Authors: Paul Griffin

Stay with Me (33 page)

BOOK: Stay with Me

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“Uh-huh?”

“You got a visitor.”

LATE MORNING OF THE LAST DAY...

CÉCE
:

He looks terrible. He looks beautiful. His hair is longer still. He sits at the table. He keeps his hands on the tabletop, kind of toward me, to let me take them in mine if I want, but I keep my hands under the table. I can’t touch him. Not yet. I’ll crumble if I do. His eyes drop to my chest, to where the stickpin used to be. “Guards made you take it off, huh?”

“It was off before I came.”

He nods and he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t. And then he clears his throat and fakes a smile and says, “I’m real happy to see you, Céce,” as he puts his hands under the table.

“I knew he was leaving you today,” I say. “The dog. Boo, I mean. I thought you could use a little comforting.”

“Nah, I’m all right,” he says. “I mean, I’m glad you came. Thank you for taking him.”

“He’ll be delivered to the house around dinnertime.”

“I heard.”

“Anything special I should keep in mind? About his food, I mean?”

“That dog’ll eat any damned thing. Just no ch—”

“Chocolate or raisins, I know, you told me how many times.”

“Or grapes.”

“Mack?”

“Yup?”

“Thank you. For Boo, I mean.”

He nods, and in a blink his eyes are wet, and he has to look away, and I can’t kill him like this anymore. I have to tell him what I need to tell him, and then I have to force myself to go. I take his hand and pull him close to me and hold him tight, and I whisper it: “I’ll love you too, always.” And then I leave him, and I don’t look back.

The night is weirdly hot, summer’s last bang. With everybody going nuts with their air conditioners, the power goes out, and a blackout shuts down the west side. Vic has to close the Too. He loads up the new Vic-mobile, a totally smashed-in tan van from like 1978, with the perishables and brings them over to the house. We eat as much as we can and play slap cards, but pretty soon it’s too hot to stay inside, and we head out to the porch to wait for them to bring Anthony’s dog. Our dog. With the traffic lights all messed up, Boo arrives late, just after sunset. He runs up the porch steps to us like he has known us forever.

We go up to the reservoir with flashlights like we used to do when we were kids whenever they had those rolling brownouts. The clouds are blowing off and the breeze starts up. Ma pushes Anthony’s chair, and Boo walks alongside perfectly, slightly behind the chair. My brother hasn’t stopped grinning since they dropped off the dog. He says “Boo,” and Boo swings around the wheelchair and leans into what’s left of Anthony’s lap. His tail spins and his tongue sticks out of his mouth. When Anthony bends to kiss him, Boo laps at Anthony’s lips.

Vic walks alongside Ma. “Pretty sure I’m gonna get a loan to open a new restaurant,” he says.

“Vic’s Too Too?” Anthony says.

“Tony’s,” Vic says. “I’ll need somebody to manage it. Don’t argue with me about this. I know what I know. You can bring the dog to work with you every day, and we’ll feed him meatballs. We’ll have the fattest pit bull on the west side.”

When they start talking about Mack I fade back a little with Bobby.

Up ahead, they run into two girls Anthony knows from school. The one looks away, pretending to be on her phone, stealing peeks where Anthony’s legs should be. But the other girl has her hand on his shoulder, and they’re laughing, and I think she might be crushing on him. Boo goes belly up for scratching and does his wiggle worm thing, and this
third
girl comes over. “Oh my god, he’s so cute. Can I pet him?”

“You’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t,” Anthony says.

“Dog is a total chick magnet,” Bobby says. “Céce, have you ever considered that there weren’t any dogs in
The Outsiders,
at least none featured prominently?”

“Actually, Bobby, I have not.”

“This might be the movie’s only flaw. If there
had
been a dog, perhaps one owned by Dallas Winston, I wonder if the outcome would have been less horrific, particularly for Matt Dillon.”

“Hm,” I say to be polite.

Far off, a section of the city lights up. My phone beeps with a text from AT&T, one they better not charge me for. Did I know I could pay my bill anytime online by going to att.com?

I was hoping it was Marcy. I reached out to her with a Facebook post last week and then again yesterday. I haven’t heard back, but I’ll keep trying.

This is a nice spot here, this reservoir. This part of the city is still without power, and the stars are insane.

They offer the G and T next month. Maybe I’ll take it again. Maybe I won’t. I’m sure of this though: My gift is that I can take a fair amount of crap and keep going. What else am I gonna do? I’m thinking ESP isn’t real after all, but I still have the strangest feeling. I guess you could call it hope. I hold Bobby’s hand. He looks into my eyes. “Look,” he says, pointing to the sky.

I look up, and I see a satellite.

THE LAST NIGHT . . .

MACK:

The place stinks of diesel with all the backup generators running. I wish they would turn them off and let it be dark, because I bet the stars would look as true as they did the time me and my folks lived at this real cool campsite in west Texas.

I have my brown paper bag packed with my underwears and socks for tomorrow morning, ready to head back to the tent. I heard Blue got transferred, so I figure I’ll be all right for a while. This bed in here was too soft anyways, and I have a backache. Yeah, I’ll be okay.

I lie back on the floor and shut my eyes and picture Boo free, up at the reservoir, the ball fields at night when they can let him run. I bet they have him up there tonight, even. He’s hanging with Carmella and the Tone, and then, when it’s time, Céce leads them all home.

After a while I open my eyes and it’s nothing but the bars over the window. Metal and stone and grime-struck glass.

And Thompkins.

He’s standing tall over me. Arms crossed. Looking down on me.

I sit up and make my face tough. I’d stand, but my legs are boneless. It’s hard not to hear her saying those words over and over in my mind, words that will stay with me and make the hurt permanent,
I’ll love you too, always.
I needed to hear them, but it’s a blessed curse owning them now. Treasure keeping is the longest haul.

“The dog was delivered to the family,” Thompkins says. “All appeared to be going quite well when I left.”

I nod. “Real happy to hear that, sir. Thank you for coming in to tell me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Indeed.” He sits next to me on the floor, our backs against the wall. I notice, him close to me, he isn’t hiding his hand anymore. He’s got a faded, home-inked gang tattoo between his thumb and index finger, the kind burnt into a man with a Bic and a flick in the joint. “Not for nothin’, you did a beautiful thing,” Thompkins says.

“Not for nothin’ back, I appreciate y’all giving me the chance.”

“Your work will help a young man transition to his new reality with a little more ease. Mack?”

“Yessir?”

“You have a gift.”

Wash is watching from the door. His eyebrows are up, and I guess mine are too.

Thompkins nods, just once, gets back to the tough old Thompkins face. “Mister
Morse
.”

“Mister Thompkins.”

“I have brought someone with me who is most interested in the program. You would help us a great deal if you would share your experience with her.”

“Yessir. I won’t fight you with the interviews anymore. I would like to do anything to help the program.”

Thompkins nods to Wash. Wash looks out the door and nods, and a few seconds later the assistant lady brings in one crazy-looking pit bull. She’s got these bugged eyes. Snout is crooked to the left. Lamed leg, probably car-struck, healed wrong. But it doesn’t slow her down much. This dog is jumping wild.

“No downtime on this job,” Thompkins says.

“Last thing I need is downtime, Mister T.”

The dog drops belly up into my lap. Another basketball head, but this time on a skinny little body. “You’re kind of runty, huh?” I nod to Wash and Thompkins. “I like this dog, man. She’s a cupcake.” Wiggling all over. She’s got a bent rattail, beats the dust from the floor with it. Coats my face with slobber. I’m hearing a sound that surprises me. I haven’t heard it come in this clear for as long as I can remember. I hear laughter. Mine.

Wash says, “What’re you going to call this one?”

“Boo.”

This Boo dog is just running circles around me, teasing me to play with her. I say, “Boo, stay.”

Tell you what? She stays.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

(with a disclaimer about dog training, sort of, mixed in)

Thank you to my agent Kirby Kim, who put this fable on the road from dream to print. Thanks too to Shaun Dolan, Nicole Sohl, Ian Dalrymple, and Derek Zasky.

Thank you to my friends at Penguin and Dial, Regina, Jasmin, Lori and Deborah, Liz, Alisha, Jess, Marie, Steve, Scottie, Donne, Mary, Julianne, and Samantha. (Nan, Rob, and Emily, while you’ve moved on, you’re always in my thoughts.) Heather, you went above and beyond, drinking penny-poisoned milk. Lauri, thank you for making time to read and to give such awesome notes. Kathy, draft after draft, your notes excited, heartened and inspired—you are the best. Kate, thank you for the title, your fearlessness and generosity, your laugh, and most of all your notes, every one a thrill. Your compassion and patience are unending, your wisdom and sense of humor infinite.

While working on this story, I received encouragement and friendship from the wonderful writers Scott Smith, Barry Lyga, Sarah Campbell, Jeff Jackson, T. Stores, Jay Kumar, Phil Gwynne, Scot Gardner, Coe Booth, Shawn Coyne, Jack Sussek, Rita Williams-Garcia, and the nicest man in publishing, David Levithan.

Thank you to the librarians, teachers, booksellers, and literacy and human rights advocates that have given me opportunities to connect with their students and readers. I’m particularly grateful to Molly Krichten, Julianne Wernersbach of Book Revue, Lainie Castle and the ALA’s Great Stories Program, Pete and Molly Rosenquist and the Doylestown Bookshop, Richie Partington, James Falletti, Marie Hansen, Debra, Geri, Chrystal, Patricia, Nafisah and the Bloomfield High School Book Club, Angela Carstensen, Judy Card, Ann Branton, Nancy Opalko and the Mississippi Librarians Association, the wonderful folks at Voice of Youth Advocates, Michael Dodes and the Samuel Gompers staff, the International Reading Association’s Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group, Anne Lotito Schuh and the Crossroads family, Jessica, Ma’lis and Literacy For Incarcerated Teens, the Texas Library Association, Penny, Michael, Anne, Bridie and Team Text, Jo, Chris, Micaela and Behind The Book, the Junior Library Guild, the Chicago Public Library’s Great Kids Initiative, the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, Mark, Jack and Follett Library Resources, the Kentucky Reading Association, the Amelia Bloomer Project and the Feminist Task Force of the ALA’s Social Responsibilities Round Table, the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance and Human Dignity, the Georgia Library Media Association, Becky and the Anderson’s Bookstores team, and, most especially, the glorious Sheila Hennessey, guardian angel, moon-hanger, and guiding star.

By the way, if you’re thinking about adopting a pit bull, you’re in luck: Every year more than a million pits go into shelters, so you’ll have your pick. But do your research. Pits need a ton of exercise, mental stimulation, and socialization. If you can afford the time, you’ll never have a better friend. Much of Mack’s training methodology is mine (including “spot-peeing”), but there are so many different and great ways to work with dogs. Read every training book your library can get you, DVR the dog shows, talk to trainers and dog owners, check to see if your local shelter or rescue group offers free classes, and I suspect you’ll end up borrowing a little from here, a little from there. My experience has been that every dog is a special case, and keeping an open mind when it comes to incorporating various training techniques will save you and your pal a lot of heartache.

Old Dogs, New Tricks is imagined, but gifted people in prisons across the US are training dogs for our veterans. Check them out online. I bet they would be grateful for your interest. To those serving here stateside and overseas, particularly Lou and Omar: Thank you for your sacrifice.

Thank you to my wife, who for the past fourteen years has allowed me to keep an ever-changing pack of goofballs. They come and go, but Risa stays.

PAUL’S PACK