'Good dog,' I say, as it pulls at the lead. It is a bear, a wolf, a fucking hound of hell, a huge, straining mass of muscle and fur and saliva and teeth and sharp, sharp claws, and it will die, because it is stupid, and because no one, least of all me, wants it.
It will die because it is not mine. It is – was – Angie's dog.
This fucking dog, it has shat all over my house: the stairs, the landing, the spare room, the kitchen. Dog shit is everywhere, and I cannot, will not, clean up after the thing. I am as undomesticated as the fucking dog, in my own way, and it is amazing what hardships can be endured in the name of stubborn, cold hatred. Let it shit; this is not my house. I will leave the drying faeces for the landlord and his bastard brothers to deal with once I have disappeared.
There are consequences to this living with a carpet of shit, of course: Clare, who wears very few clothes and far too much black make up, will never, ever fuck me now. She rang the bell at two in the morning, looking to score some grass, looking to crash, looking perhaps - now Angie has gone - to fuck. On my way down the stairs I slipped, barefoot, in newly-shat wetness. I answered the door but, of course, there was the smell, and she didn't come in.
This dog is going to die.
There is no electricity in this house, because the bills are unpaid, and I will be thrown out soon - as soon, in fact, as the young landlord becomes brave or his brothers return from abroad. I might regret taking the dog to die at that point, as it would be useful in a fight, but there is always the chance that it would turn on me. I don't care. I will run from the landlord, dogless, homeless, Angieless, and halfway to happy.
Like electricity, I cannot afford dog food, so it eats whatever is left from what I eat, and I am not cruel enough yet to attempt to starve the thing to death. In my dreams it eats only me, ripping huge, red, dripping chunks of flesh from my thighs, my shoulders, my feet and my face. I wake up, sweating, to hear it prowling around the house.
It never sleeps.
*
Angie left the dog. It was her dog, and she left it.
'I'm coming back for him. Don't you dare do anything to him.' This is what she said as she click-clacked down the path. I watched her tight little arse in a pair of red shorts, a half-fastened rucksack in her hand, trailing knickers and badness.
'Take him now,' I said.
'Fuck you,' she said, not looking. 'I'll get him when I'm good and ready.'
After two days, I understood. Her love for me had been fleeting, callous, hard, cruel, and easily forgotten, as was her love for the dog. She had found the thing, lost and alone and roaming the streets, much like she found me. And now she was leaving us both.
She isn't coming back: I know it, and the dog fucking knows it. It looks at me like the whole situation is my fault, even though I am in no way to blame.
It is impossible to explain a woman's infidelity to a dog.
When I come in at night, it growls, eyes green in the blackness. It lies awake in front of my – what used to be our – bedroom, protecting Angie's memory. The dog is deluded, and it cannot understand that we have been betrayed, abandoned, discarded, and life must go on.
Or, at least, my life must.
I have taken to sleeping in the bath, and there is, luckily, a lock on the bathroom door. The dog scratches, and growls, and paces, and snores, while I lie awake, masturbating miserably over images of Angie, Clare, even the girl from the newsagents: anything to stop me thinking about this fucking, fucking dog.
The nights are dark and long. The house stinks. People ring the bell, shout through the letterbox. I am letting down my clientele. I smoke my own supply, spliff after spliff after spliff. I do not, will not, try to clean up after the animal. It is futile: there is a never-ending stream of piss and shit inside it. Its hairs are coarse, wire-like, and the vacuum, if I had one, would only choke on them. Saliva stains the furniture, the walls, the carpets, and I am glad this is not my house. The landlord and his sadistic fucking brothers, when they finally get their act together, will tear my arms from their sockets and grind my kneecaps to bone-dust.
I need to leave.
But I sleep in the bath for one more Friday night, skinning up the last of the grass, door locked, dog prowling, taps dripping, and Angie absent. I ignore the ringing on the doorbell, because Angie has a key. I know that she will not come back, and I know that if she does then it will not be for me. Only her love for the animal will bring her back, and even that is unlikely now, but I wait, stoned and cold, empty and crying, alone in the bath, the dog my only hope.
Drip, go the taps.
Growl, goes the dog.
Ring, goes the doorbell.
Budum, budum, goes my heart.
It is not her.
This Friday night Angie is elsewhere, and the dog is unaware of its imminent destruction.
*
'I found this dog,' I say to the balding, corpulent officer behind the desk, as the dog growls at him, straining at the leash, saliva-drooling, shit-smelling, halitosis-ridden, moulting and breathing its last.
'You found it?' His voice is high, like a girl's, and he has backed off a couple of feet behind the safety of his desk.
'It was in the yard, behind my house. A stray.' I look at the thing, then back at the copper. 'I think it might be dangerous.'
'I think you might be right,' he says, and he leans forward to ring a bell on the desk. 'We'll get the boys from the pound.'
I hold out the leash to him, and he hesitates.
Growl, goes the dog.
Budum, budum, goes my heart.
'You know, if no one claims it in a few days, we have to put it down,' goes the copper, as he takes the leash.
I shrug.
*
Outside, I breathe the clean air.
I feel light.
I smile.
I think of a bulging rucksack, a bus ticket, a new city, new women, another house, electricity, new clients, parties, clean carpets, fucking in a soft bed, friendly landlords.
Not dogs, not Angie, but life: that is what I think of.
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