Bull Head

by John Vigna

  “No need to get nasty.” Jasmine whistled twice and pointed toward his pickup. His dog stopped, trotted back, its tail low, and hopped into the front seat.

  Brian dropped the truck and examined Penny. The corner of her ear hung loose and bled. She nipped at him when he touched the gash. He felt around her ribs and neck and legs for blood, but found none. Tracy stood on the porch.

  “Will you ever grow up?” she said. The screen door slammed behind her.

  “Better take care of this.” Sean followed her into the trailer.

  Penny limped onto the porch and cowered beneath the love-seat. Brian turned to Jasmine. “That was a bullshit move.”

  “Honour your debt, or next time she won’t be so lucky.” Jasmine closed the door and started the truck. His dog leaned forward, head tilted sideways to see past the money pasted on the windshield. “Neither will you.”

  IV

  “Let’s get back to work.” Sean picked up Brian Jr and put him on his shoulders.

  They carried a stack of lumber up the Hump. At the top, Sean dropped the load so that it clattered on the ground. Brian jumped back so the wood didn’t smash his feet.

  “Wasn’t my fault. You know it.” Brian tried again. “Helluva place to build this thing.”

  Sean lifted Brian Jr from his shoulders and set him down. “Keep close.” He handed the boy a small board and Brian Jr pounded nails into it with his plastic hammer. “Better here than our living room.”

  “Always thought it would make a perfect place for a house.” The dogs barked down below, blue wood smoke curled from the trailer’s steel chimney. Sean must have started a fire because Brian couldn’t imagine Tracy doing so. Brian watched for movement at the kitchen window but there was none. Gunshots rang out from the firing range up the road. The wind rose, pushed the few scattered clouds out of the valley and high overhead, smearing the sky in a dull grey. Tracy stepped out of the trailer onto the porch in jeans and a loose blouse. Definitely gained weight in the middle. “She never once told me pottery was her thing.”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  Brian winced and turned away. Tracy looked radiant now, the paleness from earlier gone, her face flushed. As she walked toward the base of the Hump, he knew that if she climbed up now, even if she stood beside him, she was there to be near Sean and the boy. He turned away. His son lifted a real hammer over a nail, stared vacantly at his fist. Brian gently held his arm back. The boy yanked his arm away and began to cry.

  “Careful, you don’t want to hurt yourself. Here, like this.” Sean demonstrated with his thumb and index finger. Brian Jr stopped crying. He held the nail again with his fist and brought the hammer down on his hand and started to cry all over again. “No crying,” Sean said.

  Brian Jr sat with his knees at his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and rocked back and forth. It unsettled Brian; he was never sure why it happened or how to comfort him when he got like this.

  “Everything all right up there?” Tracy said.

  “Everything’s fine,” Sean said.

  “Can’t he learn nothing?” Brian said.

  V

  Brian unleashed the dogs in the pen while Sean ran after one of the chickens feeding in the yard. Brian pinched the salt-and-pepper’s side, her ears, and her cheeks until she howled, and then he kicked her in the ribs. He kicked her again and felt himself get angrier. One good fight and he wouldn’t owe Jasmine a nickel. The red bitch paced back and forth, growling. Brian loved her gameness. He squatted to call her, but she kept her distance, pacing from afar. She didn’t quit or back down from anyone, and she’d rip his hand as he fed her if she felt like it. “Come. That’s a good girl.”

  She skulked toward him. Brian kept his eyes locked on hers, reached into his pocket for a heart-shaped dog cookie, and held it out to her. “Sit.” He offered the cookie; she snatched at it, sniffed the ground for crumbs, and watched him intently. He reached in his pocket for another cookie, and she wagged her tail. Her eyes shone with anticipation; he slammed her jaw with his fist. She reared, bared her teeth, and lunged for his leg. He kicked at her, but she dove for his leg again, ripping his jeans below the knee. He punched her again, chased her until his shirt clung to his chest, damp with sweat. She paced against the fence and avoided the corner, trotting along the sides so that when he approached she could dart out and make an attack. He had taught her well. She might be ready.

  “What the hell’s gotten into you?” Sean steered him away from the dog. Brian resisted, tried to shake himself free, but Sean’s grip was firm. In his other hand, Sean clutched a chicken by the feet, it’s head dangling and twitching. “Seriously, what’s eating you?”

  The dogs crept closer to the men, their eyes fixed on the chicken. The red kept her distance from Brian.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s always nothing. Shall I do the honours?”

  Sean tossed the chicken in the pen. It took off, running zigzags as the dogs chased after it. The chicken squeezed through the low fence rung, skittered back and forth in the yard, squawking. The dogs tore at the fence boards, ripped splinters of wood, moaning and squealing. Brian felt hungry and thought it would be good to have a home-cooked meal again. Tracy’s chicken stew. A shadow of sadness passed over him.

  “We’re slacking on them too much,” Sean said. “They’re soft as poofsters.”

  “They’re tired is all.”

  “They’re worn out from trying to get to Penny.”

  Brian looked at him. “Speak plainly if something’s bothering you.”

  “It’s not easy taking care of all this.” Sean shook his head. “She’s in heat.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This. Everything. The dogs. I don’t know.” Sean moved his arm back and forth. “Fuck it.”

  “Nobody’s holding a gun to your head.”

  “It’d be nice if you could contribute once in a while.”

  Brian heard the fatigue in Sean’s voice and knew that Tracy had been pressuring him. She’d already insisted he talk to Brian about not sleeping out front in his car. Sean would hold out as long as he could, but she was a persistent woman. Brian took a deep breath, exhaled long and slow. “When’s Tracy due?”

  VI

  The next day Sean and Brian hammered boards to frame the studio. Brian’s arms hung loose and strong, and soon he established a rhythm of hammer and saw, enjoying the repetition, the go and flow, his favourite part of work, one he rarely experienced. The boy groaned, swatted at a mosquito on his arm.

  “You okay?” Sean said.

  Brian Jr waved off a small cloud of mosquitoes buzzing near his head. He stumbled backwards toward the lip of the hill, waving at them with his toy hammer.

  Brian lit a cigarette. “Lemme show you a nifty little trick.” He pulled his son away from the edge and blew smoke around his head and over his body. The mosquitoes flittered off, moved elsewhere. He considered telling him that this was the same thing his own daddy had once done to him, but he didn’t. What was the use in that? Just confuse the boy. “Your mother won’t approve, but this’ll keep ’em away.”

  His son hid behind Sean. He peeked out and smiled. He hid again when Brian smiled back.

  “I might have to take up smoking,” Sean chuckled.

  Penny barked. Music blared through the trees as Jasmine’s truck jostled up the rutted drive. He stepped out of the truck, one hand on the open door, scanning the property, his dog sitting alert in the passenger seat. “There you are,” he laughed. “Trying to hide from me?”

  Brian shook his head.

  Jasmine hiked up the side of the Hump, and a few minutes later stood in front of them, heaving over his knees to catch his breath. “Christ, building a fort up here?”

  “A studio. For Tracy,” Sean said.

  Jasmine turned to Brian. “Thought she was your wife.”

  Brian’s jaw tightened. “Old news.”

  Junior hammered, missing the nail each time, the du
ll thud of plastic against wood. Sean held a nail, demonstrated how to hit it. The boy glanced the plastic off the metal.

  Jasmine rolled his eyes. “Might take a while at that rate.”

  “You’ll have your money soon enough.” Brian picked up a handsaw.

  “I keep hearing that, but I’m not seeing it. Let me pick one of those bitches in the pen down there and we’ll call it even.”

  Any one of his dogs was worth more than his debt. But there was only one dog he knew Jasmine would pick. The red. “You’re off your rocker.”

  Jasmine stopped smiling. “I don’t see many options. It’s not like you’re out there rustling the trees.”

  “He’s working for me,” Sean said. “He’s good for it.”

  Jasmine stepped closer to Brian and lowered his voice. “There are consequences, comprendes? Consequences if you don’t ...” He broke off and glanced at the boy. “Man up and honour your debt.”

  Brian gripped the saw. His son grunted, but Brian kept his eyes on Jasmine. He wasn’t that big close up.

  “Better reconsider what you’re thinking.” Jasmine nodded toward the boy.

  Brian Jr banged the toy hammer against his own head. He tried to speak, but all that came out were strange sounds.

  “He gets like this at times.” Sean tried taking the toy hammer from Brian Jr, but the boy swung at him, laughing. “No sense to it.” The boy resumed beating his own head.

  “Doggie, doggie.”

  The saw’s smooth wooden handle sat tight in Brian’s palm, the heft of it light, the teeth jagged and crude. Jasmine wasn’t worth it. Not here, not like this. Brian turned away and laid the saw down on a stack of lumber.

  The boy gagged and sputtered, stared toward the porch, swung his hammer in the air. Jasmine’s stud had mounted Penny and was pumping frantically.

  Brian sprinted, found a shorter line down the Hump, and slid over the moss-covered rocks, branches tearing at his T-shirt. Jasmine lagged behind, taking the path.

  Both dogs moved in a slow circular dance, until they stopped, locked and panting. Tracy ran from the porch. She grabbed the stud by its neck, but he turned and snapped at her. She cried out, clenching her wrist.

  “Call him off,” Brian shouted. He kicked the stud, but the dog remained stuck to Penny. He kicked it again, the blunt side of his boot smacked the dog’s jaw. Both dogs whimpered.

  “Christ, what a rodeo,” Jasmine howled.

  Brian reached for Penny’s collar to pull her away.

  “They’re stuck, dumb-ass,” Jasmine laughed. “Just wait.”

  The boy sat on Sean’s shoulders, crying and banging his hammer against Sean’s head.

  “Is she all right?” Jasmine said.

  “Hell no, she’s not all right. Your dog wrecked her,” Brian said.

  Penny and Jasmine’s dog stood locked, moving in a slow circle, whining.

  “Not her, the little lady.”

  Tracy held her wrist tight against her stomach. Her eyes were damp and hard.

  “Are you all right?” Jasmine said.

  “Get off my property.” Her voice cut clear through the air. “Both of you.”

  VII

  Brian drove to the Northerner. Sean had been reluctant to give him an advance, but Brian used his I’m-good-for-it line. He knew it was getting stale, but how else was Sean going to respond? In the dim lights and faint stink of the cramped bar, a massive moose head hung on the far wall, draped with a string of multi-coloured Christmas lights.

  Couples sat close to each other at most of the tables. A group of women crowded around a rectangular table beneath the moose head. An old man in a ball cap and gumboots drank straight from a pitcher of beer, his glass empty on the table. Brian took the table next to him. Another solitary old man wore a straw cowboy hat and a purple bandana. He sang “White Hot.” His voice, slurry and thick, cracked on the high notes.

  The women got up and danced together. Brian recognized them as hairdressers from a salon in town. They danced in a tight circle, giggled, each with a beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, glancing over their shoulders. No one approached them. It was too early in the night, and no man would do that to himself until later, when the music got louder and the alcohol had thoroughly erased his doubts.

  The waitress brought Brian two high-tests. “He’s awful, isn’t he?”

  Brian handed her a ten. “Least he’s up there. Counts for something.”

  “Yeah, it counts for being a fool.” She sighed. “I keep telling them to get that jukebox back in here. People want the real thing.”

  He wanted to point out that singing was the real thing, not the canned music thumping from a box in the corner of the bar. He wanted to ask her if she’d ever tried singing up there, but asking questions only opened the door to more talk, and he’d had enough talk for the day. He waved his hand when she offered the change.

  “You sure?”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  The song ended, and the hair stylists stumbled back to their table, leaned into one another, laughing. One of them smiled at Brian. He fiddled with his tobacco pouch, rolled a cigarette. A few weeks after the wedding, he’d brought Tracy back to the bar and hoped she’d enjoy it as much as he did. She’d made biting, sarcastic remarks about the people who sat around drinking, playing the slots along the dark walls, or dancing like idiots. She barked a falsetto laugh every time someone sang karaoke. He never brought her back, and she never asked to come with him. He looked toward the woman, but she had turned to her friends. They lifted their shot glasses and then knocked them back, slammed the thick glass heels on the table.

  Brian drank and ordered two more, drank those a little slower, waited for the buzz to seep inside him. He closed his eyes and listened to the old man sing, “Baby, I Love Your Way,” his voice raspy and injured. Brian moved his lips along to the chorus. The music made him happy. He saw himself on stage and thought of Tracy, the anger in her voice; she always seemed mad at him, no matter what he did. Must be hormones. She was a raging lunatic when she was expecting. After the birth of Junior, nothing could get between her and the boy. Still the same. No room for anyone else in there. He didn’t know how Sean did it.

  A hand touched his arm, startled him. He opened his eyes; the hair stylist stood in front of him in a floral sundress and red cowboy boots. A heart-shaped locket dangled from her neck on a thin gold chain.

  “Hey, wanna sing one together?” Her friends bowed their heads close to each other and watched him. “We could split the jackpot if we won.”

  “No. No thanks.”

  She pulled her hand away.

  “I can’t much sing.” But that wasn’t true. Tracy loved his voice. He used to sing Junior to sleep in the middle of the night during the first few weeks after he was born.

  “It’s just a song. I’m a terrible singer myself. We can share the pain.” She giggled, touched his arm again.

  “I never said I was terrible.” The word hung between them like a bad note.

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re funny.”

  He picked at the beer bottle label and sighed, leaned back in his chair. The old man neared the end of the song and Brian realized he had missed the best parts, the words he knew so well, the ones that reminded him of Tracy. What song didn’t? “Sorry, maybe another time. I should get going. I have to work tomorrow.” It made him feel good to say work, as though he had a legitimate purpose.

  “Work, huh? Never heard that one before.”

  He got up to leave. Everything seemed to be turning on itself. Other men in the bar looked him over as he walked toward the exit, a strange hush between songs. He heard the women laugh as he reached for the door.

  “Whoa, padre, where’s the fire?” Jasmine pushed open the door and slung his arm around Brian’s shoulder. “Was it something I said?” He laughed. “C’mon, let’s blow off some steam. I know you’re a shrewd businessman.”

  Brian searched his face for mock
ery.

  “Have I got a deal for you.” Jasmine steered them to the bar and ordered tequila. “For my hombre, compadre, burrito. Whatever. For my new business partner!” Jasmine raised his glass and downed it straight. “Go on, it’s not gonna kill you.”

  Brian drank the tequila.

  “You should be thanking me.” Jasmine ordered four more shots.

  “Thanking you? For messing up my dog?” Brian bristled. He had brought Penny along slowly, kept her away from the others, tied her up, and worked her into being a prized fighting dog. “I’ll tell you what I should do is—”

  “Your puppies to clear your debt.” Jasmine raised his shot glass.

  Brian set his glass down, drew circles on the bar top with it, studied the damp drawings.

  “What use are inbreds to you?” he said quietly. There would be all kinds of health issues, deformities, nasty side effects; they wouldn’t be good for fighting or breeding.

  “What do you care? Those puppies will truly be gruesome creatures. You won’t miss them.” Jasmine raised another glass. “Deal?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Not your strongest suit.” Jasmine ordered two more, and when those were finished, they shook hands and celebrated with another shot. Brian felt lucid and lighter than he had in a long while. It’s the booze, he reminded himself, though he knew the settling of his debt gave him this feeling. He could move on, start fresh, find more work, save, and show Tracy that he was everything she claimed he wasn’t. He motioned for more tequila.

  “That’s the spirit. Partners,” Jasmine said. They drank. The music bellowed and screeched from the jukebox behind Brian. He slapped the bar top with his palm in unison to the songs, and at one point he heard himself shout out, “We salute you,” and saluted the hair stylist across the bar. Her friends pushed her forward. She strode across the room toward Brian, and he saw how everything, from the sheen on her hair to the fit of her dress and the glint of her pendant, was too perfect. She weaved in and out of the chairs, smiled when she dodged the waitress carrying another round for him and Jasmine. Brian pushed off from the bar, dragging his barge of baggage behind him, inevitable but unseen to her until she would get to know him, a time he knew would never amount to more than a night or two. And then he could cruise away, looking for the shore, never docking for long, staying buoyant for as long as he could manage. Jasmine grabbed him, his fingers digging deep into his shoulder, and whispered, “It must suck to know that your old lady’s fucking him right now, in your home, with your retard son in the other room.”