Racing in the Rain (4 page)

Chapter Nine

A
couple of years after we moved into the new house, something very frightening happened.

Earlier that spring Denny had gone to France for a Formula Renault testing program. He did exceptionally well in this program because it was in France in the spring, when it rains. When he told Eve about it, he said that one of the scouts who attend these things approached after the session and said, “Can you drive as fast on dry tracks as you can on wet ones?” And Denny looked him straight in the eyes and replied, simply, “Try me.”

The scout offered Denny a tryout, and Denny went away for two weeks. Testing and tuning and practicing. It was a big deal. He did so well, they offered him a seat in the endurance race at Watkins Glen.

When he first left for New York, we all grinned at each other because we couldn't wait to watch the race on Speed Channel. “It's so exciting.” Eve would giggle. “Daddy's a professional race car driver!”

And Zoë, whom I love very much and would not hesitate to sacrifice my own life to protect, would cheer and hop into her little race car they kept in the living room. Then she would drive around in circles until we were all dizzy and then throw her hands into the air and proclaim, “I am the champion!”

I got so caught up in the excitement, I was doing idiotic dog things like digging up the lawn. Balling myself up and then stretching out on the floor with my legs straight and my back arched and letting them scratch my belly. And chasing things. I chased!

It was the best of times. Really.

And then it was the worst of times.

Race day came, and Eve woke up very early feeling awful. She had a pain so terrible that she stood in the kitchen and vomited violently into the sink. She vomited as if she were turning herself inside out.

“I don't know what's wrong with me, Enzo,” she said. And she rarely spoke to me candidly like that. Like how Denny talks to me, as if I'm his true friend, his soul mate. The last time she had talked to me like that was when Zoë was born.

But this time she did talk to me like I was her soul mate. She asked, “What's wrong with me?”

She knew I couldn't answer. And I felt totally frustrated because
I had an answer
.

I knew what was wrong, but I had no way to tell her. So I pushed at her thigh with my muzzle. I nosed in and buried my face between her legs. And I waited there, afraid.

“I feel like someone's crushing my skull,” she said. I couldn't respond. I had no words. There was nothing I could do. “Someone's crushing my skull,” she repeated.

And quickly she gathered some things while I watched. She shoved Zoë's clothes in a bag and some of her own and toothbrushes. All so fast. And she roused Zoë and stuffed her little-kid feet into her little-kid sneakers and—
bang
—the door slammed shut. And then—
snick, snick
—the dead bolt was thrown and they were gone.

And I wasn't gone. I was there. I was still there.

Chapter Ten

I
deally, a driver is a master of all that is around him, Denny says. Ideally, a driver controls the car so completely that he corrects a spin before it happens. He anticipates all possibilities. But we don't live in an ideal world. In our world, surprises sometimes happen, mistakes happen. Incidents with other drivers happen, and a driver must react.

When a driver reacts, Denny says, it's important to remember that a car is only as good as its tires. If the tires lose their grip, nothing else matters. Not engine power, speed, or braking. Nothing else counts when a skid starts. Until the tires regain their grip, the driver is unable to control the car. And that's a bad situation.

It is important for the driver to override his natural fear. When a car begins to spin, the driver may panic and lift his foot off the gas. If he does, he will throw the weight of the car toward the front wheels. Then the rear end will snap around, and the car will spin.

A good driver will try to stop the spin by turning his wheels in the direction the car is moving. He may succeed. However, at a critical point, the skidding stops, and suddenly the tires grip the road but his front wheels are now turned in the wrong direction. This causes a counterspin in the other direction. This secondary spin is much faster and more dangerous.

If, however, when his tires begin to break free, our driver
increases
the pressure on the accelerator, and at the same time eases out on the steering wheel ever so slightly, this will lessen the lateral g-forces at work. The spin will therefore be corrected.

So, our driver is still in control of his car. He is still able to act in a positive manner. He still can create an ending to his story in which he completes the race without incident. And, perhaps, if his creating is good, he will win.

Chapter Eleven

W
hen I was locked in the house suddenly and firmly, I did not panic. I quickly and carefully took stock of the situation and understood these things: Eve was ill, and the illness was possibly affecting her judgment. Also she likely would not return for me; I knew that Denny would be home on the third day, after two nights.

I am a dog, and I know how to go without food. For three days I took care to ration the toilet water. I wandered around the house sniffing at the crack beneath the pantry door and fantasizing about a big bowl of my kibble. I was able to scoop up the occasional dust-covered Cheerio Zoë had dropped in a corner somewhere. And I did my business on the mat by the back door, next to the laundry machines. I did not panic.

During the second night, approximately forty hours into my solitude, I think I began to see things that weren't there. I heard a sound coming from Zoë's bedroom. When I investigated, I saw something terrible and frightening. One of her stuffed animal toys was moving about on its own.

It was the zebra. The now-living zebra said nothing to me at all, but when it saw me it began a dance, a twisting, jerky ballet. It began to tease and taunt a Barbie doll. That made me quite angry, and I growled at the evil zebra, but it simply smiled and continued, this time picking on a stuffed frog, which it rode like a horse, its hoof in the air like a bronco rider, yelling out, “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!”

I stalked the zebra as it abused and humiliated each of Zoë's toys. Finally, I could take no more and I moved in, teeth bared for attack, to end the brutality once and for all. But before I could get the crazed zebra in my fangs, it stopped dancing and stood on its hind legs before me. Then it tore at the seam that ran down its belly. Its own seam! It ripped the seam open until it was able to reach in and tear out its own stuffing. It continued to take itself apart, handful by handful, until it was nothing more than a pile of fabric and stuffing.

Shocked by what had happened, I left Zoë's room, hoping that what I had seen was only in my mind. A vision driven by the lack of food. But I knew that it wasn't a vision; it was true. Something terrible had happened.

The following afternoon, Denny returned. I heard the taxi pull up, and I watched him unload his bags and walk them up to the back door. I didn't want to seem too excited to see him. Yet at the same time I was concerned about what I had done to the doormat, so I gave a couple of small barks to alert him. Through the window, I could see the look of surprise on his face. He took out his keys and opened the door, and I tried to block him, but he came in too quickly and the mat made a squishy sound. He looked down and carefully hopped into the room.

“What the heck? What are you doing here?”

He glanced around the kitchen. Nothing was out of place, nothing was amiss, except me.

“Eve?” he called out.

But Eve wasn't there. I didn't know where she was, but she wasn't with me.

“Are they home?” he asked me.

I didn't answer. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Are Eve and Zoë still at your house?” he asked without saying hello. “Can I speak to Eve?”

After a moment, he said, “Enzo is here.”

He said, “I'm trying to understand it myself. You left him here?”

I couldn't hear what was being said on the other end of the line, but I could imagine.

Denny said, “This is insane. How could you not remember that your dog is in the house?”

He said, “He's been here the whole time?”

He said very angrily, “Darn it!”

And then he hung up the phone and shouted in frustration, a big long shout that was very loud.

He walked through the house quickly. I didn't follow him; I waited by the back door. A minute later he returned.

“This is the only place you used?” he asked, pointing at the mat. “Good boy, Enzo. Good work.”

He got a garbage bag out of the pantry and scooped the sopping mat into it, tied it closed, and put it on the back porch. He mopped up the area near the door.

“You must be starving.” He filled my water bowl and gave me some kibble, which I ate too quickly and didn't enjoy, but at least it filled the empty space in my stomach. In silence, angry, he watched me eat. And very soon, Eve and Zoë arrived on the back porch.

Denny threw open the door.

“Unbelievable,” he said bitterly. “You are unbelievable.”

“I was sick,” Eve said, stepping into the house with Zoë hiding behind her. “I wasn't thinking.”

Zoë slipped out from behind her mother and scurried down the hallway toward her room.

“You should have taken him with you or dropped him at the kennel or something,” Denny said.

“I didn't mean to leave him,” she whispered.

I heard weeping and looked over. Zoë stood in the door to the hallway, crying. Eve pushed past Denny and went to Zoë, kneeling before her.

“Oh, baby, we're sorry we're fighting. We'll stop. Please don't cry.”

“My animals,” Zoë whimpered.

“What happened to your animals?” Eve led Zoë by the hand down the hall. Denny followed them. I stayed where I was. I wasn't going near that room where the dancing freak zebra had been. I didn't want to see it.

Suddenly, I heard thundering footsteps. Denny hurtled through the kitchen toward me. He was puffed up and angry and his eyes locked on me. “You stupid dog,” he growled.

He dragged me through the kitchen and down the hall, into Zoë's room, where she sat, stunned, on the floor in the middle of a huge mess. Her dolls, her animals, all torn to shreds, a complete disaster. Total ruin. I could only assume that the evil demon zebra had reassembled itself and destroyed the other animals after I had left. I should have eliminated the zebra when I had my chance. I should have eaten it, even if it had killed me.

Denny was so angry that his anger filled up the entire room, the entire house. Nothing was as large as Denny's anger. “Bad dog!” he bellowed, and he raised his hand.

“Denny, no!” Eve cried. She rushed to me and covered me with her own body. She protected me.

Denny stopped. He wouldn't hit her. No matter what. Just as he wouldn't hit me. He
hadn't
wanted to hit me, I know. He wanted to hit the demon, the evil zebra, the dark creature that possessed the stuffed animal. Denny believed the evil demon was in me, but it wasn't. I saw it. The demon had possessed the zebra and left me at the bloody scene with no voice to defend myself—I had been framed.

“We'll get new animals, baby,” Eve said to Zoë. “We'll go to the store tomorrow.” As gently as I could, I slunk toward Zoë, the sad little girl on the floor, surrounded by the rubble of her toys, tears on her cheeks. I crawled to her on my elbows and placed my nose next to her thigh. And I raised my eyebrows slightly as if to ask if she could ever forgive me for not protecting her animals.

She waited a long time to give me her answer, but she finally gave it. She placed her hand on my head and let it rest there. She didn't scratch me. It would be a while before she allowed herself to do that. But she did touch me, which meant she forgave me for what had happened.

Later, after everyone had eaten and Zoë was put to bed, I found Denny sitting on the porch steps with a drink of hard liquor, which I thought was strange because he hardly ever drank hard liquor. I approached cautiously, and he noticed.

“It's okay, boy,” he said. He patted the step next to him, and I went to him. I sniffed his wrist and took a tentative lick. He smiled and rubbed my neck.

“I'm really sorry,” he said. “I lost my mind.”

Denny finished his drink with a long swallow and shivered. He produced a bottle from nowhere and poured himself another. He stood up and took a couple of steps and stretched to the sky.

“We got first place, Enzo. We took first place overall. You know what that means?” My heart jumped. I knew what it meant. It meant that he was the champion. It meant he was the best! “It means a seat in a touring car next season, that's what it means,” Denny said to me. “I got an offer from a real, live racing team. Do you know what an offer is?

“Getting an offer means I can drive if I come up with my share of sponsorship money for the season. And if I'm willing to spend six months away from Eve and Zoë and you. Am I willing to do that?”

I didn't say anything because I was torn. I knew I was Denny's biggest fan and supporter of his racing. But I also felt something like what Eve and Zoë must have felt whenever he went away. I got a hollow pit in my stomach at the idea of his absence. He must have been able to read my mind, because he gulped at his glass and said, “I don't think so, either.” Which was what I was thinking.

“I'm taking those stuffed animals out of your allowance,” he said with a chuckle. He looked at me then, took my chin with his hand.

“I love you, boy,” he said. “And I promise I'll never hurt you. No matter what. I'm really sorry.”

He was blathering, he was drunk. But it made me feel so much love for him, too.

“You're tough,” he said. “You can do three days like that because you're one tough dog.”

I felt proud.

“I know you'd never do anything deliberately to hurt Zoë,” he said.

I laid my head on his leg and looked up at him.

“Sometimes I think you actually understand me,” he said. “It's like there's a person inside there. Like you know everything.”

I do
, I said to myself.
I do
.