Linda was looking at Doug, studying him, and for a paranoid second he thought that Kevin had put Linda up to this-have him over, make him tea, and see if he confesses. Then he decided that the paranoia was probably just the joint he had fired up on his way over. He doubted Kevin and Linda ever spoke to each other long enough to hatch a plan. But just to make sure, he added, “I didn’t do it. I never got busted.”
“I know, sweetie,” Linda said. “I never thought you did.”
Her voice was warm and friendly, revealing a side of her Doug had never noticed before, and she suddenly struck him as a person, a woman, a different entity from Kevin, with whom Doug had always associated her. It was always Kevin and Linda. For four years, he had seen her come and go and occasionally spoken to her, but she hadn’t existed for him except as Kevin’s accessory, much like his car or his sunglasses. He liked being called sweetie too.
“Why does he think I did it? I mean, after all this time, I’d admit it if it had ever happened. Does he really think I’d turn him in? Dude, you know what they do to you for dealing? It’s like a slap on the wrist. I wouldn’t ruin his life for a slap on the wrist, you know.”
Linda looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, honestly, I always thought of you as a waste case,” she said. “You’re really a nice guy. I can see why Kevin likes you.”
“I always thought of you as a nag.”
There was a moment of silence, and then they both laughed. Linda leaned across the table and said with a conspiratorial grin, “Hey, you don’t have any smoke with you, do you?”
“Yeah, I do,” Doug said. “Do you have any… like, uh… fuckin’ double-A batteries?”
KEVIN WAS WALKING a pit bull in the rain. The pit bull was named Jeffrey, and he belonged to a shifty doctor who lived alone in a million-dollar house in Westlake. Kevin figured the dog had not been bought for companionship, but because the doctor was too cheap to install a security system. Or maybe not too cheap. Maybe he liked the idea that, instead of hearing an impotent alarm go off, a burglar should be torn to shreds. Having been banished to the yard, even during the harsh winters, Jeffrey was usually in a state of physical neglect and starved of human contact, and was always so happy to see Kevin on his daily half-hour visits that it was often difficult to get his leash on for all the joyful bouncing around. Eyeing the sores on the poor dog’s back as the rain grew heavier, Kevin wondered if the alarm system wouldn’t have been a better decision for all involved.
Kevin had started his dog-walking business two years ago, purely by chance. Fresh from a ninety-day stint in jail and convinced that no one would ever hire him, he had been moping around the house when Linda had mentioned that if he wasn’t going to do anything all day, he could at least walk Nicky Taylor’s dog around lunchtime. Nicky Taylor was a rich divorcée who owned the dress shop where Linda worked, and she was constantly leaving Linda alone in the busy store so she could drive home and let her golden retriever out. He had done it one day, just to shut Linda up, and then the next day, then the next. Then within a week he found himself actually looking forward to it. The dog-walking provided an anchor to days which had become aimless and empty, and he found himself getting attached to the dog. Max, the retriever, was marvelously uncomplicated, had no needs that couldn’t be easily met, and expressed nothing but the most sincere appreciation. After seven years of a deteriorating marriage, this was exactly the type of relationship Kevin was looking for.
Nicky had then, without asking, compiled a list of all her wealthy friends who also needed their dogs walked, and had come up with a pay scale and a schedule for him. At first, Kevin had been annoyed, picturing the two women sitting around the dress shop planning every detail of his life. Linda couldn’t just leave him alone, give him time to get things figured out, get his life back together. But then he realized that the work entailed no boss and noticed that the pay scale Nicky had arranged was well in excess of anything he himself would have asked for, and he couldn’t believe that he could earn a hundred dollars a day just for showing up at five or six houses and taking a dog out to shit. It kept Linda quiet and got him out of the house, and it brought money in. Soon he found the postprison depression had lifted, and he was printing up business cards and actively pursuing clients.
The rain was turning into a downpour, which Kevin liked. He was getting drenched and it gave him a feeling of working, of earning money by battling the elements. Anyone could walk dogs in the sunshine. When the sound of the water hitting the immaculate sidewalks of Westlake became a dull roar, Jeffrey turned around and looked at him, as if he expected the walk to be cut short. Kevin nodded at him to keep moving. The dog responded with a jump of enthusiasm. Rain, shit. It wasn’t so bad. They both knew it was better than going home.
When the rain let up, his worn jacket and pants soaked through, Kevin’s mind wandered back to football. Specifically, he was trying to pinpoint the moment in his own football career when his life had completely changed tracks without him being aware of it. Perhaps it was the day he had started pretending that a slight bruise on his right knee was a crippling injury, or the week he had blown off football practice three times with a doctor’s note so he could go over to Linda’s house while her parents were out of town.
After having spent most of his childhood and early adult years imagining a superstar NFL career, and having been encouraged in this by every coach and player he had met in the high school system, it had taken only a year of playing at Western College to realize that he was, in fact, headed for the scrap heap of broken bones and also-rans. After less than a semester, the joy had gone out of it, and he had begun to notice that he was more likely to wind up as the limping assistant coach at some coal-town high school than as the guy doing shoe commercials and holding up the Vince Lombardi trophy on national television.
All the guys at Western thought they were going to the big time. They were all ex-high school stars. After practice one day, he had been looking at them, listening to their endless chatter of self-promoting shit, and he had thought of them as deluded. Then, in a moment of painful self-awareness, he had seen that he fit right in. He wasn’t going to the pros, no matter what. Western College athletes wound up as gym teachers. Ohio State sent guys to the pros, and they had never called him back.
After this epiphany, things went downhill quickly. He developed a thousand-yard stare during the pregame prayer and was often daydreaming when the coach called him off the sidelines for a play. Despite his versatility as a player (he could play tight end or cornerback equally well), he found his name called less and less frequently. Finally, during a midseason practice, after being slow to respond to an order to get on the field, he heard one of the coaches say to another, “Never mind. He doesn’t care.” Then they quickly called a different play which didn’t include him.
At the next game, when he showed up to strap on pads and tape and cleats and rub his hands with Stickum, he realized he didn’t care that much if Western College won or lost. He also didn’t care if he watched from the sidelines or played. The rah-rah sessions before the games, which featured offensive linemen screaming “WESTEEEEEEERN!” with a red-faced mania as they banged their helmets against lockers, and the episodes on the team bus, when assistant coaches would try to get the players fired up with primal screams, made Kevin feel less like he had accepted a college scholarship and more like he had joined a cult. After the games, when all the players would go to the Easytown Buffet to load up on platefuls of fried chicken and celebrate a victory or reflect on a loss, Kevin would grab a book and head down to the local diner and eat by himself.