Mad Dog (10 page)

But never once did I think of this.

She forgot I was coming.

“Well, I gotta bounce, Mad Dog.” He’s already walking backwards, away from us. “Keep it cool, man.” He turns and strolls off.

“Hey,” Popeye says, “don’t pay any attention to him. Next time, we’ll get there an hour early. Annie can drive. We’ll get you on the list to see your mom next Saturday.”

I shake my head. For months, my mother is all I’ve thought about. I crossed off days on the calendar. I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about seeing her today. And she . . . she forgot I was coming.

“No.” My voice is calm. Cold.

“Wes?” Popeye sounds worried.

He doesn’t need to be. She forgot I was coming. Fine. Now I know where I stand. It makes things simpler. She doesn’t need me. And I don’t need her.

“I’m not coming back.” I can almost feel something inside of me closing. Shutting down. Locking. “I don’t ever want to see her again.”

Seventeen

Popeye and I don’t talk on the drive home. I pretend to be sleeping, but every nerve in my body is wide awake. On alert. My mother forgot. And I’m going to forget too. See how she likes that. She can stay in that jail forever, for all I care.

I don’t open my eyes until we pull up at Starlight Animal Rescue and I hear the engine shut off.

Rex is at my door before I can get it open. He jumps on me, begging for his walk. But I don’t feel like walking. Or talking. Or thinking. I don’t feel like doing anything except going to my room and trying to sleep for real. Forever.

Rex barks. I know him so well that I can tell this isn’t a request for a walk. He barks louder, again and again.

Dakota jogs up from the barn. “Didn’t go well, huh?” she asks.

I glare at her.

She glances from me to Popeye and back again. “I mean . . . because Rex is barking. I figured Wes must be angry. So it probably didn’t go great.”

“Stop it, Rex.” I head for the house, striding past Kat like I don’t see her there with her three cats, all of them mewing for attention. I let the screen door slam behind me before Rex can follow me inside.

“Wes?” Annie pulls off an oven mitt and starts toward me. “I made hamburgers, your favorite. They got a little burned, but I put on extra cheese and onions and—”

“Thanks.” I don’t look at her. I just keep climbing the stairs that feel even steeper and narrower now. “I’m not hungry.” Rex is still barking. I bust into my room and close the door.

Voices from downstairs jumble together. I hear Hank come inside and ask, “What’s the matter?” I can’t make out the answer.

Then I hear barking, followed by the
click-click
of dog toenails racing up the stairs and down the hall. Rex scratches at my door. He barks and barks.

I have to get to sleep. The dog won’t stop barking. My heart pounds as I cross the room and open the door. Rex barks right at me, louder than ever. I take him by the collar and lead him back downstairs and straight out to the porch.

Munch and Bag trot over to welcome Rex, but Rex ignores them. His barking is for nobody but me.

“Sit,” I command. Rex sits. “Stay.” He stays.

I leave him on the porch and close the door.

The kitchen voices have stopped as suddenly as if I’ve muted a TV. Without looking at my silent audience, I announce, “Rex is sleeping on the porch with the other dogs.” Then I go back to my room, cover my head with my pillow, and hope I never wake up.

* * *

The next couple of days I do what I have to do, at the Manor and at the Rescue. Dakota helps me walk the dogs. About the only time Rex quits barking around me is when he’s on a walk.

I go back to helping Dakota soak Blackfire’s hoof. The abscess still hasn’t drained, and she gets the vet to come out again. But he says to wait it out. It will come. So we soak the hoof some more.

Dakota and I work all right together as long as we don’t talk about anything except the animals. But on Wednesday night when I put Rex out on the porch again, she gets all up in my business. “Wes, I can’t take it anymore. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I answer, walking away.

She follows me. “Right. Nothing’s wrong with you. That’s why you won’t talk to us. That’s why you’re being like this with Rex.”

“I’m not doing anything to Rex.” I’m halfway up the stairs, but she’s right behind me.

“Exactly. You’re not doing anything with that poor dog. Rex misses you, Wes. What happened in Chicago? What did your mom say to you that’s got you so upset?”

I stop and look at her. “Didn’t Popeye tell you?” I figured he would have told the whole family how my mother stood me up at the jail.

Dakota shakes her head. “He said it was your business and you’d talk about it when you wanted to.”

“He’s right.” But I’m still surprised he didn’t tell her.

“You can’t keep everything inside,” Dakota pleads. “Anybody with eyes can see it’s eating you alive. You keep everything inside like that, and . . . and it’ll fester, just like Blackfire’s hoof.”

I don’t want to hear this. It cuts too close to home. When I touch the horse’s hoof where the sore is in deep, too deep to see, I can feel the heat from inside. I picture the pus and junk growing in there. And that’s what it feels like inside of me when I think about my mother.

“Just leave me alone, Dakota.”

* * *

On Thursday, Ms. Bean calls to tell me that my mother is out of jail. She’s back in rehab, and I can visit her there on Saturday if I want to.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Everybody leaves me alone until Friday, when we’re scheduled to take the dogs to Nice Manor for another training session. That morning, it’s like the dogs have gotten together to plot how to make it hardest on Mad Dog. Moxie gets so scared that she wets the rug inside the door the second she gets back from her walk. Munch has a wild outbreak of the slobbers. Bag won’t leave me alone because he wants to play. Rex barks the whole time. And I can’t find the three-legged Lion. I have to search the house and the yard before I find the Pom curled up with Kat in her bed.

“Mrs. Coolidge is here!” Dakota yells.

The horn honks that stupid
Duh duh-duh-duh duh! Duh!
tune.

I snatch the Pom without waking Kat and head to the car.

Mrs. Coolidge revs the engine when I walk out, just in case I didn’t get that the horn honking meant she was in a hurry and I was making her late.

When we’re all in and strapped, she takes off. “So, what do you really think about that activities director?” Mrs. Coolidge asks.

“She’s okay,” Dakota answers when I don’t. “I thought she was creepy when we first met her, but she’s been joining in on the training sessions. She’s helping me with Munch, and she’s not the brightest bulb in the pack.”

“Carol’s a good kid. We were in the same class at Nice High, although we didn’t have much in common. She had a big crush on Mr. Coolidge Senior, God rest his soul. Sometimes I wonder if she’s gotten over him yet.” She’s quiet for a minute. Then she almost whispers, “The man made it hard for a body to get over him.”

Dakota tries to get her to tell more, but Mrs. Coolidge refuses to go there.

At Nice Manor, everybody knows what to do by now. They sit in pairs and buddy up on dogs. I’ve told Dakota that this is a review day for voice commands, so she goes over the instructions with the group.

“Make sure your leashes are on,” she shouts over the barking from Munch and Bag. “One person should hold the dog, and your partner should stand three feet away, holding the end of the leash. Tell your dog to come. Then gently tug the leash to make sure he obeys.”

I walk around the room and observe. We’ve done this before, but they still don’t get it. “Don’t forget,” I remind Rose and Velva. “Call your dog by his name. Not Baby Doll or Sweetie Pie or my Precious.”

Leon and Buddy are laughing and joking around. Buddy calls Munch like a catcher would taunt a guy up to bat. “Come on, Munchster! You can do it, girl!”

“Aren’t you guys listening?” I ask. “Use the dog’s name—her
real
name—first. Then ‘come.’ Is that so hard? ‘Munch, come.’”

When Munch doesn’t come, I take the leash and tug. Maybe I tug a little too hard, but the dog comes.

Dakota pipes up. “Remember that asking a dog to come is an invitation. You don’t want to use it as a punishment, or they’ll never want to come to you. And
never
train a dog when you’re angry.” She acts like she’s instructing all of us. But I know her words are for me.

And I don’t appreciate it. “Fine!” I snap. “
You
take it from here.” I get out of the room as fast as I can. I don’t need this. Why should I go to all this trouble anyway? It’s not my problem.

I hear the squeaking wheels of a wheelchair come up behind me.

Buddy rolls around so I have to face her. “What was all that about, Wes?”

“Nothing.”

She peers at me. “I knew a third baseman once who carried around so much anger and bitterness with him, the slightest thing set him off. Got thrown out of more games than most people play in a lifetime.”

There’s nothing to say to that, except “Who cares?” And I won’t say that to her.

“What happened last weekend when you saw your mama?” Buddy asks.

“Nothing,” I snap.

“How’s that?” she asks.

Finally, I return her stare. “Nothing happened because I didn’t see her. Okay? She forgot I was coming. When she found out I was there waiting, it didn’t matter to her. She didn’t want to see me. There. Satisfied?”

Buddy doesn’t look away. She doesn’t blink. “I can see why you’re so bitter, Wes.”

Bitter. I hadn’t put it into a word, but that one fits. Like a bad taste in my mouth, a sourness that won’t go away, that keeps forcing its way up like vomit. I’m bitter all right. “So what if I am?” My throat burns with the words. “Wouldn’t
you
be bitter if your mother did that to
you
?”

“Likely I would, and that’s the truth,” she admits. She pats her legs. “My mama gave me these legs. She was a drinker. I was four years old when she piled me into the car one night and headed for the liquor store. When she plowed into an 18-wheeler, people said it was a miracle she didn’t kill us both. She broke her thumb. It healed. My legs didn’t.”

In my head, I see the whole thing. The truck coming at them. The crash. The hospital. “What did you do?”

“Carried around a whole mess of bitterness most of my life. Till I met up with a left fielder who told me, ‘Buddy, bitterness is like swallowing poison and expecting the other guy to get sick and die.’”

. . . like swallowing poison and expecting the other guy to get sick . . .

I start to ask her to say it again, to tell me more about her mother. But before I can get out a single word, the door to the rec room opens, and Miss Golf walks out.

“There you are.” She shuffles up to me, her back to Buddy. “Wes, I wanted to tell you the good news. I met with the directors of Nice Manor. We talked to the state board. They’ve okayed the dog program.”

Buddy whistles through her teeth. “Go, team!” she shouts.

Miss Golf smiles, showing a row of white overbite. “Plus, they said we could take two dogs. Two! Isn’t that grand? I just couldn’t believe—!”

“Two?” I ask. I glance through the window and see Dakota working with Moxie. Leon is on the floor, rolling around with Munch. Bag is playing fetch with June. I don’t see Lion, but I know he’s there. “What about the others?”

Miss Golf’s smile fades. “Well, I’m not sure. But, Wes, I wasn’t even sure the board would okay one dog, much less two.”

“But we have
four
dogs!” I insist. “Four!”

Her eyes are getting big, and I know I’m too loud. But I can’t help it. “Four dogs who need homes and people to love them. Four dogs, and all they want is someone to care about them. Someone who’ll care enough about them to think about them. Maybe even to love them. Is that too much to ask?”

I turn my back on Nice Manor and run outside. I’m done with this. From now on, Buddy and Miss Golf and Mrs. Coolidge and everybody else can do whatever they want. And they can do it without the help of Mad Dog Williams.

Eighteen

The minute we drive up the lane to Starlight Animal Rescue, Rex is there. He never chases cars, but he’s chasing us now. His bark sets off a chain reaction of barking dogs inside the car.

I jump out as soon as the car pulls to a stop. “Rex, no!” I shout. “Bad dog!”

Hank steps out from the barn and hollers for Dakota. “I need help with your horse, Dakota! Hurry up!”

She runs off, leaving me to lug the kennels by myself. Fine. I don’t need her. I lift Munch’s kennel out, then Bag’s. They’re barking because Rex still won’t lay off. I’ve got Lion in one arm, so I try to coax Moxie out of the backseat. But she won’t come.

“Be quiet, Rex!” I shout. This makes Moxie retreat farther into the back of the car.

“I’m late for my bridge game,” Mrs. Coolidge says. She has both hands on the steering wheel.

Popeye jogs up. I think he must have come from the house, but I didn’t see it. I can’t see or hear anything except Rex and his earsplitting barks. Popeye climbs into the backseat and comes out with Moxie. “There you go, little gal.”

Mrs. Coolidge waves, then takes off.

Rex doesn’t chase after the car like a normal dog would. I want him to. I want him to get away from me and quit barking. I bend down and pick up a stick. “Rex! Go!” I toss the stick clear across the yard.

For a second, the barking stops. Rex takes off after the stick. In a flash, he’s back. He drops the stick at my feet and starts barking again.

Popeye says something, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear anything except the barking. It’s louder and louder. Or maybe it’s just in my head, growing. Like bitterness. Like an abscess. Bigger and louder. Until I can’t stand it anymore.

“Stop it!” I cry.

Rex barks even louder, if that’s possible. He won’t stop.

“He’s just warning you about your anger, Wes,” Popeye says.

I don’t need a dog to tell me how angry I am. “Go! Don’t you get it, you stupid dog? I don’t want you here! I don’t want
you
!” I kick the dirt. My shoe catches the stick. It flips into the air.

Rex whimpers and dodges the stick. It bangs to the ground. I pick it up and throw it, hard, as far as I can. “Go! Go away! I don’t want you anymore!”

Rex turns to me, his brown eyes big and unblinking. His head drops and he trots off, tail between his legs.

My legs crumple under me. I collapse to the ground. My whole body is shaking. I can’t control it. My heart’s pounding in my chest so hard I can barely breathe. And then tears burst out of me, all at once, like a volcano erupting from deep inside.

“It’s okay, Wes.” Popeye is sitting on the ground next to me. He’s close, but he doesn’t touch me. I think I’d scream if he touched me. My skin is too hot.

“Father, comfort Wes,” Popeye whispers. “Let him feel how much You love him.”

I don’t know how long we sit there, with me shaking and Popeye muttering words that have to be prayers.

Finally, when I think I can talk, I say, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want Rex to go.”

“I know,” Popeye says. “Rex knows.”

The air is still. Waiting.

“How could she forget?”

A minute passes, time enough for me to relive everything. I’m mad at Mom for signing herself out of rehab. I’m mad that she started using again, that she went back to the guy we both swore we’d never let into our lives again, that she didn’t kick him out of the visiting room when she heard I was there to see her.

But what gets me more than anything is that I wasn’t even a part of her thoughts. She forgot about me.

I turn to Popeye. “How can she not even think about me?”

“You don’t know that, Wes,” Popeye answers.

“What would you know about it?” I snap. “You don’t know how it feels not having anybody give you a single thought. Ever.”

“Wes, God thinks about you
all
the time.”

“Yeah, right.” Maybe God thinks about Popeye. Popeye’s the kind of person God would like thinking about. Not me. My own mother doesn’t even like thinking about me.

“‘How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!’ That’s from Psalm 139,” Popeye explains.

God’s thoughts outnumber the grains of sand. God’s thoughts about me?

I want to drink in the words. I want to believe that God thinks about
me
like that. More thoughts than I can count. Imagining this feels like water running over me. I close my eyes and try to picture God thinking about me. But I can’t picture God. So I picture Jesus. And it’s easier to think about the Jesus who hung out with losers, the Jesus who healed people and died for them—
that
Jesus. I can almost imagine Him caring, thinking about me.

“Father,” Popeye prays, “help Wes know, understand, and believe how much You love him. Help him accept that love and forgiveness through Christ.”

I grab on to the comet of Popeye’s prayer. Only it doesn’t feel like I’m borrowing his words this time. It feels like I’m praying them for myself.
Thank You
. I’m not sure if I say the words out loud. But I know God hears me. I sense that He’s listening . . . and thinking about me.

“And thanks for thinking about Wes’s mother, too,” Popeye says. “And for loving her like—”

“Wait.” I open my eyes. I don’t want to go where he’s going. I’m not ready. I want him to keep my mother out of this.

Popeye looks up. Then he smiles, but not at me. He’s grinning at something behind me.

I turn around, and I’m pounced on by Rex. I let myself fall backwards in the grass. My dog puts one paw on my chest, then drops the stick from his mouth and licks my face. I cover my head, but Rex is determined. He licks and licks.

I throw my arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Rex. Good Rex. I love you, boy.” He lets me hug him while he lunges at me, scoring more licks on my face. His tail wags so hard it slaps my knees.

“Forgive me, boy?” I beg.

“What do you think?” Popeye says. He pets my dog. “That dog has already forgiven you. He loves you no matter what. He’ll keep on loving you no matter what. Unconditionally.”

I know Popeye’s right. Rex always loves me, even when I ignore him or yell at him. And I know Popeye’s not just talking about Rex. “You’re trying to tell me that’s how God loves me, right?”

Popeye laughs. “That’s just a taste of how God loves you, Wes. Now multiply that by more numbers than you can count, and you’re still not there.”

I nod. But in my heart I’m shouting.

I bury my face in Rex’s neck and remember my mom the way I saw her last. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her whole body looked broken.

She needs to know she’s not alone. She needs to know Somebody’s thinking about her too.

I sit up, but I keep holding my dog. “Popeye?” I ask. I have the sensation that I’m being watched. Thought about. Loved.

“What, Wes?” Popeye says.

“Do you think we could still go see my mom tomorrow?”