The World According to Garp

day he did the same thing, although you could tell his neck was sore because he cried out every time the chain snapped him off his feet. And that night he slept in the cafй as if he were a dead dog who'd been murdered there on the floor.

“His master called a vet,” Garp said, “and the vet gave the dog some shots—I guess to calm him down. For two days the dog lay on the floor of the cafй at nighttime and under the truck in the daytime, and even when the cat walked by on the sidewalk, or sat washing himself at the end of the alley, that dog wouldn't move. That poor dog,” Garp added.

“He was sad,” Walt said.

“But do you think he was smart?” Garp, asked.

Walt was puzzled but he said, “I think he was.”

“He was,” Garp said, “because all the time he'd been running against the chain, he'd been moving the truck he was tied to—just a little. Even though that truck had sat there for years, and it was rusted solid on those cinder blocks and the buildings could fall down around it before that truck would budge—even so,” Garp said, “that dog made the truck move. Just a little.”

“Do you think the dog moved the truck enough?” Garp asked Walt.

“I think so,” Walt said. Helen thought so, too.

“He needed just a few inches to reach that cat,” Garp said. Walt nodded. Helen, confident of the gory outcome, plunged back into The Eternal Husband.

“One day,” Garp said, slowly, “the cat came and sat down on the sidewalk at the end of the alley and began to lick his paws. He rubbed his wet paws into his old ear holes where his ears had been, and he rubbed his paws over his old grown-together eye hole where his other eye used to be, and he stared down the alley at the dog under the truck. The cat was getting bored now that the dog wouldn't come out anymore. And then the dog came out.”

“I think the truck moved enough,” Walt said.

“The dog ran up the alley faster than ever before, so that the chain behind him was dancing off the ground, and the cat never moved although this time the dog could reach him.” “Except,” said Garp, “the chain didn't quite reach.” Helen groaned. “The dog got his mouth over the cat's head but the chain choked him so badly that he couldn't close his mouth; the dog gagged and was jerked back—like before—and the cat, realizing that things had changed, sprang away.”

“God!” Helen cried.

“Oh no,” Walt said.

“Of course, you couldn't fool a cat like that twice,” Garp said. “The dog had one chance, and he blew it. That cat would never let him get close enough again.”

“What a terrible story!” Helen cried.

Walt, silent, looked as if he agreed.

“But something else happened,” Garp said. Walt looked up, alert. Helen, exasperated, held her breath again. The cat was so scared he ran into the street without looking. “No matter what happens,” Garp said, “you don't run into the street without looking, do you, Walt?”

“No,” Walt said.

“Not even if a dog is going to bite you,” Garp said. “Not ever. You never run into the street without looking.”

“Oh sure, I know,” Walt said. “What happened to the cat?”

Garp slapped his hands together so sharply that the boy jumped. “He was killed like that!” Garp cried. “Smack! He was dead. Nobody could fix him. He'd have had a better chance if the dog had gotten him.”

“A car hit him?” Walt asked.

“A truck,” Garp said, “ran right over his head. His brains came out his old ear holes, where his ears used to be.”

“Squashed him?” Walt asked.

“Flat,” said Garp, and he held up his hand, palm level, in front of Walt's serious little face. Jesus, Helen thought, it was Walt's story after all. Don't run into the street without looking!

“The end,” said Garp.

“Good night,” Walt said.

“Good night,” Garp said to him. Helen heard them kiss.

“Why didn't the dog have a name?” Walt asked.

“I don't know,” Garp said.

“Don't run into the street without looking.”

When Walt fell asleep, Helen and Garp made love. Helen had a sudden insight regarding Garp's story.

“That dog could never move that truck,” she said. “Not an inch.”

“Right,” Garp said. Helen felt sure he had actually been there.

“So how'd you move it?” she asked him.

“I couldn't move it either,” Garp said. “It wouldn't budge. So I cut a link out of the dog's chain, at night when he was patrolling the cafй and I matched the link at a hardware store. The next night I added some links—about six inches.”

“And the cat never ran into the street?” Helen asked.

“No, that was for Walt,” Garp admitted.

“Of course,” Helen said.

“The chain was plenty long enough,” Garp said. “the cat didn't get away.”

“The dog killed the cat?” Helen asked.

“He bit him in half,” Garp said.

“In a city in Germany?” Helen said.

“No, Austria,” Garp said. “It was Vienna. I never lived in Germany.”

“But how could the dog have been in the war?” Helen asked. “He'd have been twenty years old by the time you got there.”

“The dog wasn't in the war,” Garp said. “He was just a dog. His owner had been in the war—the man who owned the cafй. That's why he knew how to train the dog. He trained him to kill anybody who walked in the cafй when it was dark outside. When it was light outside, anybody could walk in; when it was dark, even the master couldn't get in.”

“That's nice!” Helen said. “Suppose there was a fire? There seems to me to be a number of drawbacks to that method.”

“It's a war method, apparently,” Garp said.

“Well,” Helen said, “it makes a better story than the dog's being in the war.”

“You think so, really?” Garp asked her. It seemed to her that he was alert for the first time during their conversation. “That's interesting,” he said, “because I just this minute made it up.”

“About the owner's being in the war?” Helen asked.

“Well, more than that,” Garp admitted.

“What part of the story did you make up?” Helen asked him.

“All of it,” he said.

They were in bed together and Helen lay quietly there, knowing that this was one of his trickier moments.

“Well, almost all of it,” he added.

Garp never tired of playing this game, though Helen certainly tired of it. He would wait for her to ask: Which of it? Which of it is true, which of it is made up? Then he would say to her that it didn't matter; she should just tell him what she didn't believe. Then he would change that part. Every part she believed was true; every part she didn't believe needed work. If she believed the whole thing, then the whole thing was true. He was very ruthless as a storyteller, Helen knew. If the truth suited the story, he would reveal it without embarrassment; but if any truth was unsuccessful in a story, he would think nothing of changing it.

“When you're through playing around,” she said, “I'd just be curious to know what really happened.”