Dangerous Men Read online

  Well, he get down on one knee and start poking around on Big Grey. He look in his eyes and feel for his heartbeat. When he reach for his mouth and lift up his lips, I expect to see his hand get bit right off, but that dog just laying there without no fight in him at all. Only thing moving on him is his eyes, and they following the guy, every now and then looking over at us. Finally the dude say this dog got a serious problem.

  I say we know that, why do he think we here? But he just shake his head. Say the best thing for everyone involved probably just be put him to sleep. That cost thirty-five dollars, fifty if we want to leave him there.

  Then Tony on his feet. “What about an operation?” he say.

  Operation very expensive, the man say. He doubt we have that kind of money. Besides, the dog looking like he too far gone for an operation anyway. Best thing be give him the injection. Get a new dog. Also he say Big Grey got a mess of other problems too, like mange, fleas, probably worms, and a couple of other things I don’t quite catch. His paw busted too. Didn’t we never take him to no vet before?

  So I says excuse us, but we’d like to discuss this by ourselves for a minute. Then I tell Tony now we done it. It going to cost thirty-five dollars just to kill him off. I vote for taking him back to the park. If it got to be done, there’s cheaper ways. The pond for instance.

  Then the dude come back in and ask if we got any money for the injection. I tells him the truth, which is of course no. He shake his head and say I’m sorry, but we ain’t running no welfare clinic, but maybe if we want to take him into the city they got an ASPCA clinic there that’s free.

  Tony say forget it, we going to take him back home and he lifting Big Grey back up in his arms again. He do it real gently, and he don’t even seem to mind the stink. Jamaican dude shaking his head at us as we go out, like he thinking we shouldn’t be allowed to own no dog anyway.

  We swipes one of those shopping carts from out back of the Key Food so we won’t have to carry him all the way back to our crib. Tony drop him in like a sack of onions and push him along, me helping when we come to curbs. We stop and pick up some beer too.

  Finally we gets back and carry him up the stairs. Our place on the fourth floor and it never seem like as much steps as this time. We got a small place, but nice. Actually, it’s Carla’s brother’s place, but he in jail right at this time and don’t expect to be using it too soon. Carla is Tony’s lady. She still live with her parents, but she over our place a lot too. Always some kind of party over our place, seems like.

  Tony take a couple of towels and make a little bed for Grey in the middle of the floor and we arrange him on them so he looking comfortable. Dog seem just like he dead, except his eyes is wide open and he staring at us, watching what we up to.

  “Try giving him some water,” I says. “Maybe he’s thirsty.”

  So Tony tries to give him some, but he ain’t interested. We practically sticks his nose in it but he don’t drink. Finally we gives up and Tony picks up his guitar and gets a beer. I get one too and try to get back into my comic book. But I have a hard time concentrating because I keep looking down and seeing that dog, and every time it seem to me like he looking right back, saying, “you responsible.” Meanwhile Tony just doodling on the guitar, not playing nothing in particular, staring at the wall and just about driving me crazy with not talking.

  About ten-thirty Carla come by with her friend Candy who works over at the Key Food. They bring by some more beer and smokes and a huge bag of Doritos. Both of them screams when they walks in the door. I start to laugh. Seem at least a little fun going to come out of this evening. Big Grey just blink his eyes.

  It takes a couple of minutes, but we manages to calm the girls down, and I’m happy to see Tony seem to be coming out of it. He making jokes and drinking beer and nibbling around on the back of Carla’s neck, and just generally starting to act like his old self. He say we throwing a special testimonial, with Big Grey the honored guest. Let’s all drink his health.

  We drink one to Big Grey. Then we drink another, and then another, and pretty soon we got us a party going. Tony unplug his guitar and put on some tunes. Couple other folks drops by around eleven, dudes from downstairs, and everyone want to dance with Candy, who looking particularly fine. All this while Big Grey just laying in the middle of the floor, but everybody just about forgets about him. Then one of the dudes from downstairs goes over and turns down the music. Without it on I can suddenly hear a noise out in the street. Some dog going crazy down there, howling like a wild animal.

  The dude, whose name is Junior, says to Tony, “Man, you ought to take this thing out of here.” He nudge Grey with his foot. “This dog is dead.”

  “Ain’t dead,” says Tony. “Just resting.”

  Junior say he don’t know about that, the dog looking like he dead and he sure smelling like it too.

  Tony say if Junior so uncomfortable with Big Grey around, maybe he ought to leave.

  “Come on, Tony,” Carla say, “A joke is a joke. Take him on out to the dumpster or something.” She laugh like she made a joke. Outside, that dog still howling its head off.

  Then Tony start to go crazy. Just crazy, like a wild man. He pick up his guitar and smash it against the wall, then spin around and hold it out in front of him and say everybody got to leave right now. Then he smack it down on the floor and say, go on, move.

  Tony never love anything as much as that guitar, and now he busting it all to hell, which make me think no question but he serious. Everybody start to leave, but I hang around because me and Tony best friends, and besides I got no place to go anyway. Carla go up to him and try to put her arms around his waist, but he push her away and smack the guitar against the coffee table, knocking over three or four cans of beer which hit the floor gushing liquid like wounded men. Carla shaking her head and calling Tony crazy man and some other things, but finally she leave too, slamming the door behind her, and now we alone, me, Tony, and Big Grey.

  Tony toss the guitar across the room and sit down. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say nothing. We just sit there, quiet. Tony open up the last of the beers and take a swallow, then offer it to me. I drink some and put it down. Big Grey breathing a little different it seem to me, more difficult. He still laying in the same position as we put him in, on the towels on his side. Outside that dog still howling. It sound like someone beating it.

  Then Tony ask me did I ever see this movie, The Good the Bad and the Ugly. I say yeah, I think so. But do I remember the part at the end where they all facing each other with guns drawn, and nobody want to shoot because no way he can win? I say I remember that part.

  “It ain’t never fair,” says Tony.

  “What?” I asks.

  Then Tony tell me he think life a lot like that movie. Whatever you gonna do, someone else always got the drop on you. Somebody always got the advantage. It ain’t good, or bad, just ugly.

  I nod like I know what he talking about, then I look over at Big Grey. He starting to shake and breathe real heavy. Both of us watch him. It takes about thirty seconds, then it’s over and he laying still. Now his eyes finally closed.

  “Don’t take it too hard,” I say. “It ain’t your fault.”

  But Tony not even listening to me, he just staring down at the dog, and I know he thinking it is. Seems to me now like maybe he ought to be alone, so I says I think I’ll go out. Tony don’t say nothing. Then I offer to help him take Big Grey out, maybe back to the park or something, but he still don’t seem to notice I’m talking to him at all.

  So I slips out the door and down the stairs. I’m feeling bad, real low. Tony acting so strange, it seem like he maybe never going to come out of it. I can see him in some kind of institution or something, not talking, getting meals fed to him, maybe just sitting around all day staring at the TV I start to think maybe I’ll try to hunt up Carla and together we’ll go back in an hour or so and try to snap him out of it.

  I open the door and steps out. It’s cold, dark,
and empty in the street, and the only sound is a humming from the streetlight over my head. Then I hear this whimpering.

  I jump because I’m surprised, then I back away slow. It’s Big Grey’s bitch, almost as big as him, but skinny. You can count her ribs. She must have somehow followed us all the way home. I ain’t never seen her anywhere outside of the park, and I wonder what she going to do now. Moving slow and easy, I cross the street, then when I got a safe distance between us I turn and watch her. She howling and pawing at the door. Somehow, from the smell I guess, she know Big Grey inside. She keep howling and pawing, and I figure pretty soon someone gonna call the cops and that be the end of her. Then, so quiet it might have been a ghost doing it, the door opens up. I stopped worrying so much about Tony after I seen him let that old bitch into the house.

  MAGISTER LUDI

  Duney is on the phone with her best friend, Beth Ann, running down a list of all the boys in their senior class at Dover High, deciding which ones are or are not virgins. She sits at her kitchen table, wrapping the phone’s long white cord around and around her arm as she talks. Her parents, who are away in the city for the rest of the afternoon, until late tonight, have left Duney, who is seventeen, in charge, and she has taken the opportunity to mix herself a tall drink and enjoy the luxury of a good long phone call.

  It is muggy for early June, and her glass sweats long beads of water which she traces slowly with her index finger. Summer has come early this year, and she thinks it would be nice to climb right in there with the ice cubes. The girls have been talking over an hour, and her ear is getting a little strained, as is her enthusiasm for the topic. It is a kind of game with them; Duney will name someone, and Beth Ann gives her opinion. Then Beth Ann names someone else, and so on. They have played this a lot, to the point where sometimes, in the hallways at school for instance, when a boy passes by, all one of them has to do is say “yes,” nod her head, and the other knows exactly what she means. Duney and Beth Ann are both virgins themselves, but they don’t feel this makes them any less qualified as judges.

  From the basement come loud, fragmented noises—the honk of a saxophone, a distorted, tortured note from an electric guitar. Duney’s brother, Rick, is having band practice at their house this afternoon. Every now and then the screen door bangs open and another flush-faced kid enters carrying a piece of musical equipment. Rick is two years younger than Duney, and she has only a limited tolerance for him when he’s with his friends.

  “It’s a macho thing,” she tells Beth Ann, changing the subject, speaking loud enough to be overheard. “They wear tight pants and T-shirts and strut around like they’re big shots. Music is the last thing on their minds.” She sips at her drink and watches as a tall, acned blonde kid carrying a bass drum in front of him tries to maneuver his way through the door.

  “Hey, hey, watch the walls,” she shouts at him, “Jesus,” she says into the phone, “you wouldn’t believe what is going on over here.”

  When she hangs up, Rick is behind her waiting. “What are you drinking?” he asks.

  “Rum and coke.”

  “Think I’ll have one.” Rick is cultivating a kind of sneering grin these days that Duney hates. It’s all part of a new personality he’s working on that she dates directly to his purchase of an electric guitar.

  “Just keep your friends out of Dad’s liquor cabinet. I noticed that bottle of B&B is almost empty.”

  “So what?” says Rick, pouring himself some rum into a glass. “He’ll never notice. He hates the stuff. Have you ever tried it?” He makes a disgusted face and dumps Coca-Cola into his glass. It foams up over the edges, making a mess.

  “Going to clean that up?”

  “Yes, Boss!” He salutes then yanks about fifteen sheets of paper toweling off the roll and piles it all onto the spill. “Some friends are going to come over to check out the jam.”

  She shrugs. “So?”

  “So nothing. I thought I’d let you know. What are you going to do?”

  Duney knows he wishes she would leave, and it has in fact crossed her mind to do so. But she’s not sure she wants to give him the pleasure of total freedom. With their parents gone, Duney is the last vestige of authority, and she worries about Rick.

  “Somebody’s got to stick around and make sure you don’t burn the place down,” she says.

  “Right,” says Rick.

  Duney puts her feet up and pages through the local paper. The movies haven’t changed since last week, and she’s seen them both. The high school baseball team is on the verge of its worst season ever, having lost nine straight now. Beth Ann and she have taken an interest in the sport ever since they decided they like a guy on the team. His name is Roy, a tall, beanpole of a kid with red hair and incredibly sexy eyes. Duney and Beth Ann are both on the swim team, and sometimes after practice, they stop off to watch Roy. Eyes are Duney’s thing—she’s decided she can tell everything about people from their eyes, though she believes her own are inexpressive. Watching Roy is more of a joke with them than anything else. He’s a junior, and realistically, Duney doesn’t believe she could ever go out with someone younger than she is. She thinks of her brother’s friends and shudders.

  Downstairs, the music starts up at a volume so extreme it is as if a subway train is passing under the house. Duney gets up and walks into the living room, where the thick carpeting muffles the sound somewhat. Everything vibrates—the furniture, the walls—all pulse as if alive. She wishes Rick had taken up something more normal, like baseball, or devil worship. Heading for the liquor cabinet, she pours herself another drink, choosing bourbon this time, in an effort to make the levels in the bottles all decrease at a similar rate. A painting hangs crooked, possibly as a result of the music. She adjusts it and goes back into the kitchen where she pours Coca-Cola into her glass.

  At the end of the summer Duney will be leaving for college, and this fact has recently begun to weigh upon her mind. She’s found herself getting sentimental about the dumbest things: certain buildings in town that she’s never been inside, an ancient bike rack that used to be as tall as she was, a particular section of cracked, heaved up sidewalk she’s walked over a thousand times. Something inside her wants to hold on, to lock these things up forever where they’ll be safe. She and Beth Ann have made a pact that whatever happens, no matter where they are, they will meet five years from now at the Jersey Shore where Beth Ann’s parents have a cottage, and where they spent what they have both agreed was the best ten days of their lives last summer. But thinking back on it, Duney has trouble remembering what it was that made the trip so special. She remembers only a blur of hot sun, sandy towels, and endless, mindless conversations with boys. She wonders what it is they’re hoping so much to preserve, and whether five years from now they’ll be sorry they tried.

  She opens the paper again and reads the police blotter. It is all petty stuff: tape decks stolen from cars, a window broken on campus in order to steal kegs of beer. Someone named Rufus Lemott from Trenton, arrested for possession of a firearm and a small amount of cocaine. She wishes something would really happen sometime. A bank robbery maybe, or a mob-style assassination. She imagines the headline—Organized Crime Figure Shot on Line at Burger King. That would shake things up a bit.

  The screen door opens and two girls she recognizes as freshmen come in, bringing with them a powerful scent of strawberry perfume. They don’t even look at Duney, but go straight for the basement door. Both wear halter tops and tight, tight jeans. Groupies, Duney thinks in amazement. My brother actually has groupies.

  His band is called Magister Ludi, lifted from a Hesse novel Duney knows for a fact Rick has never read. He has taken a laundry marker and carefully inscribed the name on the back of his jeans jacket. He has also made a poster which adorns the door to his room, along with a sort of logo he’s designed: three glass balls floating over a horizon. The poster isn’t bad at all, but she wishes he’d ease up on the rock star act. His hair is almost down to his shoulders, and since
he has no beard yet, only a bit of darkening fuzz over his lip, Duney thinks he looks like a girl. He marches around the house with his guitar around his neck at all times, beats out rhythms with his utensils on the dining table at meals, screams out lyrics in the shower. She tells him it is embarrassing. He accuses her of being just as bad as those conservative housewives who want to censor everything in sight, and though she denies it, she wonders. There seems no question that rock and roll is corrupting her brother.

  She remembers Rick the way he used to be, always following her around, coming into her room to watch her do homework, sitting in silent admiration as she worked on math problems. They used to wrestle sometimes too—matches which she, being bigger, could have won, but would allow herself to lose at the last moment, just as Rick’s frustration began to show in his reddened face, near tears. He had never been particularly bright, but he was a good kid, and she hates the way he is so obviously attempting to change his personality. He is acting tough, talking less, being surly and rude to their parents, and treating Duney almost as if she were younger than he. Sniffing the air, Duney detects a hint of marijuana drifting up from the basement. She shakes her head and goes back out to the living room. She hopes it’s all just a phase.

  A car pulls into their drive, and Duney looks out to see who it is. Most of Rick’s friends are too young to drive, and she hopes this may be someone coming to visit her. But she has never seen the beat-up station wagon that parks outside, or the people who get out of it. There are four of them, big guys, all carrying beer, one with a guitar case. They enter the kitchen without knocking, just as Duney comes to the door.