Bill Cheng - Southern Cross the Dog

ROBERT PASSED THE NIGHT IN the small room next to the kitchen, a heap of quilts and blankets to pass for a bed. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Finally he roused himself and went out into the morning air. Outside, the sky started to blush, rose suffusing into the deep high ink. He perched himself on the back stoop and rolled his hands to fight the chill.

His head buzzed. His lungs burned.

The plantation house sat in the distance, dark against the rising sun. Even from here, he could feel its size. Its presence. Its long shadow threw a cape over the dust fields. He needed to leave. Now. Before they woke up. Before the Dog could catch up to him.

Behind him, he heard the back door open. G.D. stepped from behind him, turned to the side, and aimed a hot stream of piss into the weeds.

You sleep okay?

Robert nodded.

G.D. shook himself dry, then hawked a wad of phlegm into the dust. Then he sat down beside Robert.

Tell you the truth, I’m glad to see you’re still here, he said. Didn’t know if you’d stay when you saw her. The way she is, I mean.

What happened to her? he asked.

G.D. scowled. Well, what happened to you?

Robert saw G.D. was looking at the scar beneath his chin. The sparse beard that was growing could not hide the long purple streak along his neck. Robert touched it. It was smooth and rubbery.

Something that couldn’t be helped, Robert said.

G.D. sucked his teeth. Uh-huh. Well, Dora’s a good girl. It’d surprise you how kindhearted she is. Like she’s got all of her right on top, right where the skin is. All her sweetness, all her kindness.

Robert didn’t say anything. He had suddenly become very tired, like the muscle had become dead and slack on his bones.

And she’s smart, too. Don’t go thinking she’s not.

I never said a word otherwise, Robert said.

Good. ’Cause that’s something I won’t stand for. She’s all my family now, you understand?

The flesh had become puffy on G.D.’s face. Around his eyes the skin was still swollen, and it made him squint through those bloodshot and mucousy globes. Robert was surprised by how upset G.D. looked. His jaw tensed. His eyelids fluttered.

Robert held his gaze.

You take care of her, don’t you?

G.D. softened. He worked his lips back and forth.

We take care of each other, he said finally. I’m sorry if I came on a little hot. I hate mornings.

G.D. let out a sigh and rubbed his face.

I just didn’t want you to leave here with the wrong idea about things. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Leaving?

G.D. grinned at him.

Don’t look so surprised. I know when a fella is gonna cut out. And you, my friend, look like someone who’s done his share of cutting out.

He pinched Robert lightly on the cheek.

G.D. laughed and Robert laughed along with him. Robert liked G.D. He remembered this from when they were boys, the way G.D. would move quickly from one thing into the next — one game into another, from anger to tenderness to laughter. G.D.’s was a rattling infectious giggle. Now the two of them cackled, tears oozing from their eyes.

He clapped an arm to Robert’s shoulder. When they’d stopped laughing, G.D. hugged Robert to him.

You’re safe here, you know, he said.

Robert looked at him, stunned.

Whatever it is you’re running from, I mean. I know how it is. You don’t got to stay if you don’t want to, but all I’m saying is you don’t got to leave, neither.

Robert shook his head.

You don’t want any of what’s coming to me.

Here you got Dora and you got me, and that’s two more than if you were on your own. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is exactly you’re mixed up in. But near as I’m concerned, you got a place here with us.

G.D. stood up.

Come on in when you want your breakfast, he said.

G.D.? Robert said.

G.D. paused at the door.

What happened to her?

G.D. smiled, his mouth going soft and sad.

What happened is I didn’t look out for my family, he said. Not enough and too late.

Then he went inside.

HE DECIDED TO STAY ONE more day, and soon the days passed into weeks, and the weeks into months. He could live here, Robert told himself, the three of them in this ramshackle shotgun shack. In the mornings Dora would cook their breakfasts, and Robert would keep the house, clearing away the rubbish and chasing the dust from the walls and floor. And at night, G.D. would come home, drunk and happy, and he would take the bottle out from under his shirt and they would laugh and drink and eat and dance, while the lunatic world spun on without them.

G.D. was madly in love with Dora. That was plain to see. And though that brought some bitterness to Robert’s throat, he ignored it for an echo, a faint whisper of a long gone past. He was happy for G.D., happy for Dora, and, when he could admit it, happy for himself. They made him smile — G.D.’s clownish personality, their childish bickering, like full-grown adults playing house.

He became settled in Anguilla. He managed to find a job killing rats at a bakery in town. The owner was a fat ruddy man, offering a nickel a head. They’re eating me out of my trade, he told him. He showed him into the kitchen, to the flour sacks where the stitches were chewed through. Robert spent his four afternoons a week in the warm kitchen, rolling strychnine into balls of dough. There were prints in the flour that tracked across the floor, the counters. Ten or twelve of them at least. A family. They were in the floors. He could almost hear them breathe. He picked the dough from the web of his fingers, worked it into pellets. He laid the poison down by the cracks, carefully, like an offering.

He thought, If Frankie could see me now .

For days, they didn’t touch the pellets. Must’ve smelled him on them. But then he noticed a small pile of droppings, greasy and toxic smelling. He opened one of the cabinets and saw one of them lying on a butter dish, its tongue hanging out. It was no bigger than his smallest finger, its small almost-human hands tucked to its body.

It wasn’t dead. It opened and closed its eyes slowly. He held it in his palm. It was already cold, its fur matted in bile and urine. He stroked his thumb against its stomach, hoping it was of some comfort to the thing, then up the neck. Then, with a flick, he felt a pop and it was done.

But then he’d come home and there were his friends, glowing with joy enough to bleach out these small miseries. And times would come he’d catch himself mulling too long on Frankie, feel the strange rough quake in his soul, and G.D. would materialize in his doorway, a full glass in his hand, a grin already cracked across his face.

His friend loved him. They acted like fool boys, boxing and wrestling and cussing while Dora watched on, shaking and giggling at their antics.

This could be a life. A good end.

Then one Sunday came and Robert finished work early at the bakery. It had rained in the morning and now the air was cool and easy. The smell of bread was on his clothes, his hair, his skin. Warm. Sweet. His boss had given Robert a loaf to take home with him, and he carried it now tucked under his arm. Soft. Still hot. He made his way through the main square. There was a leather Stetson in a window display and it reminded him of Frankie. He went inside and bought it. It was large, the crown dented low, the brim drooping.

The stretch of road from Anguilla to the house was a flat treeless few miles that gave full view of the sky, with tufts of switchgrass to break the horizon. On either side lay long ranges of buffalograss and grama. The breeze was fresh and bracing. His free hand swung limply at his side.