by Ian Rogers
It was the cat. It looked at him curiously with its wide yellow eyes. Problem? it seemed to ask.
Yeah, John thought, you just about gave me a heart attack.
He sat up and stroked the cat’s back. It arched up to meet his hand, purring contentedly.
“How about you go next door and kill Rambo for me?” he suggested. “Earn your keep around here, huh?”
He laid back down and felt the cat curl up next to his feet.
Rambo went on yipping.
Sometime later John fell back asleep.
“Gross-out!”
John lowered his newspaper and looked over at Sally, standing in front of the open screen door. She was wearing a pink shirt that was too tight, and a black skirt that was too short. Of course these were the opinions of a father, but if he couldn’t comment on what his daughter wore when she left the house, then who could? Of course, the irony of the situation was that if he should ever voice his opinions, the result would almost certainly be tighter tops and shorter skirts. He reluctantly kept his mouth shut as he stood up and came over to see what she was staring at.
There was a new dead animal lying on the back porch.
Except “dead” was really too light a word. “Slaughtered” would have been more accurate. Or mutilated. The carcass was so badly mangled that at first John couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was. It wasn’t until he eased Sally aside and crouched down for a closer look that he realized it was a dog. And not just any dog, but one with a glitter collar.
“Oh shit,” he muttered. “Rambo.”
The dog’s fur was drenched with blood; only a few tufts of white remained. The body was covered in a brutal crosshatch of claw marks.
John felt his morning coffee gurgling unpleasantly in his stomach. He opened his newspaper, draped it over the dog’s body, and went to call the Robichauds.
“I just can’t believe it,” Dave Robichaud said, shaking his head.
“Neither can I,” John said.
They were standing in John’s garage drinking beers from the fridge he kept out there.
After John told him about Rambo, Dave had come over with a broom and a garbage bag. Together they scooped Rambo off the deck, both of them wincing at the sticky tearing sound the dog’s body made as it came off the wood planking.
“It must have been some sort of animal,” Dave reasoned.
“Must have been.” John nodded and took a sip from his bottle.
“But why would it leave her on your porch?”
“No idea. But why does an animal do anything?”
Dave nodded. His summer tan had turned the colour of curdled milk.
“Petra’s at her sister’s place in Huntsville. She’s coming back tomorrow.” He looked at John with wide, stunned eyes. “What the hell am I going to tell her?”
John shook his head. He didn’t even know what to tell himself.
A couple days later, John found two dead birds and a dead garter snake on the back porch. He cleaned them up without even thinking about it. Picking up the cat’s deliveries had become a part of his morning ritual. First he’d put on coffee, then he’d fetch the paper off the front lawn, then he’d open the back door to see what the cat had left for him. Most days there was nothing, but once every week or so he’d find a dead mouse or a dead bird or a dead snake. One time he found something he couldn’t identify. He went and got Brenda and she told him it was a woodchuck. Then she elbowed him in the ribs for getting her out of bed.
John rustled his newspaper and Brenda looked up from her crocheting. She glanced over at the clock on the mantel. It was almost 9:30 PM.
They had been sitting in the living room for almost two hours. The only sounds during that time were the rustle of John’s newspaper, and the creak of the floorboards in the hallway as the cat passed by on his way to the kitchen.
At 9:42 PM the front door opened and Sally slunk in.
“Where have you been?” Brenda said, bounding out of her chair. “You missed dinner.”
“I’m home before curfew.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I was out.”
“Out where?” Brenda pressed.
“Just out.” Sally gave her an indifferent shrug, the kind that comes naturally to teenagers and small-time criminals. Then she slipped upstairs. A moment later they heard her bedroom door slam shut.
Brenda looked over at John. “She’s lying.”
“You think?” John said sarcastically.
“It’s going to stop.”
“Good luck with that.”
“We should talk to her.”
“Go right ahead.”
Brenda glared at him. “You won’t talk to her?”
“What’s the point,” John said. “You said she hated us. And you said it was normal.”
“She doesn’t hate you. You guys used to talk all the time. You were thick as thieves,” Brenda added with an undisguised note of jealousy. “Maybe you should try taking her out for ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” John lowered his newspaper. “She’s fifteen, Brenda. A father is no longer allowed to take his daughter out for ice cream once she starts getting breasts. It’s like a national law.”
Brenda frowned. “She may hate us, but she still has to respect us.”
John raised his newspaper again. “I don’t think she got the memo on that one, dear.”
The following morning, the cat left a dead blue jay on the back porch.
That night, Sally came home at 11:30 PM. Brenda grounded her.
The night after that, Sally came home at midnight.
Brenda didn’t say anything.
John and Dave were outside raking leaves on their respective lawns. Autumn had come early, along with a week of gale-force winds, and every tree on the street had dumped its load.
After awhile they leaned on their rakes and talked over the low hedge that separated their yards.
“How’s Petra been? I haven’t seen her around lately.”
“She’s okay,” Dave said. “She’s still pretty upset about Rambo.”
John nodded sympathetically.
“Do you think you’ll . . . you know, get another dog?”
Dave gave a tired shrug. “I suppose so. I mean, Petra loved Rambo, and she wouldn’t want to replace her, but she needs something to, you know, fill the void. I could go either way. Although I suppose it’s good to have an animal around to protect the property.”
John made no comment. The idea of Rambo protecting anything, or anyone, was ludicrous. About as ludicrous as the idea of a cat killing a dog and leaving it on the porch.
He coughed into his fist and was about to resume raking when Dave spoke again.
“I don’t know how to say this, John, but, well, you might want to keep an eye on Sally.”
John’s eyebrows went up a notch. “Sally? What for?”
Dave sighed. “It’s none of my business, but I’ve seen Sally walking home lately with Kris Dunn.”
John shook his head to say he didn’t know who that was.
“He’s that kid who lives at the end of the street. Well, he’s not really a kid. That’s why I thought I should mention it. Sally’s what, sixteen?”
“Fifteen,” John corrected him.
“Yeah. I just thought it was strange, seeing her hanging around that guy. Ruth Meyers says he’s a drug dealer.”
John snorted. “Ruth Meyers thinks every kid on the street is a drug dealer. Or a terrorist. Or a serial killer.”
Dave nodded. “Yeah, she’s not the most reliable source, I know, but I have seen a lot of people coming and going from his house. Not just kids, either. Older guys, too. It’s a little strange.”
“What do you think, he’s running a grow op or something?”
“Maybe. This is the kind of neighbourhood where they do that kind of thing these days.”
Dave went back to work. John leaned on his rake, d
eep in thought.
“You can’t tell me where I can and can’t go,” Sally said indignantly.
“You bet your ass I can,” Brenda told her. “Until you’re eighteen you don’t go anywhere without either my or your father’s permission.”
John didn’t think the While you’re living under my roof speech was the best approach, but since he couldn’t think of an alternative, he opted to sit with his newspaper and keep his mouth shut. Brenda was taking the lead on this one; all he could do was back her play and hope it didn’t make the situation worse. He had a father’s nightmare vision of Sally in tears running to Kris Dunn, complaining about her asshole parents and then asking Kris to take her virginity. The ultimate act of rebellion.
“I don’t need to tell you where I am every single minute of the day.”
“Wrong,” Brenda snapped. “That’s exactly what you need to do.”
Sally’s gaze drifted off to the side.
“Bitch.”
She whispered the word, barely loud enough for her mother to hear it. But hear it she did.
Brenda’s hand seemed to move under its own power. It came up in a flash of motion and slapped Sally hard across the cheek. The sound was very loud in the quiet living room. Mother and daughter stared at each other, stunned. They looked like two strangers who had bumped into each other on the street. Then they both dropped their eyes and stared at Brenda’s hand, as if it were a handgun that had discharged accidentally.
Brenda stammered. “I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
But Sally was already running upstairs.
Brenda started after her, then stopped. She stood there, gazing up the stairs with an expression of complete and total bewilderment. She looked over at John, still sitting in his chair with the newspaper draped across his lap. Her mouth opened and he waited for her to blast him for not saying something, for not stopping her, but she didn’t say anything. After a long moment of painful silence, she wandered down the hallway to the kitchen.
John stood up to go after her. He tripped over the cat just as it was coming in from the dining room, and grabbed the wall to keep from falling. He looked down at the cat and for a fleeting moment imagined how life would be so much easier if their roles were reversed. What did a cat have to worry about? Eat, sleep, and sit in the sun all day. Go out hunting every night, drop a dead bird or mouse on the back porch on occasion. When you thought about it, the suburban house cat really had it made.
John preferred not to think about it. Thinking was getting him nowhere.
It was time to do something.
The following morning, Saturday, John got up early, showered, put on an old pair of jeans and a paint-spattered sweatshirt, and walked down the street to Kris Dunn’s house.
That was how he thought of it, although Kris must have had parents. Right? John had never seen them—had never even seen Kris Dunn, for that matter—but he assumed the kid was too young to live on his own.
Or was he?
As he passed the Robichaud’s house, then the Smythe’s, John got to wondering just how old was Kris Dunn. As his estimates grew higher, John found himself getting angrier.
His hands were clenched into fists when he arrived at Kris Dunn’s house. The garage door was open and John could see three young men standing inside. They might have been anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five years of age. The one in the middle had a proprietary air about him, and John figured this was Kris Dunn. He was about John’s height, but thinner around the middle, with strong arms, shaggy black hair, and small dark eyes. His friends—a couple of deadbeats, John observed, just like Kris himself—stood on either side of him. The one of the left had blond dreadlocks and a tattoo on his forearm that said BITCHSLAPPER. The one on the right was tall and gangly and was wearing a black t-shirt with the word SLIPKNOT on it. John thought Slipknot was the name of a horror movie.
As he walked up the incline of the driveway, John noticed the three young men had already begun the day’s drinking. Kris and his buddies were each holding a can of beer, and there was a half-empty case on the concrete floor, next to a stack of boxes partially covered with an oil-stained tarpaulin.
It wasn’t even noon yet and these kids—as John thought of them—were already well on their way to getting sloppily drunk. Where the hell were the parents?
John stepped into the garage and immediately noticed a strange smell in the air. At first he thought it was beer, then realized it was something else. It wasn’t a yeasty smell; it was sharper, like turpentine, maybe, or rubbing alcohol.
“Hey, look who it is!”
Kris Dunn and his buddies noticed John standing in the garage doorway. They grinned at him like a pack of jackals.
“How ya doing, Dad?”
“I’m not your dad,” John said.
“Yeah, but we’re like practically related. Sal and I have been getting close, you know.” He covered his mouth in a gesture of mock embarrassment. “Or maybe you don’t.”
Kris’s friends snickered.
“I don’t want you seeing my daughter anymore,” John said. He tried to make his voice sound firm and strong. “Whatever there was between the two of you, it’s over now. I’m not asking you—I’m telling you.”
Kris exchanged a look with his friends, then all three of them burst into loud, troll-like laughter. Kris slapped one hand across his forehead like he had never heard anything so funny. The fluorescent lighting in the garage gleamed on the silver fang-shaped ring he wore on one of his fingers.
“Oh, Dad, you’re telling me,” he said, wiping away a faux tear. “That’s great.”
“How old are you anyway?” John asked.
“Old enough, Dad,” Kris replied cryptically. “Old enough.”
“Good, then you should be able to understand that I’m not fucking around here. If I see you with my daughter again, I’ll call the cops and have you charged with statutory rape.”
Kris snickered. “You oughta give your little girl more credit, Dad. She gives head like a champ.”
John’s face darkened. “You little fuck.”
“Shit, man, that girl could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.” Kris winked. “Hey, if you don’t believe me just ask one of these guys—”
John lunged at him.
The kid in the Slipknot t-shirt stepped out of the way, and John thought, Good, his friends are going to stay out of this. They’re not as stupid as they look. Then the leg snapped out into John’s path. John tripped over it and did a face-plant on the cold concrete floor. He felt his nose crunch and fill up with blood. He snorted it out as he pulled himself quickly to his feet.
Just in time to catch the arcing, underhand punch thrown by the kid with the blond dreadlocks.
John expected Kris to get in a lick of his own, but it didn’t happen. He staggered backwards, blinking his eyes against the pain in his cheek and nose, and saw that Kris had moved back next to the door leading into the house.
“There’s someone else here who likes your little girl, Dad. I’m sure he’d love to say hello.”
And with that Kris opened the door and an enormous Rottweiler came firing out like a sleek, black-furred torpedo.
John watched the dog coming at him and thought, What a lousy way to spend a Saturday morning.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” John said, and winced as Brenda pressed the frozen steak against the dark swollen skin puffing up around his left eye.
The kid with the dreadlocks had done that. The one in the Slipknot shirt had hoofed him a good one in the balls, and John figured he’d be spending the next week or so scraping them off the roof of his mouth.
Kris’s dog, Shredder, had bitten him on the right calf, and John felt lucky to have gotten away with just that. The Rotty had looked mean enough to chew nails and spit tacks. Kris had pulled him off after that one love bite, maybe realizing that anything more might get him into serious trouble. Those punk kids had a great sense of sel
f-preservation.
“You look like you got mugged,” Brenda said. “Was it the Girl Guides?”
John gave her a wry look. “Hardy-har.”
“Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I’ll have to come up with something to tell our friends and family. Was it Mr. Petersen? Did he catch you walking on his lawn and beat you with his walker?”
“I’ll beat you in a minute,” John said, without force.
“Please,” Brenda scoffed. “You couldn’t beat up a Care Bear in your condition.”
She touched his ear gingerly, and John hissed in pain. Kris had punched him in the side of the head, and the fanged ring he wore had cut his ear. The blow had knocked John to the ground, and then the three fuckers had quite literally kicked him out of the garage. He didn’t think any ribs were broken, but it wasn’t for their lacking of trying.
“Are you going to call the police?”
John didn’t answer right away. He had thought about calling the police. Of course he had. Kris Dunn had sicced his dog on him. He had been assaulted. He pictured himself telling all of this to the police. Unfortunately he also pictured what would almost certainly happen next. Kris Dunn telling the cops that John had stormed onto his property—trespassing was the word he would use—and the dog had attacked him in defence of its owner. Of course, the only injury the dog had caused was the bite on John’s leg, but who’s to say the dog didn’t do the rest of it as well? Especially with two other witnesses who would undoubtedly back up their friend’s story.
John had gone off half-cocked and he had no one to blame but himself.
“I’m not calling the cops,” he said. “I’ll handle this myself.”
“Okay,” Brenda said, a bit coolly. “Then I guess you can take care of yourself, too.” She stood up and put his hand on the frozen steak. “Hold it there. And keep it wrapped. That’s our dinner tonight.”
John watched her leave the room, then his gaze drifted over to the cat. He was standing on the arm of the easy chair, licking his chops and staring at John with an unreadable expression.