Dog Eat Dog (6 page)

Bobo wasn’t fighting. He stood, listing, in the middle while the Doberman ran hysterical circles around him, looking for an opening. Bobo simply rotated ponderously, like a circus elephant on a tiny platform. The Doberman got around back, took a nip of Bobo’s leg. Did it again. Did it again. The locals were popping blood vessels screaming at Bobo. The Jamaicans folded their arms. One of them smiled.

“Pussy,” Terry screamed at Bobo. “Fight, faggot dog. I’ll kick your ass myself.”

Augie wasn’t a lot of help from his champion’s corner. “Bo! Bobo. Bobo Bobo. Fuckin’ Bobo.” His voice cracked when the Doberman opened a gash on Bobo’s hip.

One step slow, ten degrees off center, Bobo couldn’t seem to pull it together. It got pathetic, watching the smallish, lean and angry dog kicking hell out of the big bull. One more lunge, the Doberman snagged Bobo’s ear. He pulled and pulled, the way a normal dog will play tug of war with a stick. He dug in deep with his paws, and yanked convulsively, pulling Bobo’s hide like a sweater over his head. Bobo made not a sound as he held his ground, head pointed down, and blood poured over his eyes.

I was more ashamed than I had ever been in my whole shame-infested life. My throat felt as if there was a whole walnut stuck in it. I took three quick steps toward the fray, as if I could
help
now.

Like a cornerback out of nowhere, Terry banged into me, chest to chest.

“Don’t you never,
never
break up a dogfight, you got that? Don’t you
never
even think about it. The loser is
supposed
to lose, that’s how we get rid of the weaklings. And not that I fuckin’ care, but you get in between there, and they’ll fuckin’ eat your ass, understand? And believe this, boy, I
won’t put my hand in there f’you
.”

Somehow, Terry made me feel like I was in danger. I took a step back. Even though I could still hear the sickening fight, it was now easier to take, looking into Terry’s mug instead of Bobo’s. The crowd noise had remained loud, but had switched to a filthy choir of vile attacks on Bobo. I looked at the other faces, saw even more hate than usual. I remembered Terry’s speech on the meaning of dogs, realized that they all believed it. I hoped the dog would die in the fight, for his own sake.

“Faggot, Bobo, go for his
dick
, why dontcha.”

“Hope he bones ya up the ass when he’s done, Bo.”

“Shoulda let little Bunky the rat terrier fight instead.”

Terry half turned away from me, to make his point while pointing at the fight as if it was a lesson on a blackboard rather than one animal killing another. “He goddamn
deserves
what’s happenin’ to him. I hope it gets—”

Terry stopped, as did everyone else, when they saw it. All experienced sports fans here, they all recognized it when the Doberman made a mistake. Bobo was cut and oozing from four different spots, but it was all pretty superficial—except for the dangling ear. The Doberman had him beat on passion, but not on sheer bulk and muscle. He didn’t understand that. So he thought it was time to go for the kill.

The Doberman released his grip on Bobo’s head, pulled back, and dove for the belly. He reached it, but not in time to clamp his jaws shut. Seeing the smaller animal stretched out under him, Bobo acted out of dumb, vicious animal instinct. He dropped, his huge head sinking hard, with all his weight behind it, and flattened his opponent beneath him. In a heartbeat his great mouth opened, then slammed closed, across the Doberman’s back. The sound of all those vertebrae smashing was like a car rolling onto a gravel driveway.

Just like that, Bobo became General Schwarzkopf returning from Desert Storm. With the cheering, I couldn’t hear what Terry was yelling in my face from only three feet away. The Jamaicans filed out slowly but purposefully, the front man holding up an envelope fat with money, then tossing it on the ground. They left their corpse. A special exception to the remove-your-victim rule, since Bobo was still lying across the poor sonofabitch.

For his part, Bobo looked around numbly at the celebration, turning his brainless head in all directions, looking at everyone and appreciating nothing. Bunky ran and ran little rings around himself, mental, yipping.

The mob moved inside. I lingered, staring as blankly at Bobo as he did at me. There was a whistle from inside. Slowly, painfully, the big monster rose and padded into the bar. A minute later I followed him.

Augie was cleaning up the mess on his fighter’s legs and head, blotting with a peroxide-soaked dish towel from the kitchen. Within a minute I heard ten different people say how “we” had kicked the Jamaicans’ asses. Bobo pulled away from Augie and collapsed on the floor in front of his water bowl. Augie let him, and turned back to the bar to celebrate even though Bobo was still bleeding.

Terry stared for a minute as Bobo seemed to cough, or spasm, then rest his head on the floor, then spasm again, then close his eyes.

He came over and put his arm around me. I threw it off. He squeezed the back of my neck.

“C’mere, I’ll walk ya out,” he said.

“I guess I’m leaving,” I answered.

Outside, Terry gave me a little shove, a boost out the door.

“Pretty strange, huh? Bobo’s performance?”

“Ya,” I said, getting ready to run.

“So, you said you might know a dog. Remember? That can beat Bo?”

“I might,” I said.

“Good. Good, that’s good. We’ll pencil you in then. Now that this is outta the way, we’re lookin’ for some new meat. You’re
in
,” he said menacingly.

“Well, okay, but y’know, the thing is, I’m not exactly sure I can get—”

“Y’ever noticed, Mick, how when Bobo drinks too much, when he’s wasted, that he hiccups? He hiccups a lot, it’s the damnedest thing.” Terry looked up in the air and stroked his chin quizzically as he said it.

“I never noticed that,” I said in a shaky voice.

“Ya, it’s a true fact. Ever wonder what Augie might do, if he caught someone screwing around with his dog? Ever wonder about that? I wonder about it sometimes. Augie’s pretty fried right now, so he don’t see much of nothin’, but if he ever somehow did find out about something like that, if something like that ever did actually did happen...?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t figure I was supposed to.

He got lighter and more casual about it, the closer he got to the nub.

“And I won’t stick my hand in any damn dogfight for you. Did I tell you that already? I think I did, I told you that. Did I?”

I nodded. I swallowed. It was so hot, even outside. I felt the beads bubbling down my neck. I could see steam on the few windows of the Bloody.

“Good, I’m glad I told you that. Because I meant it. Now, what you do is, you run along, and you get that dog, and you train his ass off. We’re scheduling you now. You’re a priority.”

He patted my cheek and faded back into the bar. I wobbled home.

T
HE DAYS GOT LONG
, having to be up so early, scrubbing shit out of the O’Asis first thing, only to then have nothing to do the rest of the day. Most times I went back to bed when I got home. And I slept, even though I wasn’t really tired. Sully had a summer job, “doin’ absolutely nothin’” at the State House because his father was one of those guys who get that stuff. But he had a place to go at least. Me, I was wading through my first summer without either Little League or beer, and I was stupefied at what little there was around me. Still, I had my
focus
.

I rousted Sully out of bed as soon as I got back from work.

“C’mon, Sul, I want you to go with me.”

He rolled over, away from me. I shook him harder.

“Get outta here, Mick, lemme sleep. I gotta be to work by eleven. Or eleven thirty.”

“Bang in sick,” I said.

He sat up and scowled at me. “Listen, this gig lasts ten weeks. They only allow me six official paid sick days and a couple more unofficial mental health days. I can’t go squandering ’em.”

“Fine, I’ll just have to do it alone,” I said—moaned, really—as I walked extra slowly away. He was always a sucker for that stuff.

“What? What is it you’re gonna have to do alone?” he asked, stopping me in the doorway.

“Dog shopping.”

He threw himself back on the bed and pulled his pillow around his ears. “Dogs, dogs, Jesus, please, not the dog business again, Mick. I wish you’d just forget about this dog business, man, it’s no damn good. I can smell this one a mile away, and this whole dog thing, it stinks.” From his lying-down position, he pointed at me menacingly. “It’s gonna be your biggest fall yet.”

I waited him out. I was way beyond really listening. “I gotta get a dog.”

“Besides, my old man says you can’t keep one anyway.”

“I don’t plan to keep it long. It won’t be a pet. I mean, it
can’t
be a pet. I’m gonna keep it at work. There’s a lot, out behind the O’Asis, where I can chain him.”

“Outside?”

“Ya, outside. The kind of dog I’m lookin’ for isn’t the kind that’s gonna care whether he lives inside or out. In fact, the kind I’m lookin’ for probably won’t know the difference.”

“It stinks.”

“Bang in sick.”

“No.”

“Fine, you just go ahead and quit on me too. We all know I have, like, a million friends anyway, right, so it’s not really a big deal. And family, let’s not forget family. I have other brothers besides you, so, really, Sul, don’t give it another thought.” I had to say it all like a joke, but he knew I was being true.

“Asshole,” he said, rolling out of bed and yanking up his pants.

As we walked up the driveway to the Animal Rescue League entrance, I thought of Mickey the dog, dumped right there on the curb like a sack of garbage. Mickey wasn’t mean enough. Or big enough, or deranged enough. I needed a monstrous, ferocious, toothy, and muscular criminal of a heartless beast.

“We’d like to see your death row dogs, please,” Sully said as we stood at the front desk.

The woman in the park ranger-type uniform was not amused.

“You wish to adopt one of our abandoned animals?” she asked sternly.

“Yes, I would,” I cut in before Sully could empty his already opened mouth.

We followed the ranger woman down a long white hospital-like corridor. Sully continued to work on me.

“You won’t do this. It ain’t in you, Mick. It ain’t you. You don’t have the heart for this, you have too
much
heart for this.”

I didn’t answer, just plowed on until we got to the room with the orphans.

“Take your time, look them all over carefully,” the woman said, then left us alone.

Sully and I walked side by side along the cages. Three tiers high and twenty doors long, it was like a housing project for dogs, or a prison. All cages were the same size, regardless of the dog inside, so the biggest ones were just dopily curled on the floor while the little ones jumped up and yipped as we passed.

Every single dog was a puzzle. Beagle-collie-setter. Shepherd-Doberman-Labrador. Scotty-mastiff-bassett-chow.

“Bet Father’s Day is a pretty confusing time for these poor slobs,” Sully cracked, scratching a mutt’s nose with the two fingers he could squeeze through the mesh.

I didn’t bother trying to touch any of them. I scanned. Too small, too small, too small, too skinny, jaws too narrow.

“Take this one, Mick,” Sully called, still in crouching position in front of the most anemic-looking creature in the place. Sully was in love already.

“We’re here on business, Sul,” I said, continuing my search.

“I think maybe this little guy’ll change your mind, though,” he said, giggling as the dog squeezed his tongue through the bars to lick his face.

“I don’t want my mind changed,” I said.

A mostly Great Dane with the sad, stupid face of a St. Bernard leaped at me as I passed. Twice he rammed his head into the cage door, barking. I took note, and moved on. A boxer-bulldog glared at me, beautiful posture, big chest, crooked brown teeth. Not enough. I neared the end of the line, reaching what seemed to be the pit bull ghetto. Four dogs in a row that all had that unmistakable square, ignorant, sneering face. Like a team, they snarled one long threatening rumble as I neared.

“I’ll give you all four of those monsters for the price of one,” the ranger’s voice said from behind me. “More and more of those coming in every week. Our city’s pit bull population has been exploding, and nobody seems to have the strength to keep them from fornicating at will.”

I stared in petrified awe at the shimmering menace in each of those cages. They growled so intensely, with such obvious hate, that they trembled. They certainly had some of the qualities I was looking for. They would be holy terrors, without question. But not one of them was
the
dog. The one that could overwhelm the whole world of other dogs. I could picture Bobo sitting down on top of one of those and, his own body hacked up again, swallowing big chunks out of the little bastard.

I walked back the other way again. When I reached the Dane, he was taking a gargantuan dump. He watched me as he did, growling, excreting, looking at my face. Like he was saying, “This one’s for you, pal.” Then he was finished and, the feces way too big to fall through the grate floor, he threw himself down on it. He stood again, looked at it. Took a bite. Looked at me. Went to the cage door and started chewing on the metal so hard that it was only a matter of time before he did get out.

“I want him,” I said.

“You don’t want
him
,” she said.

“Yes I do.”

“That one’s not right, if you ask me,” she said.

“Then I won’t ask you. That is exactly the dog I want. Wrap him up.”

The woman let out an angry low growl of her own as she went to get a leash. “Ah, I see,” she said with disgust, “another one of
them
.”

We waited for the shots, the tags, the brief exams. I paid my thirty-five dollars and took possession of my beast.

It all took twice as long as it should have, because Sully bought the anemic dog.

“Where are you gonna keep him?” I asked nervously as my dog alternately jerked me down the street and stopped to turn on me.