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Authors: Paul Griffin

BOOK: Stay with Me
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“—here for you,” he says. “Céce, you can tell me anything and everything.”
“Not everything. Not this.”
“Yes, this.” We’re in the hutch, just after being together for the first time. It’s July 19, and I’m shivering.
“When I was nine. When that dog bit me in the alley that time. When it bit me in the face? I wasn’t alone.”
“All right?” he says. “Who—”
“Marcy. Marcy was with me. She said we shouldn’t cut through the alley. That the old man who lived in that house had a pellet gun, and he was crazy enough to use it. He’d shot Marcy’s sister for cutting through his yard. One of the pellets was still in her ass fat. I laughed. I thought that was funny for some reason. Like it was something that happened in a cartoon, not in real life. The radio said the temperature was a hundred and two but felt like a hundred and sixteen with the humidity. It was either cut through Pellet Man’s yard and be home in the air-conditioning in three minutes, or go all the way around the block and be home in ten. I can’t believe I was so stupid. All for seven minutes.”
“I would’ve done the same,” Mack says.
“No. You would never do what I did that day. The guy didn’t even seem to be home. No car in the driveway, shades drawn, outdoor light left on from the night before. So I hop the fence. Marcy’s calling me an idiot and telling me to come back. I’m laughing at her, telling her to have fun melting as she hikes around the block. I fill the dog’s water bowl, go to kiss its head, the dog latches on and won’t let go. Marcy hops the fence. She’s jerking on the dog’s collar—”
“And the dog spun on her and latched on to her arm,” Mack says. “A dog tied up like that? He’s cornered. If he thinks he’s under attack and he can’t run, he has to fight. That’s why you grab the back legs and lift them high. Marcy was done for the minute she grabbed the dog’s collar. You didn’t break her arm.”
“
Break
it? It was destroyed. Do you know how many surgeries she had? The rods and pins—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It
is
my fault. It went on and on. The dog won’t let go of Marcy’s arm. Marcy’s screaming for help, and what do I do? I leave her there. Now the idea that Pellet Man is going to shoot me doesn’t seem so far-fetched. And in my mind he’s not shooting pellets, but slugs. I hopped the fence and ran, Mack. Covering my ears to block out her screams. After she warns me not to cut through, she hops the fence to save me, and I left her there.”
“You couldn’t have pulled the dog off her.”
“I could have run for
help
. Instead I ran because I was afraid I was going to get in trouble, for trespassing, for getting bitten in the face, for getting Marcy bitten. I hid in somebody’s hedge and just froze there. The police came ten minutes later, and then the ambulance got there ten minutes after that. Ten minutes of being with that dog. And all the while I’m in that hedge, sucking the blood through the cuts in my lips until I threw up.”
“Céce.”
“She never made me feel bad about it, either. She talked about it like it was something that just happened to her, not something I caused.”
“You were nine years old.”
“I deserted her.”
“No,” he says. “You’re a friend to her.”
“Some friend.”
“You take care of her. Getting her the job at the Too. Being on the phone with her all the time, listening to her, hanging with her.”
“Out of guilt.”
“You’re a
friend
to her. To
me
. That’s gold.”
Gold so bright I see it after I close my eyes. The sun. I feel it falling. I’m running out of time. The cab has moved a quarter mile in the last ten minutes. The traffic on the highway stretches as far as I can see. “If you get off the highway and take the side streets it’ll be faster, I think.”
“More mileage, though,” the cab driver says. “It’ll be cheaper to stay on the highway.”
“Please, the side streets, hurry. How fast can you get me to my drop-off?”
The driver revs into the service lane, toward the exit ramp. “If the streets are clear, five minutes.”
I’ll make it with time to spare. I’ll be in his arms, telling him what I need to tell him, face-to-face. Looking into his eyes as I say what he never gave me the chance to say.
 
(Saturday, September 12, 1:45p.m.)
MACK:
 
Mrs. V. is holding my hand. She has to sit close to me. The chains that run from my wrists to the chain around my waist are short. I’m happy she’s friends with me again, but I wish it was Céce’s hand in mine.
I don’t blame her for not coming back. I was weak, wanting that last kiss with her. It’s better this way, that the last time we touched was that long kiss in the rain, at her front door, the night before everything changed, when we had hopes, when we felt safe with each other, keeping each other’s secrets.
I’m in the basement apartment, where Tony will be. I’m sitting at his desk. Boo lays his giant head in Mrs. Carmella’s lap for petting. She cradles him. Wash is in the corner, talking soft into his phone.
It’s quiet down here. You can’t hear the traffic too much. On the side of the house Vic built a ramp that leads up to the street for when Tony and Boo go walking. Wheeling. We practiced with Mrs. Carmella playing Tony in the wheelchair. Boo followed behind, except when he got to a narrow hallway. Then he went onto his belly and crawled under the wheelchair. I can train him out of that, no problem. Couple of other things I need to do to get him ready to live in this house, but I can knock them out in the time we have left together. Eight days ought to be enough time.
Eight days.
“Mrs. Carmella, I saw the utility shower when I peeked into the laundry closet off the hall there. I trained Boo to make water over the grate. You rinse it down right after.”
“You trained him to pee in the
drain
?”
“It’s like a cat box. For when folks are out of the house and Boo is alone. Or if Tony’s having a tough time getting outside to, like, walk Boo.”
“The burns,” she says. “Apparently they’re worse at night. He’ll be on painkillers. For a bit.” Boo nudges at Mrs. Carmella and gives her his big brown eyes. “That tail,” she says. And then to me: “Show me.”
We take Boo to the drain. “Boo, pee.”
He cocks his head and gives paw.
“Pee.”
Gives other paw.
Mrs. Carmella touches Boo’s muzzle, points to the drain. “Boo, pee.”
Boo trots in, makes water over the drain, and hops out for his cookie reward. Cuffed, I have a hard time getting it out of my chest pocket. Mrs. Carmella helps me and leaves one of her hands on my heart while she gives Boo the cookie.
“Amazing,” she says.
“You have a special dog here, ma’am.”
“Mack, look at me. You’re amazing.” She’s reaching out to me.
I look past her to Wash. He pretends to be studying his fingernail beds. He gives me a quick look and a nod that it’s okay.
In me is this feeling of lightness. It’s a one-way hug with my hands chained, but she’s hugging me fierce. Her arms are strong from years of carrying trays full of food.
“Mack, all those times we invited you to come in, you never wanted to?”
“I wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I close my eyes and remember the walk-through with Boo. The pictures on the walls, on top of the TV, in windowsills and on tables. So many pictures. The faces. The Grumpy that Céce was always talking about. He’s not grumpy at all, smiling in every picture. Pictures of Tony and Mrs. Carmella and Céce and sometimes Vic and plenty of Marcy too. I swear Céce looks so pretty in every picture. They’re in different places, the family. Snowy places. Beach places. But they’re always together no matter where they are. There’s a feeling of forever in those pictures, on these walls, in this house. Especially the kitchen. The pictures cover every inch of the kitchen walls—
“The kitchen walls were empty,” I tell Céce. The wind is hard through the hutch windows. It’s July 19, but she’s cold, and I draw her close to me. “All the walls in the apartment were the same, just bare. Curb junk furniture. We were always moving every time the old man’s work ran out. He was at work that night, though. Bar back at a roadhouse, I think. It was my birthday. Lucky seven. By then I was in the special classes, and around the schools they were starting to call me retard. The doctor told my folks I’d likely always be behind. That even if I improved some, this wasn’t something that had a cure. That it was gonna be a long hard haul for me, and for them too.
“My mother pulled a couple of Scooter Pies from the package. She got them free from the motel snack bar. She was a maid there. She set the pies out and candled one. She said, ‘Macky, that time in town, in the alley there. That scraggly pit bull. Why’d y’all name it Boo?’ ‘Because he was a surprise,’ I said. And she’s nodding at me, and she’s smiling, but she’s sad, I don’t know why. She says, ‘That was real smart of you, Macky. That is beautiful.’ She lit the candle. ‘Macky, sometimes I think I have to go away from your father. How would you feel about that?’ I didn’t know what to feel about that, tell you what. ‘We don’t love each other anymore,’ she said. ‘He’s content that that’s the way it is. That love fades and you just got to stick with each other anyway, because what else are you gon’ do? But there has to be more, don’t you think?’ I didn’t know what to think. She never talked much and never this way and I felt like she was a stranger at the table. ‘If we go,’ she said, ‘it’ll be hard on you. I feel God is calling me to do something big, Macky. Something special, so that we’ll have everything we need later on. We’ll have enough money left over to give it away to folks like us. But that kind of money don’t come cheap. We’ll be moving around a bunch. You would be alone a lot and your heart would hurt all the time and what ever would we do about your reading problem? Now, Macky, don’t look away like that. I need you to look at me. Macky, what do you want to do? Be with me or your father?’ I hugged at her so hard and said, ‘I don’t want you to go. ’ ‘That’s not an option,’ she said. ‘I have to go. I know this is tough, but you have to choose: me or him. ’ ‘Please, ’ I said. ‘Just stay. ’
“And she sighed and we hugged for who knows how long, and she’s rocking me and humming the happy birthday song but real slow when the old man comes in. And he is mad, tell you what. And drunk. He gets to slapping her around and calling her a whore. ‘He’s
bragging
about it all over town,’ the old man says. ‘Telling everybody that you and him are getting ready to head north together.’ And Mom doesn’t deny it. She says, ‘What do you expect? He’s sweet and kind, and you’re just cold all through you. You don’t love me. You don’t love anybody, not even yourself.’ And then the old man just lit into her. He hit her like it was ten seconds left in the fifteenth round, and he was fighting for his life. And then, mid-swing, he stops. He turns to me. ‘Go to your room,’ he says. Mom’s kicking and clawing at him, drawing blood, and he’s pushing her off. ‘Cario!’ he says. ‘Go to your fuckin’
room,
I said! Now!’
“I ran into my little room there and shut the door and dove into my mattress and put the pillow over my head, but I could still hear it. The banging around. The old man screaming she ripped his ear. Mom’s yelling to me through the wall, ‘Macky, run! Get help! He’s killing me!’ But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The old man is saying, ‘Crying out to
that
boy? You think
he’s
gonna put it on the line for you?’
“There’s all this slamming into the wall. Sheetrock breaking. And I was afraid to go out there. Afraid to see it. To hear it. I turned on my little radio Mom got me for my birthday. I rolled that tuning dial back and forth and found nothing but static. We were so far out from the cities, you couldn’t get a station. It was all I had, so I rolled the volume all the way up and held the radio to my head to deafen myself with the hissing.
Cops came sometime later, I don’t know how long it was. They locked up the old man and Mom went to the hospital, and I stayed at some lady’s house for the next day or so. Mom didn’t press charges—she never did—and two nights later, we were all around the kitchen table, and the old man was crying and apologizing to Mom and me, and he was just sure he was drunker than he’d ever been, and it would never happen again, and couldn’t we all just stay together? And Mom stroked his hair and said it would be all right, we would see. The way she was looking at me . . . I don’t know. Sad, sure, but a little disappointed too. I don’t think she meant to think it or wanted to or even knew she was thinking it, but I could read her clear: She thought I let her down.
“We finished dinner, the old man read me a baseball story, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up, my father was reading the letter she left, and she was gone for good.

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