Strays. Part 8

"Sure, a border collie."

"I'm a pimp. Cindy only got me to meet guys. She points to one, I run over, she's all, 'Oh, I'm so sorry," they get to talking, and pretty soon they exchange phone numbers. I might as well have a fur hat and a few gold teeth." He looks behind him. "Here she comes, so pet me fast."

I lean down and put my face against his.

"Now you're breaking my heart," he says. "You don't have sheep, do you?"

"No."

"I'd herd anything. I'd herd cats if you wanted me to."

I shake my head.

"Ducks? Anything. Please. We'll go into business. I can find lost children. I live in Arcadia. Eleven seventeen Rosewood. I'll leave the back door open."

Just then, Cindy arrives.

"Oh," she says. "I'm so sorry. He gets away from me sometimes."

Astin stands up so she can get a look at all of him. "Not a problem." He holds out a hand. "I'm Astin. This is Ted."

She doesn't even bother to look at me. She's seen enough from a distance. I play with the dog while Astin writes down a phone number. I try to remember what he talks to her about in case I ever have a conversation with a girl. But it's nothing special: where she goes to school, her part-time job at the mall, his motorcycle. Like my English teacher would say, I guess - it's not content, it's style.

I point toward the parking lot. "I'll meet you."

"Be right there, Teddy."

The dog is mad at me and looks the other way, so I go and lean on the Harley. I think, So this is Blue's. People talked about it like it was the Parthenon.

Now I've got a Blue's story of my own - I almost got in a fight there once. Yeah. These two jerks from Alhambra. But this buddy of mine kind of stepped up, and I didn't have to get a b.l.o.o.d.y nose over nothing.

This buddy of mine.

Astin comes jogging up. "Cindy works out."

"I'll bet."

"Did you see those abs?"

"Everybody saw those abs, Astin."

"Yeah, but I'm the one with her phone number."

"That you know of."

He swings one leg over and starts the Harley. "So you're saying . . ."

"You probably aren't her first boyfriend."

"Yeah, you're right. You got condoms at home?"

"G.o.d, no."

He eases us onto Huntington. "I'll pick some up. Good call, Teddy." He reaches over and around and knocks on my helmet.

I like riding toward home behind Astin. There's a bar to lean back on, and since we're not going very fast, I put my hands in my pockets. When we come to a stoplight, I put my feet down, too.

Astin's all in leather, and I've got on a windbreaker and khakis that never need ironing. Scott McIntyre called me a r.e.t.a.r.d, and I probably look like one.

But I like it, anyway. The ride, I mean. People look at us - guys, especially. It's Astin they admire, not me. Or maybe not. Maybe they'd just like to park their big dumb cars and tag along like I'm doing.

I lean with him as we make the turn at Wayne Street. He knows how to use the clutch and make the pipes rumble even when we're not going very fast.

"Hey! Isn't that C.W.?"

Sure enough. He's sitting on the retaining wall at the corner. Every now and then he dribbles his basketball.

Astin glides right up in front of him. "What's happening."

C.W. slides off the wall, glances around, and comes right up to us.

"Guess who just gave his statement to the police?"

"What statement?"

"I'm playin' ball with the brothers down at Marengo when four hairy guys in an Acura pull up. The next thing I hear is pop, pop, pop, and everybody but me is facedown on the asphalt."

Astin turns off the engine. "They shot at you?"

"They shot at somebody. Scared the c.r.a.p out of me. I'm telling you, man. If I could stay as pale as I was an hour ago, I'd get a scholars.h.i.+p to the University of Alabama." He tugs at his baggy s.h.i.+rt. "I'm through with this ghetto s.h.i.+t."

I dismount and point to the motorcycle. "Get on. Ride home with Astin."

He shakes his head. "They not lookin' for me in particular. Probably one of them's sister said a brother made fun of her mustache, so they all get their pieces and start drivin' around."

I tell him, "So go home and lay low."

"All right. Maybe you're right. You gonna be okay?"

"What are they going to do, shoot me for being drab?"

He holds out his fist, and I tap it with mine. He says, "Thanks, man."

"I'll come back for you," Astin says.

"Get serious. It's like four blocks."

"No, Teddy," he says. "I'll be back."

I'm on my way to school when I see Gus and his dog, Paperboy. They're on the corner with the stoplight. Gus has a cup in one hand and a sign around his neck: HELP ME FEED MY DOG. Girls stop to pet Paperboy and usually drop a quarter or two into the soggy Starbucks cup.

I haven't seen them for a couple of months. They used to camp up by the trailhead that leads to Mount Lowe, then panhandle Santa Mira for a while.

When I give Gus a dollar, he stares at me. He's dirty, and with that beard he could be the ninth-place finisher in the Walt Whitman look-alike contest.

"Hey," he says, "I know you."

"Ted. From the pet shop."

He points a grimy finger at me. "Dog Eat Dog World, right?"

"Close enough."

"What're you doing down here?"

"My folks are on vacation, so I'm staying with a friend."

Gus holds out his cup as the students pile up waiting for the light.

"What really happened?" asks Paperboy.

"Car accident."

"I remember your parents," he says. "They treated you like a . . . well, you know."

"I guess."

"Did they leave you anything?"

"Not much."

"That's tough. What's next for you now - Africa?"

I shake my head. "I have to finish school first."

"So where are you staying?" the dog asks.

"With some people who take care of strays."

"Like the pound?"

"Kind of."

"Can you get adopted?"

"Probably not. I'm pretty old."

"So then they put you to sleep."

"I just age out. Then I'm on my own."

He nods. "That's cool. Excuse me." Paperboy lays his ears back and growls as two or three boys in letterman's jackets lunge at Gus and pretend to grab at his cup of small change.

Paperboy says, "I'd like to tear their throats out."

"I know what you mean."

"You could come with us, Teddy. We're down by the L.A. River. It's not bad. Ducks to chase. Place to sleep. Something new every day. Even the voices in Gus's head are different."

"I'm okay where I am for now." I watch Gus rattle his cup. Two ninth-grade girls stop and pet Paperboy, who lets his big red tongue hang out. "Gus shares the money with you, doesn't he?"

"Most of the time. We do okay. People think he ought to get a job, but with me along, they cut him some slack. He feeds me because I'm his meal ticket."

Before I can say good-bye and head for school, Paperboy jumps up and puts his paws on my chest. I'm five four and a half and he's a big dog - wiry-haired and barrel-chested. His muzzle is partly gray, his coat heavy and a little matted.

"Be careful," he says.

"Well, sure. I'm just going to biology and English."

"Don't 'Well, sure' me, Teddy. There are lots of crows around. That's never good."

I put my nose to his. "I didn't know you were superst.i.tious."

"Who's superst.i.tious? I know what I know."

On my way to Mr. Fowler's cla.s.s, I pa.s.s Valerie Wynne, Pamela Choi, and Robin Hollander, the power brokers of tenth grade. (Megan is in eleventh. Astin's going to graduate.) Valerie, Pamela, and Robin are, as my art teacher used to say, at the center of the painting. The rest of us - the stoner with the ring in her nose, the boy with the droopy Mohawk, the girl in the wheelchair - are just background. We might as well be trees and clouds.

If Valerie decides that a new teacher is okay, then everybody can like him and answer questions in cla.s.s. If Pamela hates him, though, everybody has to hate him or be uncool to the ninth power. Like I care. I enrolled here already uncool to the ninth power.

I watch them stand there, preen, and rant. They are the kind of girls Megan was talking about that first day I met her and Astin outside the cafeteria: too cool to phone. I wonder if they've got a whole different set of sense organs or just a different way of processing sensory data, like elephants and their infrasonic sound waves or dolphins and their sonar.

I'll probably never know. They are like a whole other species.

Mr. Fowler is my biology teacher. He's big and bald and can't shut up about himself. He worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. And then guess what? He got real sick and had to be flown to the City of Hope, just outside Los Angeles.

When he got well, he stayed in L.A. and presto, changed someone into Mrs. Fowler. Then had some little Fowlers. On his desk is a picture of his wife and two kids and a cat in sungla.s.ses. My mother hated stuff like that. She thought it was disrespectful, and I actually kind of agree. Animals don't like it; they just put up with it.

The other day Mr. Fowler whirled around, raised both arms, and hissed, "Creatures with wings." Today he turns the lights off, punches a b.u.t.ton, and up there on the screen is a bacterium as big as a Volkswagen.

E. coli stares like it's daring everybody to eat the mayonnaise. Mr. Fowler lectures. I watch the motes of light in a shaft of sun. "And in order to survive," he says, "it's completely adaptable."

Well, I'm at least as smart as Mr. Coli. I mean, I thought I'd never get used to that attic and I kind of have, and I wondered if I'd ever get along with C.W. or Astin and I kind of do.

When I get to my English cla.s.s, there's chaos. Somehow a bird flew in from the Pit, across the cafeteria, down a long hall, and finally in here. Girls are screaming, and boys swat at it with their books. It throws itself against the window until I get close. Then it sinks to the sill and waits for me to walk over and pick it up.

I tell Mr. Sterling, "I'll just take it outside."

"Thank you, Teddy. I'll try and restore some order in here."