Free Dog Eat Dog by Chris Lynch Page B

as he headed back into the house.
    “Ya?” Evelyn called to him. “Bet he doesn’t have one of those blow-up dolls in his room...”
    “Shut up, Juana,” he yelled. “That’s just a freakin’ joke. Christo , ain’t like I do nothin’ wid it.”
    Ruben went up to put on his shoes and not do anything with his doll. Evelyn stood and watched me with the dog. He leaned into me, responding, rubbing his eyes across my chest. “You’re a pair,” she said, with some admiration.
    “We are,” I answered, then I looked up. “You heard anything, from him?”
    “Nada,” she said flatly.
    “Me neither. I talked to his mother though.”
    Evelyn shook her head in a scolding way, clicked her tongue at me.
    “Ya, well, she doesn’t know where he is either,” I said. “I guess it’s for good this time.”
    She just shrugged. Ruben came bounding back out onto the porch. Duran growled, and I calmed him.
    “I want to take him for a walk,” I said, hopping up, thinking this was a bright idea for a beautiful worthless summer day.
    They both gasped, as if I said I wanted to throw open a nuclear reactor. “A walk?” Ruben said. “Where you gonna walk him? I take him down the freakin’ park once a night, after everybody else goes home, and he drags my ass all over the place. I can only just barely shove him back here in the yard, and I can only do that ’cause he knows Evelyn throws some food out here for him while we’re out. You can’t handle him, man, no way.”
    He was serious, with his intense frown. He wasn’t just trying to run me down and un-man me like usual. He didn’t think what I wanted to do was possible. Then a dopey, distant smile opened his face up.
    “He is fun, though,” Ruben said warmly. “You know he could kill my ass anytime he wants to, but he don’t. He just throws me around like I’m a freakin’ toy. An’ sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, I ride him.”
    Evelyn looked disgusted with her brother, which was not unusual. “Ruben, you ride that poor animal?”
    “Poor nothin’ ,” he said. “Lookit ’im. Freakin’ Duran’s half a horse. He loves to ride, no foolin’. He goes even faster when I’m on his back than when I ain’t. You know that track around the park? Four freakin’ hundred meters. He carried me around four laps one night last week, and he don’t wanna stop. Only reason we quit was that I was gettin’ sore.”
    I could barely hide my enthusiasm. “Let’s take him out, let’s go, let’s go now.”
    “No way, can’t do it. One, he don’t like me so good in the daytime—”
    “Nobody does,” Evelyn shot.
    “Two, they’s too much business goin’ on this time a day. Other dogs, peoples, et-freakin’-cetera. Duran gets hisself a little excited. Loco. Starts ta killin’ up stuff.”
    “Please?” I begged, even more excited now.
    Evelyn was way suspicious of me now. “What’s the big attraction, Mick? What’s the big thrill here? Could it be that you got used to the protection of walking around with one big stud and now that he’s gone you need another one?”
    This was what made Evelyn so special, so exciting, so impossible to resist, the way she knew so much of a person’s inside stuff. And this was what made Evelyn so frightening, so maddening, so necessary to resist, the way she knew so much about a person’s inside stuff.
    “Nooo,” I drawled, summoning up all my debate skills. And I left before she could do any more. Ruben followed me out of the yard.
    “So, where you wanna go?” he asked brightly.
    This wasn’t the partner I’d expected to be walking with. “No place. I think I’ll just walk home.”
    “Okay,” Ruben said, walking right along with me. He took it as an invitation. So we walked together.
    “You ever consider doing something with Duran?” I asked after we’d walked a bit.
    “Doin’ what?”
    “You know, he’s a lot of dog. It’s kind of a shame not to put his talents to use. You could make a lot of