CJ put a hand on his mouth. “Don’t. This was so nice. Please. Please? I know you care about me, Trent. But I can’t stand your judgment.”
“I have never judged you, CJ.”
“Well, that’s what it feels like.”
“Okay,” Trent said. “Okay.”
CJ was a little sad, then. The two of us walked out of the place and back home.
TWENTY-TWO
We were all in the dog park as usual. Duke and Sally were over sniffing a big white dog whose name was Bring Me the Ball Tony. Bring Me the Ball Tony was more interested in trying to climb on Sally’s back than in paying attention to his owner. I was trying to engage a male dog my size who looked very much like my mother, with the same face and coloring, and I finally managed to persuade him to give chase, so naturally Beevis came running up, growling, his lips back and his ears stiff. My playmate was instantly cowed and shrank away from the aggression, but I turned and snapped at Beevis to let him know he was pushing me too far. Instead of backing away, Beevis came straight at me.
I heard CJ yelling, “No!” but Beevis went up on his rear legs and I followed and his teeth slashed at me, trying to wound me. I bit back and caught a fold of skin in my mouth and then my girl was there, using her legs to push us apart. “No!” she yelled again. She scooped me up and I kept snarling and snapping as Beevis tried to reach me. CJ turned, using her body to block him. “Stop it, Beevis! No, Max, no!”
Then Duke came charging up, reacting to the distress in CJ’s voice. He clearly didn’t understand what was going on, but his appearance made Beevis back off.
“Oh, Max, your ear,” CJ said. I could feel her anxious despair and kept my focus on Beevis, who was circling around uneasily. When I smelled the blood it wasn’t immediately clear it was mine, but I felt the sting when CJ put her hand on my ear. She pulled some paper out of her bag and pressed it against the side of my head.
CJ carried me as we walked all of the dogs home. At Sally’s house we had to wait a little bit before her person arrived. “I’m so sorry, there was a dog fight. Is it okay to drop Sally back off a little early?” CJ asked.
At Beevis’s house, CJ told the man who answered the door, “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to walk Beevis anymore. He fights with the other dogs.”
“He does not,” the man said. “Not unless the other dog starts it.”
I felt CJ getting angry, and even though my ear was sore, I gave the man a growl. Beevis, for his part, was happy to be home and wagged, going inside without a backward glance.
When we got home CJ let Duke in but then left with me in her arms, still pressing her hand to my ear. We went to a Vet—I knew that’s what he was because he put me on a metal table and petted me and I could smell a lot of dogs on his clothes. There was a sting in my ear and then he tugged on it a little bit. CJ watched the whole time.
“It’s not bad at all. You did the right thing by keeping pressure on it, though. They can bleed a lot,” the Vet said.
“Oh, Max. Why do you have to growl at everybody?” CJ asked.
“You want us to go ahead and neuter him, long as you’re here?”
“Um, yeah, I guess. Does that mean that Max will have to spend the night?”
“Sure, but you can pick him up in the morning.”
“Okay. All right, Max, you’re going to stay here for the night.”
I heard my name and heard the slight sadness and thumped my tail.
CJ left, which I did not like at all, but the Vet petted me and I fell into a sleep so deep I lost all track of time. When I awoke, it was morning and I was in a cage, wearing a stupid, stiff collar that surrounded my face and funneled all noises and smells directly into my senses. Again, was all I thought to myself. I had long given up trying to understand why people liked to put their dogs in such ridiculous situations.
CJ arrived and the Vet let me out of the cage and handed me to her. I was tired and just wanted to fall asleep in my girl’s arms. As we left we stopped by the front door to talk to a lady, who smelled like lemons. She said something to CJ.
“What? I … I don’t have that much,” CJ said. She was upset, so I growled at the lemon lady.
“We take credit cards.”
“I don’t have that much room on my card. Can I give you forty now, and the rest when I get paid?”
“We expect payment at the time of service.”
There was a sadness inside CJ, fighting to get out. I licked her face. “It’s all I have on me right now,” CJ whispered.
Whatever was making her unhappy was obviously Beevis’s fault.
She handed over some papers and the lemon lady handed some papers back and then we left the sad Vet’s office. I wanted to get down and squirmed, but CJ held me tight.
Both Duke and Sneakers wanted to smell my stupid collar and to put their noses on my ear, which I could feel had something stuck to it. I growled a little at Duke, but Sneakers purred at me, so I let her sniff. It was very strange having her cat face inside the small space formed by the stupid collar.
For a few days, I wasn’t allowed to go for a walk with Duke, which made me unhappy. Sneakers, though, was delighted, and would come out from under the bed to play with me and when I lay in the sun would curl up next to me, purring. I liked sleeping with Sneakers but felt like a bad dog who had to wear a stupid collar and Stay instead of going for a walk.
One morning CJ took off my collar, washed my ear, and then, when she put Duke on the leash, she snapped one on me, too. I was going for a walk! We went and picked up all the usual dogs, except neither Sally nor Beevis was there anymore. I didn’t miss Beevis, but Duke seemed sad without Sally.
Some days CJ wouldn’t get out of bed to walk dogs, so Duke and I would wake her up. Then she still wouldn’t walk all the dogs, though she would take both Duke and myself out. Those were my favorite days and I wished they could all be like that. On one such day, CJ used sharp-smelling chemicals on the floors and furniture and ran the machine on the floor that made Duke bark and Sneakers hide. When CJ was finished and put the machine away, Duke tore around the living room as if he’d just been let out of his crate.
I had no choice but to give chase. Excited, Duke bowed down to me, enticing me to wrestle. I climbed on top of him and we played for a while, and then the front door opened. I barked, so Duke barked, too. A man came inside, shouting “Duke!” followed by two other men who put suitcases on the floor and then left. I ran up to the stranger, snarling, while Duke wagged his tail and sniffed at the man’s hands.
“Max!” CJ called. She picked me up just as I was thinking about grabbing the man’s pants in my teeth, since he was ignoring me and just petting Duke, who was welcoming him even though the man had walked into CJ’s place without permission. Duke just didn’t understand the whole concept of protection—it was a good thing I was there.
“Welcome home, Barry.”
“Hi, CJ. Hey, Duke, you miss me? Miss me, boy?” He knelt down and hugged Duke, who wagged but then came over to smell CJ, perpetually jealous that she would pick me up to cuddle but never him.
“He doesn’t seem like he missed me at all,” the man said. He smelled like oils and fruits. When he looked me in the eye, I growled.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” CJ said. “Six months seems like forever to a dog.”
“Okay, but I could have put him in a kennel. I paid for a person to stay with him in this house.”
“He doesn’t know that, Barry.”
“Who’s this? I thought you said a kitten.”
“Right, this is Max. It’s a long story. Max, be nice.”
Though I was suspicious of the man, CJ seemed okay with him, so when she dropped me to the floor I went back to wrestling with Duke.
“So, did your guy win?” CJ asked.
“What?”
“Your guy. The boxing thing.”
Duke rolled onto his back and I seized a wad of throat and shook it gently.
“You really are an airhead
, aren’t you,” the man said.
“What?”
“No, he didn’t win.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry, Barry. Is that why you’re back two months early?”
“Yeah, well, when your fighter loses you don’t go on a worldwide press tour, do you? What the … What’s Duke doing?”
“Duke?” CJ repeated. Duke froze at his name, his legs splayed up in the air, his tongue lolling out, my teeth gently pulling on his skin. “They’re just playing.”
“Duke! Cut it out!” the man shouted angrily. Duke scrambled to his feet, knocking me aside, and went to CJ with his ears down. I lay on the floor where I’d fallen, panting.
“What’s wrong, Barry?”
“You’ve turned my dog into a wimp.”
“What? No, they play really well together.”
“I don’t want him ‘playing’ like that with some little rat dog.”
“Max is not a rat dog, Barry.”
Barry, I decided, was the man’s name.
“Okay, well … I don’t remember giving you permission to have a dog and I sure don’t appreciate Duke’s behavior. I hired you because you said you had lots of experience. So, fine. I’m back. If you could just go back to your place, let me unwind and get to know my dog again.”
CJ was quiet for a moment. I stared at her, feeling her sadness and hurt. “But … I don’t have a place, Barry.”
“What?”
“You said eight to ten months. There was no sense me keeping an apartment if I was going to be here eight months.”
“So, what, you’re going to stay with me?” Barry asked.
“No! I mean, I’ll sleep on the couch and look for a place tomorrow.”
“Wait, no. Forget it. I’m … I’m stressed. I worked a year on this and he was knocked out in the second round. You can stay here; I’m just dumping my African stuff and heading over to Samantha’s anyway. We’re going to go to Hawaii. So you can take two weeks to find a place. That okay? I’ll get someone else to take care of Duke for when I’m back in town.”
“So I’m fired?”
“It’s for the best.”
“Well, sure, I can see that.”
“Okay, no need for sarcasm. I paid you pretty well and you got a free place out of it and if I’m not happy I’m the customer.”
“All of that is true,” CJ said.
A little later Barry left. “Bye, Duke,” Barry said over his shoulder. Duke thumped his tail at his name, but I could tell he was relieved as I was to have Barry gone so that CJ wasn’t tense anymore. My girl seemed a little sad, though.
The next day, after we went walking with the usual dogs, CJ left Duke and me alone in the house and was gone for a long time. I wrestled with him for a while but became irritated with him because his head was so large and strong it kept knocking me over.
I was asleep when I heard a low, loud moan coming from the bedroom. I went to investigate and found Duke in a high state of agitation, his stiff tail whipping the air, his head under the bed. He was panting with excitement, and the moaning was coming from Sneakers, who was plainly terrified. Duke was so powerful he was managing to lift the entire bed as he drove to jam himself under there to get at Sneakers.
I went right up to Duke and barked at him sternly. He was quivering, too thrilled at how close he was getting to poor Sneakers, who was pressed back against the wall, her ears flat against her head. Duke ignored my barking, so I lunged at him, clicking my teeth.
That got his attention. He retreated, the bed coming down with a thump. I snapped and snarled at him until he was all the way out of the room, then trotted back to check on Sneakers.
I was small enough to crawl under there if I wanted, but I decided to leave Sneakers alone. She was still frightened, and from what I had seen of cat behavior, when they were scared they tended to use their claws.
CJ left us by ourselves every day, and every day Duke treated her departure as a signal that it was time to start harassing poor Sneakers. It got so that the second the door shut Sneakers would dart from wherever she was napping to her hiding place under the bed—if Duke saw her shoot past, he would gallop after her in dumb pursuit, crashing into walls as he tried to take the corner too fast. I’d be running, too, and when I got to the bed I would dive under it and then turn and face Duke’s quivering, wet nose, my teeth exposed and a growl in my throat. Duke would moan in frustration and sometimes would even bark, the noise deafening in the small space, but I knew I couldn’t back down, and eventually he’d lose interest and go back to the living room to take a nap.
Then one day the pattern changed. We went for our usual walk, but when we returned CJ brought over a crate and opened the door in it and carefully placed Sneakers inside. The crate reminded me of the one I had sat in as Molly, the one that tipped back and forth before winding up in the loud place with all the cars. Sneakers wasn’t happy and didn’t come over when I pushed my nose up to sniff at her. Then Duke came over, snorting loudly, and Sneakers backed away into the far recesses of the crate.
“Duke,” CJ said warningly, and Duke went over to her to see if she was going to give him a treat.
CJ picked up the crate with Sneakers in it and left us alone. This was absolutely baffling: where was she taking Sneakers that we weren’t going along as well? We didn’t know what to do, so we lay on the floor and gnawed chew toys.
When my girl came back, Sneakers was no longer with her.
Where was Sneakers?
TWENTY-THREE
For two days, CJ would take us on a dog walk and then would leave us alone with no Sneakers. Duke and I made the best of it—in fact, without a cat in the home, some of the tension left our relationship and we were able to wrestle more freely and for so long that sometimes we’d wind up falling asleep on top of each other. Well, I was on top, anyway. If Duke had been on top, I sincerely doubt I would have been doing any sleeping.
On the third day, when we returned from our walk, a woman was waiting for us outside the door. Duke, of course, wagged and thrust his big head at her, while I retreated to CJ’s feet and waited rigidly to see if there was any threat.
CJ called the woman Marcia. After we’d been inside for half an hour, Marcia carefully extended her hand to me and I sniffed it after CJ said, “Gentle, Max,” to me in very soothing tones. The hand smelled like chocolate and dogs and some sweet things I couldn’t identify.
Duke and I chewed lazily on each other while CJ and Marcia talked. “Okay, I think that’s everything,” CJ finally said, standing up. Duke and I bounded to our respective feet. Walk?
“So Duke, I guess this is good-bye. Marcia will be taking care of you now,” CJ said. A sudden sadness broke inside her and I went to her and put my paws on her leg as she bent over on the couch, taking Duke’s head in her hands. I could tell that he knew she was sad by the way his ears dropped and his tail wagged and then drooped. I wondered if he knew what was going on, because I didn’t.
“I’m going to miss you, big guy,” CJ whispered. I tried to climb up into her lap but couldn’t quite make it.
“Oh God, I feel awful,” Marcia said.
“Don’t. Barry has the right; it’s his dog.”
“Yeah, but, I mean, Duke thinks he’s your dog. You can tell. It’s not fair to cut off all contact between the two of you.”
“Oh, Duke, I’m so sorry,” CJ said. Her voice carried a lot of grief.
“Maybe I could call you and we could meet somewhere,” Marcia offered.
CJ shook her head. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. Barry will fire you in a second. Believe me, I have firsthand experience.”
Duke mournfully put his head in CJ’s lap, sharing her mysterious sadness. I envied him his height: all I could do was scrabble fruitlessly at her legs, hoping to be noticed.
“Okay.” CJ sighed. “Nice meeting you, Marcia. Come on, Max.” CJ reached down and scooped me up, and now I was above Duke, looking down at him. CJ snapped a leash onto my collar but not onto Duke’
s, and all of us went to the door.
“Bye,” CJ said quietly. She opened the door and Duke lunged to follow her outside, dragging Marcia with him as he struggled with her grip on his collar. CJ, still holding me, blocked Duke. “No, Duke. You stay. I’m sorry.”
They managed to get the door shut. CJ dropped me to the floor and I shook myself, ready for whatever we were doing. Inside our home, Duke gave the door a workout, his paws making it rattle loudly in the frame.
As we went down the hall, I heard Duke’s sad, heartbroken barking and wondered again what was going on. Why wasn’t Duke coming with us? He wanted to go!
My girl was crying and I kept looking up at her in concern, but she didn’t say anything more to me. We took a very long walk, first on the loud, smelly streets and then up a whole lot of stairs. CJ rattled a doorknob and then it swung open, and I instantly smelled Sneakers.
“Welcome home, Max,” CJ said.
We were in a small kitchen, with a bowl of Sneakers’ food on the floor that I went over to sniff. The kitchen also had a bed in it, which was where I found Sneakers. She was lying on a pillow and stood, arching her back, when she saw me.
Sneakers had her own house! I didn’t understand it but thought maybe it had something to do with the way Duke was always harassing her when CJ would leave the three of us alone. Perhaps to protect Sneakers CJ found this new house at the top of all the stairs, a place where the cat would be safe. Now I was being shown that this was where Sneakers lived, and soon we’d be going back home to Duke, who would smell Sneakers on me—I wondered what he would conclude from that! Would he figure out that CJ and I had been to Sneakers’ house?
People do whatever they want, but as far as I was concerned, cats already ate better food than dogs, so to give one a house seemed unfairly indulgent.
Sneakers purred and circled around me, rubbing against me, and we played a little. She seemed awfully glad to see me there without Duke. I could smell another person’s hands on her, a strong, flowery scent that reminded me a little of Gloria.
We didn’t go home that night—CJ slept in the small bed and I did, too, curled up at her feet. Sneakers prowled around a little in the house and then leaped nimbly up to try to snuggle with me, but it was too uncomfortable for both of us and when CJ mumbled and moved her legs Sneakers jumped back to the floor and didn’t try to come up again that night.