He smiled at her, and she smiled back. He took out his cigarets and his lighter and put them on the bar.
“Pizza it is!” he said.
Later, he said, “Can I give you a lift somewhere?” “No, thanks. I’m waiting for someone,” she said.
He said, “Where you heading for?”
She said, “No place. Oh,” she said, touching the suitcase with her toe, “you mean that?” laughing. “I live here in West Sac. I’m not going anyplace. It’s just a washing-machine motor inside belongs to my mother. Jerry—that’s the bartender—he’s good at fixing things. Jerry said he’d fix it for nothing.”
Al got up. He weaved a little as he leaned over her. He said, “Well, goodbye, honey. I’ll see you around.”
“You bet!” she said. “And thanks for the pizza. Hadn’t eaten since lunch. Been trying to take some of this off.” She raised her sweater, gathered a handful of flesh at the waist.
“Sure I can't give you a lift someplace?” he said.
The woman shook her head.
In the car again, driving, he reached for his cigarets and then, frantically, for his lighter, remembering leaving everything on the bar. The hell with it, he thought, let her have it. Let her put the lighter and the cigarets in the suitcase along with the washing machine. He chalked it up against the dog, one more expense. But the last, by God! It angered him now, now that he was getting things in order, that the girl hadn’t been more friendly. If he’d been in a different frame of mind, he could have picked her up. But when you’re depressed, it shows all over you, even the way you light a cigaret.
He decided to go see Jill. He stopped at a liquor store and bought a pint of whiskey and climbed the stairs to her apartment and he stopped at the landing to catch his breath and to clean his teeth with his tongue. He could still taste the mushrooms from the pizza, and his mouth and throat were seared from the whiskey. He realized that what he wanted to do was to go right to Jill’s bathroom and use her toothbrush.
He knocked. “It’s me, Al,” he whispered. “Al,” he said louder. He heard her feet hit the floor. She threw the lock and then tried to undo the chain as he leaned heavily against the door.
“Just a minute, honey. Al, you’ll have to quit pushing—I can’t unhook it. There,” she said and opened the door, scanning his face as she took him by the hand.
They embraced clumsily, and he kissed her on the cheek.
“Sit down, honey. Here.” She switched on a lamp and helped him to the couch. Then she touched her fingers to her curlers and said, “I’ll put on some lipstick. What would you like in the meantime? Coffee? Juice? A beer? I think I have some beer. What do you have there ... whiskey? What would you like, honey?” She stroked his hair with one hand and leaned over him, gazing into his eyes. “Poor baby, what would you like?” she said.
“Just want you hold me,” he said. “Here. Sit down. No lipstick,” he said, pulling her onto his lap. “Hold. Fm falling,” he said.
She put an arm around his shoulders. She said, “You come on over to the bed, baby, I’ll give you what you like.”
“Tell you, Jill,” he said, “skating on thin ice. Crash through any minute ... I don’t know.” He stared at her with a fixed, puffy expression that he could feel but not correct. “Serious,” he said.
She nodded. “Don’t think about anything, baby. Just relax,” she said. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him on the forehead and then the lips. She turned slightly on his lap and said, “No, don’t move, Al,” the fingers of both hands suddenly slipping around the back of his neck and gripping his face at the same time. His eyes wobbled around the room an instant, then tried to focus on what she was doing. She held his head in place in her strong fingers. With her thumbnails she was squeezing out a blackhead to the side of his nose.
“Sit still!” she said.
“No,” he said. “Don’t! Stop! Not in the mood for that.”
“I almost have it. Sit still, I said! . . . There, look at that. What do you think of that? Didn’t know that was there, did you? Now just one more, a big one, baby. The last one,” she said.
“Bathroom,” he said, forcing her off, freeing his way.
At home it was all tears, confusion. Mary ran out to the car, crying, before he could get parked.
“Suzy’s gone,” she sobbed. “Suzy’s gone. She’s never coming back, Daddy, I know it. She’s gone!”
My God, heart lurching. What have I done?
“Now don’t worry, sweetheart. She’s probably just off running around somewhere. She’ll be back,” he said.
“She isn’t, Daddy, I know she isn’t. Mama said we may have to get another dog.”
“Wouldn’t that be all right, honey?” he said. “Another dog, if Suzy doesn’t come back? We’ll go to the pet store—”
“I don’t want another dog!” the child cried, holding onto his leg.
“Can we have a monkey, Daddy, instead of a dog?” Alex asked. “If we go to the pet store to look for a dog, can we have a monkey instead?”
“I don’t want a monkey!” Mary cried. “I want Suzy.” “Everybody let go now, let Daddy in the house. Daddy has a terrible, terrible headache,” he said.
Betty lifted a casserole dish from the oven. She looked tired, irritable . . . older. She didn’t look at him. “The kids tell you? Suzy’s gone? I’ve combed the neighborhood. Everywhere, I swear.”
“That dog’ll turn up,” he said. “Probably just running around somewhere. That dog’ll come back,” he said.
“Seriously,” she said, turning to him with her hands on her hips, “I think it’s something else. I think she might have got hit by a car. I want you to drive around. The kids called her last night, and she was gone then. That’s the last’s been seen of her. I called the pound and
described her to them, but they said all their trucks aren’t in yet. I’m supposed to call again in the morning.” He went into the bathroom and could hear her still going on. He began to run the water in the sink, wondering, with a fluttery sensation in his stomach, how grave exactly was his mistake. When he turned off the faucets, he could still hear her. He kept staring at the sink.
“Did you hear me?” she called. “I want you to drive around and look for her after supper. The kids can go with you and look too . .. Al?”
“Yes, yes,” he answered.
“What?” she said. “What’d you say?”
“I said yes. Yes! All right. Anything! Just let me wash up first, will you?”
She looked through from the kitchen. “Well, what in the hell is eating you? I didn’t ask you to get drunk last night, did I? I’ve had enough of it, I can tell you! I’ve had a hell of a day, if you want to know. Alex waking me up at five this morning getting in with me, telling me his daddy was snoring so loud that... that you scared him!/ saw you out there with your clothes on passed out and the room smelling to high heaven. I tell you, I’ve had enough of it!” She looked around the kitchen quickly, as if to seize something.
He kicked the door shut. Everything was going to hell. While he was shaving, he stopped once and held the razor in his hand and looked at himself in the mirror: his face doughy, characterless—immoral, that was the word. He laid the razor down. I believe I have made the gravest mistake this time. I believe I have made the gravest mistake of all He brought the razor up to his throat and finished.
He did not shower, did not change clothes. “Put my supper in the oven for me,” he said. “Or in the refrigerator. I’m going out. Right now,” he said.
“You can wait till after supper. The kids can go with you.”
“No, the hell with that. Let the kids eat supper, look around here if they want. I’m not hungry, and it’ll be dark soon.”
“Is everybody going crazy?” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I’m ready for a nervous breakdown. I’m ready to lose my mind. What’s going to happen to the kids if I lose my mind?” She slumped against the draining board, her face crumpled, tears rol
ling off her cheeks. “You don’t love them, anyway! You never have. It isn’t the dog I’m worried about. It’s us! It’s us! I know you don’t love me any more—goddamn you!—but you don’t even love the kids!”
“Betty, Betty!” he said. “My God!” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right. I promise you,” he said. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise you, things’ll be all right. I’ll find the dog and then things will be all right,” he said.
He bounded out of the house, ducked into the bushes as he heard his children coming: the girl crying, saying, “Suzy, Suzy”; the boy saying maybe a train ran over her. When they were inside the house, he made a break for the car. „
He fretted at all the lights he had to wait for, bitterly resented the time lost when he stopped for gas. The sun was low and heavy, just over the squat range of hills at the far end of the valley. At best, he had an hour of daylight.
He saw his whole life a ruin from here on in. If he lived another fifty years—hardly likely—he felt he’d never get over it, abandoning the dog. He felt he was finished if he didn’t find the dog. A man who would get rid of a little dog wasn’t worth a damn. That kind of man would do anything, would stop at nothing.
He squirmed in the seat, kept staring into the swollen face of the sun as it moved lower into the hills. He knew the situation was all out of proportion now, but he couldn’t help it. He knew he must somehow retrieve the dog, as the night before he had known he must lose it.
“I’m the one going crazy,” he said and then nodded his head in agreement.
He came in the other way this time, by the field where he had let her off, alert for any sign of movement.
“Let her be there,” he said.
He stopped the car and searched the field. Then he drove on, slowly. A station wagon with the motor idling was parked in the drive of the lone house, and he saw a well-dressed woman in heels come out the front door with a little girl. They stared at him as he passed. Farther on he turned left, his eyes taking in the street and the yards on each side as far down as he could see. Nothing. Two kids with bicycles a block away stood beside a parked car.
“Hi,” he said to the two boys as he pulled up alongside. “You fellows see anything of a little white dog around today? A kind of white shaggy dog? I lost one.”
One boy just gazed at him. The other said, “I saw a lot of little kids playing with a dog over there this afternoon. The street the other side of this one. I don’t know what kind of dog it was. It was white maybe. There was a lot of kids.”
“Okay, good. Thanks,” Al said. “Thank you very very much,” he said.
He turned right at the end of the street. He concentrated on the street ahead. The sun had gone down now. It was nearly dark. Houses pitched side by side, trees, lawns, telephone poles, parked cars, it struck him as serene, untroubled. He could hear a man calling his children; he saw a woman in an apron step to the lighted door of her house.
“Is there still a chance for me?” Al said. He felt tears spring to his eyes. He was amazed. He couldn’t help but grin at himself and shake his head as he got out his handkerchief. Then he saw a group of children coming down the street. He waved to get their attention.
“You kids see anything of a little white dog?” Al said to them.
“Oh sure,” one boy said. “Is it your dog?”
Al nodded.
“We were just playing with him about a minute ago, down the street. In Terry’s yard.” The boy pointed. “Down the street.”
“You got kids?” one of the little girls spoke up.
“I do,” Al said.
“Terry said he’s going to keep him. He don’t have a dog,” the boy said.
“I don’t know,” Al said. “I don’t think my kids would like that. It belongs to them. It’s just lost,” Al said.
He drove on down the street. It was dark now, hard to see, and he began to panic again, cursing silently. He swore at what a weathervane he was, changing this way and that, one moment this, the next moment that.
He saw the dog then. He understood he had been looking at it for a time. The dog moved slowly, nosing the grass along a fence. Al got out of the car, started across the lawn, crouching forward as he walked, calling, “Suzy, Suzy, Suzy.”
The dog stopped when she saw him. She raised her head. He sat down on his heels, reached out his arm, waiting. They looked at each other. She moved her tail in greeting. She lay down with her head between her front legs and regarded him. He waited. She got up. She went around the fence and out of sight.
He sat there. He thought he didn’t feel so bad, all things considered. The world was full of dogs. There were dogs and there were dogs. Some dogs you just couldn’t do anything with.
WHY, HONEY?
Dear Sir:
I was so surprised to receive your letter asking about my son, how did you know I was here? I moved here years ago right after it started to happen. No one knows who I am here but I’m afraid all the same. Who I am afraid of is him. When I look at the paper I shake my head and wonder. I read what they write about him and I ask myself is that man really my son, is he really doing these things?
He was a good boy except for his outbursts and that he could not tell the truth. I can’t give you any reasons. It started one summer over the Fourth of July, he would have been about fifteen. Our cat Trudy disappeared and was gone all night and the next day. Mrs. Cooper who lives behind us came the next evening to tell me Trudy crawled into her backyard that afternoon to die. Trudy was cut up she said but she recognized Trudy. Mr. Cooper buried the remains.
Cut up? I said. What do you mean cut up?
Mr. Cooper saw two boys in the field putting firecrackers in Trudy’s ears and in her you know what. He tried to stop them but they ran.
Who, who would do such a thing, did he see who it was?
He didn’t know the other boy but one of them ran this way. Mr. Cooper thought it was your son.
I shook my head. No, that’s just not so, he wouldn’t do a thing like that, he loved Trudy, Trudy has been in the family for years, no, it wasn’t my son.
That evening I told him about Trudy and he acted surprised and shocked and said we should offer a reward. He typed something up and promised to post it at school. But just as he was going to his room that night he said don’t take it too hard, mom, she was old, in cat years she was 65 or 70, she lived a long time.
He went to work afternoons and Saturdays as a stockboy at Hartley’s. A friend of mine who worked there, Betty Wilks, told me about the job and said she would put in a word for him. I mentioned it to him that evening and he said good, jobs for young people are hard to find.
The night he was to draw his first check I cooked his favorite supper and had everything on the table when he walked in. Here’s the man of the house, I said, hugging him. I am so proud, how much did you draw, honey? Eighty dollars, he said. I was flabbergasted. That’s wonderful, honey, I just cannot believe it. I’m starved, he said, let’s eat.
I was happy, but I couldn’t understand it, it was more than I was making.
When I did the laundry I found the stub from Hartley’s in his pocket, it was for 28 dollars, he said 80. Why didn’t he just tell the truth? I couldn’t understand.
I would ask him where did you go last night, honey? To the show he would answer. Then I would find out he went to the school dance or spent the evening riding around with somebody in a car. I would think what difference could it make, why doesn’t he just be truthful, there is no reason to lie to his mother.
I remember once he was supposed to have gone on a field trip, so I asked him what did you see on the field trip, honey? And he shrugged and said land formations, volcanic rock, ash, they showed us where there used to be a big lake a million years ago, now it’s just a desert. He looked me in the eyes and went on talking. Then I got a note from the school the next day saying they wanted permission for a field trip, could he have permission to go.
Near the end of his senior ye
ar he bought a car and was always gone. I was concerned about his grades but he only laughed. You know he was an excellent student, you know that about him if you know anything. After that he bought a shotgun and a hunting knife.
I hated to see those things in the house and I told him so. He laughed, he always had a laugh for you. He said he would keep the gun and the knife in the trunk of his car, he said they would be easier to get there anyway.
One Saturday night he did not come home. I worried myself into a terrible state. About ten o’clock the next morning he came in and asked me to cook him breakfast, he said he had worked up an appetite out hunting, he said he was sorry for being gone all night, he said they had driven a long way to get to this place. It sounded strange. He was nervous.
Where did you go?
Up to the Wenas. We got a few shots.
Who did you go with, honey?
Fred.
Fred?
He stared and I didn’t say anything else.
On the Sunday right after I tiptoed into his room for his car keys. He had promised to pick up some breakfast items on his way home from work the night before and I thought he might have left the things in his car. I saw his new shoes sitting half under his bed and covered with mud and sand. He opened his eyes.
Honey, what happened to your shoes? Look at your shoes.
I ran out of gas, I had to walk for gas. He sat up. What do you care?
I am your mother.
While he was in the shower I took the keys and went out to his car. I opened the trunk. I didn’t find the groceries. I saw the shotgun lying on a quilt and the knife too and I saw a shirt of his rolled in a ball and I shook it out and it was full of blood. It was wet. I dropped it. I closed the trunk and started back for the house and I saw him watching at the window and he opened the door.
I forgot to tell you, he said, I had a bad bloody nose, I don’t know if that shirt can be washed, throw it away. He smiled.