“Well,” said Nellie. Her voice shook. “This one seemed to.”
Lolly tossed Edward back on the couch. He landed face-down with his arms over his head and his dress still over his face, and he stayed that way through dinner.
“Why have you got out that old highchair?” shouted Lolly.
“Oh, don’t pay it no mind,” said Nellie. “Your father was just gluing on a missing piece, wasn’t you, Lawrence?”
“That’s right,” said Lawrence, without looking up from his plate.
Of course, after dinner Edward did not go outside and stand beneath the stars to have a smoke with Lawrence. And Nellie, for the first time since Edward had been with her, did not sing him a lullaby. In fact, Edward was ignored and forgotten about until the next morning, when Lolly picked him up again and pulled his dress down away from his face and stared him in the eye.
“Got the old folks bewitched, don’t you?” said Lolly. “I heard the talk in town. That they’ve been treating you like a rabbit child.”
Edward stared back at Lolly. Her lipstick was a bright and bloody red. He felt a cold breeze blow through the room.
Was a door open somewhere?
“Well, you don’t fool me,” she said. She gave him a shake. “We’ll be taking a trip together, you and me.”
Holding Edward by the ears, Lolly marched into the kitchen and shoved him face-down in the garbage can.
“Ma!” Lolly shouted. “I’m taking the truck. I’m going to head on out and do some errands.”
“Oh,” came Nellie’s tremulous voice, “that’s wonderful, dear. Goodbye, then.”
Goodbye, thought Edward as Lolly hauled the garbage can out to the truck.
“Goodbye,” Nellie called again, louder this time.
Edward felt a sharp pain somewhere deep inside his china chest.
For the first time, his heart called out to him.
It said two words: Nellie. Lawrence.
EDWARD ENDED UP AT THE DUMP. He lay on top of orange peels, coffee grounds, rancid bacon, and rubber tires. The first night, he was at the top of the garbage heap, and so he was able to look up at the stars and find comfort in their light.
In the morning, a short man came climbing through the trash and rubble. He stopped when he was standing on top of the highest pile. He put his hands under his armpits and flapped his elbows.
The man crowed loudly. He shouted, “Who am I? I’m Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world. How can I be king of the world? Because I am king of garbages. And garbages is what the world is made of. Ha. Ha, ha! Therefore, I am Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world.” He crowed again.
Edward was inclined to agree with Ernest’s assessment of the world being made of garbage, especially after his second day at the dump, when a load of trash was deposited directly on top of him. He lay there, buried alive. He could not see the sky. He could not see the stars. He could see nothing.
What kept Edward going, what gave him hope, was thinking of how he would find Lolly and exact his revenge. He would pick her up by the ears! He would bury her under a mountain of trash!
But after almost forty days and nights had passed, the weight and the smell of the garbage above and below him clouded Edward’s thoughts, and soon he gave up thinking about revenge and gave in to despair. It was worse, much worse, than being buried at sea. It was worse because Edward was a different rabbit now. He couldn’t say how he was different; he just knew that he was. He remembered, again, Pellegrina’s story about the princess who had loved nobody. The witch turned her into a warthog because she loved nobody. He understood that now.
He heard Pellegrina say: “You disappoint me.”
Why? he asked her. Why do I disappoint you?
But he knew the answer to that question, too. It was because he had not loved Abilene enough. And now she was gone from him. And he would never be able to make it right. And Nellie and Lawrence were gone, too. He missed them terribly. He wanted to be with them.
The rabbit wondered if that was love.
Day after day passed, and Edward was aware of time passing only because every morning he could hear Ernest performing his dawn ritual, cackling and crowing about being king of the world.
On his one hundred and eightieth day at the dump, salvation arrived for Edward in a most unusual form. The garbage around him shifted, and the rabbit heard the sniffing and panting of a dog. Then came the frenzied sound of digging. The garbage shifted again, and suddenly, miraculously, the beautiful, buttery light of late afternoon shone on Edward’s face.
EDWARD DID NOT HAVE MUCH TIME to savor the light, for the dog suddenly appeared above him, dark and shaggy, blocking his view. Edward was pulled out of the garbage by his ears, dropped, and then picked up again, this time around the middle, and shaken back and forth with a great deal of ferocity.
The little dog growled deep in its throat and then dropped Edward again and looked him in the eye. Edward stared back.
“Hey, get out of here, you dog!” It was Ernest, king of garbages and therefore king of the world.
The dog grabbed Edward by his pink dress and took off running.
“That’s mine, that’s mine, all garbages is mine!” Ernest shouted. “You come back here!”
But the little dog did not stop.
The sun was shining and Edward felt exhilarated. Who, having known him before, would have thought that he could be so happy now, crusted over with garbage, wearing a dress, held in the slobbery mouth of a dog and being chased by a mad man?
But he was happy.
The dog ran and ran until they reached a railroad track. They crossed over the tracks, and there, underneath a scraggly tree, in a circle of bushes, Edward was dropped in front of a large pair of feet.
The dog began to bark.
Edward looked up and saw that the feet were attached to an enormous man with a long, dark beard.
“What’s this, Lucy?” said the man.
He bent and picked up Edward. He held him firmly around the middle. “Lucy,” said the man, “I know how much you enjoy rabbit pie.”
Lucy barked.
“Yes, yes, I know. Rabbit pie is a true delight, one of the pleasures of our existence.”
Lucy let out a hopeful yip.
“And what we have here, what you have so graciously delivered to me, is definitely a rabbit, but the best chef in the world would be hard-pressed to make him into a pie.”
Lucy growled.
“This rabbit is made of china, girl.” The man held Edward closer to him. They looked each other in the eye. “You’re made of china, aren’t you, Malone?” He gave Edward a playful shake. “You are some child’s toy, am I right? And you have been separated, somehow, from the child who loves you.”
Edward felt, again, the sharp pain in his chest. He thought of Abilene. He saw the path leading up to the house on Egypt Street. He saw the dusk descending and Abilene running toward him.
Yes, Abilene had loved him.
“So, Malone,” said the man. He cleared his throat. “You are lost. That is my guess. Lucy and I are lost, too.”
At the sound of her name, Lucy let out another yip.
“Perhaps,” said the man, “you would like to be lost with us. I have found it much more agreeable to be lost in the company of others. My name is Bull. Lucy, as you may have surmised, is my dog. Would you care to join us?”
Bull waited for a moment, staring at Edward; and then with his hands still firmly around Edward’s waist, the man reached one enormous finger up and touched Edward’s head from behind. He pushed it so it looked as if Edward were nodding his head in agreement.
“Look, Lucy. He is saying yes,” said Bull. “Malone has agreed to travel with us. Isn’t that swell?”
Lucy danced around Bull’s feet, wagging her tail and barking.
And so it was that Edward took to the road with a hobo and his dog.
THEY TRAVELED ON FOOT. THEY traveled in empty railcars. They were always on the move.
?
??But in truth,” said Bull, “we are going nowhere. That, my friend, is the irony of our constant movement.”
Edward rode in Bull’s bedroll, slung over Bull’s shoulder with only his head and ears sticking out. Bull was always careful to position the rabbit so that he was not looking down or up, but was, instead, forever looking behind him, at the road they had just traveled.
At night, they slept on the ground, under the stars. Lucy, after her initial disappointment about Edward being unfit for consumption, took a liking to him and slept curled up beside him; sometimes, she even rested her muzzle on his china stomach, and then the noises she made in her sleep, whimpering and growling and chuffing, resonated inside Edward’s body. To his surprise, he began to feel a deep tenderness for the dog.
During the night, while Bull and Lucy slept, Edward, with his ever-open eyes, stared up at the constellations. He said their names, and then he said the names of the people who loved him. He started with Abilene and then went to Nellie and Lawrence and from there to Bull and Lucy, and then he ended again with Abilene: Abilene, Nellie, Lawrence, Bull, Lucy, Abilene.
See? Edward told Pellegrina. I am not like the princess. I know about love.
There were times, too, when Bull and Lucy gathered around a campfire with other tramps. Bull was a good storyteller and an even better singer.
“Sing for us, Bull,” the men shouted.
Bull sat with Lucy leaning against his leg and Edward balanced on his right knee and he sang from somewhere deep inside himself. Just as Edward could feel Lucy’s whimpers and growls resonate through his body at night, he could also feel the deep, sad sound of Bull’s songs move through him. Edward loved it when Bull sang.
And he was grateful to Bull, too, for sensing that a dress was not the right kind of clothing for Edward.
“Malone,” said Bull one night, “it’s not my desire to offend you or to comment negatively on your choice of garb, but I’m forced to tell you that you stick out like a sore thumb in that princess dress. And also, again, with no wish to offend you, the dress has seen better days.”
Nellie’s beautiful dress had not fared well at the dump or in its subsequent ramblings with Bull and Lucy. It was so torn and dirty and full of holes that it barely resembled a dress anymore.
“I have a solution,” said Bull, “and I hope that it meets with your approval.”
He took his own knit stocking cap and cut a big hole in the top of it and two small holes on the side of it and then he took off Edward’s dress.
“Look away, Lucy,” he said to the dog, “let’s not embarrass Malone by staring at his nakedness.” Bull slid the hat over Edward’s head and pulled it down and poked his arms through the smaller holes. “There you go,” he said to Edward. “Now you just need some pants.”
The pants Bull made himself, cutting up several red handkerchiefs and sewing them together so that they formed a makeshift covering for Edward’s long legs.
“Now you have the proper outlaw look,” said Bull, standing back to admire his work. “Now you look like a rabbit on the run.”
AT FIRST, THE OTHERS THOUGHT that Edward was a great good joke.
“A rabbit,” the hoboes said, laughing. “Let’s chop him up and put him in the stew pot.”
Or when Bull sat with Edward carefully balanced on his knee, one of them would call out, “Got yourself a little dolly, Bull?”
Edward, of course, felt a surge of anger at being referred to as a dolly. But Bull never got angry. He simply sat with Edward on his knee and said nothing. Soon, the men became accustomed to Edward, and word of his existence spread. So it was that when Bull and Lucy stepped up to a campfire in another town, another state, another place entirely, the men knew Edward and were glad to see him.
“Malone!” they shouted in unison.
And Edward felt a warm rush of pleasure at being recognized, at being known.
Whatever it was that had begun in Nellie’s kitchen, Edward’s new and strange ability to sit very still and concentrate the whole of his being on the stories of another, became invaluable around the hobo campfire.
“Look at Malone,” said a man named Jack one evening. “He’s listening to every dang word.”
“Certainly,” said Bull, “of course he is.”
Later that night, Jack came and sat next to Bull and asked if he could borrow the rabbit. Bull handed Edward over, and Jack sat with Edward upon his knee. He whispered in Edward’s ear.
“Helen,” Jack said, “and Jack Junior and Taffy — she’s the baby. Those are my kids’ names. They are all in North Carolina. You ever been to North Carolina? It’s a pretty state. That’s where they are. Helen. Jack Junior. Taffy. You remember their names, okay, Malone?”
After this, wherever Bull and Lucy and Edward went, some tramp would take Edward aside and whisper the names of his children in Edward’s ear. Betty. Ted. Nancy. William. Jimmy. Eileen. Skipper. Faith.
Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.
The rabbit stayed lost with Lucy and Bull for a long time. Almost seven years passed, and in that time, Edward became an excellent tramp: happy to be on the road, restless when he was still. The sound of the wheels on the train tracks became a music that soothed him. He could have ridden the rails forever. But one night, in a railroad yard in Memphis, as Bull and Lucy slept in an empty freight car and Edward kept watch, trouble arrived.
A man entered the freight car and shone a flashlight in Bull’s face and then kicked him awake.
“You bum,” he said, “you dirty bum. I’m sick of you guys sleeping everywhere. This ain’t no motel.”
Bull sat up slowly. Lucy started to bark.
“Shut up,” said the man. He delivered a swift kick to Lucy’s side that made her yelp in surprise.
All his life, Edward had known what he was: a rabbit made of china, a rabbit with bendable arms and legs and ears. He was bendable, though, only if he was in the hands of another. He could not move himself. And he had never regretted this more deeply than he did that night when he and Bull and Lucy were discovered in the empty railcar. Edward wanted to be able to defend Lucy. But he could do nothing. He could only lie there and wait.
“Say something,” said the man to Bull.
Bull put his hands up in the air. He said, “We are lost.”
“Lost, ha. You bet you’re lost.” And then the man said, “What’s this?” and he shone the light on Edward.
“That’s Malone,” said Bull.
“What the heck?” said the man. He poked at Edward with the toe of his boot. “Things are out of control. Things are out of hand. Not on my watch. No, sir. Not when I’m in charge.”
The train suddenly lurched into motion.
“No, sir,” said the man again. He looked down at Edward. “No free rides for rabbits.” He turned and flung open the door of the railcar, and then he turned back and with one swift kick, he sent Edward sailing out into the darkness.
The rabbit flew through the late spring air.
From far behind him, he heard Lucy’s anguished howl.
Arroooooooooo, ahhhhrrrrrrooo, she cried.
Edward landed with a most alarming thump, and then he tumbled and tumbled and tumbled down a long dirty hill. When he finally stopped moving, he was on his back, staring up at the night sky. The world was silent. He could not hear Lucy. He could not hear the train.
Edward looked up at the stars. He started to say the names of the constellations, but then he stopped.
“Bull,” his heart said. “Lucy.”
How many times, Edward wondered, would he have to leave without getting the chance to say goodbye?
A lone cricket started up a song.
Edward listened.
Something deep inside him ached.
He wished that he could cry.
IN THE MORNING, THE SUN ROSE an
d the cricket song gave way to bird song and an old woman came walking down the dirt road and tripped right over Edward.
“Hmph,” she said. She pushed at Edward with her fishing pole.
“Looks like a rabbit,” she said. She put down her basket and bent and stared at Edward. “Only he ain’t real.”
She stood back up. “Hmph,” she said again. She rubbed her back. “What I say is, there’s a use for everything and everything has its use. That’s what I say.”
Edward didn’t care what she said. The terrible ache he had felt the night before had gone away and had been replaced with a different feeling, one of hollowness and despair.
Pick me up or don’t pick me up, the rabbit thought. It makes no difference to me.
The old lady picked him up.
She bent him double and put him in her basket, which smelled of weeds and fish, and then she kept walking, swinging the basket and singing, “Nobody knows the troubles I seen.”
Edward, in spite of himself, listened.
I’ve seen troubles, too, he thought. You bet I have. And apparently they aren’t over yet.
Edward was right. His troubles were not over.
The old woman found a use for him.
She hung him from a pole in her vegetable garden. She nailed his velvet ears to the wooden pole and spread his arms out as if he were flying and attached his paws to the pole by wrapping pieces of wire around them. In addition to Edward, pie tins hung from the pole. They clinked and clanked and shone in the morning sun.
“Ain’t a doubt in my mind that you can scare them off,” the old lady said.
Scare who off? Edward wondered.
Birds, he soon discovered.
Crows. They came flying at him, cawing and screeching, wheeling over his head, diving at his ears.
“Go on, Clyde,” said the woman. She clapped her hands. “You got to act ferocious.”
Clyde? Edward felt a weariness so intense wash over him that he thought he might actually be able to sigh aloud. Would the world never tire of calling him by the wrong name?