Then Griffin did one of his Griffin things. Out of nowhere he barked, turned his head both ways, and, as if he were suddenly sure he was being stalked by a zombie, he jumped a ful one-eighty, his head leading the way.
And then he jumped back, and just as quickly, he returned to normal, as if whatever had just possessed him had flown away. It used to scare me when Griffin acted nuts. Now I just understood it was Griffin being Griffin.
“What the heck?” the older guy said.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, and a thing came to me as a coherent sentence, which was unusual but welcome in this case. “Griffin is basical y that kid in school who sits in the back, eating chalk.”
The boy laughed and when he did so, his eyes lit up. I couldn’t see his mouth, but I imagined him with a smile where his lips pul up so high you can
see his glistening gums.
This led to some laughter and the other people saying various things, none of which I heard because I was playing back in my head the moment where I successful y said something funny, and in that way, maybe Normal, almost. And who was to say what Normal real y was? And then I came to, and they were al looking at me, and I realized: Me. I was to say. And as previously noted, saying is not my strongest skil . Especial y in front of a (potential y) good-looking boy (stupid masks). I am especial y tongue-tied in the presence of (hypothetical) long-faced beauty.
So I opened my mouth, and my brain was suddenly extraordinarily empty, as if my one joke had cored me out, and the stupidest thing was that I knew as soon as I walked away, al the good things to say would come, because of course, the English language consists of many, many words, and they can be arranged in al sorts of order to make meaning. But there I was, standing like a statue, with my mouth open like an idiot, and it wasn’t getting better, the longer I stayed that way.
So I said, “Bye.”
And they each said, “Bye.”
And I walked on, knowing for the entire month of May, and for however long this pandemic thing was going on, my only goal would be to never see those people again.
—
From that point on, I stayed on the west side of 26th Street, which was decidedly less beautiful, less canopied with huge trees, and therefore less shady, which definitely mattered in Phoenix between May and September, when the flaming sun was only six or seven feet above the city at al times.
Which was why I had to wake up at five-something every day to walk.
Because walking dogs once the sidewalk had started to sizzle was evil and abusive, and I’d never ever do that to poor Griffin.
And maybe it was three days later, as I turned the corner from 25th Place onto Pinchot, that I saw, again, coming toward me like an unstoppable force,
the masked brigade and their canines. And I thought, God, why are you doing this to me? Isn’t COVID-19 enough?
But it wasn’t, and as I walked toward them, Griffin pul ing me forward the whole time, I had nothing. Nothing in my brain to say. So as I approached, I pasted on a smile they couldn’t see beneath my mask, and I said, “Hi!” and kept walking, and they al said “Hi” back. Fol owed by the most surprising three words of the entire pandemic thus far.
The boy turned to me as I passed, motioned my way with his hand, and said, “Walk with us.”
I turned and fol owed, like an obedient dog, al the while my heart pumping like I had just been threatened with a painful death rather than just walking with a bunch of strangers. I walked alongside the boy, behind the group of adults, my thump-thumping heart making it hard to hear and harder to breathe. The adults up ahead chatted with each other, and we two non-adults lagged behind.
He didn’t say anything for a while, which actual y kind of helped, because it made me feel like maybe he didn’t think it was so weird that I wasn’t saying anything. But as the silence stretched on, I thought maybe it was getting rude, so I gulped, decided to pretend I was someone who could conversate, and pointed to the teen boy’s dog.
“Doodle?”
“Labra,” he said.
“Me too. I mean, not me, mine. Is. Griffin,” I said, and somehow I knew he knew I meant the dog. You never give out names with dog people, because who remembers people names?
“Squirrel,” he said back.
I raised an eyebrow. “You named your dog Squirrel?”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see him lob his head around. He had shoulder-length hair the color of hay and tanned skin. His face was so thin it made me think of those vises in shop class, and I imagined his face in there getting squeezed, which was not nice or charitable but sometimes my brain goes to weird places. “My dad,” he said. His voice from behind the mask was honeyed in that way that other queer kids sometimes talked, that way that made you kind of know it’s okay, you’re not going to get jumped. “He
thought it would be funny at the dog park to yel ‘Squirrel’ when cal ing our dog, and al the other dogs would be like, ‘Where’s the squirrel?’ Dad joke.”
I grimaced and laughed despite myself. “Oh no he didn’t.”
“You know that thing where you think, like, One good thing about the pandemic is I’l get to spend more time with my dad. And then you do and you’re like, Yeah, no.”
As we turned east on Earl , our dogs pul ed toward the church with the perfectly manicured green lawn Griffin enjoys writhing around on. We let them lead, and soon we had that weird moment when two dogs simultaneously squat, while you wait there, both holding an empty poop bag and avoiding eye contact.
And the guy, whose name I stil didn’t know, said, “Do dogs think we are mining them for their incredibly valuable poo?”
I was like, What?
He continued. “I mean, we house them, we feed them, we take them out, and when they poo, we col ect it.”
“Huh,” I said. Wondering for the first time if maybe this kid was not so much a Normal.
“Daxton,” he said.
“I thought you said Squirrel?”
“No, my name.”
“Oh. Kaz,” I said.
“Good to meetcha, Kaz. Meet us again tomorrow?”
Against my better instincts, I said yes. And I admit that I felt the slightest jolt of joy, imagining more conversations with the cute, queer boy who said not Normal things.
—
The next morning, after finding them on the corner of 27th and Earl , we paired off again, me and Daxton lingering back.
“Who are the adults?” I asked. “Are they your mom and dad?”
He laughed. “I wish. No. I just saw them walking one day and I went up to them. They were real y nice and invited me to walk with them, so I did.”
I couldn’t imagine doing that. But I could total y imagine Daxton doing it, and being total y normal about it.
“Cool,” I said, meaning it.
Griffin pul ed on the leash and I let up some, al owing him to peer around the oleander bush where, once a few years ago, he saw a smal , brown feral cat. For the zil ionth time in a row, it wasn’t there, but I knew he’d expect to see it tomorrow. He’s a very hopeful dog.
Then we walked some, six feet apart, both lost in our own thoughts.
“I think the pandemic is like God’s way of tel ing humans to go to their room,” he said, as we passed the house with the aqua and orange tile mosaics assembled on the mailbox and the concrete side wal .