Water Dogs (10 page)

B
ennie slept for much of the next day. The man in charge of his care, Dr. Miner, had a pinched face but round, kind gray eyes. He’d said leaving the hospital and heading home would be as exhausting as running a marathon. Bennie assumed this comment applied to older patients, but for the first few days back on the island he rarely left his bed or the purple couch in the living room. He dreamt of running races in his cast, with his crutches; after each race ended, another starting gun fired. He wondered if his fatigue had come mostly from the drugs they’d given him in the hospital. In one of the marathon dreams, he was running
against dogs, huskies, their paws thundering against the snowpack.

For the first day after Littlefield flushed his painkillers down the toilet, Bennie was okay if he didn’t move, but he hated how everything felt, sharp and scratchy and newly awake. The pain was the least of his worries. He stopped drifting around in his head. He got bored. His legs became restless. The world felt drab and pointless. In bed he ran through his memories of falling—especially the instant he landed, before his head hit the ice—and he tried to work backwards from there, trying to guess how he might have contributed to LaBrecque’s disappearance. Littlefield had said he and LaBrecque and Julian were chasing each other on the north side of the quarry, and the others—Boak and Shaw—were on the south side. It seemed unlikely that LaBrecque had fallen into the quarry if he and Littlefield were headed in the direction of Roderick’s farm, but maybe Littlefield had lost track of LaBrecque sooner than he’d thought.

Between his naps, Gwen came in with a bowl of steaming potato soup on a plastic tray. Ronald stayed up on Bennie’s bed when Gwen wasn’t walking or feeding him. With Gwen back at the Manse, Bennie was aware of how the place looked; the disintegrating plumbing, leaks cracking the plaster in the ceiling, all the windowsills covered with dust and dead flies. Bennie knew Gwen didn’t like that he and Littlefield were letting the family house fall apart, but she kept quiet while he was still recovering from his fall. No one had repaired the hole in the living room or patched the gap in the eaves where the raccoon had originally gained entry.

Their mother called from Florida, where she spent three weeks every winter, on Sanibel Island in a house she shared with her cousin Linnea. Gwen had left the phone next to Bennie’s bed when she drove to the supermarket, so he answered it. Their mother wasn’t always away on Bennie’s and Gwen’s birthdays, but the fares had been good—though a few hundred dollars here and there didn’t make much difference to her.

She never said hello when she called. This time, she said, “Is this true? Did you fall?”

“I fell, Mom. But I’m fine. The paper didn’t tell the whole story.” He was still half asleep.

“The paper? There was something in the paper? All I know is what Dora Thompson told me. Why haven’t any of you called me?”

“Mrs. Thompson called you? In Florida?”

“Honestly, Benjamin—are you okay?”

“I need to rest, Mom. That’s all.”

“Do you still have insurance? I’m coming home.”

“Yes, I have insurance. You don’t need to come home. It’s fine. Come back when you were planning on coming back.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Dora Thompson said you might have broken your neck.”

Mrs. Thompson was a Meadow Island neighbor—they rarely saw her, but she was a prodigious gatherer of information about other people’s lives. Eleanor asked Bennie where he’d been treated (Bennie was surprised Mrs. Thompson hadn’t told her) and he said the Adventist. She sighed, and he reminded her he’d fallen in Keep’s Quarry, and Mid-coast, the hospital that had employed her for years, was farther away. (He refrained from telling her that he’d been unconscious and that they’d been driven into town by a logging truck.)

He told her there was no way the fall could have broken his neck—this of course was a lie—and then he said he was exhausted. She was glad to hear Gwen had flown in and was helping. She was due back in a few weeks, and she told Bennie she would come straight to the house. “That’ll be perfect,” he said, tired and annoyed by her worry. He knew she didn’t want to interrupt her Florida vacation.

“But there’s a boy who’s missing, still?”

“Who told you that?”

“Dora Thompson.”

“He’s missing, but he might never have been lost.”

“That makes no sense, Benjamin.”

“He might have just left town.”

“Well, I hope he’s okay. Just imagine how
his
mother is doing. Now, Benjamin: I’ve just sent off a case of oranges and grapefruit. It should be arriving in three or four days. If it doesn’t, let me know, and I’ll talk to the man I bought them from.”

“I’ll look out for them, Mom,” he said. When he hung up, he was still annoyed, but also oddly relieved to be back in touch with her.

And then he drifted off again. Sleep afforded him something that his waking life didn’t. He loved the way his dreams presented situations and interaction that could be both chaotic and unpredictable but that somehow seemed to make perfect sense.

On the third day after leaving the hospital, he no longer felt like lying on the couch. The stillness of the house was making him fidgety. He wanted to shake his head clear, he wanted to stop feeling tired, and he figured that going to the animal hospital and seeing his boss, Handelmann, would help. Most of the pain had subsided, and he wasn’t so glum anymore. When Littlefield had first called Bennie in the hospital, he’d told him he was filling in for him at the shelter, so it wasn’t as though Bennie needed to get back to work immediately. Still, he wanted to touch base with his boss. He was sure Handelmann would have some petty complaints about Littlefield.

He felt the need to see Helen, too—they’d left messages for each other, but it wasn’t until that third day that he actually felt presentable. He no longer felt embarrassed about telling her he loved her, even though it was ridiculously premature. He guessed she understood he was loopy from the drugs. He didn’t even care if they had another conversation about paintball. He knew, though, that the topic would be less fun if he was still in obvious discomfort—a victim of war games
idiocy—so even though he was wearing a cast, he wanted to be up and around, healthy-seeming, before he saw her.

Gwen slipped a trash bag over Bennie’s cast so he could shower. She was sitting on the toilet seat, wearing Bennie’s Red Sox cap, still looking glamorous in her new glasses, but more and more she was resembling the stubborn athlete Bennie knew, the old Gwen, the tomboy. She told him she’d called the temp agency in New York and postponed her return indefinitely. There were a few auditions in April she was hoping to attend, but she could decide about them later. Bennie thought this was great news.

After he was done, he wrapped a towel around his waist and Gwen dried the trash bag before taking off the rubber bands. “Littlefield doesn’t answer my questions about the night at the quarry,” she said. “All he says is that he was following LaBrecque, but then he lost him. It’s hard to imagine someone outrunning Littlefield in the snow.”

“The visibility was shit,” said Bennie. He stepped out of the shower and walked to his bedroom. Gwen stayed in the bathroom.

“Did they fire any shots?” she shouted.

“I can hear you fine,” he said, pulling sweatpants on over his cast. “I think he would have told me if he had.”

“Have you seen him since your first night back?”

“No,” said Bennie, zipping his sweatshirt. He stepped back into the hall.

“That’s what I mean. He’s being weird. It’s like he doesn’t want to be around me at all.”

“I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“Why would he be hiding things from me?”

“It’s not about you,” said Bennie, tying his boots. “He gets in these moods.”

“I think it’s more than that. He’s ashamed about something. There’s something he doesn’t want to talk to me about.”

“Don’t you think he would have told us if he’d done something wrong?”

“Of course not,” she snapped.

This made Bennie furious. “Maybe he wouldn’t tell
you
. But I was there. He’s not hiding anything.”

“Don’t act like Mom, Bennie. Don’t be
intentionally
clueless.”

It was true that the family often made excuses for Littlefield. It had always been obvious that Littlefield had been Coach’s favorite, and their mother would make it easier on Littlefield by covering up his coarseness or selfishness by saying
He is who he is
. Gwen, especially, hated this. But in this instance, Bennie knew that Littlefield wasn’t hiding anything from Gwen. Littlefield was just anxious about having visitors, and having Bennie in the hospital for a few days had been hard on him, too.

Bennie wanted to yell at Gwen—he was that angry—but he knew how tough on her Littlefield could be and he didn’t want it to seem that everyone in the house was against her. He breathed deeply and then said, “I’ll keep talking to him about it, and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

When Bennie had started the job at Esker Cove, he didn’t realize it was going to involve so much animal carnage. His main duties were these: cleaning cages, expressing anal glands, and helping to put dogs and cats to sleep. Just a few days after he’d started the job, he’d wanted to quit, but knowing that someone else was holding the animals when they got the needle would have made him feel like he was chickening out. So he stuck with it. Also, there was the pay, which was fair, and occasionally he got to do other things, like removing a cat from its cage with cat tongs and putting it in a cat bag so he could prep it for an operation. He was in charge of weighing the animals and helping them calm down.

Handelmann looked like the host of a public television children’s show. He wouldn’t hesitate to euthanize animals, but he never swore, and he ironed his own shirts. Everyone on the island seemed to appreciate
him, but he had no close friends, no family, which was rare for a forty-year-old man in the area. Handelmann maintained an emotionless formality much of the time. Because he was a veterinarian with no friends, Bennie kept looking for clues that the animals provided him with a certain kind of comfort and camaraderie, but he didn’t think they did. It wasn’t as though he disliked the animals, but he showed them no special loyalty.

When Bennie and Gwen arrived, his boss was washing his hands, his back to them. He was clean-cut, tall and thin, with blond hair, creased trousers, expensive shoes.

“Bennie,” he said, without turning around. “How’s my old soldier doing?”

“Much better, actually,” said Bennie.

“How’s the leg?” Handelmann asked. He shook his hands in the sink, his back still turned to them.

“Fine.”

“They found that other young man yet?”

“No.”

“You coming back soon?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“Good,” he said. “Your brother’s a flake. Things are backing up here.” Handelmann used several paper towels to dry his hands, then turned and was startled to see Gwen standing in front of him. He extended a hand graciously to her and said, “You must be Bennie’s twin.” His grin was careful. “But that’s odd: you’re much too pretty.” He turned to Bennie and said, “Assist me with a dog, would you?”

It was Ollie, a black Lab and mastiff combo with tumors in his neck. Ollie’s owners had asked that he be put down. Handelmann led the dog into the room, knelt down, took him around the chest, and hefted him up to the lower of the two steel tables. Ollie seemed unusually lethargic. Bennie remembered Ollie as a younger dog, coming in with his owner, Mrs. Samuels, to get heartworm meds. Ollie enjoyed the swamps behind the Samuels house and didn’t mind the swarming
mosquitoes. You could tell from Ollie’s shoulders that he was a frequent swimmer. Bennie held on to him so that Handelmann could give him the shot. Gwen stepped back, sitting down to watch. Ollie didn’t have much fat on him but he was at least twice the size of most dogs Handelmann treated. Bennie felt the dog twitch slightly when the needle went in, but his muscles didn’t loosen as they did with most dogs within seconds of getting the shot.

“Don’t hold on so tightly,” said Handelmann. “See if he’ll drop on his own.”

Bennie loosened his grip and Ollie remained standing.

“One more shot,” said Handelmann, so Bennie hugged the dog again, and Handelmann reloaded and stuck the dog a second time. There was no twitch. Ollie stared straight ahead. Again, Bennie stopped hugging to see if Ollie would fall. The dog’s eyelids drooped, but he was stable. Bennie rocked him back and forth a bit but he kept his balance. “Jiminy,” said Handelmann, tossing the needle to the table and turning to his instrument drawer. He pulled out an even bigger syringe. It was like a small jousting lance, and Handelmann looked like he was struggling to hold it with one hand. Bennie looked over his shoulder and saw that Gwen was crying. With the huge needle, Handelmann drew in the pentobarbital and then sunk the needle into the dog’s hindquarters. Ollie made a quiet, low growl. Bennie squeezed him around the neck and shoulders. “It’s okay, Ollie, it’s okay,” Bennie said, which made Handelmann look at him askance. Handelmann said, “Please let go of the dog.” When he did, Ollie sat down, but he didn’t fall over. He blinked, then started panting. Handelmann pushed the dog’s shoulder but the dog didn’t budge. “Heavens,” he said. He drew more pentobarbital into the needle, and this time he jabbed Ollie with it more swiftly, and Ollie didn’t make a sound. Bennie wondered what the dog was feeling, what he was seeing. Handelmann told Bennie, again, to stop hugging the dog. Ollie dropped his head a bit, and as soon as he did, Gwen came to the table and embraced the dog. Handelmann stayed quiet. It was after the third shot with the big needle,
the fifth shot overall, that Ollie’s legs finally failed; he surrendered his body to Gwen. She tried to ease him down to the table, but his limp weight must have surprised her. The powerful muscles in Gwen’s arms tensed, but still, Ollie made a loud sound as he hit the steel. Gwen continued hugging Ollie, awkwardly, and Bennie slid himself to the other side of the table and held on to him from there.