by John Irving
"You could hold out your hand to the dog and he would sniff you, but he didn't like to be touched and he never licked your hand the way some dogs do. If you tried to pat him, he would duck his head and slink back into the alley. The way he stared at you made you think it would not be a very good idea to follow him into the alley, or to try very hard to pat him."
"He would bite you," Walt said.
"Well, you couldn't be sure," Garp said. "He never bit anyone, actually, or I never heard about it if he did."
"You were there?" Walt said.
"Yes," Garp said; he knew that the storyteller was always "there."
"Walt!" called Helen; it irritated Garp that she eavesdropped on the stories he told the children. "That is what they mean by 'a dog's life,'" Helen called.
But neither Walt nor his father appreciated her interruption. Walt said, "Go on with the story. What happened to the dog?"
The responsibilities loomed for Garp, every time. What is the instinct in people that makes them expect something to happen? If you begin a story about a person or a dog, something must be going to happen to them. "Go on!" Walt cried impatiently. Garp, caught up in his art, frequently forgot his audience.
He went on. "If too many people held out their hands for the dog to sniff, the dog would walk back down the alley and crawl under the truck. You could often see the tip of his black nose poking out from under the truck. He was either under the truck or at the sidewalk end of the alley; he never stopped in between. He had his habits and nothing disturbed them."
"Nothing?" Walt asked, disappointed--or else worried that nothing was going to happen.
"Well, almost nothing," Garp admitted, and Walt perked up. "Something bothered him; there was just one thing. It alone could make the dog furious. It was the only thing that could even make the dog bark. It really drove him crazy."
"Oh sure, a cat!" cried Walt.
"A terrible cat," said Garp in a voice that made Helen stop rereading The Eternal Husband and hold her breath. Poor Walt, she thought.
"Why was the cat terrible?" Walt asked.
"Because he teased the dog," Garp said. Helen was relieved that this was, apparently, all that was "terrible."
"Teasing isn't nice," Walt said, with knowledge; Walt was Duncan's victim in the area of teasing. Duncan should be hearing this story, Helen thought. A lesson about teasing is clearly wasted on Walt.
"Teasing is terrible," Garp said. "But this cat was terrible. He was an old cat, off the streets, dirty and mean."
"What was his name?" Walt asked.
"He didn't have a name," Garp said. "Nobody owned him; he was hungry all the time, so he stole food. Nobody could blame him for that. And he had lots of fights with other cats, and nobody could blame him for that either, I suppose. He had only one eye; the other eye had been missing for so long that the hole had closed and the fur had grown over where the eye had been. He didn't have any ears. He must have had to fight all the time."
"The poor thing!" Helen cried.
"Nobody could blame that cat for the way he was," Garp said, "except that he teased the dog. That was wrong; he didn't have to do that. He was hungry, so he had to be sneaky, and nobody took care of him, so he had to fight. But he didn't have to tease the dog."
"Teasing isn't nice," Walt said again. Very definitely Duncan's story, Helen thought.
"Every day," said Garp, "that cat would walk down the sidewalk and stop to wash himself at the end of the alley. The dog would come out from under the truck, running so hard that the chain wriggled behind him like a snake that's just been run over in the road. You ever seen that?"
"Oh sure," Walt said.
"And when the dog got to the end of his chain, the chain would snap the dog's neck back and the dog would be tugged off his feet and land on the pavement of the alley, sometimes knocking his wind out or hitting his head. The cat would never move. The cat knew how long the chain was and he would sit there washing himself with his one eye staring at the dog. The dog went crazy. He barked and snapped and struggled against his chain until the owner of the cafe, his master, would have to come out and shoo the cat away. Then the dog would crawl back under the truck.
"Sometimes the cat would come right back, and the dog would lie under the truck for as long as he could stand it, which was not very long. He'd lie under there while the cat licked himself all over out on the sidewalk, and pretty soon you could hear the dog begin to whimper and whine, and the cat would just stare down the alley at him and go on washing himself. And pretty soon the dog would start to howl under the truck, and thrash around there as if he were covered with bees, but the cat would just go on washing himself. And finally the dog would lunge out from under the truck and charge up the alley again, snapping his chain behind him--even though he knew what would happen. He knew that the chain would rip him off his feet and choke him, and throw him on the pavement, and that when he got up the cat would still be sitting there, inches away, washing himself. And he'd bark himself hoarse until his master, or someone else, would shoo the cat away.
"That dog hated that cat," Garp said.
"So do I," Walt said.
"And so did I," said Garp. Helen felt herself turn against the story--it had such an obvious conclusion. She said nothing.
"Go on," Walt said. Part of telling a story to a child, Garp knew, is telling (or pretending to tell) a story with an obvious conclusion.
"One day," said Garp, "everybody thought the dog had finally lost his mind. For one whole day he ran out from under the truck and all the way up the alley until the chain jerked him off his feet; then he'd do it again. Even when the cat wasn't there, the dog just kept charging up the alley, throwing his weight against the chain and heaving himself to the pavement. It startled some of the people walking on the sidewalk, especially the people who saw the dog coming at them and didn't know that there was a chain.
"And that night the dog was so tired that he didn't pace around the cafe; he slept on the floor as if he were sick. Anyone could have broken into the cafe that night; I don't think that dog would have woken up. And the next day he did the same thing, although you could tell his neck was sore because he cried out every time the chain snapped him off his feet. And that night he slept in the cafe as if he were a dead dog who'd been murdered there on the floor.
"His master called a vet," Garp said, "and the vet gave the dog some shots--I guess to calm him down. For two days the dog lay on the floor of the cafe at nighttime and under the truck in the daytime, and even when the cat walked by on the sidewalk, or sat washing himself at the end of the alley, that dog wouldn't move. That poor dog," Garp added.
"He was sad," Walt said.
"But do you think he was smart?" Garp asked.
Walt was puzzled but he said, "I think he was."
"He was," Garp said, "because all the time he'd been running against the chain, he'd been moving the truck he was tied to--just a little. Even though that truck had sat there for years, and it was rusted solid on those cinder blocks and the buildings could fall down around it before that truck would budge--even so," Garp said, "that dog made the truck move. Just a little.
"Do you think the dog moved the truck enough?" Garp asked Walt.
"I think so," Walt said. Helen thought so, too.
"He needed just a few inches to reach that cat," Garp said. Walt nodded. Helen, confident of the gory outcome, plunged back into The Eternal Husband.
"One day," Garp said, slowly, "the cat came and sat down on the sidewalk at the end of the alley and began to lick his paws. He rubbed his wet paws into his old ear holes where his ears had been, and he rubbed his paws over his old grown-together eye hole where his other eye used to be, and he stared down the alley at the dog under the truck. The cat was getting bored now that the dog wouldn't come out anymore. And then the dog came out."
"I think the truck moved enough," Walt said.
"The dog ran up the alley faster than ever before, so that the chain behind him was dancing off the gr
ound, and the cat never moved although this time the dog could reach him. Except," said Garp, "the chain didn't quite reach." Helen groaned. "The dog got his mouth over the cat's head but the chain choked him so badly that he couldn't close his mouth; the dog gagged and was jerked back--like before--and the cat, realizing that things had changed, sprang away."
"God!" Helen cried.
"Oh no," Walt said.
"Of course, you couldn't fool a cat like that twice," Garp said. "The dog had one chance, and he blew it. That cat would never let him get close enough again."
"What a terrible story!" Helen cried.
Walt, silent, looked as if he agreed.
"But something else happened," Garp said. Walt looked up, alert. Helen, exasperated, held her breath again. "The cat was so scared he ran into the street--without looking. No matter what happens," Garp said, "you don't run into the street without looking, do you, Walt?"
"No," Walt said.
"Not even if a dog is going to bite you," Garp said. "Not ever. You never run into the street without looking."
"Oh sure, I know," Walt said. "What happened to the cat?"
Garp slapped his hands together so sharply that the boy jumped. "He was killed like that!" Garp cried. "Smack! He was dead. Nobody could fix him. He'd have had a better chance if the dog had gotten him."
"A car hit him?" Walt asked.
"A truck," Garp said, "ran right over his head. His brains came out his old ear holes, where his ears used to be."
"Squashed him?" Walt asked.
"Flat," said Garp, and he held up his hand, palm level, in front of Walt's serious little face. Jesus, Helen thought, it was Walt's story after all. Don't run into the street without looking!
"The end," said Garp.
"Good night," Walt said.
"Good night," Garp said to him. Helen heard them kiss.
"Why didn't the dog have a name?" Walt asked.
"I don't know," Garp said. "Don't run into the street without looking."
When Walt fell asleep, Helen and Garp made love. Helen had a sudden insight regarding Garp's story.
"That dog could never move that truck," she said. "Not an inch."
"Right," Garp said. Helen felt sure he had actually been there.
"So how'd you move it?" she asked him.
"I couldn't move it either," Garp said. "It wouldn't budge. So I cut a link out of the dog's chain, at night when he was patrolling the cafe, and I matched the link at a hardware store. The next night I added some links--about six inches."
"And the cat never ran into the street?" Helen asked.
"No, that was for Walt," Garp admitted.
"Of course," Helen said.
"The chain was plenty long enough," Garp said. "The cat didn't get away."
"The dog killed the cat?" Helen asked.
"He bit him in half," Garp said.
"In a city in Germany?" Helen said.
"No, Austria," Garp said. "It was Vienna. I never lived in Germany."
"But how could the dog have been in the war?" Helen asked. "He'd have been twenty years old by the time you got there."
"The dog wasn't in the war," Garp said. "He was just a dog. His owner had been in the war--the man who owned the cafe. That's why he knew how to train the dog. He trained him to kill anybody who walked in the cafe when it was dark outside. When it was light outside, anybody could walk in; when it was dark, even the master couldn't get in."
"That's nice!" Helen said. "Suppose there was a fire? There seems to me to be a number of drawbacks to that method."
"It's a war method, apparently," Garp said.
"Well," Helen said, "it makes a better story than the dog's being in the war."
"You think so, really?" Garp asked her. It seemed to her that he was alert for the first time during their conversation. "That's interesting," he said, "because I just this minute made it up."
"About the owner's being in the war?" Helen asked.
"Well, more than that," Garp admitted.
"What part of the story did you make up?" Helen asked him.
"All of it," he said.
They were in bed together and Helen lay quietly there, knowing that this was one of his trickier moments.
"Well, almost all of it," he added.
Garp never tired of playing this game, though Helen certainly tired of it. He would wait for her to ask: Which of it? Which of it is true, which of it is made up? Then he would say to her that it didn't matter; she should just tell him what she didn't believe. Then he would change that part. Every part she believed was true; every part she didn't believe needed work. If she believed the whole thing, then the whole thing was true. He was very ruthless as a storyteller, Helen knew. If the truth suited the story, he would reveal it without embarrassment; but if any truth was unsuccessful in a story, he would think nothing of changing it.
"When you're through playing around," she said, "I'd just be curious to know what really happened."
"Well, really," said Garp, "the dog was a beagle."
"A beagle!"
"Well, actually, a schnauzer. He was tied up in the alley all day, but not to an army truck."
"To a Volkswagen?" Helen guessed.
"To a garbage sled," Garp said. "The sled was used to pull the garbage cans out to the sidewalk in the winter, but the schnauzer, of course, was too small and weak to pull it--at any time of the year."
"And the cafe owner?" Helen asked. "He was not in the war?"
"She," Garp said. "She was a widow."
"Her husband had been killed in the war?" Helen guessed.
"She was a young widow," Garp said. "Her husband had been killed crossing the street. She was very attached to the dog, which her husband had given her for their first anniversary. But her new landlady would not allow dogs in her apartment, so the widow set the dog loose in the cafe each night.
"It was a spooky, empty space and the dog was nervous in there; in fact, he crapped all night long. People would stop and peer in the window and laugh at all the messes the dog made. This laughter made the dog more nervous, so he crapped more. In the morning the widow came early--to air out the place and clean up the messes--and she spanked the dog with a newspaper and dragged him cowering out into the alley, where he was tied up to the garbage sled all day."
"And there was no cat?" Helen asked.
"Oh, there were lots of cats," Garp said. "They came into the alley because of the garbage cans for the cafe. The dog would never touch the garbage, because he was afraid of the widow, and the dog was terrified of cats; whenever there was a cat in the alley, raiding the garbage cans, the dog crawled under the garbage sled and hid there until the cat was gone."
"My God," said Helen. "So there was no teasing, either?"
"There is always teasing," Garp said, solemnly. "There was a little girl who would come to the end of the alley and call the dog out to the sidewalk, excpet that the dog's chain wouldn't reach the sidewalk and the dog would yap! and yap! and yap! at the little girl, who stood on the sidewalk and called, 'Come on, come on,' until someone rolled down a window and yelled at her to leave the poor mutt alone."
"You were there?" Helen said.
"We were there," Garp said. "Every day my mother wrote in a room, the only window of which faced that alley. That dog's yapping drove her nuts."
"So Jenny moved the garbage sled," Helen said, "and the dog ate the little girl, whose parents complained to the police, who had the dog put to sleep. And you, of course, were a great comfort to the grieving widow, who was perhaps in her early forties."
"Her late thirties," Garp said. "But that's not how it happened."
"What happened?" Helen asked.
"One night, in the cafe," Garp said, "the dog had a stroke. A number of people claimed to have been responsible for scaring the dog so badly that they caused his stroke. There was a kind of competition in regard to this in the neighborhood. They were always doing things like creeping up to the cafe and hurling themselves against the
windows and doors, shrieking like huge cats--creating a frenzy of bowel movements by the frightened dog."
"The stroke killed the dog, I hope," Helen said.
"Not quite," Garp said. "The stroke paralyzed the dog's hindquarters, so that he could only move his front end and wag his head. The widow, however, clung to the life of this wretched dog as she clung to the memory of her late husband, and she had a carpenter, with whom she was sleeping, build a little cart for the dog's rear end. The cart had wheels on it, so the dog just walked on his front legs and towed his dead hindquarters around on the little cart."
"My God," Helen said.
"You wouldn't believe the noise of those little wheels," Garp said.
"Probably not," said Helen.
"Mother claimed she couldn't hear it," Garp said, "but the rolling sound was so pathetic, it was worse than the dog's yapping at the stupid little girl. And the dog couldn't turn a corner very well, without skidding. He'd hop along and then turn, and his rear wheels would slide out beside him, faster than he could keep hopping, and he'd go into a roll. When he was on his side, he couldn't get up again. It seemed I was the only one to see him in this predicament--at least, I was always the one who went into the alley and tipped him upright again. As soon as he was back on his wheels, he'd try to bite me," Garp said, "but he was easy to outrun."
"So one day," Helen said, "you untied the schnauzer, and he ran into the street without looking. No, excuse me: he rolled into the street without looking. And everyone's troubles were over. The widow and the carpenter were married."
"Not so," said Garp.
"I want the truth," Helen said, sleepily. "What happened to the damn schnauzer?"
"I don't know," Garp said. "Mother and I came back to this country, and you know the rest."
Helen, giving in to sleep, knew that only her silence might get Garp to reveal himself. She knew that this story might be as made up as the other versions, or that the other versions might be largely true--even that this one might be largely true. Any combination was possible with Garp.
Helen was already asleep when Garp asked her, "Which story do you like better?" But lovemaking made Helen sleepy, and she found the sound of Garp's voice, going on and on, enhancing to her drowsiness; it was her most preferred way to fall asleep: after love, with Garp talking.