Dog Eat Dog (7 page)

“I’ll keep him at home,” Sully said, all blissed out as he carried and nuzzled his measly little half-hairless. “My dad said
you
couldn’t have a dog. There’s no way he won’t love Bugs.”

“Bugs? You named him already?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. The dog actually did look like a tiny Bugs Bunny, tan, white face, satellite-dish ears.

“That’s right. Bugs. What are you gonna call yours?”

“Hmmm...” I said, looking at my star athlete from behind. His ass showed prominently because he had a curled tail like a husky. I smiled. “I’m gonna call him...” And the smile left me. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

I shook my head. “He’s not gonna need a name. He’s not that kind of dog.”

“Pretty weird, Mick,” Sully said. “But he’s your dog. Listen, I’m going home now. Can’t wait to show Bugs to my mother. You’re not bringing Nothing to the house, are ya?”

“Nah, I’m gonna bring him ta meet my dad,” I said as sarcastically as I could. Sully didn’t even notice, as he skipped off with his new love.

My father was the only conscious person in the O’Asis when Nothing and I walked in. Two guys dozed at the bar, the little oscillating fan waving between them, not even disturbing their greasy mats of hair. My mother was out grocery shopping for the bar.

“... and I figure he can watch that back door, so nobody tries to break in,” I said.

My father seemed half asleep himself, one eye on the overhead TV, where ESPN was running a repeat of a hockey game to cool off the summer sweats.

“That’s fine, Mick,” he said. “It’ll be a good deterrent. He looks mean as shit. That’s good. We could use a presence like that.” He winced at something that happened in the hockey game. “Jeez, so could the Bruins.”

I wrestled the dog out the back door. We had already worked up a strange, unfriendly truce. He kept growling at me, kept leering at me, tossed me side to side, and ignored most of what I said, but he never tried to bite me to shreds. Which we both knew he could have done whenever he wanted to.

“But Mick,” Dad said, “I don’t want to know about him. You take care of all his needs, don’t let him stink, and keep him quiet. And if anyone ever does try to get in here, he
better
chew the bastard’s ass off.”

I stuffed the dog out the door, followed him, and slammed it behind us. Immediately, Nothing broke away from me, went to a corner, and flopped in the sun. I looked around. This time of day, the back alley—a slab of asphalt surrounded by a six-foot wooden fence—was totally washed in the straight-up sun. There was no escape. I went back inside, filled a mop bucket with water and ice.

“Anybody gonna eat this?” I asked, pointing to the two half-eaten platters on the bar. One was a hamburger plate, fries, runny coleslaw, and the other was a tuna boat, fries, runny coleslaw. Nobody answered me, so I scooped it all onto one plate and brought it out to Nothing.

He nearly knocked me over when I set the plate down, and I felt a small swell of evil pride as I watched him slobber.

“See ya tomorrow, killer,” I said, boldly patting his hip.

He growled, nasty, as I slipped away.

The routine became, I opened the back door, Nothing charged me, I threw a foot-long hot dog across the lot, he chased it, and I came out with the full plate of scraps. Out of the refrigerator I was allowed to take whatever was left over from the previous day’s special. Knockwurst; rubbery sirloin tips; green beef stew; chopped, reconstructed turkey breast slices. Then I did my work. Then I went back out to find a much calmer Nothing. While he sat, I cleaned up his place too. Dung, mostly, but often as not I’d also come across pieces of skinny cats or fat-ass rats that were dumb enough to wander in during the night. The ferocious destruction he laid on those animals gave me hope. And still, it was less disgusting to clean up outside the O’Asis than in it.

Following the cleanup, I’d take Nothing for his run. He galloped like a Clydesdale, thundering after anything that moved, menace on his tiny little mind. He pulled me down sometimes, didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, even with all my weight hanging on the leash until I’d scrambled back to my feet. I watched him, over a short time, fill out impressively. His chest and shoulders and even his head seemed broader and more solid than when I first saw him. And even if he was getting a potbelly from all the fatty raw meat, he could still chug like a train.

We’d return, me sweating, him panting, and he gave me no trouble about going back into the alley. Then, before leaving, I’d skim some of the food I was
not
supposed to take—today’s special, which wasn’t much better than the old stuff—and I’d feed him again.

“He’s ready,” I told Sully after I’d had Nothing for two weeks. I’d just come in, breathless from my morning at the O’Asis, and Sully was dressing for work.

“My dad changed his mind,” Sully said glumly. “He said Bugs smells, and he can’t live in the house.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry, Sul,” I said, but I was having a hard time appreciating the problem. I had the
Big Thing
on my mind.

“He said he’d build Bugs a...” Sully sort of gasped when he said it, “... doghouse.” He scooped Bugs up where he was lying on the bed, and he hugged him.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, at least you get to keep him.”

“Ya, I suppose,” he said.

“So, anyway, he’s ready. Sul, Nothing’s ready. Tonight’s the night. It pissed rain on him yesterday, and it’s gonna be hellish hot today, and he’s gonna be meeeean....”

“Congratulations,” he said lifelessly.

“You gonna come with me?”

He threw me a look, then walked right past me. I grabbed his shoulder to ask him again.

Bugs let out a screamy little arf, and bit my hand with those sharp teeth.

“Ow! Jesus, Sul, can’t you control him?”

“No. Neither one of us wants to discuss this subject. You go wherever you want tonight, leave us out of it.”

“I know what you think, Sul, and actually, I agree in a way. But this is
it
for me. This is the thing, the one and final
thing
that I just have to take care of. Then it’ll be no more. I gotta get this done. I gotta
beat
him, Sul, for good.”

Sully shook his head at me, stroked Bugs. I seemed to have made him very sad. “I don’t know, Mick. Definitely, there’s something out there that’s eatin’ you up alive, and I guess you gotta get it before it gets you... but I don’t think messin’ with Terry is gonna fix you up.”

I reached out and tried to stroke the dog. He snapped at me again.

“Yes it is, Sul,” I said. It was the first time I had come out with it, to anyone. It was the first time I had said it to myself. “Beating Terry, beating him into the ground, is the only way. The only single thing I’m absolutely sure of at this point is that I know I cannot exist knowing that he exists at the same time. He won’t go away, understand? Somehow, he has a hold of me, and he’s beating me, even right now.”

Sully took a long pause and a step back. “Mick, let me try this one time. You’re brain-blown. Your brother has got you so screwed up, you have no perspective. You’re acting exactly the way he wants you to act. You’re losing a mind game to a guy who has no mind whatsoever.”

He was right! There it was. That instant, Sully showed it to me, what he could see, and probably everyone else could see but me. How stupid I looked because I was getting so blind with hate. I could see it all, just like that.

Then it was gone again, just like that.

I could kill Terry, kill him, that evil sonofabitch.

“After tonight, Sul. It’ll be all fixed, after tonight. It’ll be all better, and I won’t have any more problem.”

I went to the phone to make my date, while Sully walked down the stairs shaking his head and squeezing his dog.

Bloody Sundays was buzzing when Nothing and I came through the front door. A lot of mouths dropped open at the sight of the animal I could barely restrain on the choke chain. Everybody offered to buy me a drink, but I didn’t even turn my head as I went through to the ring. Nothing and I took up our spot at the far corner and waited. He didn’t know what was going on, and stared casually in all directions. I was so scared, the dog growled at me for jerking him so much with my shaking grip on his collar.

The spectators began filing in, lining the walls, all loaded and thrilled to be so close to the danger. I felt Nothing tense at the unfamiliar crowd. When we were at capacity, things quieted. They seemed to sense that Bobo the champion had arrived.

But first, my brother walked through the door. He came right over, sized up the dog, and nodded.

“That’s a lotta meat ya got there, Mick. Good build, powerful.”

I didn’t say anything, just tried to stare coldly ahead like I’d seen the Jamaicans do. I was even more nervous with Terry than I’d ever been before. Thinking about what Sully said, I got defensive, lost any confidence I might have had. What’s he doing to me now? I thought. What’s his angle? What does he want me to say to that? I won’t.

He kept smiling that smile. He started mixing conversation about the dog with conversation about me. “Has he had a lot of fights? How they treating ya there at Sullivans’, huh, Mick? What’re ya feedin’ him? What’re they feedin’ you? What breeds? How’s the spic chic, that workin’ out okay? Animal Rescue League? Heard ya lost your boyfriend, too bad, but I heard ya had his mother, so good f’you. What I really wanna know is, did ya train him y’self, bro?”

I managed to nod.

Somehow his smile grew even wider. “Gooood,” he said. “I was hopin’ ya did.” And as he spoke, he walked backward, bowing, all the way to the opposite side of the ring. “I’ll say hi ta Ma for ya,” he said, waving.

The champion emerged. Bobo and Augie strutted through the door reeking of confidence, Bunky hopping and yapping circles around them. The home crowd cheered, and they took their position beside Terry, opposite us.

At the sight of Nothing, Bobo started jumping, lunging, pulling so that it took both Terry and Augie to hold him. I had no such problem. First, Nothing didn’t move. Then, I felt him leaning backward, into me. I nudged him, pushed his weight off me toward the center of the ring. Bobo growled like a volcano. Nothing backed into me again, hard.

“Goddamnit,” I said under my breath, pushing him again. “Don’t do this to me.”

He pushed even harder, backing me up. The murmur started. By the time Nothing, with all his cowardly bulk, slammed me into the fence, people were laughing openly at me.

“Goddamn you,” I shouted, snapping the leash off the collar and slapping the dog’s behind. “Get in there.”

Augie was first angry, then confused. Since there was no fight, he didn’t know what to do. Bobo felt no such confusion. He wanted a piece of Nothing, and who could blame him? Augie shrugged, held the leash.

Terry reached across Augie and released the leash clip.

Bobo came barreling toward us, low growls rolling up out of him as he pounded his way. I froze against the fence, staring straight into his murderous mouth.

That was when Nothing finally displayed his strength. He turned, and with one powerful stroke leaped up onto the fence. He soared straight over my head, catching the top of the fence with his front legs. I hit the ground when Bobo came sailing after him, crashing into the fence, falling, jumping again. Nothing scrambled, scrambled, his back legs kicking maniacally to push him up. The crowd was in hysterics as he finally toppled over, pulling his foot out of Bobo’s mouth as he did. He howled off down the street, like a siren fading away.

I kept my head down as I walked the gauntlet back through the ring, and then through the Bloody. None of the ridicule was words, none of it mattered, except when I heard Terry, clear and crisp and hard by my ear.

“No doubt about it, you’re the guy that trained that dog. But don’t worry about it, boy. Don’t worry. Nothin’ ta be
ashamed
of. Nothin’ at all. Get another dog. Just get another dog. Come back. We’ll be here. You’ll come back. Get another dog. We’ll be here. ...” And on and on he went, talking at me through the bar, and after I’d left the bar, and as I slept off and on that night.

A
S I HEADED OUT
to work in the morning I passed the doghouse Sully’s father had built for Bugs. I’d walked right by it the night before, but in the light it was amazing. Real asphalt shingles for the roof, three colors of paint, a swinging door to keep out the cold, and shuttered windows. I walked across the lawn to it, crouched, and opened the shutters.

“Bar-ar-ar-ar-ar!”
Bugs shocked me with his annoying angry yap. I heard his teeth clack together like silverware as he tried repeatedly to bite me, and I fell back on the grass.

“Should have brought
you
,” I said as I brushed myself off and left him still barking.

For the last time I went out back of the O’Asis and cleaned up after my big brute of a dog. I could still hear them laughing in my ears. Then I trudged through my usual chores, and when I was done, absentmindedly went to the refrigerator for food.

“Duh,” I said to myself, and put the plastic bag full of stew beef back. Then I thought about it and took it out again.

I rode the bus back toward the house, but continued on one extra stop. There I got off, walked a little way, and stood for a bit in front of Evelyn’s house. After giving myself a few minutes to think it over one more time, I crept around the side.

The great creature didn’t get up when he saw me. Initially he didn’t even raise his head. I took a few tentative steps into the yard, reached into the bag, and pulled out some chunks of meat. I tossed them toward where the dog lay half in, half out of his house. He licked them up off the ground, chewed once, swallowed, then looked at me again. I threw a few more. With each toss, I took a couple steps further into the yard until the bag was empty and I was almost within reach of his chain.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said, and slipped out before he finished the last of it.

I did come back tomorrow. And the next day. The beef was his favorite, but he was also happy to have the turkey, sausages, ham, and even the bogus cod croquettes I was almost afraid to give him. I began to look forward to feeding him, and he seemed to be glad to see me. I hurried through my work every day so I could get there.