Whippoorwill (21 page)

“I love little plastic bags from the mall,” she said when we left. “I just do.”

We shopped a drugstore and Victoria's Secret, and then wandered around in the center court, looking at food options, before settling on pizza slices and Diet Cokes. We sat next to a new car that was set up on blocks and slowly turned on a pedestal. The side mirror flashed every time light hit it in a certain way, and I couldn't tell if it was intended or not. It was a Ford of some sort and it reminded me of the car in the bowling alley on my day with Danny. Meanwhile, Holly talked nonstop, her mouth gobbling down the pizza without interrupting her speech. She had to start work as a nanny soon, thus the shorts, and she already hated the two girls who would be left in her charge.

“I mean, they are soooooo spoiled,” she said, her lips blowing on the pizza to cool it, “that they don't even pick up their toys. They have a room that's called Toy Land, I swear, and they're allowed to leave anything out that they want to play with. Their mom, Nancy, thinks it spurs creativity, but I think it's just nasty and lazy.”

“At least she doesn't make you clean it up.”

“Not yet, but that's coming. I'm her little slave for the summer. She gets me to do everything while she's off playing tennis in her tiny white skirts. She goes out the door and the kids' heads start revolving around on their shoulders. Demon children. My mom calls their mom Fancy Nancy. She knows her from a couple of clubs or something.”

“It's a job, at least.”

“It's slavery. I'm a kid and I need work, so they rip me off. Everyone does that. And I'm responsible for the two little brats. Plus, my whole world is just girls. The mom, my mom, two girls, you. I need a man!”

It made me laugh to hear her say it. She cocked her head and laughed too, her little coyote laugh that always made me laugh harder. It was a wheezy laugh, kind of in-sucking breath, and she saved it for moments when she liked to make me crack up.

Then a weird thing happened. I saw Danny. It took me a couple heartbeats to realize it wasn't Danny, but for that brief interval between seeing and knowing, I thought it was. It turned out to be another boy about his age and size, but I had a full moment when I thought,
There he is.
It was a kid coming out of Bed Bath & Beyond, and his head was turned away from me, but something about his body, his posture, reminded me of Danny. I opened my mouth to say something, but then the kid turned and I saw I was mistaken. Holly saw my expression and she turned to follow my sight line, and when she turned back she said, “What? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Nothing. I thought I knew that kid.”

“Weird.”

“You aren't kidding,” I said.

She took a bite of pizza and sloshed down a squirt of Diet Coke from her straw.

“Did you guys ever mess around? You and Danny? I never really got to the bottom of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Clair Taylor. You know.”

I thought of kissing Danny that day by the bowling alley. I thought of that a lot.

“I wouldn't call it messing around. We kissed. I told you all that.”

“I thought you might be holding out on me.”

“I didn't even think that way about him. He was more like a friend, but then sometimes he almost seemed like a boyfriend. I don't know.”

“I can see what you mean,” she said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “He was a boy, but he was also Danny. I get it. Thing is, you have a little bit of a reputation because you were dating this guy who tried to off his dad.”

“A bad reputation?” I asked, my stomach folding in half.

“No, no, I just meant people look at you a little differently. They say, wow, I didn't know Clair was this wild woman. You know what I'm saying.”

I didn't know what she meant. I had no idea.

I said, “Nothing is as dramatic as you think it's going to be. Life isn't like that.”

“I know. I hear you on that.”

She burped. It was a loud burp. Then she looked around and did her coyote laugh.

“Clair, that's gross!” she said, blaming it on me. “I wish you'd stop doing things like that!”

I blushed but Holly was pretty funny.

We walked down to the pet store at the end of the mall. We always went there. It was closed, though. Someone had put up a sign that said
OUT OF BUSINESS
.
The lights in the pens—where they used to keep puppies—still shone brightly in the window. It looked strange, wood chips scattered around, the lights on, but no animals.

“How do you close down a pet store?” I asked, feeling anxious at the thought of it. “I mean, it's not like a furniture store or something. You can't just junk all the stock.”

“Oh, I'm sure they found places to put them.”

“But where?”

“Someplace, Clair. Don't worry about it.”

But I did worry about it.

And maybe I hadn't cried much about everything that had happened to Danny, to me, to the whole stupid world, but I suddenly couldn't keep it back any longer. I kicked the metal gate that someone had drawn across the door, then I started crying hard, harder than I had ever cried. Danny was somewhere in my sobbing, and so were all the animals that had no place to go, had no home, were sold and passed around like funny little creatures we got to control and use for our entertainment. I wanted to break every window in that stupid store, and I even picked up a plastic Rite Aid shopping basket to chuck at the door, but Holly grabbed my arm and pressed it back down.

“It's okay,” she said. “Clair, it's okay. There aren't any pets in there now.”

She thought I wanted to get inside.

I let her make me drop the basket. Then I sat down on the bench where we used to sit to watch the puppies, and Holly put her arm across my shoulders and let me cry. My nose ran and my ears felt as if someone had set them on fire. I cried until I felt like a hand towel that had been twisted and squeezed to get all the moisture out.

I felt something had changed in the Stewarts' house as soon as we pulled into the driveway after the mall. I hadn't seen much of Elwood since his return except when he left the house for doctor's appointments. I knew it was a slow recovery for him, all beds and raw skin, and it made their house feel haunted.

After Jack and Holly let me out at my back door, I fumbled with my keys, nearly in a panic, and I wanted to call to them to wait as they slowly backed out. I knew my dad wasn't home, and for a tense second I felt stranded and vulnerable, like someone might slap a drugged handkerchief over my mouth and drag me off into the night. A little shock of worry ran up my spine.

I fit the key in finally and pushed into the kitchen, my heart beating louder than it should. Wally's tail thumped in his crate as I put my bag down, flicked on some lights, then let him out. He smooched me up when I bent down to him, giving me big licks and sitting to give me his paw. I knelt next to him and felt better immediately.

“Who's the best boy?” I asked him. “Who is it?”

He squiggled in my arms until I clipped on his lead. His feet scrambled on the linoleum on the way out. Now that I had lights on, it was pleasant outside. I brought Wally into his place of business and I let him sniff around for a while. He urinated twice, spraying some bushes, then he began growling a little. I turned and saw Elwood watching me from beside the stockade fence. I hadn't heard him approach. He had appeared without making a sound.

“You'll be bringing that dog back in the morning,” he said, his voice ugly and flat and hard. “Didn't sign no papers to give him to you. I'm back on my feet now.”

He had a thick bandage on his head. You could tell the bandage marked a second stage of his recovery, not the first mummy version, but his face—up around his forehead and around his right eye—had taken on blisters of red that looked like pocked moon soil in the weak light. His skull had been dented too. It looked like it would stay that way.

I tried to feel some sympathy for him, but it didn't come.

Before I could say anything, Wally made a lunge toward him, trying to say hello, and I barely caught his force. I jerked Wally back but I nearly fell. I felt stupid with the dog spazzing.

“Did you hear me?” Elwood asked. “Play time is over. You understand me? I'll expect the dog to be on the pole first thing in the morning.”

I nodded. My heart said no, but I nodded.

“You ask me, you drove him to it,” Elwood said. “Nothing like a woman to turn a man around and make him stupid.”

“You don't want the dog,” I managed.

“I don't want you to have it,” he said, “and that comes to the same thing. You put it on the pole tomorrow or you won't like what comes to you, believe me. I'm sick to death of you kids. Don't test me.”

He turned and left. I watched him walk back toward his house. My brain clouded and I bent down to hug Wally, but I couldn't take my eyes off Elwood.

L
ATER, WAITING FOR
my father to get home, I made Wally go through his obedience. I practiced him through everything. He did every command immediately, no problems or confusion, and I found myself getting emotional watching him. Twice I bent down and circled his neck with my arms. I buried my face in his neck and cried a little.

“You're a good boy, Wally. A really good boy.”

It's what Danny had told him a long time ago.

He rolled over on his back, asking for a belly rub. I petted him a long time. Then I got him up into bed and we rested together, not doing anything, except that I passed his ear slowly through my fingers. I closed my eyes but I knew I wouldn't sleep. My head felt choked with images of Wally and Danny, the car bouncing across the dirt field, the cop yelling
getonthegroundgetontheground.
Sometimes I pictured my mom's statue, the gears turning slowly with the wind, and then I pictured Elwood, too, his black aura, his white bandage holding his skin together. He was a hole, always hungry, always yearning for something and never finding it. I did not like knowing Danny was his son.

A little later Dad came in and I met him downstairs, Wally clattering after me, and I told him what had happened. He had hardly put his helmet down when I started in, and he backed slowly into his chair, his eyes sorting me out. He interrupted me once to ask for a beer, but he kept his attention on me and nodded when I explained things.

“I was afraid of something like this,” my dad said when I'd finished. He took a long drink of his beer. He always drank Rolling Rock.

“Like what?” I said, my voice too loud.

“Like this. Like Elwood coming in and wanting something for what he lost. That's why I made you pass on the car.”

“He wants Wally!”

“He doesn't want Wally. He just wants you not to have him. Isn't that what he said? There's a difference.”

“He's a sicko.”

“He might be. That's not a healthy household over there. It never was. You know that.”

“I'm not giving him Wally, Dad.”

“Just hold on and think it all the way around.”

“There's nothing to think about. No way. Wally's not going with that maniac or any of his maniac friends. They'll abuse him. You know they will.”

“I'm not disagreeing with you, Clair. Just hold on and think around it. We can talk to him tomorrow. Even if we have to buy Wally, we can buy him. I might be able to reason with him. Maybe Jebby can.”

“No, he wants to hurt me, any way he can, Dad. Probably wants to hurt Danny, too.”

“Maybe so,” Dad said, and shrugged.

I made Dad give Wally a final walk while I watched the Stewarts' house through the kitchen window. I wondered about what was in there, whether anyone had cleaned up the mess Elwood must have made. I wondered if I could talk to Danny and find out what he had told his dad about Wally. My head felt jumpy and empty. My hands shook a little when I ran a glass of water for myself. Dad came back in and let Wally off the leash.

“No sign of the bogeyman,” Dad said, draining off the last of his beer.

“It's not funny, Dad. You didn't see how he acted.”

“Sorry, honey. I didn't mean to tease.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, I didn't mean it to be mean, I guess is what I want to say. Now come on. Let's turn in. You have to train tomorrow, don't you? The old summer job, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we'll talk to him when I get home and you get home. I'll see what Jebby has to say. Jebby knows him a little and he might be able to negotiate something. Just leave Elwood alone for the time being. Keep a wide berth, okay?”

“He said he thinks I made Danny do it. That I was the reason behind it all.”

My dad didn't say anything. I saw him flush with anger, but he didn't react right away. He finished his beer. He put his hand down on Wally.

“There is no way on earth you are responsible for anything that happened in that house. Do you understand me, Clair? Whatever happened there was a train going on its own track for a long, long time before you ever got involved. Believe me. He's talking wild. Try not to pay any attention to it. I promise that's not what happened. You know that in your heart.”

I hugged my dad. He smelled of oil and gasoline but also of the outdoors and the wind hitting him. He hugged me back. Then I slapped my thigh to put Wally in a heel and ran upstairs with my dog pounding behind me.

That night I had a dream about whippoorwills. Whippoorwills are supposed to witness souls nearing death or departing and they call to them. I pictured one up in the tree between our two yards, its voice singing over and over,
whippooooooorwill, whipppppoooorrrrwillll.
I knew about whippoorwills through a social studies report I had done on early American superstitions, but that little bit of knowledge seeped right into the dream, so that the bird, each time he called, swelled like a tick sucking blood. He kept growing, and growing, plugged with blood and soul juice, until finally he burst and woke me. I sat up and nearly screamed, but then I saw Wally, my Gold Moon, stretched out at the foot of the bed. I reached down to him and cupped his forehead in my hand, and the whippoorwill floated away in Wally's steady breath.