Stay with Me (22 page)

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Authors: Paul Griffin

BOOK: Stay with Me
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“I think I heard that too.”
I spit, because sometimes I just spit when I don’t know what else to do. “You got a dog at home?”
“Two,” he says. “You got some spit on your shirt there.”
“Thanks. What kind, pits or rotties?”
“Mutts.”
“The best.”
“Yep,” Wash says, and I say yep too. We watch the last dog hustle toward the kennels.
 
This other dude in solitary, I haven’t seen his face, because they take us out at different times. He’s a screamer. He was a pounder too, head on the door, till they put him in the burrito bag. They had to, because he kept yelling he was going to cut himself. Everybody used to tell him shut the fuck up, they were gonna kill him, but that just made him scream louder. He’s screaming now. I can’t tell where we are between sunset and sunrise. I sleep with my hands cupped over my ears. My dreams are staying vivid. She asked me once,
all quiet and sweet and even a little hesitant
. . .
“Do you want me to teach you words?”
I throw a chewed tennis ball deep, toward the fence. We’re on the west side of the reservoir, where nobody goes. Pits aren’t real great at fetch. They get the ball and then they want you to chase them.
It’s just dawn and muggy. Me and Boo have been picking her up for morning walks. She’s always waiting out on her stoop. She comes running as soon as she sees us.
“Words, huh? Not real sure I need to know fancy words.”
“You don’t.” She has her study book with her. “Most of the ones in here are junk, but there are a few really good ones. Might be good to know them. For when you’re in school.”
I shrug. “I guess that’d be fine. If you teach me the good ones. Hit me.”
“Execute,” she says.
“Yeah, uh, I already know that one.”
“Not like that. Anthony executed the mission and was ready for the next one.”
“
Execute
means
complete
. Cool.” It’s nice, not feeling stupid for a minute. I throw the ball. Boo jets after it. “Yeah, that’s a good one.”
“I’m gonna kill myself,” the kid in the burrito bag wails.
“Then do it already!”
(The next night, Sunday, August 9, the fifty-ninth day . . .)
 
At 8:00 p.m. Tony calls. I want to hear his voice, to hear he’s good, to tell him about the dogs. But we won’t talk like that. He’ll just yell at me. How he trusted me, and what did I go and do but break his sister’s heart?
I’d rather pretend we’re still friends. Better I remember him the last time I saw him, at the airport, that grin—
“Do you want to take the call or not?” guard says.
“Not.”
 
 
(The next morning, Monday, August 10, the sixtieth day . . .)
 
The next batch of dogs are sharp. Hundred percent memory retention.
I untrain them, again by example, teach them to run when they hear “Sit.”
Wash frowns. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
 
By lunch the dogs are rolling around, digging holes in the training field. The K-9 trainer smiles as he thumbs through the dogs’ evaluations, every one a failure. “These were A-list dogs, my friend.”
“Paperwork don’t lie.”
“What you in here for?”
“Murder in the two.”
“Me too,” he says. “I had you figured for one of those wily types. The way you have the dogs fawning and falling all over you? I think you might do real well for yourself when you get out.”
“The world will blow herself up before I get out of here.”
“How old are you?”
I tell him, and he pats my shoulder and tells me in Spanish to take it easy, and I say him too, and he chuckles on his way back to the kennel building.
“Doesn’t even seem mad,” I say.
“He’s a good man,” Wash says. “I don’t suppose he wants to be sending those dogs out into the world any more than you do. Tell you one thing, though.”
“Tell it.”
“That old man right there is a longtime inside lifer. He worked hard to become a trusty. If he loses this gig, he’s back working in the shop, maybe the laundry. He has a little autonomy out here in the kennel runs. A little self-respect. Whether he’s here or not, somebody is going to do this work. He has got to make sure these dogs perform.” Wash eyes me. “You just geniused yourself out of a job.”
THE SIXTY-FIRST DAY . . .
 
(Tuesday, August 11, morning)
 
CÉCE:
 
We’re at Curves, arm curls. “You gonna take it again?” Marcy says.
“Nope. I’m more comfortable with people having low expectations of me.”
“Good. I’m like, losing friends all over the place. What is wrong with people?”
“They don’t like seeing embarrassing pictures of themselves on your Facebook page.”
“What the flip do you know, Céce? You’re like the laziest status updater in our grade. By the way, I’m getting a lot of friend requests with the snap of you and the murderer making out as my profile pic.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“Tell me you didn’t go there again. Oh. My. God. You gotta move
on
already.”
“Stop! Telling me! What to
do
.”
“You don’t have to get spastic about it.”
“I wish I told him.”
“Told him
what
?” she says.
“That I love him.”
“Cheech, get yourself the black Chucks, put a safety pin through your eyebrow, and make every song on your Nano an emo ballad. Snap. Outofit. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”
“He never would have hurt me.”
“Right, because you’re so not hurt now.”
My biceps are burning. “I hate exercise.”
“That’s why they call it exercise, duh.”
“Wha?”
“Let’s go smoke a bowl.”
“I was thinking more like let’s hit the diner for cheesecake breakfast.”
“Compromise: We hit the diner and smoke a bowl.”
 
I go in for the takeout while she lights up behind the Dumpster. My one day off and I’m trapped in Marcy’s sucky, depressing life. She drags me to the city pool. Bazillion little kids screaming, sounds like ninety-nine cats shredding each other. All the guys are getting up into this one girl’s grill. She’s wearing a shoelace for a top.
“
Hate
lying out,” I say.
“Take off your towel,” Marcy says. She’s sweating in her long-sleeve T-shirt. “C’mon, advertise the globes, girl. Get the cutie-pies looking our way. Wait, that dude is
totally
mackin’ on you.”
“He’s
leering
and he has a ball of socks tucked into his suit.”
“Those are socks? Those
are
socks. Ew, here he comes.”
“How you doin’, Mami?”
“Gag,” Marcy says.
He moves on to the next towel. “How you doin’, Mami?”
“This sucks.”
“Why you gotta be so
stank,
Cheech?”
“I don’t want to be. I don’t know what I want to be.”
“Take off your towel.”
“I’m gonna get a knish.”
“If you lost like fifteen to seventeen pounds, you would be like twenty-second-prettiest in our grade. Serious. Wait, twenty-third. By the way, can you tell Carmella to stop trying to push her crappy cornbread on the customers? They chew it in front of her, and then when she turns away they spit it into their napkins. You gain ten pounds just looking at it, shit is like
all butter
. Serious, Céce, have you tasted it?”
“Marce, you ever feel like you’re just kind of floating along?”
“All the time.”
“Anthony is on his way to getting shot at, and we’re poolside.”
“Where you going now? You better not be going back to that prison. Céce Vaccuccia, wait up. Céce.”
 
(Tuesday, August 11, afternoon)
MACK:
 
“You sure, son?” Wash says. “She came an awful long way again now, right?”
“Wash, if I go down there, you know what’s gonna happen.”
“I expect she’ll say hi, you’ll say hi, you take it from there.”
“It’ll be like cutting a healing wound. She’s almost through it. Another month, she won’t even remember me.”
“How about you, though?” he says.
“How’s that?”
“How you going to be in a month when she stops visiting?”
“I’m not goin’ down there.”
“Her mother’s here too,” Wash says.
“Bad to worse.”
“Guard in the center says she brought some pretty interesting baking. Says they look like goblin squares, but that they taste just fine.”
“They’re snowmen. Christmas cornbread.”
“In August?” Wash says.
“I know. No, sir. I have to stick to my plan.”
Wash nods. “Okay. Then let’s go see the AW.”
“The AW?”
 
“We’re looking to become part of a statewide program called You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks,” the assistant warden says. “These Old Dog folks are interested in helping exceptional men and women segue to community-service-oriented careers after they finish their bids.”
“What does
segue
mean?”
“Transition. Move on.”
“Warden, I ain’t segueing to anything anytime soon.”
“Kid, I’m fifty. Trust me, time has a way of passing faster the older you get. Now, we’re not even publicizing this yet, because we don’t know if we’re going to be accepted into the program. The program directors are giving us a trial run, and then they’ll evaluate whether we’re up to hosting the show. This is a one-shot deal. They’re giving us one dog. That’s it. We do right by this dog, we get more dogs, more chances for our people to be part of the program. On the other hand, if we blow this, they’ll take the program someplace else. Lots of prisons want to be a part of this, so we have to be perfect. This is a highly competitive situation. They like the trainer to be at least thirty years old, but I have to go with my best chance for success this first time around. Mack?”
“Yessir.”
“I’m thinking about offering you a chance to be our man. I’m personally accountable for this application. Should I stake my credibility on you? Sergeant Washington identified you as a possible excellent trainer. Wash has a good eye. I rely on his instinct. If I put you in on this thing, are you going to show Wash and me the respect we’re showing you? You going to do a good job?”
“This is a trick, right?”
“You would train the dog to be a companion for a veteran,” he says.
“Wounded?”
AW nods. “You would focus on housebreaking, teaching simple commands. Basically make the dog a good buddy for the vet.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Hold up. These are dogs rescued from the shelters. Broken animals aimed at broken soldiers.”
“Trained by broken folks,” I say.
He nods. “You’re on point. I won’t candy it for you. It’ll be a challenge. So?”
“Warden, I killed a man.”
“I know what you did, son.”
I chew at my thumbnail. “I guess I could give it a shot.”
“I don’t have to tell you what happens if you mess up my deal.”
“You don’t and I won’t.”
“Let’s get you in to meet the program director.”
 
 
(The next morning, Wednesday, August 12, the sixty-second day . . .)
 
“Mister
Morse,
” the program director says. He’s like forty-five or something. Another ramrod-up-the-ass-type dude. Except he hides his left hand in his right. Palsy struck, I figure.
“You can call me plain old Mack.”
“I will call you Mister
Morse,
and you will call me Mister Thompkins. Here’s how this works: You make one wrong move, you’re out. You blow it,
I
blow it, see?”
“Yessir.”
“I don’t need to be out looking for a job in this economy.”
“No sir.”
“Mister
Morse,
I’m going to be frank: You’re not making a good impression on me.”

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