He walked back up the low hill, still lost in the rushing sensation of the Wheel of Screams and Annie in those shorts to worry about the animals or the clowns. At the trailer, Frank helped himself to a warm beer from the ice chest under the picnic table. He was considering taking a quick look through the trailer, rifling through the cupboards for a bottle of something stronger than beer when Chuck pulled up.
“Been looking for you. Heard you accepted the job.” Chuck jumped out of the truck and shook Frank’s hand vigorously. “Glad to fuckin’ hear it, believe me.”
Frank wasn’t sure what Chuck was talking about.
“’Bout time this town had itself a new veterinarian.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Hop in. We got it all set up.”
“Okay.” Frank climbed into the passenger side. “You got anything to drink?”
Chuck laughed, tossed Frank a bottle of Seagrams 7, and turned the truck towards town. “How was the barbeque?”
“Good, good.” Frank took a long pull off the bottle. “Cooked a hell of a lot of chicken on that coal bed you built. Ate ‘til I thought I might bust.” Frank took another long drink. “Lotta people there, even that crazy family, Glouck or something.”
“No shit? Those goddamn fucks had the balls to show themselves? They eat much?”
“Yeah, the boys did, all right.” Frank passed the bottle to Chuck and leaned back, feeling good, feeling like he was a part of something, like he belonged here. The air from the open windows felt cool, and looking out over the landscape, watching the moonlight reflected off the water in the rice fields, the atmosphere was almost tropical. “Went on a ride with the oldest girl,” Frank said. They passed a gas station, an abandoned burger joint, then into the heart of the dark town. “Pretty sure her name was Annie.”
“No! No! No shit?” Chuck shouted, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Holy fuck, that didn’t take long.” He laughed, grinned hugely at Frank. “So…how was it?”
“It was…good. Nice.”
“Nice. ‘Nice,’ he says.” Chuck shook his head. “Fuck man, she’s the best. The absolute champ. None better. None. ‘Nice.’ You fucking kill me, man. How much did she charge you?” Yard after yard was stuffed with overgrown dead grass.
“What?”
Chuck turned left at the end of the street, filled with more empty houses. An orange tree grew in the occasional yard. “How much money did you spend?”
“I dunno. Not much. Enough to get on the ride.”
Chuck giggled. “Enough to get on the ride. Classic. Fucking classic. Last time, I paid twenty bucks. Far as I know, that’s what everyone’s paying. So what did you pay? More or less?”
“What?”
“How much did you pay, man? I know she’ll blow your mind, but come on, spill. She give you any kind of discount?”
“Uh…we went on a ride. I didn’t pay her anything.”
Chuck’s face went slack. “Wait a minute. Wait. You’re telling me, you, you didn’t give her any money?”
“No.”
“Holy fucking Christ. She gave you one for free? Goddamn.”
“She didn’t give me anything for free. We went on a ride,” Frank said. “Then she, well, she kicked the shit out of Ernie and kicked Theo in the balls, and well, that was it.”
“Wait, hold on. She kicked Theo in the balls? That fucking bitch.”
“Well, he had it coming. See, he—“
“Wait, just fucking wait. You’re telling me she never, she didn’t…you didn’t get a blowjob?”
“A blow—what? No, no.” Frank shook his head hard. “No. Not at all. She…she gives blowjobs for money?” The muscles in the left side of his face twitched.
“Shit, where you been? Of course she gives head for cash. How the fuck you think she makes a living?” Chuck shook his head. “She’s sucked damn near everybody’s dick in town.”
* * * * *
Chuck pulled into a dark parking lot, a rippled sculpture of dry mud, all cracks and dips and curves, and killed the engine. They sat in the darkness for a moment. Frank got his first good look at the veterinary clinic. The building sat apart from the rest of the houses on the street, at the far end of an empty field full of star thistles and puncture vines. The clinic was roughly the same height as the rest of the ranch houses in town, but shaped like a large U, and swallowed by ivy. There was a small barn in the back. The grass looked well watered but hadn’t been mowed recently. A radio tower rose a good fifty feet, tucked into a corner of the building. It looked as if one good strong gust of wind would break it in half, send it toppling to the ground.
“If I was you, I wouldn’t mention Annie,” Chuck said and climbed out. “Jack and Pine…they don’t wanna hear about her.”
Frank followed him and crossed the yard, mindful of needles. He knew that vets worked on horses anywhere and dropped the syringes if the horse turned mean. He’d seen people forget this; they’d be walking and give a sudden, quick hop, clutching at their feet. Usually they just ended up with a needle in the bottom of their foot, but sometimes, the medicine inside would find its way into the blood stream. Sometimes, they’d end up with heavy-duty horse tranquilizer in their system, and spend the rest of the day sleeping comfortably, or worse, they’d yank the needle out of the wrinkled flesh where the big toe meets the rest of the foot and realized that the syringe contained some kind of steroid or stimulant. Some just rode it out until they crumbled after six hours into a fog of tequila, some curled up in the shower, shivering, puking, shit running out in thin streams. A couple of folks simply fell down, their heart clenching itself tight and refusing to let go.
The back door opened into an examining room. As near as Frank could tell, the room was prepped and ready for nearly anything. There was a stainless steel table in the center of the room, a refrigerator, a wide stainless steel sink off to the left next to a cabinet full of medicine, bandages, tools. To the left was the front desk and waiting room. Off to the right, the far end of the room led into another intersection.
Frank took a left at the intersection at the end of the room, and saw small cages, set up for cats at the top, dogs at the bottom. To the right was an operating room, sealed in sterile tile, with more cages, where they isolated puppies with Parvo. Tonight, though, they were filled with stoned monkeys.
Straight ahead was a thick wooden door. They went through, into a long corridor that ran the length of the wing. This middle part was essentially a large cage split into smaller sections. A heavy chain link fence, stretched from floor to ceiling, faced the employee parking lot in the center of the U. A thick canvas curtain could be raised or lowered, depending upon the sun and the weather.
The cats were in the cages that were backed up along the cinderblock wall to the left. There were twelve cages, originally for big dogs. The cats looked sleepy, sprawled out on the bare concrete, eyeballing Frank and Chuck through heavy-lidded eyes.
Two doors waited at the end. On the left, there was a regular wood door. To the right, the door was metal. Chuck turned left and opened the wood door, stepping into a storeroom filled with eighty-pound bags of cheap dog food on five pallets. An army cot, a folding chair, and a stained card table were tucked cozily in the far corner. “It ain’t much, but there’s a shower in the shitter up front…it’s clean at least. And Sturm had us stock the fridge with plenty of beer.” Chuck’s face looked apprehensive, as if his feelings would be hurt if Frank didn’t like the living arrangements.
“This’ll be just fine.”
“It’s okay? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Sturm did mention there were some city boys who had a problem.” Chuck grabbed a leather gun case from the top of the stack of dog food. Inside was a dull black pump shotgun with a barrel so short and abrupt it looked like an amputated limb. “Winchester. Twelve gauge. You got eight shells in here, double-ought buckshot. Any fuckhead makes you nervous, you just point this in their general direction and squeeze the trigger.
Guaranteed results, I’m telling you.”
* * * * *
Frank heard barking dogs, sharp, urgent. “There’s still animals here?”
Chuck said, “Yes and no. Nothing official, no clients. Nobody’s been around to see anybody. So folks just stopped coming. Either took their animal up to Canby or took care of ’em with a .22. You’re hearing the dogs in the pound, animals that got left when folks moved on. Mr. Sturm and the boys probably got ’em all fired up.”
Once through the metal door, the barking got ten times louder, the difference between hearing the fire department siren go off from miles away and being inside the station when it erupted; the sound seemed to have a physical quality that you could reach out and touch, like grabbing a handful of roofing nails and squeezing.
Although the pound was neither as grim or desperate as the zoo, it wasn’t a place that Frank wanted to stay long. Instead of single, individual, cages, the dogs had been thrown together in a single large cage. The shit on the floor was almost a liquid, nearly three inches deep.
Frank counted eighteen dogs, ranging in size from some unidentifiable brown mutt just a hair taller than a tree squirrel damn near drowning in shit to a German Shepard with nails over two inches long, fear and hate bright in his eyes. They were all barking at Sturm, who was crouched down at another back door, fingers splayed against the cage wires. Shit flew. “Look at that sneaky little pissant,” he shouted to Jack and Theo, point to a bristling ball of black and white fur. The dog alternately hid behind the barking Shepard, then would swim its way up through the pack, darting forward to snap at the air in front of Sturm’s fingers, before slipping backwards and hiding again behind the larger dogs.
Sturm stood up, waved at Frank, and readjusted his hat in the direction of the back door. Everyone followed and collected in a ragged circle in the gravel parking lot, everything silver, lit from the big stadium lights that flanked the vet clinic.
“Howdy, Frank,” Sturm said.
“Howdy.”
“How’re the facilities?”
“Suits me fine.”
“Good. We were just talking here about the qualities one would want in a dog. Jack here,” Sturm tried to sum up Jack’s description of his ideal dog. “Jack has just suggested…ah…aggressiveness,” “Which, I think, everyone here would agree that that would be a certain…useful attribute, could benefit the owner.” Everyone nodded. “So, Frank. What quality would you most prize in a dog?”
“Loyalty.”
Sturm nodded at his son and the clowns. “Exactly. Loyalty. There ya’ go. What’d I tell you? This man’s an expert.”
Jack shook his head. “Naw. But now, don’t get me wrong. No offense, Frank. Loyalty’s an admirable trait. Hell yes. But that ain’t what you need when some shit has got your dog by the throat. You need inner strength. You need…fire, you need a goddamn dog that wants to live.”
Sturm smiled. “And just what the hell is it supposed to want to live for?”
“Everything has a desire to live,” Jack said. “Call it whatever you want. Guts. Sand. Believe the niggers call it soul. Goddamn toughness.”
Sturm nodded patiently. “True, true. Hell, I ain’t arguing with that…however, I believe that when an animal has a purpose, a, a love, then that will take them farther than simple survival instincts. If an animal has something to live for, hell, if anyone has something to live for…then they’re gonna fight harder.”
Jack spit into the tortured, baked mud. “I think it’ll fight harder for itself than for any man.”
“Then we’re just gonna have to find out, won’t we?” Sturm clapped his hands. “None of them poor sonsabitches in there will fight for love. They been treated like shit.” He shook his head. “Don’t blame ’em one bit. If I was them, I’d say, fuck all you too.” He took Theo’s shoulder. “Forget that Shepard. It’s no good. Watch his posture. He’s too excited, too much. Next time you see him, you watch him close. He don’t know whether to shit or piss. No, he won’t work. You just like him because of his size. I’m telling you, you watch that little black and white mutt. That’s the one.”
DAY SIX
Frank’s mother was always spooning out a little wet cat food onto paper plates and leaving them in the alleys behind their apartments. Frank figured she was just fattening up the rats, but it seemed to make her happy to think that she was helping a few stray cats’ lives just a little easier. But rather than the alleys or the apartments themselves, Frank remembered the front doors the most. He’d be inside, listening to his mom argue with some asshole who had brought her home on the hope of getting something more than a goodnight peck on the check. The argument would escalate, and Frank would find himself huddling in an empty closet or under the sink, waiting until his mom would inevitably have to punch the sonofabitch. She’d slam the front door and lock it as best as she could. Then she’d find Frank and crawl into his hiding space—Frank would only hide in places where they both could fit—while they listened to the asshole kick and pound at the door, usually screaming vacant threats.
And when the other tenants complained, it was off to a new apartment.
So Frank wondered if his dreams were trying to tell him something when he woke up under his cot. Maybe it was just from sleeping this close to so many animals. He got dressed and checked on the animals. Most of them were now awake and hungry. They didn’t make a sound, just watched him warily.
Out back, behind the barn, was a freezer. Sturm had stocked it with fifty pounds of frozen lamb shanks, five-pound bricks wrapped in butcher paper and stamped with a red date. Most of the meat was over fourteen years old. Frank set out six packages, setting them on top of the freezer to thaw in the morning sun.
True enough, Frank found the fridge in the examining room stuffed full of beer, except for the bottom shelf. That was full of food. Bacon. Eggs. A roasted chicken, wrapped in aluminum foil. The freezer contained a selection of frozen food, mostly TV dinners. Frank cooked a couple of TV dinners and zapped up some coffee using an old microwave, and then took a long, ridiculously hot shower. He came out of it feeling better then he had in days.
Clothing had been left on a neat pile on the stacks of dog food. It fit fine, although Frank had to poke a new hole in the belt so he could cinch the jeans tight. He wore a long sleeve gray cowboy shirt, Wrangler jeans, and black White workboots. The clothes calmed him; he felt ready. Confident.
* * * * *
Sturm drove in around ten and waited for Frank to come out to the pickup. “Called an old friend last night,” he said through the window, bottom lip full of snuff. “How’re the girls?” He spit.
Frank shrugged. “Pissed.”
Sturm laughed, cowboy hat bobbing like a cork in boiling water. “Think they’ll be healthy enough for a hunt?”
“Depends on when you want to hunt ’em.”
“You tell me.”
Frank shrugged again. “Hard to say. They been starved for so long, don’t know if the muscles’ll come back. I mean, no point in hunting crippled animals. Maybe a couple of months, just to see.”
“Wish I had a couple of months, son. Tell you what. You got a week, maybe a week and a half at the most,” Sturm said, tipped his cowboy hat, and took off in a cloud of dust, orange in the morning sun.
* * * * *
Frank spent the first few days taking care of the animals and reading everything about them he could find at night in the tiny office just off the operating room that was chock full of veterinary textbooks. Mornings, he mixed antibiotics, vitamins, and deworming pills into the food. For the next few days, he found fist-sized clumps of what looked like sluggish spaghetti in the animals’ watery diarrhea. After the animals had eaten, he’d drag a long hose through the middle section, aim the nozzle through the chain link cages and wash their shit across the concrete into a waiting gutter. After three days, he was pleased to see that the stool was fairly solid. Most of the blood in the urine seemed to disappear as well.
After washing the ca
ges, he’d push raw hamburger through the chain link, but he never opened the doors. He was careful to never look directly into the cats’ eyes. Once in a while, feeding the cats made him feel uncomfortably like the zookeeper, and he’d have to back off for a while and grab a beer. Unlike the zookeeper, though, the cats, after a few days, would lick his palms, their tongues feeling like soft, wet sandpaper. The books told him their tongues were covered in tiny rasps that helped the cats lick meat off bones. He always kept his hands flat; despite the seemingly affectionate licking, he knew they’d chew off his fingers in a heartbeat. He had to resist the urge to name them.
In the meantime, he nailed up chicken wire in the barn, building a large cage for the monkeys. Their constant screeching and howling were getting on his nerves at night. He thought about pouring tranquilizer over their food and let them sleep for a few days. In the textbooks, he discovered they were spider monkeys.
The clowns brought over the rhino. Frank walked it carefully down the chute; it moved slowly, mechanically. Frank filled the largest stall with straw and hoped the rhino would like it, or at least feel comfortable enough to lie down. But once inside, the great beast just stood there, immobile and emotionless, like a lobotomized bull. Frank dumped an entire bale of alfalfa into the stall and couldn’t have been more pleased when the rhino slowly lowered its head and started munching the green hay.
DAY THIRTEEN
As Frank lay on the narrow vinyl couch in the tiny office late at night, reading about the kidney functions of large cats, a severe, insistent buzzer vibrated throughout the hospital. He snapped the book shut and sat up. His first reaction was that the clowns were here, but they always just barged in through the back door. Curious, he made his way up to the front desk. There was a dark shadow behind the curtains in the front windows.
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