Authors: Caroline Bock
How I wish I were a bug.
“Please, Barkley,” the voice on the other side of the door begs. “Why are you doing this to me? Wait until your father returns from his tripâ”
In the past months, I have often thought about this peculiar, though safe, feeling of having my own and another voice in my head. The voice is the nucleus; my atoms revolve around it. I wait for the voice to tell me what to do, while I itch my arms from shoulders down to wrists, tearing the dead skin off, shedding the outer layer, the dead atoms.
Careful,
the voice finally says.
To survive, one must adapt and change. I can make this change happen, in myself, and in the world. I have been chosen to do this. I am being given guidance. I don't have to think too much about where the voice originated, do I? Surely, it is a good place.
“How about some eggs?” she asks. “You should be hungry after working all day. Sixty minutes of spin, and I'm starving, but I don't want to eat. I'll make them for you. Barkley, please, I don't know what to say to you anymore. Help me out.”
“What kind of eggs?” I ask, staring at the ceiling, yearning for the other voice.
“Egg whites, scrambled,” she answers. “They're healthier for you.”
“I hate egg whites.” I force this sentence out of my mouth. It is hard to talk at all.
“Exactly, you hate egg whites. I'll make you regular eggs, any way you like them. Just open the door. Please, Barkley. What's going on in there?” She sounds desperate for some reason. She must be, if she is offering to cook. We haven't eaten a meal together in months. Spring and summer are her “upfront” season, when selling her television advertising comes firstâselling and exercise. I understand. But I would like eggs. My stomach churns, empty, yearning, groaning. I scrunch along the floor instead of standing. It takes both hands, awkward as they are now, to unlock the door, spin the doorknob, but I want to help her. I want to open the door.
On the other side, she is in black running shorts and a black, skintight tank top. Her hair is gathered back in a ponytail. She is shaking, crossing her arms across her chest, as if something is wrong.
“Stand up, Barkley.”
With an effort, I do as she asks.
She backs up against the wall outside my bedroom.
I sniff the air over her head, hoping the eggs are not to be forgotten.
“When your father gets home from this business trip, he's going to talk to you, okay, Barkley? Are you listening to me? What exactly is going on here, Barkley? What have I done wrong?”
I glance behind me. Sheets are strewn on the floor over papers and dirty clothes. The pictures are torn from the wall. The garbage is tumbled over. This was the result of being a bug, wasn't it? Even without being a bug, I can smell the rotting tuna in my garbage can, which is probably what bothers her. I will promise to empty the garbage. Before I turn back to her, I check the desk drawer with the Glock: locked and secured.
“Barkley, what's happened to you? What exactly is going on? Don't you see there's something wrong here?”
For a second, I fear that she will touch me. I must not be touched. I skitter back into my room and try to push the door closed, though she is as quick as I am and jams her running shoe in the door.
“Where are your clothes? What did you do to yourself?” Her hands find her throat, not a long, graceful neck like Claire's. She takes a ragged breath and so do I. She does not understand that this is the result of a dream, only a dream. I was a bug; I was vermin. I look down at myself, almost expecting to see my body still encased in a black armor shell or waving six hairy legs, and I sigh, frustrated at the thought of being forced to explain another thing to her, or to my father, that they wouldn't comprehend, having, in general, limited imaginations.
“Are you going to get dressed, Barkley?” Her voice is strained. “Because I think I am going to have an anxiety attack any minute, if you don't. I am going to scream, to be exact.”
I want to help her, but I am hungry. “Are you going to feed me?” I move toward her. I feel larger than I have ever been. “Please,” I add.
She shrinks from me. She screams, or more precisely, wails, incoherent and loud. She holds the side of the doorway so I can't shut the door on her.
The voice in my head orders me to inform her that everything is okay, so I say it, slowly as if in another language. “I am okay, Mom. But hungry.”
“I don't understand this,” she says between gasps of breath. “None of this. Where's the child that I brought into the world? Where is he? I'm calling the doctor, Barkley, okay? I'm going to help you. Let me help you. I'm calling your pediatrician right now.”
She is panting, her eyes closed, her ponytail swinging back and forth, so I repeat, “Hungry, Mom.”
Instead of hurrying to the kitchen, she backs away from me. I am forced to repeat it in two monotone syllables, as simple as possible for her to understand. “Hungry.”
More screams crest out of her, rip into me. I am caught in a tidal wave. This is not helping her, or me.
She does not understand the necessity for answers
,
only you do,
says the magnificent voice.
Careful.
I pull myself back into my room, away from this crazy person.
Max
Saturday, 9:15
P.M
.
“How about a walk?” I say to King after having fed him his favorite dog food. I jingle his leash so he can hear the “going out” and the “being free” sounds. At my voice, he is already racing around in circles, barking, excited, jumping.
I've been promising to bring King to the beach all summer, not that he understands, but I've said it to him as if he could. I know he loves it there. After hours, when the beach is empty, he can safely run free. He can test the waters with his nose, taste the salt, bark as loud as he wants. I should talk to my father about letting him out in the house during the day. I made the bargain to keep King in my room only for a short while, not forever.
“Everything okay in there?” shouts my father.
Other than being trapped in my room with a blind dog, I'm fine. “Just going for a walk.”
“Only a walk?” says my father, striding down the hall toward me, his cell phone pressed to his ear, telling the other person on the line with him, “One minute, one minute.”
I snap the leash on King. We've got to get out of here. I don't want his one minute.
“When you get back I want to talk with you, Max. Got that? We all need to be in a good place the last few weeks of the campaign.” He's saying that to me as much as to the other person on the line with him. See? Two things achieved.
“Let's go.” I don't have to say this twice to King. We're out of the house in a flash. A weak warm breeze greets us. King leaps over the clipped lawn. I keep up a patter with him so he knows that I'm here. “Good boy, King. Good boy.”
Near the bushes, King does his business. I plan to clean it up tomorrow. Right now, I am worn out. Jumpy. Feel like spiders are crawling up and down my skin. I've got to walk. I should have taken a pill or two but my mother was watching me the entire time and I don't really need them, except to sleep.
I tug his leash to the left instead of the right. We usually go right so he's confused for a second, has to stop and mark the way again. He lifts his snout toward me and I say, “Don't worry, King. Don't worry, boy. Let's try a different way tonight. I need to go somewhere different. Not the park.”
So he follows me left, and we trail along the sidewalk into the shadows. “Good boy,” I say to him every few feet. He raises his head at my voice. Spit drips from his strong jaws. His black fur glistens. I wish I could bring him to the beach right now, just to see how happy he'd be with the water on his skin, how he'd leap into the waves, grateful for the coolness, for the chance to run in an open space and be a dog like any other dog.
“Party tomorrow night,” I say to him after a few blocks. “No barking. No racing around the room. No trying to escape, no joining the party. Don't act like last year and you'll be fine.”
He barks and I take that as an okay. Last year, the entire soccer team showed up. We got drunk on beer and played boys against the girls in a pickup game. The girls were good. Better than usâor at least less drunk.
I break into a slow jog with King close to my side, and the McMansions fall away into the background, a backdrop to someone else's life, more like a movie set than something real. After a few more blocks, the houses grow smaller and closer together, as if needing one another for protection. The garages shrink from two- or three-car garages to one and in some cases disappear. The trees are older here, too, leaning over rooftops. Streetlights dim, a hazy yellow. Somehow there are more dogs on this side of town and they're all outside, behind fences, barking one after another as we pass, as if announcing our arrival.
“Good dog. Good King,” I say to him, as we amble on, as I even out, as I feel calm for the first time all night. I'm careful about running with him on the leashâhe could veer out into traffic, he could trip over branches, he could smash into a tree. We make our way, not too fast, not too slow, even though what would make him really happy is to race. But it's too dangerous for a blind dog. I even resist giving him more slack on his leash.
We round a corner, and all of a sudden, no more dogs, only the silence. The winds pick up. The trees rustle. I didn't expect to find myself here. I really didn't. I scan my memory and come up with the address she gave to me in anger when we thought we had lost Izzy. I've never been on this block before. I take a few steps on the sidewalk, cracked and split. Old trees loop electrical wires, which sag against heavy branches. Her house is in shadowsâno outdoor lights onâbut I can make out the number above the front door. All the windows are wide open. Old oaks press against white vinyl siding. Three steps lead to her front door. King strains at his leash. He pushes his face into her overgrown lawn, as if it would smell different from any other.
Why did I end up on this side of town? Why her block? Why didn't I walk King over to the playground near my house, the one that has a sign that states,
No dogs allowed.
That's the one we always go to at night.
For precaution, I reel in King. He lopes back and rubs his snout between my legs. I know he wants to make sure it's me, but who else would it be, standing in front of Claire's house in the night shadows? (And why am I here, again? I should go.)
The muscles in the back of my neck tense. I should bring King home and call this a night. As if sensing that I might go, King roots in the grass.
I could knock on her door, ask casually how she is doing. But that would be too weird. Who just shows up at somebody's door? And what if her father or, worse, her mother answers?
I could say that I was just walking by and wanted to check if she was okay after all the drama on the beach today.
“Does that sound right, King?” My dog hunkers down on her front lawn. “What do you say, boy? What do you say, King?” He pants. I change my mind. “Let's go.”
Above, stars swim in the sky, silvery points of light. The moon, almost full, floats in the night sky. King howls. I tug at his leash. He isn't moving. “Let's go,” I insist.
The door opens.
Look at her.
First, she searches the sky. Her neck is long and tan. Her hair is smoothed back in a ponytail. She has on a white muscle shirt and short blue gym shorts. I wonder if she is going out or getting ready for bed.
In the doorway, she peers across the front yard.
I should call out to her, something like, “Hey, Claire, just walking my dog,” but I don't.
King barks as if to say: if Max is not going to say something, I will.
“Hey,” she says, her chin high, as if calling out to King as much as me.
I can't answer. I duck my head. King strains toward her. I have to loosen his leash.
King rests on his haunches. He cocks his head toward her. Now he's playing “good dog.”
She isn't wearing anything under the tank top and everything is round and full and loose. Crossing her arms across her chest, she covers everything that is illuminated in the moonlight.
King is no help. He moseys on up to her. She laughs and lets him smell her hand. I imagine it smells like the sea.
“I wish I had something for him,” she says. “Maybe I should go in? I should be able to find something for him.”
“He's okay.”
“Are you okay?” she asks. Her eyes, big, brown, fall on me.
“Sure.” All her questions throw me off. “I mean, why wouldn't I be?”
She scratches behind King's ears. He sniffs at her. She doesn't seem to mind. I try not to look down at herâand at King. I force myself to scan the sky, as if I'm interested in constellations, or looking for a stray comet. “Hey, did you hear that I'm having a party?” I quickly say.
She doesn't look up. “You are?”
“Tomorrow night. At my house. I live in North Lakeshore. Not far from here. We were just out for a walk, King and me, and if you'd like to come, it should be fun.”
“What kind of party?”
I make out the Big Dipper. “A birthday party.”
“So, it's your birthday?”
This girl is way too difficult.
Claire whispers something in King's ear and they perk up, alert; he's almost smiling at her, licking her hand as if she's offering him treats. I double-check. She's not feeding him anything out of her fingers. Her palm, a shade lighter than the rest of her tanned skin, cups his snout. She kisses him. Her breasts sway. I force myself to exhale. Yup, the Big Dipper is still up there.
“Why are you asking me to your birthday party? You don't feel like you have to, do you?”
She widens her eyes. I don't know this girlâwith the legs and the breasts and the waves of hair and luminous brown eyes. I could spend a while looking into those eyes, even though she's not my type. She doesn't go to my school. She lives across town. I shouldn't even be at her house. I wasn't planning on walking over here and seeing her.