Boy in the blue hammock, p.10
Boy in the Blue Hammock, page 10
He breathes deep then reaches out, palm down, over the dog’s head. His mind argues for the established routine: run the hand over and along the spine, keep a constant separation. A thank you without the complication of contact. Like the “hugs” he would give visiting relatives—lean in, shoulder down, close enough to feel the heat of skin before pulling away.
Kasper blinks, then narrows his eyes to slits. He lowers his hand and pats Tao’s head.
“Goo’boy.”
* * *
Eight fifteen on a lost clock.
They reach the Submarine—the house unofficially representing the end of Gilder and the start of the farmlands, so named for its submerged structure of underground living spaces and its arrowhead roof sitting flush with the yard. Tao is uninterested in the Submarine and the fate of its occupants; whether they left or stayed, lived or died, whether the naturally fortified bunker became a war room for the local Defiance or an outpost of interrogation and torture for the Homeland forces. He only has eyes for the open spaces ahead.
The smells—so foreign from the ones that filled the white van on the way to training. Back then, hay and fertilizer and churned soil. Corn and potatoes and pumpkins and grapes and an array of berries almost too great to take in. Tonight they are mere spirits, haunting rather than inhabiting the breeze. In their place, a fug of chemicals and metals. And salt. Thick. Unremitting. Abrading the tongue with every breath.
A small whimper caroms around his throat. The earth’s submission pains him in a way that is different than the loss of Family. Less devastating, but somehow deeper, as if a wasp were trapped in his bones, stinging his marrow. He sighs and stares down the angry red disc on his front left paw. His skin, like the land, is cracked and sore. Maybe beyond repair.
No time to waste, then.
With Boy at his heel, he plunges into the dark, wounded plains.
* * *
A storm on the stroke of nine o’clock. A torrential downpour that once belonged to other places, other skies. In tribute to the deniers, it is now a regular tourist here.
Kasper shifts The Gingerbread Man from the back of his jeans to the front, then bends forward, wearing the hard rain on his back and protecting the book. Every second step, he spits a single word of frustration:
“Wet!”
His shirt clings to his back. His jeans sag. Water drips from his hair, his nose, his elbows, the hinges of his headphones. He wants to take off his clothes, all of them, get rid of the damp and the cold and the ick that feels like seaweed on his skin. But exposing the book to the deluge—it’s a risk too great to consider.
Kasper shakes his head. He starts to hum. Inside his sneakers and socks, his toes curl.
“Wet! Wet!”
* * *
Tao halts, backtracks to where Boy has come to a stop. In the darkness, he can’t see the facial expressions. He doesn’t have to—the urgent sounds and anxious movements tell him all he needs to know.
I am uncomfortable.
I need to be dry.
I cannot wait.
He saw this in Boy when Family went to the beach. In the water: shouts of delight, squeals of joy. Out of the water: shaking, frowning, Woman and Man scrambling to prevent a strip down to the naked form.
He looks around. No trees. They would only be temporary shelter anyway. A house? They are few and far between in this stretch. And what awaits under their roofs? More burned bodies? Another false friend? Hounds? Strays? Tao is unsure of what to do, where to go.
Until the decision is made for him.
* * *
Kasper runs.
Head down, leaning forward.
Legs pumping, arms across his chest.
* * *
Wait, Boy.
Wait!
Tao barks then summons a sprint out of his weary frame. His busted leg drags, a pill once again, the splint no longer a relief. He stumbles into the black maw that swallowed Boy in an instant. For a few seconds, squelching shoes are his guide. The sound recedes. Fainter, fainter.
Then gone.
* * *
Panting and wide-eyed, the dog comes upon a ditched RV. The dented nose butts the bank of the shallow gully running parallel to the road; the back half of the vehicle nests on the shoulder. The large driver-side mirror hangs from its fractured wrist. Leaning against the rear wheel like a spare hubcap is the satellite dish from the roof. One of the rear tires is flat.
The door is open.
Tao listens. Something? Anything? Just rain pounding all around and his own puffing breath. Boy has to be inside though, because Boy stays. Boy doesn’t leave without Family. Tao shakes off—the spray of water like a Catherine wheel—then climbs the step to the threshold of the coach.
The interior is unmarred. No debris or broken glass or fire damage. Two overhead storage compartments are open, but nothing has spilled out. The only object on the floor is an empty picture frame. A working flashlight on the kitchen counter casts a feeble glow over the ordered scene.
From the leftover smells, Tao doesn’t think many people were here. Four, maybe five. A family, not unlike his own and not long gone. He senses their departure was hurried, fuelled by panic. They didn’t pack—there was only time for each other. Hands joined, arms around shoulders. They left together, alone.
Boy sits at the small table, hunched over and trembling, teeth chattering. Naked apart from the headphones.
The face is calm.
* * *
Kasper lifts his head and squints at the blank TV in the cabinet. On the table, his wet clothes are heaped in a pile. His sneakers wade in a puddle on the laminate floor. The Gingerbread Man sits on the counter, dry but for a few spots on the cover.
From the corner of his eye, he watches Tao limp toward him, then drop at his bouncing feet. He burrows his frigid toes beneath the dog’s damp but warm belly. After a time, his feet settle.
* * *
Bringing clothes to the master—it was one of the few tasks Tao could complete in training. In the controlled environment of a house or a room, away from the distractions of the outside world and relieved of the food retrieval duties his stomach could not abide, he got the job done. Sometimes the clothes made his nose prickle, and occasionally he would pause to sneeze. But he always delivered them into the necessary hands. Trainer was so very happy when he worked well. That made him happy.
Tao draws strength from the treasured memory as he searches the RV. Bunks. Toilet and shower. Kitchen. Queen bed. Beside the bed is a thin wardrobe and a small chest of drawers. He suspects they store clothes, but without a length of rope for him to bite and pull they are inaccessible. He wanders to the driver’s side of the bed. Nothing useful on the floor or the small shelves. An empty plastic bottle. Two wire coat hangers. A rubber band. Coins litter the laminate—in the dim blush of the flashlight they glow like wary eyes. Tao starts to rest his chin on the edge of the bed, then stops short. Something under the pillow. He noses it aside and discovers reward for his effort: a pair of pyjamas. He takes them in his mouth and brings them back into the open space of the RV.
* * *
Eating!
Small nibbles of a sweet-smelling treat, jutting out of a packet peeled back. Similar to the food of the stranger. Where did it come from? When was it found? Boy must have discovered it while he was looking around the bed.
Tao’s stomach starts its dance. Saliva collects at the edges of his mouth. He drops the pyjamas in Boy’s lap and then sits, waiting for acknowledgement of his good work.
* * *
Kasper stands and places his snack on the counter, beside The Gingerbread Man, beyond the reach of the dog. He checks the pyjamas for wet patches. Finding none, he steps into the pants. Then he puts the shirt on backwards.
“Uh-oh,” he says, giggling. “Oh no.”
He claps and doubles over, the giggles escalating to laughter then breathless guffaws.
“Oh…Nooo…That’s no gooood…Try…again!”
He lifts the shirt back over his head, replaces it the right way around. He thuds down onto the chair, gulping air and holding his stomach. It takes a minute or more for the laughter to completely die out.
* * *
Tao looks at Boy, at the snack, back at Boy. The energy he has left—it isn’t enough to whine or beg.
He has barely enough to yawn.
* * *
The rain ends a few minutes before ten. An itch in Tao’s gut demands a resumption of the journey. It was never his intention to sleep. Setting out, he figured, to push through until they reached the facility and then, with safety achieved, they could sleep all they wanted. Stay awake and on the move—it was a good plan. But now, inside the quiet and tidy welcome of the RV, his exhaustion is overwhelming.
With drowsy eyes, he looks around one last time. The door is closed shut—the wind at some point, no doubt. He limps over to the bunks. He likes the look of them, their inviting softness. And their trace smells remind him of Girl when she was small. He can’t climb onto the bunks, though, not even the lower one. He doubts he has the strength to lift a front paw onto the mattress, let alone his whole body. He will make do with a warm, flat, dry patch of floor.
Boy is sitting on the lower bed, The Gingerbread Man propped in the left hand, turning pages with the right. No words. No sound. Far away, perhaps in another book, another story.
Tao folds his bad leg beneath his hips and eases down onto his side. Before the leg screams at being pinned between the weapon and his full weight, he rolls over.
* * *
He can see it.
The two of them arriving, walking under the sign and down the path to the office. Into the reception area where Paula at the Front Desk waits with a pat and a treat and a Whoozagoodboy? Then on past the delivery spaces and the nursery where the puppies are cared for; past the showers and the baths (the less thought given to these, the better). Due to the state of his leg and his skin and his stomach and everything else in his tumbledown body, he’ll need to spend some time in the clinic with Doctor and the other gentle-handed humans. Maybe they’ll be able to help Boy too. Then they’ll enter the open areas: the cooler indoor space with line markings, the glorious grassed square with a roof overhead to catch the sun and the rain. And Trainer will be waiting there. And probably Assistants as well. Maybe some visiting humans, there to learn or to laugh or to feel better about their lives. Trainer will be very proud—Tao, the dog ill-equipped to guide, to lead, to save; burdened with being lower, being lesser; pitted against a world lost in a pall of death and destruction…He came through. He delivered Boy to safety.
He imagines he might even get his jacket back.
* * *
Tao opens his eyes. For a second, he is unsure of his surroundings. Then it comes to him: Arsenault Drive, the farms, the abandoned RV. Nighttime. Darkness, save the flashlight on the table.
The presence at his back is new though.
A warm body snuggling. A hand on his hip. Whistly breaths on the back of his neck. He twists to look over his shoulder.
Impossibly, Boy is on the floor cradling him, fast asleep, the book a pillow for his head.
9
Patching a pair of old jeans, I looked up to see Gab fling the mangy tennis ball. Tao took off as if fired from a cannon, tongue trailing, legs a blur. He caught up with the rolling ball near the gate that opened onto Sixty-Eighth Street then trotted back, prize bulging the left side of his mouth.
“Nice, hon,” I said. “Still got good heat.”
She raised her thumb, then kissed her right bicep. She side-armed another throw into the yard, again sending the dog on his obligatory sprint.
Ten minutes a day, I thought. Better than no minutes at all. The ban on protests, the stricter curfew, the Homers’ shutdown of Gilder High…all of it meant that good kids were unseen these days. Some of their fates I knew. Detained, deported. Arrested. Some just gone, vanished like a hiker in an avalanche. A good number—please God, a very good number—had gotten away and crossed the border, with family or without. Exactly how many was anyone’s guess.
The ones still here and resisting the brainwash—they were laying low. A wise decision. Young people venturing more than a block from home were fodder for suspicious eyes and fearful whispers. One thing was certain: the blowhard in the big chair could no longer accuse the nation’s youth of staying inside to mindlessly stare at their screens. Most of the screens were blank. And the ones that weren’t had approved content 24-7.
I turned toward the house, listening for any hint of unhappiness. All quiet. No complaints. No distress. I exhaled. The return to the tech dark ages had been a tough transition for all of us, especially Kasper. At least some of his favourite things—puzzles, harmonica, The Gingerbread Man—couldn’t be taken away with the flick of a switch.
And they couldn’t take this away from Gab either. A ball, a dog, a bit of space. Ten minutes a day. Soon, she’d be able to do this without her mother having to stand guard.
We had an exit plan now.
Families with “retarded dependents” belonged to one of the few categories of citizenry being given permission to leave. A burden on the system, a drain on resources, unable to contribute to this great nation’s rebuild—these were the justifications. Naturally, it was a different story for card-carrying members of the Reparation Party. Victims of Mother Nature’s cruel vagaries, courageous parents inspiring us all to be better, families deserving of every support possible in their lifelong challenge. Fuck them. If they thought getting rid of the burdens and the drains with get-out-of-jail-free cards was winning the war, they were mistaken. This was only a battle. Winning the war was surviving the regime. Whatever it took.
I blinked, realizing I’d been staring at nothing. My renewed focus fell on Gab. She’d turned ninety degrees and was eyeing a small section of parking space between the townhouse blocks and alongside the driveway. At her hip, the dog was waiting for the next toss; Gab, though, was frozen in her throwing stance, ball held high, as if posing for a trophy cast. I followed her line of sight. Seeing the target, needle, thread and jeans fell from my lap onto the ground.
“Gabby, drop the ball! Open your hand, spread your fingers!”
I stood, my legs weak, barely capable of supporting my weight.
“Sweetheart, listen to me! Drop the ball and put both hands up, fingers spread!”
I looked again at the parking space. The Homeland car, black, stark, not a figment, not a night terror. Idling, but quieter than a dying breath. Likely two officers inside; the dark-tinted windows prevented any confirmation. No siren—just the yellow flashers spinning like mad eyes. When had it arrived? Where had it come from? I knew the answer: it had always been there.
Every atom of my body crying out, desperate to run, to grab, to hold, to hug, to shield, to protect. Tears gathering, spilling. I swallowed. My throat was tight and closing rapidly. I wasn’t sure how many more words I could get out before it slammed shut.
“Sweetie, listen to Mom! You need to show them that you don’t have a weapon! That you’re not a threat! Drop the ball, Gabby!”
I shifted slightly to better view my daughter’s face. Clenched jaw. Puckered brow. The same look as Kasper whenever he tried to retrieve elusive words. My stomach fell. I understood—I wasn’t witness to a fearful child. Gab was thinking, considering.
“I know what you want to do, baby!”
The first sign of movement: a small squeeze of the ball. Then a more intense compression, knuckles blanched by the effort. A long exhale. A slow-motion blink.
“We won’t win that way!”
Abruptly, the hand relaxed and opened. The ball fell. The sight of it bouncing on the concrete path was sunlight upon my face. With arms held skyward, I hurried over and stood in front of my second child.
“Leave us,” I muttered. “And we’ll leave you.”
The Homeland car remained still, noiseless but for a faint hum.
“All finished,” I added. “Goodbye. See you later. Bye-bye.”
A blink in this game of chicken. The vehicle eased out of the parking space and glided out of sight. I let my aching arms drop. They wrapped around my trembling daughter. Tao licked our shins, all the while keeping an eye on the ball several metres away.
“Your Kasper voice made them leave, Mom.”
“I guess so.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, my love.”
“I wanted to throw it at them.”
“I know you did.”
“I wanted to throw it so bad.”
“I know you did, baby.”
“R-I-P-aration, Mom.”
“One day, Gab. One day soon.”
The same dream. The initial scene true to memory again.
They are at the lake. The sun shines down from a forever sky, and the water, though cool, is irresistible. The cedars lining the far bank shrug and nod in the gentle spring breeze. Tao, swimming with the fevered, near-frantic paddle innate to his breed, is in a moment of delicate balance: he is euphoric, playing with Family, surrounded by shrieks of delight, raw skin soothed by the lake’s crisp touch; he is also anxious, the water is deep and he is adrift, unsure of where his feet can find solid ground again. As the current picks up, the delicate balance is disturbed. The pack climbs onto a pontoon twenty metres from the water’s entry, first Girl then Man and Woman. Boy is last, but there is no concern—a vault out of the green wash and onto the feet without a hint of helping hand.
