Cruisers Page 14

  “Thanks,” Katryna said. She hesitated. Then she said, “It’s difficult being new here.”

  “Call me sometime,” said Zofia. “We can go shopping.”

  Katryna touched the collar of her coat.

  “I’d like that,” she said. “I’ll call when I have the money.”

  She got into the open door of the black car, pulled it shut, and drove down the rows of cars. When she stopped at the street, she turned toward Zofia and waved. Then she concentrated on the clutch. Let it out slowly. Give it a little gas. The car jerked into the street and left Katryna with the sensation of hanging on to the car rather than driving it, more like riding a wild horse than being in charge of a machine. Every now and then she glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard, which flicked by one second at a time.

  FRANK KOHLER

  KOHLER DROVE BY THE POUND, WHICH WAS ON THE strip between the Sandri and the Monro muffler shop, and then he made a turn and drove by it again. He had avoided the place in the past, but now he had a reason to go in, and yet he found it difficult just to go up to the door. He didn’t like to think about that trunk at the side of the river, and coming here forced him to remember the dogs that had nosed around it. Now, as he drove back and forth, wanting to turn in and yet being repelled by the place, he thought, Katryna wants a dog. Are you going to get her one or not?

  The pound had a flat roof with desert-colored stucco on the walls, which was already cracked, and a window with a broken Venetian blind behind it. Two trees had been planted in front of it, but people had let their new dogs use them, and the trees were leafless even in summer. The local policeman instinctively found himself checking the place more than once on his rounds.

  Kohler parked his car and went into a small room, which had a counter at the back, beyond which was a swinging door with dogs yapping on the other side of it. Kohler licked his lips. A man in a white coat, which made him look a little like a doctor, came out of the swinging door. The dogs barked with a new intensity.

  “I came to get a dog,” said Kohler.

  The man looked Kohler over, and as he did so, Kohler smiled. Maybe that would help. Kohler wondered if there was a process you had to go through, like adopting a child, although on a much smaller scale.

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” the man said. “In here.”

  The room behind the door was filled with galvanized wire cages arranged in two rows, one on each side of the room, and as Kohler walked along them, he saw eyes, two by two, as dark as stove blacking, all of them carefully following his movement along the concrete floor. The man in the coat stopped at a cage.

  The dog inside was part Lab and part shepherd, but its coloring was all black. It had a large head, black eyes, and a pink tongue with a ridge down the middle. The dog yawned and made its tongue curl before snapping its jaw shut with an audible click. Then it suddenly turned to its hip and bit it, as though it had been waiting to pounce on itself. It chewed there with a fierce intensity.

  “This one is a good watchdog,” said the man.

  “Looks like it,” said Kohler.

  “No one is going to get by this guy,” said the man.

  The fluorescent light made everything seem to flicker, and in Kohler’s mood he mistook the quavering light for the thing that was making him uneasy, which was a sense that there was more to this place than just a pound. Then he thought, This is just a place where the dogs are waiting. Nothing more. A dog is a dog is a dog. And yet, as he stood there, he was frightened. How did that happen? He swallowed and looked around, desperately looking for help. He wished the dogs would stop barking.

  “Are you all right?” asked the man in the white coat.

  “Yeah,” said Kohler. “I was just wondering if my wife would like this one.”

  The black dog watched Kohler. It opened its mouth and panted. Kohler shook as the animal licked his fingers, the tongue warm and wet.

  “Some asshole comes up to your house and this dog is there, well ...” said the man in the coat. “You can imagine what he would be like in action.”

  “Yeah,” said Kohler. “I can imagine. Is he housebroken?”

  “Yes,” said the man. “Had his shots, too. Good to go.”

  The dog’s tongue had the texture of a wet emery board.

  “Hey, boy,” said Kohler.

  The dog wagged its tail.

  “So, you’re a good dog, huh? Not going to cause any trouble?” said Kohler. “Hmmmm?”

  The dog made a friendly, yearning sound in its throat.

  “No stunts now, O.K.?” said Kohler.

  The dog licked his fingers. Maybe, thought Kohler. Maybe we can come to an understanding.

  The man in the white coat looked at Kohler with a quizzical air, but then he had seen all kinds in here.

  “We understand each other,” Kohler said to the man in the coat.

  “Mmmmmm,” he said.

  “What do you say?” Kohler said to the dog. “Are you going to behave yourself?”

  It barked and threw its head back.

  “All right,” Kohler said. “I’ll take this one.”

  Outside, in the clutter of the Monro muffler shop, the Mobil and San-dri stations, the drive-in bank with the ATM screen, Kohler opened the door of the car, and the creature jumped in and sat on the passenger’s seat, its tongue hanging out, its doggy breath filling the car. Kohler started the engine. The dog barked with a new, yowling, full-bodied intensity, and then the animal and the engine combined in one eerie duet, the elements of which, the voice of the dog and the growl of the machine, were so perfectly combined as to seem as if they had just been waiting for each other. Like lovers kissing for the first time. Kohler went up the road for a block and made another turn into the McDonald’s entrance. There were large arrows painted on the asphalt, as though fate had found it necessary to leave signs on the ground.

  At the microphone, next to a menu on a sign, there was a speaker, too, and from inside Kohler heard shouting voices, laughter, and then an expectant hum. The odor of cooking hamburgers hung around the building in a cloud, and smoke, which was a brownish color, rose from the ventilator at the back. The dog moved its nose back and forth, trying to locate the precise origin of that brown, mouth-watering odor.

  The speaker said, “What can I get you?”

  A boy with hair green on one side and purple on the other walked along the drive-through, but when he came close to the car, the dog exploded against the glass, barking, slobbering, head swinging from side to side, the strength of its barking seen in its back and ribs and in the raised fur on its back. The kid jumped back, and then put his head down and his face up against the window of the car before he barked, too, throwing his head from side to side, mocking the dog.

  The animal instantly stopped. The kid mugged at the window, making a quiet yapping, which was a good imitation of the dog. But not a very loud one. Without even thinking about it, Kohler touched the button that let down the window, and when it had sunk a couple of inches into the door the dog exploded again—even Kohler jumped back, as though it was a good idea to allow the animal every possible square inch of space. The dog’s mouth was so big that it had to turn sideways to be able to get through the only partially lowered window, and even then it couldn’t open its mouth as wide as it wanted to. The kid was paralyzed with terror, at least for that instant when it looked as though the dog were actually going to compress itself into a black, cobra-like creature to get through the few open inches of the window. Just as the kid jumped back, the dog’s teeth closed on his ear, not biting it, but leaving it wet with saliva. The kid backed away from the car, keeping an eye on the dog.

  “What can I get you?” asked the voice again.

  “Two double hamburgers,” Kohler said.

  “What?” she said.

  “Two double hamburgers!”

  “I can’t hear with that dog barking,” the voice said.

  Kohler put his hand on the dog’s head. It stopped barking.


  Then he pulled up to the window, where he waited. Kohler looked out at the clouds in the sky, big dragging rags. The paper bag came out as though it was on a mechanical hand.

  “Have a nice day,” the young woman said.

  Kohler pulled around and parked next to the building, but left the engine running. The double hamburgers were wrapped in wax paper, and as he opened the first one, the dog looked at him.

  “Here,” Kohler said, as he held out the first patty that he had taken from the sandwich.

  The animal took it in one chomp. No chewing, just a voracious chomp, then swallowing and quick panting. Kohler held out the other patty so the dog could take it in another wet chomp-and-drool. The dog swallowed again and licked its chops and glanced over at Kohler with a kind of query. Was Kohler going to play ball or not? The dog had barked at the kid. Kohler had given it some hamburgers. Was that how they were going to continue—the dog providing the muscle and Kohler providing the burgers? There was another element in this arrangement, as far as Kohler was concerned. The dog had to protect him. Whatever happened, like what that kid had just missed, wasn’t going to be coming Kohler’s way.

  “Hmm?” said Kohler.

  Kohler unwrapped the second burger and the dog took the patties with the air of a deal signed and delivered.

  It put its paw on Kohler’s leg and then scratched at his arm and hand, and when Kohler put out his hand to take what was offered, the foot was heavy and rough, too, on the pads that dragged across his skin. So, the dog seemed to be saying, they had a deal. Kohler started the engine and went back into traffic. On the highway he let the car go up to ninety, ninety-five, and the dog slobbered as the landscape passed by. Kohler flipped on the radar detector, but then he realized that he wasn’t worried about a ticket. The dog made him uneasy. Kohler’s legs were a little shaky, since he knew that at any moment that creature could turn on him, just like all the times a dog had rushed out of a yard, barking and threatening, snapping at his legs. He thought about those black dogs, too, that had sniffed around that trunk in the mud by the river. Kohler glanced over at the animal from time to time with wary caution.

  Frank turned off the main road into his drive and then drove up to the house, the dog not being interested in the fields or the side of the road, or anything at all aside from the amateurishly built house that looked like a jungle outpost. The car came to a stop in front of the door, and the dog looked through the window at the gravel around the front step, the snow shovel that was leaning at the side of the porch, and the bag of salt that was left there from the previous winter. Kohler needed the salt because the roof dripped by the door and the ice piled up.

  Kohler got out and opened the door of the car and took the dog by the collar. Then he walked up to the front door. It was a warm afternoon, and the inside wooden door was open, but the screen door was latched.

  “Katryna,” said Frank. “Hey, Katryna. Come here.”

  Katryna came to the door. She looked a little pale and tired, and Kohler guessed she had been taking a nap. As she approached the screen, the dog lunged forward, barking, jumping up on two feet, trying to get through the screen, snarling and yapping and then making a steady, repeated barking sound.

  “Open the door,” said Kohler.

  “What?” said Katryna. “What did you say?”

  “The door,” said Frank.

  “What’s that?” said Katryna, through the screen. She was wearing a bathrobe, and she held the neck of it closed with one hand.

  “It’s a present,” said Frank. He turned to the dog, and said, “Quiet. Shhhh. It’s O.K. It’s fine. See?”

  The dog stopped barking, but it looked through the screen door and growled, the hair rising on the back of its neck.

  “It’s for you,” said Frank.

  Katryna looked through the screen door, and then slowly reached over and undid the hook that held it shut. The dog curled around the door and pulled Frank into the house, putting its nose between Katryna’s legs. She pushed it away. Frank pulled it back, and the animal started barking again. Katryna put one hand to her face.

  “It just needs a period of adjustment,” said Frank.

  “Yes,” said Katryna. “Sure.”

  “Let’s give it some water,” said Frank. “Maybe it’s thirsty.”

  They went into the kitchen, where Katryna took a large bowl from the shelf and filled it, the running of the faucet drowned out in the animal’s insistent barking. Katryna reached down to put it on the floor, and when she did so, her robe opened and the dog sniffed at her again. Then it lapped at the water.

  “Look at him,” said Frank. “Now that’s a dog.”

  “Yes,” said Katryna.

  She glanced at the dog and then at Frank. Her skin was so pale as to seem almost blue, like shadows in the snow. Now she sat at the kitchen table, holding the robe shut with one hand at her neck, and looked at the dog.

  “You’ve always wanted a dog,” said Frank.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The only sound in the kitchen was the dog’s lapping of the water.

  “Big and strong,” said Kohler. “Unafraid. You know, the kind of dog you can trust ...”

  Katryna looked at the dog. It drank with a voraciousness that seemed to block out everything else in the room. Then it looked up and glanced around.

  “You always wanted a dog, didn’t you?” said Frank.

  Katryna nodded. Yes. That was right. Then she looked at Frank. Maybe she could ask now, if he was in the mood to be generous.

  “Yes,” said Katryna. “Thanks.”

  “O.K.,” said Frank. He reached down to pat the dog.

  “I appreciate it,” said Katryna. “But there’s something else ...”

  “He’s going to be a good watchdog,” said Frank.

  “Yes,” said Katryna. “That’s good. But there’s something else ...”

  “What’s that?” said Frank.

  She pulled the bathrobe closer to her neck.

  “I need some money,” said Katryna.

  “What for?” said Frank.

  The dog stopped lapping the water and looked over its shoulder at the change in the voices.

  “Can’t I just have some money without explaining everything?” said Katryna.

  “What’s wrong?” said Frank. “Ever since the other day, you’ve been edgy.”

  Katryna shrugged. Every day for a week she had gone into the bedroom and looked under her underwear at the bills she had there, one hundred and fifty dollars, which she counted again and again. She’d need twenty dollars to pay back the woman in the doctor’s office, and so she would need another hundred and seventy. It was as though she thought that by counting the money it would increase.

  “I need a hundred and seventy dollars,” she said.

  The dog began a low, steady growling, the hair on its back rising like long grass in a wind.

  “What for?” said Frank.

  The dog barked now, putting its head back and giving full voice to its excitement. Its tongue was red and slobbery, and Katryna could smell its breath, which made her as ill as the smoke of the bus she had been following the day she went to the doctor.

  “Can I have the money?” said Katryna.

  The dog turned toward the intensity in her voice, barking with its head back.

  “What?” said Frank.

  “I asked you something ...” said Katryna.

  “What did you ask?” said Frank.

  Katryna stood in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, and then she looked out the window. When she turned back, she seemed a little more certain. The dog was still barking.

  “I’ve called my cousin,” she said. “He can come now if I want him to. Can he come now?”

  “What?” said Frank.

  “My cousin,” said Katryna.

  The dog growled.

  “Quiet,” said Frank. “Quiet.”

  The dog still made that low, steady growling.

  “Dimitry,�
� said Katryna. “My cousin. Remember?”

  “What’s gotten into you?” said Frank. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Nothing,” said Katryna. “Nothing at all.”

  “Shut up,” said Frank. He jerked the dog, which turned on him and barked and growled.

  “It’ll be all right,” said Frank.

  “Did you hear me about my cousin?” said Katryna.

  “Yes,” said Frank. “That’s O.K.”

  RUSSELL BOYD

  ZOFIA SAT AT THE PHONE IN THE KITCHEN WITH the card she had gotten from her doctor and made an appointment. Then she felt the atmosphere in the house, which made her think of the mountains where the snow has piled up in winter and all it takes is a loud noise to make it crack and rush downhill in a white assault on everything below. The air in the house was like that: filled with the static of dangerous possibility.

  Russell found her sitting in the kitchen when he came in. He turned on the light and said, “You know what tonight is? The Lowarys’. Do you still want to go?”

  He sat down opposite her. She avoided looking at him.

  “Yes,” she said. “It would be bad if we didn’t go. What would the party at the end of the season be without the foxes?”

  “I don’t know,” said Russell.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “I want to get out.”

  Zofia put on a black dress, and as she stood in front of the mirror, she saw that her skin had a soft luminescence. She realized with a start that makeup would only diminish the beauty of her skin.

  THE DOOR of the Lowarys’ house was black, with a brass lion-head knocker. The lion had a ring in its mouth, and you banged it against a brass plate on the door. The house was two stories with white siding and black shutters, and through the window Russell and Zofia saw the yellow light of the party, which was at once inviting and off-putting. The driveway and the road in front of the house were filled with Mercedes and Volvos and Saabs, and there had barely been room for Zofia’s Subaru.

  Virginia Lowary opened the door, dressed in a silk blouse and a skirt, her hair brushed and shining, her freckles making her look younger than she was. Jack Lowary came up to the door, too, his face flushed, wearing a sportcoat and a pair of brown pants, a shirt that looked as though it had been custom-made.