Making Amends
Greg Girvan
On his way home from work, Mentz hit a dog—a liver-and-white spaniel-type that charged onto the road from between a tall blue juniper and a row of withering hedges separating two yards. Fiddling with the radio tuner, he jammed on the brakes too late. Amid the sound of squealing tires, he heard the hollow, unequivocal metallic ping of the bumper striking the dog’s head, a sound like the one an aluminum bat makes smashing a home run.
Impending doom quickened his pulse. He slid the can of beer from his crotch and shoved it under the seat; then listened ruefully as it emptied onto the gray carpet beneath him. Sitting behind the wheel, he couldn’t see the dog. But he imagined it lying there, dead, beyond the sun-faded blue hood of his Silverado. No yelps, no whimpering: a silence that meant death.
He considered driving off. But across the street some boys had witnessed the event. Prior to screeching tires, they were playing basketball on a driveway, shooting at a backboard bolted to the brick pediment above a closed white garage door. Now they stood huddled together, watching Mentz. If he took off, they’d probably sprint like vigilantes to catch sight of his plate.
He backed away from the dog and parked on the lawn in front of the juniper. Worried this could result in a DUI, he broke into a cold sweat. His stomach clenched, then burned. He reached into the console for the pack of cinnamon Dentyne he kept there for contingencies such as this and covertly jammed a stick in his mouth. He stuffed the rest of the pack in his pocket. Then the truck door opened and he stood on the street, watching the approaching phalanx of boys; he counted six, all young teens. One had a scar resembling a greater-than sign over his upper lip. Another clopped along in sneakers so white they looked brand new.
As the boys gathered before him, he decided to take control. He stiffened his posture and creased his brow. “Whose dog?” he demanded.
A couple of the boys looked at each other but the tall freckled one standing in front stared brazenly at Mentz. The faint orange stubble on his shaved head glittered with sweat. “Over there,” he said, maintaining a hard-ass scowl and pointing to the pink brick ranch-style behind the juniper. He cradled a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball in his arms, the wine-and-yellow swirl-patterned one imprinted with LeBron James’ autograph. Mentz focused on the cursive black scribble before his eyes fell on the inert dog. The animal had quit breathing. A red nimbus had begun forming around its piebald head, the blood leaking onto the road from somewhere underneath.
“Crap,” Mentz said. The kids hardly looked at the dog until Mentz did. Now they gawked. He decided to blow things out of proportion. “If that was a bug, would you still be looking?”
One boy, teeth a little too green for his age, simpered and replied, “Yes!”
Disheartened, Mentz looked at the ranch home. “Guess I better tell them their dog’s dead.”
A short kid with curly black hair emerged from the group. The skin on his face was flaky, peeling somewhat along the rosy cheeks beneath his dark sideburns. It looked white and scaly, as if a good breeze might take most of it off. “I’ll knock on their door,” he volunteered.
Mentz followed him down the blacktop driveway that had numerous fissures caulked with tar. When they reached the recently paved sidewalk, the boy began purposely scraping his Nikes over the broom finish, as though attempting to grind the concrete into a smoother surface. Mentz continued behind him, his mind squirming with dread. After hiking three steps onto the porch, the boy stopped on the black-and-yellow Steelers doormat and shot Mentz a somber glance before he pressed the doorbell. Mentz listened for an interior ring but heard nothing. He leaned against the flimsy fake wrought iron rail with his arms crossed.
“I don’t want any!” a dulcet woman’s voice hollered from the other side of the teal door.
Mentz glimpsed a shadow pass behind the peephole. He heard a bolt click, a little pop on the brass doorknob as it twisted open. Then the door swung inward with a whoosh and the woman appeared in the frame: denim Capris, a mossy-green blouse, ginger hair cropped above the collar, penetrating sapphire eyes. She smiled as if she’d won something.
“Unfortunately,” Mentz said, “we’re not the Prize Patrol from Publishers Clearing House.”
The boy gaped at him, bewildered. Mentz uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands in his pockets. His throat had constricted. “Um, well…”
“He ran over your dog, ma’am,” the boy said, turning his curly black head toward the road.
When the woman looked at Mentz, he shrugged. “It was an accident.” His fingers gripped the lining in his pockets, the knuckles on his left hand nudging the hard gum pack, the ones on his right grazing coins—change from the tab he’d paid at Brady’s Run Grille earlier.
“I have to get home for dinner,” the boy said, seeming afraid to look at Mentz again.
The woman stared over at her dead dog lying on the road, her blue eyes frantic. She covered her mouth with her hand. The boy ran down the steps and across the mottled yellow-green lawn to where his friends hovered over the animal. The cocky freckled kid started dribbling the basketball back across the street, the sweat on his shaved orange head glistening under the sun. One-by-one, the others snapped from their morbid trances and followed.
The woman’s hands fell to her hips. “How’d this happen?” Her face was turning blotchy and Mentz didn’t know how to respond. He looked toward the dog and at the rust-pocked bumper of his blue truck just feet away. The woman started breathing rapidly, letting plangent little moans escape with each gasp. Mentz thought she might be hyperventilating. Her hand covered her mouth again as she raced down the steps and across the yard in her green socks. On the first few strides, her heels dug divots into the moist ground, smearing commas of mud. Mentz stayed on the porch. If she looked in his truck, he hoped she wouldn’t smell alcohol or see the twelve-pack in the paper bag on the passenger seat—minus the one he’d been drinking when he hit her dog.
“Augusta!” she yelled as she reached the dog. “Augusta, wake up!”
The cocky kid stopped dribbling. “He ain’t waking up, lady.”
Mentz stepped off the porch and crossed the yard to where the woman stood staring down at the dog, arms rigid at her sides, fingers outspread and trembling. She knelt down and began rubbing the dog’s shoulder. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Augusta!” she wailed. Her hands thrust beneath the liver-and-white animal but retracted quickly: blood. Mentz saw the bright cherry on her fingers as she pulled away, horrified. Before that, apparently, she hadn’t noticed the shiny red fluid draining from the dog’s underside and veering toward her yard in the shape of an arrowhead. Mentz put his hand on her shoulder and, surprised by the silky texture of her mossy-green blouse on his palm, squatted next to her. “I’m truly sorry,” he said.
She acted as if she didn’t hear Mentz and this concerned him. Mentz and a coworker, Carl Vogel, had stopped for drinks at Brady’s Run Grille on the way back to the office after resolving a malware issue for one of their company’s clients. Still in training, Mentz was dispatched with Carl to observe and learn. Once onsite, though, it became evident that updated anti-virus software could have pre-empted the entire debacle and they managed to fully restore their client’s system by 1:00. But the suits would never know that. Returning to the blue company minivan outside the futuristic granite building of their client, Vogel declared it was time for a liquid lunch. A malingering, often flagrant anti-Semite, Vogel despised the ‘kike imbeciles’ who employed them. “We’ll charge the full day,” he said. “The Holocaust progeny will never know the diff.” Throughout the afternoon, between beers, they downed five Jagermeister shots apiece. Afterward, Mentz purchased beer for later. His on-again, off-again girlfriend, Tina, had been snubbing him lately, and since the Exley Electric Eagles (the Little League team he helped coach) didn’t have a game or practice that night, he planned a drunken evening at home watching the Pirates.
He stood and looked down at the part in the woman’s hair, at the white trench it cut along the middle of her scalp. “We should move your dog off the road.”
Across the street, the boys had resumed their game. Hearing their sounds—the dribble of the basketball, the grunts and curses, the scuffs and squeals of sneakers—Mentz realized the dog could have been a kid and felt instantly nauseous. “I’m going to lift your dog now,” he said.
“Augusta,” the woman said, looking up and down the street as if worried another car was coming. Then, appearing to settle some, she stood beside Mentz. “My name’s Denise.”
“Gene,” Mentz said. Fearing legal repercussions, he thought it prudent to give an alias. He knelt and watched his hands slide beneath the ribs and hind flank of Augusta. When he went to lift the animal, its limpness made him cringe; the head swung downward causing its nose to scrape the pavement. Mentz expected blood to gush from the brown nostrils but none did. The dog weighed more than he anticipated and as he stood, he backed into Denise. She glanced at him, somewhat aghast, teary eyes squinting against the late afternoon sun.
“Where to?” Mentz asked, shambling toward the middle of the yard.
Denise pointed to the side of the house. “Backyard.”
As they walked, Mentz saw Augusta’s blood trickling on the lawn.
“I’m sorry,” he said as they rounded the corner. They passed through an arched arbor and into a fenced-in backyard with a tulip garden. The tall, intensely red flowers stood in even rows across a large rectangle. The dirt looked wet, unnaturally dark; expensive, humus-rich soil used for growing tulips, Mentz figured.
Denise continued along the sidewalk, passing three mullioned cold frames sprouting tiny pale green seedlings, then up four steps onto the back porch. Teal shutters adorned the windows along the rear of the house. Mentz stopped at the base of the steps, his forearms and biceps beginning to strain. “Now what?” he asked. He felt warm, viscous blood accumulating on his hands.
Denise wiped tears off her face and drove a hand into the pocket of her Capris. She pulled out a set of keys on a green shamrock keychain. Mentz looked at the tall wooden fence surrounding the yard. Beyond the tulips, a clothesline stretched between two teal poles cemented into the ground. At the bottom of one, a partially unraveled skein of dog chain lay strewn across the grass, the argent links glinting sharply in the sun.
Mentz heard the key in the brass lock and watched Denise open the door. “What should I do with Augusta?” he asked. His arms were ready to give. When Denise gazed at him as though surprised he still held her dead dog in his arms, he felt a brief temptation to pitch the mutt into the tulips. Instead, he dropped to one knee and lowered Augusta to the ground. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his blood-smeared palms on the grass. “I have to go.” Standing, he noticed bloodstains on the right sleeve of his blue Stafford shirt, a shirt he’d purchased only a week ago. “Damn,” he said.
Denise attempted to pull the keys from the lock in the door but they fell on the porch. She knelt to pick them up; and remained there, on her knees. Mentz saw her looking at the dog again. It was dead—gone, beyond revival—but she was staring at it expectantly, as though she thought Augusta was just playing dead and that any second now he’d jump up, wag his tail, and start begging for the doggy treat he so richly deserved for his fine acting performance. She made a soft gurgling sound; then stood without the keys. “Wait. Let me at least wash the blood off your sleeve.”
Mentz scratched at the bloody cuff with his thumb. “Nah. I’ll get it out somehow.”
“I know you’ve been drinking but I promise I won’t phone the police.”
Mentz looked at her, stunned, anxiety muddling his thoughts. He feared her invitation was a ruse; once inside, surely she’d sneak off to another room and call the cops. Yet, simultaneously, he noticed how truly beautiful she was. “Okay.”
Denise pushed the door open and disappeared into the dark crevasse.
Mentz spit out his gum and climbed the steps. He grabbed the keys off the porch and tread into the shadowy kitchen. A piquant chili odor filtered through his nostrils, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten all day. Denise was already in the next room.
Mentz looked back at Augusta lying on the grass near the steps. “I feel awful about this,” he said. The craven sound of his voice reverberating off kitchen appliances embarrassed him. He set the keys on the cabinet and ventured into the living room.
Denise was sitting on the couch. Dark drapes hung to the floor in front of the large picture window, closed tightly, perhaps to keep the voyeuristic teenagers across the street from spying a naked glimpse of her. Ellen played on the TV without sound, MUTE glowing in bright red letters on the bottom of the screen. Uneasy, Mentz sat on the recliner.
For what seemed a long while, neither spoke. Denise leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her countenance so solemn Mentz thought she was about to burst into hysterics. He had forgotten about the blood on his sleeve and some rubbed off on the arm of the recliner. He furtively lowered the arm to his lap, careful to avoid touching the bloody section to his khakis.
“Did you not see my dog?” Denise inquired suddenly.
Mentz shifted in the recliner. “Not until too late.” He sat up straight. “I am truly sorry.”
Denise stood. “Please, quit apologizing. I don’t believe you intentionally killed Augusta.”
She went into the kitchen and switched on a light. Leery to be left alone, Mentz followed. Denise stopped at the sink and washed her hands with dish soap. She left the hot water running for Mentz. “Clean up,” she said, pulling a dishtowel from a drawer.
He scrubbed his hands and sleeve (unsuccessfully) with the peach-scented soap. “So what breed was Augusta?” he asked, watching blood and water coil down the drain. “Was he a pup?”
Denise was clinking glass in a cupboard above the cabinet. She removed two green goblets and glared at him as she placed them on the table. “She was an English Springer.”
“Oh.” Not sure what to expect, Mentz dried his hands looking out the window at the tulips. When he turned back, he saw Denise had opened a cupboard beneath the sink and—down on both knees, reaching deep into it—she looked like a POW digging an escape tunnel. He sat at the table, the strong aroma of chili causing him hunger pangs. Glancing around the rustic kitchen, he spotted the olive-green dog food bowls on the floor: one, near empty, contained crumb-specked water; the other, a blend of red, tan and gray nuggets.
“Like Jimmy?” Denise asked, standing with a bottle. She raised it in front of her eyes with both hands, examining the dark alcohol that leveled off just above the white label.
“Plenty,” Mentz said. That’s when he saw the diamond ring on Denise’s finger. “When’s hubby get home?”
Denise regarded him with angry eyes. Realizing bereavement could cause any number of emotional outbursts, he asked, “We drinking it straight?”
She plunked the bottle on the table. “With Coke. So don’t get your hopes up.”
Mentz considered the comment unwarranted and said so. “It’s not like I’ve hit on you.” He stood and leaned over the table on his fists. “I’m outta here.”
Denise opened the refrigerator. “I wasn’t especially attached to Augusta anyway,” she said, though her voice sounded throaty. “Hubby bought her to keep me company after my miscarriage.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“Diet or regular?”
“I’m leaving, remember?”
Denise stood a red Coke can on the table. “Your decision.”
Mentz sat back down as she twisted the white cap off the Jim Beam bottle and filled each glass halfway. “I like my drinks strong,” she said, “especially on occasions like this.” She added the Coke and sat across from him. He rotated his glass on the table, the bright chandelier directly overhead. He could sense Denise watching him and thought of himself as a defendant on the stand awaiting the questions of a prosecutor.
“I don’t know how Augusta could have slipped onto the street. I always chain her, to keep her from my gardens. She loves to dig.”
“Dogs get free.”
Denise looked at the back door. “Augusta got free alright.” She pulled her drink close. She stirred it with her pinky, glumly watched the swirling surface. Then, as if to adjourn her thoughts, she slapped the table.
“Nice tulips,” Mentz said, eager to change the subject. “Buy those around here?”
“My beauties? No. I order the bulbs from a private grower I found on the Internet. Those tulips out there came all the way from the Skajit Valley in Washington, north of Seattle.”
“Amazing,” Mentz said. He picked up his glass but a noise in the living room startled him. It sounded like the front door had opened. Denise looked suddenly alarmed.
“Denise?” a male voice called out. “D! Whose truck’s in our yard?” The door banged shut, clattering dishes in the cupboards.
Mentz stood, aware he might have to fight.
“He’s way early!” Denise whispered, sliding quickly from her chair and scooping his drink from his hand. She set the glasses in the sink and, her face erupting with more blotchiness, hurried across the kitchen and into the living room.
Mentz looked at the back door. He could run out, be around the side of the house and into his truck in seconds. He stared at the tiny blue seagulls on the wallpaper by the living room doorway. A hushed conversation had commenced in there. Very soon, angry hubby would emerge.
Mentz gripped the Jim Beam bottle by the neck and pulled a two-ounce Dixie cup from the dispenser affixed to the wall near the sink. He decided to down a shot before hubby came through the doorway. When he tilted the bottle, the bourbon poured so rapidly it spilled over the rim of the cup and ran coolly over his fingers before he could pull it back. “Shit,” he heard himself say.
As if in contrapuntal response, the man in the other room shouted, “How!”
Mentz threw back the shot, hardly tasting the sweet, biting tang of the Beam until it burned his stomach. In stealthy steps, he edged toward the door. Nothing good could come from staying. He turned the knob quietly, pulling the door back enough to squeeze through. He stepped over the lifeless dog on the grass then ran around the house, under the arbor and through the tight passageway between the blue juniper and withering hedges, following the same ill-fated steps Augusta took into the street earlier.
The kids were gone. A black Mustang was parked now on Denise’s driveway.
Mentz checked around for anyone watching; then floored it.
~ ~ ~
The next morning, Mentz awoke with a severe hangover. His entire body exuded the odor of Jim Beam. Even after brushing his teeth twice, he could still taste it. He lay in bed, literally writhing, as ultramarine light slowly engulfed his room. Someone had pounded a spike into his skull above the right eye and was twisting it back and forth, ratcheting up the flow of vomit-inducing nausea.
He went in the bathroom and tried to throw up. He stared down at the white circle of water, rocked back and forth on his knees. When that failed, he jammed two fingers down his throat and began invoking repugnant images: diarrheic feces, the calligraphy of pubic hairs on the toilet rim morphing into maggots, Augusta’s brain matter—all to no avail. He gagged but only regurgitated saliva. His head hurt worse now than before. He couldn’t go to work in this condition.
He found the portable phone on the coffee table. The night before, he’d tried calling Tina several times but kept reaching her voicemail. He recalled leaving messages, though he couldn’t remember what he’d said—probably drunken pleas for her to come stay the night. After the dog incident, his entire body had tensed up, and instead of driving home, he hit a drive-thru and went to his regular hangout, The Castle, a bar decorated with a medieval-themed interior. Throughout the evening, he drank Beam-and-Coke and thought about Denise while watching the Pirates-Cubs game, a contest that was now a blur.
After inventing an excuse (severe sinus infection), he dialed the office. His supervisor, Mr. Levinson, was in a meeting—a blessing Mentz hadn’t counted on—and he left a message with the secretary. Then his anxiety kicked in: he’d only worked at Amockwi Valley Technology for three months, and already this was his third call-off.
He popped three Tylenol and returned to bed. Head still throbbing, he rebuked himself for the cowardly way he’d left Denise’s house. As he began dozing off, the phone rang. Shocked by the shrill noise, his body jerked, causing the sharp fissure of pain to rupture above his eyes again. He panicked, believing it was Levinson. Seven-and-a-half excruciating rings later, his answering machine retrieved the call. “Listen good, asshole!” Tina’s voice shrieked. “Quit calling after midnight, drunk off your ass! Again, you left a million slurred, incoherent messages. You’re pathetic! You ruined my sleep! Now I’m exhausted and can’t get shit done here at work. So don't—don’t call me anymore. I mean it! Ever!”
~ ~ ~
Mentz saw the crimson stain on the road in front of the juniper and almost kept driving. The Mustang wasn’t in the driveway, though, so he parked in front of the garage. Worried he still reeked of liquor he chewed another piece of cinnamon gum and finished listening to a weather update on the radio that predicted severe thunderstorms. The sky hung low and dark. He could smell the rain. He still felt the queasiness of his hangover.
Standing on the Steelers welcome mat, he pressed the white doorbell and waited. Despite the fact he was living paycheck-to-paycheck, he’d come back to make amends by offering to buy Denise another dog. But the house appeared empty: no noise or detectable motion. He pushed the doorbell again and this time thought he heard something. He inched closer. The noise persisted but didn’t emanate from within the house. He thought it came from the backyard. Perhaps Denise was doing yard work.
Passing through the arched trellis, he paused: the fierce, bright red tulips stood out vividly under the darkened sky. Their striking brilliance shocked his eyes. He saw no one in the yard. As he continued along the sidewalk, the tulips seemed to turn eerily toward him.
He climbed the steps to the back porch. He bent into the glass, using a hand to shade his eyes so he could peer through the open blinds.
“Hey!” a man shouted. Startled, Mentz glanced at the origin of the vaguely familiar voice. A tall, wiry man in jeans and a green pocket T-shirt stood on the patio behind the garage. “Can I help you?” the man asked, wiping his hands with a rag. His long ashen hair, thinning on top, was pulled back in a ponytail. He looked fifteen-to-twenty years older than Denise. Augusta’s possessions were lined-up on the patio behind him.
“Are you Denise’s husband?”
“Sure am,” the man said, sounding peeved.
Mentz scratched his goatee. He had trouble believing him. “Denise here by any chance?”
The man tossed the rag on the lawn. “What’s this about?”
Mentz descended the steps. He walked a few feet toward the man until he realized he was stammering. Three times in a row he’d started to say, “I’m the guy”—each time with the emphasis on a different word. Humiliated, he stopped walking.
“You’re the guy?” the man asked, perplexed. He lifted his arms out to his sides, palms up, and shrugged. “You’re the guy what?”
Mentz cleared his throat. “I’m the one who hit your dog yesterday.”
The man’s eyes widened. He wiped sweat from his crinkled forehead. “That was you in the kitchen, drinking with my wife?”
“No.” Mentz crossed his arms. “I mean, she filled the drinks just before you got home. We never even had a chance to take a sip.”
“Whatever you say,” the man said. “Gene, is it?” He stared sharply at Mentz. “You can cut the shit, Gene.”
“I’m not lying,” Mentz said, having forgotten he’d given Denise an alias.
“Don’t take me for a fool. I found the bottle. It was half empty, for Christ’s sake!”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“If Denise told you to cover for her, forget it. The jig is up.”
“Look, if you go find Denise, she’ll clear this up. I came to ask if I could buy her—well, both of you—another dog. I never met your wife before yesterday. Honestly. I only entered your home because she offered to clean blood off my shirt. I got some on my sleeve carrying Augusta around back here. Your wife wasn’t looking too good and, well, I didn’t know what to do. Whole situation was, you know, awkward.”
The man squatted down, appearing suddenly more distraught than angry. He plucked grass from next to the sidewalk and pitched it over his shoulder. “We haven’t kept alcohol in this house for over six months. Did you know that, Gene? I myself haven’t had a beer in six months. Christ. The sacrifices you’ll make for a woman.”
Mentz put his hands in his pockets. The man squinted up at him. “So you came back here with good intentions.”
“Yes,” Mentz said, despite the sarcasm. “Denise was pretty broken up and, well, I wanted to make up for it somehow.”
The man stood. “Didn’t expect to find me here, did you.”
Mentz smiled nervously. “No.”
“Didn’t think so.” The man’s eyes swept the yard. “Good thing you left through that back door yesterday. If I’d caught you drinking with my wife, her six months of sobriety flushed down the drain, who knows what I’d have done.”
“I can imagine.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t think you can. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
Mentz pulled his hands from his pockets. “I just came to—”
“Cut the innocent routine!” The man turned toward Mentz. “We both know you expected to find my wife alone, still moping about her dead dog, and that your little ‘I’d-like-to-buy-you-a-new-puppy’ scheme would get you in the door for another chance to drink with her.”
It began to sprinkle. Mentz felt a cool drop land on his forehead. “That’s not true.”
“Really.” The man put his hands on his hips and laughed. “You lying fuck.”
Mentz took a step back. “Look, I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ll leave.”
The man sighed and looked at the darkening sky. “I don’t mean to be hostile but...”
“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have come back. I’m sorry.”
The man squatted again, steadying his gaze on the tulips. “Forget it. Taking my grief out on you is wrong. Maybe I’m in shock. Hell, twenty-four hours ago I was discussing 401k options with the lady from HR, trying to figure a way to siphon money for me and D to go on vacation to Aruba this summer without paying a penalty. Then I come home to her flipping out because someone ran over our dog—that someone being you—and suddenly our lives are in the shitter.”
Mentz shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It was an accident.”
“Oh? The way I heard it, you were pretty tuned-up.”
“Denise said that?”
The man’s eyes closed. “Irrelevant now, I guess. What matters is how she reacted. After you left, she went berserk, tore the whole house apart. Broke things, threw shit everywhere. Kept screaming F-this, F-that at the top of her lungs. I mean, Christ. I had to put her in a bear hug to calm her down.”
“Wow,” Mentz said.
“Yeah.” The man snorted. “Wow.” He stood and walked to the tulip garden. “So I held her, hugged her, did my best to console her. Near dark, when she finally quit yammering on about our house being cursed and how much she hates living here anymore...when all that ended she insisted we have a funeral. Yep. Made me bury Augusta right back there behind her damn precious tulips.” He reached down and squeezed a red petal of one between his fingers. “I should’ve known something was amiss. That stoic expression on D’s face? Never saw anything like it. And after she took our crucifix—the very crucifix that’s hung above our bed anywhere we’ve lived since we got married—and planted it in the mound of dirt above Augusta, she didn’t say a prayer or anything. She just spat on the ground and muttered Semper Augusta.” His hand wrapped around the tulip’s stem. “Back inside, after that beautiful little ceremony, she asked me to bring her a blanket so she could lie on the couch. So I helped her settle in and tried to give her a kiss. But she said I was filthy, told me to go shower. Her tone was vicious.” He bit his lower lip. “I should’ve known something was up, like I said, because when I came out, she was gone. While I was taking a shower, she took off in my Mustang.”
Mentz sensed something awful had happened. “Where’d she go?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I went looking for her, drove around for a while in her car, checking all the watering holes she used to frequent. Called all her friends, the ones she used to drink with, but nada. Eventually, out of options, I came home, turned on the TV, and just waited. Little after two, the phone rings.” The man yanked a petal off the tulip he was gripping. He stared at it for a second then flicked it to the ground. “It’s the cops.”
Mentz felt a sudden vibration on his thigh, followed by faint bursts of music coming from the pocket of his jeans. “Sorry.” He reached for his cell. The new ringtone he’d downloaded a few days earlier, a tinny rendition of the Doors “Break on Through,” clamored louder and louder into the damp air as he struggled to pull the phone from his pocket. “Excuse me, one sec.”
“Vaut’s going on,” Vogel asked in a bogus German accent. “Katzenjammer this morning?”
“Hey, Carl. Listen. I can’t talk now.”
“I’ll be quick den: Rendezvous mit Apotheke Frauen punkt funf uhr.”
“Whatever. I’ll call you back.”
“Brady’s Run Grille,” Vogel said. “Five sharp. You need laid, nicht wahr?”
Mentz hung up. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t let me keep you from anything,” the man said.
“You’re not. I called off. Except to buy you and Denise another dog, I have no plans.”
“Another dog?” The man let out a sardonic chuckle. “Like that would help.” He turned and walked toward the patio.
Mentz followed, keeping a distance. “Denise all right?”
It started drizzling. The man stopped in front of the dark doorway outside the garage. “No, Gene. She’s not all right.” He slapped the doorjamb. “Christ, man!” He turned toward Mentz, his face wild. “She’s in jail! Okay?” He looked down at Augusta’s possessions, disgusted. “She ran a red light and broadsided another car—killed the guy driving!”
Mentz opened his lips but nothing came out. His tongue, yielding to a nervous habit he retained from childhood, jabbed around frenetically inside his mouth until his molars clamped on it.
“Did you hear me? She killed somebody!”
“My God.” Listening to the metallic patter of raindrops on the gutter, Mentz’s eyes drifted over Augusta’s things—the olive dog food bowls (empty now), a wicker bassinet lined with blue-and-pink striped cushions covered with dog toys, a gray pet carrier. Behind these items, a yellow dog food bag leaned against the pink brick wall of the garage.
“I can’t even afford to post her bond.” The man reached both hands behind his head and undid the ponytail; ashen hair fell over his shoulders. “I had to call her father. Supposedly, he’s at the bank right now, trying to get a loan.”
Mentz considered asking the bond amount but thought better of it. “So Denise didn’t get hurt? I mean, she’s in jail, not the hospital—”
“Listen!” the man said. “Her physical injuries are the least of her problems. Some cuts and bruises. A sprained wrist.” He punched his hand. “She killed somebody, Goddamnit!”
Mentz stared at the brick that propped open the teal door.
“She’s being charged with felony vehicular manslaughter. Know what that entails? I spent all night researching similar cases on the Internet. She’s looking at seven fucking years, minimum. Probably more, since she has a past DUI.”
“Jesus.” Distant lightning slashed across the sky above the hills to the south. “I’m sorry.”
“No one controls fate,” the man said, bending over to latch the cage door of the pet carrier. “My wife’s an alcoholic. Who knows how long she waited for this excuse to drink. She’s acted miserable for months. Augusta’s death only hastened the inevitable.” He set the pet carrier in the garage. “I went to enough Al-Anon meetings to know no one else is responsible for an alcoholic’s actions. Hell. For the longest time, I thought D drank because I was a rotten husband.”
“I do feel somewhat responsible,” Mentz said.
“Gene, you’re not the one who got drunk and killed someone!” The man kept facing the dark interior of the garage. “You—you made it home.”
“I know. Still...”
“Forget it. It’s not your problem.”
“There has to be something I can do.”
The man spun around quickly, his face now crimped in anger. “All I want is for you to leave and never come back.” He walked toward Mentz, hand extended. “Got it?”
Mentz nodded and shook the man’s hand.
“Be on your way then.” The man turned toward the garage.
“Please. Tell Denise I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, Gene. I will. Take care. I’ve got shit to do.”
Mentz followed the sidewalk around the back porch, looking one last time at the dazzling tulips. Under the bruised sky, they were stunning, mesmerizing—bright enough to hurt hung-over eyes—and the scarlet petals being pelted by rain added a surreal quality. It saddened him to think how much Denise must have cared for them.
Overwhelmed by foreboding and guilt, he started his truck. The drizzle turned into steady rain. He switched on the wipers, thinking about how often he had driven drunk, how many times providence had kept him from causing a fatal accident.
A hundred yards down the road, he stopped for the flashing red lights of a school bus. Two women stood under umbrellas in the steady downpour as their children stepped off into the storm.
Mentz broke into a cold sweat. His hands were trembling on the wheel.
He needed a drink.
Impending doom quickened his pulse. He slid the can of beer from his crotch and shoved it under the seat; then listened ruefully as it emptied onto the gray carpet beneath him. Sitting behind the wheel, he couldn’t see the dog. But he imagined it lying there, dead, beyond the sun-faded blue hood of his Silverado. No yelps, no whimpering: a silence that meant death.
He considered driving off. But across the street some boys had witnessed the event. Prior to screeching tires, they were playing basketball on a driveway, shooting at a backboard bolted to the brick pediment above a closed white garage door. Now they stood huddled together, watching Mentz. If he took off, they’d probably sprint like vigilantes to catch sight of his plate.
He backed away from the dog and parked on the lawn in front of the juniper. Worried this could result in a DUI, he broke into a cold sweat. His stomach clenched, then burned. He reached into the console for the pack of cinnamon Dentyne he kept there for contingencies such as this and covertly jammed a stick in his mouth. He stuffed the rest of the pack in his pocket. Then the truck door opened and he stood on the street, watching the approaching phalanx of boys; he counted six, all young teens. One had a scar resembling a greater-than sign over his upper lip. Another clopped along in sneakers so white they looked brand new.
As the boys gathered before him, he decided to take control. He stiffened his posture and creased his brow. “Whose dog?” he demanded.
A couple of the boys looked at each other but the tall freckled one standing in front stared brazenly at Mentz. The faint orange stubble on his shaved head glittered with sweat. “Over there,” he said, maintaining a hard-ass scowl and pointing to the pink brick ranch-style behind the juniper. He cradled a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball in his arms, the wine-and-yellow swirl-patterned one imprinted with LeBron James’ autograph. Mentz focused on the cursive black scribble before his eyes fell on the inert dog. The animal had quit breathing. A red nimbus had begun forming around its piebald head, the blood leaking onto the road from somewhere underneath.
“Crap,” Mentz said. The kids hardly looked at the dog until Mentz did. Now they gawked. He decided to blow things out of proportion. “If that was a bug, would you still be looking?”
One boy, teeth a little too green for his age, simpered and replied, “Yes!”
Disheartened, Mentz looked at the ranch home. “Guess I better tell them their dog’s dead.”
A short kid with curly black hair emerged from the group. The skin on his face was flaky, peeling somewhat along the rosy cheeks beneath his dark sideburns. It looked white and scaly, as if a good breeze might take most of it off. “I’ll knock on their door,” he volunteered.
Mentz followed him down the blacktop driveway that had numerous fissures caulked with tar. When they reached the recently paved sidewalk, the boy began purposely scraping his Nikes over the broom finish, as though attempting to grind the concrete into a smoother surface. Mentz continued behind him, his mind squirming with dread. After hiking three steps onto the porch, the boy stopped on the black-and-yellow Steelers doormat and shot Mentz a somber glance before he pressed the doorbell. Mentz listened for an interior ring but heard nothing. He leaned against the flimsy fake wrought iron rail with his arms crossed.
“I don’t want any!” a dulcet woman’s voice hollered from the other side of the teal door.
Mentz glimpsed a shadow pass behind the peephole. He heard a bolt click, a little pop on the brass doorknob as it twisted open. Then the door swung inward with a whoosh and the woman appeared in the frame: denim Capris, a mossy-green blouse, ginger hair cropped above the collar, penetrating sapphire eyes. She smiled as if she’d won something.
“Unfortunately,” Mentz said, “we’re not the Prize Patrol from Publishers Clearing House.”
The boy gaped at him, bewildered. Mentz uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands in his pockets. His throat had constricted. “Um, well…”
“He ran over your dog, ma’am,” the boy said, turning his curly black head toward the road.
When the woman looked at Mentz, he shrugged. “It was an accident.” His fingers gripped the lining in his pockets, the knuckles on his left hand nudging the hard gum pack, the ones on his right grazing coins—change from the tab he’d paid at Brady’s Run Grille earlier.
“I have to get home for dinner,” the boy said, seeming afraid to look at Mentz again.
The woman stared over at her dead dog lying on the road, her blue eyes frantic. She covered her mouth with her hand. The boy ran down the steps and across the mottled yellow-green lawn to where his friends hovered over the animal. The cocky freckled kid started dribbling the basketball back across the street, the sweat on his shaved orange head glistening under the sun. One-by-one, the others snapped from their morbid trances and followed.
The woman’s hands fell to her hips. “How’d this happen?” Her face was turning blotchy and Mentz didn’t know how to respond. He looked toward the dog and at the rust-pocked bumper of his blue truck just feet away. The woman started breathing rapidly, letting plangent little moans escape with each gasp. Mentz thought she might be hyperventilating. Her hand covered her mouth again as she raced down the steps and across the yard in her green socks. On the first few strides, her heels dug divots into the moist ground, smearing commas of mud. Mentz stayed on the porch. If she looked in his truck, he hoped she wouldn’t smell alcohol or see the twelve-pack in the paper bag on the passenger seat—minus the one he’d been drinking when he hit her dog.
“Augusta!” she yelled as she reached the dog. “Augusta, wake up!”
The cocky kid stopped dribbling. “He ain’t waking up, lady.”
Mentz stepped off the porch and crossed the yard to where the woman stood staring down at the dog, arms rigid at her sides, fingers outspread and trembling. She knelt down and began rubbing the dog’s shoulder. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Augusta!” she wailed. Her hands thrust beneath the liver-and-white animal but retracted quickly: blood. Mentz saw the bright cherry on her fingers as she pulled away, horrified. Before that, apparently, she hadn’t noticed the shiny red fluid draining from the dog’s underside and veering toward her yard in the shape of an arrowhead. Mentz put his hand on her shoulder and, surprised by the silky texture of her mossy-green blouse on his palm, squatted next to her. “I’m truly sorry,” he said.
She acted as if she didn’t hear Mentz and this concerned him. Mentz and a coworker, Carl Vogel, had stopped for drinks at Brady’s Run Grille on the way back to the office after resolving a malware issue for one of their company’s clients. Still in training, Mentz was dispatched with Carl to observe and learn. Once onsite, though, it became evident that updated anti-virus software could have pre-empted the entire debacle and they managed to fully restore their client’s system by 1:00. But the suits would never know that. Returning to the blue company minivan outside the futuristic granite building of their client, Vogel declared it was time for a liquid lunch. A malingering, often flagrant anti-Semite, Vogel despised the ‘kike imbeciles’ who employed them. “We’ll charge the full day,” he said. “The Holocaust progeny will never know the diff.” Throughout the afternoon, between beers, they downed five Jagermeister shots apiece. Afterward, Mentz purchased beer for later. His on-again, off-again girlfriend, Tina, had been snubbing him lately, and since the Exley Electric Eagles (the Little League team he helped coach) didn’t have a game or practice that night, he planned a drunken evening at home watching the Pirates.
He stood and looked down at the part in the woman’s hair, at the white trench it cut along the middle of her scalp. “We should move your dog off the road.”
Across the street, the boys had resumed their game. Hearing their sounds—the dribble of the basketball, the grunts and curses, the scuffs and squeals of sneakers—Mentz realized the dog could have been a kid and felt instantly nauseous. “I’m going to lift your dog now,” he said.
“Augusta,” the woman said, looking up and down the street as if worried another car was coming. Then, appearing to settle some, she stood beside Mentz. “My name’s Denise.”
“Gene,” Mentz said. Fearing legal repercussions, he thought it prudent to give an alias. He knelt and watched his hands slide beneath the ribs and hind flank of Augusta. When he went to lift the animal, its limpness made him cringe; the head swung downward causing its nose to scrape the pavement. Mentz expected blood to gush from the brown nostrils but none did. The dog weighed more than he anticipated and as he stood, he backed into Denise. She glanced at him, somewhat aghast, teary eyes squinting against the late afternoon sun.
“Where to?” Mentz asked, shambling toward the middle of the yard.
Denise pointed to the side of the house. “Backyard.”
As they walked, Mentz saw Augusta’s blood trickling on the lawn.
“I’m sorry,” he said as they rounded the corner. They passed through an arched arbor and into a fenced-in backyard with a tulip garden. The tall, intensely red flowers stood in even rows across a large rectangle. The dirt looked wet, unnaturally dark; expensive, humus-rich soil used for growing tulips, Mentz figured.
Denise continued along the sidewalk, passing three mullioned cold frames sprouting tiny pale green seedlings, then up four steps onto the back porch. Teal shutters adorned the windows along the rear of the house. Mentz stopped at the base of the steps, his forearms and biceps beginning to strain. “Now what?” he asked. He felt warm, viscous blood accumulating on his hands.
Denise wiped tears off her face and drove a hand into the pocket of her Capris. She pulled out a set of keys on a green shamrock keychain. Mentz looked at the tall wooden fence surrounding the yard. Beyond the tulips, a clothesline stretched between two teal poles cemented into the ground. At the bottom of one, a partially unraveled skein of dog chain lay strewn across the grass, the argent links glinting sharply in the sun.
Mentz heard the key in the brass lock and watched Denise open the door. “What should I do with Augusta?” he asked. His arms were ready to give. When Denise gazed at him as though surprised he still held her dead dog in his arms, he felt a brief temptation to pitch the mutt into the tulips. Instead, he dropped to one knee and lowered Augusta to the ground. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his blood-smeared palms on the grass. “I have to go.” Standing, he noticed bloodstains on the right sleeve of his blue Stafford shirt, a shirt he’d purchased only a week ago. “Damn,” he said.
Denise attempted to pull the keys from the lock in the door but they fell on the porch. She knelt to pick them up; and remained there, on her knees. Mentz saw her looking at the dog again. It was dead—gone, beyond revival—but she was staring at it expectantly, as though she thought Augusta was just playing dead and that any second now he’d jump up, wag his tail, and start begging for the doggy treat he so richly deserved for his fine acting performance. She made a soft gurgling sound; then stood without the keys. “Wait. Let me at least wash the blood off your sleeve.”
Mentz scratched at the bloody cuff with his thumb. “Nah. I’ll get it out somehow.”
“I know you’ve been drinking but I promise I won’t phone the police.”
Mentz looked at her, stunned, anxiety muddling his thoughts. He feared her invitation was a ruse; once inside, surely she’d sneak off to another room and call the cops. Yet, simultaneously, he noticed how truly beautiful she was. “Okay.”
Denise pushed the door open and disappeared into the dark crevasse.
Mentz spit out his gum and climbed the steps. He grabbed the keys off the porch and tread into the shadowy kitchen. A piquant chili odor filtered through his nostrils, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten all day. Denise was already in the next room.
Mentz looked back at Augusta lying on the grass near the steps. “I feel awful about this,” he said. The craven sound of his voice reverberating off kitchen appliances embarrassed him. He set the keys on the cabinet and ventured into the living room.
Denise was sitting on the couch. Dark drapes hung to the floor in front of the large picture window, closed tightly, perhaps to keep the voyeuristic teenagers across the street from spying a naked glimpse of her. Ellen played on the TV without sound, MUTE glowing in bright red letters on the bottom of the screen. Uneasy, Mentz sat on the recliner.
For what seemed a long while, neither spoke. Denise leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her countenance so solemn Mentz thought she was about to burst into hysterics. He had forgotten about the blood on his sleeve and some rubbed off on the arm of the recliner. He furtively lowered the arm to his lap, careful to avoid touching the bloody section to his khakis.
“Did you not see my dog?” Denise inquired suddenly.
Mentz shifted in the recliner. “Not until too late.” He sat up straight. “I am truly sorry.”
Denise stood. “Please, quit apologizing. I don’t believe you intentionally killed Augusta.”
She went into the kitchen and switched on a light. Leery to be left alone, Mentz followed. Denise stopped at the sink and washed her hands with dish soap. She left the hot water running for Mentz. “Clean up,” she said, pulling a dishtowel from a drawer.
He scrubbed his hands and sleeve (unsuccessfully) with the peach-scented soap. “So what breed was Augusta?” he asked, watching blood and water coil down the drain. “Was he a pup?”
Denise was clinking glass in a cupboard above the cabinet. She removed two green goblets and glared at him as she placed them on the table. “She was an English Springer.”
“Oh.” Not sure what to expect, Mentz dried his hands looking out the window at the tulips. When he turned back, he saw Denise had opened a cupboard beneath the sink and—down on both knees, reaching deep into it—she looked like a POW digging an escape tunnel. He sat at the table, the strong aroma of chili causing him hunger pangs. Glancing around the rustic kitchen, he spotted the olive-green dog food bowls on the floor: one, near empty, contained crumb-specked water; the other, a blend of red, tan and gray nuggets.
“Like Jimmy?” Denise asked, standing with a bottle. She raised it in front of her eyes with both hands, examining the dark alcohol that leveled off just above the white label.
“Plenty,” Mentz said. That’s when he saw the diamond ring on Denise’s finger. “When’s hubby get home?”
Denise regarded him with angry eyes. Realizing bereavement could cause any number of emotional outbursts, he asked, “We drinking it straight?”
She plunked the bottle on the table. “With Coke. So don’t get your hopes up.”
Mentz considered the comment unwarranted and said so. “It’s not like I’ve hit on you.” He stood and leaned over the table on his fists. “I’m outta here.”
Denise opened the refrigerator. “I wasn’t especially attached to Augusta anyway,” she said, though her voice sounded throaty. “Hubby bought her to keep me company after my miscarriage.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“Diet or regular?”
“I’m leaving, remember?”
Denise stood a red Coke can on the table. “Your decision.”
Mentz sat back down as she twisted the white cap off the Jim Beam bottle and filled each glass halfway. “I like my drinks strong,” she said, “especially on occasions like this.” She added the Coke and sat across from him. He rotated his glass on the table, the bright chandelier directly overhead. He could sense Denise watching him and thought of himself as a defendant on the stand awaiting the questions of a prosecutor.
“I don’t know how Augusta could have slipped onto the street. I always chain her, to keep her from my gardens. She loves to dig.”
“Dogs get free.”
Denise looked at the back door. “Augusta got free alright.” She pulled her drink close. She stirred it with her pinky, glumly watched the swirling surface. Then, as if to adjourn her thoughts, she slapped the table.
“Nice tulips,” Mentz said, eager to change the subject. “Buy those around here?”
“My beauties? No. I order the bulbs from a private grower I found on the Internet. Those tulips out there came all the way from the Skajit Valley in Washington, north of Seattle.”
“Amazing,” Mentz said. He picked up his glass but a noise in the living room startled him. It sounded like the front door had opened. Denise looked suddenly alarmed.
“Denise?” a male voice called out. “D! Whose truck’s in our yard?” The door banged shut, clattering dishes in the cupboards.
Mentz stood, aware he might have to fight.
“He’s way early!” Denise whispered, sliding quickly from her chair and scooping his drink from his hand. She set the glasses in the sink and, her face erupting with more blotchiness, hurried across the kitchen and into the living room.
Mentz looked at the back door. He could run out, be around the side of the house and into his truck in seconds. He stared at the tiny blue seagulls on the wallpaper by the living room doorway. A hushed conversation had commenced in there. Very soon, angry hubby would emerge.
Mentz gripped the Jim Beam bottle by the neck and pulled a two-ounce Dixie cup from the dispenser affixed to the wall near the sink. He decided to down a shot before hubby came through the doorway. When he tilted the bottle, the bourbon poured so rapidly it spilled over the rim of the cup and ran coolly over his fingers before he could pull it back. “Shit,” he heard himself say.
As if in contrapuntal response, the man in the other room shouted, “How!”
Mentz threw back the shot, hardly tasting the sweet, biting tang of the Beam until it burned his stomach. In stealthy steps, he edged toward the door. Nothing good could come from staying. He turned the knob quietly, pulling the door back enough to squeeze through. He stepped over the lifeless dog on the grass then ran around the house, under the arbor and through the tight passageway between the blue juniper and withering hedges, following the same ill-fated steps Augusta took into the street earlier.
The kids were gone. A black Mustang was parked now on Denise’s driveway.
Mentz checked around for anyone watching; then floored it.
~ ~ ~
The next morning, Mentz awoke with a severe hangover. His entire body exuded the odor of Jim Beam. Even after brushing his teeth twice, he could still taste it. He lay in bed, literally writhing, as ultramarine light slowly engulfed his room. Someone had pounded a spike into his skull above the right eye and was twisting it back and forth, ratcheting up the flow of vomit-inducing nausea.
He went in the bathroom and tried to throw up. He stared down at the white circle of water, rocked back and forth on his knees. When that failed, he jammed two fingers down his throat and began invoking repugnant images: diarrheic feces, the calligraphy of pubic hairs on the toilet rim morphing into maggots, Augusta’s brain matter—all to no avail. He gagged but only regurgitated saliva. His head hurt worse now than before. He couldn’t go to work in this condition.
He found the portable phone on the coffee table. The night before, he’d tried calling Tina several times but kept reaching her voicemail. He recalled leaving messages, though he couldn’t remember what he’d said—probably drunken pleas for her to come stay the night. After the dog incident, his entire body had tensed up, and instead of driving home, he hit a drive-thru and went to his regular hangout, The Castle, a bar decorated with a medieval-themed interior. Throughout the evening, he drank Beam-and-Coke and thought about Denise while watching the Pirates-Cubs game, a contest that was now a blur.
After inventing an excuse (severe sinus infection), he dialed the office. His supervisor, Mr. Levinson, was in a meeting—a blessing Mentz hadn’t counted on—and he left a message with the secretary. Then his anxiety kicked in: he’d only worked at Amockwi Valley Technology for three months, and already this was his third call-off.
He popped three Tylenol and returned to bed. Head still throbbing, he rebuked himself for the cowardly way he’d left Denise’s house. As he began dozing off, the phone rang. Shocked by the shrill noise, his body jerked, causing the sharp fissure of pain to rupture above his eyes again. He panicked, believing it was Levinson. Seven-and-a-half excruciating rings later, his answering machine retrieved the call. “Listen good, asshole!” Tina’s voice shrieked. “Quit calling after midnight, drunk off your ass! Again, you left a million slurred, incoherent messages. You’re pathetic! You ruined my sleep! Now I’m exhausted and can’t get shit done here at work. So don't—don’t call me anymore. I mean it! Ever!”
~ ~ ~
Mentz saw the crimson stain on the road in front of the juniper and almost kept driving. The Mustang wasn’t in the driveway, though, so he parked in front of the garage. Worried he still reeked of liquor he chewed another piece of cinnamon gum and finished listening to a weather update on the radio that predicted severe thunderstorms. The sky hung low and dark. He could smell the rain. He still felt the queasiness of his hangover.
Standing on the Steelers welcome mat, he pressed the white doorbell and waited. Despite the fact he was living paycheck-to-paycheck, he’d come back to make amends by offering to buy Denise another dog. But the house appeared empty: no noise or detectable motion. He pushed the doorbell again and this time thought he heard something. He inched closer. The noise persisted but didn’t emanate from within the house. He thought it came from the backyard. Perhaps Denise was doing yard work.
Passing through the arched trellis, he paused: the fierce, bright red tulips stood out vividly under the darkened sky. Their striking brilliance shocked his eyes. He saw no one in the yard. As he continued along the sidewalk, the tulips seemed to turn eerily toward him.
He climbed the steps to the back porch. He bent into the glass, using a hand to shade his eyes so he could peer through the open blinds.
“Hey!” a man shouted. Startled, Mentz glanced at the origin of the vaguely familiar voice. A tall, wiry man in jeans and a green pocket T-shirt stood on the patio behind the garage. “Can I help you?” the man asked, wiping his hands with a rag. His long ashen hair, thinning on top, was pulled back in a ponytail. He looked fifteen-to-twenty years older than Denise. Augusta’s possessions were lined-up on the patio behind him.
“Are you Denise’s husband?”
“Sure am,” the man said, sounding peeved.
Mentz scratched his goatee. He had trouble believing him. “Denise here by any chance?”
The man tossed the rag on the lawn. “What’s this about?”
Mentz descended the steps. He walked a few feet toward the man until he realized he was stammering. Three times in a row he’d started to say, “I’m the guy”—each time with the emphasis on a different word. Humiliated, he stopped walking.
“You’re the guy?” the man asked, perplexed. He lifted his arms out to his sides, palms up, and shrugged. “You’re the guy what?”
Mentz cleared his throat. “I’m the one who hit your dog yesterday.”
The man’s eyes widened. He wiped sweat from his crinkled forehead. “That was you in the kitchen, drinking with my wife?”
“No.” Mentz crossed his arms. “I mean, she filled the drinks just before you got home. We never even had a chance to take a sip.”
“Whatever you say,” the man said. “Gene, is it?” He stared sharply at Mentz. “You can cut the shit, Gene.”
“I’m not lying,” Mentz said, having forgotten he’d given Denise an alias.
“Don’t take me for a fool. I found the bottle. It was half empty, for Christ’s sake!”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“If Denise told you to cover for her, forget it. The jig is up.”
“Look, if you go find Denise, she’ll clear this up. I came to ask if I could buy her—well, both of you—another dog. I never met your wife before yesterday. Honestly. I only entered your home because she offered to clean blood off my shirt. I got some on my sleeve carrying Augusta around back here. Your wife wasn’t looking too good and, well, I didn’t know what to do. Whole situation was, you know, awkward.”
The man squatted down, appearing suddenly more distraught than angry. He plucked grass from next to the sidewalk and pitched it over his shoulder. “We haven’t kept alcohol in this house for over six months. Did you know that, Gene? I myself haven’t had a beer in six months. Christ. The sacrifices you’ll make for a woman.”
Mentz put his hands in his pockets. The man squinted up at him. “So you came back here with good intentions.”
“Yes,” Mentz said, despite the sarcasm. “Denise was pretty broken up and, well, I wanted to make up for it somehow.”
The man stood. “Didn’t expect to find me here, did you.”
Mentz smiled nervously. “No.”
“Didn’t think so.” The man’s eyes swept the yard. “Good thing you left through that back door yesterday. If I’d caught you drinking with my wife, her six months of sobriety flushed down the drain, who knows what I’d have done.”
“I can imagine.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t think you can. Or you wouldn’t be here.”
Mentz pulled his hands from his pockets. “I just came to—”
“Cut the innocent routine!” The man turned toward Mentz. “We both know you expected to find my wife alone, still moping about her dead dog, and that your little ‘I’d-like-to-buy-you-a-new-puppy’ scheme would get you in the door for another chance to drink with her.”
It began to sprinkle. Mentz felt a cool drop land on his forehead. “That’s not true.”
“Really.” The man put his hands on his hips and laughed. “You lying fuck.”
Mentz took a step back. “Look, I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ll leave.”
The man sighed and looked at the darkening sky. “I don’t mean to be hostile but...”
“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have come back. I’m sorry.”
The man squatted again, steadying his gaze on the tulips. “Forget it. Taking my grief out on you is wrong. Maybe I’m in shock. Hell, twenty-four hours ago I was discussing 401k options with the lady from HR, trying to figure a way to siphon money for me and D to go on vacation to Aruba this summer without paying a penalty. Then I come home to her flipping out because someone ran over our dog—that someone being you—and suddenly our lives are in the shitter.”
Mentz shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It was an accident.”
“Oh? The way I heard it, you were pretty tuned-up.”
“Denise said that?”
The man’s eyes closed. “Irrelevant now, I guess. What matters is how she reacted. After you left, she went berserk, tore the whole house apart. Broke things, threw shit everywhere. Kept screaming F-this, F-that at the top of her lungs. I mean, Christ. I had to put her in a bear hug to calm her down.”
“Wow,” Mentz said.
“Yeah.” The man snorted. “Wow.” He stood and walked to the tulip garden. “So I held her, hugged her, did my best to console her. Near dark, when she finally quit yammering on about our house being cursed and how much she hates living here anymore...when all that ended she insisted we have a funeral. Yep. Made me bury Augusta right back there behind her damn precious tulips.” He reached down and squeezed a red petal of one between his fingers. “I should’ve known something was amiss. That stoic expression on D’s face? Never saw anything like it. And after she took our crucifix—the very crucifix that’s hung above our bed anywhere we’ve lived since we got married—and planted it in the mound of dirt above Augusta, she didn’t say a prayer or anything. She just spat on the ground and muttered Semper Augusta.” His hand wrapped around the tulip’s stem. “Back inside, after that beautiful little ceremony, she asked me to bring her a blanket so she could lie on the couch. So I helped her settle in and tried to give her a kiss. But she said I was filthy, told me to go shower. Her tone was vicious.” He bit his lower lip. “I should’ve known something was up, like I said, because when I came out, she was gone. While I was taking a shower, she took off in my Mustang.”
Mentz sensed something awful had happened. “Where’d she go?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I went looking for her, drove around for a while in her car, checking all the watering holes she used to frequent. Called all her friends, the ones she used to drink with, but nada. Eventually, out of options, I came home, turned on the TV, and just waited. Little after two, the phone rings.” The man yanked a petal off the tulip he was gripping. He stared at it for a second then flicked it to the ground. “It’s the cops.”
Mentz felt a sudden vibration on his thigh, followed by faint bursts of music coming from the pocket of his jeans. “Sorry.” He reached for his cell. The new ringtone he’d downloaded a few days earlier, a tinny rendition of the Doors “Break on Through,” clamored louder and louder into the damp air as he struggled to pull the phone from his pocket. “Excuse me, one sec.”
“Vaut’s going on,” Vogel asked in a bogus German accent. “Katzenjammer this morning?”
“Hey, Carl. Listen. I can’t talk now.”
“I’ll be quick den: Rendezvous mit Apotheke Frauen punkt funf uhr.”
“Whatever. I’ll call you back.”
“Brady’s Run Grille,” Vogel said. “Five sharp. You need laid, nicht wahr?”
Mentz hung up. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t let me keep you from anything,” the man said.
“You’re not. I called off. Except to buy you and Denise another dog, I have no plans.”
“Another dog?” The man let out a sardonic chuckle. “Like that would help.” He turned and walked toward the patio.
Mentz followed, keeping a distance. “Denise all right?”
It started drizzling. The man stopped in front of the dark doorway outside the garage. “No, Gene. She’s not all right.” He slapped the doorjamb. “Christ, man!” He turned toward Mentz, his face wild. “She’s in jail! Okay?” He looked down at Augusta’s possessions, disgusted. “She ran a red light and broadsided another car—killed the guy driving!”
Mentz opened his lips but nothing came out. His tongue, yielding to a nervous habit he retained from childhood, jabbed around frenetically inside his mouth until his molars clamped on it.
“Did you hear me? She killed somebody!”
“My God.” Listening to the metallic patter of raindrops on the gutter, Mentz’s eyes drifted over Augusta’s things—the olive dog food bowls (empty now), a wicker bassinet lined with blue-and-pink striped cushions covered with dog toys, a gray pet carrier. Behind these items, a yellow dog food bag leaned against the pink brick wall of the garage.
“I can’t even afford to post her bond.” The man reached both hands behind his head and undid the ponytail; ashen hair fell over his shoulders. “I had to call her father. Supposedly, he’s at the bank right now, trying to get a loan.”
Mentz considered asking the bond amount but thought better of it. “So Denise didn’t get hurt? I mean, she’s in jail, not the hospital—”
“Listen!” the man said. “Her physical injuries are the least of her problems. Some cuts and bruises. A sprained wrist.” He punched his hand. “She killed somebody, Goddamnit!”
Mentz stared at the brick that propped open the teal door.
“She’s being charged with felony vehicular manslaughter. Know what that entails? I spent all night researching similar cases on the Internet. She’s looking at seven fucking years, minimum. Probably more, since she has a past DUI.”
“Jesus.” Distant lightning slashed across the sky above the hills to the south. “I’m sorry.”
“No one controls fate,” the man said, bending over to latch the cage door of the pet carrier. “My wife’s an alcoholic. Who knows how long she waited for this excuse to drink. She’s acted miserable for months. Augusta’s death only hastened the inevitable.” He set the pet carrier in the garage. “I went to enough Al-Anon meetings to know no one else is responsible for an alcoholic’s actions. Hell. For the longest time, I thought D drank because I was a rotten husband.”
“I do feel somewhat responsible,” Mentz said.
“Gene, you’re not the one who got drunk and killed someone!” The man kept facing the dark interior of the garage. “You—you made it home.”
“I know. Still...”
“Forget it. It’s not your problem.”
“There has to be something I can do.”
The man spun around quickly, his face now crimped in anger. “All I want is for you to leave and never come back.” He walked toward Mentz, hand extended. “Got it?”
Mentz nodded and shook the man’s hand.
“Be on your way then.” The man turned toward the garage.
“Please. Tell Denise I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, Gene. I will. Take care. I’ve got shit to do.”
Mentz followed the sidewalk around the back porch, looking one last time at the dazzling tulips. Under the bruised sky, they were stunning, mesmerizing—bright enough to hurt hung-over eyes—and the scarlet petals being pelted by rain added a surreal quality. It saddened him to think how much Denise must have cared for them.
Overwhelmed by foreboding and guilt, he started his truck. The drizzle turned into steady rain. He switched on the wipers, thinking about how often he had driven drunk, how many times providence had kept him from causing a fatal accident.
A hundred yards down the road, he stopped for the flashing red lights of a school bus. Two women stood under umbrellas in the steady downpour as their children stepped off into the storm.
Mentz broke into a cold sweat. His hands were trembling on the wheel.
He needed a drink.
