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By Root 1508 0

the playground, brooding, wondering how he’d get even with Hall. Then he walked on and sat near the sun-blue lagoon, down past the boathouse. He sat. He watched the people flood over the park. He wished he was somebody else. He watched the sky roll down back of the apartment buildings that stood above the trees lining the South Park edge of the park. He watched a familiar looking airedale dog shag about, snapping at the heels of the park sheep, until Coady, the flat-footed, red-faced park cop, hoofed it after the dog, probably sweating and cursing his ears off. The dog scampered away from the cop, ran down to the lagoon, and took a swim. The cop sought the shadow of the boathouse. The dog came out, shook the water from its back, and ran. Studs noticed it more closely. It was goofy Danny O’Neill’s dog, Lib, and it ran away every day to come over to the park and take a swim. The dog was a damn sight smarter than Danny. He told himself that airedales were peachy dogs, they were fighters, they could swim and liked the water, and they were smart; an airedale was too smart a dog for O’Neill to have. Studs thought of getting even with Danny by doing something to the dog, but when he watched it run, its movements so graceful, its body so alert, its ears cocked the way he liked to see a dog’s ears cocked, he couldn’t think of hurting it. He called: “Here, Lib!” The dog came up. Studs patted its head, softly stroked its forehead the way dogs like to be stroked, rubbed his cheek against the dog, liked it even if it did smell like a livery stable.

“Good dog!” he said.

He stood up, grabbed a piece of branch and threw it. The dog chased the branch, grabbed it, returned, dropped the branch at Studs’ feet, and spread out on all fours, waiting to be patted. Studs kept throwing the branch until it was ugly wet with saliva. He rubbed his hand in the grass and patted the dog. He told the dog to stand up, and it obeyed. Then to play dead dog. Then to roll on its back in the grass and speak. He ran, and the dog legged it with him, and rapidly left him behind.

Lib spied the park sheep and was after them. The sheep milled and bleated, and Lib tore circles around them, running like an efficient sheep dog. The cop again appeared, waddling on his defective feet. The dog ran at the sound of the cop’s voice. It was too wise for the cop, Studs thought, and laughed. Coady yelled at Studs, complaining, in his Irish brogue, that he wished he’d keep that dog of his away. It was a disturbance of the peace, with it always scaring the sheep, jumping up and getting ladies’ dresses muddy, and running around without a leash and muzzle, all against the law. Suppose the dog went mad and bit a baby. The next time he saw the dog, he would shoot it. It was too damn troublesome, and too damn wise.

“Sure it knows I’m after it, and runs when I come,” Coady said in an Irish brogue.

Studs said it wasn’t his dog.

“Well, then, bejesus, whose dog is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, keep it away from here, or sure it’ll be a dead dog.”

The sun was too much for Coady. He flatfooted it back to the shade. Studs laughed. It was always fun to see a copper stumped. The dog was gone now, on its way home. Studs walked, wishing he had a dog of his own, because you could have fun with a dog, particularly when you were lonesome. A dog was almost human, and a guy was always wishing he could get closer to it, speak to it, understand what it meant when it barked. It was pretty the way the dog looked at you, the way it ran and cocked its ears. It got a guy. A dog was a real friend, all right. But his old man wouldn’t have a dog, because he said dogs were dirty, and his mother said they brought bad luck into the house, because sometimes dogs were the souls of people, who had put a curse on you, come back to life.

He walked around the park, and didn’t meet anyone he knew.

Chapter Five

IN SUMMER, the days went too fast. They raced. In June, right after his graduation, Studs had had no sense of the passing days. And now July was almost gone, and the days were racing toward September