Charlie Huston - No Dominion

Papa’s rot stalks the enforcer. It’s frustrated by the speed of its movements, driven by the unfamiliar strength in its legs to bite its hindquarters. Both dogs circle the enforcer in blinding leaps and bursts. He wails and blood pours from his nose. They attack.

Digga’s bitch gets her jaws into his calf and clings there as he kicks furiously. The dog waves and snaps like a flag in a high wind. The rot comes in from behind, flying through the air and landing on the enforcer’s back, sinking his teeth into the meat where his shoulder joins his neck. The rest is just time. Too much time. The bitch is kicked free. The enforcer goes down on his back, the rot under him, but still latched on. The bitch comes back and gets the forearm that was shattered when it struck her from the air. Its bones shattered, the arm comes off in the bitch’s mouth. She drops it and goes for his throat. Her teeth go in, but he grabs her by the neck with his remaining arm and twists her head around. She lies on his chest, flopping.

The rot gnaws and chews. Eventually it’s over. When it is, the rot is clearly ruined. One side of its chest is crumpled where the enforcer caved in its ribs and its lower jaw hangs loose, broken by its own murderous assault on the enforcer’s neck.

The music changes, heavy hip-hop beats replaced by R amp;B, and Digga’s people drift away from the pool, pairing off to dance.

Papa waves two of his men into the pool. His dog wobbles and whines, but whenever they come close it hauls itself up and snorts blood. One of them pulls an old Mauser from his jacket and tries to take a bead on the dog, but it skitters about, too quick for him to get the shot.

Digga is staring at the corpse of his own dog.

– Damn. Damn, that was a fine bitch. Damn.

He looks and sees what’s going on with the rot.

– Mothafuckas. Hey! Hey!

Papa’s men look up.

– Hey! That ain’t how you put down the champeen.

He leaps, grabs the top of the fence, vaults up and balances there. He strips off his tie, his jacket, his shirt, dropping them all to Timberlands. His torso is knotted muscle.

– Get back from that dog, mothafuckas.

He jumps down into the pool, easily keeping his feet on the blood-slick, and approaches the wounded dog. The men in wraparounds look up at Papa and he signals them back. The dancing couples have returned to line the fence.

Digga walks at the dog, talking to it softly. The dog’s hackles stick straight up. Digga keeps coming. The dog goes for him, jumping at his face. Digga catches the dog in the air. They go down, Digga on his back, the dog clutched between his hands. The dog’s lower jaw flaps as he tries to bark. Digga flips over, gets the dog under him, opens his mouth wide and digs his teeth into the back of the dog’s neck. It goes limp, recognizing a superior hound, and he twists its head, breaking its neck.

Digga’s people go crazy. Papa climbs down from his perch. Digga stands, coated in dog blood.

– Papa! Don’t you worry. I send the white boy’s money to you first thing.

Papa turns away, strolls to the exit, followed by his men.

I’m led around the pool to the steps at the shallow end. Digga has stripped to his Calvin Kleins and is accepting several towels, mopping the blood from his skin and from around his mouth.

– See that? See that, Pitt?

I nod.

– That some shit, right?

I look at the dog corpses being hauled from the pool.

– I’ve killed a wounded dog before. It’s nothing to be proud of.

The music keeps playing. People keep dancing. The guys in the pool keep cleaning. But the folks around us get very quiet.

Digga slips on a clean pair of trousers.

– That so? You killed a dog? Killed a muthafuckin’ monster dog on dope like that sad beast down there? Like that champeen hound I just put down?

I don’t say anything.

Timberlands holds out Digga’s shirt and he slides his arms into it.

– Well, let me tell ya. These soirées here like this one? This ain’t everyday shit. More a special occasion kind of thing. ’Specially some shit like that enforcer. Man on our turf, clearly in violation of the treaty? Man like that, we can use how we please. Don’t always have that on the menu. But I tell you what, maybe we have another party tomorrow. Yeah, another get-together. Maybe have some barbeque this time. Yeah, that’s the shit. After all, muthafucka, tonight we had him to sport with.

He points at the enforcer’s mangled corpse.

– An that was a’ight.

He throws his tie around his neck and lets Timberlands drape his jacket over his shoulders.

– So maybe tomorrow night we go it again. And then we can see how you do ’gainst a champeen dog.

He points at me.

– Stick this muthafucka in a box.

Two rhinos grab me.

– See you on the morrow, Pitt. Give you a chance to go double or nothin’ on that G you owe Papa.

They don’t really stick me in a box; which is kind of a nice surprise. Instead, they stick me in an old shower room. I take a walk around, but there’s not much to see. No windows at all. I find a vent under one of the sinks and fish the switchblade out of my boot, the fine art of the pat-down seeming to have been lost, and pry it loose. If I lost about a hundred pounds I might be able to worm in there and get trapped at the first bend. I flip through the lockers but don’t find anything useful. There is a tiny panel of glass in the door they pushed me through; I take a peek and see my two rhinos in the hall smoking and trading rhymes back and forth to the beats that echo down the hall from the party in the baths. I tap on the glass and one of them looks at me. I point at the cigarette in his hand and then at myself. But he just flips me off instead of opening the door so I can stick the knife in his neck. I go to one of the sinks and twist the taps and a little cold water dribbles out.

My cigarettes are in the jacket Timberlands took off me. Sure like to get that jacket back. I bend my face to the sink and wash up, rinsing away some blood on my upper lip from when the rhinos bounced me around. I think about the enforcer. I think about being eaten alive by dogs. I think about the way he freaked when that blood hit his vein. The way he was jumping, I wonder if the dogs were a mercy. I dry my face and hands on the tail of my shirt. I look at the lockers. I could go through them again, see if someone maybe forgot their assault rifle down here sometime, but I take a pass.

I sit on the floor with my back to the wall and watch the door. I pass the time waiting, waiting for someone to come through the door and do something just the least bit stupid so I can kill them and give myself something resembling a fighting chance. I’m not holding my breath.

Figure coming up here was a mistake. Figure it was a big one. I try to figure how long I should wait before I tell Digga I’m doing a job for Terry. Figure I wait too long and I’ll have a skin full of that junk and be down in the pool with the dogs. Give it up now and he’ll have plenty of time to check it out. But Terry might not like that. Figure I know for a fact Terry won’t like that. Easiest course of action for him? Pitt? That asshole? I don’t know why he’s up there. I mean, I never want to endorse execution, but that’s your prerogative, Digga. You’ll have to do whatever, you know, gives you peace of mind.

Yeah, I’m fucked.

I just wish I had my cigarettes. And that jacket. I do love that jacket.

The music finally stops. I look out the window again; the rhinos are still there. Someone has brought them coffee and more cigarettes. I go back to my spot against the wall.

I close my eyes. But I don’t sleep. I do that for a long time.