North to Benjamin Read online

  Someone had left a liquor bottle in the snow. Benjamin licked and nuzzled it until Caroline put it into her pocket. “Last thing we need is a drunk dog!” she said.

  If he had brought paper and a pen, Edgar could have written her a note—about Ceese and Edgar’s mother, what was going to happen—but she would ask questions, wonder how he knew and what he thought they should do about it. And why he was writing everything anyway.

  She said, “Jason Crumley tried to get me drinking from something up behind the George Black, but I told him forget it, I wouldn’t trust him with anything in a bottle. He thinks he’s king crap. It’s a big race against himself, is what my mother says.”

  Maybe there was nothing they could do anyway. Maybe Edgar needed to just stay quiet.

  He smelled the ghosts of other animals along whatever road they were on now, heading down toward the town, and yet away from it as well, circling toward the ancient rock slide. What could he smell? Something wild that could’ve been fox, and maybe—something larger. What was—

  “Bear,” Benjamin sniffed. “Came along here last night.”

  It smelled massive, stinky—

  “Nothing reeks like bear,” Benjamin said.

  Caroline stopped now to look at the large black frozen lumpy pile. “Bear scat,” she said. “I guess they’re starting to wake up.”

  Benjamin kept sniffing it and sniffing.

  “Probably from now on you should bring some bear spray with you if you walk Benjamin alone on the trails,” Caroline said. “But he’ll protect you.” She nuzzled Benjamin, who didn’t raise his head. “Won’t you, boy?”

  The dog park was a slow walk away, close to the river and on the edge of town: a fenced-off area near mounds and mounds of snow. Caroline said all those mounds were the dumping ground for the city snowplows. Edgar was looking up, up, away from the mounds. They were nearly at the base of the slide, a huge rubble of snow-covered boulders stretching so far above them. Why hadn’t he brought his camera?

  Because he was smelling everything. That was new.

  When they were inside the fence, Caroline said, “I don’t believe it,” and her face flushed even beyond the red smartness brought on by the cold. Edgar sniffed him first, felt hair stiffening on the back of his neck—where he had no hair, none that he knew of.

  “Brottinger,” Benjamin mumbled. He coughed and drooled on the side of a bench.

  Brottinger was gray and white, pretty big but still smaller than Benjamin, it looked like. He was digging at the base of a large rock, with a boy standing nearby.

  “Jason Crumley,” Caroline announced, “and that dog of his. The only mean Alaskan malamute I’ve ever met. Benjamin—come on!” She pulled on the dog’s leash, but now Brottinger had spied them. He barked fiercely and bounded over. Even though he was bigger, Benjamin lay down before Brottinger and began rolling in the snow.

  “Get up! Get up, Benjamin!” Caroline said.

  Brottinger had a low, snarly voice. “Who said you could come to the park now?” he snapped. “Don’t you know I’m here?”

  Benjamin exposed his belly and, smiling, waved his legs in the air.

  “Don’t be so pathetic!” Caroline muttered.

  Jason Crumley looked their way, and Edgar felt a hollow queasiness. Then Brottinger noticed Edgar, who pulled back his cheeks, but it didn’t help. “Who are you, who are you?” Brottinger growled. It wouldn’t take much for him to tear at Edgar’s throat.

  Benjamin rolled around some more and said, “We’re okay. We’re nobody. We love you.”

  “Get a grip on your stupid dog, Jason!” Caroline called.

  The boy headed toward them. He was enjoying the show. “It’s an off-leash zone,” he called. “Don’t go bringing some old fart can’t run wild for half a minute.”

  Brottinger shoved his muzzle straight between Edgar’s legs and said, “Smells like meat to me!”

  “It’s okay. We’re all just playing here,” Benjamin giggled.

  “Meat! Meat! Meat!” Brottinger barked.

  Jason slipped the leash onto his dog. “C’mon, Brot.” He tugged sharply, but the dog was too strong.

  “It’s fun! Fun! We’re just going!” Benjamin said.

  Caroline clenched her fists like she was going to clock someone. Jason was a head taller and looking at her like he would love it if she threw a punch. Like he might try to kiss her for it.

  “Go catch the bear, why don’t you?” Caroline said when Jason had pulled Brottinger away. Then, when they were a decent distance apart, backs turned, trying not to seem like they were walking away too quickly, Caroline said in a low voice, “That’s the only genuinely evil dog in all of Dawson. They must feed him razor blades and blood soup.”

  “Just keep walking. Keep walking,” Benjamin mumbled.

  Edgar looked back. Brottinger was running after something, heading in another direction, but Jason was still looking at them, his whole face lit now, laughing.

  “You did the right thing just staying still,” Caroline said. “A dog like that, you never know what he’s going to do. And you, Benjamin!” She had to lengthen her stride to keep up with the old dog. “You’re a disgrace to dogdom, you are!”

  THINGS

  WHEN THEY GOT HOME, EDGAR’S mother had already left for work. She had put Benjamin’s food in the kitchen, although not away in the cupboard somewhere—it was piled on the table. Benjamin’s blanket was on the floor by Edgar’s bed. So Edgar and Caroline filled up a bowl with dog food and another with water, and the three of them settled in Edgar’s room. Caroline said she would have to get back soon for dinner, but she wanted to tell Edgar something. It sounded important. Edgar wondered if she knew already about Ceese and Edgar’s mother.

  Caroline and Edgar were lying on his bed this time. She liked to lie on her front with her chin resting on her hands. “There’s this thing,” she said. “My mom told me when I was little, but I kind of forgot, and then she told me again when I got older. So I’m telling you, even though you might forget for a while. You have to be pretty well naked.”

  Edgar wondered for a moment if she was proposing they take off their clothes, for some reason.

  Benjamin farted. He snuffled his head onto his paws on the blanket by the bed and seemed to be sleeping.

  “Technically, I suppose just your private parts have to be naked,” Caroline said. “But a lot of the time people are naked, or mostly naked. That’s what you see on the Internet a lot. Are you following me?”

  Edgar nodded, as if he were following.

  “You have really big eyes,” Caroline said. “And you never say much, which I guess I like, since I know you’re listening. I liked the way you stood up to Brottinger. You were scared but you didn’t let on. I hate that dog so much!”

  Benjamin jerked his leg; the bedpost moved. Maybe he was fighting it out with Brottinger, or the bear, in his dream.

  “You were scared, but you didn’t let it show too much. That’s why I’m going to tell you: if Jason Crumley unzipped his fly, he might get me in trouble, his thing in my thing, understand?”

  Edgar did know about the nakedness. “The thing in the thing” sounded like an odd way to say it.

  “It’s supposed to be, like, this whole sexy thing,” Caroline said. “You get all hot and sweaty. I know it’s hard to imagine. But I can tell you, all this year Jason Crumley has started to bother me. People breathe a lot. Probably you’ve seen all this on the Internet anyway, coming from Toronto.”

  Edgar nodded even though mostly he had just tried the Internet from school computers or from the library and mostly it had been about finding books he would like to read. Probably there were books all about the sweating and the sex and the thing into the thing, but he hadn’t read any yet. It all felt a bit jumbled in his mind.

  “We sure wouldn’t do it behind the George Black. It’s so cold there, and practically public, too! I have no idea why Jason thought I would go drinking with him. It’s hard to imagine, when you look
at a boy, that there could be much of a thing in there anyway. It’s not like the pictures on the Internet. Not that I’ve seen many! This isn’t what our project is going to be about.”

  She would say anything, this Caroline, and it was kind of warm-making to lie on the bed thinking about what else she might say. Edgar imagined that if he weren’t here, she might be having exactly the same conversation with just Benjamin, who might or might not be asleep.

  He thought about Jason and Caroline behind the George Black, which must be a sort of statue or something out in public. If Edgar could have spoken without barking, he would have asked her what exactly the George Black was anyway.

  But maybe I’m like Benjamin to her, he thought. Maybe it doesn’t matter if I can speak to her or not.

  “Not that it’s going to happen,” Caroline said. “Jason Crumley is such a jerk, just like his dog almost.”

  Benjamin’s stink had already filled the room. The next fart was almost visible.

  It was hard to imagine anyone without clothes, as cold as the day was outside, behind a statue or not. And even inside your house you would want a sweater and warm pants and thick socks.

  But since Caroline was talking to him this way, he felt he could tell her about Ceese and his mother, that she would understand. If only the woof-woof wasn’t still in his throat!

  “I’d better get home for dinner,” Caroline said. “Don’t be shy if you have any questions about Benjamin or the other thing.” She paused so that Edgar had to look at her and indicate he knew exactly what she was talking about. “But as I said, probably you’re going to forget anyway. Still, it’s good that I told you. You don’t want to be a complete imbecile all your life.”

  She arched her eyebrows—did he understand the word “imbecile”? He thought probably he did. He couldn’t help himself, he imagined Ceese and his mother pretty well naked in the big bed in her new room being sweaty, the way Roger and his mother had been, and other men before that, Felipe and Jerome and the one who always read his horoscope in the morning to find out what kind of day it would be.

  Sebastian.

  Edgar could remember the names of many men his mother had been naked with.

  When Caroline left, the house felt suddenly quiet, and Edgar found the bit of last night’s moose casserole his mother had left for him to heat up for dinner.

  SCHOOL

  EDGAR WOKE UP IN DARKNESS with his blankets kicked off him. His feet especially felt like chilled meat, which made him think of Brottinger yesterday barking, “Meat! Meat! Meat!” right into his privates. And he remembered Caroline telling him about the thing in the thing. It wasn’t his first time hearing such a story. It seemed in every new school he went to, some kid took him aside to make sure he knew about the thing in the thing. He couldn’t forget about it even if he wanted to.

  And you didn’t have to do it at all unless you wanted to. Maybe someday he would. For now, that seemed enough to know.

  Benjamin was sleeping on his blanket. He sounded like he was happy not to wake up.

  So Edgar put on socks and his big brown sweater over his pajamas and sort of skated his feet toward the bathroom, where he didn’t smell anything unusual. He made sure the taps were still dripping. And he thought: Maybe a lot of yesterday was a dream, the whole dog-barking bit just a story that his brain had made up while he was sleeping.

  His mother and Ceese, was that a dream too?

  He looked in the mirror and said, “My name is Edgar.” And then he said, “Woof. Edgar Woof.”

  He thought he knew what sounded like a real word and what sounded doggish.

  Maybe everyone else had been dreaming yesterday—that’s why his speech had gotten so reversed. Probably people talk like dogs all the time in their dreams and it’s no big deal.

  It was dark, and yet it was morning—7:17 according to the digital clock in the kitchen when he got there. He pulled out a pot and a measuring cup and set the water to boiling for oatmeal.

  “Edgar Woof!” he said again.

  He wondered if the bear had had a cold night. Maybe with that thick fur, bears didn’t get very cold at all and enjoyed wandering around town in the darkness.

  Would Brottinger be scared of the bear, or the other way around? Maybe Brottinger would lie giggling on his back in front of the bear like Benjamin had in front of him.

  A beer bottle was opened on the kitchen table. Edgar didn’t smell it right away, so maybe he wasn’t a dog after all? But as soon as he saw it, the bottle stank like sweaty, salty socks. Had his mother brought someone home after work? Probably not.

  His mother would not be awake for hours.

  No point in making the coffee yet. He found the oatmeal in the cupboard and stirred two cups into the boiling water, then turned down the heat. He stared at the map on the fridge for a moment, the old one with West Dawson (abandoned), and Moosehide, too, down the river.

  “I can talk just like myself today,” he said out loud.

  It sounded perfect. He remembered that on Roger’s phone he could record himself. If Roger were here now, with his phone, Edgar could record himself and then listen to find out whether words or dog barks came back at him.

  If all I can do is bark, he thought, maybe I won’t have to go to school.

  Was there such a rule? No dogs in school, to be sure.

  Maybe he could just sit in the back of the class and bark to himself and read.

  Later Ceese was at the door. Edgar flung it open and said, “Thank you for letting me have Benjamin!” but Ceese’s face was not right. He looked like a man being barked at by a kid.

  “Good morning to you, too!” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

  Go where? Edgar thought, but Ceese was standing there as if they had an understanding.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you? Maybe she got in too late last night. I saw her at Lola’s, and she asked me to take you to school this morning. She was worried she might not wake up in time. Caroline has gone ahead. She has some project she had to do.”

  Edgar was dressed already. It did not take him long to brush his teeth.

  “What have you got for school supplies?” Ceese asked. “A notebook, some pens? You can come home at lunch if you’re not slow about it. The school is only a few blocks away.”

  Edgar hadn’t taken Benjamin for his walk yet. What time was it? Could Benjamin wait until noon?

  It was hard to get a breath, pulling on his winter things, and thinking also about how disappointing it was to still be barking rather than talking. This was not a dream. He could feel his toes in his boots, already cold even though he hadn’t stepped outside. And now there would be a lot of other kids to meet, and he wouldn’t be able to say anything!

  Suddenly his mother was there in a bathrobe that did not belong to her. She must have found it in the closet of her bedroom. It was silky and it clung tight to where she held it shut, and she didn’t seem to mind Ceese looking at her as she hugged Edgar.

  “I’m sorry I can’t take you myself. It was a good night last night, though. The job is good. You just go and be yourself, all right? You just go and be my beautiful Edgar.”

  Her breath smelled of beer, but it wasn’t a bad smell. Her face was not pale and her hands weren’t shaking.

  She kissed him on both cheeks, then straightened up and whispered, “Thank you!” to Ceese. Edgar could smell the two of them together. He could feel the heat between them.

  He wanted to ask his mother to take Benjamin for a little walk, but he knew the words would not form themselves. What to do? If he had a notebook . . .

  “What is it, Edgar?” his mother asked.

  Edgar pointed to the stairs heading down to his bedroom, where Benjamin was still sleeping.

  “What?”

  Edgar knelt to take his boots off. There was a slip of paper in the kitchen he could write on. . . .

  “Edgar, tell me! Just open your mouth and tell me!”

  Edgar stayed on one knee, his fingers on his laces.
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  She gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him upright. Her dressing gown began to fall open, so she unclenched him to hold herself. Softly, like a little earthquake, she said, “Edgar.”

  He had never felt an actual earthquake, little or big, but he had felt the subway in Toronto when they had been staying in a tiny basement apartment near a station.

  The kitchen sink had been in the bathroom, that apartment was so small.

  Edgar opened his mouth. “Woof.”

  He didn’t want to disappoint her. But she was making him. If Ceese had not been there, she might have slapped him even though it was morning and she wasn’t drunk.

  “What’s that?” Ceese said.

  “He’s barking,” his mother said. “Instead of talking, he’s barking like a dog.” She took Edgar’s face in her big right hand. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of school pulling this stunt. I’m tired of it, do you understand? I’m here to start a new life. The least you can do is go to school and open your mouth and talk. All right?”

  When she released him, he fell backward a couple of steps. Ceese had to catch him to keep him from falling over.

  Edgar’s whole body was hot, hot. His jaw was so clamped shut, he didn’t think he would be able to open it for anyone.

  “It’s all right. It’s going to be fine,” Ceese said, but even his voice rattled in the moment.

  Outside, the air was cold and the smells came back. Edgar didn’t know if someone somewhere was flipping a switch, turning him into a dog and then not, but that was what it felt like. And it smelled like a dozen dogs had already been out and had their morning pee along Eighth Avenue and down the hill. Brottinger was not one of them. Maybe he lived in a different part of town and only sometimes came up here. And the bear smell was a little old, so the bear hadn’t been out in the night, as far as Edgar could tell.

  Ceese walked beside him. He had a proper jacket on now but no gloves or hat. He didn’t seem to feel the cold the way Edgar did. He said, “What is it with all this barking, anyway?”