Cormac_ The Tale Of A Dog Gone Missing Part 1

Cormac.

The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing.

by Sonny Brewer.

PROLOGUE

IT ALL BEGAN with a silver and black-saddled German Shepherd. He was my first dog.I remember it this way:The big dog leaned all its weight against my leg. I answered by reaching out my hand to stroke the thick fur between his ears, looking into his deep mahogany eyes. He knew something was wrong, but I had no confidence to share. I turned up my face and searched my mother's eyes hoping to find some rea.s.surance.She repeated her instructions, telling me to take a different school bus, telling me not to come home this afternoon on bus 50, to instead find bus 64 and show the driver the note she had just tucked into my shirt pocket. I placed my hand over the pocket, as if to press the note into the skin of my chest so I would not lose it somewhere around school or on the playground.The only time I had ever been to Big Mama's creepy house was when my father had taken me there, and never had I spent the night there. It had a woodshake roof going mossy green and gray walls with no paint. Almost all of my relatives and friends now had a television. She did not even have a radio. Plus, she smelled like the snuff she dipped, or she smelled like wood smoke from the black iron stove in her kitchen. She was also huge, her bosom like a fat pillow, and it seemed to me that I should not call her big to her face. My father had hit me across the face for calling Waymon Culpepper by his first name. And this seemed to me a worse thing to say, that my grandmother was big.And, she was not my mama."Who's going to feed Rex, Mother?" I looked at my dog and his eyes brightened and his tail wagged, but tentatively."I will feed your dog, Sonny. Or your daddy will.""No. You have to feed Rex," I demanded. "You feed him, or I'm not going on the other bus.""Young man! You will not speak to me like that," she said, making fists and propping them on her hips. Then her face went soft and she pushed her fingers through her hair. "Sonny, sweetie, don't worry about Rex. I will feed him.""But why do I have to go to her house?""It is not her house. She's your grandmother," mother said. My father required me to address her as Big Mama. I think that's because she used to be married to my Pop Brewer, and "Grammy" was used by Pop Brewer's new wife. "Look, Sonny, Big Mama's excited to have you come for the weekend. Why you're going is so your father and I can-well, take a break from things. Maybe drive to the lake. Just talk.""You mean argue?""No, Sonny. And I don't like you saying that. This is a good idea, good for all of us. You stay tonight and tomorrow night at Big Mama's house. Your daddy and I will come and get you on Sunday morning. We'll all stay for lunch, and we'll come home. It's not like you're being sent to a work camp, for goodness sake.""But, Mother...""Rex will be fine. You just be sure to get on the right bus. Mr. Owens drives bus 64. He told me himself that he will watch after you on his bus.""I'm eleven years old. I don't need anybody to watch me.""Of course, you don't, Sonny. It's just that one of those Rayford boys picked a fight on that bus last week.""I'm not afraid of Doug Rayford," I snapped."No, I don't expect you are." She tousled my hair and told me to go and meet my bus. "I hear it coming down the road. Better hurry."I stopped on the top step of the porch, the morning sun warming my face in the frosty air. I squatted and put down my books and Rex nuzzled my chest. I still could not believe, after almost six months, that he was my very own dog. He wagged his tail and licked my face. I laughed and turned my face to avoid his wet tongue. I heard the bus's brakes screech at the Dawkins' house just around the bend. I hugged Rex, grabbed my books, and jumped up. I told Rex to stay, and ran down the hill to meet the yellow bus.My grandmother did not have a phone. And so I did not learn until Sunday morning that Rex had not eaten since I left."If there was any doubt that Rex is your dog, and your dog alone, it's all gone now," my mother told me.My father had not come with her to Big Mama's."That dog sat watching for the school bus the way he always does, and when it went right on past he made like he was going to chase it down. He lay in the yard until dark, watching the highway." My mother said Rex refused the bowl of food she took out to him, that he walked away from her standing there and went underneath the house."Three times yesterday I looked under the house, and there he lay," my mother told me. "I'd call him, and he'd raise his head to look at me, but he wouldn't budge." I sat with the two women, listening to Mama, looking at her as though she told of a hole that opened up in the ground."Well, I'll declare. I reckon I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached," Big Mama said, pushing her chair back from the table. She got up and took a dish towel from a wooden peg beneath the windowsill. She folded the threadbare cloth into a kind of potholder and, letting down the oven door, wrapped it around the handle of a heavy iron skillet. She took out the pan of cornbread and set it onto the table atop a jar lid that served as a trivet. She left the towel wrapped around the skillet handle and eased down into her chair with a hmmph and a smile."Now," said Big Mama, "let's say the blessing." And we bowed our heads and she addressed G.o.d in a clear voice, thanking him, and asking him, "...to keep things about the way they are, if you please." I did not close my eyes, and my eyebrows were locked together in a frown.As soon as amen was spoken I entreated my mother to tell me more about Rex."Nothing more to tell, really, Sonny. He's upset, I guess, that you aren't there. And I reckon he'll be fine as soon as you are.""But Rex didn't eat since Friday. He's not fine. Can we just go home?""Sonny, let me say something," Big Mama said, spreading b.u.t.ter on a slice of cornbread. She put down the knife and the triangle of hot cornbread. She folded her hands in her lap and drew me into the warmth of her gaze. She spoke my name again. I think my troubled face might've softened some, but my eyes were still full.Big Mama had walked and talked all day yesterday, asking me a thousand questions that I answered, and she had told me a thousand things about the homeplace, as she called her house and land. She had pointed out trees my father had claimed and climbed. She told me of the bull that chased her from the feeding pen just last Christmas, and that she bonged the beast on the head with her bucket.She told how much she missed Mister Frank, as she called her husband who was like my grandfather only not really kin to me. "I can nearly about feel Mister Frank on these cool autumn evenings, 'specially at twilight when whippoorwills venture to call out from the darkening woods yonder across them hills and hollows," Big Mama had said, pointing a crooked finger south toward the treeline a mile distant. She asked me, did Daddy still make those long hauls to the West Coast? I told her yes. It did not register with me then that we had not visited her since the middle of summer."That's where Daddy found my dog. Out in California," I said. "Where Hollywood is. That's how he came up with a famous dog like Rex." I told my grandmother that my father had brought me the dog last summer. "Daddy told me Rex is the grandson of Rex the Wonder Dog. From the movies, you know," I said, my eyebrows high. I told her I only knew about Rex the Wonder Dog in the comic books, but Daddy had told me this was the movie dog's grandson."Did you see Rex the Wonder Dog in the movies, Big Mama?"She had only laughed and said, "Lord, no, son. Mister Frank and I were too busy running this farm to get to a picture show." She had stopped walking abruptly then, looking across the pasture toward where Mud Creek cut through a stand of willows. "We did go off to town one Sat.u.r.day night-you must've been a baby then-and saw a silly picture about a talking mule. Francis, the thing was called. I never saw Mister Frank laugh so, but then he reckoned money was too hard to get to spend it on such a trifle. And we never went back." She dusted her hands on her dress, turned back toward the house. "We might ought to have gone to another picture show, it seems," she said, and had picked up her pace, walking ahead of me.Now she got up and went to the counter and got the apples she'd peeled earlier. She stopped and looked out the window, but I didn't think she saw a thing. Some of the same sadness I'd seen yesterday flickered in Big Mama's eyes as she leaned close to the table, setting down the dish of apple slices. "We had a big mutt here on the farm, part shepherd and part bloodhound of all things. Ugliest dog I ever saw. But he was Mister Frank's favorite. Called him Grizzle." She sat down and looked at me, not blinking, completely ignoring my mother at the table. She put her hands on either side of her plate. "Lord, son, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm of a mind your dog is an old-timer and he has gone down in his back.""Big Mama!" Mother scolded. "Why in the world would you tell this child such a thing?""Because his sorry daddy won't, that's why. I'm just saying that Grizzle...""What? Big Mama, what?" I began to cry and shook my head. "I told you, Mother, I shouldn't go away from my dog!""For heaven's sake. Both of you, please...""You have to know, Sonny, if Rex is down it is nothing you did. You hear me, son? Coming to see your granny wasn't part of this. When Grizzle got down, Mister Frank told me it was a fault of the Shepherd in him. Their long backs don't bear up well as they get older.""Rex is not older," I shouted, and leaped from the table, tipping over my chair. I ran from the room as Mother said, "Good Lord, Big Mama! This just beats all! I'll just have to get him home now if he doesn't run off through the woods on foot. Why would you do this, Marjene? Is this how you pay back a boy's affection?"*As I think back, I know now that the old woman did not get up to follow her daughter-in-law out of the kitchen, where the beans and corn and squash still sat steaming in their bowls.She would have waited until she heard the automobile's tires leave the gravel of her drive to meet the quiet pavement before she would have put her napkin over the uneaten potatoes on her plate and pushed back her gla.s.s of sweet tea, its few ice cubes near melted. I'm glad Big Mama did not have a telephone to get the news that Rex had to be put down. It would be a long time before another visit, and the story would have acquired some measure of peace before it was told to her that Daddy had held out the gun to me, offering me the shot that would take my paralyzed dog out of his misery.Daddy's face had been a mess of anger, blurred in my vision that focused on the fat blue pistol in his hand, its wood handle extended toward me. He had not stopped scowling since I crawled out from beneath the house, dirty and huffing from dragging Rex on a bed sheet into the sunlight that made him close his eyes."He's your'n, boy," Daddy had said, still holding the b.u.t.t of the gun toward me, and I'd looked straight at him like he was a copperhead in a coil, that if I broke the stare I'd be struck. Big Mama would learn that when he asked me flat out, "You want to shoot him?" that I'd said no and squeezed hard as I could to keep from crying. "Then move. Get over here back of me."And when I stepped to the side, Rex blinked his eyes open and locked on mine, looking for rea.s.surance. Somebody might tell Big Mama how I gave in and cried then, but they wouldn't know to tell her how that river of bewilderment and anger flowed right from me into the silent, waiting eyes of Rex the Wonder Dog, when what he needed was confidence. But I had none to share.

ONE.

I WAS A BOY in the low red-clay hills of middle Alabama. Today, at fifty-something, I make my home on the Gulf Coast. And if I tell you it's in a "small town in Alabama" that I live (or in Mississippi, Tennessee, or Georgia, for that matter), you may think of pickup trucks with big tires and camouflage paint, guns in the back window.

Don't think that.

Not this time.

When I say Fairhope is a small town in Alabama, think of art galleries and coffee shops and cafes and sailboats bobbing at anchor on Mobile Bay, beneath the high bluff upon which the town is perched. Think of flowers on the corners of brick-paved sidewalks, gnarly live oaks draped with Spanish moss, magnolias and tall pines swaying in waterfront breezes that smell faintly of fish and salt. Think of a bustling independent bookstore on the corner; and think of my sleepy bookstore with old and rare volumes just down the street. Think of twelve thousand residents and more published writers per capita than any other place in the country. Think of a new library that is the centerpiece of the town's architecture.

Now think about the world's handsomest and sweetest Golden Retriever, as smart as any four-year-old child, who answers to the name Cormac, and who lives on the outskirts of Fairhope in an aging farmhouse on an easy hill, with two acres to roam, complete with a barn and swimming pool. Think of what a great place this is from which to launch a red-haired dog's bizarre adventure, which actually began with a brown and white dog just before Cormac came along.

If I had been thinking about the screwy nature of the little Jack Russell beside me, Zebbie, I'd have grabbed his collar as soon as I saw the aging pedestrian with her Peekapoo on its leash. Even by the coiled-spring standard of the breed, Zebbie was over-endowed with the sproing factor.

But I was lost in thought, my Jeep's window down, rolling along the street at a good clip. By the time I registered what might happen, the deed was already in motion. When we pa.s.sed the lady and her dog, Zebbie rocked back on his haunches and launched out the window of my Jeep. Too quick for me to stop him. I slammed on my brakes, relieved no cars were behind me, and looked into the rearview mirror: Zebbie tumbled down the sidewalk like some bizarre living bowling ball in a Tim Burton movie.

By the time I had curbed the Jeep and raced on foot back to the scene, Zebbie had squared off, yapping at the lady who now had her little dog crushed to her bosom. She screamed at her attacker, then at me. I grabbed Zebbie, who tried to bite me. I apologized over and over, even though my dog had not made contact-physical, that is-with either the woman or her fluffy pet. After she took my name and phone number, I made a hasty exit. My hands were shaking as I put Zebbie on the seat of the Jeep and looked him over. I rolled up the window and drove to my vet's office.

Belle-Dr. St. Clair to most of her clients-gave Zeb a good checkup, found nothing busted, lectured me briefly, and released us to continue to the bookstore. I looked over my shoulder twice as I fumbled with the keys to the shop, making sure the little Terrier was still in "sit" on the sidewalk right behind me. Zebbie sat, his black eyes shining like ball bearings, his head c.o.c.ked to the side, curious about the jangle of keys. This first small act of opening the store for business was, for him, an engaging mystery.

I was still shaken. I looked at Zebbie again to make sure no blood had sprung a leak, no bones were trying to poke through the skin. His brown and white coat was as beautiful as a puppy's fresh from a basket on Christmas morning. At two years, Zebbie was no puppy, but he still behaved or misbehaved like an inexperienced youngster. I couldn't believe the dog was unmarked and emotionally oblivious, it seemed, to his close call with disaster.

"You keeping banker's hours these days?" Someone yelled at me from a pa.s.sing car. I turned to see Drew Bilden's truck stopped in the middle of the street, the pa.s.senger gla.s.s rolled down, Drew leaning toward the open window. "Can I get a job with you if I decide to give up real work?"

"Stop by later," I said. "I have a story to tell you." I hooked my thumb toward Zebbie. "You won't believe what this silly dog did on the way to the store this morning. I'll have some coffee going in fifteen minutes."

"I'll bring a resume." Drew sat upright in his seat, as if considering the street beyond his windshield. The electric window slid upward, then stopped. "You still thinking about getting rid of the Terrier?"

"I don't know." I looked down at the Jack Russell, thought of how I really wanted this to work out. But, just two weeks ago I had told Drew about Zebbie eating the cover of a rare leatherbound first edition of From Mana.s.sas to Appomattox by General James Longstreet. An overlooked case open behind the counter and in ten minutes Zebbie had reduced the book's value from $5,000 to a couple hundred dollars after repairs. "You know," I had said to Drew, ma.s.saging my forehead while bemusedly appraising the dog, "I told Zebbie 'three strikes and you're out.' That was twenty strikes back."

And then today's stunt-another definite swing and a miss.

"Are you a candidate to take him?" I wanted to know.

"Free?" Drew asked.

"I'm sure we could work out something. Something mutually beneficial."

"Right," Drew said. "You don't fool me."

I smiled and took the key from the lock and dropped it into my jacket pocket and opened the bright red French door to Over the Transom Bookstore. It squeaked on its hinges, and Zebbie gave an impatient yip. He ran quickly past me to make sure there were no burglars lurking in the bookstore. The little dog performed this morning ritual with great verve and authority.

Stepping across the threshold, I was greeted by the pleasant musky smell of aged literature. Not all of the books on my shelves would pa.s.s for literature, but those other volumes were in purposeful minority. Each old book in the store, whatever its t.i.tle, lent its particular fragrance to the air swirled about by the dusty paddles of six ancient ceiling fans. For me, the conjure of the myriad authors' words was thus made palpable and given direct access through my nose to all my other senses.

I walked past the sales counter and turned on the computer. While the Toshiba got ready to toss me some emails and, hopefully, an order or two from my online catalog of used and rare books, I went to the small kitchen in the back of the store and made a pot of coffee.

I took down a book from the shelves behind the counter where I kept special orders and valuable or otherwise interesting volumes I wished to research. This one, Gombo Zhebes-Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs by Lafcadio Hearn, was from a small collection I'd purchased. I'd looked it up in the price guidebook at the end of the day yesterday. As a true first edition, published in 1885, it was valued at $500. Maybe Pierre Fouchere, fellow shopkeeper, friend, and bibliophile, whose store featured old records and baseball cards, would stop by the bookstore today. He claimed a Creole heritage and had told me to let him know whenever I got such books.

I typed the publication information and a detailed description of the book's flaws and strengths into the appropriate fields on my computer screen, established my selling price of $500, and clicked SUBMIT.

I put the book into a gla.s.s case, closed the door, and walked back to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee in a ceramic mug, a large white one with a silhouette skyline of the Big Apple with the twin towers still standing. I heard the bell ring announcing a customer had entered the store. I stirred sugar into my coffee and walked to the front of the store to find Drew scratching Zebbie's head.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee?" I asked.

"Real men drink their coffee between six and seven in the morning," Drew said. He looked at his watch. "But okay. When in Rome, I suppose." We walked to the kitchen, talking about the recent run of good weather in Fairhope. I poured Drew a cup, and we went back to the front of the store. "So what did the little monster do this time?" Drew asked, gesturing toward Zebbie with his coffee cup.

"Well, I'm clocking down Morphy Avenue at maybe thirty-five. Windows down on the Jeep, Zebbie with his head out getting his fix. Same parts in the same play he and I have acted out along a hundred miles of streets in this town on a hundred other days. Walking down the sidewalk, meeting us, came a lady and her doggie on a leash."

"Oh, no! Don't tell me."

"He jumped out the window," I said.

"What did you do, man?"

"After I got him back in the Jeep, I took him to the vet. Belle said he wasn't injured."

"Did she yell at you?"

"More like shook her finger at me."

"Yep, she's a crusader about that. Keeps her dogs on some kind of clever leash thing in the bed of her truck. I thought about that arrangement of hers the other day when I saw a construction worker's dog riding on his toolbox lid at sixty miles an hour, barking at every car he met. I couldn't believe the Labrador's agility and balance, dancing side to side of the truck at that speed."

"I'd never let a dog do that," I said. "That's the way you carpenters behave."

"Yeah, you just launch 'em out the car window."

Both of us looked at Zebbie on the windowsill. He was sound asleep. He looked like an angel dog. "Look at that," I said with a sigh. "Now that's the picture I imagined when I brought him home." As if in contrary response, Zebbie woke up and bounced down, rounded the counter. "He really is a good dog."

"Right," Drew drank from his cup, looked over his shoulder, and said. "Then why's he peeing on those books over there?"

I jumped up from my stool, spilling coffee. "What? Where?"

But then I saw him, his leg hiked, a healthy stream washing down books on a bottom shelf on the other side of the room. "Zebbie!" The little dog looked over his shoulder, beaming satisfaction, and continued his business, then ran back to me, his tail wagging. "Zeb!" I yelled. "That's it. Last strike. Last straw." I scowled. Zebbie smiled.

"That's not fair."

"You want him? Dog house, dog bed, leash, bowl, brush, chew toys. One price for all. Absolutely free."

"What about Diana and the kids?"

"The dad giveth and the dad taketh away," I said.

Drew knelt to pet Zebbie. "Do you think he could ride a toolbox?"

"Like he's bolted down," I said, and then looked at Drew. I had not, until then, taken my smoldering eyes from Zebbie. "You're not going to do that, right?"

"Oh, give me a break," Drew said. "Besides," he continued, "Linda's probably not going to let him go anywhere with me. She's asked me a thousand times if Zebbie's up for grabs yet."

"Don't put it like that," I said.

"I didn't. Linda did. She said she knew right away this dog wouldn't last with you. Said you two were like a jalapeno and a gla.s.s of milk." Drew stood up with Zebbie curled into the crook of his muscled forearm. "You've got this catch-and-release thing going. Dogs and people, man, is about rapport. Look that word up, Bookstore Man, after you tell me when I can get Zebulon's things."

TWO.

"YOU DID WHAT?" Diana poured for herself a gla.s.s of red wine. The boys, John Luke and Dylan, were outside shooting hoops, caught up enough in their play that they didn't notice Zebbie was not with me. I'd parked out front, leaving the driveway clear around the basketball goal and avoiding for a spell their questions about the dog.

"I gave him to Drew," I said. "I made a mistake with Zebbie." Leaning against the kitchen counter, still holding a book I'd brought home from the store, I grew quiet and looked at the floor.

"You should have thought about his background a little, don't you think, Sonny? You got him from an old man who raised him for two years while living alone. Plus, he's a Jack Russell."

Diana poured a second gla.s.s of wine and handed it to me. "The silly mutt jumped out of the car window," I said, "on the way to the bookstore this morning."

"What?"

"Oh, he's fine. Belle checked him out, and Drew will keep an eye on him. Those two are a good match." I sipped the cabernet, then held the gla.s.s away and tilted it, watching the wine creep nearer the rim. Diana knew I was distracted, and not really thinking about Zebbie. She moved a barstool to the end of the kitchen counter and sat down.

"So, it's not getting any better with walk-ins at the bookstore?" she asked, going straight to the bigger thing on my mind, as she often does. It's a gift she has possessed since we first dated.

"No, and what's worse, internet orders have slowed to a trickle," I said.

"What's with that?"

"Oh, too many mom-and-pops posting used books from their mobile homes in Minnesota or Paris, for that matter," I said, and added, "from double-wides on the banks of the Seine." I smiled.

She asked me if I really thought home booksellers were enough compet.i.tion to affect storefront operations like Over the Transom. "I do," I said. "They don't have the overhead, and it seems each new online seller puts his prices a little below the market. It's kind of a mess. Good thing you've got a real job."

"Well, maybe things will turn around soon for the better. Let's hope so," Diana said. "Do you think," she asked, her voice quiet, her eyes on me, "that's partly why you gave up on Zebbie?"

"I didn't give up," I said. "I got fed up."

"I understand," she said. "And I agree that Drew and Zebbie will get along just fine." She drew invisible shapes on the countertop with her finger. "So we might as well go ahead and tell the boys that Drew now has Zebbie." Diana said.

"You think I should've called for a family powwow before handing him off to Drew?"

"No," she said, "They weren't bonded with him. We've talked about that before. You'll be fair and honest with them. That's all they need. It will be a little hard for them. It's hard for you, too."

My face relaxed. Diana picked up her winegla.s.s and swirled the dark red liquid, watching the little fingers run down the inside of the gla.s.s.

"I can't believe what I'm about to say." She shook her head. "Maybe you could soften the blow by telling the boys we'll get a new puppy. Right away. We can start looking as soon as we decide together, as a family, just what kind."

"We've talked about that," I said. "One reason we gave Zeb a try was because he was already housebroke. Puppies chew and whine all night and pee on the floor and p.o.o.p in the corner."

"All of that?" Diana asked.

"And more."

"Right," she said. "And some of the more is the love the boys and you and I will toss into the mix."

I took the winegla.s.s from Diana's hand, put it on the counter and wrapped her in my arms. "A puppy's going to be a pain in the neck. Just so you know and there'll be no yelling at me when a chair leg gets chewed off."

"You are often a pain in the neck."

"I'll be expected to clean up the mess, I suppose," I said.

"Thereby setting a great example for your sons, who will help out." Diana said.

"Maybe this new doggie," I said, lighting up, "will show me where the bone of great riches is buried. Teach an old bookseller some new trick."

"You don't need a dog to show you where your fortunes are hidden," Diana said. "We both have a good idea where you need to dig."

I knew Diana was talking about the novel I'd been writing. She read each new chapter as I finished it. She told me it was a good book, that I would find a publisher. "If I could believe it the way you do," I said.

"You will," she said. I felt a small lift, like some kite winging up just before a pine tree branch snagged it from the sky. She walked to the door, held it open for me. We stepped outside into the remainder of a warm day.

"Boys..." I called, letting my voice trail off as I noticed a first star winking in the twilight's fading of the sun.