Will Mackin - Bring Out the Dog

The troop continued to pass through the gate. Dogs streamed by, following my brothers down the alley. A skinny mongrel lingered for me outside the gate. I waited until everybody else was gone.

I turned to look up at the window with its roll of foam rubber sticking out, and there I saw the youngest feather. Her forehead was pressed against the glass.

I imagined that the older sister asked, “Are they gone?”

The youngest feather stared at me, staring back.

“Not yet,” she said.

Thanks—

To my wife, Alaina—everyone else is loco. To Betta and Eli: someday you will look upon new and improved versions of yourselves and you will be at an equal loss for words. To brother Jon, with whom I share both heart and mind. To Mom, Dad, and sister Amy, for your love and support. To George Saunders, whose fiction class I took on a whim, and who turned it into my life’s work. To Andy Ward, my patient friend, for always listening. To Esther and Liz, for showing me the ropes. And to Karen Karbo, for your generous guidance.

To Deborah Treisman: when the vertical bars of blue light talk, it’s in your voice.

To those who provide indispensable shelter, knowledge, and encouragement for rejects of all shapes and sizes: Summer Literary Seminars, Tin House, the Lannan Foundation.

To rejects of all shapes and sizes.

And last but not least, a sacred debt to the men and women of Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

WILL MACKIN is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories 2014. A native of New Jersey, he currently lives in New Mexico. Bring Out the Dog is his first book.

Bring Out the Dog is a work of fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Will Mackin

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

“Kattekoppen,” “Crossing the River No Name,” and “The Lost Troop” were originally published in The New Yorker. Portions of “Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night” were originally published as “Dog” in Diagram 12.6. Portions of “Backmask” were originally published as “Dispatch 7: A Normal Human in the World” as part of a series entitled “Dispatches from Iraq” on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency on October 5, 2007.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mackin, Will, author.

Title: Bring out the dog : stories / Will Mackin.

Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017027232| ISBN 9780812995640 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780812995657 (ebook)

Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Short Stories (single author). | FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / War & Military.

Classification: LCC PS3613.A27345 A6 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2017027232

Ebook ISBN 9780812995657

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Victoria Wong, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Chelsea Cardinal

Cover photograph: John S. Reid/Shutterstock

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