Free Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream

turned, too, and went right. I had gotten the directions from a newspaper article, which had been none too discreet about describing just how scofflaws were obtaining and smuggling deadly poisons across our precious border.
    I crossed the avenue without looking back at the hawkers and pushers and strippers and zebra-painted donkeys. Within a block, I was out of the tourist zone, back in the rest of the city. I passed a gas station, a two-story shop selling terra-cotta, and a street that seemed to house nothing but dental offices, most with signs in English offering oral surgeries for a fraction of the northern price. There were cheap clothing stores and botanicas, just like in L.A., selling their mixture of Catholicism and voodoo.
    The farther away from the avenue I got, the more normal and poorer the neighborhood got. I went one block, two blocks, three blocks farther than I’d expected. I stopped and swiveled my neck. Something close by smelled like a sewer. This couldn’t be right. Maybe I had passed it. Maybe it had closed. Maybe the newspaper had obfuscated more than I thought. I kept going like a gambler throwing dollars on the table to win back those already beyond his reach.
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
    Yes.
    To my right, just one shop up, was a sign across a small storefront. Most of it was beyond my meager Spanish, but I recognized veterinaria, and in case I didn’t, above it were painted two large fighting cocks in a face-off. My relief at seeing those two birds—an abomination to PETA supporters everywhere—was like three martinis on an empty stomach.
    I stepped under the fighting cocks and into the store. Sunlight penetrated only the first six feet, and beyond that no artificial light illuminated the merchandise, what little of it there was. Advertisements for pet food were pasted in the window and had been for some time. The red inks had faded, leaving nothing but the blues and yellows, which made the human and golden retriever look a washed-out green.
    A woman sat in the back of the shop on a plastic chair with a young boy. I smiled at them, and they stared at me. I had planned to subtly browse the wares undetected before getting up my nerve and approaching the register to inquire about things kept “in back.” So much for subtle, but still I went through the motions.
    As in all the shops I’d passed, goods on the shelves were slim. No twenty-seven kinds of toothpaste to choose from. No six varieties of food to suit the aging small dog, the aging large dog, the aging large dog with a weight control problem. There was one doghouse of questionable quality and a wall displaying a sprinkling of leashes and collars, a few sizes, a few colors. If those were too fancy for you, there were three spools of metal chain—small, medium, and attack-dog size—that you could buy by the meter. Above that was a lone, empty birdcage. Either it was for sale or its occupant had died. It wasn’t clear. The rest of the small space was taken up by an L-shaped counter with a glass front. Behind it were old-fashioned wooden shelves that reminded me of a small-town candy shop or perhaps an apothecary.
    I feigned interest in a small blue collar. It was a difficult ruse to keep up. Everything was dusty, and I didn’t see anything to bring home to Chuckles. I gave up and walked toward the register. Inside the glass display case were two bright orange castles for decorating a tropical fish tank. No fish or fish flakes or aquariums or plastic plants or turquoise tank gravel to go with them. They looked sad in their forced frivolity.
    The woman left the young boy to play with his toy car and joined me on the other side of the counter. “Can I help you?” she asked in English.
    I had written down what I needed and pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket. I unfolded and smoothed it out. The paper felt thinner from the heat and sweat of my body. I was lucky the ink had not