Craig Davidson - Cataract City

The noise that came out of Folchik caused my guts to contract: it was a confused whine like that of a child confronted with a puzzle she cannot solve.

Folchik torqued her body and jerked her head to strike at Seeker’s belly. Her jaws fastened onto Seeker’s brisket, but as Folchik was rucking in for a better grip Seeker leapt off her hind legs, tucked her head smartly and flipped over Folchik’s back. Her haunches hit Folchik’s spine and she spun to the side with eerie grace; her head ended up even with Folchik’s back legs. Now Seeker’s teeth flashed like razors — she didn’t need an instant to orient herself; she knew exactly where she was — two quick strikes into Folchik’s right rear leg. By the time Folchik spun round to fend off the attack, Seeker had ducked clear. What looked like a nest of wet red wires hung from a deep wound in Folchik’s thigh.

“Break!” cried Drinkwater. “Time!”

Drinkwater and the fat breeder climbed inside the pen to fetch their dogs. Seeker licked Folchik’s bloodied flank lightly, the way she might have licked one of her newborn pups.

In the corner Drinkwater petted Folchik with great tenderness, whispering, “My beautiful, my beautiful.” He had a bag much like Bovine’s and from it he removed a packet of Monsel’s solution, which he painted onto the dog’s wounds with a wet Q-tip; Folchik stood silent as her flesh hardened into brown jerky.

In the other corner the fat breeder filled a bowl with Gatorade for Seeker. He saturated a cottonball with Adrenalin 1:100 and eased it up Seeker’s rectum with one squashed-flat thumb.

My gaze drifted into the crowd. The old Native guy was working his jaws around another cigarette — his lower lip came up too far for him to have teeth. I hated having anything to do with these ugly men whose stomachs were falling through the shiny denim of their jackets and whose skin hung like wet laundry off the warped dowels of their bones. But I knew we shared one thing: we were fascinated by these creatures, who were perfect in some exquisite, unknowable way — and we would probably watch one of them die.

Folchik limped to the scratch-line. Her eyes were marble-hard and tacky as peeled grapes; she wasn’t blinking anymore. Seeker ebbed out of her corner like liquid.

“Release!”

Folchik tore in at Seeker, who backpedalled madly, seemingly unsure of herself for the first time; the Little Hunter’s rush had the grey dog’s paws scrabbling under her belly, losing traction, at which point Folchik faked a strike at Seeker’s leg. Seeker ripped at Folchik’s head except her head wasn’t there anymore. Folchik had reversed to strike at Seeker’s opposite leg, picking it up and wrenching it sideways, flipping the fat man’s dog onto her side, and for a harried second Seeker’s throat was exposed: the killshot . Folchik was straining madly for it and I was sure she’d end it right there— wanted her to, because a part of me hated the silky perfection of the other dog — and the crowd rose to a quick roar, sensing the hometown favourite was making her move as the dogs’ fangs buzz-sawed the air. But then Folchik reared back and it was clear something had gone wrong: her muzzle was shredded like cheesecloth to expose the pink rack of her gums and the blood-flecked pegs of her teeth. Seeker sported a long rip down one side of her face but her throat was unhurt.

“Pick her up,” the fat breeder told Drinkwater. “She’s close to dead.”

He refused.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said.

Suddenly, it was as if Folchik had lost her heft: the iron had been ripped from her spine. Seeker bullied and harassed her, striking at her retreating forelegs, tearing pink gouges into her coat and rag-dolling her across the pen.

Next I was stepping over the boards into the fighting box. It was an involuntary reaction, like breathing or blinking my eyes. When I elbowed Seeker clear, she lunged, her teeth ripping into my forearm with enough force to pierce the flesh, but only once — whether this was a matter of training or because she had no interest in hurting me, I couldn’t tell. She backed off and sat on her haunches, eyeing her breeders.

I bent beneath those staggered faces under the vapour lamps, wrapping my arms around Folchik, who was shivering uncontrollably. I picked her up, cradling her head in the crook of my bloodied elbow. She buried her face in my armpit. Her bladder let go in a warm trickle that went down my side and soaked the band of my jeans.

I stared at the men ranged round the box. Not disapprovingly, not for sympathy, but to see what they’d make of it. I didn’t see anything other than dark-eyed stoniness. Men with their hands in their pockets stared back at me with no knowable emotion; I could have done what I’d done or not, it mattered very little to them. The only man who seemed to care was Seeker’s primary keeper — he inclined his head at me, the smallest of nods.

Drinkwater stepped into the box with his knife out. He held it low, tip pointing at my belly.

“Put my dog down. We’re not finished.”

“I think so, Lem. I really think this is finished.”

He brought the knife up, the edge pressed to my neck. He raked it against the grain of my stubble, the vibration radiating along my collarbones.

“Lot of witnesses, Lemmy.”

“I own every eye looking at you.”

“People know where I am. It’s a whole lot easier to make a dog disappear than a man. White man, especially.”

Drinkwater squeezed one eye shut. He put the knife back in its sheath.

“Bad dog,” he said softly. “Bad, bad dog.”

Edwina was asleep, or pretending to be. I slid past the bed and stashed the two thousand dollars in the toe of an old workboot.

When I turned, Ed had shifted up on one elbow, face glossed by the moonlight falling through the window. The sight made a small sweet hole in me.

“You find anything?” she said.

“They weren’t looking at the dry docks. Something’ll come up.”

“Why are you dressed like that?”

I wore my overalls, the only clothes I’d had in my truck. The ones I’d been wearing were covered in blood. After the fight I’d wrapped Folchik in my shirt and left the warehouse. Nobody bothered trying to stop me. I’d driven around town with the dog in the passenger seat; the street lamps shone through the windshield, picking up the sheen of blood on her coat. She’d pawed at the seat with what little energy she had — it dawned on me that she was trying to climb down into the footwell, where it was darker, which was I guess where a dog would prefer to die.

“Hold on, girl,” I’d whispered. “Just a little while longer, okay?”

I’d stopped at a pay phone on an unlit block. The receiver was ripped off but the book was intact. After hunting up the address, I’d driven down Lockport Road, skirting the airport — shark-coloured planes were lifting into the twilight, reminding me of when I’d ride my bike to the Point as a boy and watch them ghost out of the clouds — and pulled into the SPCA.

It was closed, but a sign read EMERGENCY SERVICE and an arrow pointed round back. I left the truck idling and gathered Folchik in my arms, worried that she’d bite — she must have been terrified, delirious, confused — but she only whimpered as I lifted her. She weighed nothing at all.

I stepped from the truck with Folchik in my arms. I smelled raw adrenaline dumping out of the dog’s pores and below that, the smell of warm pavement. I banged on the door hard enough to strip the skin off my knuckles. The woman who answered was in her late sixties — a volunteer, I figured. She wore glasses on a beaded string and when she saw me standing there, they slid down her nose to rattle on her chest.