West of Rome Read online

“Get him out.”

  We followed Dominic into the house. The dog was not in the kitchen. Harriet found him in the living room, lying on the divan, his chin on a pillow.

  “He’s drooling on my needlepoint,” Harriet said. “Get him off.”

  He clutched a handful of loose fur at the neck and yanked. “Off, boy.” There was a growl, deep, ominous, intimidating. It came from under the floor, from out of the earth beneath the house. Dominic let go and backed away. The dog groaned wearily and closed his eyes.

  “Let’s leave him alone,” I said. “He isn’t hurting anybody. Open the front door, and when he decides to leave, he’ll do it on his own.”

  “I know!” said Harriet brightly.

  She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a mound of hamburger in a paper plate. “When he starts to follow me, open the door,” she said. Holding the hamburger at arm’s length she coaxed the dog with, “Come on, doggie. See what I have for you, some nice fresh hamburger.” She pushed the plate beneath his nose.

  The dog opened his eyes and gave her a bleak glance of disdain. Harriet was furious.

  “You get out of my house!” she commanded, stamping her foot and pointing toward the door. “Now, get out!”

  Vaguely aware of her, the dog stretched out and rolled over, his back resting against the cushions. He was achieving another hard-on, the carrot emerging and observing the scene. The dog raised his head and greeted his friend with a warm glance, then sloshed him a wet tongue.

  “He’s revolting,” Harriet said.

  I don’t know why I said it, but I said it all the same, a whim, a fragment of wit, and improvisation off the top of my head, with no malice intended.

  “I wish I could do that,” I said.

  “You’re sickening!” Harriet said.

  She slammed the hamburger into the fireplace and stomped out of the room and down the hall. We heard the bedroom door slam shut. I shrugged and looked at Dominic.

  “What the hell’s the matter with her?” I said. “It was a joke, that’s all.”

  “A Freudian slip,” he said.

  It curled my scalp. “What do you mean? You got a lot of guts, saying that to me. What do you know about Freud? Maybe you should consult him about shacking up with black chicks. Maybe you’ve got some kind of racial sickness!”

  He was out of the room, white-faced and angry, before I could finish. Out the back door, into the garage, into his car, the motor starting, the car backing up, headlights hitting me as I ran to stop him, the car moving out.

  “Hold it, kid!”

  The car stopped and I moved to the driver’s side.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that last crack. Forget what I said.”

  He was hurt, brooding.

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “I’ve had a rough day. I’m tired.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You go on. Have fun while you can, while you’re still single. It’s none of my business. I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay.”

  He backed the old Packard out, eased it around, and crooned it down the road toward the highway, the motor purring like a cat in the rain-washed night. A hell of a car, and I even thought of trading him my Porsche for a week.

  THREE

  The dog was still on the divan when I returned to the living room. He was whimpering in a nightmare, his legs striding jerkily as he cried out. Either chasing something in his dream or being pursued, his paws moved faster and faster. I felt sorry for him, for I often had such dreams of flight, chased by my wife, my agent, or the King brothers, the last producers to hire me. Suddenly he wakened and raised his head, glad it was only a dream, and sat up, panting contentedly.

  I asked him, “What’s your name, boy?”

  With a look he told me to drop dead.

  I went down the hall to make peace with my wife. She was sitting on the bed, manicuring her nails. It was good to see that she was no longer angry.

  I told her I was sorry I had said that.

  “Sometimes you can be such a pig.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “You’ve gotten so coarse. When I first met you, you’d never dream of saying such a thing.”

  “I was on the make then. Oh God, Harriet, we’ve been married so long I sometimes forget you have feelings too. Marriage brutalizes a man. So does being a father. So does being out of work. And dogs. What are we going to do about that fucking dog?”

  A pair of headlights splashed across the bedroom window that overlooked the front yard. Rick Colp, the ex-Marine, was bringing my daughter Tina home in his Volkswagen bus. It was very early for them to be coming home. I could only assume that the sergeant was hungrier than usual. The two were engaged, and had been since Rick got his discharge a year ago.

  As the headlights dimmed out Harriet said, “There’s the answer to our dog problem. Rick Colp.”

  “He owes me plenty. Twenty bottles of scotch, at least.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll know what to do with that terrible dog.”

  “I don’t want him disemboweled. I just want him out of the house.”

  “Leave it to Rick.”

  She liked Colp. She liked his big grin, his yellow surfer’s hair almost to his shoulders, his tanned good looks. Me, I wasn’t so sure. He was boffing my daughter and eating me out of house and home. For a year since his discharge the sergeant had spent his days on the beach, his life dedicated to surfing. At eight every evening he arrived at the house, picked up my daughter and away they rambled in his bus, to the movies or parties from Santa Barbara to Laguna, bringing her back at all hours, and sometimes at daylight.

  No matter the hour Tina quiety hustled him into the kitchen, closed the doors, and whipped him up a platter of ham and eggs and toast. While she prepared the meal and set the table Colp sipped my scotch from a tumbler of ice. Just for the hell of it I barged in on them at two o’clock one morning and found him with his shoes off, feet on the table, my scotch beside him. It left me brooding and practical and I went to my desk, took pencil and paper, and figured that in a year Rick Colp had eaten over a thousand eggs and a hundred and fifty pounds of ham from my refrigerator. And I hadn’t had an assignment in seven months.

  The liquor was something else again. I solved that problem by buying Bonnie Lassie scotch at Thrifty for seven dollars a half gallon and pouring it into empty Cutty Sark bottles. Bonnie Lassie tasted like chlorine but with his Marine Corps gut the sergeant never knew the difference. I hid the good stuff in the broom closet.

  It was not my disposition to accuse the sergeant of being a beach bum. He was too big for that. But he got the message through Tina, and one evening as he sipped Bonnie Lassie, waiting for Tina to dress, he offered an explanation for his easy life style.

  “It’s a period of adjustment,” he said. “I mean, like it’s not easy to become a civilian again. Like not coming up too fast, or I’ll get the bends.”

  I knew what he meant, for I had trouble adjusting to civilian life too. For fifty-five years I had been struggling to make the adjustment and had not succeeded. I envied him and wished that I too could drift a year or so along the rim of the sea in a VW bus with three surfboards, some scuba gear, a sleeping bag, and a chick like Tina.

  FOUR

  “That there’s an Akita,” Colp said, studying the sprawling dog on the divan. “He’s a Jap dog. I saw them in Tokyo. You don’t mess around with a dog like that.”

  “No wonder he won’t take orders,” Tina said. “Maybe he doesn’t understand English.”

  “I could call Mrs. Hagoromo over on Wadsworth,” Harriet said. “She’s a very sweet person, and I’m sure she’d be glad to speak to the dog.”

  “Oh, shit, Harriet,” I said. “We don’t want a dialogue with this beast. We just want him out of here. He may not understand English, but he understands force. That’s one language all dogs dig. Right, sergeant?”

  “Right, sir.”

  “Can you do it?”
r />   He grinned masterfully. “Get me an old coat, like a raincoat or something.”

  Harriet brought a plastic raincoat from the hall closet and Rick wrapped it around his mighty forearm, a thick shield that met his approval as he tested it.

  “I seen this done in Nam,” he explained. “When he makes his charge I’ll ram this arm between his jaws, which shuts off the power. Then I put a headlock on him and haul him out of here. Somebody open the front door. The rest of you folks stand back.”

  “No Rick, please!” Tina wailed, rushing to him. “You’ll be hurt. I don’t like that dog!”

  Her protest only stoked the fire of his manliness and he gave her a delicious little kiss on the nose and urged her to stand back with the rest of us cowards. She saw her chance to make a scene and began to weep, the tears as usual coming easily. He embraced her and soothed away her anxieties, and while this went on I asked Harriet if our home accident policy was paid up. She frowned and answered that it was. Meanwhile the dog suspected something and looked from one of us to the other, his long tongue hanging out and salivating.

  With a rare show of feminine fatalism Tina embraced her Marine and released him for the encounter. Colp stepped up to the dog.

  “Mr. Jap dog,” he said. “You and me got business.”

  He thrust his shielded arm toward the dog’s face. With a look of astonishment the dog withdrew against the cushion. There was no resentment in his expression. In fact he looked almost pleased and playful. We were more surprised than Colp, who stroked the wide soft place between the dog’s ears. He licked Rick’s hand as his bearish face crinkled in a smile.

  “Why, he likes you!” Harriet said.

  “Oh, Rick!” Tina breathed.

  “All he wanted was a little affection,” Colp said as he sat on the divan and allowed the dog to snuggle his nose into his lap. Eyes closed, the dog lapsed into rapturous contentment.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Tina said.

  ‘The poor, friendless thing,” Harriet said.

  Then we saw the carrot. We saw it at the same instant, flaming like a blowtorch. Colp saw it too.

  He moved to rise. The dog did not wish this, and there was a growl, a flash of teeth, a snarl, and the dog was suddenly upon him, pressing him down on his back, the gape of savage teeth at the young man’s throat, threatening, warning him to lie still, to submit peacefully as the carrot slammed into his levis, zap zap zap! Rick lay motionless, the big steaming mouth at his face.

  Tina shrieked and Harriet covered her eyes and cried, “Oh, my God!” I watched the whole thing in fascination. It lasted about five seconds. As soon as the carrot met the harsh texture of the levis it became disenchanted and quickly retreated into its sheath. In disgust the dog dismounted and wandered off into the kitchen.

  Rick brushed back his golden locks and tucked in his shirt.

  “What you got there, sir,” he said. “Is a fag dog.”

  “He ought to be shot,” Tina said.

  I disagreed. “Dogs are very democratic,” I said. “They’ll screw anything. I once had a dog who screwed a tree.”

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Rick said. “This dog is a nance. I’ll bet money on it.”

  “You mean, because he tried to hump you, he’s queer?”

  “Right.”

  “And if he tried to hump Harriet?”

  I didn’t see the blow coming as Harriet hit me in the mouth. She flounced down the hall to the bedroom and slammed the door.

  “Dad, you’re terrible,” Tina said.

  I dabbed my lip with a knuckle and saw a spot of red. Colp looked distressed, chin down, his blue eyes somber and staring at the rug.

  “How about a drink?” I said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Ham and eggs?” Tina asked.

  “Some other time.”

  He moved toward the door and Tina put her arm around him. At the door he paused.

  “Mind if I make a suggestion, sir?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Shoot the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “The idea has merit.”

  Arm in arm they strolled out to his bus. I walked into the kitchen and found the dog sprawled in front of the stove. To reach the broom closet I had to step over him. I took out the scotch, stepped over him again, and poured a drink. The front door exploded and Tina whipped into the kitchen. Her eyes scorched me.

  “I hate you, Dad. I hate your goddamn dog. All you ever do is make trouble. Poor Mother! I hope she leaves you.”

  “What’s bugging you?”

  ‘The disgusting things you say! Your filthy mind. You don’t respect anything. You’re worse than that dog, and I won’t have you embarrassing Rick, you hear? You stop it! Stop it!”

  She ran shrieking to her room, the house shivering as she blasted her door shut. The tremor opened the dog’s eyes. He blinked a couple of times and eased back to sleep.

  The rain began again, purring on the slant roof, and that pleased me, for rain was money out there, pennies from heaven, watering your property, reducing the danger of fires. The dog heard the rain and his ears peaked. He got to his feet and ambled to the back door, where he looked at me mournfully. He wanted out. I opened the door. He stepped out on the porch, sniffed the wetness, and moved out on the lawn to the place where we had found him. There he stretched out and closed his eyes, the rain bathing him.

  I went back to Harriet. She was in her nightie, reading in bed. Again her anger was gone and she smiled. When I told her the dog was out of the house she quickly slid from bed to see for herself. We went down the hall together. I thought Tina would like to know too, and I knocked on her door.

  “The dog’s gone,” I said.

  “Don’t speak to me again, ever,” she said from behind the door.

  Harriet and I stood on the back porch and watched the rain pelt the sleeping dog.

  “He’s spooked,” she said.

  A one-eyed 1960 Buick rolled clunking into the driveway. It belonged to Dennis, my second son, the actor. He wheeled the pile of junk into the garage and, came running through the rain, a portfolio under his arm.

  “I want to talk to you, Mother,” he snapped, paying no heed to me.

  “Denny, look,” Harriet said, indicating the dog.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “So let sleeping dogs lie.”

  He eased past us into the house.

  “Come in here, Mother.”

  He was a thin, crisp hustler with yellow hair like his mother’s, always in a hurry, impatient with the way his life was going at twenty-two. He studied theatre arts at City College, but with no love for academic discipline. He wanted to bust away for New York and take his chances with the theatre there, but he had joined the army reserves two years before in order to escape the draft. Now he faced four more years in the reserves before he could split for Manhattan. He had asked the army to transfer him to New York, but had been turned down because there was no unit there comparable to his special outfit at Fort MacArthur. He had worked in carnivals, amusement parks and county fairs. Now, in addition to his schooling, he drove a cab in Los Angeles and spent most of his earnings on dubious doctors and lawyers with schemes for extricating him from military service. Despite a dozen X-rays, blood tests and spinal punctures even the corrupt doctors could find no defects, and his flawless body left him moody and disgusted and trapped in the army.

  “I’m waiting for you, Mother,” he said from the kitchen.

  We went inside where he sat at the kitchen table, pulling papers from his portfolio. Without looking at me, he said, ‘Please leave the room, Dad. Mother and I have some private matters to discuss.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, folding my arms.

  Ignoring it, he handed Harriet a clutch of typewritten sheets. “You failed me, Mother. You failed miserably.”

  Dreading the ordeal, Harriet covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, dear,” she sighed. “Oh, dear.”

 
; “Look at the pages, mother.”

  Trembling, she studied the red pencil notations on the margins. It was the theme paper for his finals, a study of the plays of Bernard Shaw. It had been graded C minus and he needed a B to pass.

  “It’s not fair!” Harriet wailed. “I was sure I’d get an A! It’s one of the best papers I ever wrote!”

  He turned a crooked smile and leaned back in his chair. “You didn’t bear down. You sluffed the whole deal.”

  “I didn’t! I worked very hard.” She was almost in tears. “I read all the plays, all the prefaces. It was hard work.” Her fingers fluttered toward me. “Fix me a drink.”

  I made her a scotch over ice. “Oh, God,” she said, gulping it, scratching through the pages. “It’s so unfair. What do they want from me?”

  This was thin ice, this business of writing Denny’s themes. It had been going on for quite a while, ever since the sixth grade, and given him a sham eminence in English composition, really Harriet’s fault, for he had come to assume the work to be her responsibility.

  Leaning against the sink I slugged myself with scotch and listened to him berate her, my fists clinched to control myself. Her theme lacked organization, he said, and she had failed to include the proper footnotes. She had goofed on Pygmalion and had not even discussed Man and Superman.

  Harriet wrung her hands.

  “But it’s a good theme! It has a few mistakes, but even those are a matter of opinion. And it didn’t need footnotes.”

  He was a crafty bastard. Now that he had her intimidated he altered his style.

  “Don’t be discouragd. You’re getting a second chance.”

  It shocked her.

  “A second chance?” she faltered.

  “I had a talk with Mr. Roper. He knows how important this unit is for me, and he’s agreed to let me do it over.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she mourned.

  “Can you do it, mother?”

  She looked at me.

  “Fuck him,” I said.

  He smiled faintly, watching her.

  “I’ll try, Denny. I’ll do my best.”

  Exhausted, worried, she finished her drink.

  “May I say something?” I asked.