Chapter 8 - Always the Alpha…
Horus pulled against his leash the next morning on the training field as John’s legs strained to hold the dog back from the bite sleeve.
“Dammit, John!” Harmon shouted. “This is what happens when you coddle a dog, when you let a dog spend too much time on the couch, when you feed a dog all that popcorn and potato chips.”
“He’s never been so wild!” John shouted back.
“He’s wild because he doesn’t have the confidence to face threat without tripping into his instinct. That’s because you haven’t trained him like I told you to!” Harmon snarled as he stood in front of Horus, waiting for the dog to obey John’s command and lower his haunches into a seated position, no matter how much the bite sleeve over Harmon’s left arm tempted the dog. “You’ve coddled that dog, and now I don’t have time to slowly raise the threat level. I have to throw too much threat at him, and so that dog trips into his wild mind.”
“At least he doesn’t retreat from the threat.”
Harmon’s eyes glanced briefly at John. “There’s that, but all the fury’s no good if Horus can’t use his brain to control it.”
Harmon spotted the nose of a car turn onto his drive. No one was scheduled to arrive during the morning to pick up a kenneled dog. No one had called Harmon asking for help with any training. Harmon regretted that he had only taken Harmon out from his kennel, because he wanted to help that dog concentrate by removing the distractions of the pack as Harmon worked Horus. His revolver remained in the van, where it would do him little good should two strangers and a third man ride in that approaching car. Harmon would very much regret his pack’s absence should he have to stand his ground and defend himself from killers a street boss sent from his prior lifetime. Horus would likely not be enough to save Harmon and his son if those intruders Harmon feared had found his property.
Harmon saw only a single passenger through the windshield as the car neared the training field. The visitor’s fleshy face and thick spectacles didn’t fit the image Harmon imagined was owned by the brutal men he sensed hunting him.
Harmon flashed his arm forward to present the bite sleeve to Horus, and the dog locked his jaws upon the burlap, again testing the stitches remaining in Harmon’s arm. A little extra padding better protected Harmon, and he slipped out from the sleeve with no further harm suffered to his injury. Horus kept his prize locked between his teeth, but the dog’s eyes never strayed from Harmon.
“That’s enough, John. Let Horus keep the sleeve and leash him at the edge of the field. I want that dog watching as we find out who’s paying us a surprise visit.”
Horus paid little attention to the heavy man who stepped out of the vehicle before striding across the training field to reach Harmon and his son. Harmon wasn’t surprised the dog perceived little threat from the man, who looked at a lost for breath following his walk over the field. Harmon knew no killer stepped from the car.
“Mr. Fowler?” The man offered his hand as he reached Harmon.
Harmon didn’t offer his own hand. “Excuse me if I don’t prefer to shake. My hands are plenty dirty, and I’m not in the habit of giving my hand to strangers. Perhaps I’m too distrustful, but I believe handshakes should be earned.”
“Of course. Excuse me,” replied the visitor. “I’m Gary Powell, and I’m the attendance and truancy officer at the high school. I’m very happy to help you with any questions you might still have, Mr. Fowler.”
Harmon narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any questions.”
Harmon seethed. He distrusted no institution more than he distrusted a school, and he resented no profession more than that of a teacher. The school drained what wealth he earned through the kennel by so unfairly taxing his property, though John depended on none of the school’s services. Harmon knew what was best for his offspring, and his boy didn’t deserve to be exposed to the curriculum that weakened their once-great nation. Harmon didn’t trust all those books, and he hated how teachers were never held accountable for the incompetence they displayed at the front of their classrooms. Harmon needed no school’s assistance when it came to raising his son, and he hated the schools for the role they played in pushing his other boys away from him. He would not lose John to any school. John learned well enough at home. No school curriculum compared with what Harmon knew he could teach his son.
Mr. Powell gathered a breath. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand, Mr. Fowler. My office received indication that you wanted to enroll your son at the start of the next semester. Coach Rodden has already told me how excited he is to know that John will have the opportunity to join the football team for his senior year of schooling.”
Harmon turned towards John just as his son returned from tending to Horus. John had contacted the school behind his back. John grew too proud. He was a fool of a boy, willing to turn his back on what his father worked so hard to instill within him, simply so he could play football. By contacting that school, John started a paper trail that pointed back to Harmon just when predators were nipping at his heels. One foolish letter, or phone call, from John might destroy everything Harmon strove to build in that invisible town in the empty heartland. A vain son might be what killed Harmon. He would have to show that boy his proper place. Harmon would have to reassert himself as the head of his pack.
Harmon growled at his son. “Do you know what this man is talking about?”
John sheepishly peeked at the visitor before shaking his head.
“I’m from the school, John. Someone sent us an email saying you wanted to enroll in classes.”
Harmon’s stared into his son. “Well, boy, do you know anything about that?”
Harmon filled his eyes with threat, enough to make the bravest dog of his ebony pack shudder, with the threat that might’ve made even the mighty Tonka think carefully before growling. He looked again into John’s eyes and tried to measure how far his boy’s rebellion might go. Would John snarl back? Would he cower? Would he attempt to retreat, and would he try to flee from the consequences that came after challenging a dog as old and as mean as Harmon Fowler?
John finally shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Mr. Powell frowned. “Someone contacted the school.”
Harmon snapped his eyes onto his guest. “You calling my boy a liar?”
“I think this is just a big mistake,” Mr. Powell replied.
“You’re right it’s a mistake.” Harmon bore his old teeth, made sharp from so many years scraping against a concrete street for a living. He looked squarely again at John when he spoke, so that his boy clearly heard his father’s words. “Why would my boy want anything to do with the garbage peddled at your school? He knows his great-great-grandfather was no monkey. He knows what bathroom to use when he needs to take a piss. He’s smarter than any of your teachers, and he doesn’t need to have his mind muddled with education until he can’t any longer tell wrong from right. He’s learned more at home than any of your fat students. Yet you drive, uninvited, down my lane and claim that my boy goes against everything I’ve ever taught him so he can write your school a letter and beg to play football? You’re a fool, Mr. Powell. Worse than that, you’re an arrogant man to think you can subvert my child with your curriculum. John Fowler will never write his name on any of your attendance forms.”
“Yeah, this was a big mistake,” Mr. Powell didn’t pursue an argument with the old dog trainer. He said nothing else before turning to make his way back across the field.
“Don’t think about coming out here again,” Harmon shouted at the man’s back. “We’re doing great without you.”
Mr. Powell hesitated before slipping back into his vehicle. “Believe it or not, Mr. Harmon, the rest of us do rather well without you.”
Harmon waited to watch Mr. Powell’s car complete its departure before stomping towards his kennel. Rage swelled within him. It was the worst of times for the community to intrude upon
his property. He needed to concentrate on the threat of those strangers. What had John been thinking? Harmon gave that boy everything. John knew such a soft life thanks to his father’s effort. Yet John still betrayed him.
Harmon found John scrubbing at the empty crates, likely burying himself into a chore in an attempt to diffuse some of his father’s anger. John’s work did nothing to soothe his father’s anger, and the ebony dogs growled as they recognized the wrath communicated by Harmon’s step and posture. John didn’t lift his gaze up from his bucket of suds as his father quickly crossed the kennel, and that meekness only further infuriated Harmon. The dogs howled and barked. The animals pressed their heads against their confines and scratched at the gates of their crates. The dogs snapped their teeth as Harmon passed them. Harmon scowled. The visitor from school disturbed the dogs and threw the animals into a wild temper. How many more afternoons would Harmon need to spend with those dogs to bring those canines to again settle their demeanor? How much time was lost when Harmon felt that third man coming closer?
It was all John’s fault. He coddled those animals, and so he worked against the hours Harmon spent dancing before the dogs, no matter that he was an old man, with aching bones and throbbing joints. Or perhaps it was all his fault. Perhaps Harmon had only himself to blame for giving John too many comforts. What did his boy know of struggle? What did John know about resilience? How had Harmon ever believed his son might learn how to develop power and control within the dogs when that boy knew nothing about that wild instinct to feed and survive?
“What the hell were you thinking?” Harmon shouted above the noise of his dogs and raised his right hand. “I’ve given you everything?”
John surprised Harmon when he lifted his eyes. “You’ve given me nothing!”
Harmon held back his hand. John showed spine after his father decided the boy had none. Were his senses aging so quickly that he could no longer read the nature of beasts?
“I hustled the streets for everything I had when I was your age!”
John shook his head. “You only cursed at the world. You sold women and you peddled drugs. Don’t talk like you held some kind of traditional job at the factory or coal mine. You cut throats. You ruined lives. And all that while, you thought you didn’t need anyone else. Your conscious didn’t bother your sleep so long as you tricked yourself into believing you were a free man, a real patriot, working that street corner. It must’ve been some surprise when one street boss replaced another, and you realized the only thing you really had was the resentment and envy you carried since the day your were born.”
Something stayed Harmon’s hand. “I’ve buried men for showing me the disrespect you’re giving me now.”
“I don’t doubt it. And what have those bodies given you? You hide in the country all the same.”
Harmon closed his hand into a fist and struck John across the cheek. But Harmon was old, and arthritis filled his punch, so that the impact rang pain through his arm. John stumbled a few steps back, but he didn’t so much as fall to a knee. He instead smiled as blood trailed out from between his lips.
“You hide so you don’t have to sacrifice. You believe anything is justified if it protects you from ever having to give. Problem is that I’m tired of giving.”
“No one’s ever given me a thing, boy!”
“I have,” John sneered. “I’ve been your custodian, your office assistant, and your laborer since I could walk. My home schooling consists of cleaning dog shit. When others my age attend the homecoming dance, I mow the training field. When my friends play football, I tend to the dogs. I’m sick of it, old man!”
Harmon shook his head. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but someone’s put the notion in your head that all those fat boys and fat girls in that school have it better than you do. They’ve convinced you that they’re all smarter than we are. But they’re not, John. We’re better than them. Don’t you see it?”
“Are we? Boys my age are taking courses in advanced Algebra, and you just keep having me add more and more fractions together, or drill me on all the ways to make change behind a cash register. Boys my age are programming cell phones, and you won’t spring to replace the old computer that’s still crashed in our living room. I don’t think I’ve learned a fraction of what other boys my age have mastered.”
“Trust me, John. You’re learning things that matter. You’re learning how the world really is by helping me with these dogs. You’re smarter than all those kids in school. They’ve been perverted. They’ve all been brainwashed. But you’ll grow into a patriot. You’ll know how to stand up for what’s yours. You’ll know how to defend your rights.”
“My rights?” John laughed. “What would you know of rights? What do you know of constitutions and of governments? Can you even read?”
Harmon struck his son a second time, and the ebony dogs erupted into a fury of snarls and growls. Both of Harmon’s hands hurt. He could hardly feel his fingers. Yet John still stood his ground, and Harmon felt a little afraid of that young man standing before him. Harmon was too old to learn how to be anything other than the alpha dog. During his youth, he hadn’t hustled so that some boy could show him such disrespect. But what could Harmon do? How could he consider lifting anything more than a hand against John?
“Get out of my home,” Harmon snarled and turned his eyes away from his son, “and don’t take anything with you but the clothes on your back.”
“You’re not the only family I got.”
“You won’t take Horus with you.”
John sighed. “I suppose not.”
John walked out of the kennel then, pausing not even long enough to wipe the soap from his hands. The ebony pack turned quiet and still. A few of the pups whimpered, their minds already sensitive enough to feel the tension. Harmon didn’t turn around. He would remain the alpha dog. He would not beg for John to stay, or mumble an apology for anything he said. He would take nothing back. Old alpha dogs had to stand their ground.
Harmon knew he lost his last son when John didn’t return during the night. The world corrupted John as it corrupted Harmon’s other sons. It was not easy to live as a free man.
But Harmon told himself that he still had his pack. Those animals remained loyal to him. Horus might still become the champion to prove Harmon’s breed. Only, that dog snarled and showed his master his teeth when Harmon looked towards that dog’s crate.
“Careful now, pup,” Harmon growled back. “The boy won’t be here to comfort you any longer, and tomorrow, I’m going to show you what it takes to be a champion.”
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