Until Tuesday Read Online Free PDF Page A

Stooges, if Curly had been three feet taller and eighty pounds heavier and had spent twenty years lifting weights, repressing his anger, and getting tattoos on his neck.
    Then he smiled. “We call this jollying,” Joe said.
    Next thing I knew, Tattooed Curly was on the floor, rolling and wrestling in front of his puppy while making a nonstop string of noises that, I swear, included Curly’s classic “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk” and a breakdancing-inspired backspin. Every dog in the place was immediately at attention, staring at Curly Joe, because the big man could dance, or at least he could move on the floor continuously for a surprisingly long time. When Curly Joe finally stopped, every single dog was alert and ready to go.
    “That’s how we do it,” one of the inmates said.
    Jollying. I think of that crazy Curly dance every time I wrestle with Tuesday. At night, I love to lie in the bed and grab the sides of his face, rustling his fur and telling him what a good boy he is. Tuesday always gets excited and starts jumping on me, scrambling for leverage to fight back while I bite his ears like a mother dog and shake his neck, his sides, even his tail.
    Jollying. That seems like exactly the right word.
    But what a change it must have been for Tuesday. He was three months old when he went to prison, having lived his whole life in a place where discipline was strict. Where his life had been carefully planned since he was three days old. Where he was juggled between trainers so that he wouldn’t bond with any single one of them. Where the love was abundant, but only if you worked for it.
    In prison, he was in a place where the strict professional trainer was only present three hours a week. Where he spent all day with one “raiser” and even slept in his cell. Where he could be jollied not for doing something right but for being distracted and inattentive. I love Lu, but no one on staff at ECAD would ever give a dog-in-training spontaneous, unearned love. It would upset the whole course of their development. And they would never do a Curly dance on the floor to jolly their dogs. Prison was a completely different world.
    Tuesday loved it. I can’t imagine that he didn’t. He’s a very emotionally intelligent dog, or what some people might call needy, and he loved attention. No matter what Lu says, I think Tuesday felt the loss of a strong bond in his life, even if he didn’t know what was missing. When he found a person who was always there with him, he immediately grew attached. By all accounts, he was a good dog, maybe even a great one. He learned his commands quickly. He always walked by his raiser’s side. He was smart. He behaved. He was inseparable from his cellmate, but nobody worried much about that. They were a team; wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?
    Then, after three months, his cellmate was transferred to another prison.
    It must have been a difficult parting. It’s hard to disappoint Tuesday, especially when he looks at you with those sad intelligent eyes. There must have been tears shed as his raiser hugged him for the last time. As Tuesday stood at the door of the cell and watched him go, the poor dog’s heart was breaking. You can see sadness in Tuesday; it settles all over his body. It’s almost as if he’s collapsing, the pain starting in his eyes and then moving inward, untying everything. Three months with someone might not seem like a long time, but a dog’s life is short. Three months to a dog is like two years to a human being. Tuesday’s experience was like giving a sensitive three-year-old a doting father, then taking that father away when the child turns five, never to be seen again.
    He was devastated. I know him; he took the separation personally. What had he done? Why was he being rejected? I can almost see him standing at the cell door, staring down the cell block long after his raiser was gone, so long that his new raiser lost patience and started pulling on his leash, begging him to