The Schwa Was Here

5. Which Is Worse: Getting Mauled by a Pack of Dogs, or Getting Your Brains Bashed Out by a Steel Poker?

We set the operation for Sunday morning, 10 a.m.

Wendell Tiggor and a cluster of Tiggorhoids showed up to witness and make sure we didn’t just go out and buy a dog dish somewhere, then say we got it from Crawley’s. A bunch of the other kids who had bet against us were there, too, leaning against a railing across the street, so when the Schwa and I ride up on our bikes there are all these kids already there, looking way too suspicious. It’s called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash. I checked to see if Crawley’s looking out on us, but all I see in the dark windows above the restaurant are a couple of furry dog faces in front of closed curtains.

“So we thought you’d chickened out,” Tiggor says.

The Schwa took off his jacket. He was strategically dressed in dark brown; the same color as Crawley’s curtains. He walked over to the railing that overlooked the murky water of the bay, and stretched like this was an Olympic event.

At this point I was beginning to get nervous for him. “Lis­ten,” I say, “you might go unnoticed around people, but I don’t know about dogs. Our experiments didn’t include dogs. What if you’re like one of those whistles that people can’t hear, but dogs can—or what if they can smell you? We don’t know if you got a stealthy odor.”

He sniffed his armpit, then looked at me. “I smell stealthy to me. Want a whiff?”

“I’ll pass.”

“So what’s taking so long?” says Tiggor. “Are you gonna do it or not, because I ain’t got all day.”

“Hey, this is a delicate procedure,” I tell him. “The Schwa’s gotta get himself mentally prepared.”

Tiggor gave an apelike grunt. I took the Schwa aside. “Just remember, I’ll be right outside. If you need help, you signal to me and I’ll be there in a second.”

“I know you will, Antsy. Thanks.”

I swear, it felt like he was going off to war and not into some cranky old geezer’s place. The thing is, none of the other dares had the Schwa venturing into the unknown, unless you count the locker room. Crawley, even without ever being seen, was scary—and who knew if any of those Afghans were trained to kill.

I went around back with him, where a fire-escape ladder led up to the building’s second story. Old Man Crawley’s apartment was huge, filling the whole second floor—the only way in was through the restaurant itself—but by looking down from the roof of an apartment building a few blocks away, we had learned that there was a little courtyard patio in the middle of his apart­ment, open to the sky. That would be our point of entry.

The stench of yesterday’s lobster wafted out of the Dumpster behind the restaurant, smelling like a fish market on a hot day, or my aunt Mona (trust me, you don’t wanna know). Ignoring the smell, we hopped up to the lip of the Dumpster so we could reach the fire-escape ladder. I gently pulled it down, try­ing to keep it from squeaking. The Schwa climbed on.

“Stealth is wealth,” I said to him, which has been our little good-luck phrase ever since we started taking dares.

“Stealth is wealth,” he said back. We punched knuckles, and he climbed up, disappearing onto the roof. I crossed the street and waited at the edge of the bay with the others.

Tiggor looked at the windows of Crawley’s place, then looked at me. “So what do we do now?”

I shrugged. “We wait.”

Turns out we didn’t have to wait long. Although I wasn’t there to see what happened, it probably went something like this:

The Schwa jumps down into the little enclosed patio filled with gravel, and more dog crap than you ever want to see in one place. A door is ajar so the dogs can come and go from the patio as they please. This is the door the Schwa slips into.

The place is dark. The lightbulbs are just twenty-five watts be­hind dark lamp shades, and no sunlight makes it through those thick curtains. The Schwa stands there in the living room, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. There are two dogs fighting over a piece of knotted rope across the room. They don’t notice him. He does have a stealthy odor! Or the dogs are just too old to smell. He hears a TV on in another room somewhere far away in the huge apartment.

So where are the dog bowls?

He makes his way through the living room, across a formal dining room with a long table that hasn’t seen a dinner party in a millennium, and then he strikes gold. Fourteen dog bowls are lined up nice and neat against a kitchen wall. Products of Pisher Plastics.

All he has to do is take one of the bowls and get out the way he came. That’s all.

He bends down, grabs a bowl, and then he discovers something awful: All fourteen bowls are nailed to the ground.

And now he begins to think that maybe he’s like a dog whistle after all, because there’s an Afghan growling in his face ...

Meanwhile, from outside, I saw all the dogs suddenly disap­pear from the windows. This was not a good sign. I heard all this barking, then a man yelling, although it was too muffled to hear what he yelled.

And Wendell Tiggor laughs. “So you lose,” he says. “Pay up.”

In the window I now saw the Schwa pressed up against the glass, hiding behind the curtains. I knew he couldn’t last like that for long.

“Think the dogs’ll eat him?” says one of the other kids.

I didn’t have time for idiots. Instead I took off across the street, toward the building nearly becoming roadkill because I didn’t look both ways like every kid’s mother told them from the beginning of time. Narrowly surviving the busy avenue, I made it around back to the fire escape. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t just leave the Schwa stranded like that. Leave no man behind—isn’t that what they say in battle?

I scrambled to the roof, leaped into the little patio, and burst through the open door.

In a second the dogs were barreling toward me. I tensed up, preparing to get bit. The dogs advanced, held their ground, and then backed away, not sure whether to protect their master, their home, or themselves. The smell of dog was everywhere. Dog food, dog fur, dog breath. The smell was overpowering, and the barking endless and loud. I didn’t dare move—but I glanced to the curtains where I knew the Schwa was hiding. Any dogs that had been sniffing around there had come over toward me. With any luck, the Schwa would be able to slip out unnoticed. As for me, well, I suppose this was what I have to do to earn my 50 percent. Damage control.

“Get out of here!” said a voice much fuller, much stronger than I expected.

My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the dim light, so I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. A low square shape moved at me through a doorway. Only when it pushed through the dogs could I see what it was. It was a wheelchair. Old Man Crawley was in a wheelchair.

“Don’t move a muscle, or I’ll have them tear you to shreds, if I don’t do it myself.”

He held a fireplace poker in the air as he rolled the chair for­ward with his other hand. His hair was gray and slicked back. His jaw was hard and square—it looked like he still had all his teeth, which is more than I can say for my own relatives that age. He wore a white shirt buttoned all the way to the neck, where loose skin flopped around like on a turkey—but mostly it was the poker that held my attention. The thing looked heavy, the thing looked sharp, and people in wheelchairs usually have lots of upper-body strength.

“Which do you want?” I said.

“What?”

“You said ‛get out of here,’ and ‛don’t move a muscle.’ I can’t do both.”

“You’re a wiseass.”

Not at all happy with their master’s tone of voice, the dogs were now baring their teeth at me, in addition to barking and growling.

“I can explain,” I said, which I really couldn’t, but don’t you always say that when you get caught doing something you shouldn’t be doing?

“I have already called the police. They will be here momen­tarily to arrest you, at which time you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Which was good, because it meant he didn’t plan to kill me with the poker, or with the dogs. “Please, Mr. Crawley, I didn’t mean anything. It was just a bet, see? On a dare to get a dog bowl. That’s all. I would have given it back. I swear.”

“The dog bowls are nailed down,” he informed me.

“My mistake.”

“How much did you bet?”

“Fifty-four dollars,” I told him.

“You just lost fifty-four dollars.”

“Yeah, I guess so. So can I go now? It’s punishment enough, right?”

“Fifty-four dollars is hardly a sufficient fine for breaking and entering attempted theft, and the assault of an elderly man—”

“But... wait... I didn’t assault you!”

He smiled viciously. “Who do you think the police will be­lieve, me or you?”

By now most of the dogs had quieted down. A few had wan­dered off, a couple came over to sniff at me, but the rest all clustered protectively around the old man.

“I really am sorry, Mr. Crawley.”

“There are countries where delinquent children are caned for their misdeeds. Do you know what caning is?”

“Kind of like whipping?”

“Yes,” he said, “but more painful. You’d probably choose a few dog bites over a caning.”

He put the poker down across the arms of his wheelchair. “You can tell your friend to come out from behind the curtains now.”

My heart sank. “What friend?”

“Lying does not help your case,” snapped Crawley.

Before I could say any more, the Schwa emerged from be­hind the curtains, looking sheepish, like a dog who just dirtied the rug.

“How did you know he was there?”

“Let’s just say I’m observant,” said Crawley. “I don’t usually keep sneakers poking out from beneath my curtains.”

Four out of five people didn’t notice the Schwa. It figures Crawley had to be a fifth person. He stared at us there, saying nothing, waiting for the police to arrive.

“I ... I didn’t know you were an invalid,” I said, which is a pretty stupid thing to say, but my brain tends to become spongelike when under stress.

Crawley frowned. I thought he already was frowning. “I broke a hip,” he said, annoyed. “The wheelchair is only temporary.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry sorry sorry,” he mocked. “You sound like a broken record.”

“Sorry,” I said, then grimaced.

“What’s your name?”

“Wendell Tiggor,” I said, without missing a beat.

“Very good. Now tell me your real name.”

This guy might have been old, but he was as sharp as a shark tooth. I sighed. “Anthony Bonano.”

He turned to the Schwa. “And your name?”

I had hoped he might have forgotten the Schwa was there, but luck was in short supply today.

“Calvin. Calvin Schwa.”

“Stupid name.”

“I know, sir. It wasn’t my choice, sir.”

I could hear sirens now, getting closer. I supposed Wendell and the Tiggorhoids had all deserted. No one in that crowd would risk their necks, or any other part of their anatomy, for us.

“Well, there they are,” said Crawley, hearing the sirens. “Tell me, is this your first arrest, or are you repeat offenders?”

As we weren’t actually arrested at the American Airlines ter­minal, I told him it was a first offense.

“It won’t be the last, I’m sure,” he said.

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, sir, but I think it will be.”

“Will be what?”

“I think it will be the last time I’m arrested.”

“I find that hard to believe.” He leaned over, scratching one of his dogs behind the ears. “Can’t change breeding isn’t that right, Avarice?”

The dog purred.

Breeding? Now I was getting mad. “My breeding is fine,” I told him. The Schwa, who’s still mostly petrified, hits me to shut me up, but I don’t. “If you ask me, it’s your breeding that’s all screwed up.”

Crawley raised his eyebrows and gripped his poker. “Is that so.”

“It must take some pretty bad genes to turn someone into a miserable old man who’d send a couple of kids to jail just for trying to get a plastic dog bowl.”

He scowled at me for a long time. The sound of sirens peaked, then stopped right outside. Then he said, “Genes aren’t everything. You failed to take environment into account.”

“Well, so did you.”

There came an urgent knocking at the door, and all the dogs went running toward it, barking. “Mr. Crawley,” said a muffled voice through the door, over the chorus of barks. “Mr. Crawley, are you all right?”

The old man gave the Schwa and me a twisted grin. “Destiny calls.” He rolled off toward the door, calling back to us, “Either of you try to escape and I’ll have you shot.”

I didn’t really believe that, but I also didn’t want to take any chances.

“This is bad. Antsy,” the Schwa said. “Real bad.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Crawley rolled back in about a minute. Amazingly, no police officers were with him. “I told them it was a false alarm.”

The sigh of relief rolled off the Schwa and me like a wave. “Thank you, Mr. Crawley.”

He ignored us. “The police will only give you a slap on the wrist, and since you’re not crying hysterically in terror right now, I assume your parents will not beat you. Therefore I will administer your punishment personally. You will return here tomorrow by the front door, at three o’clock sharp, and begin working off your transgression. If you fail to come, I will find out what your parents do for a living, and I will have them fired.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I’ve found I can do anything I please.”

I thought it was just an idle threat, but then I remembered the great egg shortage. A man like Crawley had more money than God in a good economy, as my father would say, and probably had friends in both high and low places. If he said he’d have my father fired, I figured I should believe it.

“What will you pay us?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s slavery!”

“No,” said Crawley, with a grin so wide it stretched his wrin­kles straight. “That’s community service.”