

  “I don’t know how this happened to me,” William told Dan when he had the dog in the car and they were driving home. “That’s the best thing about it. I don’t know who gave it to me so I’m not tempted to hate someone. And I don’t think I infected anyone, but I might have. I think about that a lot. Well, mostly I think about dying. That’s what I think about. If dogs live ten years we might die about the same time. So, how old are you? They said about three or four so maybe I won’t have to live for ten years. What do you think about that, Gold. Maybe I’ll call you Gold. And don’t worry if I talk too much. I’m hypermanic. It runs in my family.” Dan moved his body closer to William’s body. The sun was coming in the windows of the car. The tape player was playing a tape by the Gipsy Kings.

  William had been able to buy a fine house for his dying-in. It was small but very pretty. An old Harrisburg cheerleader on her third divorce had built it for a love nest. Her lover was an architect, so it was perfect in every detail. By the time the house was finished she and the architect had decided to get married and live in his house so they put the little house on the market in pristine condition. It was the first thing the real estate agent showed William and he bought it before they reached the bedrooms. It had twenty-two hundred square feet, a large bathroom with a hot tub, a patio, a fenced yard, beautiful landscaping on an acre lot, and two bedrooms, a large one and a smaller one. William bought it for one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, a huge bargain it seemed to him, since he had lived in a city all his life. He made a twenty-thousand-dollar down payment and settled down to live as well as he could while he died.

  “I am twenty-five years old,” he told Dan as he drove up and parked by the front door. “So I drive on the grass if I want to. I guess I’ll have to get a different sort of car to take you riding in.” Dan lifted his head and looked at William. “Well, you’re probably right. You don’t want to ride around in a sports vehicle in the back behind a wire barrier, do you? Still, I’ve been wanting a Jeep Cherokee. You’re right, we ought to get a sports car and you can sit up front with me. Are you all right, old boy? This is the house. What do you think?”

  Dan spotted the paper. It was in the bushes where it had been since dawn. The one from the day before was beside it. The day before William had been too depressed to go out and get the paper. The day before he hadn’t even bothered to get dressed.

  Dan ran to the bush and retrieved the paper. It hurt to run with his neck still stiff but he hurried to the paper and took it in his mouth and ran back to William and held it out to him. William took it and reached down to pat him. Dan flew back to the paper from the day before. It was wet and part of it came off in Dan’s mouth but it didn’t register with him. He flew back to William and held the second paper out. “Good work, Angel,” William said. “I should call you Angel. You look like an angel when you run. Don’t worry, your neck will get better. Maybe I’ll find you a masseur.”

  A few days before William saw Dan on television, Copey Culp had driven to Kentucky to bring his family back. Only it didn’t work. Sally Sue’s brothers told him if he ever showed up in Franklin, Kentucky, again, he was dead. They had seen Sally Sue’s bruises and been told what he’d done to the twins. Copey Culp was history with his wife and children. That was plain to see. “And another thing,” the brothers told him. “She wants her dog back. You get that dog and ship it down here and the rest of that furniture Mother gave you. We mean it, Copey. We ought to kill you this afternoon but we told Mom we’d give you a chance. Your chance is to get that dog here in good shape and the dining room table and chairs and the chifferobe that belonged to our granddaddy.” That was the oldest brother talking. He was six feet six inches tall and redheaded. Copey felt like a bug under his brother-in-law’s shoe. In about a minute he’d be dead and he knew it. The younger brother stood back a few feet and finished him off. “She wants you to send some child support. I mean, serious money, Copey. We’re going to take care of her but you’re the one who kept knocking her up and you’re going to pay for it. We’ve got seven years to get the police in on this. Daddy wants them in on it now but Sally Sue is afraid it’ll reflect on the kids so we’re holding off on that for now. I can’t believe you drove down here and just thought you’d take her back. You must have gone crazy, Copey.”

  “I don’t make that much money to begin with, Arthur. Work’s been thin in the building trades. There’s nothing being built.”

  “Find somewhere where there is work, then. We’re going to be waiting to see if you send the money, Copey. You remember that.” The older brother moved back. He let the younger brother talk.

  “Get the dog here by next week. The kids miss it. The furniture can come by van, if you don’t want to bring it yourself. You can have a few weeks for that.”

  Copey got in his truck and started home. It was two in the afternoon. The low point in his life. He had beaten up Sally Sue and hit the twins with a chair and he had killed the dog. Now he was going to have to turn his paycheck over to a woman he didn’t even get to fuck and he was never going to see his kids again and if he didn’t come up with the dog there was a good chance Arthur would use it as an excuse to whip his ass. Copey was scared of Arthur. He had played football with a big redheaded man like that and there was something there that couldn’t be reckoned with. That was that. He’d have to make up a lie about the dog. Say it ran away while he was in Kentucky. Then he’d pack the furniture tomorrow and send it by van and then he’d go out to the woods and see if the dog was still there.

  “I could call the pound and say I’d lost my dog,” he said out loud. “That’s it. I’ll report him lost, then wait a few days and call and tell Sally Sue. She really liked that dog. If she forgave me she could get around her brothers. She’ll come back sooner or later. She’s getting old. She’ll be thirty next year. She won’t be finding any new boyfriends, as old as she is and with all those kids.”

  She had already found one. Recycled an old one. She hadn’t been home in her parents’ house in Franklin two days when she ran into an old boyfriend at the grocery store and invited him over to see her kids. “He didn’t beat them at first,” she told the old boyfriend. His name was Edgar Delafayette Royals and he had just mustered out of the Air Force and was home looking for something to do with his life. He had been in military intelligence in the Gulf War and had seen all he wanted to see of the desolation of the world outside the United States. He had studied bacterial warfare. He shuddered every time he thought about how simple it was to kill millions of people. He had been on the debate team at Franklin High School as well as on the football and basketball teams. “If I knew then what I know now,” he told Sally Sue, “I could have won the state debating.”

  “Anyway, he’ll never touch one of them again,” Sally Sue added. “It’s going to be thin for a while. I might have to work in Nashville if I can’t get work here. I’ll commute or stay there in some cheap place and come home on the weekends. Momma’s going to keep them for me. We’ll adjust.”

  “Is he working?”

  “He works for a builder. He builds the cabinets in houses. He’s a smart man. You just can’t trust him if he has a drink. Only he was s
ober when he beat the twins. He did it with a chair.”

  “I’ll beat the shit out of him if you want me to,” Edgar said. “I hate a bully. God, Sally Sue, to think you went through that. I’ve thought of you a thousand times. I’d give anything if we’d gotten married. So none of that would have happened to you. You could have been in Hawaii with me the time I was there.”

  “But I wouldn’t have my kids. Or my dog. You’re going to love this dog when you see it. Some movie people gave it to me. Its mother belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. They think the father belonged to Michael Jackson but they aren’t sure. Do you think Michael hurt that kid, abused him, or not?”

  “I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t keep up.”

  “Well, our dog, Dan we call him, used to deliver newspapers to movie stars. It’s this trick he knows. He loves newspapers. He lives for a paper to be delivered so he can bring it to you. I meant to teach him some more tricks but I never had time. Maybe you and me will teach him some.” Sally Sue took the hand that was around the back of the swing and brought it down to rest on her shoulder. She had known Edgar a long time before she made the mistake of meeting Copey Culp. She could let him put his hand on her shoulder if he wanted to. Or on my breast, she decided. Or someplace else. What the hell. I’m on the pill.

  At that same moment Copey Culp was returning to the scene of the crime. He parked half a mile away, sauntered past the borrow pit, and circled around to the woods. The collar was there, cut in two by the shell, but there was no sign of Dan. No bones, no hair, no dog. Something must have dragged it off to eat it, Copey decided. Only there’d be something left. Maybe he dragged himself, but he was out cold, he was gone.

  Copey looked around to see that no one was watching him. He stuck the collar into the pocket of his coat. He strode into the woods and began looking. He got two ticks and half a dozen different kinds of seeds on his pants but he didn’t find anything about the dog.

  In the beautiful small house in Harrisburg William and Dan were lying on the sofa watching the Learning Channel. Dan had just had his morning massage and William had just taken four of the sixteen different medications he took each day. The four he took in the morning were the worst. “Or else it’s because I feel good in the morning and it’s a shame to ruin it,” William said. “I wish I could teach you to talk, Angel. I’ll teach you to read. That’s it. Of course your throat is made for barking. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn our language. I know, your language is probably more sophisticated than mine. All smells and intuitions and fine hearing. Hunting sight. I wonder if your accident hurt your eyes. See, I need more information. I’ll teach you to spell murderer. You can tell me who shot you and I’ll have them brought to justice. Leave them to heaven, as it says in the movies and Shakespeare, or was it the Bible? Anyway, let’s get off this sofa and go shopping. I want to get some groceries and I need to see if my pills arrived.”

  William was having his prescriptions filled in Champaign–Urbana and mailed to him by his parents. He knew better than to get prescriptions filled in Harrisburg if he wanted to keep his secret. “They know,” he had told Dan several times. “It’s written all over me. My awful father was right. They suspect. Ah, but my dearest canine, dearest friend. They don’t know. Suspect is not to know. I’m okay here. And, besides, it brought me you.” William cradled the dog’s big body in his arms. He stroked the scars. He felt the muscle with his hands. Yes, it was loosening. The body heals. It heals if it can.

  Two hours later they were back at the house. With groceries, wine, a new imitation leather bone, a box of Purina Dog Treats, and a large net bag filled with alphabet blocks. William put the groceries away, set the Purina Dog Treats on the television set, and lay down on the floor with the blocks. W I L L I A M, he spelled out on the floor. L I V E, he put on one corner. In the other he spelled out D I E.

  “When did you last see your dog?” the boy at the shelter asked Copey. He was looking at the photograph Copey had brought him. He was thinking how glad he was that he was alone. If Little Sugar had been there she might not have known what to do. She might have given it away.

  “I saw him three days ago before I went to Kentucky to see about my wife. She’s sick. She had to go stay with her mother. No, not three days ago. I guess I haven’t seen him in about two weeks. That’s right. I told a neighbor boy to feed him while I was off on a job in Marion. We keep him in the yard but I was getting home at midnight so I didn’t see him in a while. But I thought the neighbor was taking care of him for me. Then when I got back from Kentucky three days ago I noticed he was gone. His name is Dan. You don’t have him here, do you?”

  “No, we don’t. But we’ll put out a folder on him and we’ll be on the lookout. Was he wearing a collar?”

  “No, he was not. He’d outgrown it and I hadn’t had time to get him another one. What with my wife being sick and my having to get her to Kentucky. Well, if you see him, let me know. My kids miss him. He was their dog.”

  “Do you own a gun, Mr. Culp?” The boy stood up behind the desk. He wasn’t afraid of this hairy redneck. He already knew everything he wanted to know. This son-of-a-bitch had shot that dog and now he was making an excuse.

  “Well, of course I do. Who doesn’t have a gun in this day and age? I wish I’d had one while that man was stealing my dog.”

  “You think someone stole your dog? I thought you said it was lost.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. That was a valuable purebred dog. Those movie people that were here last winter gave it to my wife. My kids were in that movie, the one about Jesse James.”

  “You’re going to have to fill out these forms, Mr. Culp. You can sit over there to do it if you like.” He handed the papers to Copey and while Copey was sitting at the table working on them he went out the back door and out to the parking lot and began to inspect the truck. There was a four-ten in the rack behind the front seat. The boy opened the door to the truck. He was trying to figure out a way to get a shell out of the gun for evidence when he spied the dog’s collar on the floor of the front seat. It was shot in two. He picked it up and stuck it in his shirt and walked back in the back door and put it in the desk and called the girl he worked with and told her to get over there and bring a camera. “If you get here before he leaves, take a picture of the truck,” he said, “and a picture of the gun that’s in the back.”

  “I’m scared of him,” she said. “I think I’ll bring my dad along.”

  “Don’t do that, Little Sugar. Please don’t do that. Don’t get everyone in Harrisburg in on this before we even have proof.”

  Three miles across town from the pound William and Dan were on the floor pushing the blocks around. William had called a bookstore in Champaign–Urbana and ordered a book on dog intelligence. “It’s the latest thing,” the bookstore owner told him. “We just got them in a week ago.”

  “Send it by Federal Express,” William said. “I need it today.”

  “You’ve got it. How’s it going, William? How are you getting along?”

  “I’m getting on fine. I just want to communicate with this dog I adopted and I think I’m going about it the wrong way. Are you busy, Howard? Are there people in the store?”

  “Not many. What can I do for you?”

  “Read me part of the book. Is there something about teaching them to speak?”

  “Well, not to speak. Their mouths aren’t formed like ours. They can’t make human speech. Even I know that and I haven’t read the book.”

  “See what it says about sign language. I heard they taught chimps to talk with deaf language. Why not dogs?”

  “Because they don’t have free hands. Wait a minute. Here’s something. Dog-Receptive Language. You want to hear this?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “‘The so-called receptive language ability of dogs is quite good, as shown when dogs respond to spoken words appropriately. For example, consider this mini-dictionary of my own dogs’ vocabularies. Each word is present
ed along with the actions that demonstrate’ . . . William, I think you’d better read the book. It looks like they can understand but can’t tell us things. . . .”

  “Get it in the mail.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you hear that, old Angel.” William turned to the dog and gave him a huge extra-long hug. “You can listen, but you can’t talk. No wonder dogs are man’s best friend. Let’s eat dinner early tonight. I want to walk you around town and see if I can figure out where you came from. I’m going to graph the town and we’ll cover it together in the weeks to come.” He sat down on the floor among the blocks and wrote some words. He wrote L O V E and D O G and S U N and L I S T E N. Then he sat back on his elbows and thought about the words. Dan came and laid his head in William’s lap. He was feeling better every day. His neck still felt heavy but it no longer gave him pains. He lifted his head and thought about getting a newspaper out of the basket of them by the door and giving it to William, then, decided against it. It was very nice with his head on William’s leg. He decided to stay there for a while.

  The phone was ringing. William let it ring. In a moment his mother’s voice came on the speaker. “William, I know you’re there. Answer the phone. Oh, well, I just wanted to tell you they’re giving your father an award. I thought you’d like to know. Call when you get home. Oh, well.” William had been almost asleep. Now he considered getting up and taking the rest of his prescriptions but he wasn’t in the mood. It was too early in the day to be nauseated. He might just put it off until eight o’clock, he decided. One day can’t matter. Don’t dwell on it or my parents and the way they feel about me. Or anything else. Think about Dan. Thank the universe for that.