CHAPTER SIXTEEN: For Dukey
Happiness came from an unlikely source, breaking the groove of an elder’s course.
The farmer, who’d introduced himself as John Huntley, stood with his hands in the pockets of his overalls. He was every bit as tall as Dante’s father, but much wider, with huge brown boots on his feet, a blue bandana in his back pocket, and a red face that Dante thought looked well accustomed to smiling.
All three men were in a barn on the east end of Monroeville, which was a very small town three miles west of Norwalk. In a million years Dante would never have pictured his father in such a place, but here he was. His reason lay on the floor, bundled beneath a pile of blankets. As John Huntley talked, Dante kept looking from the bundle to his father and back again, trying hard to get his mind around what he was seeing.
He couldn’t do it. His father was a lot like the skyline of Cleveland—cool, pragmatic, rigid—but here, on a cold day in a cold barn, the ice had cracked. From beneath emerged a very different man. One who had not known the sun for a long time, or perhaps never at all, and looked all the more happy to feel its long overdue radiance upon his face.
Dante watched as Mr. Torn knelt and, gently pulling the blankets away from their contents, began to laugh. Laugh! Mr. Torn was laughing! At this Dante almost wanted to run to the nearest phone, where he would then dial 911 and beg for assistance.
“Dad?” he brought out instead.
“Look at them, Dante! Just look at them!”
“Yeah,” Dante said, smiling, “I’m looking.”
The puppies—a litter of four shih-tzus—yipped and yapped about the teats of their mother. They were brown and black bundles of fur, with tiny, wriggling noses that poked at Dante’s hand when he tried to pet them. All looked friendly, full of energy. Ready to play for the next hundred years.
“They’re not really farm dogs,” John Huntley explained as the elder Torn, to Dante’s absolute shock, picked one up and began to cuddle it. “So I figured it best to sell the pups. We’re looking to get a briard for the sheep.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not wanting one of these,” Mr. Torn cooed into the baby shih-tzu’s nose. The shih-tzu licked him back. “What time is it? Huh? Huh?”
“It’s almost noon,” John Huntley answered.
“Is it time to go outside?” Mr. Torn went on, talking to the puppy. “Huh? Who wants to go for a walk?”
John Huntley laughed. “That one’s male. And he’s yours for a hundred dollars of you’re interested.”
As if he could understand this, the puppy began wagging his tail furiously. His tongue licked Mr. Torn on the nose.
Instant friendship, Dante thought, dizzied by the whole scene.
At that moment a warm breeze swept into the barn, kicking up a number of dried leaves gathered along a row of horse stalls. It was still January, but a false summer was upon the region, thawing John Huntley’s frozen fields into mucks of heady, wet earth smells. Dante couldn’t say he was happy to have the snow gone (no snow meant no sledding), but did enjoy the balmy winds, which had been blowing wildly all week.
“Sold,” Mr. Torn said.
And the puppy yipped, and continued to lick his face.
∞
“Uh…Dad?” Dante chanced, as they cruised back to Norwalk. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right!” the other practically giggled. “Look at this guy!”
The puppy was in his lap, with two of his paws on the steering wheel. Ready, Dante thought, to beep the horn. His father must have been thinking this same thing, because he laughed again and placed the puppy’s paw over the little BMW logo on the wheel. Then the horn went off—once, twice, three times.
“Good boy!” Mr. Torn sang. “You tell that truck to move! You tell it to move right now.”
“Dad, do you want me to drive?”
His father blinked for a moment. “Drive? What are you talking about? You’re thirteen years old!”
And the puppy, still smiling from within all that black and brown fur, barked his assent.
“Dukey,” Mr. Torn said. “You’re name is Dukey. How does that sound? Hmm?”
Dukey’s tail wagged furiously, dusting Mr. Torn’s camel hair coat. Mr. Torn scratched him behind the ears. Then, to Dante’s utter horror, he emitted a series of baby sounds—coos and other silly gibberish—before leaning in to kiss Dukey spot on the nose.
“Dad!”
“Oh, hell,” the older Torn said, grinning like a drunkard. “He’s a puppy, Dante! Look at him!”
“I’m looking, I’m looking.”
“Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“He’s adorable.”
It’s you I can’t figure out right now, Dad, he wanted to add, but couldn’t. As the velvet petals of a baccara rose will bloom only with enough heat, so his father now bloomed. As a falcon will only fly for its master when properly motivated, so his father’s spirit—seemingly born without wings—now flew.
“What do you think your mom will say?” he asked, giving Dante a little wink.
Dante reached over to pet Dukey, whose pink tongue panted on a delirious smile of tiny white fangs.
“She’s going to love him, Dad.”
The other looked relieved. “Really?”
“Really, Dad. Don’t worry.”
∞
“Really!” Mrs. Torn shrieked. “You got a puppy! Oh my God!”
She came tearing into the garage with arms wide and snatched Dukey from her husband’s arms.
“Isn’t he great?” Mr. Torn asked, with perhaps a hint of trepidation.
“He’s beautiful! Just beautiful!”
“I thought so, too. We went out to John Huntley’s farm to see about a boat trailer and found this little guy instead.”
Mrs. Torn cuddled the puppy’s nose and asked if he had a name yet. Then they both got back in the car. Dukey needed puppy food. Of course he did. And chew toys. And snacks. And a collar. And a bed.
They forced a promise from Dante not to let anything bad happen to the puppy while they were gone. He assured them—repeatedly—that Dukey would be in safe hands, and they could take as much time shopping as they needed. Satisfied, they drove off, but not before a few words of encouragement from his father.
“Get to know him, Dante,” he pressed. “Play with him. Have fun.”
Dante waved as the Bimmer backed of the driveway. Mr. Torn turned too soon and bumped into the trash can, knocking it over. Rather than curse his clumsiness (which he did whenever it reared its audacious head), he laughed, pointed to his temple, and made a twirling gesture.
“I’ll get it, Dad, don’t worry!” Dante shouted.
“Be cool, Dante!” his dad shouted back.
“Wow,” Dante said to himself as the Bimmer purred off. “’Be cool.’ My dad actually said that. I must be out of my head.”
He picked up the trash can before going back inside to entertain the family’s new member. A smell of pee struck him straight away. It was in the kitchen—a small puddle of it, gleaming on the linoleum. It took a few minutes to get the mop out of the closet, fill the bucket with soapy water, and clean the mess. During that time Dante took no notice of anything wrong. Whistling, he rinsed out the bucket in the bathroom, then slid it back into the closet. Mission accomplished.
“Dukey!” he called, washing his hands at the sink.
No answer. Dante went back to the kitchen—the scene of the crime. The refrigerator purred in its cozy little corner. A burble came from the water dispenser.
“Dukey!” Dante called again, peeking at a forest of dog-less chair legs under the table.
He checked the living room next, where a clean carpet for once meant bad news. He looked under the sofa and behind the stairs. He even took a moment to peer inside the fireplace. Still no dog.
Now he whistled before calling Dukey again. When no answer came, Dante went to the garage. Perhaps the dog had slipped out while Mr. Torn was fumbling with his keys, though this was unlikely. Yes, Dukey had enjoyed riding in the car, but he had been in the kitchen when the parents went out, Dante felt sure of that. Anyway, Dante’s father didn’t fumble keys. Dante’s father didn’t fumble anything.
A cold wind rattled the garage door. After a quick look around Dante knew he wouldn’t find the little shi-tzu. There was a rake, a workbench, a lawn mower. But no shi-tzu. He went back inside, locked the door, and tried to think of where else Dukey might be. Not upstairs, certainly. Eight week old puppies didn’t climb stairs.
The loose pretzel twist of fear that had been in his stomach since this weird search started now felt tighter. More painful. Pretty soon he was going to need some sea salt and cheese dip.
“Dukey!” he yelled, suddenly angry. “Get your butt out here!”
When that didn’t work, he sat down at the table for a few deep breaths. “Okay,” he said to himself, “okay. Think, Dante. You’re a new puppy in a big house. Where would you go?”
He rose, went to the living room again, checked behind the piano. No soap. He returned to the kitchen and opened the cupboards under the sink. A couple of things presented themselves here, none of them good. A spilled bottle of Mr. Clean oozed yellow liquid over a tundra of mouse poop. The poop led to a Victor trap, sprung, with dead perpetrator inside. A lifeless eye gleamed at Dante. Bones from a broken neck.
“Great,” Dante said, “another mess.”
He was back outside in the garage, depositing the mouse in its new trash can hotel, when the phone rang. Dusting his hands, he went to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver.
“Dante!” Mr. Torn boomed.
Dante had to rub his ear a moment before answering. “Yeah, Dad.”
“How’s Dukey?”
“Oh…not bad.”
Immediately his father’s voice became suspicious. “Not bad? What is he, an old geezer who just got home from a doctor’s appointment? Tell me how he is.”
“Sorry. He’s good. Sincerely.”
“Put him on the phone.”
“Put him on the phone? How can I do that?”
Mr. Torn raised his voice. “Put him on the phone.”
“All right, all right. Hold on.” Moving the receiver away from his lips, Dante called: “Dukey! Here, boy!”
“Oh my God!” he heard his father say. “Is he responding to commands already? What a good dog!”
“Reow! Reow! Reow!” Dante went, doing his best puppy imitation. “Arf! Arf!”
“You sweet little baby!” came Mr. Torn’s gushing response. “Your papa loves you! Yes he does! Yes he does!”
Dante looked at the receiver as if it had suddenly grown antlers.
“Can you put Dante back on the phone? Huh? Huh?”
“I’m here, Dad,” Dante said.
“We’re coming home. We’ve got all the stuff we need. Tell Dukey we’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Um…okay. Dukey! Fifteen more minutes.”
The line clicked. Mr. Torn had hung up.
“Dammit!” Dante hissed at the empty kitchen. “What am I going to do?”
That was when his eye fell on the basement door. It was open a crack.
“Oh no,” he said. “No. It can’t be.”
He crossed the linoleum, put his hand on the door, pushed. It creaked open on a flight of dark, wooden stairs. At the bottom was blackness. His hand felt along the wall and found the light switch. The dreaded light switch that, once flipped, would illuminate a puppy’s stiff body on the basement floor. Yes. Surely that’s what had happened. Mr. Torn’s new puppy had fallen down the steps like someone’s grandmother with a laundry basket. Now he was gone.
Bracing himself for the worst, Dante flipped the switch.
A concrete floor, thirteen steps down, leaped into view. Much to his relief, nothing soiled it. It was, in fact, quite clean. Perfectly swept. A person could eat off that floor. It was that beautiful.
Whistling for Dukey, Dante went down. Once at the bottom he looked under the steps to see if Dukey might have fallen through halfway down. But no. There was only an old ping-pong table, folded, along with a torn instruction book on kung-fu. The washing area was also innocent. A mouse-trap, this one unsprung, lay behind the clothes dryer. Next to it were someone’s pressed initials from when this floor was set, over a century ago: V.L.F.
“Ten minutes,” Dante said to himself, “I have ten minutes to find that dog.”
He spent five of those minutes walking around the basement, whistling. Then he ran back upstairs. His mother’s mantle clock ticked from the fireplace mantle. Beyond that, nothing in the house moved.
Then came the sound of a car engine. Dante ran to the window and looked. His chest loosened. The car wasn’t a Bimmer—not even close. It was a Dodge Aspen from 1974.
How is it those things are even still running? Dante wondered.
And that was when Dukey whimpered from somewhere close by.
With less than two minutes to go, Dante began to search with fresh gusto, clapping his hands, calling Dukey’s name. Through the kitchen window he caught sight of another car, this one unmistakably his father’s, approaching the drive. Dukey whimpered again. Wherever he’d gotten lost, it wasn’t in the kitchen. His call for help had come from the hallway, where Dante now ran.
The Bimmer pulled into the garage. Dante heard the electric door open, the car slide in, the engine cut. Two car doors opened, slammed closed. Keys jingled.
“Dukey!” Dante screamed, desperate. “Come on, boy! Where are you?”
“Dante?” his father called from the garage. “Why are you yelling at Dukey?”
“We’re just playing, Dad!”
He heard his father’s key in the back door lock. The lock began to turn. Dante ran back to the basement door and tripped over a basket of clothes his mother had left there. The clothes—and Dante—spilled down the hall. Slacks. Socks and underwear. Rubbing his knee, Dante sat up. His parents stepped into the hallway.
“What happened?” Mrs. Torn asked. “Dante, why are you on the floor?”
“Dukey!” Mr. Torn yelled.
Dante blinked at him. “What?”
“Dukey, you sweet little schi-tzu! Come here! Aww!”
Dante looked at the overturned basket. Two beady eyes, a tiny black nose, and a big smile shined from beneath a blue blouse. Mr. Torn put down the bags he was carrying, knelt and scooped up the puppy. The puppy gave him a big, furry kiss on the cheek.
“Aww!” Mr. Torn cooed. “Aww! Is Daddy’s puppy okay? Is he? Huh?”
Dukey barked to show that he was okay.
“You’re just a sweet little guy, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Yes you are!”
“I think your father’s in love,” Dante’s mother said to him. Clearly she liked the idea. The smile on her face gave it all away. “Did you trip over the basket?”
“Yeah,” Dante told her. “My bad. Me and Dukey were playing.”
“Silly. But just to make sure you don’t fall again, think you can take the basket downstairs for me?”
“Sure, Mom.”
His father heard nothing of this exchange. He was still cooing and petting and kissing Dukey. Dante put the spilled clothes back into the basket while his parents took Dukey to the kitchen to show him his toys. He carried the basket down to the basement. Sounds of a squeaky toy soon followed, along with a thousand or so happy yips and barks.
“You go get your ball!” His dad’s voice. Laughter from his mom. “Go on! Go on!”
I don’t get this, Dante thought. Who are you people and what have you done with my parents?
Deciding that it didn’t really matter, he ran up the steps to play with Dukey.
He didn’t get what was going on with his mom and dad, but he thought he could get to like it just fine. Just fine indeed.