The Early Days Part 7

Dog Walkers Don’t Tell Lies

“I’ll just have a coffee, thanks.” Nelly eyed me suspiciously.

“Jamie, these cupcakes are to-die-for. You have to have one.” My stomach growled, but I preferred hunger pangs over the stomach ache I knew I was in for if I opted to have cake for lunch.

“Really.” I tried to smile though my instinct was to growl.

“I’m…not much of a sweets person.” Nelly closed her eyes like the sad truth had just dawned on her. She lowered her voice and said,

“Look, Jamie…I get it.” Her big brown eyes looked out at me from under eyebrows arched in accusation.

“You watch your weight.” Nelly’s head tilted toward mine, her plucked-too-thin eyebrows raised in half-moons over her big, round eyes. She let a smile creep onto the corners of her mouth, meant to hint to me that she, too was a card-carrying member of the unspoken-of universal, female weight-watchers club.

“We all do. But you’re going to be exercising a ton. Don’t worry, you can eat a cupcake.”

I’ll give you a fucking cupcake, Nelly. I was freezing, I was starving, and now I was accused of being on a diet when all I wanted was a gyro the size of Nelly’s big round, freckled face.

“Sure, get me a cupcake. And a large black coffee, please.” The smile I forced to accompany my order stole the last ounce of strength my body had to offer, and I dragged myself off to the restroom while Nelly went up to the counter to place our order.

I ate the whole stupid cupcake even though the frosting was so sweet that I could already feel my empty stomach rejecting it. I tried to make amends by dumping two piping hot coffees down in rapid succession, but I had a sugar-induced stomachache within ten minutes of sitting down. Still, I was thawing and my legs were screaming with pleasure at their disuse. Nelly kept up a pleasant conversation, asking me about the books and music I liked. She was a big fan of Tolkien and classic rock, so we talked about The Silmarillion and Pink Floyd and I pretended to be impressed when she started bragging about reading in Elvish, or something. Before long the dreaded words: “Okay, back to work” were said. I tried not to betray the tremendous effort it took to heave my body back into standing position. My feet were still numb with cold.

“Aren’t you glad you ate that cupcake?” Nelly said as she made a last wrap-around with her scarf and turned toward the door. I clutched my stomach as I followed her out.

For two more hours we battled the brutal cold. Or, I battled it. Nelly looked snug in her long, down jacket, her winter boots and teal hat and matching gloves. She looked somehow homeless wearing all those clothes and carrying a backpack. Nelly had one of those looks; her hair was almost the same color as her freckles and her lips. It had a thin, wispy quality. She was short, and looked younger than she actually was, like a freckle faced kid.

It was only over cupcakes that I’d noticed the wrinkles that tugged at the corners of Nelly’s eyes and mouth. She didn’t fit in with the knee-high boot clad women nestled in fur coats that we passed on the street. Neither did I. We both looked poor, and I suddenly understood why that woman had accused Nelly of stealing her scarf. It seemed unnatural that Nelly’s path should cross that of a very wealthy person. Disparity invited envy. I felt it already, every time I passed someone who looked warm and cheery as they might on an early fall day. My lack was highlighted by the abundance around me. It added to the bitch of a stomach ache that was plaguing me to make me feel full-on nauseated.

Nelly used her long coat to herd Val, the 14-year-old Weimaraner we were now walking, around the block. Val seemed to hate the cold even more than I did. I was thankful that Nelly considered walking her beyond my skill; she looked thoroughly disgusted each time Nelly bumped her rear end with her soft down jacket, trying to inspire movement. Val didn’t look at me much, but I felt a deep connection between us.

After walking Val we went back to the baron of Coach’s apartment to pick up Benny and Monty. We followed the same path we had taken earlier, this time to take Monty home. I did a terrible job walking them. I was patting myself on the back for having retrieved a chunk of a bagel out of Benny’s mouth and had just tossed it to the curb when Nelly screamed

“Monty’s got it!” The sly bastard had made his move while I had my head turned toward Nelly. I wrestled him to the ground and he growled as I went to open his mouth.

“Just leave him!” Nelly interjected, quickly. I dropped my hand from Monty and stood up, resigned.

“Look, even when they’re eating something you can’t jump at them full force like that. They do bite, you know. They’re just nice enough not to if you show them some respect.” I hung my head in embarrassment and felt like a monster.

“Sorry, Monty,” I mumbled. He didn’t take it easy on me for the remainder of the walk, and once Nelly had to take his leash from me to get us moving again. Once we’d left him at his apartment, we turned back to return Benny. I was too cold and exhausted to talk and could only manage grunts and heat-nods as Nelly instructed me. Nelly left me outside as she went upstairs to drop off Benny. The day was finally over. I wanted to cry with relief, but instead I lit a cigarette and sucked on it like I’d just gotten off an eight-hour flight and waited for Nelly to reemerge.

When she finally came out, she turned toward Central Park West and I got worried. “Uh, Nelly…are we going back to Ricky’s now? I thought we were done for the day…”

“Oh, we’re done. We’re not walking back, we’re taking the train.” Relief spread through my cold, sore body.

It was 6:30 by the time I found myself back at Ricky’s apartment. I was back on the loveseat, dogs in my lap, basking in the heat of the tiny, crowded apartment. Nelly sat to the chair on my right. She was attempting to instruct me on how to correctly fill out a walk-log, first by writing down each dog’s name in a box, then adding the amount of time we were contracted to walk them in the top corner of the box.

Next to each dogs’ name she included the exact times the dogs had been picked up and dropped off. As Nelly explained the necessity of accurate walk-log keeping, explaining that it was how Ricky generated pay roll, it dawned on me, however dimly, that I should be copying down the times Nelly was writing in her log into my little notebook so that it would seem like I’d been doing a good job with keeping track of time all day. For once in my life, I could look like a star pupil, but, on second thought, I was too tired to exert any additional effort, and I didn’t want to set the bar too high for myself. I had always loathed star pupils anyway, I thought I was too cool to be a try-hard. So, I just sat, pretending to listen to Nelly while scratching the belly of a curly brown dog named Raffey whose acquaintance I had just made, smoking a cigarette, and waiting for Ricky to finish with the other walkers and come speak to me.

The other walkers mingled in and out, returning keys and filling out their walk-logs for the day. Ricky sat at his desk, talking to the walkers and asking them about their days. The gaunt-looking Tommy had to drag himself into the apartment. He barely spoke to Ricky before depositing his keys, filling out his log and leaving. Carmella, on the other hand, seemed as energetic as she had that morning. She stayed and talked longer. Noah still hadn’t arrived and Alicia just dumped down her dog walking gear, gave Ricky a peck on the lips and hurried off to night-class. Ricky asked each walker that came in specific questions about their routes, but I was too tired to focus on anything he was saying.

When the other walkers had cleared out, Ricky rolled his chair a few feet from his desk, toward the loveseat and planted himself directly across from me. He leaned on his knees, studying me for a moment. Then, he picked up his pack of Reds from the table between us and offered me one. I’d just finished a cig, but, as a rule, out of a combination of politeness and poverty I always accepted a free cig. He lit it for me, then lit his own and began to speak.

“So,” He paused to take a long, dramatic, drag from his cig,

“What did you think?” What did I think? I was starving. I felt weighted down with more physical exhaustion than I could ever remember experiencing before. My legs hurt in places I hadn’t even known I could feel, and yet, I felt somehow…elated. I’d never understood what people had meant when they talked about “honest, hard work” before, but now I did. I could understand all the under-employed union guys I hung out with at home. Any time one of them found a week or two of work they’d come to parties dirty, exhausted, and on top of the world. I was always just trying to drink away the thought of having to return to whatever bar, restaurant or (when life was particularly tough) fast food joint I’d found work at. I was starting to understand why those guys loved their back-breaking assignments. I couldn’t even believe I had survived my day of walking dogs in the cold. I didn’t know I had it in me. I felt like I’d really done something. Instead of trying to articulate my complex feelings, I said what I thought I should, and I said it dramatically;

“Oh, I loved every second of it! I had so much fun.”

Ricky put his head down a little and nodded. It was the answer he expected, but maybe not the answer he wanted. Then he looked at me, paused, and said,

“What did you like about it?” Without having to think, I responded;

“Getting to know the dogs.”

“Getting to know what about them?” I couldn’t answer for a moment. What was I talking about?

“They’re just…different than I thought they would be.”

“Different how?”

“They have such huge personalities! They all know where they like to go and they all love Nelly and they seem so much like…like…”

“Humans?” Ricky smiled. This was the reaction he’d wanted. And it dawned on me that he was right. The dogs I’d met had strong opinions, strong friendships, strong personalities. They’d been just like humans, maybe even a little livelier that most of the humans I’d met. I was allowing myself to bask in this discovery when Ricky interrupted my thought process with a question,

“I just got off the phone with Monty’s parents. Why do you think that is?”

My heart started to beat hard, the way it would when someone yelled “Cop!” while I was riding in the backseat of a car back home. What kind of trouble could I be in? I hadn’t been up to their place, they couldn’t accuse me of stealing. Still, I was so used to assuming guilt that it must have showed on my face. Ricky raised his eyebrows and talked to me like I was a little kid, like I was his little kid and he wanted me to admit to stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. Turning his head to the side he asked,

“Did you make any mistakes with Monty today?” Breathless panic seized me. I was being wrongly accused! I shot a defiant,

“No!” into the air and as soon as I did Nelly shot back a look of flabbergasted incredulity. She nudged my knee, trying to silently convey something to me through bulging eyes. My silent ignorance must have exasperated her because she finally gave up her miming and tilted her head toward me, eyes still bulging, and said in a low voice,

“Jamie didn’t Monty eat something on our walk?” Cool relief flowed through my boiling veins. This was not the kind of trouble I was used to getting in.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I’m sorry. He ate part of a bagel and I kind of scared him when I went to take it from him.” I felt like a monster again.

It’s funny the vastly different types of guilt a person is capable of being consumed by. There’s the guilt that steals through you when you know you’re about to be pulled over while driving a car with illegal contraband or ill-gotten liquor. That’s the kind that makes your chest tight and your forehead sweat, it sends your mind reeling, searching for excuses. This other kind of guilt was much more personal. I’d never felt like a monster for lying or stealing or being a general menace to society, but.. scaring a dog? Suddenly I began to wonder if there was something seriously wrong, maybe even sociopathic, within me. I furrowed my brow and looked down and said,

“I really feel bad for scaring him.”

“Good. I’m glad you feel bad.” I looked up and was surprised to see that Ricky had a warm smile on his face. When he saw my relief, he dropped the smile and turned his head to scold me the way a parent or teacher had ten years earlier, when I was still considered fixable, worth scolding.

“Do you know what can happen if a dog eats something on the street?”

“Yes, Nelly told me that the dogs have sensitive stomachs, that their owners will know that it’s our faults if their dogs get sick.”

“So why do you think I was on the phone with Monty’s parents?”

I thought for a second before it dawned on me. Oh, no. The pang of guilt I’d felt earlier turned into a gaping wound.

“Is Monty sick?” I practically squealed out the question, which seemed endearing to my managers. Ricky smiled again.

“No, Monty isn’t sick,” then he added a calculated “…yet. He might be tomorrow. I had to call his parents to let them know that he’d eaten something. It’s always better for a client to hear the truth from me before they find out something went wrong on their own. That’s why we work with 100% transparency.” I was listening but I was also a little confused.

“But, how did you know that Monty ate something on our walk?”

“Nelly told me.” I turned to Nelly, my eyes asked questions, dealt accusations. She looked guilty.

“I sent Ricky text updates while I was upstairs returning the dogs. I always tell Ricky if something goes wrong with a dog. He needs to hear immediately.”

“Oh.” I tried not to betray my annoyance. Would it have been so hard for Nelly to tell me that she was keeping our boss updated on all of my mistakes throughout the day? Ricky sensed my annoyance. He seemed to find it funny, and indulged himself.

“Jamie, do you think Nelly told me anything else about your day?” He said this in a high register, almost feminine voice. I felt like he was mocking me. Dick. I hated that I needed this self-important dweeb to like me. I thought back over all the mistakes I’d made that day. I hadn’t been keeping track, but I should have guessed that Ricky would be quizzing me after my first day.

“I dropped a leash. Ricky’s leash, I think.”

“…It was Rocco’s” Nelly said this with an exaggerated sigh to let me know that she wasn’t trying to get me into trouble, but that I was forcing her to interject by being dumb enough to forget which dog I’d almost lost.

“Oh, right, Rocco’s. I’m sorry, I’m… just tired”

“Do you have a problem thinking straight when you’re tired?” Ricky asked, his voice dripping with put-on concern.

“Oh! No, I just…I just wasn’t thinking hard enough, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t take walkers who aren’t sharp when they’re tired. We’re always tired, that’s no excuse. Know your dogs. Learn from your mistakes.”

I nodded my head in acquiescence.

“What else?” He asked. I searched my mind for every mistake I’d made, aiming, for the first time in a very long while, for complete transparency.

“I fell at the dog run.”

“Why’d you fall?” I felt like I was taking a quiz I hadn’t studied for.

“I didn’t have my knees bent. I wasn’t paying enough attention.” Ricky turned to Nelly,

“Nelly, did you tell Jamie to bend her knees at the run?” Nelly sighed.

“No, I didn’t. It was my fault.”

“Oh, come on Nelly, it wasn’t your fault, I should have been paying attention.” Ricky was not happy with my self-sacrifice in defense of Nelly. He shot me a look that said I had no right to talk. Then he said, in that sickeningly sweet voice,

“It was Nelly’s fault, Jamie. Nelly is your manager. It’s her job to keep you safe, to make sure that you have all of the knowledge you need to be handling the dogs she is training you on. I train Nelly, you don’t. So, I will discuss Nelly’s mistakes with her.”

Don’t roll your eyes, don’t roll your eyes, I pleaded with myself, as I forced an understanding nod. Nelly hurried to break the tension,

“I know Ricky, I feel really bad. It really was my fault that she fell. We were talking about body language and keeping the dogs close and I just completely forgot to warn her about getting hit.”

“She could have gotten really hurt.” Ricky said this in a low voice, his head cocked, his eyebrows arched like a kindergarten teacher who is explaining the dangers of running with scissors.

“I know, believe me, from now on it will be the first thing I teach a trainee when we get to the dog run.”

“After teaching them about the gates, you mean.” Ricky corrected, putting his head lower, his eyebrow higher.

“Yes, sorry, yes after the gates.” Ricky turned his attention back to me,

“I’m sorry that you had to be Nelly’s guinea pig, Jamie. Are you alright?” I was surprised by how genuine his concern seemed. My body was killing me, but it was humiliating for both of us to hear Nelly getting berated, so I answered,

“Oh, God, totally fine. I’ve fallen harder tripping over my shoelaces.”

“Would you consider yourself…clumsy?” Jesus fucking Christ, dude. What is the right answer?

After admitting everything that could conceivably be considered a mistake, including my confusion about directionality, and being lectured on the importance of constant vigilance, Ricky asked if he could see my little notebook.

I handed it to him, and he started to open it, then paused, and looked at me out of the side of his eye.

“Before I look, I want to know from you; are these times correct?”

“Huh?” I feigned incredulous ignorance to such a question. Ricky sighed and closed the book.

“I’m telling you now that we are going to have a problem if you’ve made up any of these times. Honesty is very important to me. I’m going to ask you one more time; are these times correct?”

Without having to think twice I looked him right back in the eye and said,

“No, they’re not. I guessed on a few, I’m sure they’re off.”

Ricky sighed. He didn’t open the book. He pulled out another cigarette for himself, and this time, he didn’t offer one to me. He took a few drags and stayed silent. I stole a look over at Nelly, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me. Apparently, she was on the management side of this debate. I was alone in my corner. After a two-minute pause, Ricky leaned back in his chair, one arm swinging to the side, the other on the table next to him, the cigarette lazing between his fingers. His eyes squinted a little as he put on a serious look and stared straight into my eyes, suspiciously. He spoke in a low voice, just above a whisper. It all felt very noir.

“Jamie,” here he paused to exhale two lungs-full of smoke,

“Are you a liar?” Somehow, Ricky exhaled even more smoke after this question, though, he hadn’t taken another drag.

I reddened. Of course, I’m a liar, Ricky. How do you think I’d survive otherwise? I paused for the amount of time I felt was appropriate for serious reflection, all the while preparing my answer.

“No.” I said it gravely, with conviction. “I’m not a liar. I think it’s really important to tell the truth, otherwise you don’t have a leg to stand on.”

“So,” this time he paused to take a long drag from his cigarette. Then he pointed it at me, his elbow on the table, and he half-exhaled as he said, “Why were you so ready to lie to me?”

Because I think you’re an ass.

“Because I was nervous. I forgot to check the time a few times, and I tried to estimate so I would at least know approximately what time we started and ended each dog. I know I was within a few minutes of the right time.”

“And you don’t think it’s lying? If it’s sort of close to the truth?”

The best lies are sort of close to the truth.

“I guess I didn’t think of it at the time, but you’re right. It was a lie.”

“I know I’m right.” Ricky took a couple more drags from his cigarette, then made a big show out of putting it out in the ashtray, then getting up and walking out of the room to empty the ashtray. When he came back he lowered himself into his chair, groaning in pain as he did so. He looked straight at me. I looked back. He didn’t say anything. He was trying to scare me and I couldn’t tell if I really was scared or if I was such a good actor that I was scaring myself.

“Jamie, if I ever think you’re lying to me, I’m going to fire you.” At this I nodded my head, pretending embarrassment and feeling relief. If this guy thought he could guilt me he had no idea who I really was.

“I understand. I really am sorry. You’re right, those times were lies.”

“Yes, they were. And from now on, come in with the right time or leave it blank and look me in the eye and tell me the truth; you messed up. You didn’t get the times. If I ever find out that you wrote a made-up time on your log, you will be done. I don’t,” dramatic pause “…tolerate lying.”

“Understood.” I made sure to sound grave.

When I finally left Ricky’s, around 7:30, I called Tracy and found out she’d been waiting around downtown for me since her she’d left Ricky’s an hour before.

“I’ll meet you at the train,” she said, and I was shocked at how chipper she sounded after working a much longer day than I had. After dragging myself to 81st and Central Park West and seeing an equally chipper expression spread across her face, I tried to conceal the incredible effort it took to walk the two blocks from Ricky’s apartment to the C train. It was like I was dragging a giant boulder behind me. My legs were stiff and numb, my hips were sore, my body frozen. Even so, excitement rushed through me when I met up with Tracy. I was elated to see her. A familiar face.

Tracy was beaming at me. She was probably nearly as happy to see me as I was to see her. Finally one of her friends understood what she’d been doing for the last six months in New York.

“How was it?!” She asked, giant smile on her face.

“Dude. This is crazy. I feel like I’m going to die.”

“Did you like it, though?”

“I loved it.”