The Pigman's Legacy (The Sequel to The Pigman) (9 page)

Just then a cold weird wind began to blow in the room. There were no windows open. But we could feel this chilling breeze, and the dust moved around us enough to give us a minor choking fit.

“John, I feel as if there is someone else in the room with us now,” Lorraine whispered, turning rapidly and flashing her light all about.

I felt the hair begin to bristle on the back of my neck, and I was about to close the trunk when I noticed a white envelope strapped against the lid. I lifted it up, opened it, and took out one of those folders that look like they're going to hold a high-school prom picture. Lorraine practically ripped it out of my hand, and opened it to reveal a very old picture of a man with a beard. The man was in a uniform and he was saluting. There was a big grin on his face. A grin that was at least thirty or forty years younger than the one on the man we knew, who was sitting downstairs in a swivel chair. Engraved in gold letters beneath the photograph was “Colonel Parker Glenville,” and we knew then that indeed the Colonel was not dead.
Our Gus was the Colonel
.

eight

I couldn't stop John from rummaging through that trunk for another five minutes. He's one of the nosiest boys I've ever seen, and I was on the verge of having a huge anxiety attack. I had to go to the front window and breathe a few extra millimeters of fresh air that leaked in around the sills. The louvers on one of the outside screens were turned in a way so I could glimpse the street below. I was expecting to see a police car, but instead there was nothing but a scrawny German shepherd moping down the sidewalk. I bent my head to see if anybody was across the street, and managed to glimpse the figure of a real bum. This destitute old man seemed to have nothing to his name but a pile of blankets that he was clutching, and he was drinking a bottle of wine as he went along his way. He looked so solemn and awful, I couldn't help wondering if he was one of those ordinary bums or one of those extremely intelligent people who had become so disillusioned by society that he just couldn't handle his life anymore.

When John was good and ready, he engineered our exit. I never felt more mortified than when he made me help him drag the trunk down the outside steps while people were walking back and forth on the street. I don't know what
be
thought they could think, but
I
knew what they thought—seeing a couple of kids yanking this big leatherette trunk out of a boarded-up, dilapidated town house. When we finally got the thing all the way to the rear of the Studebaker we couldn't even open the car trunk!

“Kick it,” Gus yelled, as he came down the steps to the sidewalk, still under his own power.

We tried a few times until John kicked just the right spot and the car trunk flew open. We swung the trunk inside, closed everything up, and John ran around to open the car door for me. I went to slide in but stopped short. The German shepherd I had seen from the upstairs window was now lying on the backseat of the old convertible. He was literally sprawled across the cushions, his head buried in his front paws. He had obviously jumped in and made himself entirely at home. He had two of the saddest eyes in the world and looked like he was suffering from a persecution complex. I should have known there was a reason he had picked this particular car.

“
Get out
,” John yelled at the dog. The dog wouldn't budge. By now the old man was at our side, and I figured when he saw the dog he'd probably pick up a stick and smack him for trespassing. Instead Gus' eyes began to twinkle. And the dog's eyes brightened too. Gus immediately grabbed a piece of fudge out of his pocket and offered it to the dog, saying, “You're a good boy. You're a good boy.” The dog accepted the offering and began chewing it as though he was a connoisseur of sweets.

“Come on now,
get out
,” John ordered the dog.

“He's okay,” Gus said.

“What do you mean, he's okay?” John wanted to know. “Get out! Get out!” he yelled at the dog again.

“John, let's get out of here. We can dump the dog later,” I suggested. “The police are coming. You can let the dog out down the block.”

“
Let the dog come with us
,” Gus demanded.

I was really getting worried now, because I could see the headline, “Lorraine Jensen Mutilated by Mad Dog.” But I got in. John took the old man around to his side, shoved him in next to me, then got behind the wheel again. He started the engine, and we took off with the old man yelling happily, “We'll fix the IRS! We'll fix the IRS!” The very next thing he did was fall asleep. I couldn't believe how Gus could be jumping around one minute, and snoring to beat the band the next. John turned the car sharply right and then he turned it left, and the Colonel's head began to roll between us once more like it was in a Ping-Pong tournament. Then the Colonel's head crashed against my shoulder and stayed there for five minutes as we began to climb up Victory Boulevard and out of St. George. I was thankful when we had to make a sharp right and Gus' head went flying onto John's shoulder. I couldn't help watching the two of them while I massaged the circulation back into my clavicle. They made quite a picture. Even with their ages so far apart there was something very similar about the two of them. Something of destiny, perhaps. It was that their noses were alike even though Gus' nose was older than John's. Maybe it was the strong look of determination in their faces. But whatever, the position of Gus' head on John's shoulder made Gus look like a little boy resting against his father.

It started to drizzle again and I opened up the umbrella. The dog began to whimper as though he was afraid of rain. I turned around to pet him, to reassure him that everything was all right. I was also concerned that he not get carsick. He started to lick my hand, and I rubbed his forehead. Then the dog barked, and I could just tell he wanted another piece of fudge. I reached into Gus' pocket and found the last little squashed piece. I gave it to him, and as he chewed it the expression in his eyes was that of a pooch in canine heaven.

I was really thankful that John got us back to Howard Avenue and the garage in one piece. He shut off the motor, and Gus was still sleeping. John thought it was better to just leave him in the car for a few minutes while we pulled the trunk inside and upstairs. When we came back out we found the dog stationed at the open door of the car as though he was a guard. I petted him a few times to show how grateful I was for protecting the old guy, and John started tapping Gus on the shoulder to wake him up.

“Gus,” he called over and over. “Come on, Gus, you're home.”

Gus didn't budge, but every single time John called “Gus,” the dog barked and looked at us as if he expected another piece of fudge to be offered.

“
John, I think his name is Gus
.”

The dog barked.

“
Who
?”

“The dog.”

“Gus?” John asked.

The dog barked again.

“The
dog
is Gus,” I repeated. “I think the
dog
is the real Gus! He must have been the Colonel's dog and gotten lost when the Colonel had to clear out of the town house.”

“Gus?” John called.

The dog just wagged his tail and barked as though he was home again at last.

nine

At first I thought Lorraine was bananas, but sure enough, every time I said “Gus” the dog would bark, and perk up, and look at me and wag his tail. At one point he ran right to my side with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. I realized of course this
had
to be the Colonel's dog, which is why the poor mutt was sitting in the back of the car waiting for us.

“Do you know how to wake up the Colonel?” I asked.

Gus barked, then jumped past me back into the car and started licking the Colonel's face. It took no more than a few seconds to revive the old man, and he woke up patting the dog on the head. “That's my boy,” the old man kept saying over and over again, “that's my boy.” Then the Colonel ordered us to help him out of the car. All the energy he'd seemed to have at the town house was gone. Lorraine and I lined up like crutches again and were as gentle as we could be. We got him inside the house and up the stairs, and all the while he kept telling us how nice it was going to be to have a dog around the house. When he reached his bedroom, he seemed almost surprised to find his trunk waiting for him. I tucked him into his chair and Lorraine took a blanket and covered his legs. Then I pulled down the shades to darken the room. Lorraine and I were just about ready to give him some peace and quiet when I heard him call us back. We moved close to him.

“What is it?” I asked.

There was a long pause.

“Good night, John,” he whispered. “Good night, Lorraine.”

“Good night,
Colonel
,” we said softly, even though it wasn't nighttime at all.

He looked at us as if he couldn't be sure he had heard us call him the Colonel. We hadn't meant to; it just happened. He turned away for a moment, and his eyes filled up with tears. Then he looked directly back at us. We reached out and took his hand and stayed with him until he fell asleep.

I told Lorraine to watch him while I took a quick run down to the little A&P. She didn't really like the idea of being left alone in the house, but when I told her what we had on our hands was not a ghost, but a very real old man who had probably gone broke because he couldn't pay taxes on the town house or come up with taxes on his income to the IRS, I think she found those earthly reasons enough. Besides, she had Gus, the German shepherd, and he looked like he'd fight to the death to protect the Colonel and Lorraine as well. I had only four dollars and thirty-seven cents, so I bought grapefruit juice, a half dozen eggs, a quarter pound of butter, a half gallon of acidophilus milk, two cans of Campbell's tomato soup, one loaf of bread, and two dozen chocolate donuts, which had been marked down because they were a little crushed. As I carried the stuff back up Howard Avenue, I wished I had taken the Studebaker, but somehow it didn't seem right unless the old man was with me. It not only didn't seem right, it seemed much more dangerous because I think cops pull a young kid driving alone over faster than they do if they see a kid with an old person. When I got back to the house Lorraine was already scrubbing out the refrigerator to make room for the fresh food. She looked really happy that I had bought eggs, and decided to boil all six of them. “We can all have dinner together,” she said, “and bring the Colonel over some more food tomorrow. My mother's got a lot of canned goods stored up.” While the eggs were cooling, I mopped the kitchen floor while Lorraine tried dusting the living room. It all looked like a losing battle, but at least it would be a little fresher and cleaner for the old man. I was just wiping down the windowsills when we heard the Colonel scream out in pain.

“Oh, my God.” Lorraine froze.

I pushed past her and ran up the stairs two steps at a time. “What is it? What is it?” Lorraine called, now breaking into motion fast behind me. The thumping of my feet on the stairs didn't drown out another scream from the Colonel. And another!

I burst into the Colonel's room. He was bent over in his chair clutching his stomach, moaning deeply, loudly.

“What's the matter?” I cried out.

The Colonel strained to lift his face to me. It was shattered with pain. I didn't know what to do. Lorraine was at my side saying, “What's the matter? What's wrong?” The Colonel couldn't speak, and I didn't know if I should just run across the street and bang on the door of the convent; or maybe I should just tell Lorraine to run into the middle of the street and stop traffic and say, “Help! Help!” Finally words began to emerge from the Colonel. He said something about cramps in his stomach. And then I heard very clearly “Get me to a hospital.”

“Grab him,” I ordered Lorraine. She hesitated. I could see she was frightened. “
Grab him!
” I ordered again, and in a flash we became the old man's crutches once more.

He cried out louder as we lifted him from the chair.

“We've got to get him into the car,” I said.

“Hurry,” the Colonel moaned, “hurry!”

Somehow we managed to get him down the stairs. We practically lifted him into the air. We knew it wasn't just indigestion, or something simple like that. We knew it had to be a matter of life and death. Gus was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, barking. He jumped up on my shoulders and kept kissing the back of the Colonel's neck as we got him to the side door. That dog had the longest tongue I've ever seen in my life, and I never saw a dog love anyone the way he loved this old guy. I had to move fast to close the door so the dog wouldn't follow us out into the car. In another minute we were in the Studebaker, and I had the key in the ignition. The pistons began to explode again, and as we pulled out of the driveway, I could hear Gus barking frantically now from within the house. Lorraine had taken some Kleenexes out of her pocketbook and was helping dab the old man's forehead.

“It's going to be all right,” she kept saying. “It's going to be all right.” The old man just kept moaning.

“I need an emergency room,” he wheezed, “an emergency room.”

“It's all our fault,” Lorraine said.

“You're crazy,” I snapped.

“It's the fudge. You're not supposed to give fudge to anybody who drinks acidophilus milk,” Lorraine moaned.