Your Robot Dog Will Die Read online

  “Of course not,” I say, despite being starving. The puppy looks at me, unmasked, bares his teeth, and then takes the burger. He wags his tail while growling when he’s done.

  Jack leaves for more provisions, returns with donuts. “I think your dad made a bunch of them for group dinner tonight. I don’t know why there are leftovers,” he says, then takes a bite, spits it out. “Yeah, I know why there are leftovers.”

  “Donut,” I say.

  Jack hands me one. “It’s not good, though.”

  The puppy eats it from my hand. His body is mostly black, but he has white legs with spots on them. His face is mostly white with a black mask. It makes him look like a miniature (furry) superhero. His ears are long and floppy. “I mean as a name. Donut. ’Cause he’s small and sweet.”

  The puppy finishes the donut then bites my nose.

  “Not so sweet,” Wolf observes.

  “Don’t listen to mean Wolf,” I murmur. His fur is so soft.

  The three of us take turns sleeping that night, on a secluded part of the beach, by the fire, with Donut, who snores and whimpers, and growls in his sleep, and twitches his feet as he seems to dream. I think we all know, without saying, that this might be the last easy time we have.

  Chapter 5

  In the morning, Jack fetches more food and some coffee pills from the cafeteria, and some water for Donut. Wolf watches Donut while I go off to pee at the public toilet near the Casino, where I can see that folks are gathering to set up for the Marky Barky party tonight. (The Casino isn’t for gambling. It’s a 150-year-old building, from back when Beachport was a fishing village and tourist town. They had dances and weddings and stuff here. It’s where we have all our important events now. The building’s been repainted for Marky Barky’s party, its bright turquoise exterior just a shade more vibrant than the Gulf.)

  “He bit me but not too hard,” Wolf tells me, when I come back. “He’s a little bit of a knucklehead.”

  “You are,” I say. “Don’t talk about my puppy like that.” Donut starts racing around in circles, like a crazy idiot. Running, stopping, crouching, yipping, starting up again. It is so funny. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I wish we could put a bubble around ourselves and never have to move.

  Jack returns, carrying Mr. Chi-Chi Pants. “I ran into your dad. He was worried you didn’t come home,” he says.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That we camped out.”

  “Did he seem mad?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “Just said you should go home and ask Ruby what she needs help with. Apparently she has a huge surprise waiting for you.”

  “Judy and Peter are probably wondering as to my whereabouts, too,” says Wolf.

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “Mom was glad and mad to see me.”

  We confer. Tomorrow, we decide, we can develop a long-term plan about just what in the hell we are going to do now. For now, there’s just the matter of figuring out how to navigate today—which shouldn’t be too hard, we optimistically agree, since most of Dog Island will be too distracted by Marky Barky’s impending arrival to think much about our whereabouts.

  We can’t be too far from the action, since we will be needed, but we’ve got to be somewhere we won’t be seen. There’s only one real option, given those parameters, and it’s The Smiling Manatee—an old tiki bar that’s upstairs from a restaurant that officially went out of business thirteen years ago. It’s got broken old neon signs hanging on the walls and a balcony from which you can see the Casino and the beach.

  I know this because sometimes people in their twenties who intern here or move here for a while, or forever, have (not so) secret parties there (and sometimes they invite us—they all seem to like Wolf a lot). Wolf gets drunk at the parties and winds up dancing like a maniac all night; Jack ends up in some long conversation about, like, the history of flag symbols or how the drought stimulated a micro-boom in sustainable agriculture. I usually end up standing by the balcony with my robot dog, one eye on the party and the other on the water. Anyway, I’m familiar with the place, is my point.

  We hide Donut in the tote bag that Jack used to carry our food and walk across the beach trying to be invisible. But no luck. Here comes Marjorie on her one-speed bicycle, her macaw, Harold, perched on the handlebars, while the pair embark on their morning constitutional. Marjorie waves hello. Harold raises a wing in greeting.

  Marjorie is in her eighties. So is Harold. She dresses as if she is a macaw herself—reds and blues and yellows, all flowy fabrics. She’s always asking who will assume Harold’s care when she dies. He will probably live to be 150 years old. She will hopefully live to be ninety.

  Everyone tries to assure her that Dog Island will not let Harold be without care. Several people have volunteered so far, but Marjorie keeps finding reasons to reject them.

  Dorothy holds up Harold’s uncertain fate as one enormous reason why keeping live animals—as opposed to robot dogs—as pets is not allowed on Dog Island. According to her, it is “immoral and fraught” and should be discouraged if not outright banned in society at large. Harold got grandfathered into living here, since he and Marjorie were here before Dorothy instituted the pet ban.

  “Shalom, kids!” she calls out, stopping. “Are you coming to help set up?”

  “Yes, soon!” I say. Dear Dog, please stay quiet, please stay quiet. “Will Harold be pitching in?”

  Marjorie guffaws. “He’ll supervise.”

  “I’ll supervise!” Harold shouts. “I’ll supervise! Who’s a good bird?”

  “Not you,” says Marjorie. “You are just terrible, Harold.” She cackles and he shrieks as they ride off.

  “They make a good couple,” Jack observes. “I hope one day I’m that happy.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, buddy. There’s no chance you will be that happy,” says Wolf. He kisses my cheek.

  Wolf goes up to stay with Donut first, while Jack and I head our separate ways to our respective homes.

  I am hoping that no one will be there. It would sure be great to sit down for a moment, have a bite to eat, and reflect. But no such luck. Instead, I arrive to find my mom entertaining Marky Barky himself.

  “Oh!” I say, when I spot the movie star sitting on a shabby wicker couch in my living room. “What are you doing here?”

  He laughs, giving me those trademark crinkle-edged eyes, and runs a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Your mother invited us,” he says. Mom nods, giggling.

  My robot dog Billy comes dashing over to me and sits at my feet. I didn’t know he could move that fast. He has an unusually large smile on his face. What, he’s starstruck, too?

  “Where were you last night, Nano?” Mom asks.

  I blush. “I was at the beach with Wolf and Jack.”

  “You forgot how to use your phone?”

  “I wasn’t getting a signal,” I say.

  “I see,” Mom says. “Mr. Barky. Mr. Hot Bod, if you will. What would you do if your daughter failed to come home one night?”

  Kill me. Kill me now. Only don’t because then I won’t get to go back and take care of Donut. Or see Wolf.

  “Oh, he doesn’t give a crap,” says a girl coming in from the kitchen. I immediately recognize her as Ellie, Marky Barky’s daughter, who is about five years older than me, and a million times more sophisticated. She’s wearing some kind of attractive but casual dress and black boots. They’re materials that are different from what I usually see here. They look, I don’t know how to put it exactly, expensive, I guess. Her hair—which is not butt length, or buzz cut, or a choppy bob, or a stupid glamour style—is silver and blue and tied up perfectly on top of her head. She looks so cool.

  Ellie and I used to play when I was really little, and she was young enough to find me interesting, and she’d come with Marky Barky on his yearly vi
sit. Then at some point she lost interest in me but discovered an interest in my brother Billy. The two of them would go disappear to do—well, stuff, I suppose? Sex stuff, maybe? It feels embarrassing to think about. Then I guess that also stopped being what she wanted to do anymore, and for the last five or so years she hasn’t accompanied Marky Barky on his Dog Island visits.

  “That’s not true, Ellie. I definitely give a crap,” says Marky Barky.

  “I know, Dad. I’m just kidding.” Then, to me: “I was told you’d be providing me some entertainment?”

  “Oh!” I say. Wolf would be much better at this. “Mom, don’t you need me to help set up?”

  “No, you girls just go have some fun,” says Mom.

  I feel vexed. On the one hand, there are important things I really need to be doing that I can’t do while I have to take care of Ellie. And also, what are we supposed to actually do? I spend every single day of my life here and can’t think of a single thing to do that might be fun to the daughter of Marky Barky. What, are we going to play Bionic Woman? What if she wants to be Max the dog?

  “Here, let’s go for a walk,” Ellie says to me, taking my hand and leading me to the front door. I had been planning to go brush my teeth, change my clothes, charge my phone, eat some food, take a couple more coffee pills, and figure out what in the hell we are going to do with and about Donut, and so on.

  I sneak a look at Marky Barky. His face looks relaxed and friendly, and impassive. And handsome. My Dog, I see why he’s called Hot Bod. I wonder if he and Dorothy really are “lovers.” Ew.

  What can I do? I follow Ellie. Billy trots beside.

  “It’s hot,” she says, when we get outside. “I don’t know how you live like this.”

  “I could lend you some paw protectors if you want to change out of your boots,” I suggest. She shakes her head no, while wrinkling her nose. I push her on this issue a little, since being hot and wearing boots seem like a dumb combination. Plus, what’s wrong with paw protectors? They are very comfortable and functional. She keeps turning me down, and I give up. As Dorothy says, “You can lead a robot horse to water, but you can’t make it drink because robots don’t drink water, which is just one of the many ways they are superior to Organics.”

  “Want to go to the library?” I suggest. “It’s small, but it’s got air-conditioning and we can watch a movie or read.”

  She shakes her head no. “I’m in grad school now,” she says. “In New York. I don’t feel like I need a trip to the Dog Island Library, thanks.”

  “There’s an old arcade,” I say. “Some pinball machines. It’s also air-conditioned, sort of.”

  “That sounds kind of stupid,” she says. “Can’t we visit the sanctuary? I haven’t been in years.”

  “The Ruffuge?” I ask.

  “Oy,” she says. “The dog puns. Yes, the Ruffuge.”

  “I think Dorothy is planning to take you and your dad to see the dogs tomorrow,” I say.

  “Aren’t there any other dogs I could see?”

  My heart feels like it’s stopped.

  “Of course not,” I say. “Except the robot dogs.”

  She looks at Billy. “I don’t understand why they keep making these stupid machines. No one cares about them anymore.”

  I pull out my phone and press “positive interaction” because hearing her say this makes me feel extremely guilty.

  Then I remember: it’s just a robot, anyway, so who cares what she says. I also decline to report a couple of live cats that Billy points out to me.

  “What are you studying?” I ask, while we stroll. Sweat is pouring off Ellie’s face, and she is flushed but still looks fantastic.

  “Bioethics,” she says.

  “Oh yeah?” I ask. “That sounds hard.”

  “It’s the most important thing in the world. How we ought to behave toward living things,” she says to me. “I think you’d like it.”

  I feel a wave of, I don’t know, gratitude and surprise. Ellie is taking an interest in me. I relax a little bit.

  “Do you want to go to the arcade?” I ask.

  “Not really,” she says. “But okay.”

  We walk over to the Beachport Play N Snack, which is not an accurate name anymore because there are no snacks. The titular “play” is just a couple of old pinball machines and arcade games no one bothered to get rid of. My brother, Billy, and I used to come hang out here, like if it was raining out or too hot and we just wanted something to do. Wolf and Jack and I come sometimes, too. We think it’s fun. Maybe really it’s super lame. Maybe Ellie and Billy used to come here, way back when.

  Arriving, Ellie seems pleased. “I forgot that this place is so retro,” she says approvingly, approaching the Twilight Zone pinball machine. She presses some buttons, seems engaged in the game, and then it’s done.

  I’m playing the Ms. Pac-Man machine, eating digital dots, outrunning ghosts. I can do this all day, and have from time to time. But Ellie comes and stands behind me, very close, looking over my shoulder, and it makes me so nervous that I basically commit Ms. Pac-Man suicide just to get out of this.

  “What else is there to do?” she asks. We’ve been hanging out for less than an hour.

  I sigh heavily. “You want to go robot horse riding?” I ask. “The robot horses might be working okay now. I think Wolf was fixing them. They’re old and nothing special. You probably have much better ones in California, but . . .”

  “Can we see the dogs?” she asks. “Or any dog?”

  “Oh, I still don’t think so,” I say. I laugh nervously. “Just the robots.”

  “Ugh. No. Well what do you do for fun here?” she asks.

  “Hang out with Wolf and Jack mostly.”

  “Are they cute?” she asks. I feel my face heating up. “Oh my god, are you blushing?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Okay, so obviously they are cute enough to make you turn into a tomato. Let’s go find them.”

  I have never actually seen a real tomato and am in fact curious to hear more about what they look and taste like, but I am not about to volunteer that information. Thus I find myself being led around my Dog Island by Marky Barky’s cool daughter, to look for my pals. I of course can’t take her to the place where at least one of them actually is, for obvious reasons. Wolf might still be at home, or else he’s at the Casino helping to set up. Ellie and I first stop by his house, which is on the way to the Casino. He wasn’t lying; it’s really bright green now. I open the front door—no one locks doors here—and call out but no one answers.

  Then we walk over to and down Beach Boulevard, past the couple of mostly empty shops and cafes, the yoga studio-cum-beauty salon-cum-tattoo parlor. These have managed to stay open mostly thanks to visitors who arrive here with some money to spend and the urge for a permanent souvenir. (Dorothy subsidizes them during lean years because she loves them or loves their proprietors, and because she likes knowing there are Dog Island tats in the outside word.)

  We venture into the Casino, where the adults are in various states of meltdown.

  “Where are my tablecloths?” Owen, who plans all our events, is shouting. “WHERE ARE MY CENTERPIECES?” He has been having this same meltdown since I was seven, when he first moved to the sanctuary.

  Ellie and I decamp to the other side of the Casino, before Owen starts up again. Mom is there on a ladder, affixing dog-print fabric to the wall in an attractive and festive manner.

  “Oh shalom, girls,” says Mom. “Whatcha up to? Going kayaking?”

  Ellie squints at Mom’s decorations. “That needs to be higher to look right.”

  “You think so?” Mom asks, adopting Ellie’s same expression while gazing at the wall she’s working on prettifying. She rips the cloth off the wall and goes on her tiptoes to hold it up a little higher. “Oh my Dog, girlfriend. You are so right!”

/>   Ugh, Mom.

  “Good,” Ellie says, and starts walking out of the Casino toward the beach, her boots making loud clomping noises as she walks.

  “She’s a spitfire!” says Mom. “What are you going to do with her now?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I say.

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something!” Mom trills. “Maybe she wants to help us set up! We have a lot of work to do and she has a good eye.”

  “Yeah, she seems eager to help,” I say. “Seems like she’s all about helping.”

  I go trotting after Ellie, who has exited the Casino and is now sitting on some steps leading to the beach. She’s slipped on a pair of sunglasses and is looking out toward the water. I’m so busy noticing her looking even more amazing that at first I fail to take in what she’s looking at.

  It’s Wolf, who is holding court.

  “That’s Wolf,” I say. I smile. I can’t help it.

  “Oh, he’s cute. I definitely want to meet him,” she says.

  We walk over. “Hey,” I say to him nervously. How will things be now? To think, a year ago we were just friends; a day ago we hadn’t embarked on a cockamamie puppy rescue mission. I’m probably overthinking things; Wolf beams at me, kisses my cheek. I smile up at him.

  There’s a small group of Dog Islanders nearby, smoking cigarettes, gossiping, avoiding setting up the Casino. They’re some of the Bad Bitches.

  One of them, Patricia, calls out, “Ooh, ooh! You two will get married here in the Casino one day. I hope I live to help decorate for it!” The others start to laugh.

  “I’m Ellie,” says Ellie, holding her hand out to Wolf. “I think last time I met you, you were eight years old. You look a lot different now. So you two are . . .”

  “Yeah,” Wolf says. “We totally are.” He puts his arm around my shoulders. I’m so happy.

  “How adorable,” she says.

  Wolf asks me: “Hey, have you checked on Jack, and, you know?”

  I elbow him in the side.

  “Ow! All I asked was if you checked . . .” I elbow him again.