Gristle & Bone

by Duncan Ralston

  "You think I give a fuck about that, cooze? What do I got to lose, huh?" He clenched his jaw, cocking his head to the side. The scar showed pink and jagged in the morning sun. "Get in the fuckin' house." His visitors didn't move; he pulled the hammer back with his thumb—a needless move, since the hammer snapped back on its own when the trigger was pulled. The intent was not to expedite the bullet's journey, however, but to frighten, and in that, it was successful. "Now, goddammit!"

  They moved reluctantly to his side. He waved them past with the barrel of the gun, and they rose the stairs into Patrick's trailer.

  The dog greeted them at the door, a sad-faced bloodhound, seated on its haunches and growling softly at them. Dean bent and held out a hand to him, palm-up, in a gesture of peace.

  "Don't you fuckin' touch my dog," Patrick snapped, stepping inside. The dim interior smelled like beer and dog food and dry farts. He peered out into the bright of day, then closed and bolted the door behind them. Dean the dog rose to sniff at his feet and Patrick booted him lightly away. It hobbled off to the kitchenette and began licking from its scummy, fly-specked water dish.

  "Sit on the sofa." Patrick pointed toward a brown tartan thing, lumpen and dangerous with springs. A fuzzy, tiger print blanket was curled up on one end as if he'd slept there. They sat. A cloud of dust rose; crumbs and coins and a double-A battery were visible in the unnaturally wide chasm between cushions. The dog laid down in the kitchen with his head on his paws, and growled.

  "Shut up, Dean!"

  An old coffee table that could just as well have come from the dump as the Sally Ann stood between them and the tube TV, which flickered and buzzed and shifted horizontally, a religious program on mute, the rabbit ears on top so bent they appeared mutilated.

  "Think you can insult me in my own fuckin' home and get away with it, huh?"

  "Patty, this is ridic—"

  He struck out and slapped Catherine backhanded across the cheek, shutting her up immediately. Dean reached out to grab Patrick's arm, and the man trained the pistol on him, still eyeing Catherine with malicious glee.

  "Don't you fuckin' 'Patty' me, cooze." His mouth worked as he considered his next move, the scar wriggling unpleasantly. "All right, stand up," he said with a sigh of finality. They looked at each other, and stood. "Not you." He sneered at Catherine. "Just the faggit." She gave Dean a panicked look. Dean nodded, grimly, and she sat back down. "I'll deal with you later. I'm gonna fuckin' enjoy the shit outta this, Dean."

  "I know you are, Patrick."

  "I was talking to the fuckin' dog!"

  Dean's teeth clacked together, startled by the sudden ferocity.

  "Get the fuck in the corner, by the shitter. I'm gonna give you a swirlie before I send you night-night, sweet prince. One. Last. Swirlie." His eyes were wild, bugged-out. "For old time's sake. Ain't that fuckin' funny, Peaner? Ain't that a goddamn laff riot?"

  "This is insane," Catherine said.

  "You know, if she was my bitch, I bet I could make her shut up." He threw a wink at her. "Maybe I'll make her sing instead, when all's said 'n done."

  "Let her go," Dean said. "This is between you and me." And because he knew it would fan the fire, he added: "I'm the one who did that to your face."

  Patrick cracked him on the forehead with the gun barrel. Fireworks shot across his vision, but the pain was less than he'd expected. "Ain't nothin' wrong with my face, faggit. You didn't hurt me. Like fuck you did. You were a snivelin' little pussy back then and you're a snivelin' little pussy now." He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, and held it near his groin. Dean glanced before realizing he'd fallen into Patrick's childish trap, and Patrick punched Dean in the shoulder. The blow didn't hurt—too much muscle built up there, not like when they were kids—but Dean stumbled back from it, knowing it was what Patrick required.

  "Still peekin' at dicks, huh, faggit?" He punched him twice more. "Two more for fuckin' flinching." The scar making his pleased smile lopsided. Patrick sucked away spittle, the way Catherine used to when she'd had her braces. With her, it had been endearing; in Patrick, it was yet another feature of the monster he'd always been.

  "Turn around and git in there," he said, indicating the small bathroom, fragrant with the man's piss.

  Dean did as he was told.

  The growl from the living room startled him, but he didn't dare turn. The shower was to his immediate left, the sink above the toilet. With very little space to move, he just had to hope there was enough. He had a plan, though it was contingent on Patrick getting in close for the swirlie. Dean was going to allow it: one last swirlie, for old time's sake, just like Patrick had said. And with his head in the toilet, when he was sure Patrick was smiling his crocodile smile from ear to ear (literally, on one side), he would reach behind himself and get Patrick in a headlock, catching him off guard. No one fought back post-flush—but most people hadn't been detained in Bagram. A swirlie was child's play compared to some of the atrocities he'd seen there, and had succumbed to himself. He'd smash Patrick's head into the toilet tank, shake the toilet water out of his own hair, and snatch up the gun. It was all so simple... if only he could be sure it would work.

  But there was no alternative. He couldn't risk Catherine being in the line of fire, and he was certain once Patrick finished with the swirlie, he would not hesitate to blast his, Dean's, brains into the toilet bowl. It was the only way.

  The growl continued. Patrick stood breathing down Dean's neck, and shouted, "Shut! The fuck! Up! Dean, you dumb fuckin' mutt!" right in his ear. His breath was sour, yeasty, even at nine in the morning.

  The growl became a snarl, suddenly very close.

  "What the fuck—?" Patrick said. There came a clack of claws on the linoleum, and then Patrick was screaming. He fell against Dean, pushing him up against the wall. He was shaking spastically, and the dog was ferocious. Good ol' Dean-o, Dean thought, finally fighting back. In the smudgy mirror, he saw what was happening. But the image was warped, and—

  It was no bloodhound latched onto Patrick's arm, drawing blood, shaking him in its jaws.

  It was a White Shepherd, its fur streaked with red.

  Patrick locked the door, Dean thought. I saw him lock it. Where the fuck did the dog come from?

  Dean heard the gun clatter onto the tiles. He tried to reach down and feel for it on the floor, but the dog had Patrick pressing him up against the wall. Dean's nose ground into the mirror, he snatched another look at the dog. It looked just like Catherine's. For a moment, it locked eyes with him, the whites clearly visible, the eyes unnaturally green. The jaws, clamped down on Patrick's crimson-streaked arm—pink bone beginning to peak out in places now as the dog tore and tore and tore back the flesh and muscle—seemed almost to be fixed in a smile.

  The jaws let go suddenly, and Patrick fell to his knees, weeping, grasping at his arm by the elbow. Dean whipped round to face the door as the dog reared back into the living room.

  Somebody better call the ASPCA, he thought with a wild, internal cackle. Fuck it, call Sarah McLachlan!

  The dog launched itself at Patrick's throat. There was a bloody squelch and the brittle crackle of Patrick's trachea breaking, separating beneath the Shepherd's powerful jaws as a great jet of blood spurted along the dog's flank, drenching Patrick's chest and shoulders, obscuring his silly tattoos. Still it shook, like a terrier shaking a rat, and Patrick's head lolled back and forth on his bloodied neck. He choked, his tongue moving like some undersea worm rising from its hole, more blood gurgling up from his throat and splashed down his face. He sounded like a man drowning, which, of course, he was: drowning in his own blood.

  His eyes went blank, and still the dog worried at his neck, gnawing at it like a favorite bone. A moment later, there was a sound like meat peeling apart and Patrick's tendons snapped like elastics. Dean slumped down onto the toilet and vomited his breakfast shake into the sink.

  He heard the growling stop and the paws clack away. Certain he was the next item on the men
u, Dean remained motionless, wouldn't turn. During his time at Bagram, he'd seen what dogs like this could do, had witnessed it up close and personal just now. The dog had established its dominance. He didn't dare make eye contact.

  For a long moment, there was silence. In the kitchen, the sink turned on with a squeak, and water splashed into the metal basin. Dean wiped the puke from his lips and chin. He tore off the last scrap of toilet paper on the roll to swipe a few spots of Patrick's blood from his cheek and ear and forehead. Somehow the TP had managed to remain untouched by all the gore, but everything else was painted with it: the toilet tank, the mirror, the sink fixtures, the interior of the shower, the bar of Ivory soap in the dish. Patrick himself was slumped on his side at Dean's feet, half in the shower, half out, a sticky red puddle gurgling into the drain. His head rested at an impossible angle, the back of it nearly touching his shoulder blades, the throat opened in a yawning, toothless second mouth.

  Dean stepped over him into the living room, tracking blood onto the filthy carpet. He found Catherine buttoning up her blouse and facing the kitchenette, where Dean the bloodhound continued to growl. Her hair was loose and damp, cascading over her shoulders.

  "Good dog," she said to it, and turned to look at Dean the man. Her lips were deep red, as if she'd been drinking wine to toast Patrick's death. But it wasn't wine on her lips: it was Patrick's blood. Dean understood everything now. It had always been there, under his nose the whole time—he just hadn't had enough information to sniff it out. Why no one had ever seen the Priests' dog, only heard it. Why Catherine's father had never allowed her to play with the other kids, to socialize after school, and why he'd always kept her under such close scrutiny, after her mother had died giving birth to her. Why they'd never allowed visitors.

  The dog was Catherine; Catherine was the dog.

  Had she always been—he laughed at the thought—a weredog? Or had she been bitten? Was she living under a curse?

  Too much, he thought. Too fucking much. I'm in love with a dog. Jesus. Jesus Christ...

  "H-how long...?" He found he couldn't finish the sentence, and only swallowed. Her nostrils flared. She'd flared them before in the car, he remembered. But you are nervous, she'd said.

  "Don't be afraid," she said now. "I'm not going to hurt you."

  Dean nodded, but he was afraid; he'd always been nervous around Catherine, and now he knew the reason. Perhaps on some level he'd always known. She sat to pull on her pantyhose, curling her toes to shimmy both feet in at once, pulling them to her knees and then wriggling into them as she explained herself: "He was going to kill you, Dean, and then he would have tried to kill me, probably rape me if he'd gotten the chance before the police showed up." She shrugged, stood up and flattened her skirt. "I had no choice."

  "You're—"

  "An animal?"

  Dean nodded again, stupidly.

  "We're all animals, Dean," she said. She smiled roguishly, approaching him. "Only some of us are... more animal than others." She pressed herself against him, brushed her cold, wet nose against his cheek, his lips.

  Dean slid his hand into her silken hair and kissed her.

  THEY DROVE IN silence for a time, neither of them knowing quite what to say. It was over now—all of it. The past was a closed book. There was only the future, and the future was strange new territory.

  Uncharted waters.

  "Why did you run away?" Catherine asked as they drove past the Dark Pines town sign, heading down into the valley. "After the Ferris wheel."

  Dean sighed heavily. "Because I was a coward. I always run. It's what I do."

  "You weren't, though. I saw how brave you were, standing up against Patrick and his friends." She turned to him, eyes dazzling in the low afternoon sun. "I smelled you. You weren't afraid." She shrugged. "You stopped being afraid the second you saw what you'd done to Joel."

  That wasn't how Dean remembered it, but his memory had failed him before. And dogs could smell fear—or so people said. Wouldn't Catherine know better?

  "I've done bad things," Dean said.

  "We do what we have to, to survive."

  "I didn't, though. I shot a man in the kneecap for no reason."

  "I just tore a man's head off with my teeth," Catherine said, cheerless. "Let he who is without sin cast the first cinderblock."

  Dean turned to her, open-mouthed. Then he snorted a laugh. Catherine joined him.

  "Just because Patrick wouldn't forgive you," she said, once they'd stopped laughing, "it doesn't mean you don't deserve forgiveness. I forgive you. Your family forgives you. Now you just need to forgive yourself."

  "Thanks," he said. Silence fell again, with only the sound of the macadam rumbling under the tires as they drove further into town. She was smiling to herself. This is it, Dean-o. Now or never. It's only two weeks away. "Hey," he said, "did you get that invitation for the reunion?"

  "Last week." She studied the road. "You gonna go?"

  "I wasn't going to," he said, and she nodded as if she hadn't planned to go, either. "But I'm thinking I might. And I was wondering..." The words caught in his throat.

  Catherine laughed. "God, Dean, you still can't ask?"

  "Will you go with me?" he said hurriedly. "Be my date?"

  She looked at him. "You sure you don't mind having a dog for a date?"

  Dean laughed. Her face clouded over, growing serious. He put a hand on her leg. "I want nothing more," he told her, and it was true.

  When Catherine smiled at him, there was a hopeful quality to it that reminded Dean of the time she'd kissed him on the Ferris wheel. It hadn't been the first time she'd kissed him—their first kiss had been in her backyard, the big White Shepherd licking his lips and the tears off his face. Her smile on the Ferris wheel held anticipation, excitement, and most of all, confidence. Because with that kiss, she thought she'd finally found someone who might understand her. This smile was the same.

  Dean returned it, giving back as much as he got. They drove on to her house. This time, she let him inside.

  FAT OF THE LAND

  I -An Invitation

  "DAMMIT, WHERE THE hell is it, June?"

  June didn't know the "it" he was talking about, let alone where he'd left it. What she did know was that David had been stomping around the hotel room while she got herself ready to go, huffing every once in a while in the hope of getting her attention.

  Now he came and stood at the bathroom door, hands planted on his hips, a little Superman curl falling over the sulky scowl of a petulant child. She was putting in the earrings he'd gotten her for their anniversary the previous year. She hadn't been in love with them, but she was in love with David—or imagined she was, when he wasn't acting like he was now—and it made him happy when she wore them. And she did look good with them in: rectangular panels of jade and something iridescent like fool's gold, which made the green in her otherwise-brown eyes pop.

  June flashed him a smile in the mirror. "What are you looking for, hon?"

  "It was right there on the table when we left for breakfast, and now it's gone," he said, not quite answering the question.

  June's girlfriends had once asked if she and David wanted kids. "I've already got one kid to worry about, thanks," she'd told them. The girls had all laughed at that, but it had been indulgent laughter; they all wanted children, and they all wanted to get married (being married had always seemed less important to them than the Big Day itself). Of the four of them, June was the only one currently in a relationship—unless you counted Ally's "sleeping arrangement" with her current "man friend," which of course, no one did.

  After two years with David, one of those years spent living under the same roof in their tasteful yet cramped Noe Valley condo, the two of them had been happy enough not to get married.

  Not that he'd ever ask you, June thought, and scowled at herself in the mirror. Thoughts like this belonged to Althea Dreese, her mother. Shut up, Mother, June shot back, putting an end to it.

  Max and Dar
ren, whose wedding they'd driven down from San Francisco to Monte Verde to attend, had been quick to remind June and David that they'd only been dating two years, and would have leapt at the chance to marry earlier. They'd even considered flying to Washington or Iowa to get hitched, before the Supreme Court had struck down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional.

  "Imagine," Max Morales had said, "the Heartland of America allowing same-sex marriage before the gayest state in the country!"

  June was aware Massachusetts had probably been the forerunner in that respect, but she hadn't corrected him. Max didn't deal well with criticism (Did any man? she sometimes wondered), and June was rarely comfortable doling it out, at least toward anyone but herself.

  David awaited her response. She tried to remember what had been on the table when they'd left for breakfast. They'd spent their first night at the moderately expensive Seaside Inn & Gardens in Monte Verde, and after setting a fire in the hearth and making a weary attempt at sexual congress, both of them had virtually passed out from exhaustion.

  There was the Nikon, of course, along with a half dozen rolls of film (in addition to two books' worth of published photos, June currently had one project on the go: this area of the California coast would be perfect for the movie Just Swell, a Bridges of Madison County for baby-boom surfers, for which she was scouting locations). Then there was her purse, their respective sunglasses, the car keys, the personalized wedding invitation from Americo Morales, a baggie of wintergreen Canada mints, another of trail mix—

  "The invitation," June said aloud.

  "The invitation," David agreed. "Did you put it somewhere?"

  "I didn't touch it," she said truthfully. "Why would I?"

  He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Well, I don't know..." He was at the end of his rope. The letter was their invitation, and on it was the address, not to the wedding of Americo's son, Maximo, but to an ultra-exclusive party at one of Monte Verde's many multi-million dollar oceanfront mansions—Americo Morales's mansion. Regularly featured on Forbes' list of the richest people in America, Morales was Chairman and CEO of Trimaricorp, one of the largest design firms on the West coast. They'd come for the wedding, and scouting locations would cover June's portion of the costs. It just so happened that Darren's boss owned a house here, and held an ultra-exclusive party in said mansion on Independence Day weekend every year.