Buddy (18 page)

34

I ain't never flown on a real airplane before but Daddy did. He says when he was in the army a thousand years ago he flew around to various “garden spots” of the military. He won't talk about any of them. He just nods and says, “Um-hm,” and that makes me think about Granpa T saying that exact same thing.

Wednesday morning, we pack up a little suitcase borrowed from the widow. Mama gives us some pralines for the lady in California. She wraps them up in tissue paper and sticks them in a box so they won't break. She says I have to carry them in my hands the whole way. When she walks out the room, Daddy tells me real quiet not to worry. He says we'll put them in the suitcase when we get to the airport. If they get broke, they get broke. I tell Tanya she's going to have to feed Rover while I'm gone. She says okay and can she dress him up. I give her a look and she don't ask again. We put on the nicest clothes we've got, and Brother James drives us out to the airport.

All the way out there, Brother James is talking nonstop. He's explaining about how he knows somebody who knows somebody who knows a man who flies around in airplanes on his business so much he sometimes gets tickets for free. When that man heard about Buddy, he was falling all over himself to give us those tickets. He says maybe he'll come meet Buddy when we get him home, and Brother James says maybe we'll call the newspaper and they'll do a story. He says we could use a happy story instead of all the sad ones we read all the time. Like about how it was at the airport during the storm when the old, sick people were laying on the floor all scared and tired and confused, and the helicopters were
whomp-whomp
ing in from the hospitals with more and more people, and that lady who wasn't even a nurse had to deliver a baby right out there on the runway in the middle of the afternoon in the scorching heat and sun.

Brother James keeps on talking but I ain't listening to any of that stuff. I've heard enough about Katrina to last my whole life. I'm thinking about California now. I'm thinking I'll see some different stuff out there. I'll see mountains. I'll see the ocean. In some places, they say, you can see them both at the same time.

Then I'm thinking that's all going to be just fine, but the most important thing I'm going to see is Buddy.

Brother James waves us good-bye and we walk through the metal detector and stroll on down that great big old hall like we've been doing this all our lives. They've got that zydeco music playing and they've got a Lucky Dog cart right there inside the building. Daddy says I can get a hot dog if I want. He says we've got plenty enough money for something like that.

Then that plane rolls down the runway and takes off, and I'm thinking,
I'm flying for real
. I'm really up in the sky. I'm really looking down and seeing things with my real eyes.

I can see the swamp spreading out down there all brown and fuzzy with trees. I can see roads like snail tracks shining in the sun. I can see the top sides of the clouds when I ain't never seen nothing before but the bottom sides.

And when I think about why I'm in that airplane and where I'm going and what I'm doing, I can't hardly sit still in that scratchy, old seat.

The flight attendant squats down beside me. “Is this your first time in the air?” she asks, and smiles all pretty.

I nod.

“Don't be scared,” she says. “We'll take good care of you.”

I laugh. I ain't scared. I'm happier than I've ever been in my whole life.

You can't see as much with real flying as I thought. We pass over the deserts. We pass over the mountains. But we can't see any of it. I read the magazine in the pocket in front of me. I eat the food, and it ain't good. I look out the window at enough clouds to last me forever. Just about when I think I'm going to go crazy with clouds, a voice comes over the radio and says we're about to land.

“Praise God,” Daddy says, and all a sudden I realize he's been scared the whole way. He's been doing just like Granpa T, pretending he's asleep because he don't like where he is.

“You been scared, Daddy?” I say.

“Course not.” He huffs up his shoulders and shivers his head.

I laugh, but he don't think it's one bit funny.

We drag off the plane with everybody else. People are carrying all kinds of stuff. We ain't got nothing but the one suitcase and it's somewhere in the belly of the plane. We're walking slow. We pass out of the hall into the airport.

“What do we do now, Daddy?” I say.

And then I don't wonder. There's a woman and a boy standing not ten feet away. They're holding up a sign. It says,
WELCOME, TEE JUNIOR AND LITTLE TEE.

I frown. I ain't “Little Tee.” I'm “Li'l T.”

Daddy's walking straight over to them. He's holding out his hand. He's shaking hands with the lady and they're talking about the plane ride and the heat and all the people they've got in that great big airport.

That boy and me are just looking at each other.

He's white, just like the woman. He ain't as tall as me but I guess he's about as old. He's got brown hair flopping around in girly curls. He's wearing something that looks like a bathing suit and a T-shirt with a surfboard on it. He's got on flip-flops.

I'm standing there in my Sunday best and feeling like a fool, so I hold out my hand. “I'm Li'l T,” I say. Then I can't help myself. “Not Little Tee. Li'l T.”

He takes my hand. “I'm Brian,” he says.

We pump once and let go. Then we look away.

“Thank you,” Daddy's saying. “Come on, son.” He and the white lady are walking off talking a mile a minute. Brian and me follow, but we don't say anything.

After we get our suitcase, that lady puts us in the car and drives us out into the city. It's night but I can tell California don't look anything like New Orleans. I don't see any columns on any of the houses. There ain't no iron fences. There ain't no big old live oak trees.

Once we get into the mountains, it's pitch-black dark, just like Mississippi. Then we go over a big hill and there are lights spread out everywhere in front of us. We go around a curve, and it's all dark again.

Daddy and the lady are sitting in the front seat talking away but Brian and I don't say anything.

We drive and drive and drive.

We get to a little town and then we pull in the driveway of a house. It's a new house. It's got a wide driveway and a tall wood fence around the backyard.

“Buddy's here?” I say to Brian.

He nods.

I feel my heart going like a race car.

We walk inside. She flips on the light and drops her keys on a glass table. They make a loud rattling noise and then I hear a
click, click, click
somewhere on the tile floor in that house.

I'm standing there with my hand resting on that glass table top and part of my mind is saying,
Take your hand off. You'll make a spot.
But I don't move. I'm looking down the hall.

And then there he comes.

He's a shadow in a hall of shadows. He gets into the light and then he stops. He's standing there looking at us and I'm looking at him. I notice two things. He's got a fake, metal leg stuck on his stump and his tail is curved up, but it ain't wagging.

“Hello, Buddy,” the woman says.

She stoops down and Buddy comes trotting into the room. “You remember Little Tee,” she says, “and his daddy.”

“Li'l T,” I say. I walk over and hold out my hand. Buddy lays his nose in the palm of my hand. His tail starts thumping. He looks up at me with his big old eyes and there's his caterpillar eyebrow, still sticking out like crazy on his forehead.

“He remembers me,” I say. I look up at all those people and I smile. “Of course he remembers me,” I say. “He's my dog.”

Brian spins around all a sudden and walks out the room. I hear a door slam down the hall.

“I'm sorry,” the lady says.

But I ain't listening. I'm watching Buddy clicking down that hallway, following after Brian as fast as he can.

35

The next morning the lady says we've only got one day in California, and she's going to show us a good time. She says we're going back over the mountains to the beach because I ain't never seen the ocean before. She says nobody's quite lived until they've seen the ocean. I feel like I've done plenty of living already, but I don't say nothing. We all pile in the car. This time, Buddy's sitting on the backseat right smack between me and Brian.

We ain't hardly got started when we pass a school.

“That's Brian's school,” the lady says.

It looks like a school on TV.

“You're close enough to ride your bike,” I say.

“I don't ride a bike.”

“You ain't got one?”

He cuts his eyes at me. “I didn't say that,” he says. “I said I don't ride one.”

I shrug my shoulders and look out the window again. Now I can really see the mountains. They are giant hills with dry, brown grass growing on them. In some places you can see where the dirt just fell off the side of the mountain and piled up a couple of hundred feet below. Sometimes there are great big old rocks sticking out of the dirt or perched up on top of a cliff. Sometimes there's a cactus hanging on the side of the hill, just like in the movies.

“Are those mountains ever green?” I ask Brian.

He swivels his face toward me. “When it rains,” he says.

“How long has it been since it rained?”

He looks like he's thinking. Then he shrugs. “Three, maybe four months.”

I can't believe it. “In New Orleans, it rains almost every afternoon in the summer.”

He don't say nothing. He puts his hand on Buddy's head. Buddy shifts a little and puts his head in Brian's lap. Brian turns and looks out the window.

We keep on riding.

Finally we're down out of the mountains and in the city. Eventually we park on a street where there are all kinds of little stores selling stuff that looks like it was made for ladies. Daddy gives me some spending money and I buy a hair bow for Tanya and a soap that's shaped like a shell for Mama.

The lady says, “You're so thoughtful.”

I say, “You try going all the way to California and not bringing them back something.”

Daddy's standing over in the corner and he starts tee-heeing, and I say, “Where is that ocean anyway?”

We walk out of the store and down the street, and at the end of it—
boom
—there's the ocean. We step on a walkway made out of boards up near the street. People are everywhere. Then there's about a mile of sand before you get to the water. Then the land just stops and there ain't nothing but water, as far as you can see, and those great big old waves rolling in and crashing on the people swimming. I'm standing there all amazed and Daddy's um-hmming beside me when Buddy takes off running across the sand. And then I'm even more amazed. I ain't never seen him run before. Not once.

Brian goes running after him. They're chasing up and down.

The lady says, “Little Tee, why don't you go with them.”

So I step off the walkway into the sand. I walk and walk and walk. They're running back and forth. Brian pulls a ball out of his pocket and throws it a long way. Off Buddy goes, racing after it. He brings it back to Brian and Brian throws it again.

Finally I get all the way down to them. Brian's squatting down and rubbing Buddy's neck. He looks up at me.

“When Buddy first got here,” he says, “he was afraid of the water.” Brian stands up and throws the ball. Buddy goes flying after it.

“He just laid down in the sand when we came to the beach,” Brian says. “And look at him now. He loves it.”

“It's the sound,” I say. “That ocean's so loud.”

“Loud?” Brian says.

I nod.

Brian turns and looks toward the water. “I never thought of that,” he says. “It just sounds like ocean to me.”

“It sounds like roaring,” I say. “It sounds like a hurricane.”

Buddy's back with the ball. Brian takes it out of his mouth. It's all slobbery. “You throw it,” Brian says.

I swing back and throw that ball way off down the beach. Buddy's running after it before my arm even starts going down.

Brian's standing there looking after him. The wind's blowing his girly curls all around his head. He's smiling.

“We ain't got a beach like this in New Orleans,” I say, “but when I get Buddy home, we can go to the park to throw the ball. Or maybe Mama will let me go all the way to the levee now.”

Brian turns around and looks at me. He ain't smiling no more. Buddy comes up carrying the ball. I reach out my hand. Brian reaches out his hand, too. Buddy stops. He's standing there looking at us, his eyes going back and forth between us. He's panting. Slobber's drooling off the ball. Those two hands stay stuck out toward him. Buddy dips his head like he's about to drop the ball, but he don't.

Then all a sudden Brian turns around and walks off. Buddy watches him, then he gives me the ball.

I throw it long and hard.

And I can't help it. I'm the one who's smiling now.

After a while, I start to get cold on that beach. Buddy's doing all that running and he's got fur, so he's okay. But here I am in the middle of the day in August standing on a beach, and I'm cold. I look up and the others are all huddled up, too, watching Buddy and me playing with the ball. I throw it one last time. When he comes trotting back with it, I take it and kneel down in front of him to rub him up all around his ears and down his neck.

“So you like that?” I'm saying. “You like chasing that ball? You like running on this beach?”

Buddy's panting and panting with his tongue hanging out, his ears pricked up, and his tail standing high like he's ready to go for the ball again anytime I'm ready to throw it.

I feel his collar and dig it out from under his fur. It's a new one but it's still red. The tag says “Buddy” on it, and it's got Brian's name and phone number, too.

“So Brian's afraid you'll run off,” I say. “Have you been thinking about running off?”

Buddy don't say nothing. He just sits down on the sand, looking me in the eye and listening so hard his ears twitch.

I hold his face between my hands and rub under his ears with my fingertips. “You were thinking about coming to find me, weren't you?” I say. “Like those dogs do in the movies. All the way across the mountains.”

Buddy still don't say nothing but he keeps looking straight at me with his big old brown eyes, just as soft as always.

I'm thinking he wishes he could tell me all about it. All about how he was going to jump out the window of that California house. How he was going to cross the mountains and trot along the side of the road for weeks and weeks. How one day he was going to come down our street and then there I'd be, waiting for him just like he'd always waited for me.

“That would be a fool thing to do, Buddy,” I said. “I'm glad you didn't try.”

I'm rubbing the top of his head. I'm stretching his eyes way open like Granpa T used to do and that caterpillar eyebrow is climbing up his forehead. I let go and it eases back down where it belongs.

“Or maybe,” I say real soft, “maybe you weren't thinking about coming back to me at all. Maybe you're mad at me because I left you behind.”

I can see in Buddy's eyes he remembers that bathroom.

“Were you scared,” I say, “when that storm came and there wasn't nobody there but you?”

Buddy dips his head and whines a little bit.

“They made me do it,” I say. “Daddy and Mama and Granpa T.”

Buddy lifts up his white paw and pats me on the knee.

“I was going to stay,” I say. “I was going to make soup for Mrs. Washington. I was going to—Buddy, she—”

Then I'm wrapping my arms around his neck and rubbing my face in his soft, soft fur. I'm smelling his old, leaf smell, and I'm feeling his cold nose snuffling in my ear. His warm breath is puffing on my eyelids and his wet tongue is licking me all over my face.

“I'm sorry, Buddy,” I'm saying, over and over again. “I am so, so sorry.”

When Buddy and I get back to the boardwalk, the others are already walking ahead to the car. We follow them, and Buddy trots along beside me just like we're headed off to mow somebody's yard. I'm wondering what he's going to think when he sees the yards in New Orleans now. I'm wondering if he's going to think I've turned lazy since I ain't mowing regular anymore.

At the car, Brian's mama makes us stand in groups for pictures. She arranges us different ways for a while and then Daddy takes some so she can be in them, and finally some stranger takes a couple so we can all be in one together. I can't believe Buddy puts up with all that picture taking, but Granpa T said Buddy had the patience of Job, and I guess he was right.

Then Brian is poking around in the trunk. He comes up with a brush and some cloths and starts cleaning up Buddy. Buddy stands there as still as he can while Brian brushes all the sand out of his fur.

Daddy and the lady are watching.

“You take good care of that dog,” Daddy says.

“Yes, sir,” Brian says.

“I'll do that,” I say, and Brian hands over the brush.

Buddy's fur is looking shiny. It's looking black as night. His ribs are all hid. It feels good running that brush over him.

Then Brian wipes Buddy's paws with the cloth. He rubs ointment on the bottom of his feet. Buddy stands still as a statue, lifting up one foot at a time. You can tell he's used to it now.

When he's done wiping, Brian unbuckles Buddy's spare leg.

“Why do you take off his leg?” I say.

“Sand gets under it,” Brian says. “We've got to be careful.” He cleans real good where it rubs against his skin. He helps Buddy into the car. “He won't need it for the ride. We'll wash it off at home then put it back on.”

“You do this every time?”

Brian nods.

“Will you teach me what to do?”

Brian looks at me for a minute. He looks at his mama. She's watching us hard. He looks back at me.

“Of course,” he says. “He's your dog.”

When we get home, Brian goes straight on back to his room. The lady offers us a cold drink and I'm thirsty so I say, “Yes, please.”

I'm standing there in the kitchen while she's fishing in the refrigerator. I see Mama's box of pralines is sitting on the counter and somebody's taken a nibble out of one. I don't see how anybody could take one nibble and then stop.

All a sudden, I look over in the corner and there's a big old tray with two bowls. One's got water. One's empty. Both say
BUDDY
on them. Somebody painted them special.

The lady stands up and hands me a cold drink. She hands Daddy a beer.

“Look at those bowls, Daddy,” I say.

Daddy looks at the bowls, too. He looks at me. He looks at the lady. “You've done a lot for Buddy,” he says.