The screwdriver stopped for a moment, then went on.
He finished replacing the panel and got to his feet, looking out the window at the smoke, which had turned the moon blood red.
Without looking back at her, he knew she hadn’t moved. She stood there, silent now.
“Kaylie, I’m an officer of the law.” For the first time, his chest felt tight as he said that.
“Yes,” he heard her say.
He walked over to the outlet, plugged the air conditioner in, listened as it hummed to life, giving off a dusty smell of disuse.
“You fixed it!”
He looked over at her, at the way her face was lit up in approval and admiration.
“Yes,” he said, and moved the bed back against the wall.
He walked back to the air conditioner, adjusted its settings. He closed his eyes and bent his face to it, letting the cool air blow against him; felt it flattening his eyelashes and buffeting his hot skin.
“Kaylie.”
“Yes?”
“Go turn the clothes dryer off.”
She hesitated, but then he heard her leave the room, heard her going out into the garage. He looked out the window and saw the headlights of other cars coming toward the house. He stood up straight, lifting his fingers to his badge, feeling the now-chilled metal beneath them.
Fifteen years as a deputy sheriff, only to come to this.
Why tonight, he wondered.
Late September Dogs
by Gene KoKayKo
Standing in the waves, Rube figured everything he had had gone south already — his hair and his chest and the arches in his feet. So why should he, Barney Rubekowski, follow them? His friends had gone south, too, most to Florida, and Rube had wanted to start over somewhere new, somewhere warmer than the East Coast but not quite so far south... so retired. Somehow southern California still seemed too south and too much a copout, so Rube had settled for the central coast of California, west but right in between. This way he could see the big O, the Pacific, not that dribble the Atlantic, or some Gulf of Something, but the big P, the real ocean.
And so what if he couldn’t swim? And so what if he no longer looked quite so good in a bathing suit? He could wade, couldn’t he? He could wade and splash a little way into the great surf. He had his pension and his new apartment and his number fifteen sunblock; and the sun was bright and not too hot and the world belonged to him and the big old dog who was the only other creature on the beach this early in the morning. He had beaten the odds, made it out of the rat race, found home — in spite of what old what’s-his-name had said you couldn’t do again — and by damn he was going to—
What did that dog have in his mouth?
Rube felt a flush of curiosity, then a flash of apprehension as he saw the human hand. The dog was big, a yellowish Labrador, and even from where Rube stood in the waves, he could tell the dog was careworn. His tail was ringed with scabs, as if some greater animal had taken small chunks along the way, had chewed the tail when the Lab wasn’t looking. It gave the tail a diseased look, like some aging raccoon that was losing its fur. The dog stood on the shore, but Rube could still clearly see the human hand. The big Lab had it between his teeth as if worrying a snack, and he was trying to pull the hand from a huge clump of greenish seaweed. Rube could tell the dog was a he, too, the dog all spraddle-legged like that, and Rube shook his head at the observation, wondering why, at times of stress, he always noticed things like that. It was a character flaw, he felt. One he’d always had. If there was a terrible accident in the street, he would not only see the accident but all the attendant sights and sounds on the periphery. He’d see the car make, the color, the license plate number. He’d remember later the kind of day: cloudy or bright, approximate air temperature, number of clouds. Everyone else would be screaming, “Oh my God, the blood!” and good old Rube would be checking out the details. Inside, Rube thought, where no one could see. There was something wrong with him. He had no real compassion, perhaps, for humanity and its tragedy.
Rube splashed toward the dog. As he did, his focus frayed again and he saw: almost deserted beach, one flock of gulls a hundred yards down picking over some trash; a sky misty with alto cumulus; a sun melting through the clouds, still rising toward zenith; and a breeze softly tossing more trash along... the breeze plucked at the sweat on his forehead.
The dog saw Rube coming. He growled around the hand, then started to back, with the hand still in his mouth. The clump of seaweed shifted slightly.
“Easy now,” Rube said, splashing up on the sand, “easy boy,” as though he were trying to settle a big horse that was about to buck. Hell, the dog was big as a horse. But that wasn’t the real reason — that wasn’t the real fear. Rube was trying to settle himself because he didn’t want to see what the dog had — not really. From a distance this was all very interesting, but from up close there was a chance it would get gruesome. Worse, it might interfere with Rube’s new life. If what was attached to that human hand was a human body, then he’d be involved. And he hadn’t come to the coast of California to get involved. He’d come here to retire.
The big dog lowered his head, as if to hide the contents of his mouth.
“Don’t you swallow that!” Rube shouted.
The dog’s eyes were big and white and they seemed to turn in the great head and accuse him.
“Drop it, now!”
But the dog didn’t. He pulled instead, a muscle-wrenching heave of a pull that suddenly exposed a white arm. The rest of the body was tangled up in the big clump of green seaweed, and Rube told himself he couldn’t really see. Couldn’t really see the white, bare shoulder, and exposed breast, and the big gaping hole.
Rube turned away and put his hands on his shaky knees. “Ah, Jesus Holy Jehoshaphat.”
His arms shook, and the sweat spilled down his forehead. Salty, it burned its way down his face like a track of guilty tears.
He could hear the dog worrying the hand, a small whimper through his large white teeth. Rube realized he’d bitten his own lower lip so hard the blood ran down his chin. He ran the tip of his tongue over the spot, licking it back like a wounded animal. He felt wounded.
But alive. And breathing.
The body tangled in the seaweed was not. The body tangled in the kelp was way past any thought or consideration for such mundane physical needs.
How to get the dog away?
Rube straightened and wiped the smear from his chin. He stomped toward the dog, big splashing steps in the sand. Pebbles flew, but the dog stayed. Whimpering.
“You gotta let go of that,” Rube begged.
The dog growled around the fingers of the hand.
Rube backed off and picked through the sand until he had a neat handful of sharp stones. He started pegging them at the yellow Lab. The first fell short. Rube grimaced and bore down and fired the next, hard, at the dog’s flank. The dog yelped, hitching sideways, but he held onto the hand. The dog seemed to grin around the shredded flesh like some demon from hell. Rube started throwing rocks as fast as he could: one, two, three, striking the dog along the body; and finally, the dog romped sideways, dropping the shredded hand. He stood with his big head hanging, looking back as if mournful over his loss.
“Just stay now — just stay.” Rube waggled his finger at the dog, and the dog dropped to his haunches. Still whimpering. Still looking mournfully at the body.
Rube didn’t want to look down, but he’d earned the right. On top of the kelp now, he could see more. Her hair was long and darkened by the sea, but her eyes were open and light, the color of green he remembered from old Coke bottles in his youth. They stared up but past him with a look of accusation and shock, a “how dare you look at me like this” look that made him glance toward the dog. The dog started to whine.