Strays Page 8

  Shelley’s eyes widened. “Scott Haydon? Hell, yeah! He’s like the king of the wet wall! You know Scott?”

  “I saw his trial. It was right before mine. The judge did not like him.”

  Shelley laughed. “Nobody likes him. Not even his friends. They’re all scared of him.”

  “What about you, Randy? Punch anyone?” asked Talbot.

  Randy got a solemn look on his face. “Worse.”

  “What did you do?” asked Shelley.

  “C’mon, tell us,” said Talbot.

  He leaned in close, and we all mirrored his body language. “I killed someone,” he whispered.

  Before I could control my breath, I gasped and looked at Talbot.

  “That’s some heavy stuff, man. Does Kevin know you did that?” Oak seemed genuinely concerned. “Are you sure you’re even supposed to be out of jail?”

  Randy started laughing out of control. “You guys! I’m just joking!” His laughter grew. “I didn’t kill no one! But you all believed me!”

  Talbot was the first to laugh. Then Oak. Shelley and I were both hesitant.

  “So what did you really do?” I asked.

  “I pulled a knife on a guy in a fight. But I never used it on him. I should have, though, because apparently you still get time just for ‘brandishing a weapon.’ This whole system is so stupid. I’ve already had two misdemeanors. And now that I’m eighteen, it’s serious jail time if I do anything else. I mean, do I look like an angel?”

  “Do any of us?” asked Shelley. When she spoke, she didn’t look at us but at some far-off place. Here was a person who seemed to be more in her own head than I was.

  Talbot gazed down at her mismatched shoes—one black and one green. We were a group of mismatched misfits, all here for very different reasons, now forced to work toward a common goal.

  “What are you in for?” Randy asked me. I should have known this was coming, but it still managed to take me by surprise. Up until now I hadn’t had to explain to anyone what I’d done. I hated the way it felt, this invasion of privacy.

  My heart raced. I could feel the waters start to swell and my cheeks flush. I wanted to run and hide, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to answer Randy’s question. Everyone else had fessed up. Why was this so hard for me?

  “I wrote a hit list.” I watched their eyes widen. “It was just in my journal. Just for my eyes—a list of people I hated at that moment. I might have said I wanted to kill a teacher. People at school thought I was really planning on going through with it.”

  As scared as I was to confess the truth to the group, they had all been brave enough to share with me. They weren’t going to be judgmental or act superior, since they had experienced something similar.

  I continued, “Then there was this teacher—she found the list, and I tried to get the book back, and I accidentally hurt her.”

  Randy jumped to his feet. “You’re the one who attacked Mrs. Schneider? You’re like a legend! I can’t believe that was you! People have been wanting to kick her ass for years!” Randy looked starstruck.

  “It was totally unfair.” Oak jumped in.

  I remembered seeing him that morning, sitting next to me.

  Oak continued, “Mrs. Schneider had it out for you that day. She knew you weren’t cheating—she just wanted to bust someone for something. Since when is it a crime to express how you feel? That whole thing was total censorship, if you ask me.”

  I was so thrilled that someone else understood what had really happened that day.

  Just then Kevin appeared out of the rec center building, walking our five dogs on their leashes. Between Roman’s missing leg and Tinkerbelle’s pathetic pint-sized body and the drool oozing out of Bruce’s mouth, they looked like a particularly sorry bunch.

  I wondered if the dogs were thinking the same thing about us—that we were all a bunch of strays.

  “Sorry I’m late, guys,” Kevin said while doling out a dog to each of us. The only one ecstatic to see her dog was Talbot, of course. I hesitantly took Roman’s leash and tried to stay calm when he came over to sniff me. He found a spot on the grass and leaned into my body, the nub of his missing leg resting on my bare calf. It was so gross, but I was too afraid to shift my position, worried that he may see it as a sign of aggression and defensively attack.

  “So what do these animals all have in common?” asked Kevin.

  “They’re dogs,” answered Randy.

  Obviously.

  “Aside from that,” said Kevin.

  “They’re super cute!” said Talbot, scratching Garrett between the ears. How was it that she was so at ease around dogs?

  “They’re mean,” offered Shelley.

  “Mean implies that they know what nice is and that they are choosing not to be nice,” Kevin said. “What I’d suggest to all of you is that dogs who have been through the sorts of traumas these dogs have are always in survival mode. Eat or be eaten.”

  “Kill or be killed,” I added. I couldn’t help myself. Pit bulls were ferocious. Even ones with missing appendages. I didn’t care what Kevin said.

  Kevin was hell-bent on driving home his point. “You have to remember that these dogs weren’t born this way. They learned this behavior—and if they can learn it, then they can unlearn it. So that’s our job.”

  “So they’re going to school to ‘unlearn,’” said Randy.

  “Precisely. These dogs are now all spayed and neutered, which helps,” said Kevin.

  I knew that this could drastically reduce aggression, especially in males.

  “I know a few guys who could use some neutering,” said Talbot. I wondered who she was talking about. I knew of one ex-boyfriend named Andy Dunn I’d like to add to that list!

  Kevin talked over our laughter. “So there are a few different types of aggression, but the ones we’re going to focus on are dominance and fear.”

  “Wait, so you’re trying to tell me that puny little Tinkerbelle here has an aggression issue?” asked Randy.

  “Absolutely.”

  Randy shook his head. “Hers has to be fear. She’s got to be afraid of everything! I mean, she kind of should be, considering her size and all.”

  “Actually, hers is dominance-based,” said Kevin. “She is particularly food aggressive. If you go anywhere near her when she’s eating, or if another dog gets in her space, she’ll attack.”

  “Thatta girl,” said Randy. Tinkerbelle rolled over on her back.

  “Most of the dogs here have dominance-based aggression. Except for Roman,” said Kevin.

  Of course. My dog would be the exception.

  “His issues are fear-based.”

  Roman was apparently afraid of everything, and the person who was supposed to get him over his fears was afraid of him. We were a perfect couple.

  “And Iris, if your dog still doesn’t listen, you need to do an adjustment,” said Kevin.

  “How do I do that?” I asked.

  “Keep control of the leash and bring your thumb and middle finger to the dog’s rear and gently place some pressure on it.”

  I watched Kevin do this, and Roman immediately sat down.

  “Don’t forget to praise your dog!” Kevin reminded us.

  When it was our turn, we each found our own area of grass to work on.

  “I think my dog has rabies!” I heard Shelley say. Her bulldog was constantly gathering large amounts of foamy saliva at the sides of his mouth and compulsively drooling.

  “That’s just the breed!” shouted Kevin. “He comes from a long line of droolers.”

  Roman was doing pretty well on the leash. He wasn’t pulling or tugging as badly as the day before. I decided to try my hand at making him sit.

  “Sit.” I said. It came out as a whisper. I tried again. “Sit!”

  Roman stopped walking and looked at me. But all three legs stayed standing on the grass. I attempted a correction, bringing my fingers over Roman’s back. But before they could make contact with his fur, he began growling
and snarling and jumped (on his one hind leg) up to my arm, which, in my state of panic, I was able to move out of the way quickly enough. I dropped the leash and ran toward Kevin, who was already moving quickly in my direction.

  “I’m done dealing with that dog!” I yelled at him. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or kick something. I felt humiliated. Defeated. Scared. How many more times was this dog going to intimidate me?

  I walked over to a big cypress tree and sat down, leaning on the flaky bark. I watched as Kevin tugged and yanked on the leash until whatever anger had possessed Roman passed and he snapped back to reality. Kevin walked him to the office and then came back out to me.

  “What did you do with him?” I asked.

  “I think he’s had enough for the day. It’s not an easy process for him.”

  For him! What about for me? How could the dog be both an aggressor and a victim? It didn’t make sense!

  I looked at Kevin. “Considering the fact that he almost bit my arm off, shouldn’t you be mad at him instead of feel sorry for him?”

  “But I do feel sorry for him. He’s been through a lot. Remember, he was abused. Beaten repeatedly. When you brought your hand down, did you bring it over his head where he could see it? Or over his back?”

  I tried to remember. “Over his back, I guess.”

  “That was probably it,” said Kevin.

  “So it was my fault?”

  “I’m not placing blame,” said Kevin. “I just want you to start viewing things the way Roman sees them. When he saw a hand coming out of nowhere, from his own life experience, it was a signal that he was about to get beaten up. The hand wasn’t a part of you. Do you understand?”

  Nothing made sense anymore. Trying to understand this dog was a waste of time. “I guess.”

  “So you know what you have to do next time?”

  Next time! Did he seriously believe there was going to be a next time?

  “Can’t I have a new dog?” I asked.

  “Roman needs you,” said Kevin.

  “Can’t I switch with someone else?”

  “Roman needs you.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” I asked.

  “It’s no coincidence you two are paired up together. I think you have a lot more in common than you realize,” said Kevin. Then he left to help the rest of the group with their dogs.

  The waters were rising, churning in my stomach like rough ocean waves. Why were this dog’s needs more important than my own?

  *

  “That was heavy,” said Talbot, once the other dogs had been collected and we were officially dismissed.

  “I’m over it,” I announced.

  “Over what?” Talbot asked.

  “That dog.”

  “He’s so cute!” said Talbot.

  “You think everyone is cute,” I said.

  “You should see me with guys.”

  We laughed.

  “So, you coming to my place tonight?” asked Talbot.

  “Yup. Can I bike there?”

  “You better take the bus. It’s up a steep hill at the top of Bay.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven. And don’t be late. My parents are nuts about dinner starting on time. Speaking of which, there’s my dad. See ya!” She ran off and hopped into her dad’s car.

  Tonight, I would be having a real family dinner.

  As I was unlocking my bike, Oak approached me. “I think I would have been scared, too,” he said.

  “Of what?” I pretended not to know what he was talking about.

  “Actually, all things considered, you stayed pretty calm. A lot calmer than I would have been.”

  “I don’t really like dogs,” I said.

  He loosened the hood around his face, exposing his chin. “The queen of the animal kingdom doesn’t like dogs? How’s that for ironic?”

  I never would have expected the word ironic to come out of Oak’s mouth. He was the school bad boy—not that I thought he’d be speaking in grunts or anything.

  “You wanna go to Pergolesi and grab a coffee?” he asked, straight out of left field.

  He knew about my passion for bio and my love affair with coffee? This guy was observant.

  “I do, but I can’t,” I said. “I have homework. Summer school. And then I have dinner plans. Rain check?”

  “Sure.”

  I nodded and Oak waved and got into his truck—an old, faded, cherry-red Chevrolet.

  On my bike ride home I wondered if Oak was just being nice to me because a three-legged professional killer almost attacked me—or if maybe, just maybe, he kinda liked me? I couldn’t decode Kevin’s message about Roman and me—how we apparently had a lot in common. Besides both being mammals, I couldn’t think of one thing. Roman had fear-based aggression. What was I afraid of? I guess I didn’t love speaking my mind, but I still got frustrated when people didn’t get where I was coming from.

  In a way, Roman had it a lot harder than me—he didn’t have the capacity to communicate. I, at least, had the ability to open up to people, should I ever choose to do so.

  At home the neighbor’s dog was at the fence, greeting me with growls and barks. I gathered the mail from our box, tucked the pile of bills under my arm, and approached the dog with a display of fake confidence.

  I looked around to see if anyone was watching me. The dog followed me closely, never breaking eye contact.

  In a stern voice I said, “Sit!” I watched his ears perk up as the ninety-pound bullmastiff lowered his body into a quintessential dog sitting position.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Stay!” I said, putting my hand up to his face on the other side of the fence.

  The dog didn’t move until I was through my front door.

  At least one animal was listening to me.

  *

  After completing two hours of reading for Perry’s class (it took me that long because I kept getting distracted, thinking about Oak), bouncing around on the Internet, and Googling Oak’s name (his court case came up in a small article in the Sentinel with the headline, “Local Teen Genius Leads Police on a Cyber Goose Chase”), it was finally time to head over to Talbot’s. I checked the fridge to see if I could bring anything to contribute to dinner. It was pretty barren except for a few vegetable juices and a bottle of champagne that Dad had purchased—no doubt to celebrate his impending promotion. The final interview was on Monday, and I couldn’t wait until he stopped talking about it all the time.

  Even though Talbot had told me not to bike, I tried to cycle up Bay, one of the biggest hills in the city, until my legs felt like they were on fire, at which point I waited patiently for the 1 University bus to arrive and hooked my bike to the front. The bus dropped me off right in front of Talbot’s house at UC Santa Cruz’s faculty housing. I guessed her parents were professors.

  The brown houses with green trim all looked the same, like a mini suburbia. Across the housing development were two huge fields of dried grass, cut in half by the road that the bus continued on up to campus. Cows grazed on the grass, and at the top of the hill were scores of redwood trees clustered in tight circles. Hidden among the shade of the redwoods sat UC Santa Cruz. It felt strange to be in such proximity to a university and yet, with my slipping grades and out-of-school problems, I couldn’t have felt further away from a college-bound future. I would feel like a complete failure if I didn’t make it to my vision of the Brown library.

  I walked my bike up to Talbot’s and rang the doorbell.

  A little boy answered. “I’m Thaddeus, but you can call me Bug Man.” He held up a plastic container with all sorts of creepy crawlies in it.

  “Thad! Get those bugs out of the house!” Talbot’s mom’s voice bellowed from the kitchen.

  “Cool insects,” I said. It made him stop in his tracks.

  “You like bugs?” he asked.

  “I do!” I said, bending down to get a better look at the smattering of earwigs and potato bugs crawling aro
und in the plastic container. “Did you know that there are over twenty million bugs per person on the planet?”

  “No way!” said Talbot’s brother.

  “It’s true,” I said.

  “That’s disgusting.” Talbot bounded down the stairs to greet me. “You can put your bike here.” She leaned it up against the hallway wall.

  “Ah! An environmentalist. I like it,” said the man following behind her.

  “That’s my dad,” Talbot said.

  I shook his hand. He squeezed it so hard it hurt.

  “It’s not by choice, Dad. She doesn’t have a car.”

  I stood there and smiled awkwardly.

  “Well, that makes two of you then,” her dad said and walked into the kitchen.

  Did he think that, like his daughter, I had been convicted of drunk driving as well?

  Talbot stared at my feet. “We’re a no-shoe household. You can put yours in the basket. Mom likes to remind us that she doesn’t want everything we’ve potentially stepped in to follow us home.”

  “Remind her about the shoes!” shouted her mom from the kitchen.

  “On it!” Talbot yelled back.

  “Watch your tone!” called her father.

  Talbot rolled her eyes.

  “You watch your tone…” she said, under her breath. “Come on, I have to set the table.”

  In the kitchen, I met Talbot’s mother, who looked exactly like Talbot but older and without a nose ring. In fact, her parents seemed so completely normal. I didn’t know what I was expecting, maybe more piercings and tattoos between the two of them.

  I followed Talbot around the table, placing forks and knives on either side of the fabric placemats she was setting down. At our house, we were self-sufficient. Every man for himself.

  Dinner was a green-bean-and-tomato salad with mozzarella cheese that melted in my mouth and a huge bowl of pasta with fresh pesto Talbot’s dad made from basil growing in their garden. Way better than my usual mac-and-cheese.

  “So, Iris, where do you go to school?” asked Talbot’s dad.

  “Santa Cruz High.”

  “Do you like it?” asked her mom.

  I nodded, lying.

  Talbot’s dad followed up with, “What does your dad do?”

  I hadn’t come prepared for an interview.