Boy in the Blue Hammock, page 4
Don’t stop
Not yet
Fifteen feet.
Twelve.
Ten.
Tao looks over the hound’s shoulder to the hallway jungle. The passage has succumbed, the growth dense to the point of strangulation. It is a metastasizing tumour. The vines forming its irregular borders have reached the dining table and the piano tucked against the northern wall.
* * *
“My older sister Terri has a retarded girl. Grace-Marie. She’s not the same as you, kid—she’s got that spaz thing. Serial palsy, or whatever it’s called. Terrible. She’s always pretty happy, but it’s hard. On her, on Terri…the whole family. It breaks your heart.”
The woman airs a bitter laugh.
“Fucking Defs think they’re hard done by. What a joke. They should go live with Terri and little Gracey-Marie for a few days.”
She cocks her head to one side, listening to the strains of sirens farther south.
* * *
That’s good, Tao
Far enough from the screen door
Close enough to her
Inches away from the hound’s outstretched arm, her hand palm down in a gesture of peace. Tao stares at the fingers—short, thick, nails lined with dirt, knuckles red and angry.
He pictures them holding the gun again.
You’re there
The hound’s face. Instability in her features; a bubbling, as if her skin has come to a boil. Her blue eyes have turned black.
You’re ready
Cheeks bunch. Furrows appear in the forehead. Lips peel back, exposing the teeth.
Her canines are oversized and sharp. Saliva drips from their lethal points.
Go
Tao turns and runs.
5
I stared, one eye half-closed.
“You want us to keep him.”
The trainer patted Tao on the head. “It’s up to you.”
“There’s nowhere else for him to go?”
“There’s a wait-list of people who want a good companion.”
“I mean, nowhere else he can be of service?”
She shook her head. “We’re looking at a PTSD support program for the ones who don’t complete. But only if the Reparation Party doesn’t win the election. They’ll pull our funding.”
“It’s kind of sad to see him without his jacket.”
“Yeah, it is. A superhero who lost his powers.”
I scratched my neck, nodded, then bent forward. The dog dipped his head and considered me with black-rimmed baleful eyes. He knows, I thought. He knows we’re charting the course of his life.
We hadn’t become a billet family in the hope of being gifted a pet. Until now, I hadn’t even known it was a possibility. There were reasons to say no, to continue being a caretaker. Dogs that stayed with us and completed training—there’d been three prior to Tao—they left to go to work, to do good. The loss wasn’t easy, but the dogs exited our lives healthy, happy and young. The same couldn’t be said for a pet’s goodbye.
“We have a son.” After a pause, I added, “With challenges.”
The trainer nodded, aware of the fact but unsure of what to say.
“There’s a lot of stories, you know? About animals with kids like Kasper. How they help them. ‘Unlock’ is the word they use. Dog, cat, horse, hamster, turtle, whatever—it unlocks the child. Opens him up. Brings back the child the parents used to know. The child they mourned for. They see the animal as a saviour. Rescued the child from torment, from a fate worse than death.” I looked skyward and scoffed. “Hallelujah, it’s a miracle!”
I cupped Tao’s muzzle in my hands. The dog met my gaze.
“You don’t have to save our boy,” I said. “He needs help, sure. He’ll need it his whole life. But he doesn’t need it from you. He doesn’t need to be saved.”
Tao expects retribution. Anger. Screaming. Pop-pop. Perhaps the crash of a fist on his back or those frightful jaws closing around his neck. He understands—the jacket will not protect him from the hound. It is there for the service of others, not for his benefit.
Piston breaths. Jackhammer heartbeats. He wonders if he’ll reach the screen door. If he makes it, he hopes the cord connecting him to Boy is strong, the cuff secure.
The woman claps her hands. “Hey! Woah! Don’t go! I’ll take care of you!”
Tao launches himself at the screen. For a fleeting moment, it is a wall. Bricks and mortar and false promise. Then he is upon it, pouring through it. The door frame buckles like a staggered fighter. The thin wire mesh explodes in clouds of grey smoke. Walls crumble and windows heave. A blizzard of torn pages covers the tracks of his escape.
There is no sound. No shout. No pop.
Only breaths, beats.
He runs. Through the courtyard, out of the gate. A stormwater drain hisses. Hemlocks along the fence line nod and shake in the wind, torn between approval and admonishment. The ryegrass streams beneath his frantic paws. At the far end of his tunnel vision is a glimpse of Sixty-Eighth Street: downed power lines, a bin laying on its side, a black truck with smashed windows. Tao hopes to stop running when he reaches the sidewalk, but it’s not up to him. The jacket is his master. It chooses the moment.
In the first strides beyond the boundary of the townhouse complex the choice is made. The force propelling him gives out. A scythe of pain from his broken leg shears through his chest and hips. Tao yelps and pitches forward. His right front paw catches a divot in the ground, slinging his lower body into the air. The world stretches and blurs. He flails through the rotation of his body, a clay target clipped, then crashes, nose and chin branding the sidewalk with a smear of blood.
His limp body comes to rest by a pair of young, straggly cedars. At their base is a litter of empty shell casings, bad seeds trying to take root in the patchy soil.
* * *
No movement on Sixty-Eighth Street. No speeding cars or defiant trucks or bloated vans stuffed with extended families and all their worldly possessions. No people running or stumbling or crouching low as they dart between the shadows. Houses are locked out of fear or left for the ghosts. A few are boarded up. In the sky, the clouds falter. On the ground, the trees dare not twitch. They await the next act of the main players: the conquering Homeland forces, the regrouping Defiance rebels. But the theatre has moved elsewhere.
From the top branch of a curbside cherry blossom, a blue jay jeers. Distant sirens answer the taunt.
* * *
Tao licks the dirt from his front left paw. Agony rules his body like a despot. He is unsure where one pain ends and the next begins; they’ve merged into a single tempest, each storm cell indistinguishable from the whole. He steels himself and lifts his head, turns slowly—every inch a trial—to view his wretched form. His ribs are stark and flecked with mud. His back rises and falls like overworked bellows. The broken limb is at a horrifying new angle—wrenched skyward, it appears more like a fledgling wing than a fractured leg.
Jacket—gone.
Cord and cuff—gone.
He turns back, drops his head between his front paws. A clutch of whines ekes out of his throat. In the company of thin cedars and spent bullets, he shuts his eyes, waits for the presence within, the voice of Trainer, to soothe him. You are good, Tao. You did what was asked of you. You did everything you could.
It doesn’t come.
All he hears are echoes of Boy.
Help!
He iss getting away!
The dog whimpers. Lays flat on his side. He considers rolling over onto his back, soft belly exposed, but the effort required is too great.
They ran affer him
Shouting and screaming
A touch. A nudge to the shoulder. Could be a finger, or a stick. Maybe the barrel of a gun.
He stops whimpering. He expects the echoes of Boy to cease too, but they continue.
All free of them
Racing and chasing
And they are louder now. Clearer. No longer within. Around. All around. And close. By his ear.
These are not echoes. This is not memory’s doing.
This is—
No moor sleep, Tao
Time to wake up
—the call of duty.
* * *
“Wake up, Taaaaaaooo.
“Wake-up-wake-up.”
* * *
He opens his eyes, blinks away the dappled sunlight.
Boy is seated in front of him.
* * *
Kasper sits cross-legged, jeans rolled up to just below the knee. Sneakers to shins streaked with mud. Shirt sleeve torn. Face and neck the colour of rock salt. He draws deeply through his nose, the rhythm of his normal breathing pattern almost regained. A handful of raindrops dot his headphones like blisters. His narrowed eyes are fixed on the open book in his lap.
“Can’t catch me,” he says. “I’m the Ginnerbread Man.”
* * *
Tao eases over onto his belly and tucks his good legs in and under his frame. On the third attempt, he manages to stand. Boy’s eyes remain on the book. Tao leans forward, his chin nearly on the pages. His gurgling stomach—it’s no distraction. He sniffs Boy’s hand then gives the knuckles a lick. He expects the standard reaction, etched over five years—withdrawal, frowns, anxious laughter.
* * *
Kasper lifts his hand from the book, closes it into a fist. Examines his knuckles as if they were precious gems, turning them this way and that, bringing them to the tip of his nose. He nods and wipes them on the grass.
He rises then walks to the curb on tiptoe. Holding The Gingerbread Man in a double-arm wrap against his chest, he looks right, south, toward the city. The tall buildings’ backdrop of snow-dusted mountain range is ringed with grey smog. Kasper looks left, north, toward the border. The land is bare, missing the fall pumpkin patches that were a staple for three generations. He drags his headphones down to his neck and frowns, considering the stranger that is Sixty-Eighth Street. Once upon a time it was a seat beside the educational assistant on the school bus, and walks with Mom to the 7-Eleven, and wide eyes at house 4805’s holiday lights. It hasn’t been that fairy tale for a while. He stares at the asphalt canvas before him. It is an abstract of skid marks and hurled bricks and broken glass.
Kasper steps into the street.
* * *
Boy has many needs: to sing, to jump, to shout, to laugh, to be sad when Girl is sad.
To run?
No.
He stays.
He doesn’t leave without Family.
But what if Boy is forced to leave without Family? And there’s no possibility of return?
Wouldn’t he run?
Tao scrambles forward. His head throbs. White spots muddle his vision. Past the clouds in his eyes, he can see Boy in the middle of the street, looking left, looking right. The distance to cover is vast, but not unconquerable.
Tao stumbles at the curb. Falls. His damaged leg slaps the hard tarmac and, for a few seconds, the world burns. He opens his mouth wide, swamping his tongue with cool air. Then he regathers his essentials—limbs, breath, courage. An eon later, he is upright.
In the street, Boy hasn’t moved.
* * *
Kasper stands on the white line, The Gingerbread Man tucked into the back of his jeans. A cool breeze darts along Sixty-Eighth. It ruffles the torn sleeve of his T-shirt, brings goosebumps to his forearms. Chills the tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. He wishes Mom was here. Dad and Gab. He wishes he had his blanket.
He looks only south now, toward the city and the mountains. He wipes his eyes, his nose. Behind him, is the scrape of Tao’s nails on the asphalt. He nods three times.
“Spotted dog saw him…
“Win I catch you…
“I will gobble you up.”
* * *
Tao closes in, lurching and listing, his movement more sea lion than dog. His gaze, though, is steady, focused on the closing gap. Boy is still within reach. But that could change in an instant. A quick jog, a skip. A march, feet stomping, arms swinging high—one of Boy’s staples in moments of frustration or defiance. Any one of these and salvation may be lost.
It may be lost regardless. Danger looms—Tao feels it, a small searchlight peering through the sensory fog. The hound they encountered at the house would’ve summoned the pack by now. They’ll be seeking. Before long, finding.
He edges closer.
Closer.
And there.
Tao latches onto the hem of Boy’s jeans. With the meagre strength remaining in his injured lower body, he sets, then pulls. Boy doesn’t budge. He pulls again, the second attempt weaker than the first. No give.
He holds, nose twitching as if pollen were in the air.
You hope the jacket returns, but it does not come for you
You wish to steal the book again, but it is out of reach
Stop hoping, wishing
You brought him through the screen door, away from the house, beyond the attack of the hound
Lead on
The dog releases his hold and sits by Boy’s hip. After a short pause, he rises and limp-walks twenty metres down the street, headed north. He skirts the charred remnants of a stack of placards then steps over the hunched stick figure of a fallen streetlight. Near a trashed red suitcase, hacked open and emptied by thieves unknown, he stops and turns to face Boy. He sits again.
* * *
An orange flare arcs across the northern skyline. Kasper watches it burn, then twists his lips and scrunches his nose. He pivots. The dog stands opposite the white Willow Pointe sign, staring at him. Kasper puts his hands up over his eyes and peeks between his fingers. The heels of his sneakers rise and fall like ancient empires.
“Run, run…
“Fass as you can.”
He lifts the headphones from his neck, slips them over his ears. Checks that The Gingerbread Man remains tucked into the back of his jeans. His gaze slides away from the dog and settles on the white line beneath his feet. He brings his left hand up in front of his mouth. With his right, he waves.
“Bye-bye, everybody.
“I love you.
“Byyye.”
He takes three deep breaths then walks down the street. When he reaches Tao, he places his right hand above the dog’s head, palm down. Runs it down the neck, along the spine. Touches the flickering tail with his index finger.
“And now, they join in chase.”
* * *
The pair shift back to the sidewalk and make their way toward the dead traffic lights at the junction of Sixty-Eighth Street and the Trunk Road. The hobbled dog leads, never straying more than two body lengths ahead. The boy follows, silent but for the hand tapping his thigh.
* * *
Approaching noon. Sun at its highest rung.
Caravans of clouds obscure its view of the destruction below.
6
By the tepid glow of a Coleman lamp, I emptied a second bag of ice into the cooler. Tao sniffed a stray cube that slid across the floor and came to rest by the idle fridge.
“The Sheldricks sent their kids away. Put them on a train this morning.”
I replaced the lid on the cooler then sat down, head buried in my hands. Quiet sobs, so as not to wake the rest of the house.
“I can’t do that,” I added, wincing at the pinprick of the words. “Just can’t.”
Tao moved close, rested his chin on my knee.
“Gab might make it, if she was on her own. With Kasper though…”
I stood and grabbed a washcloth—the one I’d used throughout the day on the foreheads of my children—and blew my nose. I rinsed the washcloth in the sink. In the poor light, you couldn’t see the water quality. I was grateful. A few streets over, a single Roman candle whistled and screamed and crackled then burned out. New Year’s Eve. It didn’t feel like a beginning or an end. It felt like the train I couldn’t allow my kids to board. Leaving the station, rounding the bend. Disappearing.
“I would never tell this to anyone but you, pup.”
The dog tilted his head. My small voice and grave tone was concerning. He wagged his tail, hoping to help my next words be bigger and brighter.
“Been having this dream the last few months. I’m in a clinic somewhere. Not here—somewhere overseas. Some country that hasn’t lost the plot. I’m in a bed, hooked up to machines, wires coming and going every which way. I’m dying. Not sure from what, cancer maybe. I feel like my insides have been hollowed out and the only thing left is my heart. It’s kind of punch-drunk, trying to do the job of all the missing organs. It’ll give out before long.
“The doctor comes in—she looks like my grade four teacher, Ms. Baxter. Short, glasses. Bit of chin stubble. She speaks in a language that isn’t English, but I understand every word: You are committed to this? Yes, I am. You don’t want more time to think it over? No, I don’t. You understand there is no turning back once we begin? Absolutely. The doctor nods and pulls the curtain aside on the neighbouring bed. Kasper is there.”
I paused. A siren. In the vicinity of the Roman candle. I waited for it to cut out, then resumed.
“He’s dressed in his pajamas, the ones with Sasquatch on them. Stuffed tiger tucked under his arm. The Gingerbread Man on the bedside table. He looks over at me. The little crease in his brow—his way of saying ‘Mama, where are we? Who is this person? Why are you in bed? Are you sick?.’ It’s okay, my love. Everything is okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not anymore. Hey, show me your happy face. He gives the thin-lipped grimace that never fails to make me smile.
Not yet
Fifteen feet.
Twelve.
Ten.
Tao looks over the hound’s shoulder to the hallway jungle. The passage has succumbed, the growth dense to the point of strangulation. It is a metastasizing tumour. The vines forming its irregular borders have reached the dining table and the piano tucked against the northern wall.
* * *
“My older sister Terri has a retarded girl. Grace-Marie. She’s not the same as you, kid—she’s got that spaz thing. Serial palsy, or whatever it’s called. Terrible. She’s always pretty happy, but it’s hard. On her, on Terri…the whole family. It breaks your heart.”
The woman airs a bitter laugh.
“Fucking Defs think they’re hard done by. What a joke. They should go live with Terri and little Gracey-Marie for a few days.”
She cocks her head to one side, listening to the strains of sirens farther south.
* * *
That’s good, Tao
Far enough from the screen door
Close enough to her
Inches away from the hound’s outstretched arm, her hand palm down in a gesture of peace. Tao stares at the fingers—short, thick, nails lined with dirt, knuckles red and angry.
He pictures them holding the gun again.
You’re there
The hound’s face. Instability in her features; a bubbling, as if her skin has come to a boil. Her blue eyes have turned black.
You’re ready
Cheeks bunch. Furrows appear in the forehead. Lips peel back, exposing the teeth.
Her canines are oversized and sharp. Saliva drips from their lethal points.
Go
Tao turns and runs.
5
I stared, one eye half-closed.
“You want us to keep him.”
The trainer patted Tao on the head. “It’s up to you.”
“There’s nowhere else for him to go?”
“There’s a wait-list of people who want a good companion.”
“I mean, nowhere else he can be of service?”
She shook her head. “We’re looking at a PTSD support program for the ones who don’t complete. But only if the Reparation Party doesn’t win the election. They’ll pull our funding.”
“It’s kind of sad to see him without his jacket.”
“Yeah, it is. A superhero who lost his powers.”
I scratched my neck, nodded, then bent forward. The dog dipped his head and considered me with black-rimmed baleful eyes. He knows, I thought. He knows we’re charting the course of his life.
We hadn’t become a billet family in the hope of being gifted a pet. Until now, I hadn’t even known it was a possibility. There were reasons to say no, to continue being a caretaker. Dogs that stayed with us and completed training—there’d been three prior to Tao—they left to go to work, to do good. The loss wasn’t easy, but the dogs exited our lives healthy, happy and young. The same couldn’t be said for a pet’s goodbye.
“We have a son.” After a pause, I added, “With challenges.”
The trainer nodded, aware of the fact but unsure of what to say.
“There’s a lot of stories, you know? About animals with kids like Kasper. How they help them. ‘Unlock’ is the word they use. Dog, cat, horse, hamster, turtle, whatever—it unlocks the child. Opens him up. Brings back the child the parents used to know. The child they mourned for. They see the animal as a saviour. Rescued the child from torment, from a fate worse than death.” I looked skyward and scoffed. “Hallelujah, it’s a miracle!”
I cupped Tao’s muzzle in my hands. The dog met my gaze.
“You don’t have to save our boy,” I said. “He needs help, sure. He’ll need it his whole life. But he doesn’t need it from you. He doesn’t need to be saved.”
Tao expects retribution. Anger. Screaming. Pop-pop. Perhaps the crash of a fist on his back or those frightful jaws closing around his neck. He understands—the jacket will not protect him from the hound. It is there for the service of others, not for his benefit.
Piston breaths. Jackhammer heartbeats. He wonders if he’ll reach the screen door. If he makes it, he hopes the cord connecting him to Boy is strong, the cuff secure.
The woman claps her hands. “Hey! Woah! Don’t go! I’ll take care of you!”
Tao launches himself at the screen. For a fleeting moment, it is a wall. Bricks and mortar and false promise. Then he is upon it, pouring through it. The door frame buckles like a staggered fighter. The thin wire mesh explodes in clouds of grey smoke. Walls crumble and windows heave. A blizzard of torn pages covers the tracks of his escape.
There is no sound. No shout. No pop.
Only breaths, beats.
He runs. Through the courtyard, out of the gate. A stormwater drain hisses. Hemlocks along the fence line nod and shake in the wind, torn between approval and admonishment. The ryegrass streams beneath his frantic paws. At the far end of his tunnel vision is a glimpse of Sixty-Eighth Street: downed power lines, a bin laying on its side, a black truck with smashed windows. Tao hopes to stop running when he reaches the sidewalk, but it’s not up to him. The jacket is his master. It chooses the moment.
In the first strides beyond the boundary of the townhouse complex the choice is made. The force propelling him gives out. A scythe of pain from his broken leg shears through his chest and hips. Tao yelps and pitches forward. His right front paw catches a divot in the ground, slinging his lower body into the air. The world stretches and blurs. He flails through the rotation of his body, a clay target clipped, then crashes, nose and chin branding the sidewalk with a smear of blood.
His limp body comes to rest by a pair of young, straggly cedars. At their base is a litter of empty shell casings, bad seeds trying to take root in the patchy soil.
* * *
No movement on Sixty-Eighth Street. No speeding cars or defiant trucks or bloated vans stuffed with extended families and all their worldly possessions. No people running or stumbling or crouching low as they dart between the shadows. Houses are locked out of fear or left for the ghosts. A few are boarded up. In the sky, the clouds falter. On the ground, the trees dare not twitch. They await the next act of the main players: the conquering Homeland forces, the regrouping Defiance rebels. But the theatre has moved elsewhere.
From the top branch of a curbside cherry blossom, a blue jay jeers. Distant sirens answer the taunt.
* * *
Tao licks the dirt from his front left paw. Agony rules his body like a despot. He is unsure where one pain ends and the next begins; they’ve merged into a single tempest, each storm cell indistinguishable from the whole. He steels himself and lifts his head, turns slowly—every inch a trial—to view his wretched form. His ribs are stark and flecked with mud. His back rises and falls like overworked bellows. The broken limb is at a horrifying new angle—wrenched skyward, it appears more like a fledgling wing than a fractured leg.
Jacket—gone.
Cord and cuff—gone.
He turns back, drops his head between his front paws. A clutch of whines ekes out of his throat. In the company of thin cedars and spent bullets, he shuts his eyes, waits for the presence within, the voice of Trainer, to soothe him. You are good, Tao. You did what was asked of you. You did everything you could.
It doesn’t come.
All he hears are echoes of Boy.
Help!
He iss getting away!
The dog whimpers. Lays flat on his side. He considers rolling over onto his back, soft belly exposed, but the effort required is too great.
They ran affer him
Shouting and screaming
A touch. A nudge to the shoulder. Could be a finger, or a stick. Maybe the barrel of a gun.
He stops whimpering. He expects the echoes of Boy to cease too, but they continue.
All free of them
Racing and chasing
And they are louder now. Clearer. No longer within. Around. All around. And close. By his ear.
These are not echoes. This is not memory’s doing.
This is—
No moor sleep, Tao
Time to wake up
—the call of duty.
* * *
“Wake up, Taaaaaaooo.
“Wake-up-wake-up.”
* * *
He opens his eyes, blinks away the dappled sunlight.
Boy is seated in front of him.
* * *
Kasper sits cross-legged, jeans rolled up to just below the knee. Sneakers to shins streaked with mud. Shirt sleeve torn. Face and neck the colour of rock salt. He draws deeply through his nose, the rhythm of his normal breathing pattern almost regained. A handful of raindrops dot his headphones like blisters. His narrowed eyes are fixed on the open book in his lap.
“Can’t catch me,” he says. “I’m the Ginnerbread Man.”
* * *
Tao eases over onto his belly and tucks his good legs in and under his frame. On the third attempt, he manages to stand. Boy’s eyes remain on the book. Tao leans forward, his chin nearly on the pages. His gurgling stomach—it’s no distraction. He sniffs Boy’s hand then gives the knuckles a lick. He expects the standard reaction, etched over five years—withdrawal, frowns, anxious laughter.
* * *
Kasper lifts his hand from the book, closes it into a fist. Examines his knuckles as if they were precious gems, turning them this way and that, bringing them to the tip of his nose. He nods and wipes them on the grass.
He rises then walks to the curb on tiptoe. Holding The Gingerbread Man in a double-arm wrap against his chest, he looks right, south, toward the city. The tall buildings’ backdrop of snow-dusted mountain range is ringed with grey smog. Kasper looks left, north, toward the border. The land is bare, missing the fall pumpkin patches that were a staple for three generations. He drags his headphones down to his neck and frowns, considering the stranger that is Sixty-Eighth Street. Once upon a time it was a seat beside the educational assistant on the school bus, and walks with Mom to the 7-Eleven, and wide eyes at house 4805’s holiday lights. It hasn’t been that fairy tale for a while. He stares at the asphalt canvas before him. It is an abstract of skid marks and hurled bricks and broken glass.
Kasper steps into the street.
* * *
Boy has many needs: to sing, to jump, to shout, to laugh, to be sad when Girl is sad.
To run?
No.
He stays.
He doesn’t leave without Family.
But what if Boy is forced to leave without Family? And there’s no possibility of return?
Wouldn’t he run?
Tao scrambles forward. His head throbs. White spots muddle his vision. Past the clouds in his eyes, he can see Boy in the middle of the street, looking left, looking right. The distance to cover is vast, but not unconquerable.
Tao stumbles at the curb. Falls. His damaged leg slaps the hard tarmac and, for a few seconds, the world burns. He opens his mouth wide, swamping his tongue with cool air. Then he regathers his essentials—limbs, breath, courage. An eon later, he is upright.
In the street, Boy hasn’t moved.
* * *
Kasper stands on the white line, The Gingerbread Man tucked into the back of his jeans. A cool breeze darts along Sixty-Eighth. It ruffles the torn sleeve of his T-shirt, brings goosebumps to his forearms. Chills the tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. He wishes Mom was here. Dad and Gab. He wishes he had his blanket.
He looks only south now, toward the city and the mountains. He wipes his eyes, his nose. Behind him, is the scrape of Tao’s nails on the asphalt. He nods three times.
“Spotted dog saw him…
“Win I catch you…
“I will gobble you up.”
* * *
Tao closes in, lurching and listing, his movement more sea lion than dog. His gaze, though, is steady, focused on the closing gap. Boy is still within reach. But that could change in an instant. A quick jog, a skip. A march, feet stomping, arms swinging high—one of Boy’s staples in moments of frustration or defiance. Any one of these and salvation may be lost.
It may be lost regardless. Danger looms—Tao feels it, a small searchlight peering through the sensory fog. The hound they encountered at the house would’ve summoned the pack by now. They’ll be seeking. Before long, finding.
He edges closer.
Closer.
And there.
Tao latches onto the hem of Boy’s jeans. With the meagre strength remaining in his injured lower body, he sets, then pulls. Boy doesn’t budge. He pulls again, the second attempt weaker than the first. No give.
He holds, nose twitching as if pollen were in the air.
You hope the jacket returns, but it does not come for you
You wish to steal the book again, but it is out of reach
Stop hoping, wishing
You brought him through the screen door, away from the house, beyond the attack of the hound
Lead on
The dog releases his hold and sits by Boy’s hip. After a short pause, he rises and limp-walks twenty metres down the street, headed north. He skirts the charred remnants of a stack of placards then steps over the hunched stick figure of a fallen streetlight. Near a trashed red suitcase, hacked open and emptied by thieves unknown, he stops and turns to face Boy. He sits again.
* * *
An orange flare arcs across the northern skyline. Kasper watches it burn, then twists his lips and scrunches his nose. He pivots. The dog stands opposite the white Willow Pointe sign, staring at him. Kasper puts his hands up over his eyes and peeks between his fingers. The heels of his sneakers rise and fall like ancient empires.
“Run, run…
“Fass as you can.”
He lifts the headphones from his neck, slips them over his ears. Checks that The Gingerbread Man remains tucked into the back of his jeans. His gaze slides away from the dog and settles on the white line beneath his feet. He brings his left hand up in front of his mouth. With his right, he waves.
“Bye-bye, everybody.
“I love you.
“Byyye.”
He takes three deep breaths then walks down the street. When he reaches Tao, he places his right hand above the dog’s head, palm down. Runs it down the neck, along the spine. Touches the flickering tail with his index finger.
“And now, they join in chase.”
* * *
The pair shift back to the sidewalk and make their way toward the dead traffic lights at the junction of Sixty-Eighth Street and the Trunk Road. The hobbled dog leads, never straying more than two body lengths ahead. The boy follows, silent but for the hand tapping his thigh.
* * *
Approaching noon. Sun at its highest rung.
Caravans of clouds obscure its view of the destruction below.
6
By the tepid glow of a Coleman lamp, I emptied a second bag of ice into the cooler. Tao sniffed a stray cube that slid across the floor and came to rest by the idle fridge.
“The Sheldricks sent their kids away. Put them on a train this morning.”
I replaced the lid on the cooler then sat down, head buried in my hands. Quiet sobs, so as not to wake the rest of the house.
“I can’t do that,” I added, wincing at the pinprick of the words. “Just can’t.”
Tao moved close, rested his chin on my knee.
“Gab might make it, if she was on her own. With Kasper though…”
I stood and grabbed a washcloth—the one I’d used throughout the day on the foreheads of my children—and blew my nose. I rinsed the washcloth in the sink. In the poor light, you couldn’t see the water quality. I was grateful. A few streets over, a single Roman candle whistled and screamed and crackled then burned out. New Year’s Eve. It didn’t feel like a beginning or an end. It felt like the train I couldn’t allow my kids to board. Leaving the station, rounding the bend. Disappearing.
“I would never tell this to anyone but you, pup.”
The dog tilted his head. My small voice and grave tone was concerning. He wagged his tail, hoping to help my next words be bigger and brighter.
“Been having this dream the last few months. I’m in a clinic somewhere. Not here—somewhere overseas. Some country that hasn’t lost the plot. I’m in a bed, hooked up to machines, wires coming and going every which way. I’m dying. Not sure from what, cancer maybe. I feel like my insides have been hollowed out and the only thing left is my heart. It’s kind of punch-drunk, trying to do the job of all the missing organs. It’ll give out before long.
“The doctor comes in—she looks like my grade four teacher, Ms. Baxter. Short, glasses. Bit of chin stubble. She speaks in a language that isn’t English, but I understand every word: You are committed to this? Yes, I am. You don’t want more time to think it over? No, I don’t. You understand there is no turning back once we begin? Absolutely. The doctor nods and pulls the curtain aside on the neighbouring bed. Kasper is there.”
I paused. A siren. In the vicinity of the Roman candle. I waited for it to cut out, then resumed.
“He’s dressed in his pajamas, the ones with Sasquatch on them. Stuffed tiger tucked under his arm. The Gingerbread Man on the bedside table. He looks over at me. The little crease in his brow—his way of saying ‘Mama, where are we? Who is this person? Why are you in bed? Are you sick?.’ It’s okay, my love. Everything is okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not anymore. Hey, show me your happy face. He gives the thin-lipped grimace that never fails to make me smile.
