The main rescue woman's name was Heather and she came over to shake my hand.
"You will not be forgotten in hound circles," she said.
"Somehow that fits," I said.
"Is there anything we can do for you?" I thought for a second and although a voice inside me said I was nuts, I had learned to ignore that voice most of my life. Recently, I think I've gotten even better at not paying attention to it.
"Yeah, there is. Would it be okay if Gladys and her kids came home with me?"
"I can't think of a better home for them." She smiled and then spontaneously hugged me. I reached in my pocket and gave her the money I got from Heimi.
"What's this?" she said.
"For your expenses. You'll need it." Kelley was smiling and so was Kim.
"You have some interesting friends, Mike," she said. No one called him 'Mike.'
"Yeah, I know," Kelley said, looking at me. He looked down and lightly kicked at the grass. "Hey Duff?" I looked at Kelley.
"I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for not believing you."
"Kell, you don't have to apologize. I was off my rocker and probably still am. Some of this shit's going to be with me for a while. Just because everything worked out doesn't mean I'm not a little-or a lot-fucked up," I said.
The next afternoon I got up, after sleeping right through to noon. I didn't remember dreaming and I barely remembered going to sleep. Gladys and the TCB Band-my name for the kids, after Elvis' backing group-slept on the floor. She seemed worn out, but otherwise okay.
I called Trina after a couple of cups of coffee.
"I don't know if I said 'Thanks'."
"I'm just glad you made it okay," she said.
"Tomorrow she'll fire me for sure," I said. "But, you know, it might be time, and a couple of months with nothing to do might be good for the mental health."
"Duff, the place needs you and I think you need it. You could still get in there and get caught up on the paperwork. You've done it before, you can do it again."
"Not today, Trinie baby. Not after what I've been through. Not this time."
The other end of the phone got quiet and I heard a sniffle or two.
"Hey, you doing anything today? I could use a hand with something."
"You always need a hand with something," she said. I told Trina to come over in about an hour and she did. She had on her 501s, a man's white T-shirt, and a pair of Adidas running shoes. Her hair still a little wet smelled of her plum conditioner.
I told her of my plan and she just shook her head.
"All of them?"
"Can you think of a better home for them?" I said.
"Well, actually, no."
We loaded the car up and Al sat in the back. At the hospital I commandeered a wheel chair and put the box on the seat.
"Looky who's here!" the world's cheeriest receptionist said. Al walked with his mother and didn't sprint over to spelunk this time.
"This is Al's mom and his brothers and sisters," I pulled the blanket off the box. I put my index finger up to my lips. "No one has to know, right?" I gave her my best wink. I got a wink back, and we headed up the elevator. Karl slept. He had an IV in and a monitor kept his pulse and blood pressure. I was about to touch him lightly on the arm when Al shook the walls of the hospital with the world's most effective alarm clock sound.
Karl's eyes fluttered and he came around. He shook his head a little bit and smiled down at Al and Gladys.
"She made it?" He grinned. "Thank God, she made it."
"Karl, I got something for you." He looked confused and I motioned to Trina.
She lifted the box onto his lap gently and took off the towel. The puppies peeped a little bit.
"Oh…oh my…oh my God." He started to cry. "They made it?"
"Every single one of them," I said.
Karl picked up each puppy, kissing everyone one of them. His tears ran into their mushy faces.
"Oh my God…" Karl kept repeating.
I looked at Trina and she was crying. I felt my eyes well up. Karl sat oblivious. He just talked to his new friends. I let him do it without interruption for awhile.
"Hey Karl, buddy?"
"Yeah, Duffy?" he said without looking up at me.
"They're going to need homes, you know." He finally looked at me.
"Gladys, too."
He stared at me and his jaw hung open.
"You mean…" Karl said
"I can't think of a more appropriate home."
"You mean…I get to…"
"Yeah, Karl, you do."
"But, I don't, I'm not sure…"
"You…and your family can stay at the Blue until you get your own place."
"You mean I can still live with you and Al?"
"…and Gladys and the entire TCB Band."
"Shit, Duffy, you really are crazy," Karl said.
"Takes one to know one," I said. The three of us laughed pretty hard while Al barked. Gladys, too tired to bark, purred a little bit.
"Hey, Duff," Karl said in a softer voice. "Newstrom and his boys ran into that storage shed before it blew, didn't they?"
"Yeah."
"Their own evil blew them up."
"Yeah. I think the good guys won this time." Karl and I looked each other in the eye for a long time. I'm not sure what I felt, but it felt good.
"Boy, we're some crazy motherfuckers, Duff," Karl said.
"Just cause you're crazy doesn't mean they're not out to get you, you know," I said.
I let Karl get some sleep and loaded up the hounds with a promise to look after them closely until he was released and back home with me.
Yeah, I know, it was nuts but what the hell?
49
Trina tried to talk me into heading to the clinic to do my paperwork, but I just couldn't see it. I can't say it felt like it was time to leave that job, but it just didn't seem right after all I had been through to worry about such trivial shit. Besides I was exhausted, in fact I was so exhausted I skipped AJ's. That's exhausted.
Back at the Blue it was just me and my ten pets. I watched Gladys lay down, totally wiped out, while her babies went to town on her built-in milk truck. Al lay next to his mom and kept his eyes open. I cracked a Schlitz and watched. I didn't turn on the TV and I didn't throw in an 8-track. I just watched, without thinking, just letting what was in front of me fill up my head. I did that for a long time, even sitting there with an empty beer, just watching.
I am in the clinic except I can't get in because the waiting room is jammed. The clients are all pushed together and barely able to breathe. I see Eli, Froggy, the Abermans, Sheila, and ones from the past like Sherry, and they're suffocating. I can't get in because the door is locked and they can't open it from the outside. Suddenly Claudia is behind me and she's laughing. Trina is behind her with her back to me and Monique is there too, with her head hanging down.
Inside the lobby sheets of paper start to blow out of an air vent and they're filling the lobby like water poured into an aquarium. The clients are drowning and I can't do anything about it. And then Karl is there peering out the window and he's in an Army uniform, except he's got on a Redskins helmet. Then, Walanda, the woman I got Al from, steps in front of Karl and she's bleeding from the head. She's ranting and raving like she always did, but half her head is missing. Then a loud bark…
…Wakes me out of it.
I'm on the couch, Al is at my feet, and the sun is up. The clock on the cable box tells me it's 5:15 a.m. Al won't shut up, his bark is in over-drive and he's getting on my nerves. I blinked my way to consciousness and tried to clear my head. So much for the belief I had exorcised my demons. Maybe there were new ones to meet and maybe Rudy was right and this shit was going to stick.
Al wouldn't shut up and there wasn't a chance of me going back to sleep.
5:30.
Fuck it, if I left now I'd get there by quarter to six and that would give me three hours to catch up on paperwork. It wouldn't be enough, but if I could get a signal to Trina, maybe she could stack the deck and together we could pull it off. I got dressed to drive to the clinic. As soon as I picked up the keys, Al shut up.