Dog Warrior (11 page)

“No. They say he seems to have some kind of sensory problem; he doesn't process well. It will be a few days before he comes out of his shell. They say he's quite sweet, once he warms up. He's been through so much for one so little, first abandoned and then the couple that wanted to adopt him were killed . . .”

The Pack grieved for lost opportunity. If they had only been able to find Atticus, things would have been different. Regret moved through the Dogs as they watched Atticus flounder through life, moved from one foster home to another in rapid succession. The joyful toddler grew into a troubled second grader.

“. . . tell me about your picture.”

He eyed Dr. Holland. He'd been lost in his own drawing and remembering. Normally he had access to only crayons to draw, and they were useless at capturing the details he remembered. Dr. Holland's colored pencils did a better job, but still his ability fell far short of reality. He had been focused, trying to capture real trees on paper. “It's just a picture.” He'd learned not to talk about the time in the woods, but Dr. Holland was a nice giant.

“Is this a little boy?”

“Yes.”

“Is he you?”

“No, but he's just like me.”

“Ah. And what's this? A dog?”

“No. That's me.”

“Why are you a dog?”

“I don't know. Something bad happened and I ran away. I wanted to go back, but this part of me became a little boy and we couldn't go back together, so I stayed with him, protecting him, trying to get him to come back, but he'd forgotten almost everything but being scared.”

“I see.” Dr. Holland nodded as if he did understand. “Where is he now?”

“I don't know. I forgot where I left him. I know I've forgotten a lot of things since then, so much drained away before I realized what was happening, so I think about this so I won't forget.”

“I see.” Dr. Holland nodded again. “Did you like being a dog?”

“No.”

“Why were you a dog?”

He lifted his shoulders up into a shrug. “I don't know.”

“Why did you stop being a dog?”

He shrugged again. “I don't know. I've forgotten.”

“Why did you draw this picture?”

He looked at Dr. Holland. The giants never ceased to confound him. “You told me to.”

“I see,” Dr. Holland said.

Perhaps Dr. Holland said that when he didn't see at all.

“Why did you hit all those boys?”

“They were teasing Bobby Hyzen. He can't help the way he is. He would change if he could. But he can't.”

“Why did you draw this picture instead of one of Bobby Hyzen?”

“Because I wish I could find him again, the boy just like me.”

The end-of-school tone sounded, alerting everyone that buses were arriving.

“Can you sign it for me?” Dr. Holland pointed to the lower left-hand corner.

He put his new name down.

“Clark?”

“I don't want to be John Doe anymore.” His last set of foster parents explained the meaning of his name.

“Why Clark?”

He didn't want to tell Dr. Holland that it was because it was Superman's secret identity. Not because he was afraid Dr. Holland would laugh, but because he'd write it down and someone else might find out. He was discovering many of the mistakes he thought he left behind at the last foster home and the last school somehow showed up to haunt him. It would be best not to say . . .

A jump forward in time, an angry sixth grader in another office, fingering a broken nose that was rapidly healing.

“. . . what's this about you wanting to be called Parker? What kind of name is that?” vice principal Henry asked.

He'd decided that Clark was a stupid name. Aliens that looked exactly like humans? Only one man on the whole planet smart enough to know it was going to explode but too stupid to send a guardian out with his baby? And that whole kryptonite thing was stupid—how could that much stuff get to Earth?—and a little unnerving. Did he have his own personal kryptonite? Besides, the new Superman movies made his choice way too obvious.

He chose Parker over Peter because he'd seen how Peter Johnson suffered once kids realized all the nicknames for penis. Just like Spider-Man, he had inhuman abilities—but what had been his radioactive spider?

“I don't want to be John Doe,” he told the vice principal. “I don't like the name; it's like a big sign that says I don't know who I am.”

“You can't change your name until you're of legal age.”

Ah, yes, the magical age of eighteen, when he was free of
so many annoyances. “Anthony Cercone Junior goes by Tony, and everyone calls James Walton J.J.”

“That's what their families call them. We all need to stay on the same page, John.”

“I can have my foster parents call me Parker.”

“What about your social worker, and your case files, and the state? Your foster parents are being paid to take care of a John, not a Parker.”

He'd come to recognize insurmountable obstinacy. Luckily, he only had to deal with it until the next set of foster parents and the next school.

Flashes of junior high school followed, an endless flow of fighting in the halls, in streets, and on playing fields. Hockey was an excuse to legally hit the other kids. Wrestling. Basketball. Football. Atticus's natural skills got him onto sports teams. His aggression got him thrown off. An angry teenager, he refused to see that his actions dictated much of how the system treated him. One too many fights landed him in juvenile hall, and the fights became a necessity for survival.

When Hellena tested Ukiah, he had been aware only of his thoughts. Now he could see how she directed the search, suggesting a topic and then pulling up the strongest response. What had brought up the funeral of his adopted sister's pet rabbit? He would have to ask Hellena, if things went well. He sensed regret growing in the Pack, though, as they saw a near future where his brother's murder would taint their relationship with Ukiah.

There were areas where Atticus resisted invasion, somehow turning aside Hellena's probes. What he let her search through were fights in dark alleys, crowded barrooms, and even illegal fighting rings for bare-fisted fighters.

“Ru,” Ukiah murmured to Hellena. “Have him remember Ru.”

. . . Was there anything louder, drunker, randier than a party of college boys? Atticus couldn't decide if coming
tonight had been a mistake. With the recent gay bashings, he didn't like his roommate walking alone, but Atticus was the only straight person at the party. And apparently there was some confusion over that. On the theory that a moving target was harder to hit on, he drifted through the party. Perversely, he felt like Goldilocks, critiquing each area: too loud, too crowded, too drunk, way too intimate.

Where the hell was Ru? Atticus felt a prick of jealousy that probably someone else was with his roommate. Ru had been moody and withdrawn since winter break and the whole mess with the stabbing.

At the time Ru had been surprisingly calm and efficient. He said the mice were cute. Instead of being upset about Atticus not being human and able to come back from the dead, Ru seemed to focus on the fact that he was the first person Atticus ever told his secret to. He invited Atticus home during the break, and introduced him to his parents and three little sisters. What had happened? Even with Atticus's perfect memory, he couldn't pinpoint the sentence or the gesture where it all went wrong. And it hurt like hell. Ru was the best friend he'd ever had, and it really felt like he was losing him.

No one was in the backyard. While there was a fire going in a brick grill, it was dark and cold: a perfect spot to sulk. Ru found him there a short time later.

“Hey!” Ru breathed out a haze of wine, snuggling against Atticus's back. “What are you doing out here?”

“Sulking.” Atticus immediately wished he'd said something else. For a moment, things had been right, with Ru playfully affectionate. He liked the closeness they had, despite what it was doing to his image.

Ru, though, pulled away. “Whatever for?”

“The mice weirded you out—didn't they?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because . . . Nothing, just forget about it.”

“You sorry you told me?” Ru asked warily, putting more distance between them.

“No. It's just things seem broke between us. And it sucks.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

So they fell into silence except the crackling of the fire.

“Yeah,” Atticus whispered finally, “I'm sorry I told you. I hate this.”

“Atty, this has nothing to do with the mice.”

He looked at Ru, dubious.

“This is about you and my sisters,” Ru explained, or rather, didn't.

“What?”

“All the girls you dated last term were complete babes, but my sisters . . . I couldn't deal with that.”

“Ru, what the hell are you talking about?”

Ru gave him a look of pure agony. “You'll hate me.”

“What, you've taken up killing babies and torturing puppies when I wasn't looking?”

Ru laughed, and then sobered, falling back to the hurt look.

Atticus didn't know what to say. He never knew what to say. He tried to bridge the gap between them; he went to Ru, awkwardly embraced him, and asked quietly, “Tell me what's wrong. Until I know, I can't do anything to fix things.”

Ru's heart started to hammer, and he let out a trembling sigh, as if he were going to start crying. “Oh, Atty, sometimes you're just so clueless.”

Just as Atticus was going to ask him what he meant, Ru reached up to undo Atticus's top three buttons, leaned his head down, and dropped a kiss in the hollow of Atticus's neck. His kisses moved upward, strange for their maleness.

It all clicked for Atticus. Ru was in love with him, and Atticus was straight. Things had been fine as long as Atticus was unattainable, but then they'd gone to Ru's home and Atticus had flirted with Ru's sisters. With Ru's long hair, and his sisters' relatively flat chests, the only difference between
the siblings was an X chromosome and some southerly plumbing. He felt stupid not to have realized it before.

Shaking now, Ru whispered, “I love you.”

Ru, who knew that he wasn't human, who had seen the mice form and be reabsorbed, who watched him die and come back to life, loved him. A jolt of something as pure and blinding as joy flashed through Atticus, stunning him.

Ru kissed him, then, firm male lips against his.

Atticus was fairly sure he was straight-straight; as totally aware of being driven by pheromones and animal instincts as he was mystified that he could not be human and still so desperately want to mate with a human female. In his blackest moods, he felt similar to a randy little dog that humped visitors' legs, driven over the boundaries of his species by lust. But he had no species of his own; he was a solitary creature, a freak of nature.

And Ru loved him just the same.

Ru kissed him again, tasting of tears, and then, realizing that Atticus wasn't responding, tried to pull away. Atticus tightened his hold, sensing that if he let Ru go now, it would tear a larger rift between them. The slight pressure was enough to check Ru. As they stood in the cold darkness, neither wanting to let go, it started to snow. Huge white flakes drifted down silently around them.

Could he maybe not be as straight as he always thought? Certainly he'd never tried
 . . .
that. Never had the desire to. But if he really were entirely straight, why'd he never rebuff Ru? Why would the thought of Ru loving him hit him with lightning-intense happiness? And if asked—just minutes ago—for a word to describe how he felt about Ru, wouldn't he have used the word “love”?

Ru traced the line of Atticus's jaw with his fingertips, snowflakes in his long black hair.

What was the depth and width of his love? For Ru, couldn't he bend a little?

Wetting his lips, Atticus tilted his head to Ru and kissed
him. Strangely, while his senses told him that this was just another set of lips, with an X chromosome instead of a Y, there was something different—some electricity that had nothing to do with taste or smell or touch. Was this love?

So while the snow sprinkled them with cold kisses, they tested the possibilities, Atticus unsure and hesitant, Ru eager and growing bolder.

After having Ru as a roommate for months, his body was imprinted on all his senses, and yet it was like Atticus was discovering him for the first time. His musky scent. His soft skin over hard muscle. His silky black hair.

Ru fumbled with Atticus's belt, undid his pants, and slipped a hand down the flat of Atticus's stomach and into his boxers.

Do I really want this? Can I do this?