At six, there was a scratch at the door. Fred groaned and rolled over. At seven, after a full hour of seething over being awake and hungover, he got up and stepped into the nearest pair of boxer shorts. He walked hurriedly down the long, sunlit corridor and opened the front door, expecting the usual sight of Rusty laid out in the morning sun. When the dog wasn't there, Fred felt angrier. He looked both ways and made a clicking sound between his teeth, but Rusty didn't come.

In the kitchen, while making a cup of instant coffee, he thought back to the night before and marveled at the pain in his head. He stirred sugar into his cup and walked to a wrought-iron, gla.s.s-topped table by his office window. Sitting down and scanning the beach for his runaway dog, Fred mourned the end of tourist season. The beach was nearly empty. Only a few weeks before, a group of college girls would jog by every morning at seven thirty, followed by equally attractive jogging college boys. Fred didn't know which he enjoyed more, but he missed them now that they were gone. In fact, he missed many things that were gone now, a thought which made him sigh and feel old again.

He thought back to Sarah. Had she said yes? She distinctly did. "She said nine o'clock tomorrow, I heard her," he mumbled to himself.

But the fact was, Fred hadn't really asked Sarah out to dinner, and he knew it. In his golden days on the island, thirty years earlier, he'd been a real gigolo. But once he started making proper money from his real estate dealings in the 1980s, things changed and women didn't matter anymore. Before he knew it, he was white and saggy from ten years at a desk, and s.h.a.gging his personal a.s.sistant. The closest he got to beautiful women was through the lens of a hand-held telescope. Some days he would perch for hours in front of his huge window, peering at the topless European women, the round American girls, and even the flat-chested teenagers, all the while talking to them, muttering, inviting them to dinner, to a spin in his yacht, to Paris. Sometimes, when Winston wasn't around to cook him dinner, he would play out the role beyond his living room. He would make reservations for two and get stood up. He would sit for hours next to a packed picnic basket and small campfire on the beach, wondering where she was. This week it was Sarah, but there had been others.

He searched the beach all morning but couldn't see her. He even tried on some other women for size, but none of them fit like she did. The rest were ordinary, anyway, and he'd had plenty of ordinary women in his life already. His thoughts wandered back to a time in his past when no woman could resist him-a time when college girls were easy and date rape hadn't yet been invented-the time of his life. How many girls had he lured into his trap? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? He used to keep count. Had it ended at seventy-six? Seventy-six in four and a half years, not counting summers-or his year in love with Penny-averaged two and a half per month. "Only one every two weeks, Fred. You could have done better."

Life on the island had made up for that. So many tourist seasons had pa.s.sed, each with dozens of conquests, that Fred could barely contain his elation at the thought of counting them all.

But they were all ordinary women, like the ones on the beach. Some firm and s.e.xy, yes. Some young and pretty, yes. But ordinary. None of them better than any other and none of them elegant or graceful or interesting like Sarah.

By the time Rusty returned for more beatings, it was three thirty. Winston was due back at five, and Fred had wasted his day watching women he would never get close enough to touch from his second story floor-to-ceiling window. Rusty scratched at the rear entrance four or five times before Fred got up to let him in.

"Welcome home, a.s.shole," he said as Rusty pranced past him, then slammed the door and followed the dog to the kitchen.

Rusty sat by the cupboard, obediently seeking food, as Fred jotted a quick note that read, Your dog is an a.s.shole Your dog is an a.s.shole, and then continued on, leaving his dirty cups and dishes for Winston. He kicked off his boxer shorts in the hallway and went directly to the shower.

When he returned, Rusty was still sitting there, wincing a little with each excited breath. Fred looked at the clock in the kitchen and faced the dog. "He'll be home in an hour or two. You can wait, like I did all morning," he said, then walked back to his office and shut the door. He checked his messages and opened a large planning map before him.

On the days he wasted over the years, Fred took to making himself feel better by looking at how much he owned. He'd bought up eighty percent of the beachfront land on Billy's Bay, and now offered it at ridiculous prices to businessmen from Europe who didn't know any better. Most of it was completely covered in thick vegetation and sea grape groves.

He rolled the map back into a tight tube and sat in his Italian, pastel-yellow, leather desk chair, which he spun to face the beach again. Rusty moved from the kitchen to the office door and rested his head on his paws. They both fell asleep, waiting for Winston.

A deep, sudden bark woke Fred from his slouched position in the chair. He bolted upright and wiped the s...o...b..r from his chin. Rusty had already gone to the door and bounced on Winston, who acted happy to see him and scratched him behind the ears. The dog bounded after Winston into the kitchen, where an extra-large portion of dog food was put before him. He set to work eating it.

Winston looked around at the mess one man could make in seventy-two hours. Fred had used every cup in the house, all of them still half full with sweet instant coffee gone cold. A pair of socks was thrown over a barstool, a wet towel grew musty in a ball on the floor. Mundane notes scrawled on sc.r.a.ps of paper lay everywhere: Do laundry more often or buy me more boxers Do laundry more often or buy me more boxers-Your dog is an a.s.shole-Your mother called-I hate that painting in the hallway-Something in the trash can stinks.

The office door opened and Fred emerged, looking indifferent.

"Some mess you make, mon," Winston laughed.

"Just give me the keys and shut up." Fred held his hand out.

"Ease up, Fred. Take it teasy teasy."

"Just give me the keys and get out," Fred barked.

Winston reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring with five keys on it. "Okay, Fred. There's the keys, right? If me go, who 'gwan clean all dis up? And who 'gwan do all your shopping? Who-"

"Okay, I get the point. Just leave me alone." Fred walked back to the office and slammed the door.

He slapped the new key ring on the desk, fixed himself a bourbon on ice, and sat down to ponder. Winston began to clean the enormous condo, playing loud music wherever he went. Rusty had accidentally gotten locked between the gla.s.s door and the back door and no one heard him crying, so he finally had to squat and push right there on the terra-cotta tiled floor. What was worse was that he had to stay there and look at it, until someone found him and subsequently punished him; it was like spending the weeks before a murder trial in a cell with the festering dead body.

Fred found him. Winston's music had driven him out of the office to deal with the stereo, and then the smell of fresh dog s.h.i.t drove him to the door where Rusty sat whimpering and looking sorry. Five minutes later, the dog was still trying to remove remnants of his own feces from his nostrils. It was drying in the fur behind his eyebrows, and he continually pressed his wide head into the sand to scrub it from himself. He ran to the sea and snorted salt water through his nose, and then took off toward the tree line.

In growth too dense for any human (unless armed with a sharp machete), Rusty and some other dogs from the neighborhood made tunnels and roamed them daily, sniffing and marking boundaries. Some of them had made a home of it, burrowing dens into the steady incline under screw pine roots and claiming chunks of territory. Rusty had a favorite spot too, and stayed there whenever he grew tired of Fred's beatings.

He found a sunny spot and groomed for ten minutes, then walked his rounds and stopped at a place between two tree trunks-a small s.p.a.ce of only a yard or so. He positioned himself between the trunks, sat up tall, and took a huge breath of air. He exhaled, letting his bulky body fill the gap, and fell into a lazy, depressed snooze.

A few times, he shifted his weight and felt a poke in his rib cage from an object sticking out of the sand, then shifted again to avoid it like it was a loose spring in a mattress. After a few minutes of shifting, Rusty grew impatient with the sharp intrusion and got up. He backed away to sniff at whatever had poked him, and then leaned down to lick it.

Any human would have known that it was the corner edge of a shovel head. But to Rusty, it was simply a familiar metallic taste, one that reminded him of the dumpster outside the Island Hotel Restaurant and the gatepost next to the pool.

DOG FACT #4.

Humping Inanimate Objects Adolescent dogs, when excited, often mount inanimate objects. This can embarra.s.s owners, and is best controlled by doing something else and not thinking about it.

How many times have we heard a master exclaim, "That dog is simply shameless!" And indeed we are. Shameless and stupid at first. Do you think we want want to be humping the furniture? Did you want to hump that awkward pimply soph.o.m.ore in the back of your father's Buick? I doubt it, but you know, everybody has to start somewhere. to be humping the furniture? Did you want to hump that awkward pimply soph.o.m.ore in the back of your father's Buick? I doubt it, but you know, everybody has to start somewhere.

Dogs start with whatever is handy. The more there are other dogs around, the less your dog will feel the need to rub his most private parts against your leather sectional. I preferred a more malleable practice partner-a throw rug, a visitor's jacket, children's stuffed toys. That was when I lived in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s with the b.u.mper-sticker people. They had a collection that covered every square inch of their two cars and every interior wall of the small Victorian row house we lived in. Even my kennel in the backyard had adhesive slogans plastered all over it. They were fine people, though, aside from their undying need to get a message across.

Afraid I would get pregnant, the sticker freaks kept me locked inside a high chain-link fence and rarely walked me. I humped anything soft I could steal and hide in my house (mostly what I've already mentioned; lots of throw rugs, the rag-rug kind).

It's an instinctual, uncontrollable thing, very similar to human p.u.b.erty. There's no real joy in it, but we do it anyway because we have to. Our masters don't like witnessing it, because humans tend to have s.e.xual hang-ups. To them, we seem shameless and stupid shameless and stupid, which, if you really look at it, is just another way of saying free and simple free and simple.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of fight in the dog.

Mark Twain

When they landed in Tortuga, island men flew up the ropes and stormed the boat, grabbing and groping any woman they could find. Emer hid beneath a bunk and shivered. In the melee, she heard women scream and slap, she heard men laugh hearty laughs and slap back. She escaped quietly, by way of the small ladder that led to the forecastle quarters.

After months below in the sweltering heat, Emer stood on deck and enjoyed the gentle breeze. She refastened her blond hair into a tight bun, exposing the back of her neck, and removed her overskirt, revealing a ragged sheer slip that kept the coa.r.s.e wool from scratching her legs.

Emer listened carefully to what was going on beneath the deck. The crew had arrived, and forced manners onto any buccaneers who crossed the line. An ease swept through the ship, as the women thought about their past strife in Paris and realized that this Tortuga might not be so bad after all.

She headed back to her small bunk and retrieved her things-nothing but smelly garments that she had worn onto the boat, and her crucifix-and walked slowly toward the slatted plank that led to the sh.o.r.e. When all of the women were off the boat, some already holding hands with the first men they'd found, a black-haired Frenchman approached her. He was followed by a servant of some sort, who glared at her.

At first, the black-haired man spoke in French, but when he realized she couldn't understand him, he switched to a fluid English that Emer could nearly understand. She thought he said, "I have chosen you as the leader of these women."

What he'd really said was, "I am the leader of this village, and I have chosen you for myself." Smitten at first sight, the Frenchman watched her every move.

Emer smiled and replied, "I am honored."

It was only when he placed his rough hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that she realized her grasp of the English language was rusty and inaccurate. She flinched and wiggled free, embarra.s.sed. He grabbed her right wrist and placed his lips on her neck; she struggled to not cry or scream out.

Only a few paces from the dock, where the other women stood watching, she felt ashamed that she could not let him have his way. All during the journey from Paris, Emer had felt like a simple Irish girl compared to these women. Prost.i.tutes had no trouble accepting advances. They had no scruples in the captain's cabin during the night, volunteering for duties she was still unfamiliar with. Emer felt stupid and naive for all the nights she lay thinking about Seanie instead of reality. But the truth was, she would not be able to save her virginity for her true love. As with the rest of the women she had traveled with, her virginity meant nothing at all to these foreigners, nothing but a sort of trophy. Who else could claim that from a boat of prost.i.tutes and beggars, they'd landed a true virgin?

The Frenchman knew, from the moment she flinched, that he'd done the impossible. He'd landed the virgin. And it excited him and depressed him at the same time. He let go of Emer, allowing her to walk away from him, and quickly found a suitable older woman to drag to his hut.

Emer felt even worse shame after that, but soon remembered what her mother would say: she was no man's prost.i.tute she was no man's prost.i.tute, no matter how out of place that notion seemed on the crazy island of Tortuga. And she was worthy of a good Irish man-or a good man, at least-and would settle for nothing less.

The next day, as she gathered fruit, Emer separated from the other women little by little until she disappeared into the thick vegetation to the north of the village. (Her mother whispered, This way Emer, this way This way Emer, this way.) She walked until the sun began to set, and then found shelter in a small, rocky cove.

"Another b.l.o.o.d.y cave," Emer said to herself, arranging a small pile of damp clothing on the flattest stone she could find. The last rays of sunlight gave her only enough time to get her bearings and make sure the tide wouldn't wash in while she slept, halfway between the beach and the forest.

Why am I always finding myself here? Emer asked herself. Emer asked herself. Here, where there is no possible way out? In Paris, I ran from the fat man who owned me. Here, I run from all of them. Always running and ending up here! Damp caves or bunks below deck! Darkness! Here, where there is no possible way out? In Paris, I ran from the fat man who owned me. Here, I run from all of them. Always running and ending up here! Damp caves or bunks below deck! Darkness!

She looked at the flat rocks scattered on the sand, arranged by hundreds of tides. She thought back to the last time she felt free: the days atop the castle, fighting with Padraig, counting the swallows ... the days when her mother would smile and ruffle the top of her head and laugh out loud.

What was it Mairead had said about Emer, the legendary wife of Cuchulain? That she could talk her way out of anything? But what good was sweet speech when everyone spoke another language? When no man so far had been interested in talking?

She made a pillow out of the old wool cape that had made the journey from Connacht to Paris with her. She laid her head down and shifted a few times on the hard rock to get comfortable. Then, she reached into the small pocket of her skirt to retrieve the carved crucifix, clutched it, and prayed for safety.

The first intruder came at midnight. She heard a loud rustling of leaves, and then sniffing and snorting. Realizing it was just an animal, Emer lay still and listened for half an hour, then fell back into a half sleep where she was convinced she would hear whatever came next. But she didn't hear what came next-until he was in the cave standing above her.

Pausing only long enough to get her bearings and to focus on the outline of the large man peering down at her, Emer rolled to the left and reached out for any object she could find. The man threw himself to his knees and grabbed her ankles roughly. She called out in pain and surprise. He jerked her toward him, saying something foreign, and then coughed and spat to his side and laughed. Emer found a solid rock and heaved herself up into a sitting position. The intruder jerked her again by her ankles and got a further grip up her legs, just under her knees, nearly knocking her over onto her back. She jerked back and, with all her strength, brought the rock crashing down on his shoulder. He yelped in pain, letting go of her left leg to clutch his arm. She sat up straighter and aimed for his head.

Somehow, the leverage Emer attained from having her left leg curled under her, no matter how hard the intruder jerked on her right one, gave her the strength of an extra man. She pounded the rock into his head, again and again. He fell backward and to the side, his legs still folded under him, and didn't move at all.

Emer waited. He still didn't move. She waited for a few more minutes and, when he still didn't move, got up and fetched a smaller rock, one with a sharp edge that she could hold with one hand. Shaking and breathless, she dragged his heavy body from the cave. As she pulled the man by the shoulders, she heard the sc.r.a.ping of metal on rock and, investigating, found a short cutla.s.s fastened to his belt. She removed it and parried with air, dancing back and forth. It was then the idea came to her.

Once she'd dragged the man to the sand, she put her ear to his lips and listened for breathing. There was none, so she undressed him. Back at her small makeshift bed, Emer groped around for the crucifix. Then she returned to the naked body, and, with the cross, said a few words in Gaelic above him for their combined sins.

Then Emer walked out to the surf. Starting with the man's blouse, she began to rinse out her new clothing, not knowing if there were bloodstains or holes in it that needed to be patched. She scrubbed the fabric together furiously, as if the sea could wash away what a dead man had seen and felt.

When Emer returned to the cave, she laid the clothing out to dry on the rocks and picked up the cutla.s.s again. She felt its edge, and then tested its sharpness by clutching several strands of her long hair and pulling the cutla.s.s through them, cutting the hair at chin length, away from herself. In a trance, she continued to do the same with the rest of her hair-clump by clump-until it was all relatively the same shape around her face, with an uneven boyish fringe at her forehead. She gathered up the pile of hair and walked it to the sea, throwing it as far away as she could and holding back tears.

Sometimes, to defend your honor, you have to do awful things, Emer, you have to do awful things, Emer, her mother said. her mother said.

Emer sniffled. "I watched you kill two men, Mother, and I understand now."

You should be proud you were able to defend yourself! Not ashamed!

Emer answered inside her mind: "I will try to hide my shame. I will try to be proud." But it wasn't working. No matter how she looked at it, she didn't feel comfortable with the murder. He hadn't been trying to kill her, and he wouldn't have. Did he really deserve to die for the sake of her honor? On an island of wh.o.r.es and savages?

Suddenly, she noticed a man walking toward her on the beach. She'd left the cutla.s.s in the cave after cutting her hair, and now, making out the man's familiar frame, she ran back inside to find it. She hid in the corner nearest the beach, squatting, the cutla.s.s perched between her thighs, and tried to slow her breathing.

He was speaking French, in teasing tones. She could hear from his voice that he was smiling. Then, she heard him gasp as his toe met the dead, naked body of his comrade. She saw his silhouette lean down to inspect it.

"Are you in here, my little English girl?"

Emer watched his bushy dark hair flick around as he tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness within the cave.

His voice echoed. "Do not be afraid. You do not need to kill me too."

He sounded happy, as if he were playing a game with a child. And like a child, ten feet away, Emer suddenly didn't know what to do. She froze. Would she have to keep killing for the sake of this useless chast.i.ty? One man already lay dead because of this game. Need there be two?

Before she even felt him grab her, she was flat on her back on the rocks, her cutla.s.s s.n.a.t.c.hed, and he was pressing his full weight against her. He kissed her neck the same way as he'd done the day before, and breathed in the sweetness of her sweat.

The Frenchman reached down to Emer's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and this time she did not flinch-half for fear of a slap, or worse, and half because she was still frozen in her childish game of indecision. She didn't scream or squirm. She just lay still and let him touch her.

He yanked her slip up to her waist and she could feel his hard groin grinding against her thigh, now wet from seawater. Emer didn't know if she was feeling desire or repulsion, excitement or fear. He kissed her bosom and grabbed her tightly around the waist, almost crushing her ribs between his hands, before plunging himself.

She groaned in pain and pulled her hips from the hard stone to avoid injury as he thrust back and forth, panting, his head buried in her neck. Her hands moved to her sides to balance this whole event, trying to control the uncontrollable. Still frozen by her mixed emotions, Emer prayed that he would finish soon. She thought back to the nights she had lain in the boat, listening to the wh.o.r.es please the crewmen. How long had it taken them? Was time making any sense at all? How long has he been doing this?

And then he stopped. He hadn't finished, just stopped, and breathed slowly until he felt contained-then started at the beginning again, in her neck and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, taking his time as if he were her husband or a great lover. Emer didn't know what to do, and in a desperate attempt to end the terrible procedure, relaxed and opened her legs wider. The Frenchman seemed so invited by this that he began again, and continued for such a short time that Emer could barely believe it was over so quickly. He collapsed on top of her and breathed into her ear loudly. His left hand moved up her side and landed on her head, where he stroked her cropped hair and whispered something in French, and then repeated it in English: "I love you, woman," he said, and sighed. This English she did not confuse.

Emer's emotions spun back to Seanie. Every bit of heart she had left broke, and she cried. The Frenchman, still on top of her, flopped slightly to her right, and she let silent tears drop from the sides of her face into her ears. As he breathed, each tear blew cold. She shivered. Now she knew what was worse. Now she knew what was worse than all of the things she had been ashamed of in a day. It wasn't killing or running or hiding that was worse, and it wasn't the prudishness of her chast.i.ty or the innocence of her ideals. It was this. This right here.

A stranger who felt love in her, wrapped around her and inside her, who had taken from her the thing she had wished to be rid of only a day before-it felt worse than killing. It felt worse to endure such an animal act than it did to crush a man's skull. It felt worse because of Seanie, and because of her mother and because of her confusion. Now, she would never know what had just happened. She would always ask why. Why hadn't she fought, after killing another man only an hour before? Why hadn't she tried to escape and hide? Why hadn't she cared enough to do something? something?

Susan picked Sam and me up from school on Skip Day, and we went to the mall. Susan turned to go into Tower Records while Sam and I dug through bargain books on the tables set up outside the bookstore.

"Have fun, you two," she said, and I clenched my teeth. Ever since she started dating Jay, Susan had become one of those those girls-an annoying, giddy, simple-minded baseball groupie. On several occasions, when she wouldn't shut up, I'd hung her from the yard arm and used her for target practice. girls-an annoying, giddy, simple-minded baseball groupie. On several occasions, when she wouldn't shut up, I'd hung her from the yard arm and used her for target practice.

I spent a while in the travel section, looking at books about Jamaica and the Caribbean. I decided on one and bought it, then found Sam slumped on a bench next to the fake mall greenery.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, but he said it all depressed-like.

"Come on." G.o.d, I wanted to kick him.

He looked up at me and said, "You know, the prom is in three weeks, and if I'm going to go I have to buy tickets now, and my pop said he could buy them for me if I wanted to take you, but I told him you probably already had a date, and now I feel like an idiot because I don't think you do, and I never asked. Do you?"

He was like a ship's dog.

"Do you?"

"Are you asking me to the prom?"

"Uh huh."

A week later, I found a great old beaded dress at the Goodwill in town and took it to Mrs. Lindt in the Home Ec wing, who helped me tailor it to make me look less flat chested. I tried to act excited, but really, the whole thing made me want to puke. To me, it seemed like just another opportunity for the rich kids to sit around and sn.i.g.g.e.r at the rest of us.

And Sam was just complicating things.