Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 12 (2 page)

Joanie of spades. Joanie of hearts. I turned over the king of hearts, and his face was not mine.

At some point she stopped resisting her longtime suitor, Chachi. He and she cooed over one another openly, in front of me. At least he had the decency to ask my permission to date her. I gave my consent, and they departed for Inspiration Point, where further resistance was bound to collapse, and my little girl would become a woman.

Why fight the inevitable? You get older, grow into other roles. At least nobody could take away memories of happy days, Monday, Tuesday, happy days, which would surely come again, and again, as surely as an LP would count them off the next time it played on the jukebox.

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David Erik Nelson

"Hey, Dan, you ever hear about the haunted dog?"

"Jesus!” I jumped in my seat, sloshing the better part of a pint of beer into my lap, “Crap. What?” I asked, not looking up, searching my parka for paper napkins—something to mop up the beer. “What was that?"

I'd been sitting belly to the bar for I don't know how long, staring into the long mirror behind the bottles, not really thinking at all—apart from vacantly wondering how I'd become such a sad old sack—and that warm, friendly, familiar voice was like stepping on a tack in the dark.

"Sorry to startle you, Dan. I was just asking if you'd ever heard about the haunted dog?"

"You mean like a ghost dog?” I asked, trying to soak up the beer with my wool mittens, then realizing they were the ones Janey had knitted for me when she'd been a Brownie, and putting them away in favor of a wad of those crummy square bar napkins. “Like that one about the guy whose car breaks down in the woods and there's a wolf—"

"No,” his voice was sharp, annoyed, like the way you talk to a smart kid who's acting stupid, “not a ghost dog—a
haunted
dog, like a haunted house.” I looked up from my beery crotch.

"Is it a joke?” I asked. The guy—young, twentysomething, short, dark hair still damp from an evening shower, wool pea coat, pale face—he didn't look like anyone in particular. Someone Janey had gone to high school with? The age was about right. “Are you asking me, ‘Did you ever hear the one about the haunted dog?’”

"No, Dan, this isn't a joke, it's a story. A true story—"

"Well, wait. I'm afraid I don't know—"

"Shhh,” he waved his gloved hand at me. “You'll dig this. Just listen:

"So there's this guy, right?, this family, and they get this dog—a beagle—from the Humane Society. You with me?” He pulled his gloves off and set them on the bar, lacing his fingers over them. He didn't really look at me as he spoke, instead craning around like he was waiting for someone, afraid he'd miss her in the crowd.

I grunted and sipped my beer, feeling like a ridiculous old fart because I couldn't quite place this kid.

"So, this guy, his family, they're down at the Society and they pick out this beagle, and the guy asks the attendant where's the dog from? What's its history? And the attendant lays out this big old yarn about how the dog used to belong to some old guy that lived all alone in a little cracker-box house on a big slab of land out near Beggars. Dog was the old guy's dearest, only friend, blah blah blah, docile, blah blah blah, housebroken—you know, the basic keep-me-company house pet, right? Dog's name is ‘Ski Boot.’ Imagine that, calling a dog ‘Ski Boot'? Old folks are weird.” He turned to look at me. “Sorry. Present company excluded."

I nodded, waving my hand in a ‘don't sweat it’ gesture as I set down my empty mug. And right then it came to me: this kid
must
be a fella Janey'd dated in high school her sophomore or junior year. Skinny, dark hair—it was all slowly gathering together in my head. If this was him, then he'd certainly changed, but it seemed
right
. Kid's name was Rob or Ron or something like that. No car, I recalled. I'd liked him for that.

"Say, what line of work you in these days?” I tried to sound as casual as possible.

"What?” he asked, looking at me blankly, “Work? Oh . . . never mind that. I don't really live around here.

"But, so the guy with the family asks the attendant what drove the old codger to get rid of such a beloved pal—you know, the guy figures he has the attendant over a barrel, caught him in a lie. The guy thinks he's a regular suburban Sherlock.

"But the attendant tells him the old guy died, no family surviving him. All of his property defaulted to the State and they auctioned it. The State didn't need a beagle for anything, and it didn't get bid on, so. . . .

"Well, suffice to say, the guy feels like a first-class bastard and adopts the dog with no further questions, plus a nice little donation to the Humane Society.

"So, they get the dog home, walk him around the block, have dinner and turn in. They figure that the dog will settle down to sleep upstairs, maybe in one of the kids’ bedrooms, maybe in the master bedroom—hell, maybe even try to get into one of the beds."

"Dogs are like that,” I said, thinking of a mutt named Butter I'd had for almost thirteen years before I had to have him put down last spring. “If they've been let to sleep in a bed in the past, it's hard to break them of it.” Butter slept curled behind my knees, every night for seven years, after Janey's mom passed on in ‘93. And then it dawned on me, if this fella hadn't been around—probably went off to college somewhere, and is just back visiting his folks or something—he might not know about Janey. It'd be an awful thing, not getting the proper chance to pay your respects to a classmate. Especially if they'd dated. . . .

The kid turned to look at me, then broke into a wide, honest grin. Gosh, I wish Janey'd stuck with this guy—whatever the hell his name was. Rod? I hated knowing I had to break the news to such a sweet kid . . . and I couldn't even remember his
name
. You'd think a father would remember the nice ones, but in the end, you don't. In the end, it's the bastards that brand themselves in your memory.

"Sure,” he said, “Sure! But, these folks don't mind. They're sorta looking forward to sharing some space with that musky, loyal weight. It can be reassuring for a dog to be curled up on your feet. You know that. These are the sort of folks who crave that kind of reassurance.

"But the dog, he doesn't set himself up in any of the bedrooms, doesn't even come upstairs. He stays down in the TV room. A few minutes after lights-out he takes to whining. I dunno if you've ever heard a beagle, but they whine—Jesus, it's an awful sound. They get to sorta hyperventilating, and each puff of breath is this screech, like a bad windshield wiper. Really unbearable.

"But the family, they're gritting their teeth and sticking it out. The guy doesn't want to give in—you know, the way some people are about toddlers crying in the night. He wants the dog to get used to the dark, or to figure out to come upstairs. He wants to force it to get comfortable on its own. I mean, it's a dog, for God's sake—no reason to jump when it says frog, right?

"The guy hears one of his kids leaving her room. He hops out of bed and catches her at the stairs, explains the situation, and then gets all three of them together and explains again, to make sure they're all with the program: ‘No going to the dog. Let him come to you. We're the masters.’ The older two kids understand—they don't like it, but they understand the importance of not making the dog boss, and return to their rooms. But his daughter, she's the youngest—not to mention being a girl—so the whole matter doesn't sit well with her, and when she finally does go back to bed, she's in tears.

"Just for the record, I think the girl was right.

"Of course, soon enough, the beagle graduates up from whining and takes to baying. You ever heard that sound?"

Rita, the bartender, set a fresh beer down and gave me this queer look—probably because the kid was gabbing, but not drinking. “No, but I imagine it's like a wolf. You want a beer or something?” Christ, I wished I could grab his name. Rob? It was driving me nuts.

"Me? No thanks. Don't drink."

I shrugged and tipped Rita double.

"But the baying—it's not like a wolf at all. A wolf, that's a scary sound, but this, it's . . . mournful. Overpowering. Really. They make like a trumpet of their mouths and just let loose. The sound is low and open and empty and long—it's a broken-hearted sound. But strong, like a hammer. It hits you like a melancholy sack of quarters.

"To their credit, the family hangs tough, doesn't budge all night. After hours—
literally
hours
—the dog gives out and takes back to this low whimper, like he's crying. The family gets a little sleep that night. A little.

"It goes on this way, of course. Night after night—the dog refuses to come upstairs, just curls up on the couch and whines and bays and weeps. The dog is fine when people are with him, during the day, but when they leave him alone at night it's Heartbreak Hotel in scenic Sorrow City, No Vacancies."

I laughed at that—couldn't help it—and the kid's eyes sparkled. A natural storyteller, this one. Probably studying theater, I figured, or maybe working already, selling cars—a clean-cut kid like this one could rake it in working in sales.

"Then, one night, in the middle of the night, the dog stops baying. Really, he doesn't just stop—he cuts out, like someone pulling the plug on a CD player. At first the guy lets out a big, cleansing sigh. Finally, he figures, the dog's adjusted, acclimated. But as the silence stretches out he begins to worry. Now the dog's
too
quiet. And, for that matter, he didn't like the way it just cut out, like he lost his power. Or his air. Had the dog gone into a seizure? Maybe he's choking on his tongue. The last thing this guy wants to do is come down for breakfast the next morning and find his family hysterical over a dog corpse. He hops out of bed and quietly—quietly but quickly—slinks down the stairs."

"Hold up a second, son. Listen, I feel just awful about this, but firstly I can't even remember your name—"

"It's OK, Dan, I haven't told you—"

"—
and secondly,
I've got some sad news that I need—"

"No, Dan. You need to listen. I'm mid-story here, OK?” He said that little piece conversationally, quietly. Nothing forceful, in his tone, in his words, but I couldn't conceivably have gone on interrupting him, not even to say the bar was on fire or Christ had come back in a pink evening gown. Not for anything. His eyes were so cold, so solidly
on me
. “My story is true, Dan. You need to understand that. Do you get it?"

"Yeah . . ."

"So the guy, he comes down the stairs, and freezes at the door to the TV room—you with me, Dan?"

"Yeah,” my lips were numb—all of a sudden I was sorta scared of this kid. I never paid much attention to the guys Janey brought home, but maybe she let this one go for a reason. He ran so cold so fast—but then, by the time I'd worked all that out in my head, he was already warmed up again. Friendly again.

"—and there's this kid on his couch, sitting with the guy's dog. A naked kid. A kid who isn't one of his kids. A sobbing boy, not more than thirteen years old, petting old Ski Boot—who's happy as a clam, wearing one of those big, stupid, flop-tongued dog-grins.

"The guy tries talking to the kid—you know, ‘Whatsa matter, son? How'd you get in here? Blah, blah, blah'—but the kid won't answer, won't even acknowledge the guy's presence. Just keeps stroking the dog. The guy comes right up to the kid, right up to the arm of the couch. He reaches out to grab the boy, then thinks better of it.

"You know how when you've got a radio with a bad grip on a station, you can make the reception go clear or fuzzy just by reaching towards the radio? You know how that is? You ever notice that you get that feeling off of people, too?"

"Like auras?” I asked, but I knew what he was talking about already. About the radio reception, at least. “That psychic stuff they have TV specials on sometimes?"

"No, not that fakey-fakey TV crap. I mean for real. Try it some time—get your hand close to someone, and you'll just about always be able to feel . . . like, a . . . well, like a
buffer
of sorts. I don't know what it is, scientifically, maybe just the warm air around their body—that personal atmosphere—or some sorta static electricity or electromagnetic fields. I don't know. I just know it's there. You can feel it.

"But when this guy's fingers get close to the kid, there's nothing, nothing at all, and he knows that he doesn't want to know what would happen if he kept reaching.

"Also, the kid's crying pretty hard, right? Almost wailing, his mouth bent into one of those awful upside-down clown faces that kids make when they're really pitching a fit—but there's no
sound
. There are still regular night sounds: the mantle clock ticking, the dog grunting, the springs in the couch squeaking, but the
kid
isn't making any sound. Not anything.

"The guy, he's a horror-scifi fan, he's read his
Fantasy & Science Fiction
and watched his
Twilight Zone
; he figures that maybe Ghost World is just like the Real World, but out of phase—just a little out of alignment, enough so that usually there's no passing through. Maybe this kid had somehow gotten racked into focus—not all the way into focus, but closer to being in the guy's world. Or the guy, could be
he'd
been racked into focus with Ghost World—literally one foot in the grave.

"He doesn't know, he doesn't want to know. If this was a movie or a story—a made-up story—then the guy probably would've started doing experiments, started trying to figure out what the deal was, how it worked, like in
Poltergeist
or
Hellraiser
.

"But this is real life, and all the guy wants is for his dog to sleep quietly and the ghost boy to go away. He backs out of the room, creeps up the staircase and pulls the covers over his head, sure that the kid will Just Go Away.

"The next morning the guy comes down to breakfast and finds his family quietly sitting around the table, munching Rice Krispies. The only sounds in the room are the kids chewing, the cereal snapplecracklepopping and the dog's tags clanking against his metal dish as he crunches his kibble. The ghost boy is sitting on the floor, watching Ski Boot eat and running his hand in long, deliberate strokes down the dog's back. His tears have dried up, but he still doesn't look happy.