The Suicide Motor Club Read Free Page B

“Oh God.”
    Patsy patted her cheek.
    That was how their mother found them.
    â€”
    JUDITH KNEW HER MOTHER HAD NO GIFT FOR DELIVERING BAD NEWS.
    When Judith had been fifteen and Patsy ten, the family dog, an affable little mutt named Chester, was buried in the backyard with great pomp after being “struck by a car.” Actually, Chester had been killed by a neighbor’s Bedlington terrier. The truth emerged (for her, not Patsy) when her mother got tipsy one night not long before Jude’s wedding. On that September day, the kids were at Sacred Heart, their father working at the watch factory. Janet Eberhart had seen the other dog coming. It had finally worried a second plank out of its fence two doors down and wriggled free, and this escape coincided with one of Chester’s smiley, ambling tours around the yard to water the heaps of raked leaves. When Janet saw the Bedlington streaking across the next-door neighbor’s lawn, her first thought had been
My, that sheep runs fast
, but then the wretched, curly thing had grabbed poor, screaming Chester by the neck and started shaking him like one of theknotted socks her dog so enjoyed tugging tugs-of-war with. Janet had fetched a rake from the porch and tried to swat the other dog off Chester, but she hit the victim as often as the aggressor. The Bedlington’s owner, a neurotic drama teacher whose wife took long trips away, came bounding across the yard separating their properties and, to Janet’s astonishment, ducked under her rake to shield his dog, tugging impotently at the thing’s collar. The murderer’s name was Brando, and she would dream that name for years. “Brando,” the little man said again and again, “Brando, Brando, please!” as if admonishing a good but stubborn child. When Brando finally let drop his prey and suffered himself to be led home, his owner, receding across the lawn with his captive, babbled a barely punctuated apology at Janet without meeting her eyes, “I really don’t know what got into him I’m so,
we’re
so sorry, of course I’ll compensate you it’s just awful I’ve been meaning to fix that fence but I’m not handy like your husband I should have just paid somebody to do it I guess oh what will the girls think I’m beside myself I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry you bad bad dog I’ll never forgive you.” Janet had just held her rake and watched them go, the terrier proud of itself, the man ridiculous with his cheeks, his lime-green shirt, his European scarf all speckled with blood, his own hand bleeding from a bite. And Chester just limp and finished near a pile of poplar leaves.
    She took the dog to the vet and left him there. When the girls got home at three, she told them Chester had run off, but not to worry. Their father would take care of things. Patsy believed her, of course, but Judith had been old enough to sort out that Chester wasn’t coming home alive. If the dog had run off, Mom would have set the girls making signs to nail up on light poles while she called every shelter in Fresno. Judith knew “Dad’s taking care of things” would mean coming up with a story and presenting a body. She had excused herself to cry in her room so Patsy wouldn’t know.
    â€”
    WHEN HER MOTHER TOLD HER, “GLEN’S NOT DEAD, HONEY, HE CAN’T BE,” AND “Robert’s banged up but the doctors are hopeful,” and “Nobody can believe how lucky you were; aside from the concussion and the cut on your face, you were barely injured,” Judith knew she’d have to wait for a doctor to tell her something like the truth. Her father would talk straight to her, but her father was still in California.
    It turned out the last thing her mother said was correct; she really was lightly injured for the violence of that wreck. The worst pain she had came not from her lacerations or bruises, but from a twisted