Authors: Paul Griffin
Stay with Me (32 page)
“I feel real bad for her, Céce. I bet she isn’t even alive anymore. And I still can’t help loving her like crazy. Thanking her for a couple of sweet memories. How she taught me the way of dogs.” I’m lying back on the sleeping bag, but inside I feel myself falling over.
“I’ll never leave you,” Céce says. And the way she holds me, I believe her. How she quiets the static as I’m rolling into her, her arms crossing my back.
“Why, sweetheart?” Mrs. Carmella says. “Why wouldn’t you come into the house?”
“I’m here now, ma’am.”
I have Boo too, leaning into my thigh and shuddering me with his tail wagging. Big old dopey head cocked and that slack tongue.
“Son?” Wash says. “I’m afraid it’s time to go.”
We hear the upstairs door swing in hard. Her feet pound across the floor overhead on a fast run, down the stairs.
My heart is running so full I feel it in my eyes, the lids twitching, the light dialing up, everything turning hot gold. I turn to the stairs and fight the shackles to hold out my arms for her.
Mister Vic almost runs me down.
“You’re a dead man,” Mrs. Carmella says.
“Could you pick up your goddamn phone?” Vic says.
“Could you check your voicemail?”
“This is Vic?” Wash says.
“This is Vic,” the other guard says, coming downstairs.
“I called you like sixty times from the cop’s phone,” Vic says. “Oil tanker jackknifed on the interstate. Half-milelong fire. The Vic-mobile is no more. Consumed in the swell of angry traffic. The engine simply died in a hideous puff of smoke. In my blindness, I coasted into a little fender bender with this Mercedes SUV, no damage to the fancier vehicle, mind you,
nil
. Okay, perhaps a mere nick to the rear bumper, yet the driver has to be a spaz, everything must be
documented
. No faith in humanity, this driver. Waiting two hours for a tow truck, missing out on the playing out of my machinations. It has been an afternoon, I must say. My phone, my car, everything’s breaking down. I couldn’t even flag a fake cab to pick me up.”
nil
. Okay, perhaps a mere nick to the rear bumper, yet the driver has to be a spaz, everything must be
documented
. No faith in humanity, this driver. Waiting two hours for a tow truck, missing out on the playing out of my machinations. It has been an afternoon, I must say. My phone, my car, everything’s breaking down. I couldn’t even flag a fake cab to pick me up.”
“Have you seen yourself, you sweaty mess?” Mrs. Carmella says. “Your comb-over isn’t combed over. You look like you ran out of the barbershop halfway through the haircut. You look crazy.”
“I am crazy. Howyas doin’?”
“We’re hangin’ in. I don’t know whether I want to kick you or kiss you, Victor.”
“Ey, I know what I know. Will you look at this dog! Where the hell is Céce?”
(Saturday, September 12, 1:58pm)
CÉCE:
The highway traffic is spilling into the side streets. I reach over the seat, slap my money into the driver’s hand, and I jump out the door. The driver screams I gave him too much. I run down the main drag, past the CVS, past where we saw our first satellite together, along the route we used to walk Boo. People think I’m insane, sprinting in one Croc. I lost the other when I jumped out of the cab because the strap on that one never stayed up.
Turning the corner to my street.
Down the block: a green van in the driveway. Backing out.
I scream for them to wait, but they don’t hear me. Don’t see me. They’re pulling away, toward the traffic light, turning yellow. The van speeds up to make the light and then stops as the light turns red.
I’m screaming his name. Screaming
please
. Screaming
wait
. Stay. I’m close. The light turns green. The van turns. I’m too breathless to scream now, but I’m going to catch up to the van. Fifty feet and gaining. I kick a crack in the sidewalk and trip just like I did that first night he walked me home. Except this time he isn’t here to catch me. To keep me from skidding over the pebbly concrete, skinning my hands and knees.
please
. Screaming
wait
. Stay. I’m close. The light turns green. The van turns. I’m too breathless to scream now, but I’m going to catch up to the van. Fifty feet and gaining. I kick a crack in the sidewalk and trip just like I did that first night he walked me home. Except this time he isn’t here to catch me. To keep me from skidding over the pebbly concrete, skinning my hands and knees.
The van accelerates through loosening traffic, toward the west side freeway, until it turns another corner, out of sight.
I wasn’t even going to tell him I love him. I know he doesn’t want to hear it. All I wanted to do was say good-bye.
(Saturday, September 12, 2:05pm)
MACK:
Mrs. Carmella gave me a hat she knitted. It’s pink and yellow stripes. Maybe I’ll give it to one of the lady guards. But for now, I pull it low over my eyes to block out the world on the way back. Wash doesn’t bother with the hood. I know where I was, where I am. I don’t think about where I’m going.
Tell you what, I’m shot. Boo’s shot too, belly up and snoring in my lap.
I just don’t know. Tony. Why did he do that? What is he going to do now? Boo feels me sinking, and he wakes and wags me through the feeling. The feeling like the good guy can’t win.
I keep going back and forth. My brain knows this is the way it has to be, with Céce and me. That she was right to run. But my heart knows that’s all wrong. That even if the price of one last kiss with her was Wash having to shoot me, it would’ve been worth it.
I wonder if it’s possible to forget her. To forget that night we were at the shore, watching that old couple hunt for treasure they must have known wasn’t there. Here I’m fifteen already, and I don’t know a damned anything. I just don’t know.
Halfway into the ride back, Wash tells the driver to pull over there for a minute. He comes back fifteen minutes later with a pizza box.
The van turns gentle here then there and eases me into a nice, halfway sleep. Must be twenty minutes later, Wash has the driver pull over a second time. The engine cuts out. I lift the hat off my eyes.
We’re at the waterside, in the visitor parking lot ahead of the jail’s checkpoint trailer and the guard tower. The parking lot is full of folks sleeping in cars, waiting for visiting hours to start up again tonight. Lots of folks waiting for the bus, ladies mostly. The parking lot is dirty, pint bottles, spent rubbers. Fast-food wrappers tumbleweed.
The driver checks my shackles and helps me down the rocks to the water. Wash leads Boo. We settle on a flat rock. Wash’s radio starts up. He clicks it off. He opens the pizza box. Pineapple pizza, man.
Wash shrugs, hands out slices. I pull off some cheese, give it to Boo. And here we are: three dudes and a dog, eating pineapple pizza. Tell you what? It is
good
.
good
.
THE NINETY-EIGHTH DAY . . .
(Thursday, September 17, afternoon)
CÉCE:
Anthony comes home in a rainstorm. Vic and me go to the airport to pick him up. The accordion tunnel reaches out to the plane.
“Dazzling feeling, fear,” Vic says.
“What?” I say.
Vic shrugs.
The guys start coming off the plane. Tears, laughing, kissing, but no Anthony. Down the tunnel is this guy in a wheelchair. He’s turned away from us, talking to the pilot. He shakes the pilot’s hand. I can read the pilot’s lips, I think. “What’s he saying? ‘Thank you for your service’?”
“Sacrifice,” Vic says. ‘Thank you for your sacrifice.’ ”
The wheelchair spins around, and there’s that smile. He rolls fast at us. I scream and laugh his name, everybody laughs. I practically knock him out of his chair when I hug him.
“Welcome home, kid,” Vic says.
I pretend I’m thrilled, and I am, but more I’m in shock. Again and again I watched that video he sent, so I would be ready. But now, here, Anthony in the flesh, I can really see it: He’s a mess. The burns on his face aren’t
minor
. The stumps where his fingers were. He’s in a wheelchair, and he’s never getting out of it. His legs are gone.
minor
. The stumps where his fingers were. He’s in a wheelchair, and he’s never getting out of it. His legs are gone.
Ma waits at the door. It’s dark in the vestibule but I can see her by the dull glow of her teeth as we’re heading up the driveway. She’s leaning against the door frame. Anthony coughs out, “Yo.”
“Yo,” she says.
My brother wheelies up the ramp. The two of them are out on the porch. Each says the other looks great. I’ve never seen Ma this happy, and I wonder if she’s like me, pretending.
“So tell me about this dog,” Anthony says.
She does. “. . . and then Boo pees right into it, I swear.”
Anthony rasps a hoot. “Mack Morse, man. Love that kid.”
He does a backward wheelie into his room, and we laugh. Ma yells at him to be careful.
I go to the backyard to cut some tomatoes for dinner. On my way back up the ramp to the kitchen, I hear murmuring from the basement. I look through the window.
He’s on the floor. He fell out of his chair as he was taking off his shirt—one sleeve is still on. He talks softly to himself. His head is down. He sits himself up on the floor, leaning himself against the bed. He wipes his eyes and catches his breath and pulls himself onto the bed and into a clean T-shirt.
(Three days later, Sunday, September 20, night of the hundred and first day . . . )
He’s coming tomorrow night, the new dog.
The new Boo.
After the green van disappeared that day, I limped up the block, my toe bleeding, to where I threw the stickpin. Of course it was still there in the curb sand, because at that point it was nothing more than soft grimy metal and cracked glue where the fake jewels used to be.
I carefully wrap it in tissue paper and put it away in the shoebox in the back of my closet where I keep all my really special stuff like old pictures I don’t look at anymore. I tuck it next to the letter he sent the day after he and the dog came to the house. I take the letter out for one last read:
Dear Céce,Just so you don’t think I got smart all of a sudden in here, I’m dictating this to my friend Wash. I wanted to tell you what I think you already know: that I never meant those things I said the day you came to visit me. The day I pushed you away. I think you know I meant the exact opposite of what I said. That instead of pushing you off, all I wanted to do was hold you. I know you are going to take great care of Boo. He’s going to be great to you too. He’s a Boo, all right. He’s a treasure like she was. Céce, you and the Boos are with me until I die, okay? I’ll never forget you. You are going to be awesome, in your life, I mean. Your future. When I think of you living a beautiful life, I’m happy. All I have to do is close my eyes, and I’m with you, and I’m free. Good-bye, Céce. Thank you for being my friend. Sincerely yours, Mack Morse
And then, at the bottom, he handwrote:
I koodint this say inin frun t uv Wahsh,
but I wil yoo luv youyoo aw-ll ways.
I fold the letter and tuck it into the box. I put the lid on the box and wrap tape around it and put it away for good.
THE HUNDRED & SECOND DAY . . .
(Monday, September 21, a clear morning)
MACK:
Me and Boo are spooning in the bed. He’s snoring to shake the world, his bad breath all up in my face, and I can’t let him go. His tail, man. He wags it in his sleep.
They’re taking him to the vet first, to get him all checked out, but he’ll be with them tonight, the Vaccuccias. By about dinnertime, Wash said. His first dinner inside a real home.
I wonder if he’ll remember me. Better he doesn’t. Nothing cuts you worse than a slow fade. I wake him up, and he strips my foot of its sock and gets me to chase him. We go out to the rooftop. The sky’s clean blue on the other side of the cage. We play Frisbee wrestling till Thompkins and Wash show with Thompkins’s assistant, the nice woman who came that first day. I put on my tough face and clip the leash to Boo’s harness. I point to the door. “Go on now, Boo.
Go
.”
Go
.”
Boo cocks his head, gives his paw.
I tell him again, and he gives me his other paw, and then I remember, I never taught him that command, go. I make my face hard.
“Git.”
“Git.”
Boo cocks his head.
Thompkins’s assistant takes the leash, gives it a gentle tug. Boo looks over his shoulder at me while the assistant leads him out. When the dog hits the door he trots off, tail whirling. He doesn’t look back.
Thompkins hurries out after the assistant. Wash hangs back for a sec. “You all right?” he says.
“Psh, yeah, man. This ain’t nothing. I’m cool.”
“You want me to get you a nice cold Sprite?”
“Nah, thanks, I’m not so thirsty, Wash.”
Wash nods and follows after Thompkins.
I wait till I hear the barred door crank shut, and everything is quiet. I slump down the wall and cop a squat in the corner, and I can’t think of anything to do but hurt.
That nervous guard peeks in. “Morse?”
Other books
A Death in Wichita by Stephen Singular
Who Was Steve Jobs? by Pam Pollack, Meg Belviso
Return to Eden by Ching, G.P.
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin
Amen Corner by Rick Shefchik
Disenchanted by Raven, C L
Dexter (Mistress & Master of Restraint) by Chilson, Erica
Give Up the Body by Louis Trimble
He Claims Me by Cynthia Sax
