Piper (15 page)

I felt Willard brace himself and I found the hand closest to me and squeezed it as hard as I could when Dr. Miller inserted the needle into the big vein in Freeway's front leg and slowly pushed the plunger down with his thumb. Dr. Miller bit his lower lip, making the syringe shorter and shorter under the hanky. I could smell something pungent. Willard was trembling so hard it made Freeway vibrate too. I kept thinking of Mom and wishing I'd been there to hold her, to squeeze her hand, to let her know she wasn't alone. Willard shuddered and I realized how shaken he must have been by Mom's death. Mom was his only child, the light of his life. He'd always said how glad he was his “Kitty” had stayed in Stampede. I'd never thought of Willard as sorrowful. He always seemed to be off in his own forgetful world, more worried about changing the oil in someone's car. But Willard was a veteran of death too: his wife from a stroke, his bowling buddies from old age, his daughter, and God knew how many dogs. Instead of becoming calloused to it, each death had just gouged a deeper ditch across his heart.

At the moment I saw Freeway's face go lifeless, it felt like he was all of us.

“He's gone,” Dr. Miller said.

At Willard's request, we let Freeway spend one more night in his bed so that he could pet him in all the places he liked to be touched.

After Dad left in the morning, I went out to the garage and found the shovel with the black electrician's tape wrapped around the split handle and dug a grave in Mom's tangled and abandoned garden. Dr. Miller said it was against the law to bury carcasses in town, but he agreed it was the best option under the circumstances. There was no way this dog was going to the rendering plant. Just below the topsoil I encountered rocks and had to use the pick, but I managed to make a pit about three feet deep. On his side and without a casket I thought he'd be down far enough.

Willard and I carried Freeway up from the basement on one of the contoured sheets from my bed. The other dogs followed in a bedraggled funeral procession—the terrier, the pug, the mongrel, and the coonhound. Willard had suggested we put him on the bedspread that was already bloodied, but I would have none of that.

“We're not using garbage,” I told him.

We rested him between a row of withered tomato vines and the unpicked rhubarb that had been flattened against the ground by the weather like wet newspaper. Freeway's limbs were as stiff as chair spindles and the other dogs shied away from him. They seemed to know that something was going down because they positioned themselves at various distances away from the hole.

Even Freeway's hair had stiffened and it gave me the creeps to see his whole body move when I lifted his head and wrapped one of Mom's blue silk scarves around his neck. Silk was a little feminine, but I thought he needed some color. Freeway had lived his whole life as a black and white. Willard put his motorman's hat on Freeway at a jaunty angle, almost covering one eye. It was the same hat Willard had worn the day Dad brought him over to be my new housemate. Then he pulled a Pup-Peroni stick out of his pocket and wedged it between the toes of one of Freeway's front paws like a stogie. It was something Freeway could dream about as he raced into his new frontier.

Using the sheet as a sling, we stood on each side of the pit and lowered Freeway down, making sure his hat stayed on. I hated this part the worst. The hole made the separation so permanent. I tried to rationalize it by thinking of it as reincarnation. Freeway's nutrients would fertilize next year's rhubarb-strawberry pie and we'd all take a little bit of him in and try to become as vigilant as he was in herding the ones he loved away from trouble. But it wasn't working. The fact that Willard didn't believe in an afterlife, even for humans, made it worse. “This is the whole show,” he'd told me once. There were tears leaking down both of my cheeks as I watched Freeway resting obediently at the bottom of the hole.

Neither one of us were particularly religious, but we each agreed to say a prayer out loud. Willard was doing better than could be expected, which meant he was able to stand on his own power while I said mine. The way he swayed though, I thought he was going to just keel over into the pit with his dog. Then it was his turn.

“You were a stray waiting to be found,” Willard said, choking on his words, “just like the rest of us. I wish … I could've been better to you. So many things I promised … and didn't come through on, pal.” Death did that, I thought, made the survivors choke on their own guilt. For some reason, even though we knew no one was going to live forever, we all held back, waiting for just the right moment to spring something nice, to let them know how much they were appreciated. Then poof and there weren't any more next times.

I let Willard drop in the first shovelful, then he handed me the shovel and fell down on his knees. Mrs. Churchill waddled over to Willard and just stood there with her big ears drooping in respect. The first few shovelfuls dusted the top of him and I could still see Freeway's shape as clearly as if he were resting on the mattress downstairs. I didn't want to hear the dirt hitting him and started shoveling faster and faster until I was hyperventilating. When his shape had disappeared, I stopped and leaned on the shovel. The only sounds were Willard's moans and Billy's chews on a bone she must have buried for a rainy day.

10

We got through our first Thanksgiving without Mom. It was just Dad, Willard, and me. Dad had arranged for Marge to fix us a turkey with all the trimmings, but it just wasn't the same without one or two of Mom's
experiments
, which is what we called the cranberry cornbread, yam gravy and other recipes she'd introduce to stretch our taste buds. There was also no surprise guest. Mom couldn't stand the idea of someone eating alone on Thanksgiving and always managed to find an art student or a teacher from school to join us. Once we had a Laotian man who was in some kind of trouble with the immigration authorities. Dad didn't seem to mind sharing our table with strangers; in fact, he usually ended up asking most of the questions, but I knew he wouldn't have ever initiated it.

The tourists began flocking back to Commercial Street on weekends for their Christmas shopping, to buy the antique furniture, rusted kitchen tools, and odd-shaped, tinted bottles that Stampede was famous for. I would have lodged my usual complaint with Dirk about the commercialization of Christmas, but he wasn't around so I complained to Willard instead.

“Think of it this way,” Willard told me. “The ones who come up here are the good ones. They don't like disposable.” He had a point. They should have been my people. They were the ones who wanted to sit in the same kind of chairs that Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence had used.

I read
The Second Sex
, searching for messages. Rozene's note was so cryptic. I identified with Simone de Beauvoir though. So many passages resonated with what I imagined Mom would have said. I loved the way she turned the supposed female disadvantages into pluses.

Rozene and I sat together at lunch a few times, but both of us acted as if nothing had changed since the ride home from Ned's. My normal penchant for candor had ebbed and, for the first time in my life, I seemed to be choosing words rather than just letting them flop out of my mouth. I would have loved to tell her what had happened with Bagmore under the grandstands, how I tried to spit out his saliva on the way to the girl's can afterward. I wanted to ask her how she would have handled it. Had I given the wrong signal? Was everyone else putting up with that kind of crap?

On the day before the Christmas Open House, when John Carlisle and the other Victorian home owners opened their doors to the public, Dad held back the front page for my normal review and edit.

“How come, Dad?”

“Trust me. This one I have to do myself.”

So I saw the story for the first time on the stack at Ned's when I went in to buy my breakfast, a pack of crackers with cheese spread and a plastic knife, on the way to school. In fact, Ned had to point to the stack or I would have missed it. I'd stopped reading the
Herald
at home once I started flyspecking it at the office. Ned had a sly grin on his face.

“A lot of folks are going to be saying ‘I told you so,' huh?”

There it was, in one of Dad's minimalist headlines over a story that wasn't even lead: “Local Publisher Charged.”

I grabbed the paper off the stack, mistakenly taking an extra in the process, and made for the back of the store.
My God
! This wasn't driving under the influence or failing to yield. John Carlisle had been charged with rape in the third degree and sexual misconduct with a minor. I had to lean against the bread and cupcake shelves. My heart was a vibrator.
Who? When? Come on, Dad
. I raced down the column for details, but there were no names and no dates. If Dad had sanitized the story any more, we could have eaten off it, but he couldn't hide the obvious.
There was a God in heaven after all
!

I wasn't going to school until I found out the whole skinny, so I paid Ned and bolted for the office with the new issue rolled up in my hand like a billy club.

The reception desk where Pamela Palmer sat was empty and so were the offices I passed along the hallway. Someone had left the country music station on. Without knocking, I opened the door to Dad's office and suddenly whatever was coming out of his mouth was vacuumed back in. Everyone turned to look at me. It was an office-wide meeting. Even Les Showalter, the driver who only worked delivery days, was there. It was as if they'd never seen someone with frayed cuffs and holes in the knees of her jeans that were dripping with loose threads. Or maybe it was because I hadn't polished the scuffs out of my black oxfords or tucked the pendleton into my pants. After the incident with Bagmore, I'd gone back to the clothes I was comfortable with.

Dad was leaning back against the edge of the desk, his coat off, tie loosened, and a shock of hair drooping carelessly over his right eyebrow. He looked at his watch. “Piper, can you wait outside a minute?”

I looked around at Gerry Alexander and Louise Mead, the people I'd joked with in the doghouse. Their arms were crossed. Their brows were furrowed. I was a bum on the street with a Dixie cup in my hand. They were going to walk right by me. I could feel a blush working its way up my neck. My legs were wobbly.

“Let her stay,” Alexander said. “She's one of us.” I could have kissed him on his split lip.

Dad rubbed hard under his chin with the edge of his index finger and changed the cross of his legs. I unfurled the paper I'd been choking in my hand. I didn't know what I was going to say exactly, maybe filibuster the assembly by reading the story frontwards and backwards until they let me in on it, but I had to know what was happening. The implications were too important. Dad must have seen the makings of an episode.

“Okay,” he said, “but you're under the same constraints everyone else is. Nothing I say leaves this room.”

Louise Mead scooted over to free up the left half of her folding chair. “Sit down before he knocks you down,” she whispered and winked. I was in. Finally, I wasn't Tom Scanlon's daughter; I was going to be Tom Scanlon's employee and, therefore, the recipient of a whole lot more information.

“As I was saying, the state must still prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Meantime, the law says he's innocent.”

Pamela Palmer's hand floated up. She was chewing gum and it cracked just as Dad motioned toward her. “Have you talked to him yet?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well …?”

“He was as shocked as the rest of us.” They always said that, I thought.

“In all candor, Mr. Scanlon”—Pamela asked the question out of the side of her mouth like this was all on the QT—“what do you really think?”

Dad shot her an accusatory look. “The truth? I think it's bunk. I've known John Carlisle since he was a kid. Someone's gold digging.”

Pamela nodded respectfully as if to signal her allegiance. It was obvious what was going on. This was John Carlisle's paper and these were John Carlisle's employees. Dad wasn't going to let anyone break ranks.

There were more questions about when the trial would be (he didn't know), whether he'd be held in jail (he was out on his personal recognizance—no surprise, he played dominoes for quarters with the judges), and when my dad had found out (day before yesterday). I figured he'd already told them who the kid was and the other details before I got there. I'd wait until everyone cleared out to catch up. Dad looked like a candidate for the United States Senate, deftly handling each question and pointing his finger at whomever had the next turn. He spoke with conviction, which was his nature, and he had a good radio voice, an even better television face. Not a perfect face, that would have been boring, but even the minor imperfections were heading in the right direction. The eyelids that weighed down his eyes made him look more intense. The upturn at the end of his nose was playful. The thin scar on the side of his neck suggested a man who'd overcome adversity.

Louise Mead was fidgeting and I had to brace my feet to prevent her from wiggling me off the chair. I knew there had to be a Salem long floating across her frontal lobe as she regretted for the umpteenth time that she'd quit smoking. “Tom,” she said, “what's this going to do for circulation?”

“Let's not pile fear on top of speculation, Louise. I'd rather deal with facts.” Of course, Louise was hardly the one to scold over exactitude. She did want ads, where exaggeration was expected. Everyone in the room knew that Dad was ducking, but they gave him as much room as he wanted.

When he'd taken the last question, he walked over behind his desk. “Come on, we've got a paper to put out.”

There was a release of energy in the room. Every limb that had been cocked suddenly fired. Shoes hit the floor, nylons chafed, people jumped up to shake Dad's hand. Pamela Palmer threw her arms around him as if he'd been the one charged. Affection in front of his employees must have embarrassed Dad because rather than return the embrace he just let his arms dangle at his side. He was glaring straight over her shoulder at me and I could tell he was peeved I'd skipped school, but I was ready to throw his own words back at him. “One of my dreams was to own a business where my kid could learn to work,” he'd told me. “I don't want you to be just another employee. I want to see ink in your veins.”