Flying Leap. Judy Budnitz

       DOG DAYS

      The man in the dog suit whines outside the door.

      “Again?” sighs my mother.

      “Where’s my gun?” says my dad.

      “We’ll take care of it this time,” my older brothers say.

      They go outside. We hear the shouts and the scuffle, and whimpers as he crawls away up the street.

      My brothers come back in. “That takes care of that,” they say, rubbing their hands together.

      “Damn nutcase,” my dad growls.

      But the next day he is back. His dog suit is shabby. The zipper’s gone; the front’s held together with safety pins. He looks like a mutt. His tongue is flat and pink like a slice of bologna. He pants at me.

      “Mom,” I call, “he’s back.”

      My mother sighs, then comes to the door and looks at him. He cocks his head at her. “Oh, look at him, he looks hungry,” my mother says. “He looks sad.”

      I say, “He smells.”

      “No collar,” says my mother. “He must be a stray.”

      “Mother,” I say. “He’s a man in a dog suit.”

      He sits up and begs.

      My mother doesn’t look at me. She reaches out and strokes the man’s head. He blinks at her longingly. “Go get a plate,” she tells me. “See what you can dig out of the garbage.”

      “Dad’s going to be mad,” I say.

      “Just do it,” she says.

      So I do it, because I have no excuses, there’s nothing left to do, no school, no nothing. No place to go. People don’t leave their houses. They sit and peer out the windows and wait. Outside it’s perfectly quiet, no crickets, no katydids.

      I go back to the door and lay the plate on the stoop. My mother and I watch as he buries his face in the dirty scraps. He licks the plate clean and looks up at us.

      “Good dog,” my mother says.

      “He’s a man,” I say. “Some retard-weirdo.”

      He leans against my mother’s leg.

      My mother doesn’t even look at me. “Not a word to your father, Lisa,” she says, and she goes inside and slams the door.