“That my phone?” I say. Aaron and I have the same model, and I think mine is upstairs in the charger but it’s too early to swear to it. I see Mom over his shoulder, shifting from reverse into drive and heading down the road.
“Wake up, man,” says Aaron. “I didn’t come here to give you a phone. It’s way better than that.”
“Yeah?” I say, trying to focus. “What?”
He shakes his head, disappointed. He wants me to guess, but I have no idea. “Dude, man, I got nothing,” I say.
He looks at me, like: You sure? I just stand there like an idiot and he gives up.
“A witness, man,” he says. “I got your frickin’ witness.”
Now I’m awake. “What?” I say. “Who?”
“Me,” he says, holding his phone up higher, “and my little friend.”
He turns the phone back around and touches the screen a few times. Then he holds it out to me.
I hear Aaron’s voice: “But you did hop the fence, right? I mean, you were kind of asking for it.”
The next voice is Mars: “What, screw you! I reached over first, but he kept backing away. Seemed more scared than anything. So I hopped the fence. I always do.”
“And you just kept after him? Dumbass!”
“Yeah, I guess it was kind of, like, he wasn’t exactly growling, but he was showing some teeth — big teeth!”
“And you stuck your hand in there anyway.”
“Yeah! I thought he’d stop, like I’d win him over with my awesome petting!”
“Dumbass!”
“Yeah!”
Aaron lowers the phone. And now it’s his voice, for real. “Did you even know these things have an audio recorder?”
“Yeah, but I never used it,” I say. “My mom uses hers to make, like, little notes to herself about work and stuff….”
“Yeah,” he says. “I still don’t think Mars knows.”
I smile. I can’t help it.
“You boned him, man!”
“Yeah,” he says, looking away. “Feel bad, but it’s all on here. Have another one about the nerve damage thing.”
“And it’s crap?”
“Course it is.”
“Wow,” I say. “Wow. You, uh, want to come in, see the beast?”
“Sure.”
We head for the living room.
“Happened to the window?” he says.
“Threw a mug through it,” I say.
He nods, like that’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Was that the dog out back?”
“Yeah, I’ll go get him,” I say. “Want to show you something.”
“All right,” he says, and walks over to look at the broken window.
JR bumps his way in through the back door and trots into the room, but he stops cold when he sees Aaron.
“For the record,” says Aaron, “I could tell you all thought he was gonna bite me the other day.”
“No, no,” I say, heading to the kitchen. “We just thought he might.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” he says.
I come back with two biscuits.
“Watch this,” I say.
I hold one up, and JR whips his head around toward it. Then I toss it to him. He jumps up and snatches it out of the air, as usual.
“Nice!” says Aaron.
“Yeah, it’s like his party trick,” I say. “Here, you try.”
“Cool,” he says, taking the other biscuit. “What, just …” he says, making a tossing motion.
“Yeah, throw it high. Anywhere in the general vicinity will do.”
The toss is so high, it almost hits the ceiling, but it’s really accurate. JR gathers his legs underneath him like a toothy kangaroo, then launches himself straight up and terminates the biscuit in midair.
“He’s like a missile defense system,” says Aaron.
“Seriously.”
Neither of us says anything for a few moments. We just watch as JR finishes chewing and licks his lips.
“Thanks, man,” I say, finally.
Aaron shrugs, but I can’t let it go at that.
“This is huge. I really … I didn’t think … I mean, you called me clueless.”
“Yeah.” He lets out a little laugh and I don’t even mind. “You were kind of all over the place. Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s true, but I mean …” I mean, why?
He takes one last look at JR. “I’ll tell you something,” he says.
“OK.”
“Remember I told you I had a dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s a little more to it. His name was Woolly, really Woolly Bear, but we called him Woolly. He was just a puppy when I named him, and I don’t think I realized his fur wasn’t always going to be that soft. Anyway, he got sick. Nothing too major, but the treatment was gonna be a couple hundred bucks. I remember that seemed like so much money to me then. I was nine, you know? So, yeah, I was nine, he was three, and he got sick.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Nah, that’s not it. My dad didn’t want to pay.”
“What?”
“Yeah, he didn’t want to pay for the treatment, so he had him put to sleep. I guess it cost less, and he’d been out of work for a while. That’s why we moved to Stanton. He got a good job here. Anyway, my dog goes to the vet to get some medicine and he just never comes back. If I’d known, I never would’ve let him go.”
“Damn, man. That’s just … crazy.”
“So after you guys left, I was thinking about that. I was thinking, if I had Woolly back and they tried to take him from me again. I’m bigger than my dad now, you know?”
“I know, but …”
“But that’s the thing. I’m not getting my dog back. It doesn’t work that way. But you’ve still got yours. And Mars is my friend — the first friend I made when I came here — but I’ll be damned, you know? I’ll be damned if I’ll let that happen again.”
I don’t really know what to say. JR is still standing there, looking at Aaron, but it seems like he’s looking at him differently now. Part of that is probably because Aaron gave him a biscuit, but I think most of it is because JR has that radar for when people are upset.
“Thanks, man,” I say.
“De nada,” he says. We had Spanish together last year.
“Sorry about Mars.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“I guess.”
“You don’t give him enough credit, you know? He’s had it worse than any of us, by a mile.”
“I know,” I say, though I guess I’d never really thought of it that way before.
“I know you, JD. You think your life’s so hard. But you should try sitting through a dinner at his place. And he’s still up for anything at any time, and always joking around.”
“OK,” I say.
“And you might not want to believe this, but I don’t think he really wanted to do any of this.”
“I kind of do want to believe that,” I say. “But he didn’t have to tell everyone about …”
Aaron shrugs again. “And you don’t have to look down on him so much. He hates that hillbilly stuff. And anyway, who cares? You won. And you’re not going to lose any friends over that other stuff unless you want to. All right?”
“Yeah, OK,” I say. I think he might be right.
“Good, because I expect you and Rude Boy back in action on Monday.”
“What, at lunch and stuff?”
“Just in general.”
“Yeah, no problem, man. But, uh …”
I point to his phone.
“I’ll send you the audio files. Then you do whatever you have to.”
“I’ll send ’em to our good-for-nothing lawyer,” I say. “Even he can’t screw that up.”
“Whatever,” says Aaron. “Let me know if you need me to do anything else. See you Monday, JD. Later, Rotten.”
And then he’s gone, and I’m standing in my living room, barefoot and dumbstruck.
“Damn, boy,” I say to my dog. “That was a sad story.”
Which doesn’t explain why I’m smiling.