Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665) (6 page)

Sometimes Bud would go into his mother's stuff. Duke hadn't changed anything since she went away. There was a drawer with a bunch of silky things he liked to look at and put to his nose. But he was disdainful of Rawn's underthings. The big bras and how they made her act. Her body bothered everybody, her most of all.

At twelve she was flat-chested, but as she bloomed, she developed a bad disposition. Stuck-up is what Bud called it. He wasn't sure if it was an act or not. She knew it was, but it wouldn't let go of her. Rawn was depressed. Depressed enough to kill herself, but decided to hold on to see if she would be a movie star first. She spent lots of time thinking about being famous, but everything that made it feasible she resented. She wanted people to look at what she had, but hated it when they did. And when they didn't. Bud was comfortable in his own skin, and she envied him for it.

They watched each other without the other knowing.

He watched her primp and she watched him conjure. Bud had the power to make people feel good or make them feel bad. He didn't mean to, it just happened. And mostly with Rawn. They didn't get along, but no one understood them better than they understood each other. Bud could say that stick looks like a gun and she would see it in a second. But Bud couldn't be trusted. If he could use it, whatever it was, especially a secret, he would. Rawn knew she couldn't trust him, but she wanted him to love her too much not to tell him. He wanted to know what McMurray showed her when she went into his workshop.

She said every time it was the same. He would pull down the shade, get out the box. What box? The box he wants me to smell. He would take off the lid and put it under her nose. Rawn would hold her breath and pretend to. What was in it? demanded Bud. Shit, Rawn said. You see it? No! she said. You don't have to.

McMurray was weirder than he thought. Funnier too. Rawn acted disgusted, but it made both of them laugh. That night, in their bedroom, Bud needed to hear it again. He wanted more, wanted to know why McMurray did it. Rawn didn't care why, she didn't like being questioned and told him so, told him to go to sleep.

But he pressed it. She told him to shut up. Bud told her that her tits were too big. She almost hit him, but came up with something better. The reason their mother left was because she couldn't stand being the mom of a smelly little savage like him and she was never coming back.

One thing Rawn wasn't was a snitch. Bud was. Not an outright tattletale; he was slyer than that. But nobody ever believed him. Everybody believed Rawn. He would get even by making her feel worthless, bring her low self-esteem lower.
She was the smeller of the box.
His plan was to expose not only her, but throw McMurray in as well. And that's what he would have done, if the war with the Germans hadn't of ended.

Before Duke told him the news, he saw it out front, in the street. The traffic stopped, drivers honking, some out of their cars, yelling and hugging each other.

Bud wanted to know if all the Nazis were killed. Duke said they were pretty much done for. Told Bud not to worry, before he grew up there would be a new war. In the meantime he could be a cowboy and kill Indians. Bud didn't wanna be a cowboy. The other war, the one with the Japanese, was still on. It was even closer. All he would need is a good rowboat. Bud knew he was being made fun of, but it was okay. He knew Duke, in his funny Duke way, was trying to make him feel better. Then be an Indian and kill cowboys, he said. Bud didn't want to talk anymore.

The next day, things got better. Three blocks up the street was Theo's Sports Shop. Bud liked going there; smell the guns, look at the knives, the bamboo fishing poles. But what he never looked at before was the hunting bow. Lemonwood, Theo said. The first costly thing Bud had ever needed, and he knew it was out of the question. No way he could ever ask for that much money. Either he would have to steal it or steal the money to buy it. Or just wait and will it to come to him. But he can't. He wants it now.

That night, after everyone is asleep, he sneaks into Duke's wallet. There's enough money in it for the bow and arrows. But to steal from Duke was the act of a scoundrel. So he just took a dollar and went back to bed.

When he wakes up, before he knows anything, before he even remembers the bow, he remembers something he forgot he knew. The money Rawn has been saving from every Christmas and birthday she ever had is hidden under the paper that covers the bottom drawer of her dresser in the White House.

It was a real hunting weapon, and there were two steel-tipped arrows with black fletchings that went with it. Unstrung, the bow was almost as tall as Bud. Twenty-six dollars. Bud had twenty-nine and change. Theo folded his arms. He had never sold anything like this to a kid. It was like a gun, except you didn't need a permit.

What are you gonna do with this?

Give it to my uncle when he gets back from the war. He's a colonel.

A colonel?

The one just before a colonel.

A major.

Yeah. He wants to go to the mountains and hunt like the Indians, is what he said. My grandmother gave me this. He pushes the money forward . . . So I could get it for him.

There was something wrong, but Theo wasn't sure what it was. Then he decided there wasn't.

Bud wanted to run, but knew it would look suspicious, so he walked fast. By the time he got to the alley, he was goose-stepping. Then he ran. Went into his yard through the back gate.

He didn't know where anybody was. Who was in or out of the house. He held his breath, listened. All he can hear is the occasional passing of cars out front. Ruthless is what he would be. An archer. Except he can't string the bow; the wood is stronger than he is. He tries to bend it, but he needs help. Not McMurray, he didn't want him in on this, and his sister was out of the question. So was Duke. Mr. George could do it. Bud stashes his two arrows and, fast as he can, walks to the gas station.

A bright warm day, Bud is in a sweat by the time he gets there. There's traffic on the street, but no cars at the pumps and nobody in the little office. He hears an engine running in the garage. Bud smells exhaust and the oily coolness of the cement floor as he peers through the entrance. But it's dim, takes a moment for his eyes to adjust.

He's never seen Mr. George on a motorcycle. He's sitting on it with the engine running, reading a newspaper. Bud comes closer, isn't sure how to proceed. He holds the bow out, its loose string dangling. Mr. George looks up. Bud standing there holding out the bow to him. Mr. George lays the newspaper across the gas tank, kills the engine, and without dismounting, takes it. This is a good bow you got. He holds it up, assessing the thing, and with an approving nod hands it back. Bud doesn't take it.

Could you make it work?

You want me to string it?

Bud's face is a mask, but his eyes are gleaming.

He watches Mr. George wedge the bottom end of the bow against his foot so he can bend it at the top, pull it down, and notch the string.

What you gonna do with this?

Put it on my wall.

Bud gets a pat on the shoulder and Mr. George watches him leave. Feeling better than he did before he strung the bow, Mr. George takes his paper and goes outside.

To test one of the arrows Bud sticks the point of it into the fence separating his yard from the Georges'. It's so sharp it easily penetrates the wood, and Bud is mighty pleased. Robin Hood accurate is what he wants to be, but lacks a target. He peeks over the fence. Lucky for Taco he is not in the yard. He spots Roy, but shooting a turtle is stupid. Might as well shoot one of the dwarfs. He considers it. He's not sure what he should do, but knows he better do it now. To shoot an arrow as high as he can into the sky is what he decides.

Bud touches the tip of his tongue to the fletchings for luck, then notches the arrow. Feet planted, knees slightly bent, his right hand draws the string back far as he can. He lets it fly. It goes ten feet, flounces on the lawn. Disgusted, he grabs it off the grass. Slots it again, with a tighter grip, draws it back, aiming above the roof of the house. Lets it go. The arrow sails over.

Thrilled, he slots his final arrow and, with more confidence, rocks back, face to the sky. Punches his bow hand out as far as he can, pulls back the string to his shoulder, and lets go. The snap of it bites his fingers; he flinches and grins, bent over squeezing his hand between his thighs, looking up, unsure if it cleared the roof, but he's not going around front to find out. He is done.

Bud tries to break the bow across his knee and is hurt a second time. Leverage is what he needs. A tool, something that will snap it in two to make it easier to get rid of.

One of the garage doors is slightly open. He's looking at the crack of space where the door is hinged to the wall.

He inserts half the bow into the opening, then grips the protruding part with both hands and pushes forward until it snaps.

Bud takes a spade from the garage and goes up the alley to dig a hole. The ground is hard, it's not easy. He thinks about saving the string, but buries that too.

Next to a garbage can he tucks the leftover money, three dollars and forty-two cents, into a pile of sand spiked with cat turds.

Rid of the incriminating evidence, but not free of the crime, Bud waits for the hammer to fall. But it doesn't; nobody says a thing. To cover himself, he considers telling Rawn he saw a tramp snooping over the back fence looking at her playhouse. He gives thought to becoming a better kid. Maybe one night he'll help her with the dishes. But never in his life will he regret getting rid of the bow and the money he buried. But never will he take an interest in archery either. The day after it happened he searches around in front of the house and scans the street. There were no arrows anywhere. It made him nervous to think what they might have stuck in.

He didn't hear any horns honking when the bomb was dropped on Japan. He heard it on the radio first and decides to have a look, take a walk up the street to see if anything has changed. Miss McMurray is out in front of her house watering. Her lawn is well kept, unlike theirs—Duke didn't care about the grass. She was tall and skinny like Mr. McMurray, but didn't smoke or smile.

She is vacant-looking, but vigilant; her body makes him think of a grasshopper. If he came too close, she might hop up and flutter away. He has never once talked to her, but for a while now he's been wanting to ask her about those giant lizards.

She stiffens as he comes closer. Certainly she knows he's there, but won't look at him. He feels embarrassed, closed out, and after a moment starts to walk away. Before he's taken three steps, he stops. She just asked a question. He turns to look at her. She's standing there with the hose piddling water, mouth open, her teeth small and yellow, her little eyes averted. He says, Pardon? She repeats the question. Her voice soft and harsh, like her brother's. Will he be a doctor like his father when he grows up?

This is a question other adults have asked. First he will be a football player, then join the Navy, and after that he'll be a doctor, is what he usually says. But now, he can't think of what to say. He's never seen her talk to anyone before. Except once. To his mother. It was soon after they moved in. From the porch he saw the two of them in the yard; Miss McMurray was watering again. His mother standing away from the grass, on the sidewalk, in white high heels and a black and white dress. And his mother threw back her head and laughed. He wants to know what it was that made his mother laugh.

But instead, he hears himself ask about the giant lizards and how it is they control the world. The universe, she corrects. Did my brother tell you that? Bud says that he did. Now she is looking at him and Bud feels the soggy wet grass penetrating his shoes. Almost in a whisper, Miss McMurray says that two twelve-foot lizards controlling the universe was not her idea, and turns away.

T
he house sits on an uneven acre, eighty yards from the road, forty from the creek, and twenty from the tree. Rat Hall was built a hundred years ago. Jack has seen a hand-painted photo of the place dated 1891. The giant sycamore in front, exactly the same. There is an owl that lives in that tree. Crows and red-tailed hawks in the day. A lizard or two on the patio usually. Coyotes, squirrels, and occasional snakes to be seen. All this a half hour from a freeway that can take you wherever you might want to be in the city of Los Angeles. Jack never locks the door.

Rat Hall is in ruin. One day it will either be torn down or made over, but Jack likes it as it is. The living room is full of windows, but not much light. Knotted vines of wisteria obscure the glass. There are holes in the floor, in the ceiling, and spots on the walls where lathing shows through. The scent of Rat Hall is cool like mortar, a blend of wood and the dank fragrance of the old fireplace, occasionally the sweet whiff of desiccated rat down from the attic. He bought the house two years ago with the patrimony from his father's death. A suicide.

In the bedroom there is a crack in the linoleum. With a flashlight, Jack can see the dirt of the earth below. He likes to feel like the house, himself, and the ground beneath are all of a piece. But still, he doesn't like thinking about what might come out of that crack while he sleeps. He's had a bunk built five feet above the floor to put his mattress on.

There had been a second house up the slope behind Rat Hall. It burned down fifty years ago. Its foundation and a small pile of rotted lumber are all that remain. Jack calls this place the Platform. In spring and summer, naked but for sandals, he climbs the broken stairs to lounge in the sun, do push-ups, a bit of yoga maybe, sometimes with pen and paper, in case he gets an idea.

Except for what the wind does to the leaves of the trees or the scream of a hawk, the distant hum of a car on the road below, Rat Hall is a quiet place. A good place to write. This is what Jack is trying to do, trying to write a book about his father. But for over a year now, no matter how hard he struggles to sort it out, coherency eludes him. But the solitude of this little world suits him, being alone with his music, his books, watching the lizards, free to do what he does within the parameters of his capacities. Also, Jack has a woman. She is thin and tall, long-eyed, with a neck like Nefertiti. Stewart is severely beautiful, quietly kind, a simple girl really, with an even disposition, and except for an occasional glass of beer, doesn't drink, has never taken drugs. Her Chinese mother was an Anglophile who insisted on using her husband's middle name for her daughter's first. Stewart Pritchard makes money on her looks—she is a model.

On the cover of
Vogue
is where Jack first sees her. A week later, in person. A friend invites him to a gathering that turns into a bash. Stewart arrives in the thick of it, attracts attention. Jack keeps his distance, but through the shifting din of heads and shoulders, their eyes meet. It lasts five seconds. Stewart is first to turn away. Next time she looks, he's gone. This is something he is good at. But before he leaves, Jack gets her number from the host. The following day she is surprised and glad to hear from him.

And the day after that they go to dinner. He brings her back to Rat Hall. Not something he usually does with strangers. But they don't feel like strangers. Sitting next to him on the balding velvet cushions of his couch, she looks around. Except for a little blue landscape tacked on the wall, the living room feels like a place for a tramp or a ghost, something abandoned. It frightens her a bit, but not the man. Stewart is intrigued with Jack, feels he understands her, feels herself at home in his eyes.

He asks if he can see more of her, all of her. It takes her a moment to understand what he means. She stands, watches him watch her take off all her clothes. Sit down over there, he says. Wonderfully nervous, she sits on a single straight chair. Quietly, almost reverently, he asks her to spread her legs.

You are the dream, he tells her, half Venus, half housewife. It is true. She radiates loyalty. Jack goes to her on his knees. He lips her lips above and below. Inside her, he whispers she is the loveliest place he will ever be. So simple how he says these things. That he could live in her beauty forever and that he can't and that he will, at least he will try. Never has Stewart been as happy with a man. Jack tells her she is the one since childhood that has beckoned him.

Stewart buys a sprawling ranch house up the road. She loves the canyon, but Jack knows she wouldn't have done it if he didn't live there. After a year, he realizes she is not as simple as he thought. She is on antidepressants. He never asks about the bite marks on her hands. He doesn't want to know. He knows enough. She wants to keep something to herself, but it is hard. She has to tell him everything. A mistake. Jack doesn't like the likely, the probable; only the impossible could be perfect.

Stewart senses his disappointment and tries to please him, and the more she does, the more disappointed he becomes. He begins to see evidence of something he thinks of as small-heartedness. A lack of wit. She used to laugh at the tricks he played with words, but she no longer inspires him. Her last job, or the story of her day, has ceased to interest him. They make love accordingly. He has become a ruffian in bed. The authority of his sex is as much as she can get, so she takes it and participates voluptuously.

Only once did she become outwardly angry with him. At a birthday party for her agent, Jack told the man's wife she shouldn't have fixed her nose, that a large one was better than a ruined one. Afterwards Stewart accused him of arrogance and insensitivity. Jack argued his case, had to have the last word, and ended it with a laugh. She never got angry with him again—not the kind that spilled itself. Jack tried once in a while to provoke her, so he could give her the benefit of the doubt, redeem himself, but she never again gave him the chance.

One night over dinner he suggests they should see other people. He isn't thinking of himself, he says, but she knows what it means. It means he is tired of her. There is a photographer who has been calling, who doesn't stop asking her to dinner. Peter Ryles, a South African, famous for shooting retired dictators, thirty-foot crocs, and the world's most beautiful women. He is in Beverly Hills for a week doing movie stars. Jack encourages her to accept the invitation, tells her he needs time alone to reflect on his father. The book, she says. That's it. Jack is once more a free man, unburdened from the duties of love.

He keeps a hatchet sunk in a stump next to the fireplace that sometimes he takes up to the Platform to throw at a tree. He's never gotten it to stick, but it's exhilarating to try. He is up there hurtling it when he sees the snake. It's at least five feet long and black as licorice.

Exposed, but easy in its own display, the old rattler is making its way across the Platform. Jack comes closer. The snake hesitates an instant, then continues. Jack baby-steps alongside it to the edge of the Platform. The snake slides off the concrete into the dry yellow grass and disappears under a stone beneath the pile of rotting lumber.

He could have cut its head off with his hatchet. The snake could have coiled and bit him in the ankle. Instead it has slithered into a hole, but not completely. It has left about a foot of its tail exposed. Jack counts the rattles. Eight. He waits for it to disappear; it doesn't happen. With an index finger, Jack touches it. The silk of its ebony skin, like the smooth coolness of a gem. But alive.

Suddenly, without a thought, he pulls the snake back out into the light. It whips around, lifting its head to strike, but Jack has stepped back out of range, rubbing his hand as if he'd been bitten. Coiled, but not rattling, the snake waits to see what will happen. Jack thinks about the rats in his attic and wishes he could give it one. He is inspired. You are one hell of a decent snake, Blacky. A snake of distinction. Blacky slowly uncoils, slides back to his hole. Jack knows something important has happened. The oak rattles. Jack looks up at the flickering leaves. He almost weeps.

On the floor, under the space of his elevated bed, he keeps a pomander of cloves Stewart had made and given him to keep snakes away, an old Chinese custom. But after his run-in with Blacky, he tosses it in the creek. It's more than simple fondness; he feels like Blacky is a harbinger of good things to come, the thrill of a riddle come to visit him. Blacky had been courteous for a reason.

Even though they haven't talked in three days, Stewart is still his closest friend, the one he needs most to tell his story to. He leaves a message for her to call him back. By nightfall she still hasn't. By midnight he stops leaving messages, at four a.m. he stops calling.

She once said she would do anything for him, loved him so much she would even have sex with another man if he asked her to. But did she love him so much that she
wouldn't
? The night is hard passing. At nine a.m. he brings the phone to bed but is afraid to use it. He will wait until noon. Just before twelve it rings. He hears the difference in her voice. Jack tries for nonchalance. Did she just get home? Stewart never lies. Did she spend the night with Peter Ryles? She did. That was fast. Yes, it surprised her too. Did she have an orgasm? Three. There is nothing to be done. She is sorry. Jack wants to see her. She has to get some sleep. Dinner? She's promised to have dinner with Peter. He is only in town a few more days. She is sorry. Jack needs so much more than that, he needs to see her. Stewart needs to sleep; she has a fitting at the end of the day. She hears an imploded sob. She waits. Jack? He throws the phone against the wall. It breaks. He tries to find the old phone. A little voice at the bottom of him says, As soon as you get her back—if you can—as soon as you do, you know you won't want her. But that voice doesn't stand a chance. He finds the old phone under some shoes and calls her back.

In the next three days she will visit him twice. He will go to her place twice. But she won't make love to him. He will beg her to tell him she is in love with Peter and no longer in love with him. If she will just say it, he promises to leave her alone. But she won't say it. She says she's confused.

Feeling okay, doing well, things running smoothly, could never keep Jack's attention, but this trauma has legs. Howling at the moon resonates in the myth of himself. Stewart is decent, patient, and guilty, but knows better than to say yes when he asks her to marry him. She thinks it best they don't see each other for a while. He wants specifics. She wants time. Tomorrow is time. He calls her. She says something about too little too late, but gets it wrong. He is angered on both counts, but mostly it's the cliché that pisses him off. He has the sense to keep quiet, bide his time, endure another day.

Jack comes up for air. First time in a week he stands naked on the Platform. Stomach in, chest forward, spine straight. The Tadasana position. He contemplates the word. Pictures the line over each of the
a
's, the dot under the
d
. Maybe he is wrong and this is the pose known as Vrksasana. Meaning erect like a mountain. He isn't sure. At least he's trying. He thinks about making juice, maybe going down to the beach. Right then, on the road below, he sees her car flash by, returning from another night with Peter Ryles.

Jack has had it. No place to turn except to her, and she is gone. He lifts his arms to the sky and sputters, Please let me die! Then collapses on the hot concrete and says it again. He hears the hum of the bees and doesn't care. The rasp of the oak leaves in the breeze and doesn't care. He wants death, so badly wants it he thinks maybe it has already happened.

He can't hear the bees anymore. The world has closed. But he hears something. Light as a finger running its tip along a length of silk, and it's coming closer. Jack turns his head, opens his eyes. It's a foot away, coming at his face. In a flash Jack is on his feet. His sudden rising causing the snake to coil. It's Blacky! He begged for death, death came, about to crawl under the hollow of his neck. If he hadn't heard it, he would have been struck. He stands staring down at the dark embodiment of his wish. Without so much as a rattle, Blacky unspools and slides past the man to the place he was headed, the little hole in the shade under the rotting lumber. This is where Blacky lives, thinks Jack. I was lying at the serpent's door.

Jack the fatalist believes life to be random. Turn right, you get hit by a bus. Turn left, you get laid. He called for death, death came. But he was saved. The ocean is twelve miles distant. Jack is almost two thousand feet above sea level, but suddenly he can smell its tang. Blacky has been a benediction. Jack can have what he wants, or not have it; either way, he is himself again. Stewart can hear the difference in his voice, adores the story about him and the snake. A week later they are making love again. She will marry him.

Jack has just taken her to the airport. A job in Trieste. She will be gone a week. He is relieved. He will have to address this marriage thing when she returns. He doesn't want to believe it couldn't be anybody, but knows it can't be her. For one thing she wants children. The idea of harvesting an infant in Rat Hall makes him laugh. He walks into the cool dim of the front room and abruptly stops. Blacky is stretched out on the floor in front of his bedroom door.

Thrilled, the welcoming host goes into the kitchen, pours a splash of milk into a saucer, brings it back, places it on the floor three inches from Blacky's incredible head. The thin black tongue slips in and out, reading the offering. But Blacky doesn't move; neither does Jack. It occurs to him that Blacky has come to stay.

Have you heard? Jack has a new pet. Stewart will tell all her pretty friends that her fiancé has a pet snake. Not a fashionable python, but a mean, highly venomous, five-foot rattler is what he's got, and he feeds it by hand.

Now Jack wants to lie on his bed, contemplate the wonder of what has happened. He knows true faith will not suffer doubt. If he is to step over Blacky, it must be done in absolute compliance with the conviction that Blacky will not strike. Slowly, Jack slips off his clothes, inhales and exhales a lungful of
prana
to integrate his
kundalini
. He pictures the painting by Edward Hicks, of man and woman, lion and lamb, and all the green world in passive accord,
The Peaceable Kingdom
. Then, with his eyes closed, he steps over the snake and into his bedroom.