THE CRUMBS WHICH FALL 1/3
Trigger warning for sexual violence, physical violence, and all kinds of unpleasantness.
"Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.”
Matthew 15:27
PART ONE: IN THE SHED
It was thrown into the corner of the dirty stall days ago and left to wait. Wait or die. Die or wait. Its head pounded with the options as the other stock - products, they called them, or pets, or dogs, or human animals - was led in. Some were dumped, filthy and diseased, as unceremoniously as it; others were led and given a towel or small blanket to rest on. These were the ones it watched as they were fed and watered, as handlers came and went.
But it - a dog that had been known as many things throughout its life, though it had not had a name for awhile - was ignored, even as it stuck its fingers through the bars of the stall and asked with its eyes. Just a bit of water to stop the earthquake repeating over and over in its head like a bad record. Just a bit of food to stop the shaking in its hands, to bring some color to its pallid cheeks. Just a bit of water to soften the cracks in its lips.
No one came, and after two days, it gave up and went to the back of the stall where it could rest its head against the cool ground in relative peace.
The auction has began and it is sure it will not live. The ropes its old master left knotted around its wrists have grown tighter over the days and buried themselves into its flesh. There are infected wounds - a ragged hole approximately the size of a human mouth on its shoulder, and the wrists, and a puncture wound near its ribs that constantly oozes pus - and the smell of them fills its nostrils, like rotting fish or corpses.
It knows a lot about corpses. It has shared space with them. It has been fed them. They - the people, the masters - grind up dead dogs and put them in low-grade food for other dogs. It thinks this will be its own fate within a few days.
One of the handlers that works for the auction comes for it. The dog stands (swaying) at the door. It is cooperative, but still, the handler is rough and jerks the bindings around its wrists tighter. He drags the dog towards the small arena where the stock is paraded before men and women with white pieces of cardboard with black writing on it.
There is a white sticker with similar black writing on the dog's rump, the place that should be rounded out with fat but is instead a hollow contrast to its pelvic bones, the ones that stick out the back and hurt when it sits. It thinks they call this writing a number, but can't remember. The bright lights shining down on it make it dizzy, and it wishes again for just a bit of water. Just a mouthful. A mouthful can't be too much to spare, can it?
The handlers don't hear the silent plea of dogs and instead surround it, poking and prodding it to move around the arena, for the bidders to get a good look. This dog, number 19 says the announcer, is a grade mutt. Small but hardy. Fights fast and dirty. Used to be pretty good on the amateur circuit, won some men an ok amount of money.
“It don't look like much now, but clean this puppy up and you'll have yourself a nice little firecracker.”
Once, a little girl named it Puppy and brought it bits of cookies when she got home from school. Sometimes that master would let the little girl lead the dog she called Puppy around the yard, and the dog was always on its best behavior. That little girl was kind to it, and then she grew up to be a young woman whose boyfriends found entertainment in taunting the dog, poking at it through the barbed wires of its cage to make it duck and dodge until they finally got in a good smack. There were no more cookies.
Distantly, there is bidding. The dog is dizzy and confused and the handlers poke at it with an electric stock prod, though there is no shock - not yet - just the jab that makes it scatter across the pine shavings. It stumbles and grabs on to the bars of the stock panels making this little showcase ring. It nearly falls anyway with its hands still tied together and balance shot. A handler descends on it, jeering. The dog tries to move away - stumbles - grabs at the bars - misses and goes down on its knees. The handler is laughing, one of the mean ones, a man who used to be a boy who pulled the wings off of flies. The dog raises its arms to ward off a blow, but the handler hits that special button on the prod and the electricity burns hair and sizzles on the delicate underside of the dog's arm.
The dog cries out and the bidding dies off. Who wants a dog that still has its tongue? They can get rowdy, you know, and keep the neighbors up.
The dog feels only pain, sees only the blur of faces as they all lean forward in their seats for the kill. If it could see their eyes it would find them small and glassy, like a rabid wolf settling in on its prey. The crowd wants blood. The lights are too bright.
The pathetic mongrel thing with the burned arm and bound wrists finds some small amount of strength somewhere inside it and moves, fast like the announce promised, its feet hardly leaving imprints in the dusty shavings. The handler is proud of himself and used to being the wolf, the one to settle things, and so does not see this dog-turned-fox as it dances near, and even when he sees the fists swinging, he does not recognize the attack, because even the wildest dogs would never -
The fists - clenched together to create one, spiked with the sharp ridges and valleys of knuckles - slam true into the handler's nose. Blood gushes over the dog's hands and the handler's shirt. The handler falls and the dog goes in for the kill, its eyes flat and dead, but there are other handlers that rush to the defense of their compatriot. Their fists and boots and rods hit the dog all at once, and it falls - unconscious - even as they rear their limbs back for another round of blows.
It wakes in the same stall as before. For the briefest of moments, it thinks the scene in the auction ring was only a dream, and then its mind connects with its body to find it a screaming mass of blood and bruises. If it had any water left, there would be tears, but it doesn't and there isn't and so it just lays there, wishing to die.
A man appears. There's a bill of sale in his hand and a frown in his eyes. The dog sees at least two of him, maybe more, wavery ghosts at his flanks. It drags itself, most of its weight on the panels of the stall, to its feet. It can feel the fracture in the large bone of its right leg, put there by a steel-toed boot. It limps with a heavy bob of the head, teeth gritted to hold in the cries.
The man, the new master, is wordless. He opens the gate and grabs the bit of rope trailing from the dog's wrists. The dog follows, its steps a shuffle-shamble behind long, healthy strides. It drags itself into the trailer behind Master's truck and collapses again. The trailer is cheap and the wind whistles through the cracks. The dog watches the pavement pass just feet below him at insane speeds, but its eyes make nothing of it.
There are people who love nothing more than a kill, nothing more than to watch the dim light in a dog's eyes fade and go out. New Master must be one of those. No one else would spend hard-earned money on this wretched bag of bones, if not to extinguish it.
The drive is long and the dog in the shoddy trailer drifts into something like sleep. It doesn't awaken when the truck stops or when the door is opened to shine light onto its emaciated frame but only when Master grabs the rope and tugs. The dog is on its feet at a speed they both thought impossible. It limp-hops to the ground, bits of gravel digging into the bottom of its bare feet.
The house is a nothing-special in the middle of nowhere, but the dog knows it will never step inside. Sure enough: it is led around back. There's a section of privacy fence - not connected to the home like a yard but a free-standing square like a cage. Master opens it up and pulls the dog inside.
“Don't try anything,” Master says, his first words. “I'll be right back. You wouldn't get far.”
The dog blinks and crumples on the ground in an almost-controlled move. The frown grows deeper in Master's eyes but he leaves all the same, latching the gate from the outside. The dog trembles in the short grass. It sees no blood or gore in the pen, but there is a tiny shed with a closed door; the bodies could be in there. It can't smell them, but it feels sure, even with the tauntingly bright grass tickling its cheek.
A length of snaking green cable is tossed over the fence, its end on the outside. Shortly after Master follows through the gate, his hands full. He sets a bucket on the ground - water? water! - and dumps the contents of another next to it. The dog struggles to move, to reach.
“Stand, and then don't move,” Master says.
The dog looks towards the bucket pleadingly - it can smell the water, though it's tainted with something else - and stands, all weight on one foot. Master grabs the end of the green cable and makes water come out of it in a small pounding stream. He begins to douse the dog with it, standing far enough away to not get hit with the ricocheting drops. The water peels away weeks or months or years of dirt and grime and blood and sweat and it hurts, but the dog does nothing but lower its head and close its eyes when the stream reaches its face and hair. It licks needfully at the dirty water as it slides across its lips, not mindful of the filth that comes along with it. Its hair begins to unravel from the rat's nest it had collected into, with long, tangled chunks falling in front of its eyes and over its shoulders. New and old wounds are uncovered. It is cold, even on this mild spring day.
The stream stops and the dog peeks at Master. He is splashing around in the bucket and comes out with a sudsy sponge. He approaches the dog now with a sort of grim determination on his face. He begins to scrub, the sponge like wet sandpaper against reddening skin. He holds up each of the dog's arms with one hand while scrubbing with the other, circles around to scrub at the dog's back, kneels to handle genitals and legs. The dog does not wince until a hand grabs at its broken leg, and then it can't stop the whimper that comes out.
Master pauses and tilts his head to look at the leg from another angle. It is green from ankle to knee and swollen, maybe twice the size of the left. “Shit,” he says. “Fuck. I bet it's broken.” He sits back on his heels, staring at the offending limb. “Fucking hell,” he mutters.
“What now?” another voice says. The owner of it rattles the gate and then squeezes in, a hulk of a man, eyebrows bushy and dark. He stops and stares at the shivering, soaped-up dog. “Fucking hell is right,” he says. “You take that piece of shit back right now.”
Master laughs without humor. “I thought you'd say that. But look at this - they broke its leg at the auction.”
“That's six weeks of rehab, buddy.”
“Well, look at it. It would've taken six weeks anyway. But vets are fucking expensive, and a cast, and... Grab that hose so I can rinse it off before the soap dries.” The big man hands Master the green thing and water comes out of it again, sending the soap off the dog in rivers that collect at its feet. “Other than that, what do you think?”
“I think you're punishing me. This piece of shit isn't going to do anything but cost money. How much did you give for him? It was too much, I'll tell you that. It ain't worth the bullet to put it down.”
The dog shrinks back. Big Man grabs its arm and jerks it forward a step. “You don't move unless we tell you,” he says. “Lesson starts now.”
“Don't be a dick,” Master says. “Let me see your knife so I can get rid of this rope.”
The dog holds in a cry - and manages not to flinch away again - as Master brings the blade to its hands. He saws at the knots and bits of soggy rope float to the ground. After some careful cutting, he slips the blade between the dog's wrists and cuts the final bit of rope. Long sections peel from the dog's raw wrists with a slurp, revealing raw, infected skin underneath.
“That could make a man puke,” Big Man says, and turns away.
Master takes each of the dog's hands and turns them this way and that, looking at the wounds. “They'll heal up in a few days I think. I've got some cream to help.”
“I'm going home,” Big Man says, still turned away.
Master drops the dog's hands in a hurry. “You're supposed to help me.”
“Yeah, well, I didn't know you were going to bring home a money trap. Besides, all these doctor and mommy games are your job. Call me when it's ready for some training.”
The dog, abandoned by the arguing men, stretches out its arms experimentally, one on each side. It's been a long time since it had the freedom to move its hands independently. It wiggles its fingers and rolls its shoulders and the corners of its mouth turn up towards its ears in something like a smile. It even forgets the pain, which has centered itself in the broken leg and is sending rhythmic throbs up its body.
Big Man leaves, throwing a wave over his shoulder, and Master turns back to the dog. It slaps its arms back to its side guiltily.
“You look a lot better already,” Master says. “A few meals, a little R&R, you'll be in good shape.”
The dog just looks at him with big, pale eyes.
“Someday I'll learn that talking to animals is worthless,” Master says, and goes to rummage in the pile of things that came from the second bucket.
There is a spray that burns. There is a goopy cream. There is a bandage or two or three on the worst wounds. There is water and a mushy animal-grade gruel that sticks in the dog's throat. And then the dog is put into the shed with a bucket of water and a ratty blanket and told to stay off its leg until a vet can look at it. The dog doesn't know what a vet is, but it is happy enough to heed the advice all the same. It settles down against the wall with the bucket of water at its hip and the blanket around its shoulders and it gets to work on its tangled hair with increasingly nimble fingers.
It's mostly dark in the little shed, but the dog doesn't mind; it can feel its way through the hair. It's calming to do it. Every now and then it pauses to dip its fingers in the water and suck, just enough to remind its tongue what water is. It doesn't think, though there could be a lot to think about. It knows better. All the thoughts in the world won't make any difference to what happens to it. It's up to Master now.
Eventually its hair is untangled the best it can be by just fingers. It drinks a bit more water - permitting itself the luxury of sticking its entire face in the bucket and slurping away - and then lays down to sleep.
Master brings it food and fresh water four more times (and it sleeps in between) before the mysterious vet comes. Master puts a collar around the dog's neck - a scratchy thing that is, nonetheless, better than burning ropes - and snaps a lead to it. The dog doesn't remember ever having an actual collar before. It reaches up to touch it and finds a tiny padlock in lieu of a buckle.
Master says, “Hands off,” and it clutches its hands to its stomach instead.
The vet is a gruff older man with a belly that makes it hard for him to kneel down and look at the dog's leg. He huffs and puffs and pokes and prods while Master stands to the side with the leash in his fist. The dog blinks at him through mahogany bangs with just the hint of curl.
“I'd say it's probably a hairline fracture. We can x-ray it, which will require an office visit--”
“I don't think I can afford that.”
“--or we can just toss a good splint on it, keep weight off it, and it should heal up on its own.”
“Let's do that.”
The vet man gets up laboriously. He shoots a red-faced glare at the dog, like it holds the blame. “This thing is in awful shape, Mal. Are you taking on charity cases now?”
Master laughs. “It would seem so, doc.”
“I'll go grab the supplies out of my truck.”
The dog can't help but reach up to scratch at its neck where the collar is resting. Master puts his hand out - the dog flinches and stumbles before realizing the hand is too slow for a hit - and touches the dog's hair, strokes. “You're kind of pretty all cleaned up,” he says gently. The dog looks down at its dusty toes.
The vet returns and roughly fits the dog with a contraption that cuts off the circulation to its foot and makes it hard to move, but from what Master and Vet Man are saying, it will fix the leg that is so green and painful. It doesn't know how it will fight like this, but maybe it won't have to. It's never known a dog that was too injured to fight and not immediately put down, but it's heard people say “there's a first time for everything,” like when a little thing like it beats a dog three times its size.
Master helps it back to the shed. He has to help, because the dog can't quite get his balance right with all the new extra weight on the leg. The dog collapses gratefully onto its blanket and is left in the dark with the itchy collar still around its neck. It scratches at its neck, and then squeezes its fingers under the wrapping around its foreleg and scratches there, and then back to the neck. The burn on its arm is starting to itch as it thinks about healing, too, but it settles with just poking its nails at the healthy skin on the very outskirts of the injury.
It passes the time the way it always does. Everyone has a happy place, a beach or a childhood tree house or in the arms of a woman. The dog's is not quite so clear - it doesn't know what a beach is, nor a tree house, and it has never known love or even sex - but it's a happy place all the same, incorporeal as it is. It goes there and drifts.
Without any sort of grueling training exercises, the days pass slow and lazy. Master starts leaving the shed door unlocked so the dog can shuffle out into the sun for the afternoon. With water and food twice a day, its skin smooths and belly begins to round out until it's fat and sleek like those well-bred pets it has seen with their masters ringside at fights.
Alone in the middle of the day - maybe a week after being bought, but probably more - the dog grows bored of sleeping in the sun and drags itself to its feet. It still hurts to put weight on the leg, but not too badly to keep off it with cabin fever dancing all along its skin. It limps slowly to the fence, maybe seven steps, and has to stop to rest, leaning against the weathered boards. Once it catches its breath, it begins to limp around the perimeter of its little paddock, stopping every few steps to rest. How quickly it lost all its muscle mass! How heavy the tiny amount of body fat it has gained is! And with the stint so burdensome - it doesn't even notice the rattle of the lock and then Master stepping inside the gate, a ball in his hand.
“You're up,” Master says.
The dog looks at him with wide eyes from the other side of the enclosure, which is really only a handful of running strides away. There is a low noise - a mixture between a growl and a whimper - and the dog rushes to try to get back to the shed, where it's supposed to be, but it stumbles on a bit of weeds and falls.
All those years of fighting to live kick in and it twists mid-fall so the unbroken side hits the dirt. It knocks the wind out of its lungs, what little of it there was, and it lays there, body stretched towards the shed just a few steps away, waiting for the punishment.
There isn't one. Master rushes and kneels next to the dog, reaching with kind hands to touch its shoulder and help it sit. “Are you ok?”
He doesn't wait for an answer (why would he?) but begins running his hands over the dog, checking for new sore spots. There will be a bruise on the hipbone that still rises sharply over the belly, but the dog is otherwise unharmed. Master brushes dirt off the bare shoulders and offers a smile that the dog does not know how to return.
“I brought you something.” He picks up the ball he dropped next to him in his worry. It is green and misshapen. “I was having a snack and thought - maybe you would like some.”
He holds it out to the dog. It stares for a moment then takes the ball slowly. This is a trick, for sure, but it doesn't know what kind. The ball is nice to touch, smooth against its fingertips, but it just sits there with the ball in its hand, watching Master. And Master just watches back, as if the dog should be doing something it isn't.
“It's an apple,” Master says. “You eat it. Food.” He pantomimes bringing food up to his mouth and chewing. “See?”
It turns the apple in its hand and reaches up to scratch at the stupid collar with the other one.
“Bite into it,” Master says.
The dog hesitates, but brings the thing Master called “apple” to its mouth. Experimentally, it licks the apple and finds no more reason to believe it's food. Still, Master is watching, and so it presses its teeth against the curve of flesh.
Something amazing happens. Its teeth sink in - it was not entirely sure they would- but more importantly, there is an explosion in its mouth of sweet and tart and -
It makes a noise, a pleasure warble deep in its throat, and tears a chunk of fruit into its mouth. It sucks on it with its eyes closed. In the back of its mind, it's still sure this is a trick, but it no longer cares. It knows now what delicious means.
Master laughs, but not at all the mean laugh the dog is used to, just a normal one. “You like it? I think you like it.”
The dog almost commits the sin of agreeing, of nodding as it takes another bite (and then another and another), but it stops itself just in time so only its eyes are smiling yes yes yes.
From now on, a bit of fruit appears along with the mush of watered-down kibble in its food bucket.
The dog is sitting in the doorway of the shed as a light drizzle falls outside when Master's friend, the Big Man, comes to him.
“Get inside,” he says, and the one of his voice makes the dog rush in a stumbling crawl.
Big Man approaches, the silhouette of a dark monster against the backdrop of a gray day. He grabs the dog's arm - wrenches it - and flips it over on the dirt.
“Get on your hands and knees.”
The dog does, wary of the splinted leg that is still weak and achey.
Big Man fumbles. The dog is beginning to wonder just what is going on here when a ragged-nailed hand grabs its hips and then there is an excruciating pain. Something new, again.
The dog's arms go weak and rubbery. It tries to crawl away but Big Man's hands and the thing inside - the new horrible thing - don't allow it. A strangled cry comes out of the dog's throat. Big Man grunts and grabs at its hair, jerking a fistful so the dog doesn't fall on its face. He anchors himself with it. The dog feels blood running down the back of its legs and claws at the dirt, trying to get away.
The dog is too weak, but at least it doesn't last long. Big Man grunts again and then climbs to his feet. The dog hears the click of a zipper being pulled and the clink of a belt buckle far too clearly. It doesn't look back at Big Man. Instead it crawls the few feet to the wall and curls up, face in the corner. It waits for Big Man to leave - he closes the door behind him to leave the dog in darkness - and then it starts to cry.
Master is late with dinner. When he pulls open the shed door, a flashlight under his armpit and a bowl in his hand, the dog is back in the corner.
“Hey,” Master says, “I've got food. I finally remembered to buy some strawberries. I think you will like them.”
The dog doesn't even look up, just pulls its arms tighter around its knees. It is cold; its blanket is balled up in the opposite corner.
Master sets down the food and reaches for the blanket. “I was thinking you need a name. I mean, there wasn't one on your papers...” He steps, redirects the flashlight to make sure he is seeing correctly. “Oh my god, is this blood?”
The dog presses further into the corner.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
Master kneels next to the dog, sweeping the light over its body. There is dirt smudged across its knees. He reaches out and the dog, backed into the corner, snarls. Master jerks back quickly as the dog's eyes flash.
“Jesus,” Master says, “all right then.”
On his way out, Master shoves the food bowl across the floor at the dog.
It waits a long time to make sure Master is really gone and then begins to pick at the food. Blood is gummed across the back of its thighs and it moves carefully. It plucks bits of kibble and munches on them without tasting. It eats the strawberries last, but doesn't taste them, either. Now it knows what the other dogs meant when they asked, do they come for you at night?
When Master brings breakfast the next morning, he doesn't say a word. There's no fruit, just soggy kibble. It's not even softened with broth but with water so it tastes even more like cardboard than usual. The dog would know; it has eaten cardboard before.
Master takes the bloodied blanket with him and brings it back a few hours later, still stained but smelling fresh. He drops it into the shed and then turns in the doorway to face the yard, features lost in shadow.
“I've decided to call you Cooper,” he says. “Your name, I mean.”
The dog was staring at its hands thoughtlessly but now it looks up, something written all over its face for the first time since Big Man came to visit.
Master turns towards it - him, Cooper - and offers the smallest smile. “I'm sorry for being...mean. Yesterday. It's just that things were going so well and - I forgot that you might still be scared sometimes. I'll try not to forget again.”
Cooper looks back at his hands, but this time he's hiding a smile behind his hair.
Every time Master comes out to the shed, he says the dog's name, and every time he says it, the dog is more sure - even with the pain in that secret place that Big Man gave him - that he is more than just a dog. He has no illusions that he is the same as the pets he's seen, those pampered companions, but he's not a worthless, nameless dog, either.
He is Cooper.
For now.
The vet comes to take off the splint, and he also sticks Cooper in the rump with needle after needle, each one seeming a mile long and seeming to pump gallons of burning liquid under the skin. “We have to make sure you don't get sick,” Master says, and Vet Man sneaks a glare at the tone in his voice. The next needle jabs harder.
And then there's a bath. The cool water feels good in the midday heat, and it feels even better on the shriveled and pale skin of the newly-healed leg, but when Master approaches with a sponge, Cooper shies away like a skittering colt, even though he knows it could earn him a beating. It was bad enough to let that balding vet touch him; he isn't going to let Master do it, too.
“You have to get clean, Cooper,” Master says. He almost looks hurt. “Are you going to wash yourself?”
The dog stares at Master and then at the sponge in his hand. It's just a quick three steps until he is close enough to grab the sponge away, and then he scoots away in the wet grass. While Master watches, Cooper scrubs his own skin raw, then steps back obediently for a rinse.
As long as there's no touching.
Master even gives Cooper a towel to dry off with, and then they sit together in the sunshine on a spot of dry ground. They aren't too close, but even still, Cooper is wary and on alert. He has to fight off the drowsy-making effect of the warm sun.
Master lies on his back and gazes up at the clouds. Cooper doesn't know what to do, so he just sits, running his hand over the light fluffy hair on his legs. One of them is far skinnier than the other. Still, he likes the feel of his own skin, clean and softened with all that food and water.
“I've been trying to convince Tom to retrain you as a house pet. So you won't be hurt like you were when I got you again.” Master turns his head to look at Cooper's face above him. “I don't know why, but I think you're special. I guess I have gone soft.”
Cooper bites at his lower lip. He knows what the individual words mean, even the sentences - he understands the language just fine - but he has learned that he will never be able to see what humans call the big picture. Cooper has no point of reference for this one-sided conversation, but even if he did - well, people lie all the time. They think dogs are too stupid to know the difference. So to Cooper, “special” is as meaningless as “Tom.”
But all the learning (the kind of training dogs get that is the indirect result of living among human cruelty) can't stop Master's kindness from feeling good.
Master studies Cooper for long enough that the dog starts to feel worried that he has misbehaved. At last, Master says, “Can you understand me?”
Cooper looks at the grass.
“Cooper, look at me.”
He does, even pushing his hair out of his eyes. Master's eyes are dark and sweet, like a cow Cooper once shared a stall with.
“Shake your head 'yes' or 'no.' You can understand me, right? Even when I'm not telling you what to do?”
Cooper bites harder on his lip and draws blood. His nerves scream at him that it's a trick, but still, he is unsure - maybe just because he can't see where this is going. He looks around for a clue. There is nothing but the grass and the fence and the shed and the two of them.
He doesn't meet Master's eyes again as he bobs his chin in the tiniest of nods.
“I knew it!” Master says, and the smile is audible in his voice. “I knew you were smart. Can you talk, too? I know you still... um, you still have your tongue.”
It takes another long moment for Cooper to find a second dose of courage, but he gives another tiny nod.
Master's smile is as blinding as the sun and he sits up in his excitement. “Talk to me, then!”
Cooper shrinks, hunching his shoulders around himself. The first lesson of being a dog: Never let them hear your voice. A cry of pain was bad enough, but words? They were a death sentence.
“Hey,” Master says, his voice going soft again, “I'm not going to hurt you.”
Cooper has been told that lie before. Then again, Master hasn't ever hurt him. But just as a word makes its way to the tip of his tongue, Cooper remembers Big Man and the blanket covered in blood and clamps his mouth shut tight.
Even when Master asks again, Cooper just keeps his eyes on the ground and hands clenched together. After awhile, Master has other things to do and leaves Cooper alone again, back in a world he understands.
Cooper is on the ground, untangling his hair for the umpteenth time. Big Man stalks into the paddock like a huge angry hornet and Cooper is on his feet before the gate closes. Running. Swift and light, despite the weeks - almost months now - he has spent sedentary. He is suddenly sure that with a running start, he can jump and reach the top of the fence, and then pull-scramble himself up and over. The splinters in his toes would be worth it, just to avoid -
Big Man is fast, too, and in shape. As Cooper's feet leave the ground, hands reaching for the top of the fence slats in a prayer, Big Man slams into him, redirecting his momentum horizontally.
Cooper hits the fence face-first. His nose snaps - pop! - and gushes blood. He falls. He wipes away the blood coating his lips, but there is more to replace it instantly. The fence looms impossibly high above him. Just as panic made him believe it was possible to scale it, defeat makes him believe it to be at least thirty feet tall, an enclosure for giants, not dogs on the short side.
Big Man reaches for him with a clawed hand. Cooper rolls away and gets his feet under him. It seems his fighting reflexes had only been sleeping under the lull of a name and the daily three square.
“Run,” Big Man says, but Cooper already is, a rat on a wheel.
Big Man picks up the long whip Cooper didn't see him drop when he came in. Cooper is sure it has been modified with a sharp bit of metal at the end; he can see it flash in the sun. He has been blooded by such a “motivational tool” before.
“Faster,” Big Man says.
Cooper picks up speed while Big Man tracks him, following just close enough that Cooper stays within the reach of the whip.
Big Man cracks the whip just to scare Cooper, to make him pump his legs faster.
Around and around. Cooper's heart races. He has to hold a hand up to his nose to redirect the blood flow away from his mouth so he can breathe. His legs already feel like they are on fire.
The whip cracks again. This time the barbed tip hits a freshly-closed scar on Cooper's back and opens it up again.
Despite the increasing weight of his limbs, Cooper tries to pick up the pace. He can feel himself slowing. Big Man confirms it by hitting Cooper with the whip again. And then again, even with Cooper moving as fast as he can, even with the yard all blending into a dizzying swirl of green grass and gray fence and blue sky.
“When you're ready to stop, just let me know,” Big Man says. Cooper is glad to hear he is winded, too.
But Cooper thinks he knows what happens when he stops so he doesn't, even as the cramps begin under his ribs and in his calves and thighs.
Maybe Big Man can see it on Cooper's face, the disgust and horror, because he seems to get angrier, and the snaps from the whip come every other stride until Cooper is covered in blood, front and back.
After a seemingly endless span of time marked only by the sting of the whip and the ragged scrape of Cooper's breath, he takes a hard stumble. His weak leg gives out and he falls onto his knee. The shock jars up to his nose, sending another spurt of blood into his hand.
Before Cooper can get up, Big Man is on top of him, hitting him with the handle end of the whip. Whack! Whack! Whack!
Cooper reaches for the whip, but his hands are slick with blood. Big Man laughs (or just grunts - he's harshly out of breath) as Cooper's hands grab, then slip away.
Cooper is weak. There are welts rising on his back. Every time Big Man's arm raises for another blow, Cooper's name becomes a little less clear and the worthless dog part of him grows until it blacks out everything else, until it can take away the pain, until it can summon reserves of energy and speed.
It's just a dog. A vessel for pain and violence. A thing full of giving hurt.
It rolls, taking a glancing smack to the ribs. Its legs become a single piston, knees to his chest and then shooting straight, hitting Big Man right between the belly button and groin.
The air shoots out of Big Man and he stumbles backwards, balance thrown off-kilter by the animal on the ground.
It rolls forward onto its feet and is all fists and feet and elbows and knees, raining blows onto its opponent. It ducks and dodges Big Man's hands. Sometimes it escapes unscathed and sometimes it takes the hit without expression. It is gaining ground, backing Big Man towards the gate, flinging blood at him with every movement.
There's the rattle of the latch at the fence. The dog doesn't notice, but Big Man does. “Stop!” he yells. “Stop it!” The words slur a little past a split lip.
But the dog doesn't stop, not until there is another man in the arena - a man it vaguely realizes is its Master - and that man is brandishing an electric animal prod. He moves to shove it between the fighters, aiming for the dog.
Immediately, the dog drops away, lowering its center of gravity and taking several backward steps. It keeps its hands in front of it like a shield, but it is off the offensive.
Big Man reaches to wipe the blood off his mouth, but instead smears the dog's across his face. He spits and sneers. “That thing better not have any fucking diseases,” he says.
Master looks at the dog, his face all a strange kind of shock. “What the fuck, Cooper!”
Cooper drops his hands. As the adrenaline fades, he begins to shake. The pain comes to him all at once, too, and he reaches up to touch his swollen nose. A moment later he sits heavily on the ground, staring at the blood in the grass.
Big Man is saying, “--a training exercise and it just went nuts. You gave that thing a fucking name? I'm going to have to go to the ER!”
“Jesus, he's a mess,” Master says.
“I had to defend myself!”
“How are we going to sell a pet with a broken nose?”
“How are you going to sell a pet that attacks people?! Lock that thing up and take me to the hospital!”
Master looks between them, but Big Man is the only one talking and the blood isn't stopping. “Get in the shed,” he says to the dog. “Now.”
He crawls, then finds his feet to stumble into the shed. The door closes heavily behind him and a moment later a padlock clicks, locking him in the dark with nothing but his injuries to keep him company.
A long, long while later Master throw open the door to the shed. Cooper is groggy, so Master has no problem snapping a lead to the collar around his neck and then sliding hobbles over both hands and feet.
“Get up,” he says, not sounding at all like the Master that Cooper has known all these weeks.
Cooper manages to get his feet under him and stand. Master leads him, shuffling, out into the yard where the lead is tied to a ring on the outside of the shed.
“Jesus,” Master mutters, and then he begins to spray down Cooper with the hose. “Haven't I been good to you? Why would you do this?”
Cooper hunches his shoulders and lowers his head. He keeps his eyes down, knowing there would be trouble if Master saw the things in them.
“Let me see your face.”
Cooper lifts his chin. Master uses a cloth to wash away the blood from his nose and mouth. Cooper's whole face is swollen and multi-colored.
“That looks awful,” Master says.
Cooper looks up for a brief moment. His eyes are a brilliant, furious hazel against the green of his nose. It's just for a single moment, and then he flutters his eyelashes and looks back at the ground.
“I think your nose might be broken but really it's too swollen to tell. Shit, Cooper, I can't afford to have the vet out here again. I can try to set it myself...” Master grabs Cooper's chin, trying to force eye contact. “Tom's saying you should be put down. Because you're dangerous.”
Then kill me.
He wants to say it but the words won't make the trek from brain to mouth. Instead, he just holds Master's gaze, staring him down.
Clean and medicated, Master locks Cooper back in the shed with the hobbles still on. He sleeps fitfully and is hardly surprised when Big Man visits him in his dreams and then in reality, Cooper's breakfast in his hand. Big Man's face looks almost as bad as the dog's.
Big Man closes the shed door most of the way behind him. There's enough light that Cooper can watch him poor the kibble on the ground and then piss on it.
Cooper thinks the joke is on Big Man, because dogs are used to missing meals, and if it became a regular thing - well, it wouldn't be the first time a dog had to drink urine. The dirt is worse, really; grits in your teeth and scratches your throat. Maybe Cooper will just politely request Big Man leave it all in the bowl next time.
Big Man does not zip up his pants. He drags Cooper to his feet by the hair and throws him against the wall of the shed. Splinters bury themselves in Cooper's cheek.
Big Man rips off the leg hobbles and kicks at Cooper's legs to spread them. Cooper feels his heat approaching at his back.
Cooper screams. When that doesn't stop Big Man from putting that thing inside him, the dog does something for the first time in his life: he begs.
The nose does not get set. The medicine cream does not get reapplied. Master stops coming and instead Big Man becomes the dog's only companion. There are no more beatings, but there is the other thing, the Worst Thing, and Cooper gets the feeling that Big Man likes the begging. It makes it go faster, but he comes back for more and more. Each time Cooper promises himself he will keep his mouth shut but now that the flow of words from synapse to tongue has been reconnected, he can't seem to make it stop.
Sometimes Big Man plays games with the food and sometimes he lets Cooper have it. Sometimes there will be days where there's no food at all, just the other thing, and then suddenly a meal of kibble and water.
Sometimes Big Man says words Cooper doesn't understand. One night he says, “You're a disgusting faggot,” and takes the food with him before Cooper can eat even a single bite.
Cooper can't even remember how to go away inside himself anymore and is forced to live in this very bad place, this worst place, all alone.
Until Master catches them.
The thing Big Man uses to hurt him - Cooper has one, too. A penis. It never meant anything to him before, just another body part, but in some ways it has now become the biggest question in his life: how can Cooper's be so harmless when Big Man's is so dangerous? And how is this related to dogs and people looking like the same things but being so different?
It hurts to think about, because Cooper has the feeling that just below these questions is a secret much bigger than just one dog's pain.
“Suck it.”
Cooper is on the ground, bare and vulnerable, and a monster is towering over him. The dog shakes his head, dirty hair a hurricane around his face.
“You little shit,” the monster says, “put it in your mouth.”
Big Man advances on Cooper. Cooper scrambles backwards in a crab walk, whispering “no, no, no” from a raspy throat.
“Yes,” Big Man says, but he has made a mistake - Cooper's head bumps against the door of the shed and it swings open. He flips over on his hands and knees and crawls out into the sun, trying to get his feet underneath him to run.
Big Man follows. Cooper digs his fingers into the dirt and pulls with all his might. He's struggling for speed on four limbs - just like the dog he is - but he can't seem to get upright and though Big Man is slowed with one hand holding up his pants he still catches up quickly.
Cooper makes it halfway across the yard. He can see the gate. It is swaying back and forth in a light breeze. He doesn't have any idea what he would do if he made it out, but he's sure that if he could beat Big Man to the gate, if he could taste the free air on the other side, he could escape the horror that has become his life. But halfway across the yard - Cooper still trying to get his feet under him - Big Man half-tackles, half-falls on top of the dog.
They hit the ground with a hard thump. Cooper takes most of the impact to his chin and his brains slosh around inside his skull. He flails, sending an elbow into Big Man's ribs, the back of a hand into his face. But Big Man outweighs him at least two times over and it doesn't take much, just a fist to the spine, for the monster to shove the dog flat into the dirt.
Cooper wails. It pierces out of the paddock and into the sky and somewhere, birds scatter and squaw. Big Man fumbles (this is always the worst part, the interminable waiting, knowing what's coming and just wanting to get it over with already) and Cooper can barely breathe under the suffocating weight. He doesn't want to breathe. He wants to die. He can see the gate, now open nearly a foot, now open almost enough that Cooper could squeeze through in a flash, and beyond it a place where they don't come for you at night (and in the morning and afternoon and every time in between). He is sobbing and he is reaching, one hand clawing at the ground and coming up with nothing but dirt and grass.
The pain is excruciating. It's worse when he fights but he can't give in. The monster on his back knows no words but only animalistic grunts and groans.
The gate comes open all the way and Cooper thinks he may be hallucinating in his frenzy, because it is Master rushing in and Master stopping just inside the fence and Master's mouth turning into a silent O of horror and Master rushing again to grab Big Man and though the monster is already withdrawing (Cooper gulps air as the weight is lifted) it is Master hitting Big Man with an unpracticed fist.
They yell and screech and somewhere, birds take flight and then pass over the paddock but Cooper doesn't notice. He draws his legs under him and crawls to Master, collapsing at his feet. He doesn't know what they are saying and he doesn't even know himself, clinging to Master's leg and saying, “please please please please please,” please what? don't let him hurt me anymore.
Big Man reaches for Cooper but Master stands between them, and then Big Man is leaving and Master is kneeling to sweep Cooper up in his arms, rocking him.
“Shhh, Cooper, I'm sorry, I didn't know, shhhh,” Master is saying, and after a long time Cooper stops crying and stops shaking and can think enough to pull out of Master's lap and arrange his face into a proper servile expression.
“Was it more than just this time?”
Cooper sniffles and nods. Master's face is all guilt mixed with hatred. “I shouldn't have left you with him. I'm sorry.”
Master stands and helps Cooper to his feet. The dog is a mess of dirt and grass stains and bruises. His nose is healing crooked. Master looks so sad, now that the anger has faded.
Cooper rubs at his eyes and Master leads him out of the enclosure.
"Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.”
Matthew 15:27
PART ONE: IN THE SHED
It was thrown into the corner of the dirty stall days ago and left to wait. Wait or die. Die or wait. Its head pounded with the options as the other stock - products, they called them, or pets, or dogs, or human animals - was led in. Some were dumped, filthy and diseased, as unceremoniously as it; others were led and given a towel or small blanket to rest on. These were the ones it watched as they were fed and watered, as handlers came and went.
But it - a dog that had been known as many things throughout its life, though it had not had a name for awhile - was ignored, even as it stuck its fingers through the bars of the stall and asked with its eyes. Just a bit of water to stop the earthquake repeating over and over in its head like a bad record. Just a bit of food to stop the shaking in its hands, to bring some color to its pallid cheeks. Just a bit of water to soften the cracks in its lips.
No one came, and after two days, it gave up and went to the back of the stall where it could rest its head against the cool ground in relative peace.
The auction has began and it is sure it will not live. The ropes its old master left knotted around its wrists have grown tighter over the days and buried themselves into its flesh. There are infected wounds - a ragged hole approximately the size of a human mouth on its shoulder, and the wrists, and a puncture wound near its ribs that constantly oozes pus - and the smell of them fills its nostrils, like rotting fish or corpses.
It knows a lot about corpses. It has shared space with them. It has been fed them. They - the people, the masters - grind up dead dogs and put them in low-grade food for other dogs. It thinks this will be its own fate within a few days.
One of the handlers that works for the auction comes for it. The dog stands (swaying) at the door. It is cooperative, but still, the handler is rough and jerks the bindings around its wrists tighter. He drags the dog towards the small arena where the stock is paraded before men and women with white pieces of cardboard with black writing on it.
There is a white sticker with similar black writing on the dog's rump, the place that should be rounded out with fat but is instead a hollow contrast to its pelvic bones, the ones that stick out the back and hurt when it sits. It thinks they call this writing a number, but can't remember. The bright lights shining down on it make it dizzy, and it wishes again for just a bit of water. Just a mouthful. A mouthful can't be too much to spare, can it?
The handlers don't hear the silent plea of dogs and instead surround it, poking and prodding it to move around the arena, for the bidders to get a good look. This dog, number 19 says the announcer, is a grade mutt. Small but hardy. Fights fast and dirty. Used to be pretty good on the amateur circuit, won some men an ok amount of money.
“It don't look like much now, but clean this puppy up and you'll have yourself a nice little firecracker.”
Once, a little girl named it Puppy and brought it bits of cookies when she got home from school. Sometimes that master would let the little girl lead the dog she called Puppy around the yard, and the dog was always on its best behavior. That little girl was kind to it, and then she grew up to be a young woman whose boyfriends found entertainment in taunting the dog, poking at it through the barbed wires of its cage to make it duck and dodge until they finally got in a good smack. There were no more cookies.
Distantly, there is bidding. The dog is dizzy and confused and the handlers poke at it with an electric stock prod, though there is no shock - not yet - just the jab that makes it scatter across the pine shavings. It stumbles and grabs on to the bars of the stock panels making this little showcase ring. It nearly falls anyway with its hands still tied together and balance shot. A handler descends on it, jeering. The dog tries to move away - stumbles - grabs at the bars - misses and goes down on its knees. The handler is laughing, one of the mean ones, a man who used to be a boy who pulled the wings off of flies. The dog raises its arms to ward off a blow, but the handler hits that special button on the prod and the electricity burns hair and sizzles on the delicate underside of the dog's arm.
The dog cries out and the bidding dies off. Who wants a dog that still has its tongue? They can get rowdy, you know, and keep the neighbors up.
The dog feels only pain, sees only the blur of faces as they all lean forward in their seats for the kill. If it could see their eyes it would find them small and glassy, like a rabid wolf settling in on its prey. The crowd wants blood. The lights are too bright.
The pathetic mongrel thing with the burned arm and bound wrists finds some small amount of strength somewhere inside it and moves, fast like the announce promised, its feet hardly leaving imprints in the dusty shavings. The handler is proud of himself and used to being the wolf, the one to settle things, and so does not see this dog-turned-fox as it dances near, and even when he sees the fists swinging, he does not recognize the attack, because even the wildest dogs would never -
The fists - clenched together to create one, spiked with the sharp ridges and valleys of knuckles - slam true into the handler's nose. Blood gushes over the dog's hands and the handler's shirt. The handler falls and the dog goes in for the kill, its eyes flat and dead, but there are other handlers that rush to the defense of their compatriot. Their fists and boots and rods hit the dog all at once, and it falls - unconscious - even as they rear their limbs back for another round of blows.
It wakes in the same stall as before. For the briefest of moments, it thinks the scene in the auction ring was only a dream, and then its mind connects with its body to find it a screaming mass of blood and bruises. If it had any water left, there would be tears, but it doesn't and there isn't and so it just lays there, wishing to die.
A man appears. There's a bill of sale in his hand and a frown in his eyes. The dog sees at least two of him, maybe more, wavery ghosts at his flanks. It drags itself, most of its weight on the panels of the stall, to its feet. It can feel the fracture in the large bone of its right leg, put there by a steel-toed boot. It limps with a heavy bob of the head, teeth gritted to hold in the cries.
The man, the new master, is wordless. He opens the gate and grabs the bit of rope trailing from the dog's wrists. The dog follows, its steps a shuffle-shamble behind long, healthy strides. It drags itself into the trailer behind Master's truck and collapses again. The trailer is cheap and the wind whistles through the cracks. The dog watches the pavement pass just feet below him at insane speeds, but its eyes make nothing of it.
There are people who love nothing more than a kill, nothing more than to watch the dim light in a dog's eyes fade and go out. New Master must be one of those. No one else would spend hard-earned money on this wretched bag of bones, if not to extinguish it.
The drive is long and the dog in the shoddy trailer drifts into something like sleep. It doesn't awaken when the truck stops or when the door is opened to shine light onto its emaciated frame but only when Master grabs the rope and tugs. The dog is on its feet at a speed they both thought impossible. It limp-hops to the ground, bits of gravel digging into the bottom of its bare feet.
The house is a nothing-special in the middle of nowhere, but the dog knows it will never step inside. Sure enough: it is led around back. There's a section of privacy fence - not connected to the home like a yard but a free-standing square like a cage. Master opens it up and pulls the dog inside.
“Don't try anything,” Master says, his first words. “I'll be right back. You wouldn't get far.”
The dog blinks and crumples on the ground in an almost-controlled move. The frown grows deeper in Master's eyes but he leaves all the same, latching the gate from the outside. The dog trembles in the short grass. It sees no blood or gore in the pen, but there is a tiny shed with a closed door; the bodies could be in there. It can't smell them, but it feels sure, even with the tauntingly bright grass tickling its cheek.
A length of snaking green cable is tossed over the fence, its end on the outside. Shortly after Master follows through the gate, his hands full. He sets a bucket on the ground - water? water! - and dumps the contents of another next to it. The dog struggles to move, to reach.
“Stand, and then don't move,” Master says.
The dog looks towards the bucket pleadingly - it can smell the water, though it's tainted with something else - and stands, all weight on one foot. Master grabs the end of the green cable and makes water come out of it in a small pounding stream. He begins to douse the dog with it, standing far enough away to not get hit with the ricocheting drops. The water peels away weeks or months or years of dirt and grime and blood and sweat and it hurts, but the dog does nothing but lower its head and close its eyes when the stream reaches its face and hair. It licks needfully at the dirty water as it slides across its lips, not mindful of the filth that comes along with it. Its hair begins to unravel from the rat's nest it had collected into, with long, tangled chunks falling in front of its eyes and over its shoulders. New and old wounds are uncovered. It is cold, even on this mild spring day.
The stream stops and the dog peeks at Master. He is splashing around in the bucket and comes out with a sudsy sponge. He approaches the dog now with a sort of grim determination on his face. He begins to scrub, the sponge like wet sandpaper against reddening skin. He holds up each of the dog's arms with one hand while scrubbing with the other, circles around to scrub at the dog's back, kneels to handle genitals and legs. The dog does not wince until a hand grabs at its broken leg, and then it can't stop the whimper that comes out.
Master pauses and tilts his head to look at the leg from another angle. It is green from ankle to knee and swollen, maybe twice the size of the left. “Shit,” he says. “Fuck. I bet it's broken.” He sits back on his heels, staring at the offending limb. “Fucking hell,” he mutters.
“What now?” another voice says. The owner of it rattles the gate and then squeezes in, a hulk of a man, eyebrows bushy and dark. He stops and stares at the shivering, soaped-up dog. “Fucking hell is right,” he says. “You take that piece of shit back right now.”
Master laughs without humor. “I thought you'd say that. But look at this - they broke its leg at the auction.”
“That's six weeks of rehab, buddy.”
“Well, look at it. It would've taken six weeks anyway. But vets are fucking expensive, and a cast, and... Grab that hose so I can rinse it off before the soap dries.” The big man hands Master the green thing and water comes out of it again, sending the soap off the dog in rivers that collect at its feet. “Other than that, what do you think?”
“I think you're punishing me. This piece of shit isn't going to do anything but cost money. How much did you give for him? It was too much, I'll tell you that. It ain't worth the bullet to put it down.”
The dog shrinks back. Big Man grabs its arm and jerks it forward a step. “You don't move unless we tell you,” he says. “Lesson starts now.”
“Don't be a dick,” Master says. “Let me see your knife so I can get rid of this rope.”
The dog holds in a cry - and manages not to flinch away again - as Master brings the blade to its hands. He saws at the knots and bits of soggy rope float to the ground. After some careful cutting, he slips the blade between the dog's wrists and cuts the final bit of rope. Long sections peel from the dog's raw wrists with a slurp, revealing raw, infected skin underneath.
“That could make a man puke,” Big Man says, and turns away.
Master takes each of the dog's hands and turns them this way and that, looking at the wounds. “They'll heal up in a few days I think. I've got some cream to help.”
“I'm going home,” Big Man says, still turned away.
Master drops the dog's hands in a hurry. “You're supposed to help me.”
“Yeah, well, I didn't know you were going to bring home a money trap. Besides, all these doctor and mommy games are your job. Call me when it's ready for some training.”
The dog, abandoned by the arguing men, stretches out its arms experimentally, one on each side. It's been a long time since it had the freedom to move its hands independently. It wiggles its fingers and rolls its shoulders and the corners of its mouth turn up towards its ears in something like a smile. It even forgets the pain, which has centered itself in the broken leg and is sending rhythmic throbs up its body.
Big Man leaves, throwing a wave over his shoulder, and Master turns back to the dog. It slaps its arms back to its side guiltily.
“You look a lot better already,” Master says. “A few meals, a little R&R, you'll be in good shape.”
The dog just looks at him with big, pale eyes.
“Someday I'll learn that talking to animals is worthless,” Master says, and goes to rummage in the pile of things that came from the second bucket.
There is a spray that burns. There is a goopy cream. There is a bandage or two or three on the worst wounds. There is water and a mushy animal-grade gruel that sticks in the dog's throat. And then the dog is put into the shed with a bucket of water and a ratty blanket and told to stay off its leg until a vet can look at it. The dog doesn't know what a vet is, but it is happy enough to heed the advice all the same. It settles down against the wall with the bucket of water at its hip and the blanket around its shoulders and it gets to work on its tangled hair with increasingly nimble fingers.
It's mostly dark in the little shed, but the dog doesn't mind; it can feel its way through the hair. It's calming to do it. Every now and then it pauses to dip its fingers in the water and suck, just enough to remind its tongue what water is. It doesn't think, though there could be a lot to think about. It knows better. All the thoughts in the world won't make any difference to what happens to it. It's up to Master now.
Eventually its hair is untangled the best it can be by just fingers. It drinks a bit more water - permitting itself the luxury of sticking its entire face in the bucket and slurping away - and then lays down to sleep.
Master brings it food and fresh water four more times (and it sleeps in between) before the mysterious vet comes. Master puts a collar around the dog's neck - a scratchy thing that is, nonetheless, better than burning ropes - and snaps a lead to it. The dog doesn't remember ever having an actual collar before. It reaches up to touch it and finds a tiny padlock in lieu of a buckle.
Master says, “Hands off,” and it clutches its hands to its stomach instead.
The vet is a gruff older man with a belly that makes it hard for him to kneel down and look at the dog's leg. He huffs and puffs and pokes and prods while Master stands to the side with the leash in his fist. The dog blinks at him through mahogany bangs with just the hint of curl.
“I'd say it's probably a hairline fracture. We can x-ray it, which will require an office visit--”
“I don't think I can afford that.”
“--or we can just toss a good splint on it, keep weight off it, and it should heal up on its own.”
“Let's do that.”
The vet man gets up laboriously. He shoots a red-faced glare at the dog, like it holds the blame. “This thing is in awful shape, Mal. Are you taking on charity cases now?”
Master laughs. “It would seem so, doc.”
“I'll go grab the supplies out of my truck.”
The dog can't help but reach up to scratch at its neck where the collar is resting. Master puts his hand out - the dog flinches and stumbles before realizing the hand is too slow for a hit - and touches the dog's hair, strokes. “You're kind of pretty all cleaned up,” he says gently. The dog looks down at its dusty toes.
The vet returns and roughly fits the dog with a contraption that cuts off the circulation to its foot and makes it hard to move, but from what Master and Vet Man are saying, it will fix the leg that is so green and painful. It doesn't know how it will fight like this, but maybe it won't have to. It's never known a dog that was too injured to fight and not immediately put down, but it's heard people say “there's a first time for everything,” like when a little thing like it beats a dog three times its size.
Master helps it back to the shed. He has to help, because the dog can't quite get his balance right with all the new extra weight on the leg. The dog collapses gratefully onto its blanket and is left in the dark with the itchy collar still around its neck. It scratches at its neck, and then squeezes its fingers under the wrapping around its foreleg and scratches there, and then back to the neck. The burn on its arm is starting to itch as it thinks about healing, too, but it settles with just poking its nails at the healthy skin on the very outskirts of the injury.
It passes the time the way it always does. Everyone has a happy place, a beach or a childhood tree house or in the arms of a woman. The dog's is not quite so clear - it doesn't know what a beach is, nor a tree house, and it has never known love or even sex - but it's a happy place all the same, incorporeal as it is. It goes there and drifts.
Without any sort of grueling training exercises, the days pass slow and lazy. Master starts leaving the shed door unlocked so the dog can shuffle out into the sun for the afternoon. With water and food twice a day, its skin smooths and belly begins to round out until it's fat and sleek like those well-bred pets it has seen with their masters ringside at fights.
Alone in the middle of the day - maybe a week after being bought, but probably more - the dog grows bored of sleeping in the sun and drags itself to its feet. It still hurts to put weight on the leg, but not too badly to keep off it with cabin fever dancing all along its skin. It limps slowly to the fence, maybe seven steps, and has to stop to rest, leaning against the weathered boards. Once it catches its breath, it begins to limp around the perimeter of its little paddock, stopping every few steps to rest. How quickly it lost all its muscle mass! How heavy the tiny amount of body fat it has gained is! And with the stint so burdensome - it doesn't even notice the rattle of the lock and then Master stepping inside the gate, a ball in his hand.
“You're up,” Master says.
The dog looks at him with wide eyes from the other side of the enclosure, which is really only a handful of running strides away. There is a low noise - a mixture between a growl and a whimper - and the dog rushes to try to get back to the shed, where it's supposed to be, but it stumbles on a bit of weeds and falls.
All those years of fighting to live kick in and it twists mid-fall so the unbroken side hits the dirt. It knocks the wind out of its lungs, what little of it there was, and it lays there, body stretched towards the shed just a few steps away, waiting for the punishment.
There isn't one. Master rushes and kneels next to the dog, reaching with kind hands to touch its shoulder and help it sit. “Are you ok?”
He doesn't wait for an answer (why would he?) but begins running his hands over the dog, checking for new sore spots. There will be a bruise on the hipbone that still rises sharply over the belly, but the dog is otherwise unharmed. Master brushes dirt off the bare shoulders and offers a smile that the dog does not know how to return.
“I brought you something.” He picks up the ball he dropped next to him in his worry. It is green and misshapen. “I was having a snack and thought - maybe you would like some.”
He holds it out to the dog. It stares for a moment then takes the ball slowly. This is a trick, for sure, but it doesn't know what kind. The ball is nice to touch, smooth against its fingertips, but it just sits there with the ball in its hand, watching Master. And Master just watches back, as if the dog should be doing something it isn't.
“It's an apple,” Master says. “You eat it. Food.” He pantomimes bringing food up to his mouth and chewing. “See?”
It turns the apple in its hand and reaches up to scratch at the stupid collar with the other one.
“Bite into it,” Master says.
The dog hesitates, but brings the thing Master called “apple” to its mouth. Experimentally, it licks the apple and finds no more reason to believe it's food. Still, Master is watching, and so it presses its teeth against the curve of flesh.
Something amazing happens. Its teeth sink in - it was not entirely sure they would- but more importantly, there is an explosion in its mouth of sweet and tart and -
It makes a noise, a pleasure warble deep in its throat, and tears a chunk of fruit into its mouth. It sucks on it with its eyes closed. In the back of its mind, it's still sure this is a trick, but it no longer cares. It knows now what delicious means.
Master laughs, but not at all the mean laugh the dog is used to, just a normal one. “You like it? I think you like it.”
The dog almost commits the sin of agreeing, of nodding as it takes another bite (and then another and another), but it stops itself just in time so only its eyes are smiling yes yes yes.
From now on, a bit of fruit appears along with the mush of watered-down kibble in its food bucket.
The dog is sitting in the doorway of the shed as a light drizzle falls outside when Master's friend, the Big Man, comes to him.
“Get inside,” he says, and the one of his voice makes the dog rush in a stumbling crawl.
Big Man approaches, the silhouette of a dark monster against the backdrop of a gray day. He grabs the dog's arm - wrenches it - and flips it over on the dirt.
“Get on your hands and knees.”
The dog does, wary of the splinted leg that is still weak and achey.
Big Man fumbles. The dog is beginning to wonder just what is going on here when a ragged-nailed hand grabs its hips and then there is an excruciating pain. Something new, again.
The dog's arms go weak and rubbery. It tries to crawl away but Big Man's hands and the thing inside - the new horrible thing - don't allow it. A strangled cry comes out of the dog's throat. Big Man grunts and grabs at its hair, jerking a fistful so the dog doesn't fall on its face. He anchors himself with it. The dog feels blood running down the back of its legs and claws at the dirt, trying to get away.
The dog is too weak, but at least it doesn't last long. Big Man grunts again and then climbs to his feet. The dog hears the click of a zipper being pulled and the clink of a belt buckle far too clearly. It doesn't look back at Big Man. Instead it crawls the few feet to the wall and curls up, face in the corner. It waits for Big Man to leave - he closes the door behind him to leave the dog in darkness - and then it starts to cry.
Master is late with dinner. When he pulls open the shed door, a flashlight under his armpit and a bowl in his hand, the dog is back in the corner.
“Hey,” Master says, “I've got food. I finally remembered to buy some strawberries. I think you will like them.”
The dog doesn't even look up, just pulls its arms tighter around its knees. It is cold; its blanket is balled up in the opposite corner.
Master sets down the food and reaches for the blanket. “I was thinking you need a name. I mean, there wasn't one on your papers...” He steps, redirects the flashlight to make sure he is seeing correctly. “Oh my god, is this blood?”
The dog presses further into the corner.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
Master kneels next to the dog, sweeping the light over its body. There is dirt smudged across its knees. He reaches out and the dog, backed into the corner, snarls. Master jerks back quickly as the dog's eyes flash.
“Jesus,” Master says, “all right then.”
On his way out, Master shoves the food bowl across the floor at the dog.
It waits a long time to make sure Master is really gone and then begins to pick at the food. Blood is gummed across the back of its thighs and it moves carefully. It plucks bits of kibble and munches on them without tasting. It eats the strawberries last, but doesn't taste them, either. Now it knows what the other dogs meant when they asked, do they come for you at night?
When Master brings breakfast the next morning, he doesn't say a word. There's no fruit, just soggy kibble. It's not even softened with broth but with water so it tastes even more like cardboard than usual. The dog would know; it has eaten cardboard before.
Master takes the bloodied blanket with him and brings it back a few hours later, still stained but smelling fresh. He drops it into the shed and then turns in the doorway to face the yard, features lost in shadow.
“I've decided to call you Cooper,” he says. “Your name, I mean.”
The dog was staring at its hands thoughtlessly but now it looks up, something written all over its face for the first time since Big Man came to visit.
Master turns towards it - him, Cooper - and offers the smallest smile. “I'm sorry for being...mean. Yesterday. It's just that things were going so well and - I forgot that you might still be scared sometimes. I'll try not to forget again.”
Cooper looks back at his hands, but this time he's hiding a smile behind his hair.
Every time Master comes out to the shed, he says the dog's name, and every time he says it, the dog is more sure - even with the pain in that secret place that Big Man gave him - that he is more than just a dog. He has no illusions that he is the same as the pets he's seen, those pampered companions, but he's not a worthless, nameless dog, either.
He is Cooper.
For now.
The vet comes to take off the splint, and he also sticks Cooper in the rump with needle after needle, each one seeming a mile long and seeming to pump gallons of burning liquid under the skin. “We have to make sure you don't get sick,” Master says, and Vet Man sneaks a glare at the tone in his voice. The next needle jabs harder.
And then there's a bath. The cool water feels good in the midday heat, and it feels even better on the shriveled and pale skin of the newly-healed leg, but when Master approaches with a sponge, Cooper shies away like a skittering colt, even though he knows it could earn him a beating. It was bad enough to let that balding vet touch him; he isn't going to let Master do it, too.
“You have to get clean, Cooper,” Master says. He almost looks hurt. “Are you going to wash yourself?”
The dog stares at Master and then at the sponge in his hand. It's just a quick three steps until he is close enough to grab the sponge away, and then he scoots away in the wet grass. While Master watches, Cooper scrubs his own skin raw, then steps back obediently for a rinse.
As long as there's no touching.
Master even gives Cooper a towel to dry off with, and then they sit together in the sunshine on a spot of dry ground. They aren't too close, but even still, Cooper is wary and on alert. He has to fight off the drowsy-making effect of the warm sun.
Master lies on his back and gazes up at the clouds. Cooper doesn't know what to do, so he just sits, running his hand over the light fluffy hair on his legs. One of them is far skinnier than the other. Still, he likes the feel of his own skin, clean and softened with all that food and water.
“I've been trying to convince Tom to retrain you as a house pet. So you won't be hurt like you were when I got you again.” Master turns his head to look at Cooper's face above him. “I don't know why, but I think you're special. I guess I have gone soft.”
Cooper bites at his lower lip. He knows what the individual words mean, even the sentences - he understands the language just fine - but he has learned that he will never be able to see what humans call the big picture. Cooper has no point of reference for this one-sided conversation, but even if he did - well, people lie all the time. They think dogs are too stupid to know the difference. So to Cooper, “special” is as meaningless as “Tom.”
But all the learning (the kind of training dogs get that is the indirect result of living among human cruelty) can't stop Master's kindness from feeling good.
Master studies Cooper for long enough that the dog starts to feel worried that he has misbehaved. At last, Master says, “Can you understand me?”
Cooper looks at the grass.
“Cooper, look at me.”
He does, even pushing his hair out of his eyes. Master's eyes are dark and sweet, like a cow Cooper once shared a stall with.
“Shake your head 'yes' or 'no.' You can understand me, right? Even when I'm not telling you what to do?”
Cooper bites harder on his lip and draws blood. His nerves scream at him that it's a trick, but still, he is unsure - maybe just because he can't see where this is going. He looks around for a clue. There is nothing but the grass and the fence and the shed and the two of them.
He doesn't meet Master's eyes again as he bobs his chin in the tiniest of nods.
“I knew it!” Master says, and the smile is audible in his voice. “I knew you were smart. Can you talk, too? I know you still... um, you still have your tongue.”
It takes another long moment for Cooper to find a second dose of courage, but he gives another tiny nod.
Master's smile is as blinding as the sun and he sits up in his excitement. “Talk to me, then!”
Cooper shrinks, hunching his shoulders around himself. The first lesson of being a dog: Never let them hear your voice. A cry of pain was bad enough, but words? They were a death sentence.
“Hey,” Master says, his voice going soft again, “I'm not going to hurt you.”
Cooper has been told that lie before. Then again, Master hasn't ever hurt him. But just as a word makes its way to the tip of his tongue, Cooper remembers Big Man and the blanket covered in blood and clamps his mouth shut tight.
Even when Master asks again, Cooper just keeps his eyes on the ground and hands clenched together. After awhile, Master has other things to do and leaves Cooper alone again, back in a world he understands.
Cooper is on the ground, untangling his hair for the umpteenth time. Big Man stalks into the paddock like a huge angry hornet and Cooper is on his feet before the gate closes. Running. Swift and light, despite the weeks - almost months now - he has spent sedentary. He is suddenly sure that with a running start, he can jump and reach the top of the fence, and then pull-scramble himself up and over. The splinters in his toes would be worth it, just to avoid -
Big Man is fast, too, and in shape. As Cooper's feet leave the ground, hands reaching for the top of the fence slats in a prayer, Big Man slams into him, redirecting his momentum horizontally.
Cooper hits the fence face-first. His nose snaps - pop! - and gushes blood. He falls. He wipes away the blood coating his lips, but there is more to replace it instantly. The fence looms impossibly high above him. Just as panic made him believe it was possible to scale it, defeat makes him believe it to be at least thirty feet tall, an enclosure for giants, not dogs on the short side.
Big Man reaches for him with a clawed hand. Cooper rolls away and gets his feet under him. It seems his fighting reflexes had only been sleeping under the lull of a name and the daily three square.
“Run,” Big Man says, but Cooper already is, a rat on a wheel.
Big Man picks up the long whip Cooper didn't see him drop when he came in. Cooper is sure it has been modified with a sharp bit of metal at the end; he can see it flash in the sun. He has been blooded by such a “motivational tool” before.
“Faster,” Big Man says.
Cooper picks up speed while Big Man tracks him, following just close enough that Cooper stays within the reach of the whip.
Big Man cracks the whip just to scare Cooper, to make him pump his legs faster.
Around and around. Cooper's heart races. He has to hold a hand up to his nose to redirect the blood flow away from his mouth so he can breathe. His legs already feel like they are on fire.
The whip cracks again. This time the barbed tip hits a freshly-closed scar on Cooper's back and opens it up again.
Despite the increasing weight of his limbs, Cooper tries to pick up the pace. He can feel himself slowing. Big Man confirms it by hitting Cooper with the whip again. And then again, even with Cooper moving as fast as he can, even with the yard all blending into a dizzying swirl of green grass and gray fence and blue sky.
“When you're ready to stop, just let me know,” Big Man says. Cooper is glad to hear he is winded, too.
But Cooper thinks he knows what happens when he stops so he doesn't, even as the cramps begin under his ribs and in his calves and thighs.
Maybe Big Man can see it on Cooper's face, the disgust and horror, because he seems to get angrier, and the snaps from the whip come every other stride until Cooper is covered in blood, front and back.
After a seemingly endless span of time marked only by the sting of the whip and the ragged scrape of Cooper's breath, he takes a hard stumble. His weak leg gives out and he falls onto his knee. The shock jars up to his nose, sending another spurt of blood into his hand.
Before Cooper can get up, Big Man is on top of him, hitting him with the handle end of the whip. Whack! Whack! Whack!
Cooper reaches for the whip, but his hands are slick with blood. Big Man laughs (or just grunts - he's harshly out of breath) as Cooper's hands grab, then slip away.
Cooper is weak. There are welts rising on his back. Every time Big Man's arm raises for another blow, Cooper's name becomes a little less clear and the worthless dog part of him grows until it blacks out everything else, until it can take away the pain, until it can summon reserves of energy and speed.
It's just a dog. A vessel for pain and violence. A thing full of giving hurt.
It rolls, taking a glancing smack to the ribs. Its legs become a single piston, knees to his chest and then shooting straight, hitting Big Man right between the belly button and groin.
The air shoots out of Big Man and he stumbles backwards, balance thrown off-kilter by the animal on the ground.
It rolls forward onto its feet and is all fists and feet and elbows and knees, raining blows onto its opponent. It ducks and dodges Big Man's hands. Sometimes it escapes unscathed and sometimes it takes the hit without expression. It is gaining ground, backing Big Man towards the gate, flinging blood at him with every movement.
There's the rattle of the latch at the fence. The dog doesn't notice, but Big Man does. “Stop!” he yells. “Stop it!” The words slur a little past a split lip.
But the dog doesn't stop, not until there is another man in the arena - a man it vaguely realizes is its Master - and that man is brandishing an electric animal prod. He moves to shove it between the fighters, aiming for the dog.
Immediately, the dog drops away, lowering its center of gravity and taking several backward steps. It keeps its hands in front of it like a shield, but it is off the offensive.
Big Man reaches to wipe the blood off his mouth, but instead smears the dog's across his face. He spits and sneers. “That thing better not have any fucking diseases,” he says.
Master looks at the dog, his face all a strange kind of shock. “What the fuck, Cooper!”
Cooper drops his hands. As the adrenaline fades, he begins to shake. The pain comes to him all at once, too, and he reaches up to touch his swollen nose. A moment later he sits heavily on the ground, staring at the blood in the grass.
Big Man is saying, “--a training exercise and it just went nuts. You gave that thing a fucking name? I'm going to have to go to the ER!”
“Jesus, he's a mess,” Master says.
“I had to defend myself!”
“How are we going to sell a pet with a broken nose?”
“How are you going to sell a pet that attacks people?! Lock that thing up and take me to the hospital!”
Master looks between them, but Big Man is the only one talking and the blood isn't stopping. “Get in the shed,” he says to the dog. “Now.”
He crawls, then finds his feet to stumble into the shed. The door closes heavily behind him and a moment later a padlock clicks, locking him in the dark with nothing but his injuries to keep him company.
A long, long while later Master throw open the door to the shed. Cooper is groggy, so Master has no problem snapping a lead to the collar around his neck and then sliding hobbles over both hands and feet.
“Get up,” he says, not sounding at all like the Master that Cooper has known all these weeks.
Cooper manages to get his feet under him and stand. Master leads him, shuffling, out into the yard where the lead is tied to a ring on the outside of the shed.
“Jesus,” Master mutters, and then he begins to spray down Cooper with the hose. “Haven't I been good to you? Why would you do this?”
Cooper hunches his shoulders and lowers his head. He keeps his eyes down, knowing there would be trouble if Master saw the things in them.
“Let me see your face.”
Cooper lifts his chin. Master uses a cloth to wash away the blood from his nose and mouth. Cooper's whole face is swollen and multi-colored.
“That looks awful,” Master says.
Cooper looks up for a brief moment. His eyes are a brilliant, furious hazel against the green of his nose. It's just for a single moment, and then he flutters his eyelashes and looks back at the ground.
“I think your nose might be broken but really it's too swollen to tell. Shit, Cooper, I can't afford to have the vet out here again. I can try to set it myself...” Master grabs Cooper's chin, trying to force eye contact. “Tom's saying you should be put down. Because you're dangerous.”
Then kill me.
He wants to say it but the words won't make the trek from brain to mouth. Instead, he just holds Master's gaze, staring him down.
Clean and medicated, Master locks Cooper back in the shed with the hobbles still on. He sleeps fitfully and is hardly surprised when Big Man visits him in his dreams and then in reality, Cooper's breakfast in his hand. Big Man's face looks almost as bad as the dog's.
Big Man closes the shed door most of the way behind him. There's enough light that Cooper can watch him poor the kibble on the ground and then piss on it.
Cooper thinks the joke is on Big Man, because dogs are used to missing meals, and if it became a regular thing - well, it wouldn't be the first time a dog had to drink urine. The dirt is worse, really; grits in your teeth and scratches your throat. Maybe Cooper will just politely request Big Man leave it all in the bowl next time.
Big Man does not zip up his pants. He drags Cooper to his feet by the hair and throws him against the wall of the shed. Splinters bury themselves in Cooper's cheek.
Big Man rips off the leg hobbles and kicks at Cooper's legs to spread them. Cooper feels his heat approaching at his back.
Cooper screams. When that doesn't stop Big Man from putting that thing inside him, the dog does something for the first time in his life: he begs.
The nose does not get set. The medicine cream does not get reapplied. Master stops coming and instead Big Man becomes the dog's only companion. There are no more beatings, but there is the other thing, the Worst Thing, and Cooper gets the feeling that Big Man likes the begging. It makes it go faster, but he comes back for more and more. Each time Cooper promises himself he will keep his mouth shut but now that the flow of words from synapse to tongue has been reconnected, he can't seem to make it stop.
Sometimes Big Man plays games with the food and sometimes he lets Cooper have it. Sometimes there will be days where there's no food at all, just the other thing, and then suddenly a meal of kibble and water.
Sometimes Big Man says words Cooper doesn't understand. One night he says, “You're a disgusting faggot,” and takes the food with him before Cooper can eat even a single bite.
Cooper can't even remember how to go away inside himself anymore and is forced to live in this very bad place, this worst place, all alone.
Until Master catches them.
The thing Big Man uses to hurt him - Cooper has one, too. A penis. It never meant anything to him before, just another body part, but in some ways it has now become the biggest question in his life: how can Cooper's be so harmless when Big Man's is so dangerous? And how is this related to dogs and people looking like the same things but being so different?
It hurts to think about, because Cooper has the feeling that just below these questions is a secret much bigger than just one dog's pain.
“Suck it.”
Cooper is on the ground, bare and vulnerable, and a monster is towering over him. The dog shakes his head, dirty hair a hurricane around his face.
“You little shit,” the monster says, “put it in your mouth.”
Big Man advances on Cooper. Cooper scrambles backwards in a crab walk, whispering “no, no, no” from a raspy throat.
“Yes,” Big Man says, but he has made a mistake - Cooper's head bumps against the door of the shed and it swings open. He flips over on his hands and knees and crawls out into the sun, trying to get his feet underneath him to run.
Big Man follows. Cooper digs his fingers into the dirt and pulls with all his might. He's struggling for speed on four limbs - just like the dog he is - but he can't seem to get upright and though Big Man is slowed with one hand holding up his pants he still catches up quickly.
Cooper makes it halfway across the yard. He can see the gate. It is swaying back and forth in a light breeze. He doesn't have any idea what he would do if he made it out, but he's sure that if he could beat Big Man to the gate, if he could taste the free air on the other side, he could escape the horror that has become his life. But halfway across the yard - Cooper still trying to get his feet under him - Big Man half-tackles, half-falls on top of the dog.
They hit the ground with a hard thump. Cooper takes most of the impact to his chin and his brains slosh around inside his skull. He flails, sending an elbow into Big Man's ribs, the back of a hand into his face. But Big Man outweighs him at least two times over and it doesn't take much, just a fist to the spine, for the monster to shove the dog flat into the dirt.
Cooper wails. It pierces out of the paddock and into the sky and somewhere, birds scatter and squaw. Big Man fumbles (this is always the worst part, the interminable waiting, knowing what's coming and just wanting to get it over with already) and Cooper can barely breathe under the suffocating weight. He doesn't want to breathe. He wants to die. He can see the gate, now open nearly a foot, now open almost enough that Cooper could squeeze through in a flash, and beyond it a place where they don't come for you at night (and in the morning and afternoon and every time in between). He is sobbing and he is reaching, one hand clawing at the ground and coming up with nothing but dirt and grass.
The pain is excruciating. It's worse when he fights but he can't give in. The monster on his back knows no words but only animalistic grunts and groans.
The gate comes open all the way and Cooper thinks he may be hallucinating in his frenzy, because it is Master rushing in and Master stopping just inside the fence and Master's mouth turning into a silent O of horror and Master rushing again to grab Big Man and though the monster is already withdrawing (Cooper gulps air as the weight is lifted) it is Master hitting Big Man with an unpracticed fist.
They yell and screech and somewhere, birds take flight and then pass over the paddock but Cooper doesn't notice. He draws his legs under him and crawls to Master, collapsing at his feet. He doesn't know what they are saying and he doesn't even know himself, clinging to Master's leg and saying, “please please please please please,” please what? don't let him hurt me anymore.
Big Man reaches for Cooper but Master stands between them, and then Big Man is leaving and Master is kneeling to sweep Cooper up in his arms, rocking him.
“Shhh, Cooper, I'm sorry, I didn't know, shhhh,” Master is saying, and after a long time Cooper stops crying and stops shaking and can think enough to pull out of Master's lap and arrange his face into a proper servile expression.
“Was it more than just this time?”
Cooper sniffles and nods. Master's face is all guilt mixed with hatred. “I shouldn't have left you with him. I'm sorry.”
Master stands and helps Cooper to his feet. The dog is a mess of dirt and grass stains and bruises. His nose is healing crooked. Master looks so sad, now that the anger has faded.
Cooper rubs at his eyes and Master leads him out of the enclosure.