All Ray wished he had was popsicles, so we took a walk down to Bad’s General Store because they sold bomb pops. We were too lazy to find our shoes, so we just cut through spiky yellowed lawns and searing back lots in bare feet and towels ’round our swim trunks. Rudy Tomczak wouldn’t care about selling to shoeless kids on a burning day. We bought the last box.
We passed by Gavin’s on the way back, and there was Bullets tied up in the sun. His leash was looped in the tires of Gavin’s pickup parked in the bed of gravel outside his house.
The dog was pinned in that punishing midday blast of light and couldn’t get to the Tupperware bowl of old gross water that a couple pill bugs thought was a swimming pool. He was mangy and hyperventilating, letting the green flies roaming his belly and face have their way.
Ray started wandering over, wanting to get a better look. Ray was curious. He maybe thought Bullets was already a goner and wanted to check it out. We trailed him, brushing stones and twigs off of our heels, while the alien frequency of the cicadas droning rose and fell and made the stillness that followed somehow deeper and sort of blue to me.
Ray, shielding his eyes from the sunlight shafting through those elms, walked over. When Bullets growled, it was more like a purr of annoyance, seeing as he didn’t bother to move.
Nearing up until he was about within arm’s reach, Ray offered Bullets a lick of his orange popsicle. Like it was a microphone, he pointed it toward Bullets’ slack mouth, grew closer until the cold blunt nose of it landed on the dog’s tongue. I neared too, as Ray gently ran it back and forth like he was applying chapstick, letting it melt until Bullets tasted it, smacked his lips, and suddenly snapped to life and began lapping at it desperately.
Vince and I watched for a while as Bullets licked down Ray’s bomb pop and even took the popsicle stick. Ray rubbed his belly, shooed the flies. Well, I thought, Ray made a pal today.
Then Vince went back to the road to smoke in the shade there.
“Yo,” I said, tapping Ray’s bony shoulder, “time to go.”
“He’ll fry.”
“We’re gonna get in trouble. Come on.”
Ray frowned. “Would you wanna dry up like a worm in the road?”
“You’re a little puke, Ray. I swear.”
So, I get to freeing the stupid leash from the front tire it had gotten wound around when the dog must have tried hiding underneath the truck to escape the heat. The growl Bullets gave me was this gurgling in his throat. When he bared his teeth I clapped his mouth shut, held him by the muzzle, held it closed, and getting nose-to-snout, told him to be nice, I was helping him.
His growling unraveled as I shushed him and got him to chill out, but still, those blank eyes stared right into me, black as tar bubbles.
I said to Ray to give him some room, and unhooked the leash from Bullets’ collar. Then I stood and let go. Bullets immediately galloped over to the water bowl and drank it dry, bugs and all. Then he started bouncing around, all giddy to be free, and leapt into the trash cans, knocked one over, and started disemboweling the garbage bags inside. What anything chained up too long would do.
We were walking out when we heard a voice go, “No, no, no no—you don’t get to pet my dog. No one does. Only me.”
And there came Gavin from around back, coming toward us, sweating awfully. Glistening streaks ran down his face, darkening his sleeveless shirt.
He knelt next to Ray and casually took him by the back of his neck, suddenly trying to be neighborly. “Now, you know this is private property. You know this is my dog,” he said to Ray, shaking him lightly as he spoke. “You stay right there,” he told Ray, and Ray obeyed. So did I.
I saw Vince approach, storm-faced, pick Gavin’s hand up off Ray, and the whole world seemed to be reversing course at light speed. Vince was mad as a hornet, though Gavin had all kinds of weight on him, had all kinds of weird cunning. But Vince was spry. I almost couldn’t watch.
And Gavin was a little shocked, watching his own hand get lifted away like a hot pan taken off a burner. But then his eyes grew keen, sort of bright with a weird joy he seemed to want kept secret. But I’d seen it before—we all had, at one time or another. With Gavin, you never knew what you were going to get—sadism or whimsy, Hook or Peter Pan. But, however he did choose to behave, it was always with a wild leer like that, trying to be hid, trying to be—harnessed.
Sometimes he was the alligator, too. Endless appetite, never too far.
Shrugging off that small invasion of his personal space, he gave a sharp whistle to grab the dog’s attention, and after giving chase around the pickup a little while, managed to horse collar Bullets. “Sit down,” he commanded, and twisted the collar until the dog did as told. Just as quickly, Gavin’s mind changed.
“Move, dumb dog,” he said, and dragged Bullets back over to the truck, where he leashed him up again.
“Go easy…” Vince said. I could tell he spoke before thinking, the way he studied the dirt after the words left his mouth.
“I know, I know,” he replied, sorry as a cardinal caught whoring, as he got up from his feet with a little whine, came over to us, and loped a long sweat-slick arm over Vince’s shoulders. He began walking Vince around, talking to him. Casual as can be. Vince even let him do it at first, even when Gavin got real close and was whispering into Vince’s ear.
“I love the dog, I do. Lot of responsibility in raising animals. You have to be firm…”
When Vince tried shrugging Gavin’s arm off his shoulders, it became a headlock. The snare was triggered. Though he was much taller than all of us, his body was somehow both gangly and obese, like a tortoise in a too-big shell. Gavin worked him, smothering Vince in his armpit. Then he pivoted our way as Vince grunted, doing what he could to break it.
Gavin, playing the heel, mildly staring at me and Ray as Vince toiled under his flabby hold. Bullets, going into hiding under the pickup.
The seconds under that ugly gaze of his felt twisted and— outside of time, though it must have been only a moment, him watching us with this lazy, sleepy face, relishing our helplessness. Vince bucking madly then, throwing elbows into Gavin’s doughy paunch. Ray starting to cry.
And then Gavin, grating his knuckles back and forth over Vince’s scalp, muttering “keep fighting,” bringing the whole thing to a hard boil until he finally quit it.
Vince, deep red and sucking air, turning away to smear off the sweat.
“We’re just playing around, don’t be scared,” he said to Ray, this idiotic leer on his face. And as if it would prove his point, Gavin snatched at Ray’s towel. There was a brief mock tug of war. He gleefully hammed it up a little, then released him, chuckled and scratched at his prickly throat.
“It’s too hot,” said Gavin, himself out of breath. “Parents, cops—you tell anyone, you’ll be sorry…”
We all edged away until reaching the road. Gavin, bent double, hands on knees, watching us like a cross bull in the shade, before wandering around off to the backyard again, leaving the spilled trash all over the failing grass, where a couple Styrofoam plates cartwheeled from a weak breeze
