“Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy...”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Sneezy, and Sleepy.”
“You said Sleepy twice.”
“Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, and...” She paused. She wrinkled her brow. “All right, who’s the seventh one?” she asked.
“Orion,” he said, and she laughed again. “See? You laugh all the time.”
“Well, I guess I find you pretty funny,” she said seriously. “Maybe I ought to go back and study, after all. In the library or someplace.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Well, I have to graduate, you know, and then go on for my master’s.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“So I don’t want to get involved, that’s all.” She shrugged again.
“Walking through Greenwich Village on a nice fall day is hardly an involvement, now, is it?”
“I don’t know, you look like you’re just about ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“And also you’re Capricorn. To tell you the truth, you make me kind of itchy.”
“Mmm. Well,” he said abruptly.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I mean, you don’t make me physically itchy or anything.”
“No, I just make you uncomfortable.”
“That’s right.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, either.”
“How did you mean it?”
“It’s just I have to get my degree, you see—”
“Yes, and go on for your master’s. I know.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Okay,” he said.
“You get upset pretty easily, don’t you?”
“No, not usually,” he answered.
“You sure seem upset. You should see your face.”
“Well, a guy doesn’t like to be told right off the bat that a girl’s got to get her goddamn degree and then...”
“Go on for my master’s.”
“Yeah, go on for your master’s.”
“Mmm,” she said.
“You know I’m a veteran, you know that, don’t you?” he asked suddenly.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, I am.”
“Well, that’s very nice,” she said. “Are you going to school on the G.I. Bill?”
“Yeah.” He nodded angrily and said, “I just thought you might like to know.”
“I’m glad you told me.”
“I mean, I’ve been around the world, you know. I just got back from Japan a little while ago.”
“How was it?”
“How was what?”
“Japan.”
“Oh, fine. Fine.” He nodded again and said, “So what I mean is, you know, just because a guy asks you to take a walk, it doesn’t mean he’s ready to marry you tomorrow. I mean, maybe you ought to understand that.”
“Oh, I understand it.”
“Sure. I know how important your degree is, and all that, and your master’s, too, but don’t go running for the hills every time a guy asks you to take a walk, is all I’m saying.”
“Oh, well, sure, I understand that.”
“Well, good.”
“And I’m not running for the hills.”
“Well, that’s fine,” he said.
“Did you want to take me out or something, is that it?” she asked.
“Well, I did have something like that in mind,” he said angrily, “but I wouldn’t think of upsetting the entire American system of higher education.”
“When did you want to take me out?”
“I thought Saturday night.”
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” she said. “We just met, you know, on a park bench, you know. We’re practically strangers.”
“So?”
“So you don’t have to get so upset, that’s all. I told you honestly what my plans were. I’m going to get my degree, and then—”
“All right, all right, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“Well, I happen to prefer honesty,” she said.
“All right. What time shall I pick you up Saturday night?”
“I’m not even in the city on weekends,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m only here during the week. I go home every Friday afternoon.”
“Home?”
“Yes. To stay with my folks.”
“So what?”
“It’s a long drive.”
“I’m willing to make it. What time shall I pick you up?”
“I didn’t know it’d been settled.”
“It’s settled,” he said.
She stared at him in silence for a long time, and then she said, “Yes, I suppose it is.”
Her brother’s name was Dan, and the German shepherd was called Duke. He hated them both on sight. Dan’s hair and the dog’s hair were the same color, a sort of malicious brindled brown. Dan’s eyes were brown and suspicious; Duke’s were exactly the same color, and positively paranoid. Dan spoke in a deep guttural voice that seemed to originate somewhere deep in his bowels. Duke was continually growling accompaniment to anything Dan said, like an echo in a rat-infested sewer.
Sometimes, at night, after he had left Grace and was trying to get some sleep, he would think of Dan and Duke and the two would get mixed up in his mind. Which was the dog and which was the man? Or were they both dog-men? He concocted an elaborate fantasy in which Dan and Duke became secret army weapons, trained to kill all ex-navy men on sight, especially if they happened to be dating Duke’s... Dan’s... sister. Neither was a man and neither was a dog; that was the beauty of the weapon. The victim never knew which of the two would give the kill signal, which would be the one who leaped for the jugular. In his fantasy, sometimes Dan would be stroking Duke’s head and whispering, “That’s a good boy, kill, yes, that’s nice, sic ’im,” and other times it would be Dan lying prone at Duke’s feet while Duke gently scratched his neck and whispered the soothing words of death. He knew for sure that Duke was a son of a bitch; about Dan, he could only guess.
“How old are you?” Dan asked, the first time they met.
“Why do you want to know?” Buddwing said, and Duke growled. He looked at the dog. “What’s the matter with him?” he asked. “Doesn’t he like people?”
“There’s nothing the matter with him.”
“Then why is he growling?”
“That’s not growling, it’s talking,” Dan said. “I asked you how old you were.”
“And I asked why you want to know.”
“Because you’re dating my sister, okay? She’s just a kid.”
“She’s eighteen.”
“That’s just a kid.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No, huh? Well, she happens to be my sister.”
“So what?” Buddwing said, and he watched both of them closely, waiting for one or the other to give the kill signal, waiting for one or the other to spring for his throat. “I’m not dating you and your talking police dog, I’m dating her.”
“Yeah, and I think you’re too old for her.”
“I’m twenty-one,” Buddwing said.
“I’ll just bet you are,” Dan answered, smirking. The dog, on cue, smirked at the same time.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-five, at least.”
“Well, you happen to be wrong.”
“When were you born?”
For an insane moment, Buddwing wanted to lie. With instant death grinning at him from the dog-men, he wanted to say he had been born in 1842 and was really a hundred and four years old. He had been taking secret youth tablets that kept him virile and leching for eighteen-year-old girls. Duke growled warningly, or perhaps it was Dan.
“I was born on January tenth, 1925, how’s that?” he said. On impulse, he added, “I’m Capricorn.”
“This is 1946,” Dan said. “Which makes you twenty-one. If you’re telling the truth.”