My mother took it as a personal insult that she had a sickly child. How could she have a daughter whom you could blow over with a single breath? She took it upon herself to nurse me back to health. Any time the doctors prescribed a new food regimen she discovered health food stores for my new diet, places outside of her usual shopping route on Hunts Point Avenue.
I went through a gluten-free phase since the doctors thought I was allergic to wheat products. When that didn’t work, I graduated to all-protein diets, eating broiled meat, cottage cheese, and raw vegetables. The doctors finally decided that I didn’t have a food allergy. I knew all along it was the Sick Monster.
In junior high school, the doctors told my mother that they wanted to send me to a hospital “for observation.” But on the morning when I was being discharged, the Sick Monster jabbed me with a fingernail. “I will follow you wherever you go. You will never escape.”
I went back to school and tried to forget about him, discovered the library where I found collections of Greek mythology, stories about Psyche whose husband was invisible at night; Grimm’s fairy tales about three tasks that must be accomplished before a prince can find love, or Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid who dissolved into a sea of foam, sacrificing her silvery tail for stumpy legs. I knew love was not going to be easy. All the songs on the radio said so. But I thought love had to be the most wonderful thing in the world, the moment when Emile De Becque in South Pacific spots Nellie Forbush across a crowded room. I also dreamed about making the world a better place. But I couldn’t find books to tell me how I was supposed to do any of this, especially how to find the person who was going to share a roll-away couch with me every night. I figured it was something I’d have to learn when I got older like studying algebra in the seventh grade.
At least I had friends. The first was Maurice. He was my next-door neighbor and we traveled back and forth between apartments. Once he showed me his rock collection with identifying labels, and had agreed to guard a snowman against vandalism that I had built in the lot. Home was a place to go to in the evening, but the lot was our real home where we caught lightning bugs in jelly jars and where we found stray dogs.
One day we came across a stray dog in the lot. He was a dog like any other,with a body that was built lean for the streets, rib cage visible, black and brown fur around an oozing sore. It was Saturday, several hours before dinner as days began to shorten and whisper with a cold breath.
My mother had told me never to pet a dog especially if it were drooling because that was a sure sign of rabies. One of the twins had gotten bitten by a dog and had to go to the hospital and get injections with a needle that was as long as a baseball bat. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I backed off and watched the dog from a safe distance. Occasionally, the dog picked up its head and sniffed. Its eyes were green like the pastel chalk we strained over rusted screens found in the lot and poured into socks on Halloween to pound on people’s front doors.
The dog talked. “Haven’t eaten for days.”He rubbed against my legs. I asked him his name. “Lobo.”
“Lobo. You look hurt. Hide behind this rock. Don’t let the other kids see you because they might throw rocks. And watch out for Ronny. He’s the meanest. I’ll be right back with food. I promise.” I ran upstairs. I opened the door with my key and hoped my mother was still shopping. I brought down some leftovers. I think it was meatloaf.
After the Lobo finished, I asked, “How did you hurt yourself?”
“Another dog said that no green-eyes could live in the same running ground.” His eyes spun like tops.
“I would’ve chased that dog away.”
“He was mean with big teeth.”
“Anyway, I’m glad you came.”
“I’m thirsty now.” He looked up at me with his spinning eyes.
I needed to get upstairs before my mother came home. Right now I had to find water. Lobo was panting hard. We walked past the washing machine room in the basement. The floor was coated with green scum from soap that had flooded there countless times. We approached a hole in the pavement where rain had gathered. Lobo lapped up the water.
“You’ve been so kind to me. Pull a few hairs from my tail. If you ever need anything say ‘Lobo means wolf, wolf.’ Now I must find my sleeping place.”
I bent down to pluck his fur, but careful to avoid the sore.
“There you are,” said my mother. Her hair was wrapped in a white towel. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in your room?” I pushed my hands into my pocket and felt around for Lobo’s hairs, put them in my keepsake box next to seashells from Orchard Beach and a cedar stick that I liked to smell because it reminded me of a forest. I had something even better. “Lobo means wolf, wolf!” I taped the hairs to a piece of paper and put them in my keepsake box. But dogs never talked to me again. Neither did the Sick Monster.