Read Online Walking the Dog by Elizabeth Swados - Free Book Online Page B

it.
    â€œShit,” I said out loud. “This is lame.” But I signed it anyway.
    With love ,
    Carleen Kepper
    I shoved the letter in an envelope and put a stamp on it. I walked by a mailbox and dropped it in.
    â€œFuck you, Leonard,” I mumbled.
    A few days later I was in my room trying to get interested in reading again. I was on the third page and couldn’teven remember the name of the book. My cell phone rang and I picked it up, hoping it was Hubb or a new client. But it was Harry.
    â€œI got a call from Leonard’s lawyer,” he said. I went tense in my throat. Maybe there’s a change.
    â€œHe says Leonard insists you stop sending letters or he’s going to consider it harassment.”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œHe’ll call your parole officer and then put in a formal complaint with the DA.”
    I hung up the phone. What the hell? Maybe I should just kill Leonard. I thought of spending the rest of my life at Clayton and found the option not so bad. But I had to hammer it into my head that hardly any judges picked homes for criminals on the basis of what would be convenient for them. It could’ve been Powell or worse. I tried to understand Leonard’s cruelty. It was his idea to get married. Years later he thought I conned him into making a baby so I’d have an easier sentence. Not true. I knew a lot about cruelty. The cruelty of the games of gangs against newbies. The cruelty of initiation. Of rape. Of wrecking property. Tearing down a person’s pride piece by piece. I even knew the cruelty of murdering innocent people. But Leonard was beyond me. No one gains anything by making me crazier than I already am.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
    I was a millionaire by the time I was ten or maybe twelve. I gave my parents full control because money meant nothing to me. I wasn’t autistic and didn’t have Asperger’s, but something in my brain caused me to dedicate hours each day to filling white squares with color, shape, textures, shades, lines, and on and on and on. The white squares went quickly from “Baby’s Sketch Pad” to real canvas. I wasn’t an idiot savant either—my room was extraordinarily clean and I had fine table manners. I did have a tendency to walk away in the middle of a conversation, but that was because I had a white square to fill. Adults, rather than be offended by this, found it “fascinating.”
    I was popular in grammar school partly because I was famous, primarily because of my pranks. I hung out with kids who later in life probably ended up as nerds or greasers. My little gang worked well despite occasional fistfights and nasty name-calling on the playground. I remained aloof. If they started fighting I just abandoned the whole gang and went off to paint. I don’t remember exactly what we did. Time is not my friend, and I’ve been beaten to shit so many times I’m like a boxer who has to learn jabs and hooks and footing from scratch every time. I still have recollection of a few choice events though. Some neurologists have requested that I takesome tests. They’re flabbergasted that I remember so much after so many beatings. I can’t explain it to them. Except that no assholes are going to steal my life from me. Even in the form of memory.
    Â Â  1.    The time we let all the frogs out from biology class before the chloroform routine started to sink in. It was a class of twenty, and it was a hip-hop hopping festival. They showed up in such divergent locations: gym class, the English teacher’s desk, and on someone’s Salisbury steak in the cafeteria.
    Â Â  2.    Once, I brought my parents’ bottle of vodka in and, not only did we get drunk, but we carefully spiked the juice of the first graders. It was wild to see what six-year-olds did when they were smashed, although a bunch of them did throw up. I poured a bit into the teacher’s thermos so she