Rotten (9780545495899) Page 6

  It’s just one bark and a shout, but right away I have a really bad feeling. I recognize the voice. I’m up, out of my chair, and through the back door in about four seconds. Sure enough, there’s Mars.

  He’s standing right outside the fence, and I’m about to ask him what the noise is about. But then I see his right hand. He’s holding it in close to his body, and there’s blood on it. I look over and see JR hunkered down against the back corner of the fence.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  Mars looks up and sees me standing there. “He bit me,” he says. “He bit me!”

  “What’re you doing here?” I say, trying to maybe turn this back on him.

  “You said I could see him today,” he says, and I guess that’s technically true.

  “I didn’t really mean … right now,” I say, but it comes out sounding more like a question.

  I know right away that this is bad. The blood is deep red and dangerous looking, and as I’m watching, a fat drop falls from the tip of his middle finger right into the crisscrossed laces of one of his fake Jordans. This is bad, bad, bad. Not many people lose their lives to dog bites these days. But lots of dogs do.

  I’m standing at the top of the three steps that lead into the backyard. I look at Mars’s face and then down at his hand again. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him like this, hurt and bleeding. “Well, you better come in and get that cleaned up,” I say, pushing the screen door open a little wider to show what I mean.

  Mars looks over at JR, but the dog still hasn’t moved from the patch of dirt in the corner of the fence. “He’s not going to chase you,” I say.

  Mars edges up to one of the wooden fence posts and puts his good hand on it, his eyes on JR the whole time. He sort of bends his knees, and I realize he’s going to hop the fence.

  “Dude, there’s a gate right there,” I say.

  “Oh yeah,” he says.

  He walks over and flips the latch up. He takes one more quick look back to confirm that he’s in the clear and steps into the yard and straight toward the back steps.

  “Watch your step, there’s —”

  “I know,” he says, cutting me off. “The grass is full of dog crap.”

  Something about that statement seems wrong. Something about this whole thing seems wrong, but my mind is buzzing and I can’t quite place it.

  “What did you do?” I say.

  “I just …” he starts, but then he seems to think better of it.

  “Yeah, you just what?” I say.

  He looks at me but avoids my eyes. “I got bit, all right?”

  There’s something he’s not telling me, something maybe I already know, but I don’t want to push things right now. I need to be cool about this, be extra nice.

  “All right, all right,” I say, holding the door wide for him.

  We have a pretty good stash of bandages and Bactine and all that stuff in the bathroom. I had more than my share of skateboard wipeouts and tree-climbing free falls when I was a kid, and Mom has kept the medicine cabinet stocked up ever since.

  “Hold it over the sink,” I say, turning on the water.

  He’s holding his hand like a claw, the fingers half curled, and he’s already bled on the floors of three different rooms, including this one. As he moves it another fat drop falls and disappears in the swirl of running water.

  “OK,” I say, once I have the temperature about right.

  He puts his hand under the faucet; the water turns red, then pink, then almost clear. I grab a wad of toilet paper and hand it to him.

  “Let me see.”

  He pulls the wet clump of paper away and for a second I see it clearly: two holes in the skin on the back of his hand, with some smaller red marks leading up to them. The holes are a little rough around the edges; tears might be a better word. That must be where the big canine teeth went in. And then, as I watch them, fresh blood pushes its way to the surface: two slick drops, expanding like tiny red balloons. Mars puts the balled-up paper back on his hand and I push through the cabinet, looking for something to cover that up with. Gauze, maybe, or two big bandages? I decide to go with all of the above.

  “First things first,” I say, taking the small plastic bottle of antiseptic out.

  “What’s that?” he says.

  “You never used Bactine?” I say. That seems weird to me. Mars was at least as accident prone as I was. What did his parents put on his cuts and scrapes? I think about his parents. Cheap whiskey, probably.

  “Nope,” he says.

  “It cleans things up,” I say. “Prevents infection.”

  “Oh crap!” he says, stiffening up. “What if I get rabies?”

  “You’re not going to get rabies,” I say, and I squirt the Bactine on his hand.

  “Aaaah!” he says, but he’s being a baby because Bactine doesn’t even sting that much.

  “I’m just cleaning it up, man,” I say, handing him a fresh handful of paper.

  I bandage him up and he leaves through the front door.

  “Want to borrow an umbrella?” I say, one last attempt to make nice.

  We both look up at the clouds. They’re definitely darker now than the last time we saw them, not fifteen minutes ago.

  “Nah,” he says. “Just going straight home. I’ll make it.”

  As he walks away, all the gauze and tape make him look like a burn victim. I should’ve only used two bandages, but I was trying to be extra helpful. Stupid, I think, but the damage has already been done. Boy, has it. Now he’s heading home to whichever one of his parents is currently unemployed — one of them always seems to be — looking like he was well and truly mauled.

  Then I go out back to get Johnny. I open the door to the backyard and say, “Well, Air Jaws, you’ve done it this time.”

  He looks up at me, but he still hasn’t moved from his corner. Calling him doesn’t work, so I head out there to get him. I keep my eyes glued to the tall grass, looking for land mines, but apart from that, I don’t really have a plan. I should have brought his leash, or maybe a biscuit. I feel a small raindrop hit my neck. A second later, another one lands on my wrist.

  “Come on in before you get rained on,” I say. “No one likes that wet dog smell.”

  I slow down as I get closer because I remember that JR doesn’t like to be cornered. I guess I’m remembering all that blood, too. I reach the edge of the bare spot near the post, and that’s where I see it. Just inches in front of where JR is crouched, there’s a fresh footprint in the dirt. In the middle of it, I can just make out the head, arm, and shoulders of a little man, a ball in his tiny hand: Air Jordan.

  “That scumbag,” I say.

  JR cocks his head at the sound of my voice. He’s the nearest one to me, and it’s definitely not his finest moment, but I don’t mean him. I mean the guy I just saw a few feet and one easily hoppable fence from where I’m standing. The scumbag I’m talking about is the one who jumped the fence and cornered my dog.

  Through the screen door, I hear the phone start ringing. It mixes with the sound of the rain beginning to fall all around us.

  “That’s not going to be good,” I say.

  JR looks right at me. His wet brown eyes look almost black in the dim light. This time, I am talking to him.

  It’s much easier to convince JR to come inside after it starts raining. The phone stops ringing before I get to it, but it starts up again before I can check the voice mail. It’s my mom, and she’s upset.

  “What happened?” she says, but from the tone of her voice I can tell she knows at least the basics.

  “Mars got bit,” I say. “Johnny bit him.”

  “Is he OK?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” I say. “He’s just a little spooked or something. He didn’t want to come inside.”

  “No, no, Dominic,” she says. She always calls Mars by his real name. “Is he OK? Could you tell?”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s fine. He’s got, like, some holes in his hand. Just little ones. I cou
ld’ve used bandages, but I used gauze, just because. He’s fine.”

  “That’s not what his mom says,” she says. That makes me a little mad. It’s like, I am your son, Mom. It’s OK to believe me.

  “She’s a frickin’ drunk. What did she say?”

  “Oh, don’t say that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Still.”

  “OK, whatever. What did she say?”

  “They’re taking him to the hospital,” she says. She pauses and then adds, “I’m not sure they really have insurance.”

  I hardly know where to start with that. This is so ridiculous. First of all, it wasn’t that bad. It’s not like anything was broken or he was going to need stitches for two little holes the size of BBs. We’ve definitely all had worse. I do a quick memory check of our run-ins with broken glass and barbed wire and bike or board wipeouts, and every one of them makes me madder.

  “Mars is full of it,” I say, finally. I think that sums it up pretty well. “What’re they going to do, send us the bill or something?”

  “Yes,” says Mom, “they are.”

  “Well, make them send it directly. Tell them you need to see the real bill, otherwise they’ll just make it up.”

  “Oh, Jimmer, we’ll be lucky if we get off that easy.”

  “What do you mean?” I say. “Wait, what do you mean?”

  I look over at JR, who has already hunkered down in his normal spot. Mom still hasn’t answered me.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Let’s not think about that now, OK?” she says. “I’ll just pay their bill and you be nice to Dominic and hopefully that will be that.”

  “That lowlife!”

  “That doesn’t help,” she says. “You send him an e-mail or a text message or a Skype thingy or whatever it is he uses later and ask him how he is.”

  “I’ll punch him in the head and ask him how he is,” I say, but I sort of know she’s right. She does, too, so she waits me out for a few seconds.

  “I’ll text him later,” I say.

  “OK,” she says.

  “OK,” I say, and then I remember that I haven’t even told her what happened. Sometimes I think I just expect her to know everything because she’s my mom, but there’s no way she could know this.

  “But, but, but,” I start, in a huge hurry all of a sudden, “it wasn’t even his fault — JR’s, I mean — because Mars cornered him —”

  “What do you —”

  “Yeah, he hopped the fence and Johnny must’ve backed away and he backed him up and probably stuck his hand right in his face to pet him — and you know how Johnny doesn’t like any of that, and —”

  “Did you see this?” Mom says.

  “No,” I say. “But there was, um, there was a footprint, his footprint, like right there, and he was definitely in the yard. So it’s not Johnny’s fault, right? I mean, Mars can’t just jump the fence and corner a dog and stick —”

  “There’s a footprint?” Mom says.

  I look out the window and see the big drops thumping against the glass and splashing off the sill.

  “Not anymore,” I say.

  “And you didn’t see him?”

  “But I know …”

  “I know, baby bird.”

  Neither of us says anything for a little while. Finally, Mom says, “I have to get back to work. Are you OK?”

  As if a dog bite was the kind of thing that could ricochet.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  I feel my cell vibrate in my pocket, just once, so it’s a text.

  “OK, bye,” I say.

  “I’ll be home later.”

  I hang up one phone and pull out the other. The text is from Rudy: Mars got bit??? What??? He’s at hospital!!!!!

  That didn’t take long, I think. And I know exactly how it happened: Mars to Aaron to Rudy and back to me. I immediately start typing my reply, but I scrap it. For some reason, I feel like I have to be really careful what I say right now, even to my friends. Especially to my friends.

  JR gets up and walks across the room. I watch him lean down over his water dish and wash the Mars out of his mouth.

  “Get it all out,” I say. “Get it all out, boy.”

  The rain stops around two o’clock, and the sun’s out by three. By three thirty, I’m ready to get the heck out of the house. I get the leash and walk over toward JR. He’s in his spot and sort of pre-cornered, so I’m thinking: Don’t push it, dude. If he doesn’t want the leash on, don’t try to put it on.

  Turns out, he does want the leash on. I click it into place with no trouble at all, and we head straight out the door.

  “Out the do’!” I say, pushing it open. JR shakes his head as he steps out, his ears flapping back and forth and his collar jangling.

  It’s late summer, after a good, hard rain. The sun is getting to work drying things out, and it’s like the whole town has been power washed, just clean and green as far as the eye can see. It feels like a fresh start. I know it’s not, and that no amount of rain can magically un-bite someone, but that’s what I want it to feel like, so I let it. Still, I take JR around back and head toward the bike path, because I don’t want anyone else jamming a hand in his face trying to pet him.

  Or if they do, I want it to be somewhere I can easily dispose of the body.

  Kidding. Sort of.

  Anyway, the grass is wet and spongy and Johnny loves it. He stops to drink from a puddle, but I’m like, “Dude, that’s nasty.”

  I give his leash a little tug, and he’s just as happy to get moving again. I sort of wonder if he’s doing the same thing I am: pretending everything is totally fine. The other options are that he’s dumb as a post or just super Zen. I actually think it might be some of each. I think that might be what it’s like to be a dog.

  Anyway, by the time we hit the trail, he’s thinking his dog thoughts and his head is on a swivel, looking for birds and squirrels and sniffing everything. I’m thinking my human ones. Mainly, they’re about Mars. I honestly do feel a little bad that he got bit. You know, no matter whose fault it was and how much it’s going to cost Mom or maybe JR, it still sucks to get your hand chomped like that.

  Now it’s a problem for everyone, though, and that’s mostly what I’m thinking about. Mars and I have known each other for a long time, and we used to be good friends. Rudy, too. It’s like Rudy and I were best friends and Mars was our other friend. Mom used to call us the Mud Brothers, because we were usually covered in dirt and grass stains.

  We were close in that little-kid way. Mars was always kind of crazy, but back then that mostly meant that, for example, he’d eat absolutely anything. Rudy and I thought it was funny, and Mars definitely enjoyed the attention. And it wasn’t just eating things; it was climbing them or saying them or being the first to try a board slide on a new railing.

  But right around the time that the willingness to eat an earthworm stopped being cool and just became abnormal, Aaron moved to town. He was a big, blue-eyed kid — the only one of the four of us with anything other than brown — and he showed up on the first day of fifth grade like a little Viking come to take our stuff and pummel us at dodgeball. He thought Mars was hilarious from the start — all those old stunts were new to him. He needed a sidekick, and that’s who he picked.

  That was the end of the Mud Brothers. Rudy and I still saw Mars all the time, but he was almost always with Aaron, and when he wasn’t, it was like he was waiting for him. Because I think Aaron makes him feel important. And I think, toward the end there, Rudy and I probably made him feel the opposite. Like, Mars would be the one scraped up from a skateboard crash or sick from something he ate, and we’d be the ones laughing about it.

  And that foundation has had plenty of time to set in place by now. That foundation is 100 percent dry. I used to be able to talk Mars into or out of anything. Now I need to find a way to do it again. Because there’s one other thing I know: Mom is scared about this. I could hear it in her voice on
the phone today. She’s afraid, and it isn’t about the hospital bill. She even said so. Mars and his mom could do a lot worse than that to us now. To us, but mostly to JR.

  There’s an older couple coming down the trail toward us. I know who they are, but I forget their name. Maybe Fogel? Fogg? Fogelfogg? Something with an F anyway.

  “Be cool, boy,” I say.

  I walk us over to the opposite side of the path, but the Fs see us and start angling in our direction.

  “What a handsome dog!” says Mrs. F.

  “That’s a Rottweiler, isn’t it?” says Mr. F.

  “What’s his name?” says Mrs. F.

  “Yeah,” I say, sort of putting my body between JR and them. “His name is Johnny.”

  That seems like enough. Based on the matching light blue Windbreakers, the Fs don’t seem so punk rock to me.

  “Hi, Johnny!” says Mrs. F.

  JR raises his gummy black lips and shows his teeth. He’s ignoring Mrs. F. and looking straight at her husband. There’s no doubt about it; he’s snarling at this old man. They’re looking at him all over, kind of ogling him, to be honest, and I’m not sure they’ve noticed yet.

  “Johnny!” I say, and give his leash a sharp tug.

  He looks back at me and his lips drop back over his teeth.

  “Good dog!” says Mr. F. And then, “Does he bite?”

  What he means is: Can we pet him? He definitely didn’t see the snarl, and now they’re starting to lean in toward him. JR is still staring at Mr. F. I see his mouth twitch, like maybe he’s going to show some teeth again or start barking. I give his leash another tug.

  “He’s been known to,” I say. I say it like maybe I’m joking, but it stops them from leaning in any closer, and I’m glad for that.

  “Really?” says Mrs. F. She has half a smile on her face, not sure what to think.

  “Nah,” I say. It’s a total lie, but that information is on a need-to-know basis. Johnny’s eyes are darting from Mr. F. to me and his back legs start bending a little, like maybe he’s going to sit down. Mrs. F. starts reaching for him again, but he’s still staring at her husband and doesn’t seem to notice.