John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

"Calm yourself, boy," he said, "calm yourself. It isn't a slot machine."

Then he peed for three full minutes.

Discipline Class was held Friday nights in the second tier of a five-tier parking garage. Wind whipped and whistled through the hollow concrete shell, the women wore their heavy coats. They were all women except for the little man with the big Alsatian who screamed his commands no matter how many times Mr. Pettit advised him not to. Mr. Pettit sat at one end of the tier in a director's chair, loudspeaker in his hand, while Brian and Lovell ran around assisting the women with their dogs. Mr. Pettit would give a command and then women would repeat it to their dogs and the dogs would look up at them in confusion and the women would look at Brian and Lovell for help. They did the Stay Command and the Recall on Leash, Heeling on Leash, the Long Sit on Leash, the Long Down on Leash and shaking hands. Mr. Pettit hated the idea of the dogs shaking hands but the women all insisted so he included it. There were poodles and Afghans and terriers and schnauzers and Samoyeds and a really stupid Irish setter and a pair of golden-retriever puppies and the Alsatian, which skulked and hung its head even when the guy who owned it wasn't screaming.

I think she's confused, they would say, or I think Harlan feels intimidated, or whoops, they would say, we've had another little accident. There was even one lady who kept complaining that her Afghan was bored.

"That again?" she would moan. "But Mitzi's beyond that, she needs a challenge."

Brian wanted to tell the lady that Mitzi would need six weeks' training to learn to lift her leg, much less anything challenging, but the lady was under forty and had all her teeth so Lovell never let him near her.

"What they want most in the world," Lovell would say, looking the woman deep in the eyes, "is someone to obey. They got someone they can look up to, they can count on, they can perform for, then they be in harmony with their natural state. You give em too much leash, make them think for theirselfs, they'll be just miserable."

Brian figured half the women were impressed by Lovell and half couldn't stand him, but since both groups just tightened up and listened when he'd come over and guide their hands it was hard to tell which felt what.

For the attack session Mr. Pettit would come out of his chair and join him. He'd trot out his command voice, his firm, controlled voice that left no doubts or questions. It would get stronger as the night went on, as Brian put on the gloves and padding and the dogs took running, snarling leaps at his throat. Lovell would stand back listening to Mr. Pettit and shake his head slowly.

"I know that tone," he would mutter to Brian, a sad smile on his face. "Every nigger in America heard that tone sometime. Make you feel just like a whupped dog."

Afterward, everyone else gone, it was Brian's job to clean up. Part of the deal with the parking garage. He would scoop and squeegee under the yellow fluorescent lights, the night wind howling through the ramps, and sing at the top of his lungs to keep the heebie-jeebies away. But they always got to him, the feeling that the wind outside was blowing everything into space, that when he stepped out there would be nothing left but black and cold and not a living soul who knew or cared that he existed. They got Brian just before midnight and not even thinking about Serena and her promise could warm him up.

On Saturday afternoon Serena said her parents weren't going to be away after all.

"We'll find someplace else."

"My mother is home on Saturdays," said Brian. "Even when she's not, there's Mrs. Casilli downstairs, and her we could use for guard duty at Bad Dogs. No way." Brian shook his head and looked at Serena accusingly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll try to think of something."

They went to a movie and she let him feel her breasts even though there were junior high kids all around snickering and lobbing popcorn at them. When he lost interest in those she put his hand between her legs. This was a new wrinkle. Brian got excited about the whole deal again and whispered to her that they'd find a place. The movie was almost over before his wrist got too tired.

They held hands and walked around the downtown. They looked in store windows, at Laundromats and diners, beauty parlors and real-state offices as if one of them would offer a place to lie down. They didn't talk except if Brian would ask her more questions.

"You have any friends who have cars?"

"No. Do you?"

"Do you have any cousins or anything whose families are out-of town?"

"No. Do you?"

They went through the park but it was cold and the trees were too bare to hide them from view. It was nicknamed Saltand-Pepper Park because all the interracial couples met there. A couple times Brian thought he saw Lovell in a parked car, talking up some woman.

"One time," said Brian, "our class went to the World's Fair for a field trip on this old bus without a bathroom on it and we drove back so late all the comfort stations were closed. Everybody had been eating all kinds of junk all day long and they had to sit and squirm for over two hundred miles."

"What it reminds me of," said Serena as they walked past the reptile house, boarded up till spring, "is Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. No room at the inn."

"Yuh." He wished she would keep religion out of it.

They walked all the way down to the river, watched the birds bobbing for garbage awhile, then turned back. Serena seemed to have given up thinking and was a lot cheerier.

"I'm really sorry," she said, "I really thought they'd be away. Maybe some other time."

"Yuh."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Nope."

He didn't say another word to her till they had walked to within a block of her house.

"Can you get out after dinner?"

"I think so. Why?"

"I know a place we can go to."

"Oh," said Serena. "Good."

Their eyes were used to the dark by the time they reached the yard. Brian went ahead, talking firmly in the voice till the growling stopped. It was Loki, wagging his tail and jumping with delight when he recognized Brian. Brian had the dog sniff Serena thoroughly and she gave it some brownies she had made. The door to the watch shack came open with a kick.

There was a small black wood-stove, a hot plate, a cot and some rough blankets, a few canvas folding chairs. The yard workers used it to warm up between shunts in the winter. The cot was left over from the old man.

Brian unfolded the cot and dusted everything off and shook the blankets out while Serena sat and watched him with her hands clamped between her knees. It was freezing inside. Serena undressed beneath the blankets, the cot creaking and rattling, while Brian turned his back and tried to think himself stiff so he could get the damn thing on.

It went okay. Nothing got stuck. There wasn't room to lie side by side on the cot so Brian pulled up a chair and sat holding Serena's hand. He wasn't sure he remembered what any of it felt like. From time to time he lifted the blanket and looked under at Serena's body and they'd smile at each other. Understanding smiles. She was all goose-pimply from the cold and her breasts weren't half the size of Knockers Nieman's, who everybody laughed at in the showers after gym. Of course, Knockers was all fat, he even had fat toes and fingers. Serena's ribs and hipbones showed.

"Will you come in again?" she said. "I'm cold."

This time Brian did what he could to make it last, he took note of how everything felt, how it smelled and sounded and tasted, so he wouldn't wake the next day and feel like he was still a virgin.