Song 13: "The Night is Still Young"
It was all they could do to weave through the crowd of rushing New Yorkers and not get trampled. Dodger walked with Oliver on his back, determined that the kid would have an easy time after the terror he'd been through. They'd stayed the night in an alley together.
Now, they were going home. They'd escaped the Purebreds, escaped Grand Central Station; he never wanted to think about gangs or breeds or his old buddy Noah ever again. The morning sun has risen, blinking over the skyscrapers, and it made them want to cry.
"Bro," the cat sighed, burying his face in his fur, "we're here."
"Put your faith in the Artful Dodger, and he shall deliver." The dog swayed.
"Dodge! You're exhausted," Oliver mewed, hopping down. "Take it easy."
He shook his head and grinned for the kid; they were almost there, just a few steps more. They ducked around early Fifth Avenue shoppers until they saw the front steps of the Foxworth mansion, a luxury brick penthouse with flowerbeds, many floors, a walled back patio, and even a tiny yard below Georgette's balcony. Dodger still couldn't believe it was his home.
"Kiddo, do me a favor, will ya?" He didn't make for the front steps, but instead went around back. "Go inside and see Jenny — she's been mising ya something fierce — then tell Nancy babe to meet me in tha backyard, will ya? Will ya do that for me?"
Oliver tilted his head. "Won't you come in with me? Mr. Foxworth will wanna — "
"I know, kid, I… I miss him, too." Dodger knelt on the pavement, breaths ragged.
Dodger knelt down, breathing ragged. "But I gotta see Nancy. Gotta apologize."
The cat wanted to argue the point, wanted to insist that he come in and greet the Foxworths with him, but instead, Oliver nodded his head and went inside through the open windows. Around the corner, Dodger heard the family's cries of joy.
"Oliver, you came home!" Jenny's tearful voice came first.
"Where have you been? Goodness, you're filthy — what happened?"
"What does that matter, David? He's home. He's alright."
Then he heard the eldest Foxworth rush to the window the cat had entered, but before he stuck his head out and looked up and down the street, Dodger ducked behind the corner. He knew Mr. Foxworth hoped to see him — and he hoped to see Mr. Foxworth — but he couldn't yet. Too much had happened since Christmas, too much death and heartache and betrayal, and Dodger found that he wasn't ready to return to mansion life yet.
He was ungrateful. He was the worst pet in New York City. But he couldn't help it. Dodger stayed hidden around the corner while Mr. Foxworth called his name.
Dodger felt hollow, like a part of him had been knocked out, burned away — he supposed it was Noah's treachery — and as he listened to Oliver's reunion with the Foxworths, he felt a million miles away. "Oh, Oliver, I'm so glad you're home… I thought I'd lost you again." It was sweet to hear. He was happy they were happy, but he was an outside observer. They'd been a whole family before he'd barged in; now they were whole again, without him.
He crept around to the enclosed yard, dropping to his paws from physical and internal exhaustion. Finally, his ears perked up. "Dodge? Oh, thank goodness!"
"Nancy babe." His face lit up, tail wagged. "Ya happy to see me? I thought ya'd be…"
"Angry that ya were a total jerk? Sure I am. But I'm happier that ya okay."
There she was: dusty-gold fur, soft brown eyes, and a warm smile. His Nancy was tender but firm, shy but strong. He thought about how angry he'd gotten, putting all the loneliness and rage of the streets into his heart and taking it out on her, and he cried with shame.
"Hey now, it's all right. World ain't gonna fall apart cause ya lost ya temper."
"I just need a break. I gotta get away from it all."
Nancy rubbed muzzles with him and licked his cheek. She looked at the city around them, at the Fifth Avenue stores and penthouses and wondered how they could possibly have time alone in a city so crowded. Privacy seemed impossible. But then she spotted trees beyond the street, barren of leaves and covered in ice, but still a forest.
"Then follow me," she said quietly. The two mutts slipped away from the Foxworths' yard and returned to the streets they knew. "To the park." They crossed Fifth Avenue.
At the brick wall that marked the entrance to the park, Dodger hesitated and looked back at the mansion. Nancy saw where his eyes were and understood, wordlessly. "They'll be okay. We ain't going far." She touched her cold nose to his fur. "Ya saved Oliver, and they're so happy he's back… Ya shoulda seen them. Happier than Christmas. But maybe ya gotta be saved, too. Maybe ya need to slow down before ya fall apart… so hit tha brakes."
"Nancy… I have a confession." He bowed his head, feeling unworthy of the collar and bandana he'd been gifted. "I don't think I'm… a good dog. I hurt everyone. I get so angry. So it's better if ya leave me, find someone better. Ya don't need a bad dog."
"Ya ain't a bad dog." She shook her head and grinned. "Just a dumb one."
"But tha Purebreds… It was crazy, babe. They wanted me to join. I have so much to tell ya… but they kidnapped Oliver so I'd be forced to join them, to trade myself for him… they said I was no better than them. Now I think they may be right."
"Ya just risked ya life to save Oliver. If that don't make ya good, nothing does." Nancy beckoned him through the park gates with her, and together they disappeared from the city, disappeared from the world. "Prove them wrong. Prove the world wrong."
Dodger and Nancy went off the park trail and vanished into the bushes. It was the middle of winter and the park was bare, the trees frosted with ice and the ground hard and snowy, but they had each other to keep warm. Deep in the woods, they buried in the dirt under tree roots, watching a gentle snowfall. In Central Park, the city felt far, far away.
When Dodger woke up at noon, he was stunned by how different the air was in the park, how much brighter and cleaner everything seemed in comparison to his usual bedroom of brick and asphalt. He loved his city, but he had to admit, the park was nicer by far.
It was also nice to wake up next to someone for a change, someone warm and loving and breathing in and out. Her breaths were visible in the chilly morning air, and watching the fog soothed him. He loved her more than any random girl, more than New York itself.
"Good afternoon, babe." He nuzzled her awake, grinning at her adorable yawn.
She blinked her soft brown eyes and stifled a laugh. She licked his fur and said, "Ya look a bit wild, y'know. Rugged has always looked good on ya."
Dodger beamed. He felt a sudden burst of energy, an incredible passion that surged just by being next to her. "Babe… I don't remember the last time I've been this happy."
She smiled and said what was on her mind without words, with her tearful round eyes and little quiver. But then her eyes didn't stop moistening, and he didn't know why. He held her close and felt his heart break with her tears on his fur. "...Why are ya sad?"
"I'm not sad. I'm not." She sounded hesitant as she pressed against him. "But it feels like… like I'm only happy when ya around. Like I need ya, and I can't handle anyone else." Nancy gazed at the frozen grass, lightly-decked with snow. "I don't wanna feel that way."
"Hey, if ya… if ya feel lonely, babe, then that ain't silly. It's my job to make ya feel loved, cause I'm… y'know, I'm ya dog." He grinned wide. "But maybe we need a pack, too."
"A pack?" Nancy sniffed. "Like wild dogs?"
"Yeah, like a gang… a crew… or a family. People who got our backs."
Dodger beamed with delight. He'd made a breakthrough. "I ran away from my old pack, tha Company, and I… I got messed up. Old wounds got fresh again." He turned his muzzle upward to see the skyscrapers above the treeline. "But we got a pack, don't we? Right over there on Fifth Avenue. You, me, Oliver, Mr. Foxworth, tha Missus, Jenny… heck, we got Winston to clean, Georgette upstairs, even Bubbles tha goldfish in his bowl. We've got our pack."
"...Thank you, Dodger. I needed to hear that."
They licked each other's cheeks, then finally wandered out of their tree-root den — it had felt safe, but every dog felt the urge to explore, and they were no exception.
"It's a beautiful park. Winter is beautiful," she said, her breath visible in the air. "Nice to get away from steel and concrete, ain't it?"
"Getting away from it all is just what I needed." Dodger climbed onto a cold boulder. "Babe, I'm just… tired. Tha Purebreds are taking over my city… I dunno what to do."
"Ya exhausted from exerting yourself… ya care too much, y'know?"
"That's just it. I shouldn't." He laid down on the rock. "I mean, ain't that my song? Why should I worry? Why should I care? I realized that a long time ago on top of Fagin's houseboat." Dodger sighed, wishing he had shades to wear. "I don't care about New York no more."
Nancy blinked at him. "Ya don't really mean that. Ya just… just need…"
"No, it's true — it ain't my problem. I don't gotta help no one, now Oliver's safe — no one else. We'll live in tha mansion and tha Purebreds won't get us. Problem solved."
She said nothing more on the matter. The dogs bounded through the bushes, ran past frozen ponds, slipped on icy bridges, and chased birds everywhere. In Central Park, they didn't have to scavenge trash bins or find a safe alley to sleep in.
In Central Park, a dog could be a dog. No worries, no cares.
Steam rose from a rusty vent in the dimly-lit subway station. Fagin huddled around it, his dogs piled on top of each other to keep warm. This was nothing new for Fagin — he was all-too-familiar with trash bin fires — and the heat was much appreciated.
A few other homeless folks came and went, but the Company had been camping in the station several days now, and other vagabonds left them alone. If anyone got too close, Charlie growled and Tito yapped. They had the most bottled-up fury.
"Chill, babe," Rita laughed to her black-and-white collie mutt. Charlie had just snapped at a pair of rats that came too close to their camp.
"Aw, I'm sorry, hon," she sighed. "Being back on tha streets got me all tense."
"As are we all," Francis said mournfully. He had offered to share a chicken bone with Tito, to calm the Chihuahua's nerves, and they were nibbling it together under a bench. "Careful, you little rodent! You'll choke yourself."
"Man, if I'm gonna die, I wanna die tasting el pollo delicioso!"
"Fair enough," the Bulldog shrugged. He let Tito chew the rest of the bone.
Fagin had just gotten back from a round of scavenging. He'd go out with Einstein twice a day, their usual routine of fishing for wallets, snacks, warm clothing, water, and pawning anything with cash value. They were old pros by now.
But this time, Einstein had staggered down the steps. When a big dog staggers, it's noticeable. The rest of the Company hadn't said anything, just watched him limping to the corner where he and Fagin had laid several winter coats for a makeshift bed. When Einy saw them all staring at him, he gave a goofy grin. "It's cold outside," he chuckled.
And that had been the Company's lives for several days. Stay warm, find food, try to rest.
"I'm glad Dodger is cozy," Fagin muttered, sounding relieved and bitter at once. "Glad he and tha kitty have a mansion… Glad that little girl is okay…" He buried his face in his hands. "The Foxworths… maybe tha Foxworths could… but I can't ask."
He curled inside a tattered sleeping bag, Einy next to him, and slowly fell asleep.
The pups had cuddled with Rita most of the evening. Stud and Kitty had worn themselves out playing, but with little food, they didn't have much energy and were quickly asleep. The odd one out was Billy. He kept to himself on a bed of newspapers, which he occasionally chewed.
"Think he's okay?" Rita asked Charlie quietly, to not wake the pups.
"He's living in an abandoned subway station. Don't know how okay he's gonna be." Charlie attempted a smile. "But he's a tough little guy."
He'd been that way for weeks now, even before they had been evicted from the apartment. Billy would always look around the apartment, or the alley, or the station, looking for someone who wasn't there. Stud said it spooked him, like his brother was looking at ghosts.
Like Billy was waiting for someone who was not there.
Charlie stretched her paws and stood. "Let's get some air, huh, babe?"
"But the puppies — " She watched their tummies rise and fall.
"Let tha pups sleep. Ain't no one gonna bother them, and ya need to chill."
Rita turned to the Bulldog and Chihuahua. "Can you guys watch them?"
"Why, certainly! Little angels, aren't they?"
"Yeah, and I think Stud's got his Uncle Tito's nose, don't ya think?"
"You wish you were a stud, you ratty-haired vermin."
"Oh, so ya want tha kids to take after ya? Be a culture snob?"
"Indeed. An education in the arts, courtesy of Uncle Francis, would do them well."
"Guys, guys." Rita shushed the pair, stifling a laugh. "Don't wake them."
She felt irresponsible, but her girlfriend was right. Rita needed a break.
Harlem was vibrant, poor as the pits but teeming with life. It was chilly, it was the middle of the night, but that didn't stop teenagers from leaving their apartment windows open and playing their music for the whole block to hear. Rita and Charlie had only gone a few blocks before they passed a group of kids having a midnight basketball game.
The girls barked their applause and the teens laughed and bowed. One with a full afro scratched under their chins, while a kid with dreads fed them beef jerky. Rita and Charlie licked their faces appreciatively and went on their way. "Y'know, I like this block."
"It's home." Charlie pointed out her favorite graffiti as they went. "Ya shoulda moved here with me months ago. Shoulda left with me, Nancy, and Noah."
"I thought about it, babe. I really did."
"It was a hard decision." Charlie sighed. "But yesterday's gone, right?"
"Nah," she shook her head. "Yesterday's coming back to haunt us." Rita remembered that terrible night they'd first met Roscoe and DeSoto, the night their gang had split.
From what Dodger had told them about Ruscoe, their old enemy's son, yesterday was coming back with a vengeance. "Feels like tha calm before a storm. I know tha Purebreds are planning an attack… I know tha gang war's gonna hit."
She and Charlie listened to the city sounds: cars honking, music blaring, people shouting, police sirens wailing. If they listened carefully, they could hear dogs barking far away.
"So when it does, are we gonna fight, or are we gonna hide in tha subway?"
Charlie went tense. "I ain't a coward for running away from Sykes."
"I didn't say ya were, babe. But there ain't no running this time." Rita rubbed against her girlfriend, licking her cheek apologetically. The collie was trembling.
"I ain't a coward." She turned so Rita wouldn't see her eyes.
The ghosts of yesterday played soul to the beat of Harlem at midnight.
The next night in Central Park, the two dogs were awoken in their den by the sound of howling winds outside. Dodger blinked his eyes open, shook his head, and peeked out at the world. It was lightly snowing, and the trees branches were whipping each other.
"Dodge?" his Nancy babe called from inside their tree roots den.
"It's just tha wind, darling," he said with his signature grin.
But it was a forced grin, and both of them knew it. He knew because the cold breeze was making his insides quiver with the grief of loss, and she knew because she knew him.
"What's wrong?" Nancy asked, barely audible over the weather.
His jaw trembled uncontrollably, all of a sudden — perhaps it was the late hour, perhaps it was the strange atmosphere of wind and snow — but Dodger found himself unable to stop tears welling in his eyes. He thought he'd lost the ability to cry ages ago.
"My momma is gone," he whispered, no louder than a pup.
He knelt in the frosty grass, and snowflakes began to accumulate on his back; they didn't stand out on the white, but they did on his brown spots. "I was bad to her… I was angry and alone and I… I treated her wrong… and now she's gone forever."
Nancy tread a little closer to him. "Is this what got ya so upset lately? Ya didn't wanna lose Oliver like ya lost ya mother." She was silent. She understood now.
Everything had happened so quickly in the past few weeks — he made up with the Company, was rejected once and for all by Rita, made things right with his mother, and then she was gone, and then Oliver was gone, and then he lost Nancy like he lost his mother, and they almost died at Grand Central Station, betrayed by his old buddy Noah, unsure who to trust and what to fight for, and now the gang war — it was too much too fast. He couldn't take it anymore.
"I was running at full speed," he gasped, "and never slowed down to breathe."
Once the tears started coming, they didn't stop. They were cold on his fur, frozen by the air, so he returned to their root-covered den and cuddled with his Nancy babe. She shushed and licked him, and the sound of her heartbeat comforted him against the weather.
"Breathe, baby," she whispered. "That's it. Just breathe."
Their days in the park were better after that. The mangy mutts spent night after night chasing each other across the frozen grass, the entire length of the Great Lawn, and slipped on the ice of the Reservoir. They spent a whole afternoon exploring Belvedere Castle and scaling the steep rocky cliffs outside the castle. Food was readily available too, always leftover hotdogs or pretzels or pizza, and they ate well off scraps.
One night, Dodger decided to be a gentleman and take Nancy out to a fancy restaurant. They had a romantic dinner after raiding the Tavern on the Green, sending patrons running away in indignation, before bursting out the front food with food in their mouths and the restaurant manager swearing to send the dog catchers after them. They called his bluff on that threat.
Dodger had insisted they go to Sheep Meadow because he'd never seen a sheep before and was dying to see what one looked like. He was disappointed to discover that Sheep Meadow did not, in fact, contain any real sheep.
They were content in Central Park. Dodger reckoned that when spring came, in a few more weeks, they could live in the park forever if they wanted. Forget the gang war.
Then one afternoon, when the sun had begun melting the frost from the grass, poking over the line of skyscrapers, it happened. They were exploring a region of the park they hadn't been to yet when they picked up the smell of one dog, no two, three, it must've been a whole dozen of them — a hundred of them — strong canine scents in the bushes ahead.
When they crossed into the Ramble, feeling like country dogs with their paws muddy and fur matted with leaves and twigs, they were startled to find numerous dogs hiding out in a clearing in the woods up ahead. "Who threw a party and didn't invite us?"
But no dog laughed at Dodger's joke. In fact, many of them had ribcages showing, fur unhealthy and graying; a few even had bite and claw marks, scars of battle.
"What's going on here?" he asked, astounded.
No one spoke up at first. There must've been nearly a hundred dogs in those woods, hiding away in Central Park, just like them. Then Dodger took a closer look at the canines and realized one startling fact: they were all mutts. Mongrel after mongrel, no distinguishable breed, some with brown fur or white and gray, some golden and some sandy, a mix of Lab and Collie, Shepherd and Boxer, there was no way to be sure. They were huddled together for warmth.
"Who's in charge here?" Dodger asked, then realization struck him. "Oh no… ya guys are… ya tha Underdogs, ain't ya?" No one answered. "Ain't ya?"
"We sure are," came a deep growl. The dogs stepped aside and Skippy Dawg, the massive purebred Rottweiler with muscles and a spike collar and a whole history of scars on his body, came forward. "Good to see ya again, Dodger. Same to ya, Miss Nancy."
"Skipper," she said with relief and awe. Dodger felt a twinge of jealousy. She grinned at him with friendliness, though, not adoration. "How are the Underdogs?"
"What does it look like?" he said grimly.
Dodger and Nancy took a long, hard look at the gang — not just the ones in fighting shape, but all of them, the mothers and pups and elders. Every dog he'd ever encountered in the Purebreds were in fighting shape, the peak of physicality, and it was obvious these Underdogs were no match for them. They were hungry, they were cold. They were hardly a gang.
"Tha other day I got cornered by tha Purebreds… they tried to recruit me. Turns out their secret leader, tha brains of tha organization, is an old friend of ours… His name is Noah." Dodger and Skippy Dawg went a ways off from the others, speaking strategy in low voices. "I found out a lot of info. I think… I think I can help ya guys."
"That's awesome, but are ya sure ya ready? If ya join, I don't want ya to ditch later." Skippy looked at him with respect. "But something tells me ya not a coward."
"I ain't a coward," Dodger said eagerly. To him, that was the worst accusation.
He took a deep breath. He looked over the starving, freezing Underdogs. He locked eyes with Nancy and something passed between them unspoken, an understanding that their vacation from the real world had come to an end. Dodger nodded to Skippy Dawg.
"Okay, okay, ya win." He smiled wearily, but gladly. "Call me an Underdog."
They celebrated by howling to the moon like a true pack.
