family to survive.
When I hear footsteps, I stand up and grab the bars, expecting to be told the bail commissioner has finally arrived. Instead, I am assaulted by fumes of alcohol long before I see their source-a drunk man being held upright by an officer. He is weaving back and forth, red-faced and sweaty, and I am pretty sure that’s a streak of vomit on his checkered flannel shirt. “Brought you a roommate,” the officer says, and he opens the metal door so that the man staggers inside.
“Happy New Year,” the guy says, although it is February. Then he collapses facedown on the cement floor.
I gingerly step over him.
Once when I was around ten, I was sitting underneath the empty bleachers near the wolf enclosure at Redmond’s. Each day at 1:00 P.M. my father gave a wolf talk there to the summer visitors, but the rest of the time, it was a cool spot to hide with a book in the otherwise overcrowded, overheated park. I was not really paying attention to my father, who was in an adjoining pen digging out a pond while the wolves were relegated to another section of the enclosure. Suddenly a guy named Lark, who worked with my dad as a caretaker before he hired Walter, came back from his lunch break. He was stumbling, weaving. As he walked past the wolves, they started to go berserk-hurling themselves against the fencing, snapping and whining, running back and forth the way they did when they could smell food coming.
My dad dropped his tools and ran for the gates, until he reached Lark and slammed him down on the floor. With his forearm against the man’s throat, he growled, “Have you been drinking?”
My father had firm rules for the people who worked with his animals-no perfumed shampoos or soaps, no deodorant. And absolutely no alcohol. A wolf could smell it in your system days after you’d drunk it.
“Some guys took me out to celebrate,” Lark sputtered. He’d just had his first baby.
Gradually, the wolves calmed down. I’d never seen them act so crazy around a person, especially one of their keepers. If a human was being upsetting, like the annoying toddlers who waved and screamed from the security fence, the wolves would just lope into the rear of the enclosure, disappearing between the trees.
My father released his hold on Lark, who rolled away, coughing. “You’re fired,” he said.
Lark tried to argue, but my father just ignored him and walked back into the enclosure where he’d been working on the pond. I waited until Lark cursed a blue streak and stalked up the hill to the trailer to collect his belongings. Then I let myself through the safety gate and sat on the grass outside the enclosure where my father was working.
“I don’t care that he had a few drinks,” he said bitterly, as if we had been in the middle of a conversation and he needed to defend himself. “But he should know better than to do it on the job.” He dug his shovel into the ground and upended a heavy chunk of earth. “Think about it. A drunk guy staggering around. What’s that look like to you?”
“Uh… a drunk guy staggering around?” I said.
“Well, to a wolf, it looks a hell of a lot like a calf that’s been wounded. And that triggers the prey drive. Didn’t matter that the wolves know Lark, or work with him every day. The way he was moving was enough to make him lose his identity to the pack. They would have killed him, if they could have.”
He jabbed his shovel into the ground so that it stood upright like a soldier. “It’s a good life lesson, whether or not you ever work with wolves, Edward,” my father said. “No matter what you do for someone-no matter if you feed him a bottle as a baby or curl up with him at night to keep him warm or give him food so he’s not hungry-make one wrong move at the wrong moment, and you become someone unrecognizable.”
That comment, of course, would become personal years later. My father had made one wrong move at the wrong moment. I realize, with a start, that after this morning he might accuse me of the same.
The drunk at my feet begins to snore. A moment later, a police officer walks in. “Showtime,” he says. I look up at the clock and realize I’ve spent three hours in here, most of it in the quicksand of memories about my father.
It just goes to show you: you can put nine thousand miles between you and another person. You can make a vow to never speak his name. You can surgically remove someone from your life.
And still, he’ll haunt you.
We are back in the same interrogation room I was in before, except now, in addition to the detective and Joe, there’s a guy with a very bad comb-over and eyes so red I would assume he was stoned if I didn’t think that was particularly risky behavior for someone who routinely works in a police station. “All right,” the bail commissioner says. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment to get my conjunctivitis diagnosed, so let’s make this snappy. What’ve you got, Leo?”
The detective hands him a piece of paper. “This is a pretty serious case, Ralph. It’s not just second-degree assault; the accused also interfered with the duties of hospital personnel and adversely affected the health of a patient.”
“We’re asking that bail be set at the amount of five thousand dollars with surety,” the detective finishes.
The bail commissioner reads the paper the detective has handed him. “Pulled the
“This is my stepson we’re talking about,” Joe begins. “This is the town where he grew up, and he’s surrounded by family and friends. He’s got ties to the community, and no funds with which to flee. And I give you my word I will personally not let him out of my sight.”
The commissioner rubs his eyes. “The purpose of bail is to secure the accused’s attendance in court. We don’t practice preventative detention in Beresford, Mr. Warren, so I’m going to set bail in the amount of five thousand dollars personal recognizance. You’ll be released on your own promise to appear in court tomorrow morning, to keep the peace, and to be of good behavior. You won’t be able to leave the state of New Hampshire while this matter is pending. I’m going to make it a condition of your release that you have a psychiatric evaluation, and I’m going to issue a no trespass order in and around the hospital.”
“Wait a second,” I say, already breaking my promise to Joe to be silent. “That’s not going to work. My father’s in there, and he’s dying-”
“Not quick enough for you, from the sound of it,” the detective says.
“I will not let my client be harassed,” Joe argues.
The bail commissioner holds up his hands. “Shut up. Both of you. I’ve already got pinkeye; I don’t need a migraine. You’ll be arraigned tomorrow in district court.”
“What about my father?” I press.
That’s when Joe stomps hard on my foot.
“What did you say, Mr. Warren?” the commissioner asks.
I look at him. “Nothing,” I murmur. “Nothing at all.”
LUKE
