* * *
Slouched deep in the cushions of his mother’s couch, Hector sat watching TV but seeing nothing. He lazily slid a chocolate pudding pop in and out of his oversized mouth, his double chins brown and sticky with melted milk and sugar. Earlier in the day, he had drawn the shades to kill the glare on the screen he was looking more through than at. That he’d seen that particular episode of Gilligan’s Island a hundred times before was irrelevant; he had his rules. And rules had to be followed.
Rule number one: The room must be dark when the TV is on. Rule number two: When the TV is on, everybody in the room must be quiet. "Everybody" in most cases consisted of him and his mother. Where that lady had run off to, Hector hadn’t a clue. Before leaving she’d said something, but in all honesty he couldn’t recall what, for he had shushed her the moment she’d opened her mouth to speak.
When he’d shuffled to the kitchen for another pudding pop ten minutes later, she was gone. That was over two hours ago.
She was being a real bitch lately. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had changed in her, but something about her was different. It was as if she had stopped trying to be nice. It was as if she had stopped trying to be anything.
Growing tired of Gilligan’s tomfoolery, Hector fished for the remote under the sofa and switched channels. On the screen, Beverly Cook, the midday newscaster for Channel 32, greeted him with lips as crimson as the suit jacket she wore sixty miles away. He caught her mid-sentence.
"…and what appears to be a murder in Riley. We go now to James Adamson, who is in Riley, with a special report. James?"
The picture cuts away to James Adamson standing in front of a squat, gray house.
James says: "Yes, Beverly. Rhoda Baker, age eighty-nine, was found murdered yesterday morning in the house behind me. A widow, she had been living on a fixed income, and we are told by neighbors that she rarely left her house due to crippling arthritis in her back. The news of her death comes as a complete shock to her friends and neighbors, who remember her as a sweet, kind lady, always with a smile on her face and a pie in the oven."
"Do the police have a suspect? Any leads at all?" Beverly asks.
A delay as James puts his index finger to his ear.
"The police do not have a suspect or a motive as of now. It’s hard to believe, Beverly, that anybody would commit such a heinous crime. Like I said, she was elderly and lived on a fixed income, so money is doubted to be a motive here. From what we’ve been able to gather from her neighbors who checked in on her from time to time, she didn’t appear to have any enemies. And why would she? The entire town is as flabbergasted as the police. Apparently, this was just a cruel, random act."
Beverly’s red lips move in the upper corner of the screen, where she has been reduced to a tiny box. "James, what about the reports of Mrs. Baker’s death being the result of a dog attack and not a homicide?"
A two second delay.
"Yes, Beverly. There have been a few unofficial reports of what you’ve just mentioned. However, these reports fall more into the rumor category. A rabid dog was found dead in a residential backyard not too far from here a couple of days ago, but that is in no way related to what occurred here yesterday. According to the official police report, Mrs. Baker’s throat was cut with a serrated kitchen knife—her very own. The knife was later found on the scene. This rules out the rabid dog theory many people around here still adamantly support. To clarify all of this, I now turn to Sheriff Caldwell Price, who is overseeing the investigation."
The camera pans to Sheriff Price standing in front of a pair of crowd control barriers blocking off the last eighth of Crooked Back Lane. Behind him, the younger looky-loos wave frantically at the camera, while the older men and women stare inquisitively into the dark lens, as if searching for answers in its crystal depths.
"Sheriff Price," James begins, "what can you tell us about what happened here yesterday?"
Price opens his wide mustachioed mouth and leans into the microphone. The moment he begins to speak, Hector hurls the remote control at the TV, shattering the device and chipping a divot out of the screen.
Standing up, Hector shoots both middle fingers at Price’s image. "FUUUUCK YOU! FUUUUCK YOU! MOTHERFUCKER!!!"
He then waddles around the coffee table and kicks the TV’s on/off button with the heel of his socked foot. "Owww!" he cries, hopping in circles. "Goddamn Price won’t stay the fuck out of my life!"
Eventually, though not surprisingly, he hops his way into the kitchen and winds up in front of the refrigerator. Pulling out another pudding pop from the freezer, his mouth salivates in anticipation. He leaves the door open—a big no-no for Debbie (she had her rules, too)—and lets the frigid air roll over his sweaty body. It feels good.
"It’s burning up in this stupid house," Hector says to himself.
Then, sticking his head into the freezer: "Ahhhhh. That’s better."
He stays in that position while his popsicle melts on the counter. Five minutes elapse and he removes his head and closes the door. He curses when he opens the wrapper to find the pudding pop the consistency of fresh dog shit. Holding the wrapper over the sink, he greedily eats the mushy popsicle. He doesn’t use the stick; he just mashes his face into the brown mess. Why should he care what he looks like? Who’s there to see him? No one. Never does it occur to him to go to the freezer and grab a frozen one.
When he finishes, he looks out the window. What he is doing is thinking about Price and what a royal asshole he is. Why won’t he leave me alone? Why can’t he just disappear forever?
While thinking those thoughts, allowing his mind to gradually descend to its lowest, basest level, Hector absently surveys the oblique angle of Pritchard Street. The pavement is bright white with reflected midday sun. And barren. So lonesomely barren. Like a desert. It’s too much to take in, the scope too expansive.
So he looks away, averting his gaze to the gravel driveway ten feet in front of him. The Monte Carlo is gone, making the Jeep look all the more abandoned because of it.
She’s coming back, Hector assures himself. She always does.
But what if she doesn’t? What if she’s gone for good? Then what?
Still looking at the Jeep: "She’ll be back."
As soon as he says this, he notices a brown blur far up the road, where the cement ends and the dirt of the old logging road picks up. At first, the object ripples inside a mirage hovering above the pavement. Then the brownness enfolds out of the turbulent stream and becomes solid.
"LOLA!"
Wearing nothing but boxers and a pair of gray-soled socks, Hector bolts out the front door. Panting, he sprints his bulk up the sidewalk, until the sidewalk ends. Then he runs on the street. All the while, Lola grows bigger and bigger. He always knew she’d find her way back. And now that she has returned, he draws up plans on how to prevent her from ever running away again. First, he’s going to put in a new chain-link fence between the carport and the house, one with a spring-loaded gate that closes on its own. Then, he is going to fix the back fence. When he’d barbequed last, he noticed a gap between the ground and the bottom links—actually, Rusty had pointed it out. It was small but big enough for Lola to squirm her way through. Those same links were also bent slightly upward, as if she had already practiced running away a few times before actually doing it. Hector had always assumed Lola was too old to escape, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Now he knew what she was capable of. After all:
She’s my dog.
Hector explodes with fevered pride and sanguine love for his canine companion, a love that hasn’t dissipated over the years. Never before has he loved another human being the way he loves that dog, nor has he ever wanted to. She is his and he is hers. Forever and ever, entwined together, tumbling over and over down a hill with no end. Lola, L-O-L-A, Lola.
I love her so much.
He is almost there now, but his energy reserves are nearly depleted. His thighs and calves turn to rubber, forcing him to slow
to a brisk walk. The heat also plays a part in his body’s decision to slow down. The mercury is pressing the century mark. He doesn’t have to see it; he feels it.
"Here…girl…" he pants between breaths. He has stopped walking and is resting his hands on his thighs.
Lola continues to stroll up the center of the road, toward her master. If she is as excited to see Hector as he is to see her, she certainly doesn’t show it. Behind her, in a single file line, follow about a dozen mutts—country mongrels—of no discernible worth or breed. Their bloodlines are so diluted, any pedigree characteristics are gone.
Hector stares at the cavalcade of dogs as it moves toward, then around him with little more than a cursory sniff in his direction. He focuses mainly on its leader, who, from the kitchen window, he had sworn was Lola. Upon closer inspection, though, she isn’t even a real Bloodhound, but rather a mix of Bloodhound and something else. Greyhound, maybe.
Hector eyes the varicolored mutts with disdain. The view he has now is of their infernally wagging tails, and the sight of all those tails, some stubby and some long and willowy, wagging chaotically, sends Hector into kill mode. Blood rushes to his head, and he can no longer suppress his anger and confusion.
Why do you always have to torture me like this?
He needs to explode. He needs to become a supernova of hatred and wrath and let all in his vicinity know that he isn’t to be fucked with. His hands spasm, and when he begins to walk, he feels like he is walking on stilts. And since he could fall at any moment, he has to do what he is about to do before his legs—and his mettle—fail him.
Skulking up to the last dog in the row, a possible Chihuahua-Bichon Frise mix, he whispers a phrase of sibilant gibberish at it. When the animal’s tiny ears perk and its head twists back, Hector punts the dog squarely in its malnourished ribs, sending it flying. On its way to apogee, the animal yelps, flips once, and jerkily arches its back. Coming down, it falls head first—all apparent surprise and fight gone from its body—and lands on its neck in a wet crunch by the curb.
Hearing the distressed pygmy’s barks, the rest of the dogs turn, but it isn’t until the crunch that they start to growl and flash their yellow teeth. Some of the smaller dogs go over to their dead (friend?) consort and lick his (that is apparent now) upturned belly and face. The bigger ones growl at Hector as he commences a sly retreat back to the house. He continues to face them, though, because he once heard that the worst thing you can do in a situation like that is run. A large blonde dog lunges at him and barks. Hector whimpers, his waning intrepidness commingling with the effluvium being exhaled in his direction.
"Easy now," Hector whispers, holding his hands up to thwart off an attack. (Had he heard that you were supposed to do that, too?) "I didn’t mean to do it."
The dogs approach steadily, brazenly. It is apparent now who is in charge. Hector is practically running backwards.
"I swear to God," he tries to appease. Then, pointing to the dog that should have been Lola, he says loudly, "It’s your fault! You’re not her!"
After that, he turns and runs.