Since Dogs Been Dogs

Mason was a patient man, or patient enough.

He raised three very fine and very courteous children - alone - and shipped three young adults off to University. He buried his father and his mother. At their funerals he shook hands and took clean bundles of white flowers, and said thank you. His face was smooth when he signed away sixty childhood acres to make room for Ample Valley Condominiums. When the ground was still soiled with April, he moved his dozen cows and his handful of things to a foreign house that was much closer to the highway. All of his pictures in their braidedbronze frames were arranged on a smaller, cleaner, colder fireplace, one that smelled nothing like woodsmoke.

And if his hands shook just slightly on any one of these occasions, Mason was certain that it said nothing against his patience.

But Charles and Danny were getting his hands to shake awfully that morning and it had nothing to do with grief.

"You two wanna save your mouths for breathing?" Mason kept working while he talked. While he puffed. The shovel wanted only to nibble at the ground, only to scratch and shy away, but Mason bent firm and merciless with his knees and back and elbows because like it or not, the fence needed mending.

"I'd sure like to, Mr. Mason." It was Danny that said that. Danny was the grocer's little boy except that he wasn't all that little anymore. His face was all wrapped up in itself, in an ugly look, and when he turned he spat in the wickerbasket of the grass. His wrists were draped up on his shovel draped up on his shoulders, like a scarecrow, and he swung them, back and forth, and left and right. It made the muscles in his chest work. It made them show through his overwashed wifebeater. "If dear mister Charlie here would deign admit that he missed the boat on this whole Korean debacle." Danny was a good boy but he could get that way sometimes.

"'Debacle' he says. Talks awful nice, don't he Mason." Charles was hitching his pants up. Then rolling up his sleeves, casually, then hitching again. In order to free up his hands for this he shuffled his shovel back and forth the entire time. "Those classes over at Etheridge doing you good, then? Huh?" Charles had loaned Danny's daddy some money to help pay for the classes. "Sure sounds like they are." He was a good man but he could get this way sometimes.

"Just admit you're a goddamn racist, and we can get this fence done up."

"You watch your mouth, now. Taking the Lord's name in vain. You watch your mouth." They were only uncle and nephew but they had a sameness to them when they argued. "It's bound to get smacked, in the right company."

Mason couldn't place it, though. The sameness when they argued. It was a strange one. Maybe the same sort of sameness that garbage gets. If you dump it out on the ground then yes, certainly, you can see each different piece of it. The coffee grounds are not the eggshells are not the Virginia Slim filters are not the Hamburger Helper box, but once they you have put them in the garbage you can't help looking at it all the same way.

Mason thought it was sort of like that. "Let's just get this fence done up, fellas."

"That's fine, then. That's alright." Danny seemed to be waiting for something. He was shifting a little more now, was readying himself. "Just admit you can't stand a gook selling you gasoline, and we can get this fence done up."

"I got friends died over there."

There it was.

"It ain't like he's the one that killed em!"

"How do you know?" Charles shrugged and scratched his chin. "Could be his daddy was the one."

Mason took a moment to catch his breath, and wrestle it down. His chest was not cooperating with him. It felt tough and swollen, and stringy, like discount meat. While he rested and waited for air to come back to him he looked all around at the area that was still fresh and unfriendly in his head. Mason had taken it in before, of course, more than once, and should have known what to expect, but still found himself watchful and sad and marveling: yellow grass and road, and brown grass and road, a backwash of tacklebox litter and green grass. Some buildings.

Mason almost went back to work. Something pulled at him, though, and he kept on looking just a little bit longer until something a little ways out there moved, and Charles and Danny shut up and looked over when he asked "What's that, there?" Mason pointed a finger from around his shovel. "By the road."

It was a silly thing to say, but Mason only thought about that once it was out. For a minute he thought his eyes, too, had made a fool of him, that he had only seen a shred of old tire or the ribs of a milkcrate, but then it moved again, and Mason could see that it was something alive or at least mostly.

"Scrap metal." Charles was squinting, pulling his crowsfeet high and tight like reins. "Eighteen-wheeler went off the road awhile back."

"Weeks ago, actually. They still ain't finished cleaning it." Danny looked back at his uncle, taking up his scarecrow posture again, swinging back and forth. "That road's an awful big help for our little town."

"Brings in business from up north."

"Yeah, and it's gonna bring in businesses from the same damn place. You're gonna see less diners and more McDonald's." Danny had passed with a B in an economics class at Etheridge. "It's the same as anywhere else."

Mason did his best to ignore them. He was still looking at whatever it was. "It's something with a little life in it, I think."

"Probably just a coon," said Charles.

Mason disagreed. He picked through the gravel and hamburger wrappers and made his way over to the pile, still carrying his shovel.

"Mason? Mason, c'mon now-- we got work to do!"

A black and white border collie had taken up under the sheet of metal. It was splayed out on its belly, exhausted and small, or at least trying to make itself small, or maybe into a piece of the ground. When Mason had come up with a shovel the thing started taking about forty different angles in defending itself: growling, but also whining, and pulling its ears down, but also pulling back its lips. The whole time it boiled with anxiousness. One of its backlegs was tangled up and around like dirty laundry.

Mason almost reached down to it, but stopped when the dog looked ready to bolt. Instead he leaned on his shovel and they just looked at each other for a minute or so. "How we doin there, chum?"

The collie, tongue rolling and panting like a thirsty engine, tried one more time with the bowlingalley of its teeth.

"How's this, then?" Mason put his shovel off to the side, placing it flat. "I'm not here to dig you a grave. You see there?"

The collie was still watching him hard, but at least put away its teeth.

Charles and Danny had finally stepped over their tools and come over to join Mason, walking close enough to rub shoulders.

"Whoa, there," said Charles.

"Shit." Danny came forward, then choked himself off, then looked at Mason. "Jesus, you see that? Look at that."

"Leg's broke." Charles scratched his chin.

"Some bastard hits a stray and just drives off. Just drives off!"

The collie tried to bolt and fell and cried out hotly in the way that dogs do and Danny said "Oh, god, don't do that. Sorry."

"Ain't a stray, anyway." Charles had a way of saying things that sounded very sturdy. "He eats good enough, looks like. And he's been brushed down before."

Mason nodded.

"But that's a damned good break it's got."

Mason nodded again.

"It's that goddamn highway." Danny's lips were wrinkling like he wanted to spit. "That goddamn highway. They need to shut that shit down."

"Don't you cuss like that. And don't you blame the road, either." Charles scratched his chin. "Dogs been getting killed and crippled since before roads. They'll keep getting killed and crippled til they're done being dogs."

Danny said nothing but was still wrinkling his lips.

"Now, the thing to do here is call the animal shelter." Charles was squinting, pulling his crowsfeet high and tight like reins. "A break that bad, they'd probably just go ahead and put him down."

"Oh, yeah. That's the way to do. Who wants to pay a little money to keep a stinkin' stray around?"

"Oh? You wanna take him in yourself, huh? You got space? You got money for it?"

"Fuck you, Charley." They moved at each other like cavemen.

"I can keep him for a little while," Mason said, still looking down at the collie. The other two stopped and stared over at him.

"What's that you say, Mr. Mason?"

The collie licked its chops and watched Mason squat down, maybe ten feet away. Even from there he could smell the creekbed vinegar of infection, and that was sad. It made a mess of Mason's insides.

"I can take him. I don't mind."

Charles and Danny looked at each other and didn't say anything for a minute.

"Damned decent of you, Mason." Charles laid a hand on his shoulder and patted it strangely. "Damned decent. You need a little help from us, you just let me know." He straightened and rubbed his lower back with his fist. "Let's we all call it in, for the day."

And he and Danny went off. Mason could them talking the whole way back: voices tight and low, and tense, like an acrobat's wire. The collie didn't seem so bad off now. More curious than anything else, but Mason told himself to tell himseld that it was still a dog, and a hurt one at that, and hurt dogs have teeth even if you can't see them all the time.

He gritted himself and started to stand back up. And did, eventually.

Mason went straight to the house and came back with his truck, and moved around some of the cedar planks and red tarp back there that had rotted. What had he been planning to do with all that? He couldn't seem to remember.

After a little sweettalking, the collie was in the bed of the truck with taking Mason's arm off, and maybe even wagging its tail a little bit, maybe, and Mason drove 20 miles an hour all the way down Hillman Highway where the limit was 55, and was passed by seven or eight goofy-looking bastards who shook fists and flipped birds, and when Mason pulled into the gravel driveway by the house he realized that he had not felt so fired-up since that time when he was nineteen and had done 130 past a liquor store.




A few days later and the collie still did not have a name. Everything else, yes: a pillow and a foodbowl and a waterbowl and some newspaper in the corner, a chewtoy: some too-small candycane ballcap that a high school buddy had sent in the mail, and looked just awful on Mason, but no name. Mason had had an Irish setter named Fluke when he was younger, and that was a good name. Mason had buried him when he hit a ripe old fifteen, used his pocketknife to make a little crucifix and carved "FLUKE" in block letters.

Now it was a condominium, though. The thought hit Mason as he was bringing in groceries and it suddenly made them very heavy for him.

He dropped them on the table, louder then he meant, while from the corner the collie started thapapapaping its tail against the linoleum.

"Hey there, chumu." Mason smiled. "How we doin?"

He walked over and leaned in to look: the bone had set alright. Mason had wondered if dog bones would set the same as people bones, and it looked like it had this time at least. It was the closest the collie came to biting him, but it didn't. Mason felt oddly proud at that.

He leaned in a little closer and smelled the wound: the mossy gleam of infection, and old alcohol, and also blood. The color was not so terrible.

Mason took the collie's cnout and turned it to face him, jostling a little, just to tease. "You behavin yourself? Hm?" The collie tried to lick his hand. "Hm? Doin alright?"

The collie panted blankly. Mason got a noseful of the breath, and the smell-- Mason's face went strange. He let go of the collie's snout.

"Oh, well now." Mason patted the fur behind the collie's ear. "Well."

After a moment or so he straightened up, and cleared his throat.

"You ever get a steak, hm?" He rattled the groceries from their bags on the table: mostly cuts of meat and vitamins. "At that old house of yours?"

The collie's ears wrinkled back for a moment.

"Couldn't make em like I do, I bet. How's that sound for supper?"

The dog panted and watched him at the stove.

Mason pulled the steaks from the spongy packaging, threw the bloody gelatin and cellophane in the trashcan.

"Wanna let em set a bit." The collie was watching him with incredible interest from the pillow. "Let em warm up a little. You cook a cold steak, it goes all tough on you."

Mason took a roll of Charmin papertowels out of the cabinet and tore off a handful, and placed the roll back, and began patting the steaks dry. "Want em dry, too. You put em in a pan wet, it's just like steaming." He began setting up the skillet and the garlic and the butter. "Same reason we wait to put on any salt. Salt pulls all the water out of the meat, and then you're right back where you started."

The collie panted and watched.

Once everything was set up, the steaks were still a little too cool for Mason's liking. Another fifteen minutes or so. He turned to the sink, and twisted on the faucet, and almost began washing his hands, but instead he turned and walked back over and eased himself onto the floor next to the collie. It took a minute for his legs to cooperate. The collie's featherduster tail plopped against the floor with a boneless rhythm, and Mason let his hands be licked and nipped at.

"You got steak comin, you know." The collie grinned blankly at Mason's goodnatured growl. "Don't ruin your supper."

Mason sat there a little longer than fifteen minutes. The pan was almost too hot, by the time he got up, but still suitable. He oiled and garliced and salted and peppered the steaks, and the skillet seared them richly with a wonderful, crackling, golden smell and sound. He started counting up to ninety in his head, and looked over to see the collie watching him. He winked as best as he could. "Wonder what the poor folks are having tonight?"

The collie licked his chops, once, and Mason smiled.

"You got a little chill, like I do?" He reached ninety in his head and turned the steaks over with a weak pair of tongs. The meat sizzled like an orchestra. "You don't suppose that fireplace would do us any good?"

The thapapap of the collie's tail was picking up power as the wonderful smell bloomed in the kitchen. The collie's tongue was liquor red and lively. Its eyes were warm and spry and savvy as it watched Mason closely, blankly, not understanding a word.

Hot grease popped and bit Mason on the arm, and he winced. He looked away from the collie quickly, back to the darkening meat in the pan. The smell was wonderful. The smell had Mason's mouth watering near enough to drown him.

"Got a little chill, myself." He put the tongs back on the counter.



May was just warming itself up by the time Charles and Danny came back. It was too late to finish the fence, too hot in the daytime, but they told Mason over the phone that they were damned keen to get out there and try, and once they were in Mason's kitchen and finishing up the last of Mason's Heineken, the fence came back up into conversation. Danny suddenly remembered the collie.

"That little dog we found! I'd forgot. I saw the little pillow and all over there, and completely forgot til now. You take him to the vet, Mr. Mason?

Charles's face brightened. "Well I'll be. You take him in, Mason? They give you a bill?"

"We'll split that bill with you, Mr. Mason."

"You split it if you want. I got mouths to feed."

"Oh don't you start." Danny reached for another can and saw the case was empty. "Mouths to feed. What'd they tell you, Mason?"

Mason licked his lips. Then he took another sip.

"Mason?"

"The collie's dead."

Mason almost left it at that. He wanted to leave it at that. He didn't, though. Danny and Charles looked ripped and tore up, but then Mason said "I put him down."

"You put him down?"

"I took him out back and shot him."

"What the hell you go and do that for, huh?" Danny had stood up and looked ready to tear the kitchen. "You a goddamn loon?"

"What the hell you do that for, Mason?"

"The rot got in his blood." Mason took another sip, looking close at the grain of his table. "I could smell it. Another day or two, maybe, he'd start losing appetite. Start hurtin."

"You cheated him that day or two, then."

"He was comfortable." Mason looked over at them. "He wasn't hurting any."

"You fuckin' cheated him, you wrinkled little whack." Danny had his face wrinkled up like he wanted to spit. "The fuck you do that for?"

"You didn't got the right to make that sort of decision, Mason." Now Charles was standing too. "I think I better go call someone about this."

"The hell did he shoot it for! We got vets! What did he shoot it for, Charley?"

"That's good, then." Mason started to stand. And did, eventually, once his legs cooperated with him. He began collecting the bottles to throw them away. "That's good, to see you two agreein on something."

((I foresee huuuuuge revisions for this bad boy. Classic case of "Oh man, what a cool idea! I need to do that!" which turned to "OH GOD WHAT, THIS EXECUTION COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER"

Mmmm... execution...))