Pound for Pound

by F. X. Toole

  Eloy said, “Now git your ass back in the truck.” “Huh?”

  “Git behind the wheel,” Eloy told him. “Fresita’s yours now, go on.” “No way,” Chicky protested. “Fresita’s your baby girl.” “She’s your baby now,” Eloy said firmly, “so git on in ‘fore I change my dumb-assed mind.”

  “You sure, Granddaddy, you serious about this?” “Seriouser than the twisty dick on a horny boar.” “But you won’t have nothin to drive.”

  “I still got the flatbed, and I can always buy me a run-around.” Chicky choked on his words. “Whe-when should I go?” “Go now. Vete.”

  DAN

  Chapter 23

  Dan pulled up in front of an all-night Bakersfield supermarket. He slept in the backseat of the car. He checked his atlas while he had coffee early the next morning in a McDonald’s. He washed up in the john, then went back to the counter and bought a large orange juice to go. He laced the juice with vodka in the car, lit a cigar, then headed out of town. He took the 58 East back through the baked desert to Mojave. From there it was more desert to Barstow, where he picked up the 40 East to Needles and on across the Colorado River into Arizona, the old Mercedes clipping along at a steady sixty, the radio turned off. The Black Mountains were on one side, the Buck on the other. His cell phone rang. He tossed it out the window of the car. He drove on to Yucca, stopped for no reason other than he had a sore ass. He stayed at the Injun Motel, a truck stop of free-standing old buildings shaped like tepees. He ate in the trucker café, greasy food, overcooked frozen vegetables, margarine on white rolls. Vodka and a Xanax put him to sleep after midnight.

  He bought fuel the next morning. He checked his map. He was aiming for Phoenix by dark. He would stay on the 40 through Kingman and then on to Flagstaff, where he’d take the 17 South. In need of provisions, he walked over to a nearby air-cooled market. So he wouldn’t have to stop along the way unless to pee or whatever, he bought a loaf of bread, some sliced cheese, and two packs of luncheon meat. He also placed a pack of precooked smoky links in his shopping cart, then added a squeeze bottle of mustard and a gallon of orange juice. He bought three quart bottles of water so he wouldn’t dehydrate. As an afterthought, he selected some apples and grapes and bananas. On the way to the cashier, he picked up a package of sticky pastry, a large bottle of Rolaids, and a quart of milk to coat his stomach.

  Outside the market, he removed two bottles of vodka from the trunk. He popped one, and drank hot vodka with OJ straight from the gallon bottle. He drank until he had the shakes under control, then headed east. After Phoenix would come Tucson, then Las Cruces, New Mexico, and after that he’d be out in the West Texas town of El Paso. Cigars would keep him company.

  In Phoenix, he’d hole up in some air-conditioned beer joint until he decided where to sleep. Just a few days more. Not even a week. The old car was a winner. Too bad he’d have to torch it. Make one more phone call to Earl. That would be it. Another round of drinks.

  It was early afternoon and Dan sailed, without a hitch, through El Paso, the sprawling modern city rising on either side of a web of freeways that connected it with the prosperity of the new world and the poverty of the old.

  As he passed through the parched stretches on the east side of El Paso, Dan realized his ass was sore again, so he took an exit that put him on the 20, a local road that ran parallel to Interstate 10. He decided on a beer and a burger and some Texas chili.

  On a side road up ahead, a quarter of a mile, was a beer joint. A half block away, a truck stop and mini-mart that sold everything from motor oil to frozen foods. Although Dan would soon be dead, he still needed to restock a few of the same items he’d bought back in Yucca and Phoenix.

  He drank two beers in the café side of the Yippee Saloon 4 Good Eats, but only messed with his food. After one more beer, he drove back to the truck stop. He’d buy fuel first, then go for the groceries. He turned off his AC, and was about to pull into the pump area, but had to stop. A big dog that looked like a cross between a bull mastiff and a pit bull trotted mindlessly straight at him. The dog had large patches of hairless, raw skin, and his dry tongue flopped almost to his chest. He was scabby white around the face and mouth, with brindle spots on his back and down one leg. The rims of his eyelids were a fuchsia pink, and glowed. Both clipped ears had been chewed on. One had been split in half.

  The dog tried to swerve at the last step or two, but lost his balance and stumbled headlong into Dan’s left-front fender. He fell flat down in a lump of dirty hair and bony angles. As if powered by a weak battery, he got to his feet in sections. His eyes were set deep in his head. He stumbled twice, but picked up speed and trotted on in the heat. The dog was dying, but this did not register with Dan, whose own eyes were as sunken as the dog’s.

  Dan filled his tank at cheap Texas prices, then hit the mini-mart. Bread, lunch meats, cheese, OJ, more water. Enough to get him where he was going. If he didn’t get the job done that night, he’d do it the next.

  Driving slowly east, Dan took his eyes off the road briefly to pour juice and booze into one of his paper cups. He felt the car edge toward the side of the road. As he looked up and adjusted the steering wheel, he saw a large animal in the middle of the road up ahead. Dan honked the horn, but instead of moving out of the way, the animal suddenly collapsed. Dan slammed on the brakes. He spilled juice and vodka on himself as he fought to keep from going ten feet down the embankment into a dry wash. The engine stalled. Dust swirled over and around the car. Dan sat for a minute, his heart thumping up somewhere behind his eyes. To his left he saw that the fallen animal was the big, scabby dog from back at the truck stop. It looked dead. Dan dried himself off with paper towels.

  Two cars swerved around the motionless dog and kept going. Dan sat back, waiting for his hands to stop shaking. When he looked over again, he saw that the dog had several open sores, but that he was still breathing. Since no one else seemed to care, the only thing was for Dan to put the scabby-assed mutt out of his misery.

  Dan thought for a moment. He didn’t have a gun, which would be best. A knife could get nasty if the dog resisted.

  He’d pull ahead, and then back up over the dog’s head. He’d done it years before for a cat with a broken back. Once he’d dragged the dog’s carcass off the road, he’d get on with his own death. Dan drove slowly past the dog. He knew he should keep his eyes up and away from the animal, but like an idiot he had to look down at the last instant. The dog’s tongue was touching the hot pavement, but his bloodshot eyes were staring straight into Dan’s.

  “Aw, fuck!”

  Dan pulled over to the side of the road. He walked back to the downed animal. The dog squinted into the sun. The raw rims of its bloodshot eyes looked ready to bleed. The dog wagged its bare tail across the pavement. He was big and raw and starving. His paws were bloody and he seemed half melted into the road. Another car swooshed by. Dan covered the sheepskin passenger seat with paper towels, muscled the scrawny dog into the front seat of the Mercedes, then turned the car around and headed back toward the truck stop. The dog was a fifty-pound sack of bones, and limp as a worn pillow. He melted into the seat the way he had melted into the road. Ticks big as a thumb feasted on what was left of him. Dan was suddenly afraid that the dog would die before he could get back to the truck stop and find out where to locate a vet. He pulled over and the dog raised its head, fear in its begging eyes. Dan grabbed the first stuff he could from the backseat and fed the dog bits of bread and cheese and leftover sausage. The dog swallowed without chewing. Dan loosened the top of one of his quart water bottles so a small stream would flow. He cupped one hand and dribbled water into it.

  The dog dropped his snout into Dan’s hand, but was unable to drink. Dan spoke to the collapsed animal, but it didn’t respond. He cradled the dog against himself, then drizzled water down its throat. The dog coughed a few times, then learned to open his throat to allow the water to trickle into him. Dan got close to a full bottle into the dog, then fed him more bread and cheese
and lunch meat. The dog licked Dan’s hand.

  Dan said, “No, no, none of that licky business with me. Your ass is going to the vet, and then you’re on your own. What the hell happened to your feet?”

  At the truck stop, the cashier told him that the nearest vet was in the pink stucco office complex on the right about three miles down the road. The dog was already looking better, but was clearly helpless. Dan couldn’t stop himself. He petted the dog, scabs and all. He wished he had adrenaline for its oozing feet. The hair around the dog’s neck was worn and matted where there had once been a wide collar. Scars in the loose skin, only partially healed, looked like bite marks.

  “How does somebody lose a giant fookin dog?”

  The dog blinked.

  The pink office complex was off the frontage road and up a short, cobbled driveway. Several trees had been planted among various cactus plants, but the trees hadn’t grown much. The vet’s office was in the second building on the left, and had a redbrick sidewalk and steps. Over the entrance was a small sign in black and white.

  GONZALEZ PET & VET HOSPITAL

  Emergencies 24-7

  Meows to Cows

  The dog continued to melt into the paper towels and sheepskin. Dan tried to lift him, but the dog’s loose skin stretched like bubble gum, and his legs hung at odd angles. When Dan was able to get his arms up under him, he hugged him to his chest. He lugged the dog toward the vet’s office, and felt the animal’s complete surrender. He carried it inside and placed it on the cool red-tile floor next to a heavy Mexican colonial chair made of dark wood and thick leather. The dog began to shiver. At the desk, a young Latina receptionist gave Dan an information form to fill out. He wanted to hold on to his cash, so gave her his driver’s license and a credit card to run. Given the way he looked, he figured she might check to see if the credit card was stolen. Besides, he would be dead anyway, and no one would connect the dog with the burned-out old car. He couldn’t supply much on the dog, and left most of the questions unanswered. The receptionist saw the blanks.

  “Dog’s name?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Age?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe six, eight? He looks like he’s got a lot of miles on him.”

  Dan explained his connection to the dog. She began to enter his data directly into a computer. She printed out an info sheet for the doctor, rang a small metal bell, and placed Dan’s paperwork in a basket marked “Emergency.” There was an outburst of animal sounds. The dog tried to crawl into a corner. Cats in cages paced or slept. As if in a bored long-distance conversation, several dogs from cubicles down the hall barked back and forth with dogs at the rear of the building. An unseen animal howled mournfully.

  Dan waited. A well-groomed white woman with a dead cat wrapped in a Gucci silk scarf hurried out. “It’s not fair, it is not fair,” she sobbed.

  A big parrot rocked in his cage. Between whistles and caws, it sang of Mexico’s beauty. “¡México lindo! ¡México lindo!” It occasionally flapped its wings and in a deep voice croaked orders “¡Ven acá! ¡Ven acá! Come here! Come here!”

  The dog looked up, its good ear cocked. Dan patted him, rubbed his half ear. Dan sensed someone standing behind him. He turned to see a woman in a white smock removing the dog’s paperwork from the basket.

  She said, “Hi, I’m Doc Sally.”

  Dan wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly and figured her for a nurse. “Is Dr. González in?”

  “I’m Dr. González. How can I help?”

  She spoke with a touch of border in her talk, and her shortish blond hair was perfectly styled for her face. She clearly had a larger ratio of European blood than Indian, as evidenced by her Texas blue eyes. Dan reckoned she was in her late forties. She was tall and still shapely, and she dressed in jeans and a red-and-white-checkered cowboy shirt under the smock. She wore polished black boots, and on her right wrist was a stainless-steel-and-gold Rolex. Dan figured her for a southpaw. He also saw that she noticed his bum eye.

  “Is that your dog?”

  Dan said, “No, I’m just the dummy who stopped to help.” He explained the situation.

  “Never save nothin what eats.”

  “Huh?”

  “It tells the world you’re easy.”

  Dan said, “I don’t know about that, but I couldn’t let him get squashed.”

  Dan helped Doc Sally get the dog on a gurney and they wheeled him into one of the cubicles. She checked the dog’s paws and pasterns, and the mark the collar had made. She spoke kindly to the animal as she examined him. He didn’t respond. She checked his ears and teeth and throat. She used a stethoscope to check his chest cavity and the arteries down his hind legs. She felt for broken bones, tugged on the dry, hairless skin, examined the dog’s eyes.

  “Why are his feet bloody?” Dan asked.

  “He’s been running nonstop on pavement of one kind or another for days, maybe weeks. The pads have worn through in his search for his master.”

  “First thing I noticed was his lost-dog look.” The second and third things he noticed were the outline of Doc Sally’s full lips and the clean line of her perfect ears.

  “He’ll need to be sedated so he can be fed and hydrated intravenously, and so he won’t lick off the medication for his paws and hide. He has to be bathed and have the ticks removed. He probably has worms. A dog with less heart would have been dead a long time ago.” She spoke directly to the dog. “Oye, tú. ¿Cómo te llamas?” Listen up. What’s your name?

  The dog wagged his tail halfway. “Gnuff,” he replied weakly.

  Dan said, “Sounds like he’s got a harelip.”

  “Your dog, Mr. Cooley, has had his vocal chords surgically removed.”

  “He’s not my dog.”

  “I should also mention that he speaks Spanish, and doesn’t understand a word you say.”

  “He’s Mexican, too?”

  Doc Sally smiled wryly. “It’s not so bad, I assure you.”

  “Maybe not for you, you speak the lingo.”

  “Does that mean you’re keeping him?”

  Dan ducked the question. “How could someone lose a dog this big?”

  Doc Sally said, “He may have been dumped. See the scars on him? Somebody’s fought him, looks like. He may have been stolen and given to pit bulls to practice on. He might have been trained to fight, too. Fighting dogs are treated cruelly by their masters during periods of conditioning, as in endless hours chained on a treadmill, but they love their masters blindly. For many, their world is a treadmill and the pit, and they are so starved for love that they adore anyone who shows them the slightest kindness.”

  “Does that mean he’d be vicious to others?”

  “Not likely. But I wouldn’t want to mess with someone he loved, if he was around.”

  “What about the cut vocal chords?”

  “People will sometimes do that if they use a dog for home security. By the time an intruder is aware of a dog like this, he’s already got teeth in his ass.”

  Dan liked the way Doc Sally talked. He nodded to the prostrate dog. “Will he survive?”

  “Good chance. He’s much younger than he looks, four, maybe five. And he’s a fighter.”

  Fighter. The one word that could still break Dan’s heart. Dan said, “So what’s the tab gonna be?”

  “Not as much as where you hail from, but enough. That is, if that’s what you want.”

  “What I want?”

  “Well, with the proper treatment, to include medication, food, vitamins, and twenty-four-hour supervision, we’re talking roughly a hundred dollars a day.”

  “How many days?”

  “A minimum of three days, and that’s only because dogs heal faster than we do. He would still need a safe place to recuperate for some time after that. But in all truth, he’ll probably need to stay here five or six days anyway, maybe a week.”

  “Damn.”

  “Or, I can put him out of his misery and out of your life for a fast thirt
y-five dollars. Make it a twenty, and I’ll do it right now.”

  “See, I can’t wait around.”

  Doc Sally said, “Like I say.”

  “Won’t the pound take him?”

  “They’ll put him down on day one, but not as nicely as I,” she told him.

  “Ain’t this a bitch?” He looked at the dog again. The dog looked back. “Hit me for a three-day pop to start with. You got my card number.”

  Doc Sally promised, “If he doesn’t make it, I’ll only bill you for the time he lasts.”

  “You mean he might not?”

  “All I can say is, look how weak he is. He must have lost thirty-five pounds or better.”

  “What if I don’t come back in three days?” Dan asked.

  The vet shrugged and said, “I suggest you come in at least once a day every day, for the dog’s sake.”

  “And if I disappear into the hills?”

  “I won’t bother with the pound,” Doc Sally told him. “I’ll just put him down.”

  “Well, you got three hundred, anyway.”

  “Will you not return, Mr. Cooley? If not, we’re only adding to the dog’s suffering.”

  Dan touched his eye. “Look, Doc, I can’t say right now, okay? But if I don’t make it back in three days, do what you gotta do and add it to my tab.” He rubbed the dog’s neck. The dog flattened out even more. “You do what the doc says, hear?”

  “He only understands Spanish, remember?”

  It was getting late as Dan returned to his car, the sun dropping quickly and the light going pink and flat. He checked the Texas map in his atlas. Eighty-ninety miles up ahead was the small town of Van Horn. Head south from there on the 90, driving between the Van Horn and the Wylie Mountains, and he’d be into the higher Davis range. A couple of left turns past Valentine, and he’d be on the dirt roads and trails up around Mount Livermore, which peaked at almost 8,400 feet—no-man’s-land, where death was all part of growing up.