Paul Auster - Timbuktu

By the time Dick’s Volvo pulled into the driveway, Polly had already fed the children their dinner—hamburgers, baked potatoes, and frozen peas, some of which found its way into Mr. Bones’s mouth—and the four of them were out in the yard again, watering the garden as the late afternoon turned into early evening and the sky filled with the first mottled touches of darkness. Mr. Bones had overheard Polly tell Alice that the flight from New Orleans was due in at Dulles at four forty-five, and if the plane wasn’t delayed and the traffic wasn’t too heavy, her father should be home by seven o’clock. Give or take a few minutes, that’s just when Dick Jones arrived. He had been gone for three days, and when the children heard the sound of his approaching car, they both ran screaming from the yard and vanished around the side of the house. Polly made no move to run after them. She calmly went on watering her plants and flowers, and Mr. Bones stuck by her, unwilling to let her out of his sight. He knew that all hope was gone now, but if anybody could save him from the thing that was about to happen, she was the one.

A few moments later, the man of the house walked into the yard with Tiger in one arm and Alice tugging on the other, and because he was wearing his pilot’s uniform (dark blue pants; light blue shirt garnished with epaulets and insignias), Mr. Bones mistook him for a cop. It was an automatic association, and with a lifetime of dread built into that response, he couldn’t help recoiling as Dick approached, even though he could see with his own eyes that the man was laughing and seemed genuinely happy to be with his children again. Before Mr. Bones could sort through this jumble of doubts and conflicting impressions, he was swept up into the drama of the moment, and from then on everything seemed to happen at once. Alice had started talking to her father about the dog the instant he stepped out of the car, and she was still at it when he entered the yard and greeted his wife (a perfunctory kiss on the cheek), and the more she badgered him and raved on about the wonderful creature they had found, the more excited her little brother became. Yelling “Sparky” at the top of his lungs, Tiger slithered out of his father’s grasp, ran over to Mr. Bones, and threw his arms around his neck. Not to be outdone by her pipsqueak brother, Alice came over and got into the act as well, making a great, histrionic show of affection for the dog as she attacked him with repeated hugs and melodramatic kisses, and with the two kids suddenly mauling him like that and covering his ears with their hands and chests and faces, he missed three quarters of what the adults were saying. About the only thing he heard with any clarity was Dick’s initial statement. “So this is the famous dog, huh? Looks like one sorry mutt to me.”

After that, it was anyone’s guess as to what really happened. He saw Polly twist the nozzle of the hose, which cut off the flow of water, and then she said something to Dick. Most of it was inaudible, but from the few words and phrases that Mr. Bones managed to catch, he understood that she was pleading his case: “wandered into the yard this afternoon,” “intelligent,” “the kids think…” and then, after Dick said something back to her, “I don’t have the foggiest idea. Maybe he ran away from the circus.” It sounded fairly encouraging, but just as he succeeded in getting his left ear free of Tiger’s grip to take in a little more, Polly tossed the hose onto the ground and wandered off with Dick in the direction of the house. They stopped a few feet in front of the back door and went on talking there. Mr. Bones was certain that momentous things were being decided now, but even though their lips were moving, he could no longer hear a word they said.

He could see that Dick was watching him, however, gesturing toward him every now and then with a vague sweep of the hand as he continued his discussion with Polly, and Mr. Bones, who was growing a little bored with the raucous love-in that Tiger and Alice had started, wondered if it might not be such a bad idea to take the initiative and do something to help himself. Instead of standing around while his future hung in the balance, why not try to impress Dick with some canine derring-do, some spiffy dog thing that would turn the tide in his favor? It was true that Mr. Bones was exhausted, and it was true that his stomach still hurt and his legs felt diabolically weak, but he didn’t let those things stop him from bounding off and racing to the other end of the yard. Shrieking with surprise, Tiger and Alice went running after him, and just as they were about to catch him, he bounded away from them again, abruptly charging back in the direction he had come from. Again they went after him, and again he waited until they almost had him in their hands before jumping away. He hadn’t sprinted like that in aeons, but even though he knew that he was pushing himself too hard and would eventually have to pay for his exertions, he kept on going, proud to be torturing himself on behalf of such a noble cause. After three or four dashes across the lawn, he stopped in the middle of the yard and played duck-and-feint with them—the dog version of tag—and even though he could barely breathe anymore, he refused to quit before the children gave up and flopped to the ground in front of him.

Meanwhile, the sun was beginning to go down. The sky was streaked with bands of pinkish clouds, and the air had turned cooler. Now that the romp-a-thon had ended, it appeared that Dick and Polly were ready to announce their verdict. As Mr. Bones lay panting on the grass with the two children, he saw the grown-ups turn from the house and begin walking back to the yard, and while it was never clear to him whether his manic burst of high spirits had any effect on the outcome, he took heart from the satisfied little smile that was creasing the edges of Polly’s mouth. “Daddy says that Sparky can stay,” she said, and as Alice jumped up from the ground and hugged her father and Polly bent down and gathered the half-sleeping Tiger into her arms, a new chapter in Mr. Bones’s life began.

Before they could break out the champagne, however,

Dick butted in with a few additional points—the fine print, so to speak. It’s not that he didn’t want everyone to be happy, he said, but for the time being it had to be understood that they were only keeping the dog on a “trial basis,” and unless certain conditions were met—and here he gave Alice a long, hard look—the deal was off. First: under no circumstances was the dog to be allowed in the house. Second: he would have to be taken to the vet for a full checkup. If he wasn’t found to be in reasonably good health, he would have to go. Third: at the earliest possible convenience, an appointment would have to be made with a professional groomer. The dog needed a haircut, a shampoo, and a manicure, as well as a thorough going-over for ticks, lice, and fleas. Fourth: he would have to be fixed. And fifth: Alice would be responsible for feeding him and changing his water bowl—with no increase in her allowance for services rendered.

Mr. Bones had no idea what the word fixed meant, but he understood everything else, and all in all it didn’t sound too bad, except maybe for the first point about not being allowed in the house, since he failed to grasp how a dog could become part of a family’s household if he didn’t have the right to enter that family’s house. Alice must have been wondering the same thing, for as soon as her father came to the last item on his list, she chimed in with a question. “What happens when winter comes?” she asked. “We’re not going to leave him out here in the cold, are we, Daddy?”

“Of course not,” Dick said. “We’ll put him in the garage, and if it’s still too cold in there, we’ll let him stay in the cellar. I just don’t want him getting his hair all over the furniture, that’s all. But we’ll make it real nice for him out here, don’t worry. We’ll give him a first-class doghouse, and I’ll set up a run for him by stringing a wire between those two trees over there. He’ll have plenty of space to frisk about in, and once he gets used to it, he’ll be happy as a clam. Don’t feel sorry for him, Alice. He’s not a person, he’s a dog, and dogs don’t ask questions. They make do with what they get.” With that decisive remark, Dick put his hand on Mr. Bones’s head and gave it a firm, manly squeeze, as if to prove he wasn’t such an ornery customer after all. “Ain’t that right, sport?” he said. “You’re not going to complain, are you? You know what you’ve lucked into here, and the last thing you want is to rock the boat.”