Larry and the Meaning of Life Read online

  I tried to remember who the ranger reminded me of when it dawned on me: Todd, a stupid jock from high school Beth used to date. This ranger seemed even more obtuse than Todd, if that were possible.

  “I’m on my bike so I can’t take him now. How about if I sit in the parking lot with him till my friend comes back?”

  The ranger took the walkie-talkie from his belt. “I’ve got a belligerent tourist at the cabin site,” he said.

  “I’m not belligerent, and I’m not a tourist. I’m here every day.”

  “Requesting local backup.”

  “Are you kidding?” The last thing I wanted to do was get into a feud with this Neanderthal, but his overreaction to the situation made me dig in my heels. “The only way you’d need backup is if Brady here licked you to death.”

  “Visitor is threatening bodily harm,” the ranger said into the walkie-talkie. “Request immediate assistance.”

  “Are you smoking crack? That was a joke!” Forget donating a kidney; this guy needed a funny bone transplant pronto. My own sense of humor failed to kick in, however, when two local cops slid their way down the hill.

  “This is your final warning,” the ranger said. “Remove the dog from this site immediately.”

  Brady’s sense of humor was obviously intact, because he chose that exact moment to lift his leg and pee on the stone marker commemorating Thoreau’s hearth. Letting out a raucous laugh was probably not the best reaction on my part. The two new officers grabbed my arms and led me up the hill.

  “There’s no reason to manhandle me,” I said. “I’m happy to take the dog out of the park.”

  “Little late for that.” The ranger tried to grab Brady’s collar, but the dog wasn’t cooperating. He bared his teeth and barked at the ranger. “I don’t suppose you have a leash for this monster.”

  “He’s a collie, and he doesn’t feel well. You’re aggravating him.” I told the cop on my right that I’d be happy to grab Brady if he’d remove me from his ironclad grip. When he looked straight ahead without answering, I told him he was being very un–Thoreau-like.

  “You, on the other hand, will be very Thoreau-like,” he answered. “Spending the night in jail when you didn’t have to.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. You’re blowing this out of proportion.” The first ranger grabbed Brady so hard he yelped. “Knock it off before I start screaming police brutality,” I said.

  The cop twisted my arm even further as he threw me into the squad car.

  “This is Walden Pond! What is your problem?”60

  The ranger shoved Brady into the back of his van.

  “Since the jail where Thoreau spent the night is gone,” I suggested, “why don’t you just let us off at the top of the road?”

  “Lucky for you,” the ranger said, “the current police station has a few modern cells for your enjoyment.”

  I was furious with the overzealous officers but just as angry with Janine for purposefully disregarding the posted laws. I’d call Peter to bail me out of these trumped-up charges, then track down Janine in the city with Gus.

  Unfortunately, Peter’s, Beth’s, and Janine’s phones all went to voicemail. I sat in the cell cursing all of them. Then I remembered one of Gus’s teachings from earlier in the week: Life is like photography—you need the negative to develop. Must be nice coming up with snappy similes while hanging out in Boston with Janine.

  As I stared up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but compare myself to Henry David in this same situation more than a hundred fifty years before. The night he’d spent in jail was a revelation for him, almost a meditative retreat. When he wrote about it afterward, it was with nostalgia and gratitude. I willed his zen-like spirit to come to my aid but couldn’t get past the blare of the sports radio program back at the sergeant’s desk.

  Thoreau ended up in a Concord jail because he chose not to pay his poll tax; he didn’t want to support a government that still allowed slavery. I, on the other hand, had disregarded a sign saying NO DOGS ALLOWED. And it wasn’t even my dog! How did I have the nerve to compare myself to such an American icon? Because I owned a small number of possessions and hung out in the woods? The essay he wrote about that fateful night, “Civil Disobedience,” had influenced and empowered men from Gandhi to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Thoreau’s piece had changed the world, while my incoherent notes wouldn’t even make it to first draft.

  Pacing the small cell, I asked myself what cause was important enough to go to prison for. I used to have principles I’d give my freedom to defend, but none of them came to mind now. I was a joke as a guru and a disciple.

  I woke up early and wondered if Peter, Beth, or Janine had gotten my messages. The tiny cell made me miss the long strides I’d taken while surveying; the morning light begged to be painted, even on one of Gus’s paint-by-numbers canvases.

  Janine finally showed up, frantic with worry. “I tried calling you at home all morning. I’ve been through the woods for hours looking for Brady.”

  I told her Brady had spent the night in the town kennel. It bothered me that she seemed more worried about her dog than me. “I left you several messages. Where were you?”

  “With Gus,” she said. “You know that.”

  “And you just got my message now ? Did you think I was going to dogsit for you all night while you hooked up with Gus?”

  “Can we deal with this later, please? I need to see my dog.” Janine waited as the officer unlocked my cell.61 He waved me out and went back to his clipboard.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.

  The officer flipped through his notes and apologized before handing me an envelope with my house key.62

  “Hel-lo?” I said. “Can we have our dog?”

  “The collie? What a shame. Such a beautiful animal.” The officer shook his head.

  “What do you mean ‘what a shame’?” Janine’s voice sounded shriller than a teakettle at full steam.

  “He was acting strange on the way to the kennel, then bit the owner’s son.”

  “Brady’s never bitten anyone!”

  “Well, he did yesterday. A six-year-old boy who’s potentially facing a painful series of rabies shots. We called the number on his collar all day, but no one answered. When we told the state coordinator at the Department of Public Health we had a possible rabies case involving a child, an AWOL owner, and an incarcerated dogsitter, he instructed us to euthanize the dog immediately.”

  Janine lunged toward the officer; I grabbed her clenched fists.

  “Whoa, young lady,” the officer said. “We waited as long as we could. I’m very sorry.”

  I felt terrible about Brady, but a minuscule slice of evil inside me smirked at Janine having to pay such a high price for her overnight with Gus. I felt terrible squared, though, as she began to sob through her explanation.

  “I was at Mass General … getting stuck with needles … to see if I could donate an organ … to someone I don’t even know. They made me shut off my cell … . My dog’s never bitten anyone … in his life. I can’t remember his last shot … but he’s not rabid.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” The officer seemed sympathetic but ready to move on with his day.

  I led Janine to the door and told the cop to let us know the results of the blood test.

  “You can’t test rabies from an animal’s blood. The only reliable ID for rabies is brain tissue.”

  Janine started crying all over again. “Before you stick a needle into my dead dog’s brain to test for a disease he doesn’t have, can I at least see him to say goodbye?”

  The man rubbed the back of his neck. “You can, but I’m not really sure you want to. You know, without his head.”

  “WHAT?” This time we both screamed.

  The cop looked confused. “How else do you think the state lab gets brain tissue? We packed the head in dry ice this morning and sent it in.”

  Instead of lunging for the cop, this time Janine lunged for me. �
�You watch my dog for a few hours and he gets DECAPITATED?”

  You know how sometimes your mind isn’t in full synchronization with your mouth and you say something you immediately want to hit “rewind” on? Something like this: “I told you Brady shouldn’t be at the pond. I told you hanging out with Gus was trouble. This is all your fault.”

  My words hit her like a left hook to the solar plexus.

  “You obsess about Gus and me, you piss off a park ranger, my dog is decapitated on your watch—while I’m trying to donate my kidney to a stranger—and it’s MY fault?” She grabbed the stapler from the officer’s desk and threw it at me.

  The cop must’ve thought she’d been through enough because he picked up the stapler from the floor without a word.

  “Come on,” I told Janine. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Instead, she climbed into her car, locked the passenger door, and raced out of the parking lot without me.

  Ever have one of those days—or weeks or months—where every person you know hates you? Maybe even people you don’t know?

  Janine hadn’t spoken to me in the week since the incident. The fact that the state lab determined Brady didn’t have rabies made her loss that much worse. The other students were almost as horrified. Katie was so disgusted with me, she forgot any petty disagreements she and Janine had and doted on her like a hospice nurse. When Mike made a bad joke about Brady following in his owner’s footsteps by donating an organ of his own, his ostracism from the group was immediate.

  Gus was the only one who seemed to take the episode in stride. He told us to move on and not incite the drama even further. He also insisted Janine withdraw herself from the donor process immediately. He spent a lot of time “comforting” her, but I didn’t dare say a word. Playing Marie Antoinette’s executioner with someone else’s dog denies you the moral high ground.

  Peter was angry too. He’d been in Portland pitching a gig for his events-planning company when I’d called him from jail. He made several phone calls to the Concord Police to try and wipe the charges from my permanent record, but because of a new online national criminal database, Princeton had already gotten wind of my arrest.

  “If you blew your college career, there’ll be hell to pay.” Peter tried to keep the anger from his voice without success. “And Janine’s dog—are you kidding? It’ll be a miracle if she ever talks to you again.”

  Keep it coming. I deserve all the grief you dish out.

  When Peter finally finished, I grabbed my jacket and went outside. I was surprised to find Beth sitting on the front steps.

  “I could hear him from the driveway,” Beth said. “Figured I’d wait for you out here.” She leaned back to soak up the unseasonably warm November day.

  “Why does all this stuff keep happening?” I asked. “Am I cursed?”

  “Things happen to people every day—life, death, illness, good news, bad news. Stop thinking everything has to do with you.” She handed me the stack of letters the mailman had given her.

  I stared at the letter with the Princeton return address. “I guess those apologetic phone calls I made to their admissions director didn’t do any good.”

  “Maybe it’s just a bill,” Beth said.

  I appreciated her optimism, but it wasn’t warranted. Princeton had rescinded their offer to have me attend in January.

  Beth grabbed the letter from my hand. “You can fight it. Hire a lawyer.”

  “Peter’s broke, and so am I.”

  “Doesn’t running for president trump a twenty-four-hour arrest?”

  But that accomplishment belonged to the old me, the me who had a firm grasp on his goal in life, who knew how to contribute. This Josh, this Larry, got innocent dogs decapitated, spent his stepfather’s money on lecherous gurus, and couldn’t find an epiphany to save his life. Princeton was right; I didn’t belong there.

  Beth pointed to another letter—this one from Massachusetts General Hospital. When she asked why they were writing to me, I shoved the letter into my pocket.

  “I hope that’s not what I think it is,” she said.

  “The forecast calls for snow, but it’s too warm, don’t you think?”

  Beth didn’t buy my change of subject. “Just because Janine’s upset about Brady doesn’t mean you have to take her place as an organ donor.”

  “Too late.” I handed her the letter telling me I’d passed the initial screening tests.63 “I have to stop focusing on my own problems and do something positive. It’s not fair that some do-gooder dies because I killed Janine’s dog. The least I can do is help someone else to live a better life.”

  Beth spent the next half hour trying to change my mind. I ignored her, then set up a time to meet the person who hopefully would have better luck than I with my DNA.

  Although I didn’t legally need his consent, in the end I was grateful to have Peter’s blessing. He’d insisted on visiting his internist to see if his blood matched the chosen recipient to spare me from having to go through the ordeal of a transplant. He couldn’t hide his disappointment when the test came back saying his blood wasn’t a match. I hated playing the what-if-this-was-Mom card again, but I knew it would seal the deal. It did.

  With Janine still not talking to me and Mike making Brady jokes behind her back, I finished the rest of the surveying alone. On my last tract of land, I spotted a squirrel rooting around the base of a giant pine. What I thought might be a cache of acorns turned out to be a cardboard cylinder filled with survey maps, many of them mine. Someone had made small x’s on the maps’ walking paths. Was Gus correcting our work? Why hadn’t he told me I’d made mistakes, and why was he hiding the maps out here? I felt confused and unsure about turning them in; I was still on thin ice with the group. I decided to bury them back where I’d found them. When I finished, I could swear I saw the same tourist I’d seen with the videocamera a few weeks ago filming from the other side of the cove.

  Mike yelled that Gus had arrived with the recipient, so we all scrambled to the beach. The wind had picked up, and we wrapped our jackets and blankets even tighter around us. Gus started down the hill slowly, holding on to the woman who would receive my kidney. Because of the trees, I couldn’t see her face but was surprised the charitable organization would offer an organ to someone old; I assumed they gave priority to patients with a longer life expectancy.

  I hadn’t seen Peter sitting by the boathouse; Katie waved him over, and he joined us on the beach. “This is a wonderful act of charity,” Katie said. “You must be so proud of Larry.”

  “I am.”

  Mike passed around a bag of trail mix and bottles of water. I tried yet again to make eye contact with Janine, but when I did, she seemed catatonic. For the first time since Brady died, she made physical contact and grabbed my arm. “You need to see this.” She pointed up the hill.

  Peter wore the same ashen expression as Janine, so I jockeyed to get a better view. As Gus ushered the woman into the center of our circle, I dropped the bag of trail mix. Was this some kind of sick joke?

  The woman continued to hold Gus’s arm for support.

  “I’d like to introduce a woman who leads a life of charity and love,” Gus said. “Everyone, meet Tracy Hawthorne.”

  Neither Janine nor Peter uttered a sound. My mind raced with a hundred possible things to say, but no words came. After several awkward moments, I approached the person scheduled to receive my kidney.

  “We’ve actually met,” I told Gus. “But back then, she went by the name of betagold.”

  PART THREE

  “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

  none but ourselves can free our minds.”

  Bob Marley

  “Redemption Song”

  “She tried to have you killed!” Beth shouted. “She set up Janine. You lost the election because of her!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I snapped. “I thought Janine was going to shove her into the pond.”

  “You are not going thr
ough with this operation,” Peter said.

  “Obviously,” I said.

  “Did Gus know about this?” Beth asked. “The guy knows everything else about your life. I bet he set this up on purpose.”

  I told her Gus denied knowing anything about my past history with betagold but I didn’t believe him for a second.

  “Is there any good news?” Beth asked. “Besides betagold being fatally ill?”

  “I hate her,” I said. “But I don’t want her to die.” I took my bowl of uneaten oatmeal to the sink. “I guess the good news is that Janine is talking to me again. Betagold has taken her mind off Brady, at least for a while.”

  “You should’ve seen betagold’s face when she realized who the donor was,” Peter told Beth. “You could see her hopes for a new kidney vanishing before her eyes. I almost felt bad for her.”

  “That would’ve been worth cutting drama class for,” Beth said.

  As much as I agreed with them, I felt that all the hate bouncing across the kitchen went directly against everything I believed in. I’d spent a lot of energy trying not to take betagold’s obsession with my downfall personally, and all this talk stirred up those old negative feelings. As much as I didn’t want to help betagold, I didn’t want to hurt her, either. Life was too short. Maybe the weeks spent with Gus instead of on the couch were paying off.

  Since Janine had actually spoken to me again, I decided to surprise her at Victopia. On the ride over, I replayed yesterday afternoon in my mind. After seeing me, betagold had talked about the grandchildren she’d like to spend more time with and the mistakes she’d made. But most of all, she talked about forgiveness. She held my eyes like a laser beam. By the end, she—and everyone else—was almost crying. Everyone except Janine, Peter, and me. Gus looked at me as if to say, “Well?” I walked past betagold up the hill to the parking lot without a word.

  Katie seemed surprised when she answered the door at Victopia. It appeared as if Janine had just woken up; she held the door ajar with her foot.