Jimmy traipsed happily along with Louie rolling beside him or bouncing a few feet ahead. Jimmy picked up a stick and flung it out in front of them and, sure enough, Louie rolled quickly to it, picked it up, and rolled back to hold it up for Jimmy in two little pincer-like things that he projected out of his top—if you can say that any part of a beach ball is the top.
Jimmy laughed and was about to fling the stick again when he saw three fifth-graders, two of ’em kids who’d bullied him before, coming his way through the woods on the trail from the sound. He knew I’d told him not to let other kids know about Louie and was frightened. But when he looked down he saw that the little bugger had sprouted four legs and a head, and had a tail whipping back and forth like an erect windshield wiper. It looked something like a weird dog, but without eyes or ears and with something that Jimmy thought must be intended as a tongue drooping six inches out of the front of the face—Louie the dog looked more like a creature from outer space.
The three ten-year-olds came to a halt and stared at the dog. Louie doubled the speed of his tail wagging.
“What the fuck is this?” asked the biggest kid, who was mostly the biggest because he was fat.
“It’s my new dog,” says Jimmy.
“Dog, my ass,” says fat boy. “That’s not a dog.”
Another of the boys picks up a stick and pokes it at FF.
“Hey, doggie, what’s your name?”
The three boys laugh, and fat boy picks up a thicker and longer stick and slaps it across FF’s back. FF just sits there wagging its tail.
“Hey, speak, weirdo!” says the second boy.
Fat boy strikes again with his heavy stick. FF’s tail stops wagging. Fat boy raises his stick again.
“AHHGGRRRHHRRGGRR!” comes from someplace out of FF, a roar that may have been heard in Lower Manhattan.
The three boys drop their jaws, drop their sticks, and begin backing away.
“He won’t bite,” says Jimmy.
“AHHGGRRRHHRRGGRR!” says FF.
The three boys turn and run.
At first Louie raised his eyeless head to look up at Jimmy and then he began tearing forward in an awkward run after the fleeing boys. He looked more like an epileptic centipede pared down to only four legs. When the kids looked back and saw this weird creature chasing them down, they turned up the afterburners and ran faster than any ten-year-olds in the recent history of mankind.
“FF!” shouts Jimmy.
And FF comes screeching to a halt. He turns around and trots back to Jimmy, again wagging his tail.
“Sit,” says Jimmy. And FF squats a very unconvincing dog sit.
“Wow,” says Jimmy.
* * *
Well, you might think no harm done, but that’s because you haven’t been paying attention to how life works. The next day five kids, most of them near Jimmy’s age, one of them part of the gang that had seen FF as a dog in the woods, arrive at the back kitchen door and tell Jimmy they want to play with his new dog. Jimmy comes and asks me what he should do. I knew we couldn’t keep FF hidden forever, and I’m a sucker for giving in to whatever Jimmy wants. And I knew he was probably hot to show off FF to his friends. So I march down into the basement den where Louie is working on the computer and tell him he’s got visitors. Wanted to see what he’d do.
He hits a few keys on the computer, then bounces out of the chair and up the steps to the kitchen. And then bounces out of the house for recess.
FF and the kids began playing some game that was sort of “tag” I guess, but it soon became clear that all the fun was having all five of the boys be “it” and run after FF to try to tag him. And with five screaming and laughing kids chasing him, FF bounced and rolled and slithered and climbed trees and knocked boys’ feet from under them and dodged so quickly it was like he was made of quicksilver. At one moment FF had bounced into one of our apple trees and was shaking a branch so some of the last apples fell on the kids’ heads, and the next moment he’d wrapped himself around Jimmy so completely that the only parts of the kid that showed were his head and his feet, and somehow the combo of FF and Jimmy still managed to elude the taggers.
Finally, since when FF was “it” he could tag anyone he wanted within about a millisecond, the kids began to get tired and bored with the game.
The next thing I knew they had divided into two teams and were playing soccer with Louie as a rather oversized soccer ball. The kids loved kicking Louie and he seemed to love it too, but the game was sort of different, since a boy would kick the ball straight toward the goal but two-thirds of the way there the ball, FF, would swerve off in any direction it felt like, or might bounce over the goalie’s head. Or some poor boy would take a vicious swing with his leg at FF who was lying there right in front of him, and the damn “ball” would duck—shrink down to a flat rectangle close to the ground and the kid would miss and fall flat on his ass.
The game ended when FF rolled into the legs of a kid named Donny, and the boy fell to the ground and began crying. Twisted a knee or something. Couldn’t even walk. The other boys looked worried so I came down the porch steps, looked at Donny’s knee—nothing to see—and then carried him to my pickup to take him home.
Louie came rolling along with me and, after I’d put Donny in the passenger seat of the pickup, and I’d gotten into the driver’s seat, he hopped into the back of the pickup.
It was then I realized what trouble we were all in. Donny’s parents were going to ask what happened and Donny was going to say “FF knocked me over.” “Who’s FF?” “FF is a beach ball that can climb trees and dodge and wrestle and run faster than a horse and bounce higher than a house and…”
And that would be the end of our new friend.
I got out of the truck and went back to the pickup bed and stared at Louie.
“Stay here at the house, Louie,” says I.
For a moment or two he didn’t move, but then he bounced out of the truck and began rolling slowly back toward the house.
He understood exactly what I’d said. I’d known he was smart, known he was learning a lot, but that he understood everything I said, I hadn’t yet figured.
* * *
I drove Donny to his parents’ house and carried him in and set him on the couch and apologized, but it was even worse than I expected. Mommy got hysterical and screamed “My son can’t walk!” and Daddy glared at me as if I had personally shot his son in the leg and was claiming the gun went off by accident. When the dad began questioning Donny about what had happened and Donny began squawking about how FF had clipped him on purpose, I knew we were in trouble.
“Who’s FF?” the dad naturally asked.
“He’s a bully,” said Donny. “A basketball bully.”
The dad didn’t absorb too much of that, so he turned to me.
“Who’s this FF?”
I looked back at him with my usual grumpy-old-man scowl, one that usually works to make people tread lightly around me, but I knew wasn’t going to work here.
“Well?” says Dad.
“He’s a pet Bulgy I bought in New London last week.” I don’t have the faintest idea where this lie came from, but out it came.
“What the hell is a pet Bulgy?” asks Dad.
“It’s an Arctic dog that evolved over the years into having no legs and gets around by rolling and bouncing. It’s shaped like a beach ball. It evolved into a beach-ball shape so it can move on snow, ice, and water. And floats good.”
To come up with a lying piece of bullshit like this you have to have years of practice. And I had it.
“Well, that dog seems to be something of a menace, doesn’t it?”
“Well, maybe, but he’s so smart we call him Dr. Bulge.” When I get into a good lie I just can’t stop myself from rolling with it.
“I don’t care if you call him Einstein, he’s a menace.”
“Yep, you’re right. I’ll keep him tied up and away from kids from now on,” says I, almost smiling at the utter impossibil
ity of anyone ever tying FF up.
“I think you’d better,” says Dad and, having shown he was the man of the house, he turned to put a supportive hand on his wife’s shoulder and the two of them comforted Donny.
I hurried away. Didn’t want to hear how Donny explained to Pop about all the incredible things this Arctic dog could do. And the fact that the dog was most of the time missing legs, a tail, eyes, a nose, ears, and just about anything resembling a dog. And I also was worrying about my sudden memory that Donny’s father worked for the Riverhead newspaper, an editor or manager or something.
* * *
Back at my house, I located Louie in the rec room perched on Jimmy’s desk while Jimmy and Lucas were doing something on the computer. I pulled up a chair beside them. My youngest son turned to me, but all FF did was squiggle a bit—otherwise didn’t change his position.
“We’re in a bit of trouble, boys,” says I. “Other humans will want to talk to FF and may cause us trouble, may want to take FF away from us.”
“No!” says Jimmy.
“We’ve got to be sure that we can hide him on short notice whenever someone comes along we don’t want to see him.”
“We can do that,” says Lucas.
“Won’t be easy,” I says. “Not many creatures like FF lying around in a house on the North Fork.”
Next thing I knew, FF rolled toward the couch and, just as I thought he was going to get up in Lucas’s lap, it was as if he suddenly melted: he disappeared under it.
“See, he can do it!” Jimmy said excitedly.
I walked over, bent down, and looked under the couch. There was a hairy something, three-feet long but flat as a small boogie board.
Now hiding under a couch—if you can do it—isn’t the most advanced form of hiding known to mankind, but it showed that FF knew what I was talking about.
“He’s smart,” Jimmy said proudly.
Oh yeah, I thought.
When FF slid out from under the couch and resumed his spherical shape, I turned to the boys.
“I told Donny’s folks that FF is a rare breed of dog from the Arctic. Said it was a Bulgy. It won’t take them long to realize that there’s no dog ever been created anyplace that is a sphere and plays video games on a computer.”
They were listening.
“We’re going to tell anyone who asks… that our Bulgy ran away and that we don’t know what happened to him,” I says. “Think that’ll work?”
“We could say he got hit by a car and we buried him,” says Jimmy.
“They’ll ask where we buried him,” says Lucas.
“We buried him at sea!” says Jimmy.
I got two pretty sharp kids considering the genes they got from the male side.
FOUR
(From Billy Morton’s MY FRIEND LOUIE, pp. 25–32)
Two days later things started to fall apart. ’Course things are always falling apart, so I just mean that the collapsing went into avalanche mode. Not only did the local dog catcher show up, but the sheriff and a local reporter from the Riverhead Express and Tribune. I guess Donny’s father knew a potential hot news story when he heard one. I knew the sheriff pretty well, but the dog catcher and reporter I’d never met. The reporter was so young I wondered if he was writing for his high school paper.
“Hi, Billy,” Sheriff Coombs greets me, putting out his big paw to shake hands. “Seems to be a bit of trouble about a dog that isn’t a dog.”
“I’m here to examine the mammal that hurt Donny Arkin,” the dog catcher says, “and if so, to determine whether he’s a threat to the community.”
This DC was a small man whose chin looked as if it was permanently frozen in the belligerent position.
“Well, boys, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” I says. “Damn dog got run over by a car yesterday. Buried him at sea this morning.”
All three of them stared at me.
“Mind if we come in, Billy?” says the Sheriff. “Little chilly out here.”
“Come on in,” I says. “Beware of the dog.”
After a brief start, Sheriff Coombs laughed, but the dog catcher’s chin expanded another centimeter. The kid reporter just looked blank. IQ puts him maybe reporting for a junior high paper.
They all troop into the house and, after a few awkward moments, I get them to take seats in our living room, the sheriff and the kid on the couch and the dog catcher in the one straight-backed chair in the whole house. The sheriff and me had known each other for almost forty years, even went hunting for deer together in Upstate New York for three or four years before I met Lita. She informed me that killing deer wasn’t nice unless you ate their meat. Venison makes me fart for six weeks, so I gave up hunting.
“Get you fellas a drink?” I ask.
“Well,” the sheriff says, “I got off duty ten minutes ago so I’ll have a bourbon.”
“We’re here to search this house for a dog,” says the DC. “Not to socialize.”
“A dog that can bounce fifteen feet high,” adds the kid, proving he could talk, “can change shapes, and likes to play on computers.”
“Ah, that dog,” says I.
“Unfortunately, Teddy,” says the sheriff, “the dog got killed and has been deep-sixed.” Apparently the kid’s name is Teddy.
“This man lied in claiming that the creature was a dog,” says the DC. “There is no such animal as a Bulgy.”
“And Marty Beck says the dog is actually a fish your men caught on your last trip out,” says the kid, making me wish he was as stupid as I’d first thought.
“How’d Marty get involved in this?” says I.
“Small town we got here, Billy,” says the sheriff. “Kids talk. Parents talk. Marty gave me a ring to give me his two cents’ worth about the round blowfish that hurt Donny.”
“I want to search this house, Sheriff,” says the DC. “I thought you said you’d help me.”
“Well, I think it would be nice if you could have a look around,” says the sheriff, “but we don’t have a warrant. Billy’ll have to give you his permission.”
So the DC glares at me.
I’d warned Louie that there might be visitors and I knew he’d hide. ’Course if he couldn’t think of anything better than sliding under a couch we might be in trouble.
“Sure,” says I. “Search wherever you want. Just leave things the way you find them. My wife blames me if anything gets out of place.”
The DC stood up. Then so did the kid.
“How about that bourbon, Billy,” says the sheriff, a lawman of the highest order.
“And I’ll join you,” says I.
“You want to join us, Teddy?” says the sheriff.
“I’m with the search,” he says.
“You have to accompany me, Mr. Morton,” says the DC. “I don’t want you to accuse me of stealing anything.”
“Never entered my head, little fella,” says I, “but first I’d like to help the sheriff with his drinking problem.”
So I fixed me and the sheriff two stiff bourbons—he was of the highest order—and then, drink in hand, showed the DC and Teddy around the house. As we went from room to room I kept wondering where the hell FF was managing to hide. I’d told him to stay in the house because if he was spotted outside by anyone, his death might seem to have been superficial.
The DC and Teddy did a good search, opening all the kitchen cabinets, checking the oven and fridge, under the beds, in all the closets. When downstairs again, they looked under the living room couches and in drawers and cabinets. If Louie was in any of these places neither the DC, who didn’t really know what he was looking for, or I, who did, saw anything that looked like it might be him.
Then we clomped down the stairs to the rec room and found Jimmy and Lucas sitting opposite each other playing chess on an old cedar chest. They looked up at us when we came down but didn’t seem in the least interested. Went back to their chess game.
The DC did his thing and then looked sternly at the two boys.
r /> “Where’s your dog?” he asks.
They both looked up at the DC.
“He’s dead!” Jimmy says, and damned if Jimmy’s lip didn’t begin to quiver and it looked as if he were gonna cry.
“We buried him at sea,” says Lucas.
“Did the dog ever play at the computer?” Teddy asks.
The boys look up blankly.
“He pretended to,” Lucas says finally, “he couldn’t really do it.”
“Some of your friends tell us you told them the dog played video games on the computer with you,” says Teddy.
“Maybe,” said Jimmy. “But we always beat him.”
Well, no son is perfect, and Jimmy still had a bit to learn about lying.
“Isn’t there more to this basement area?” the DC puts in.
So I take him next door to the garage. We got to stare at a lot of dust, dirt, about two cords of firewood, and tools so old they’d sell on the Antiques Roadshow for thousands.
Back in the rec room I see that Teddy is still there, looking down on the boys’ chess game. The DC ignores them and marches up the stairs.
“What’s in that cedar chest?” Teddy asks.
The boys look up, startled.
“Just blankets,” says Lucas. “Old blankets.”
“Open it,” says Teddy.
I see that Lucas and Jimmy look a bit nervous. Jimmy just sits there staring at the game, but Lucas stands and carefully lifts the chess board off the thick silver-gray cover on top of the chest and puts it on the couch behind him. Then he turns back and picks up the inch-thick furry coverlet and places it on the couch next to the chess board. He then opens the cedar chest.
Blankets. Neatly folded blankets. Teddy reaches down and searches through them for a few seconds and then straightens.
Lucas then closes down the chest and turns back to the couch. He looks startled for a second, then picks up the chess board and carefully turns and puts it back on the chest.