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People
say if you want to murder somebody and
get away with it, move to Custer,
Nebraska. Population: 2,776. In the
200-year-old history of the town, there
is listed one murder, never solved.
It was 1975, and I was lying in bed that night with my ear plastered to a transistor radio so I wouldn’t miss the Top 10 Best Rock Songs Ever Countdown on KGAC. I remember eerie melodies floating cross-town into my sleep—Eleanor Rigby, Gimme Shelter, Paint It Black—and I thought about death and outer space, which were interconnected in my mind. NASA ruined God for me by proving there’s no heaven, and desolate rock tunes in the night wouldn’t let me forget. Our house was across the street from the Library, and the streetlight behind it beamed the shadow of the American Flag, planted in the library yard surrounded by pansies, across the wall of my room. Somebody hadn’t taken it down. It was Fourth of July. The maintenance man was probably in a lawn chair in the back of his rusted-out Ford pick-up parked across the street from the fireworks at the high school football field, his kids sitting on the tailgate lighting smoke-bombs and snakes with portable Bics. Stairway to Heaven—as I lay in the slow-falling dark, wondering what was to become of me, and how come nobody loved me, and whether it mattered or not, and what did I want out of life, and how could there be such life without an afterlife, this seemed ridiculous, and were my parents really alcoholics or was that just something I wanted to believe because it made me seem more important to have a real problem, and if I ever got a dog when would it die and how I would react, dig a hole in the yard for his grave and fall sobbing on the mounded dirt, asking why did I ever get a dog in the first place only to have to go through that, and about Aunt Eulala, who was a schoolteacher who’d married a man with a Plumbing Concern so that she lived in the biggest house in town with systems that never broke down and who thought the word "guy" was profanity, and how her husband was running around with a girl in my high school and she just took it and nobody ever said a word about it though everybody knew and how he’d recently died kind of mysteriously and it was as if aliens had landed in town and erased people’s minds. It was as if he had never lived. I came to the realization that so many kept secrets and unkept lies served only to make life even more meaningless than it was. And yet to express oneself was to make oneself obvious, and therefore, an outsider, subject to condemnation and ridicule, or sympathy, or even jail. The cosmology of the Midwest: If a man thinks a Thought and never says it, does the Thought exist? Answer: Everybody knows anyway.
Maybe this will help you understand a little better when I say that just by telling this story, I’m taking my life in my hands. Well, as I said, I was lying on my back in my bed, being an adolescent, with the transistor radio glued to my ear, sucking up the tunes as if they were Cherry Robitussin With Codeine, with the shadow of the American Flag hanging limply on my wall. Then there was the shadow of a person climbing toward the shadow of the Flag. And then the two shadows, flag and person, suddenly hurtling down the pole. I bolted upright and ran to my window. The Flag was on the ground under the pole in a heap. The heap was moving. I snuck out of my bedroom and down the stairs, past the living room where my folks were watching re-runs of Gunsmoke, and out the side door into the muggy, bug-ridden night. Across the street, on the library lawn, the Flag lay quiet. I touched it and it heaved and moaned. I jumped back and yelled. "Shut up," yelled the Flag. It was confirmation of everything I was feeling about my place in the world that night: the entire country rejected me. I stomped on the flag. It yelped. "You shut up," I said to the Flag. "Help me," it moaned. So I yanked on the star part and it came away in my hands to reveal Tut Bouvier lying on his side in pain, his arm bent back underneath him in a way that immediately made me puke. "Hurry up," said Tut. I wiped my mouth on a fallen oak leaf. "We gotta get away before somebody comes." I went to help Tut up. "Not me, you idiot, the flag!" So I picked up the flag as Tut stood slowly, moaning and swaying. "Come on," he said. "Hurry," and ran off. I followed. We bolted down Tenth, me stuffing the flag in my shirt as we ran, Tut’s arm dangling from his shoulder like a woman’s purse. The pitch dark was interrupted only by porch lights and the sign in front of the Calvary Baptist Church that read: You Cannot Save Yourself. Tut ducked into a yard and I almost lost him when he disappeared around the side of a house and down some stairs to a basement door. I felt my way after him and followed him through a door into a weirdly lit basement where a bunch of guys and a couple of girls were sitting around listening to King Crimson under a black light and smoking dope. "Close the door, Bozo," somebody yelled. The invitation of a lifetime. Tut was already sitting on a brown plaid sofa, slurping a joint to quell the pain of his arm. Nobody seemed too concerned about his health. A homely brindle hound-mix puppy with big ears that stood straight up and a tail like a fox’s was lapping up dope from a large-size Baggie in a corner, but nobody noticed that either. I pulled the flag out from under my shirt and Jered Evans applauded, then Judy Vicory joined in, then Darwin Loganstrafer and Avery Fink. "Your puppy is eating dope," I said. Darwin Loganstrafer, whose general speed of living was so slow that once a bird had landed on him, leapt up like a volunteer firefighter and rushed to the scene. "Fuckin’ dog, fuckin’ stupid dog," he cried. He pulled the puppy off the Baggie so fast and so hard the puppy went flying into the opposite corner of the room and smacked against the wall. The girls started screaming about Darwin being an animal abuser, the guys started screaming about Darwin now owing them more dope and I went and got the puppy. His back leg was broken. He didn’t cry or anything, just looked at me. Being the only one not high at a party can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on what you want out of the evening. Sometimes at home I drank my mother’s gin so that I could relate to her in the evenings. It was only then that I could understand her and sympathize. If I didn’t join her, I’d be sitting there getting judgmental, which feels like swallowing a rock and not being able to digest it. It just sits there being heavy in you. So in that case, it was a disadvantage. The advantages are like when she set her hair on fire leaning too close to the gas burner on the stove. Then, because I just happened to be sober that night, I was able to drive her to the emergency room, even though I didn’t have my license yet. I don’t remember where my dad was. On this particular night, I was straight as a gun-barrel and starting to feel sorry for myself because everybody else was a part of something and I was left out. But the truth was, I was genetically too cheap to buy dope in order to do something as ephemeral as getting high. This was a disadvantage. As was being the only one who could walk evenly, since in soberness begins responsibility.
In a moment of straightness that would doom me to marginality forever, I picked up the dog. And snuck out the door. By then, the night had become itchy with firecrackers and locusts. Sulphurous smoke hung over the sidewalk as I ran with Buddy, which I decided was now his name, and I dodged the L’il Pops that kids were flinging away from themselves in giddy fear. Smoke bombs spun in the streets. I was downtown and crossing the square before I realized what I was doing was plain ridiculous—the vet wasn’t open on the Fourth of July. He was probably down at the fireworks with the Library maintenance man, sitting in a lawn chair in the back of his brand-new Silverado pick-up, his girlfriend beside him in a halter-top and cut-offs and fuck-me sandals, holding a tall sweating glass of rum-something that she kept full from a cooler at their feet. Buddy was being silent, so I panicked, figuring he was like any other Midwesterner: the greater the pain, the silenter the suffering. I turned around and ran to Custer Memorial. A heart attack rumbled by me as I made my way through the glass electrical doors of the emergency room. The shiny-floored corridor reflected fluorescent lighting units to a vanishing point and I squinted, trying to get my bearings. I’d only been there once before, and I was unconscious then, so it didn’t count. Then I saw my mom’s best friend, Doris Weems, sitting at a desk in white pants and a white coat. She was really fat and really nice. They had coffee every Saturday morning. "Can you fix this dog?" I asked her. She looked at me, then out at the crowd of waiters in the waiting room, staunching the flow of blood from their various wounds and wrestling crying babies. She gestured with her head to follow her and I did, ending up at a draped-off gurney with machines all around it, a kind of psychologically correct room, with implied walls and imagined privacy. In one minute Buddy had three nurses and two doctors all around him. They gave him an IV and wheeled him off to surgery, and I went to the waiting room to wait. Johnny Carson was on. The room was quiet except for the babies, as everybody watched, because he was from Nebraska, which didn’t matter to me because I didn’t think he was funny. My parents watched him every night as if he were Guest Priest on Mass for Shut-Ins. I was bored pretty quick, ‘till Tut Bouvier came in. He waved to Doris Weems, pointed to his dangling arm and now blue fingers, took a seat next to me, feeling no pain. "You gonna keep that dog?" he asked. I said no, which was my stock answer for anything I had to have time to consider. "Darwin‘ll kill you if you do," he replied conversationally. I nodded again. It was good to know one’s options. "I’ll help you out, don’t worry," Tut said. Considering he had only one functional arm and was so high he was rocking back and forth in his chair to music that only played in his head, I began to wonder if I would survive getting home. A doctor in a surgical mask came into the waiting room and looked all around. Everybody tensed. "Buddy’s father?" he enquired. I raised my hand. A few women looked at me, eyebrows raised. I stood and walked potently to the surgeon. "He’s going to be all right," he said. I sighed with heavy relief, the way I’d seen it done on TV. "Come on back," he said. "Later," Tut called. I followed the surgeon into the recovery room, and saw Buddy sleeping on a child’s gurney, his back leg sticking straight out behind him and all taped up. At that moment, he picked up his head, groggily, looked at me and panted. I knew then that I would pretty much die for this dog. "The one thing I can’t figure out is why he’s acting so happy," said the surgeon. "We put a pin in his leg. He ought to be in pain. Take him to the vet in a day or two and have him look at the stitches. Now get out of here before I lose my license." I picked up Buddy like he was made of china and found a side door to leave by, so those women could keep their memory of me intact. Back out in the night, I could hear the low murmur of engines that signaled the beginning of Cruising. I made my way home by the darkest parts of town. Cars illuminated me in an endless line coming back from the fireworks and heading to the square where they would tool endlessly around and around in a dance of noise and egos. Darwin Loganstrafer and all the new friends I had lost would be in that line somewhere. I couldn’t count on their being too high to get violent, remembering what Tut said in the waiting room. I walked on across Route 2 to the darker, dead streets of my side of town. The sidewalks were broken so badly they were used mostly for decoration now, so I walked in the street. It wasn’t that far. But it seemed like a long time before the souped-up engine sound I’d been hearing in my mind like a tune turned up behind me, and I realized I was going to get run over. I jumped up, clutching Buddy to my chest, and dove onto the hood of Darwin Loganstrafer’s Mustang as it ran up over the curb, going what felt like thirty, which doesn’t sound like much but it is. I flew off and landed in a dead forsythia, still holding onto Buddy, as Darwin spun his tires in the grass making a huge gouge and jumped the curb back to the street, disappearing in his own tinny thunder, screaming: "That’s just the beginning, asshole!" I looked up. The moon was disappearing behind clouds. Crickets banged in the trees. I could feel blood pouring from my nose and my ribs were on fire. Buddy stood up on my chest and stared down into my face, panting. I pushed him off and managed to sit up, and grabbed a leaf that had fallen from a giant catalpa, using it to staunch the flow. It was then that I saw Darwin spinning out at the end of the street and heading back toward me. It seemed like a good idea to maybe run. I grabbed the dog and took off in the opposite direction, heading back toward the lights and town center and traffic, hoping this would somehow intimidate Darwin into dropping his pursuit, but instead, it seemed to make him more intent. Like he was proving something and wanted to make sure everybody saw it, so that it would be real. I leapt over parched garden beds and broken Big Wheels, yard after yard, as Darwin came up on the street beside me, keeping up with me and screaming at me from the driver’s side: "You fucking little asshole gimme that dog!" I turned sharply and cut through a yard where he couldn’t follow, not imagining he would actually stop his car and get out and chase me. Which is why he caught me almost at the corner of 8th and K, where my wind ran out and I had decided I was finally safe. My side felt as if it would explode as I tried to breathe. The only question on my mind when I heard Darwin right behind me was this: to what extent could I be beaten up and yet still be able to fake perfect health and total mental competence when I walked in the door back home with a strange intoxicated dog? Darwin grabbed me by the back of the shirt and pulled me off my feet. He was a good fifty pounds heavier than me and his hands were as thick and wide as his boots. Somebody grabbed my elbows and yanked them backwards, and Buddy fell out of my arms. Darwin began batting my head from left to right with his fists and laughing. I could feel my ears swelling. Someone grabbed hold of my legs so I couldn’t knee him in the groin, the way I was wishing I could. Then he started pummeling my stomach, switching from my head to my stomach just to keep himself from getting bored. Then they dropped me. More blood poured from my nose. My ribs had sustained another crack I was sure. I couldn’t breathe without excruciating pain and there was something very wrong with my wrist. Forget the fact that my eyes were already swelling and I could taste my own tears. That’s when I heard another sound, a thunder which caused me to forget my pain. I knew it was John Henry on his Kawasaki, 750 CCs of power between his legs, snaking his way down the street so fast it looked like special effects. And I knew that on the back of the bike was his girlfriend, Tracy Ray, in a tube-top and cut-offs, her hair flying. I knew there was grease under her fingernails from helping John Henry work on his clutch. I tried opening my eyes and was surprised to find out I could still see. Across the street, John Henry cut up onto the lawn of the town Right-to-Lifer, which was extremely dangerous given his famous collection of high-powered guns and his ardent support of the laws of Eminent Domain. John Henry popped a wheelie and skidded across the scrawny grass, smashing it with his back tire. Tracy Ray’s body was welded to his and her weight didn’t seem to affect his maneuvers. He crossed back into the street in front of a rusting aqua Bonneville and drove up onto the sidewalk beside Darwin . "Oh, that poor dog!" Tracy said, leaping from the bike and rushing to snatch up Buddy. Her totally smooth skin was a tawny color, her hair a dark reddish brown, her eyes almost yellow. She made my heart hurt. I looked up at her from the ground. Then Darwin put his boot on my forehead. "This creep tried to take my dog!" he declared. The blood from my nose was back washing into my throat. I choked. John Henry got carefully off of his bike. He wore no helmet, and his thick blonde hair was wild around his head. He had dark eyebrows, blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, and he was tall and muscular and gaunt, like a guy from a cigarette ad. He always looked hungry. I knew, from my mother, that his mom had been brought into her office at Social Services more than once for having No Control over him. John Henry was always in trouble at school for truancy, and never atoned. Somebody had let him graduate this past June, but nobody knew who it was. He now worked at the feed lot on the edge of town and fixed people’s bikes on the side. "Let him up, Darwin," I heard him say from above. "He stole my dog." "Let him up." "He stole my dog. He’s gotta pay." "You’re an asshole." "It’s my dog!" "It doesn’t even like you." Darwin’s boot pressed harder into my forehead if that was even possible. I yelped. Then he let up. "Take the dog," he sneered at me, his sweating face peering at me from above. "You little shithead." I scrambled up to my feet. Blood poured from my nose down my T-shirt. "Thanks," I said. I hobbled as best I could over to where Tracy held Buddy against her breasts. He had a loopy grin on his face as she handed him back to me. "He’s so sweet," she said, looking at the dog. My heart ached. John Henry got back on the bike alone. He took off down the sidewalk, hit the curb and sailed up over the pavement, landing mid-street, skidding a little and gunning it for the dead-end, where he twisted the machine around, and paused, the engine pulsing. He gunned the motor a few times. Tracy ran over to him and got on the back and they took off. Darwin and the others got back into his car. He peeled away from the curb like James Dean. I remained standing in the yard, holding my new dog, oblivious, for the moment, to pain. My folks never glanced up from the TV when I came in through the kitchen, not bothering to sneak in. It was twelve-thirty or so and I banged the screen door. I leaned in the doorway to the living room for awhile, watching my parents watching TV. My heart was beating fast and my legs were shaking. My shirt was soaked in blood, my nose broken and my cheeks both bruised and I was carrying a strange, totally wasted puppy, its tongue lolling, its mouth slack. The blue light of the television cast a horror-movie glow on my parents’ faces. It was like I was seeing them in the afterlife already. I knew I would miss them when they actually died, but it was at that moment that I first wondered if it might not be better living without them. A memory ought to be in the past where it belongs, not sitting in front of you in the present. My father was sipping Scotch and my mother had a glass of gin, and they laughed out loud with a kind of self-congratulation. I decided not to request immediate transportation to the emergency room, since I’d been there once already that night, so instead I took Buddy into the bathroom with me, where we looked in the mirror. A bootmark had imprinted itself in my forehead, my lip was split and my jaw on the left was a purpley-brown-yellow. My eyes were beginning to blacken and one was swollen almost shut. My wrist was working, so not broken, just sprained probably. My ribs ached. I set Buddy down in the tub, where he stood weaving a little, and washed my face. Grabbed one of the finger-towels that my Aunt Eulala had sewn fake lace all over, thinking this made them look classy when all they were was irregulars from the Shopko in Grand Island and you couldn’t change that, and washed my hands and face. Now there was blood all over the finger-towel and I panicked. I stuffed it in the wastebasket my mother had made out of an ice-cream bucket she’d covered with contact paper that had butterflies on it, turned out the light and went to my room with my new dog. I had a pint-bottle of rum under my bed (which I had gotten by hanging outside the liquor store and giving my money to an extremely helpful overweight and underdressed woman) and drank myself to sleep. The next morning when I came down with Buddy, hung-over, bruised, aching and limping, my mother wasn’t talking to me for reasons I could only surmise. Nobody said a word about the dog, which I defined as permission to keep him. |
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Statistically, that makes it Murder
Capitol of the United States. Everybody
knows who everybody is. And there’s no
police protection when you live on a
ranch two miles from your next neighbor.
Or you’re driving back home from the
bars at night on a lonely farm-to-market
road. Or you get involved with the wrong
people, even if they happen to be your
family. 
Then
it dawned on me. This moment of
acceptance was fleeting. I was at a
crossroads of a life that had only begun
moments ago. I had to make a decision
between saving a puppy I didn’t know,
that wasn’t mine, and therefore leaving
the party—or staying and becoming a part
of a scene that would give me blood
brothers, cool adventures like the one
I’d just had, possibly a girlfriend (and
the end to my useless, cringing
virginity) and letting somebody else
hopefully get clear enough to do
something about the puppy.