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A Boy and His Dog

 Everything I know I learned from dogs.

- Nora Roberts

I have asked you kindly to stop that dog from howling all day long, yet he continues to do so.

- David Berkowitz

1

Austin was in trouble at school again and his parents were yelling downstairs. There was a lot of that, seemed like for Austin’s entire life. Some of his earliest memories were mom and dad yelling downstairs while he was locked up tight in his bedroom. When the divorce came, something Austin thought was inevitable from the time he learned what the word D-I-V-O-R-C-E meant, it was almost a relief to him. But Austin’s parents were bound and determined to be good co-parents after they separated. Wayne and Martha Christie might be quits, but it didn’t mean they quit on their son. To Austin this meant only one thing – more muted yelling from downstairs.

The trouble at school wasn’t even a big deal. Austin had been doing something weird, he couldn’t even really remember what that weird thing was, and a kid, Greg Atwood, took a jab at him. Austin spent most of his life being weird so he had the tools to handle such a situation in multiple ways, be it the right way, the wrong way, or some gray area in between. What he did that morning at school belonged squarely in the wrong category. There was a pencil sitting on the end of Austin’s desk. He grabbed it up and tried to stick it in the bully’s eye. Austin was probably lucky Greg was some high school sports star and that he had quick reflexes. He dodged out of the way of Austin’s pencil just in time. It left just a tiny little graphite encrusted scratch on the boy’s cheek. The scratch was barely noticeable once it was cleaned up and Greg had more hurt pride than any kind of physical pain. Austin got himself a three day suspension from school. He figured if he’d hit what he was aiming for, he would have been expelled.

And that was it. A little scratch on Greg Atwood’s face led to the screaming downstairs. Austin listened as it grew in intensity. Like many children of divorce, Austin wondered if it was his fault. Unlike most kids though, he didn’t care. If it was “his” fault his parents couldn’t hack, they probably shouldn’t have been married to begin with. And all the better that they be divorced. Now, if he could do anything about this co-parenting bullshit they were on, maybe they could all be happy. That seemed unlikely – Austin’s parents were the type. Squeaky clean to all looking from the outside in. He was sure the divorce tore both of them up inside, just simply because of the image it presented to everyone who’d previously thought they had it all together. She, a successful therapist with her own practice. He was a detective with the city’s homicide division. A really good one. They did so much for humanity! Maybe too much. All the good they did came at the cost of their marriage. That’s probably what people thought. Austin laughed at the idea. Truth was that their work was a good place for them to bury and hide how fucked they both were. Even a therapist half as good as his mom could have seen that.

The sound from downstairs diminished. This is how the fights typically went. The yelling would grow and grow like an active volcano beginning to vent, and then BOOM! Full eruption. And that could go on for hours. And then the lava stopped raging, the world altered in some way that wasn’t fully restorable. And he would always hear exactly what came next. This is what he’d been waiting in his room for.

“Austin,” his father said from downstairs. “Can you come talk to us for a few minutes?”

Austin came out of his room and walked to the top of the stairs. He and his parents had lived in the same house all of his life. His father moved out after the divorce but this image was a reoccurring one. Austin at the top of the stairs, his father, usually still in some sort of light suit getup he wore for homicide, standing at the foot of the stairs. Beckoning him down to have a little chat.

“Come on down, buddy,” Wayne said.

Austin nodded, went down the stairs. Wayne put a very paternal hand on his back and gently guided him toward the typical meeting place. His mother was already sitting at the kitchen table. This is where all of the big conversations happened. Any time growing up that Austin got in trouble, this is where they chatted about it. This is where he was told that his parents would be splitting up. All the juicy stuff.

“Have a seat,” Martha said. He sat opposite her at the kitchen table and his father went to the other side and sat next to his mother. He scooted his chair an inch further from her and Martha pretended not to notice.

“We want to talk about what happened at school today,” Martha said.

Austin nodded. “Okay.”

“And we want to talk about things that might make you behave a little better,” Martha went on. Wayne let out a barely audible sigh and Martha cut her eyes at him before continuing. “Obviously, what you did was wrong. You can’t resort to violence like you did today. Frankly, I’m shocked. You’ve always been such a peaceful boy.”

Austin had to choke back on a laugh threatening to burst out of his throat. They had no idea of Austin’s peaceful character.

“It’s absurd,” Wayne butted in. “I just don’t know what would possess you to take a stab at another student like that.” Martha put a hand to his arm to calm him and he flinched. He took a deep breath. “The thing you need to realize, son, is that there are consequences for everything. Now, they sent me a picture of this boy’s cheek, and you got him okay, a nice little scratch on the cheek. And you were rightfully suspended from school. You know what would have happened if that pencil landed maybe an inch or so to the left? You would have had me down there at the school, investigating the scene as a homicide. One of my partners would likely be interviewing you right now back at the station.”

“That’s right,” Martha said. “You could have killed that boy.”

Austin sat there and nodded at all the important moments. This was a learned behavior at this point. He knew how to navigate these little heart-to-hearts so that everybody walked away reasonably happy and his parents didn’t feel the need to go digging deeper. This, Austin realized, was a good time to speak.

“Yeah, I just don’t know,” he said. “That guy just got under my skin and I lost it. I know it was wrong. Flat out crazy. Just really not like me to do something like that.”

Wayne leaned back in his chair and glanced over to Martha. She took a moment, looking down to where her fingers kneaded an invisible lump of dough. Therapists were supposed to keep a relatively neutral exterior but this was one of Martha’s nervous tells. Austin knew it, and he too began to grow a little nervous. Something was happening here. She was about to say something important. Maybe they had come up with some additional form of punishment to compliment his suspension from school. Maybe they were sending off to military school. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“Your father and I are just concerned,” Martha said, stilling her hands. “You’ve become…subdued.”

Subdued?

Austin thought, what other way was there to feel? He was a kid. He had little autonomy over his day-to-day life. If he did, he wouldn’t have even been in school in the first place. Wouldn’t have even been in a position where Greg Atwood might need a pencil stuck in his eye. Still, always adherent to dear mom, he nodded. “Okay.”

“Not to mention, you clearly have an anger in you that needs exploring. We need to give you the tools to properly manage that darkness, Austin. Your father and I think we might know where at least a little of this comes from. We think you might not have processed our divorce fully. We understand, and accept full responsibility, for the problems we might have caused you by splitting. And it isn’t fair, we never would try to say that it is. But we still want you to have a fulfilling, enjoyable adolescence. Despite the problems I or your father might have had.”

“We don’t want you living your entire life stuffed away in your room,” Wayne said. “We want you to go and make friends. Have a good time. Get into some trouble.”

“But you also need to grow a sense of responsibility,” Martha added. “Today was a big deal, and your father and I don’t think you have a firm grasp on that.”

“No really,” Austin said. He was starting to get panicky but didn’t let it change the tone of his voice. “I understand how lucky I am that I didn’t really hurt Greg. I really do.”

Wayne said, “The point is not that you didn’t hurt him. That’s great that you didn’t and that you’re not in any trouble.”

“He is in trouble,” Martha said, her voice close to a growl.

“Sorry. That you’re not in any serious trouble. The point is, you don’t seem to realize that you shouldn’t have tried to hurt him to begin with. And you need to be more responsible for your actions.”

Martha and Wayne went silent for a few minutes after that, letting their points sink in. Austin got it all, but he didn’t bother to respond. What was there to say?

“So we have been thinking about ways to teach you that responsibility, but also how to maybe ease some of the pain we have caused you,” Martha said.

Wayne leaned back in his chair again and ran an exasperated palm down the length of his face. He clearly was not 100 percent on board with whatever this plan was. All Austin could do was brace for impact.

“We’re going to get you a dog,” Martha said.

2

After his mother told him they would be getting a dog, he thanked his parents with a wide smile – oh boy, he always wanted a dog! His parents took a few more minutes during the family meeting to explain to him exactly the meaning of this new dog in their lives. A dog was a lot to take care of. A dog required time and patience. You can’t just get mad at a dog and stick it with a pencil, you have to train it. All of this responsibility would be Austin’s, and they were really hopeful that having the dog around would also ease some of the anxiety he was experiencing, which was most assuredly a result of their getting a divorce. The dog was appearing to be the sacrificial lamb for the Christie family. An absolution of all sins. Following this explanation and a litany of Austin’s new responsibilities, he excused himself and went outside.

The Christie’s home backed up to a small hill covered with aspen trees. the neighborhood kids, the ones Austin could never seem to make friends with, called it Knox Hill, named for the street it stood over. In late Spring, the leaf coverage was so thick that Austin could go up on that hill and look down at his neighborhood without anyone being able to see he was there. It was like his own little crow’s nest away from all the bullshit. That is where he headed after the big news.

Once he was well up within the trees on his hill he took a look over his shoulder to make sure his parents weren’t at one of the back facing windows, watching him. Austin did not let his plaster smile droop once during the entire short trek from his house and up the hill into the trees. When he saw that he was not being watched, he let his lips droop.

“A fucking dog,” he whispered to himself. “What the hell am I going to do with a dog.”

He felt that rage his mother had alluded to bubbling up. And this was another good reason to come to the hill. She was right. Austin had a fiery rage that erupted from time to time. The trees on the hill were a good place to let it all out.

Austin walked over to one of the trees and slammed his fist into it. The pain rippled through his knuckles and up his arm. It was both excruciating and a relief. He took another swing with his other fist. Than another. And another, like a boxer working the bag.

“What. The. Fuck. Am. I. Going. To. Do. With. A. Fucking. Dog!”

Each word was marked with another punch to the base of the tree, ending with a fury of a dozen lightning flash jabs. After the flurry of punches he looked down at his knuckles. They were bloody. This happened a lot. It was okay. There was even a streak of blood on the tree. His arms hurt. It felt good.

Austin sat down on the hillside with a good view of his little suburban neighborhood. He was thinking about all the dogs in all of the backyards and how much all of those kids had begged for those dogs and how their parents lectured them on how a dog was just too big a responsibility. Couldn’t his parents just give one of those dumbass kids a dog instead of foisting one on him?

Responsibility.

He thought he could go his entire life without hearing that word. Wasn’t he already responsible enough? He kept up with his grades. He maintained his composure, usually. The scene with Greg Atwood was a rare lapse, and he knew that letting that anger get the better of him was bad. So he had to get a fucking dog now? It didn’t make any sense. And they want to talk about responsibility, but what about them? How responsible were they? They couldn’t even keep their marriage together, and now they say they’re co-parenting their kid, but how much did they really know about him?

Nothing. They don’t know shit.

Austin didn’t get sad often. It was a feeling that just didn’t register with him. It made him more angry that his parents didn’t know who he was. His mom was a therapist for fuck’s sake, and just couldn’t seem to crack his dome. His dad could find a murderer just by looking a splotch of cum and some wrinkled, bloody laundry, but didn’t seem to want to investigate who his son was or the man he might become. And instead of making an effort, they got a dog.

“What a fucking joke,” Austin whispered. He could feel that rage building up in him, so he laid on his back and stared at the canopy of leaves overhead. They looked like a bright green ceiling and letting his entire vision sink into them was calming. He took some deep, full breaths, and his blood pressure started to come down. After a while he fell asleep for a short nap. It was not the first time he fell asleep on the hill and it wouldn’t be the last.

3

Martha Christie watched her son disappear up into the leaves of the aspen trees and hoped that maybe he was meeting some friends up there. There was a dark voice, call it a conscience or maybe intuition, that knew there was nobody meeting him up on Knox Hill. She let out a deep sigh after he was gone from view and went to her in home office. There was a client blowing her phone up, looking for an emergency meeting. She’d tried to ignore the constant texts that eventually became phone calls, but that’s the life of a therapist. Always on. No time off. What the hell were you going to do if one of your clients blew his brains out and then everyone sees the truth.

Poor son of a bitch tried so hard to get in touch with his therapist. And that heartless bitch ignored him. Can you believe that?

“Maybe I could just let this one…” Martha whispered to herself as she sat down at her desk. She waved away the thought. If something like that ever happened it might end her career, then how much worse off would Austin be? Divorced parents – a father too busy for him and a mother underemployed, working at…well, Martha didn’t even know. She’d been a therapist so long, how the hell could she do anything else?

There was still some time before her client started their tele-session, so Martha clicked onto one of the internet tabs on her browser. This was something that she had tried to get Wayne involved in, but of course he was too busy. What kind of man has no time for his son? And this was a big decision after all. A therapy dog for their son who clearly needed it. She hated thinking it, but Austin was so…weird. She’d never recommended a therapy dog for any of her clients, but she’d read up on it, and there was some legitimacy to it. It seemed to her that Austin might benefit from it.

And she’d narrowed it down to two dogs. One was a boxer mixed with a German Shepherd and it looked tough. A big, barrel chested dog that looked ready to take the face off of any would be home invaders. In the breeder profile, the dog looked straight down the barrel of the camera, right at the viewer. It was a bold dog and according to the website was expertly trained.

The other dog was a golden doodle. Sure, yes, it was the current fad dog. Every house in America just needed a golden doodle to make the American dream come true. It didn’t seem Austin’s style, but the thing was just so damn cute. His name was Elvis, because he had a lock of fur that looped down off his brow like the King of Rock n’ Roll. He, Martha was glad to note, was also expertly trained. The website guaranteed this dog as a comfort for trauma victims and could even decrease anxiety.

She looked at the other dog again.

“That beast just gives me anxiety,” she thought aloud. “But Elvis, well, he’s just adorable.”

The teleconference alert started to chime on her computer and she quickly minimized that tabs with the dogs, like a kid trying to hide pornography from his parents. Like looking at these dogs when she should have been taking care of her clients was some great sin. And to Martha, maybe it was. Still, she answered the call with a broad smile and her most calming voice.

“Good evening, Mr. Thompson. I’m glad you were able to call me.”

4

The dog arrived a few days later while Austin was still stuck at home for his vacation for bad behavior. He was sitting on the couch watching television without really watching it. The news was on and some city was getting the shit bombed out of it and the footage of fire and explosions flashed before Austin’s eyes and he saw none of it.

The next thing Austin knew, there was a dog running into the family room, coming full speed in his direction. Austin expected the dog to jump up onto the couch and start doing that dog thing – the one where the dog knows the last person that once to be bothered in its vicinity, and then starts bothering that person. But the dog stopped, and went immediately into a sit.

“What the hell?” Austin whispered. The thing seemed more like a robot than a dog. It calmly sat at Austin’s feet waiting to be commanded.

A couple of nights prior, Austin had a dream about the dog. A bad dream by most standards. The little fuzz ball who, at the time, Austin had never seen, was bothering Austin in his room. So he yanked its half protruded tongue out of its mouth and tied the tongue around the hanger pole in his closet. It was like some demented cartoon. The pup wriggled around but his tongue was all in a knot and he couldn’t get loose. Austin was waiting for the tongue and everything the tongue was attached to come sliding out of that loud, yippy mouth. Eventually, Austin helped gravity do what gravity does, taking a huge tuft of the dogs fur and yanking down. What was left was a bloody jumble of innards tied up in his closet by the dogs tongue. The fur and some of the bones lay on the closet floor like a discarded fur coat that was knitted by a tailor with severe brain damage. Got to love dream logic.

The dog from that dream looked like an idiot. A dog that was good for just about nothing but companionship. A short haired mutt of some sort whose bloodline had every ounce of intelligence fucked right out of it. The dog that stood before him at that moment couldn’t be further from Austin’s expectation. The dog sat without being told. It waited patiently to be told what to do. It was curly haired. Golden yellow fur that looked like some groomer had spent hours putting curlers in. Even Austin had to admit, it was a pretty dog.

Austin could hear Martha coming from the other room, and before she got into earshot he whispered, “Okay, boy. Fuck off, now.”

The dog actually did turn around and for a moment Austin was thrilled to see that he did know what fuck off meant. Austin had plans to be telling this dog to fuck off a lot. But he wasn’t obeying a command. The dog was simply turning to greet Martha as she entered the family room.

“Isn’t he just gorgeous?” Martha asked.

Austin gave a half smile. “I guess.”

Martha grimaced at his lack of enthusiasm. She said, “Of course he’s gorgeous.”

She came across the room and stooped in front of the dog, giving him a scratch behind the ears. The dog gave her a big lick in the face and Martha chortled. Austin watched this with disgust. The dog would never lick him in the face. Otherwise that dream he’d had would become a brutal reality.

“What’s its name?” Austin asked, trying his best to sound at least a little excited. It was unconvincing.

Martha stood back up and the dog watched her intently, still waiting to be told what to do. Martha said, “His name is Elvis.”

Austin half-laughed. “Are you serious?”

“I think it’s because of the curl of fur that kind of swoops over his eye. Y’know. Like Elvis.”

“Not a big Elvis fan, but I guess I get it. Can we just rename him? I think Elvis is kind of a dumb name.”

“No, we can’t just rename him,” Martha said, indignant. “He’s already trained. This is not like getting a new puppy. Elvis already knows to respond to Elvis.”

Indeed, just in the length of their short conversation, Austin noticed that every time the dog’s name was mentioned, his head would jerk in the direction of the speaker, still obediently waiting to be directed on what to do.

“Okay, I guess we’ll stick with Elvis,” Austin said.

“Yes, we certainly will,” Martha said. “Why don’t you show him around the house? Help him get used to his new home.”

“Like a fu—” Austin started but saw his mom pinch up her face at just the first half-syllable of his favorite profanity. “Like some kind of houseguest? Are you serious?”

“He’s not even just a house guest,” Martha corrected. “He is now part of the Christie family. And your responsibility. So show him around.”

“The Christie family? So he’ll be keeping dad’s name whenever you decide to change your last name back?”

Martha smirked. “Old habits die hard. I guess he’ll be a part of whatever family you decide. He’s your dog.”

Martha crouched down again and let the dog give her a nice, big lick across the face and baby talked him for a few more seconds. Austin got off the couch. He dangled his hand in front of Elvis’s nose and let the dog sniff him. The way you’re supposed to introduce yourself to a new, strange dog. Elvis sniffed then licked the hand.

“See!” Martha exclaimed. “Friends already!”

“Sure.” Austin grimaced and wiped the slobber on the leg of his jeans. “Come on, Elvis.”

Austin walked off from the living room to the kitchen. It was about lunchtime and he needed a snack. The dog could learn a lot by watching him eat. The dog followed obediently. It’s attentiveness bothered Austin. Things not adherent to their own freewill always seemed to bother Austin. He felt it a sign of weakness. In his seventeen years of life, he found he didn’t much have a taste for things weaker than himself. He fully realized the irony of how much weaker he was than most boys. Boys like Greg Atwood. Maybe Austin hated himself a little for that.

“This is the kitchen,” Austin said, waving his hand to display the standard suburban kitchen, just the next room over from the family room. There was a granite countertop with stools to sit at, and a kitchen table. In the couple years leading up to the divorce, and certainly in the year since, Austin had little need for these chairs and stool, because he always ate in his room. No need for a family kitchen table when there was no family. At least, that was his logic. Not the same for dear Martha.

“There is dog food in there,” Austin said pointing at the pantry. “But you already have a bowl. Mom must have put that out for you.”

Austin looked back at Elvis and saw the dog look from him to a bowl of dog food. Some dry kibble. Elvis licked his chops and it pissed Austin off.

Go fucking eat. Just walk over there and bury your face in your fucking food.

Elvis looked back at Austin waiting for the command. The approval to have at his food. Austin would not give it. Instead, he turned toward the fridge/freezer combo, and opened both doors to see what was inside. Per the usual, there was nothing. Nothing he wanted at least. So he went back to the pantry found a box of Frosted Flakes.

“Come on,” he said to Elvis as he left the kitchen with the dog in tow. “I guess I’ll have to show you my room.”

The two went upstairs. It was the cookie cutter house of their particular suburb. The image of that old song – little boxes on the hillside and they all look just the same. Directly to the left of the top of the stairs was the master bedroom where Martha slept and where, when they were married, Wayne Christie hardly ever made it home to for the night. To the right and down the hall was the FROG, Full Room Over the Garage. That was Austin’s room. Now Elvis’s room, too. Before you got to Austin’s room, there was a small bathroom to the right and another smaller bedroom to the left. Austin asked why the dog couldn’t keep that one and his mother didn’t even consider it. That little room was once supposed to be a nursery for a baby that never came to existence. Austin thought that she must be holding out some sort of sacred vigil in her heart for the idea. That was pretty dumb, he thought. Maybe a little sad, but he wasn’t sure about that.

They went into Austin’s room and Austin sat on the bed with his bowl of cereal. The dog did what it seemed to always do. Elvis sat a couple feet away from Austin and waited to be told what to do. They really did train the shit out of this dog. There was a dog crate in one corner of the room and a fluffy dog bed. Austin set his cereal on his nightstand and stood. He walked over to the dog bed and pointed at it.

“When we are in here, you sit there,” he said, over annunciating each word like an idiot American tourist trying to get the locals to understand a language they’ve never heard before.

Elvis stood from his waiting position, eyeballed Austin’s cereal once more, than went over to his new bed. He stomped in a few circles then plopped down. Austin went back over to his bed and took up his bowl. He slowly lifted the spoon with a cluster of Frosted Flakes, dripping milk, the mingled smell of dairy and sugar ripe in the air. Austin locked eyes with Elvis as he shoved the spoon into his mouth and crunched on the cereal. The dog watched every miniscule move Austin made. Austin ate the entire bowl, watching Elvis with every bite. In Austin’s mind, if Elvis was hungry enough, he’d let Austin know. And he didn’t seem to be hungry enough.

After the cereal was finished Austin lay out on his bed. He didn’t want to look at the dog so he looked at the ceiling. A lot of kids Austin’s age had posters on the wall to look at. Or art work even. Austin had a slanted ceiling with popcorn texture, and he just went on looking at those grainy bumps. He thought about how, when he was a kid, he would come into this room and pick at the popcorn ceiling, flaking it onto the bedroom floor. His father hated it. It was such a childish thing to do, Wayne let his son know. He needed to grow up. Everyone had to at some point and to Wayne Christie, there was no time like the present. So, Austin started growing up. Now, as he looked at the same popcorn texture of his ceiling, he hated that little kid that used to stand on the bed and rub his fingers across it, peeling it off. What an idiot. And with that thought swirling in his head. Austin fell asleep.

*****

Austin didn’t expect to sleep so hard, but he must have, because he ended up having a very detailed dream. It was about Elvis, and in the dream, the dog sat in the same corner. He was propped up in his dog bed, staring at Austin, waiting to be told what to do. Austin opened his mouth to tell Elvis to lay down and leave him alone, but the dog spoke first.

“Speak,” Elvis said.

“What?” Austin asked while subconsciously pushing himself further away from the dog, back onto his bed.

Elvis stood up from his dog bed, on hind legs, and walked much like a human over to Austin’s bedside. On his back paws, standing over top of Austin, the dog looked giant. He flipped his little Elvis swoop of curled fur from his eyes and said, “You can always speak to me. I’m your best friend. What kind of best friend would I be if I couldn’t listen?”

Elvis let the question hang in the air, but it sounded rhetorical to Austin so he didn’t answer.

Elvis crooked his head in the direction where the empty cereal bowl still sat. “But friends always take care of each other, right? A two way street. I’ll always listen to you but you have to feed me.”

He walked towards the end of Austin’s bed. Austin opened his mouth to speak, but his lips could only form the words. His tongue and vocal cords wouldn’t do their part. Sorry, formed on his lips but no sound.

That was okay, Elvis knew what was on his mind. “No need to be sorry. You just have to feed me.” He stooped lower, causing his front legs to bend at weird angles. The dog gave Austin’s feet a sniff. Not an investigatory type of sniff, but a long, pulling sniff, trying to really get the scent of Austin back through his nose and into his throat. Next, he ran his tongue up the length of one of Austin’s feet.

That tickles, Austin tried to say, but still, his voice was muted.

“I know it tickles,” Elvis said, lifting his tongue off of Austin’s feet, then licking his own chops. Really savoring the sweat he’d just mopped up between Austin’s toes. “It won’t tickle though if you don’t feed me.”

The strike was fierce and quick. Elvis, with every one of his pointed fangs barred and an inch longer than Austin remembered, lunged forward. The dog wrapped it’s entire mouth around Austin’s ankle and bit down hard. The teeth sunk deep and Austin would swear he felt the clicking of Elvis’s teeth on his tibia. The pain was excruciating, worse than anything Austin had felt in his life. Elvis yanked at the leg for a moment, like it was a piece of raw meat. He released quickly, though. Only a few seconds. Austin could hear the teeth sliding from the muscly flesh of his calve. The sound of squeezing ground meat into a casing. He looked down at the several teeth holes in his leg and for a moment, the wounds were fresh, pink, straight down to his muscle. Then the blood came in a violent gout, soaking the foot of the bed in seconds.

“Just feed me,” Elvis said, licking the blood from his shaggy maw. “It’s the right thing to do.” Elvis walked over to his bed then and went back down to all fours, leaving Austin to moan over his bleeding leg. Elvis did a few circles on his own bed, finding just the right spot for maximum comfort, then plopped down.

Austin went on trying to cry out in pain, even wanting to scream for his parents to come help. He didn’t ask anything of them as a point of principal, but the pain was surreal. The blood was beginning to soak into his mattress and he thought he might never stop bleeding. But his voiced was silenced. The only screaming he could hear wasn’t coming from his mouth. It was coming from downstairs, and it was coming from his mom.

5

Austin shot up in bed. Judging by the light outside he’d been napping all afternoon. He was filmed in sweat, which brought the dream back to mind. He looked down at his leg. No blood. Elvis was still over in his corner, asleep. And he wasn’t swallowing down some of the chunks of Austin’s calve muscle. He was just sleeping.

“Austin, get down here!”

How long had she been calling him?

“Coming mom!” he shouted back.

He stood up from his bed and Elvis immediately stood from his. Austin jumped back a step, expecting the dog to rush him. Elvis only stood there, head cocked to one side as if to say, why are you being so strange?

“You just stay here,” Austin said. He lifted up his hand to signal stop and repeated himself. “Stay.”

Elvis stepped back into his bed and plopped down. Austin backed out of his room, toward the corridor and the top of the staircase. Half way there he turned away, forcing himself not to break into a run.

He found his mom in the kitchen. Martha asked “Where have you been all afternoon?”

“One second, mom,” Austin said. He went over and picked up Elvis’s food bowl. He filled it with dog food and took it back upstairs. Martha watched all of this with astonishment. She wasn’t really sure about therapy dogs to begin with. It was something she had done some cursory research and asked a few therapists friends about. She never expected it would work quite this fast, if at all.

A minute later, Austin came back to the kitchen. “Sorry, mom,” he said. “I had to feed Elvis but didn’t want him to have to come all the way down here.” The truth was that he didn’t want the dog anywhere near him. Not after that awful dream.

“I see that,” Martha said, sounding impressed. “That’s great, honey. I could tell you weren’t excited about a dog, but I think it will be good for you.”

“I think so, too,” Austin said. He heard the hint of pride in his mom’s voice. He hated it.

“Just make sure he doesn’t make a mess up there.” The hint of pride was gone.

That’s the Martha that Austin knew. Always making sure to manage her own low expectations. Austin shrugged and said, “Sure thing, mom.”

Martha turned toward a pot on the stove and said, “Your father should be here soon for dinner.”

Austin let out a small groan as he went back toward the stairs to take Elvis his food. Martha heard it and tried to ignore it. Tried to ignore the small spasm of anger she felt in her chest. Sometimes that boy could be so damned ungrateful. Didn’t he understand that she and his father already hated each other enough? It was hard enough to have to sit across from the table from each other once a week. And they did it all for him, just so he could groan about it.

Austin returned a few minutes later and sat at the kitchen table. He collapsed into the chair like a man just condemned to prison. Martha couldn’t stand it anymore.

She swiveled away from the food that she was prepping. “You know, we do these dinners for you, Austin. It’s to make sure that you at least have the semblance of a stable home environment.”

“I know, mom,” he said. He was thinking something entirely different.

Why don’t we just do separate everything like every other divorced family.

“Divorce isn’t easy on a kid,” Martha went on. “We’re just trying to make it as easy on you as possible. So we try to do things together.”

Doing things together is how we ended up here to begin with. How you ended up with me. And we know how unhappy that all turned out.

“I know mom,” Austin said. “I get it.” It would be in Austin’s nature to lie at this moment and say he appreciated it, but even some lies are just too big. And he did get it, even if he thought it was fucking stupid. More stupid than forcing him to take care of a dog.

“I’m here,” a shout came from the corridor to the front door. It was Wayne, and the recited apology came right on cue. “Sorry I’m late.”

Austin had to bite back on a comeback trying to roll off his tongue. The night was already ruined by this familial charade. No need to make it worse by being a smartass. Wouldn’t that be interesting though? He doubted his parents even knew he had it in him. He kept so quiet around them. They knew about the anger – it was almost impossible for someone paying even a little attention to not see that – but did they know how sharp his tongue was? Maybe they ought to get cut on that sharp tongue sometime.

Wayne Christie came around the corner from the front door into the kitchen. “Good evening folks. Got tied up at work.”

“That’s okay, swee—” Martha started, but cut herself off. The divorce was only a year old and she still had a habit of referring to her ex with those typical pet names. She sure as hell didn’t find her husband to be sweet in any measure.

Wayne saw his son slouched at the table. Such poor posture. He looked like a little weakling. The type of kid that resorted to using a pencil in a schoolyard fight instead of his fists. Truth be told, that’s what pissed Wayne off about Austin’s suspension more than anything. What kind of fucking pussy tries to stab a kid instead of swing on him.

“How was your day, Austin?” Wayne asked as he joined his son at the table.

“It was okay,” Austin said.

“It was a great day,” Martha amended. She walked over to the table and put a huge pot of beef stew down and distributed bowls at three place mats. The smell of meat in the stew hit Austin’s nose. All the juices. The dead cow’s blood. He remembered the blood gushing from his leg in that dream and felt a phantom pain in his ankle. His appetite was gone.

“Wasn’t it?” Martha asked, prodding Austin to speak. He knew what she was getting at.

“Yeah,” Austin said, unenthusiastically. “I met the dog.”

“The dog has a name,” Martha said while trying to ignore the subtle roll of Wayne’s eyes.

“Yeah, sorry,” Austin said. “I met Elvis today.”

“That’s great,” Wayne said. He did not sound like he thought it was so great at all. “Where is the mutt?”

“He’s not a mutt,” Martha said. “He’s a golden doodle. That’s about the best type of dog you can buy these days.”

“Sorry,” Wayne said.

“He’s upstairs,” Austin cut in. He could tell by their tone that either parent could move this discussion into fighting territory. And although he didn’t give a tin shit if his parents fought, he didn’t want to sit through another elongated dinner where they took cheap shots at each other. “The stew smells great, mom.”

All three of them took turns spooning the beef and broth and assortment of vegetables into their bowls. As a shredded piece of beef flopped into his bowl, covered in a pinkish broth, Austin started thinking about what his exposed calve muscle looked like. He started to play with the beef in the bowl, pulling at the stringy chunks of meat, yanking it apart, all the while thinking of the wound he received during his nightmare. Beef, leg muscle. It all kind of looked the same after it was ripped open. Just raw meat.

It took his father three times, asking the same question for Austin to finally realize he was being spoken to. “Hello, come in Austin,” Wayne said, imitating his police officer, walkie voice. “I said, are you ready to get back to classes tomorrow.”

Austin looked at his father wide eyed, letting the words finally register. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah I guess so.”

Guess so, Wayne thought sardonically. Little pussy enjoyed his vacation, probably sucking on mama’s tit for three days. Well, that kid, Greg whatever his name was, probably was going to beat Austin’s ass tomorrow when he got back to school. And that was all well and good in Wayne Christie’s mind. It would be good for the kid – a solid lesson in consequences. Way better than buying the kid some fucking dog.

6

The run in with Greg Atwood did happen, as Wayne suspected it would. But it wasn’t quite the beatdown Wayne had predicted. Austin spent most of his first day back from suspension ducking down hallways and taking the long way to different classes to avoid Greg and had succeeded right up to the end of the day. But, like everyone else, there was one place that Austin had no choice to visit periodically throughout the day. His locker. And that is exactly where Greg was waiting for him.

Austin had just offloaded the books he didn’t need for his homework that evening when Greg walked up and slammed his locker door shut. Austin spun in Greg’s direction, saw who it was and considered running. He knew that would just make it worse.

“Welcome back to school, little bitch,” Greg said. He looked ferocious, towering over Austin by several inches. “Did you leave all your pencils in your locker? Guess this will have to be a fair fight.”

Greg’s punch landed in Austin’s gut like a pile of bricks. Austin doubled over, trying to catch his breath. He tried to gasp the words I’m sorry, but all that came out was a haggard wheeze. Later, Austin was happy he couldn’t apologize. The only thing he was sorry about was that the pencil hadn’t plucked Greg’s eye out.

Greg pushed Austin up into a standing position and slammed his back against the row of lockers. They shook violently. Austin’s entire world vibrated as his brain rattled from the slam. Austin opened his eyes only for a second to see that Greg was cocking his fist back. He prepared himself for impact, but before Greg could knock his nose in, someone called from down the hall.

“You boys stop rough housing in the hall!” the shrill voice said. Austin thought it must be Mrs. Frey, a peacock-ish woman that taught 7th grade math.

Greg’s fist fell, and cupped over Austin’s shoulder, giving it an overly friendly pat. “Just a little rough housing,” Greg whispered. “I know where you live, you fucking bitch.”

Austin tried to hide the fear he felt at this statement. He must have failed because Greg’s smile grew. Greg went on, “That’s right. Up near Knox Hill. I can see your house from up there. I might come around this weekend and if I catch you up on the hill, I’ll fucking bury you up there.”

Greg lifted Austin’s shoulders off the lockers and slammed him again. Then he turned and went out the doors, leaving Austin to quickly turn and bury his face in his own locker. He didn’t want anybody to see the few tears that were trickling over the rim of his cheeks. Tears are embarrassing for any boy Austin’s age. But they’re twice as embarrassing when the tears are the result of anger. It was okay. Austin fished a thick text book up to his face. He’d stumbled across this trick a couple years ago when his anger was at its max inconsolability, and found it worked. He bit down on the edge of the textbook, hard. He could feel the soft binding of the book give under the pressure of his teeth. And he squeezed down harder. Even harder still, until he felt a penny-ish taste starting to drip over his teeth and onto his tongue.

When he took his head out of the locker, there was no longer any tears. It was just an easy exercise he taught himself. That way, he didn’t lose his cool.

7

Life was pretty uneventful for a few days after the run in with Greg. Just a normal school week after having spent a few days suspended. People looked at you a little funny after a suspension, gauging how bad of a kid you must be. Maybe wondering what the next escalation from you last misbehavior might be. Austin didn’t like the attention, and hurried through his school days. And then the following Thursday, Elvis the dog spoke to him.

Austin appreciated a routine – something that his mother had expertly detected in him. She hadn’t gone to Old Dominion University for all those years to get her Master’s for nothing. It was part of Martha’s plan with the dog. Elvis would bring a sense of routine to Austin’s life that would become a second nature comfort in his life. She smiled to herself as she saw her son come home several days in a row and follow the same pattern. Greet her, put down his bags and books on the kitchen table, and immediately go upstairs to check on Elvis. It was a good routine and developed so quickly. She, Martha thought, was well on her way to unlocking the mysteries of her son’s mind. Or at least treating the maladies of her son’s mind.

Up in his room, Austin could not have been more of a mystery to his mother. More than she’d ever know. He’d spend most of his time staring at the ceiling. He fed Elvis, that dream still clear and present in his mind. But for the most part, Austin just wondered what the hell he was here for, in a big, macro-view sort of sense. The big question. What’s it all about? No 17 year old kid really knows the answer. They really shouldn’t be anywhere close to figuring it out. In fact, a kid that age considering that question too intensely, might just do something unstable. And if they already have a predilection for instability, something truly horrific could happen. And an intense instability that had been lingering in Austin’s mind, even in his very essence, was about to click on.

Elvis perked up in his bed. The movement was dramatic and swift enough to catch Austin’s attention out of his periphery vision. He looked toward the dog and the dog looked back at him. Austin had grown used to the dog over the past week. He did not feel therapized by the dog, as his mother suspected he would be, but Elvis wasn’t so bad to have around. In that moment, looking into each other’s eyes, with Elvis’s head cocked to the side – an inquisitive look, Austin thought – he might even say Elvis was a cute dog. Elvis was big, and the shaggy golden curls gave him an all-American look that was against every living instinct Austin had in him. Austin wanted ugly and raw things in his life. When he did listen to music it was metal, or maybe some punk. Angry shit. He probably needed a pit bull or a rottweiler. And instead Martha showed up with this primped, curly haired thing. But at that exact moment, Austin kind of liked his dog. Elvis looked cute, even regal. And it had only been that one bad dream, right?

“Austin,” Elvis said.

Austin squealed like a strangled goose and threw himself upright and against the wall at the head of his bed. The sound of his own voice let him know it was no dream. There was no need for pinching. All of his senses were heightened by the object of fear, Elvis sitting upright in his bed, in the far corner of the bedroom. Austin could feel the coolness of the drywall against his back. He could smell his own sweat starting to wring out of his forehead. And he could taste the brothy stew his mother had made a week ago. The taste of bullion and blood.

The dog spoke again and Austin watched as his lower jaw opened around the words, not moving quite like a human’s would, but sounding exactly like a human. “Yes, Austin. I am speaking to you.”

“Why?” Austin said. It came out as little more than a crack in his throat.

“Because you need me to speak to you,” Elvis said. “You need me to speak to you as much as I need you to speak to me. You need somebody like that in your life, don’t you?”

Austin didn’t have an answer for that question.

“Everyone needs a somebody. Somebody to talk to, Mr. Rogers shit, you know?”

It was weird to hear his dog swear. Austin thought the dog had a neutral accent, something from the mid-coast. No country twang or northeast edge. Just a voice. A man’s voice.

“Did you want me to talk like my namesake, or something?” Elvis asked. “Thank you, thank you very much? No, not doing that shit.”

“How’d you know that I was thinking about your voice?” Austin asked. It was the first coherent thought he’d had in the last minute.

“You might not have pieced it together by now, but I’m a pretty special dog.”

Elvis stood upright and took a few steps over toward Austin’s bed. Austin made a quick push to the far side of his mattress, and Elvis sat on his haunches.

“I understand,” Elvis said. “A lot to take in. But try to get your mind around it, okay? This is some real Homeward Bound, Dr. Doolittle shit. And we have a lot to talk about.”

Austin closed his eyes and leaned his head up against the wall. It felt nice and cool, and most importantly, felt rooted in reality. His mind kept going back to that dream when Elvis first arrived. He’d spoke in that dream, too. But it was so noticeably a dream that it didn’t seem to compress his sense of sanity like a trash compactor. In the last several moments, sanity had flown the coop.

No.

Austin told himself he was going to open his eyes. The dog would be back in his corner, and not a word would have been actually uttered between the two of them. Real was real. And talking dogs were far from real.

He opened his eyes to find that none of what he’d just coached himself on was true. In fact, without Austin noticing, Elvis had crawled up on the bed and was a mere two inches from his face. Austin yelled, making that same suffocating goose’s honk, and tried to push himself away. He nearly spilled over the edge of the bed but caught himself.

“Maybe this will help,” Elvis said, then licked Austin across the face. “I come in peace.”

The dog drool slicked his cheek. The smell of dog breath filled Austin’s nose. All of it reconfirming that this was Austin’s current reality.

“Is everything okay up there?” Martha called from downstairs.

Austin didn’t answer at first. Just went on staring at the dog right in his face, not believing for a second that a creature that should not be speaking, but was speaking, could possibly come in peace.

“You have to say something,” Elvis whispered. “If she comes up here and finds you talking to the dog, you’re fucked.”

“I’m okay, mom!” Austin shouted.

There was no answer. Martha must have been satisfied that all was well.

“No follow ups from mom,” Elvis said, settling into a sit position at the foot of the bed. “Seems par for the course, right?”

“What does that mean?”

The dog’s shoulders rose and fell in an eerily human shrug. “Only you would know. She’s not my mother. My mother was some breeders hole to stick a golden retriever’s cock into. That was about all. A real bitch, in the literal sense. Dead not too long after I came into this world. Ain’t that a bitch? In the figurative sense.”

“I don’t know. Might be better that way.”

Elvis made a clicking noise with his mouth. “Tssk, tssk. Don’t be so rude about your mother. They’re important to have.”

“Why am I talking to you then?”

Elvis looked contemplative for a few seconds, really considering his answer. “I guess we will have to find that out.”

Austin nodded, almost settling into a sense of ease, talking to his dog. But no, he couldn’t grow entirely comfortable. Austin was a hard sell when it came to generating interests. Nothing seemed to keep his attention for more than a few minutes. Some things, a few days. One topic that had always held his attention, and likely always would, was serial killers. As his dog sat across from him on his bed, jawing away like one of Martha’s more talkative clients, Austin was reminded of David Berkowitz – The Son of Sam. The dude who told the world his neighbor’s dog was possessed by a demon that told him to kill people. Of course, Berkowitz was full of shit. He just killed for the hell of it, and the possessed dog story was a nice dash of seasoning to make it all the more fun for him.

“Are you listening to me?” Elvis said, cutting through Austin’s dense thoughts.

“Sorry, yes.” Austin said. He noted for himself that, unlike Berkowitz, he was not even remotely making this up. More important than that, he hadn’t killed anyone. Maybe punched a few trees until his knuckles were raw, but that helped keep things in check.

“Good,” Elvis went on. “It’s important you pay attention. You might not realize this, Austin, but you’re quite unwell. I want to help.”

“Who says I’m unwell?”

“I believe if you gave it a moment to think on it, you yourself might say that you’re unwell.”

Austin didn’t really care to give much thought to that idea, but the room was silent. Neither he nor the dog spoke for a few moments. It was enough for Austin’s thoughts, all of his fears and anxieties, maybe even some hopes and dreams, to flood over him like a wave in a storm. It was a lot to feel in a single moment. On the tail end of all those emotions was a frustration, an anger, that it was a dog that triggered these thoughts, for just a second. All of it combined made him want to cry.

He didn’t though. He wasn’t so weak, like his father thought. “Maybe a little unwell,” Austin whispered. “But not irreparable.”

“Nothing is irreparable,” Elvis agreed. “So let’s figure out what we need to do.”

“Okay,” Austin agreed. He was sliding right into that comfort level he told himself not to only moments earlier. But the dog made so much sense. And if the source of so much sense was coming from an illogical tool, who cares? A job completed, no matter the method, was a job completed.

“I think we should do something about that Greg Atwood kid,” Elvis said. There was even a bit of a snarl on the word, kid.

Austin’s stomach curled up at the name. “How do you even know who Greg Atwood is?”

“It’s my job to therapize you, isn’t it? That’s why your mom got me. And that Greg, well, he causes you a lot of trouble, right?”

“I don’t know about a lot.”

“But enough trouble.”

“Sure. I don’t really like him.”

“Well, what do you suppose we do about it?”

Austin took a moment to consider the correct answer. In that time he remembered some vile things Greg had said to him over the past couple years. Threats he’d made. The physical violence, every distinct, cold feeling of being shoved into a locker, too hard.

“I’d like to beat the shit out of him,” Austin said.

“That’s interesting,” Elvis said. It was said with earnest and it made Austin’s stomach heave again to see the dog’s tongue loll out of his mouth.

“Sure,” Austin said, “but I have no way of making that happen. I couldn’t even beat him with a pencil in my hand.”

“You did hurt him, though.”

“Barely.”

Elvis plopped down into a curled up, laying position. “A guy like Greg has more than flesh and bone to damage. And trust me, that deeper part of him was hurt when you tried to stick a pencil in his eye socket. And we can hurt him worse.”

The way Elvis said all of this with a lackadaisical ease made Austin nervous. He was scared to ask a follow up, but he forced himself to. “What do you think we should do?”

“He practically told you, right? We know exactly where he’s going to be this weekend. And what did he say, precisely?” Elvis picked up his head. The next words he spoke came out in Greg Atwood’s exact voice. Not an imitation, but his actual, note-for-note voice. “If I catch you up on the hill, I’ll fucking bury you up there.”

Austin shivered. “Yes, that is what he said.”

“I know a thing or two about burying,” Elvis said, letting his head down again, relaxing. “And I don’t think he’ll bury us on Knox Hill this weekend if we pay him a visit. Just something to consider.”

Austin did just that. He considered and considered until he fell asleep. Elvis slept at his foot. It was the first time Austin allowed that.