Crab Fat Magazine #2

Honor Thy Wife By: Edward A. Boyle

The caretaker tells me there are two dogs available, and I follow him down the long hallway to the kennel. He slips his key into the lock on the entry door and motions me forward with a flick of his head.

"It's all yours, pal." He pulls open the door and steps aside. "But make it snappy. I'm closing in ten minutes."

"Thanks, again," I nod and smile.

Inside the kennel, there's a center hallway dividing two long rows of cages. All of the cages look empty. I stand still, listen, and look around. This place was built for easy cleaning efficiency: concrete floors, cement block walls, chain link gates. It's strangely quiet and I pucker-up and make a few soft, kissing noises. A hopeful whimper answers me from one of the middle cages. I wander over, peek in, and smile at the shy blonde retriever pacing behind the chain link. I lift the latch on the gate and the nails on her paws click on the concrete when she scrambles out to the hallway. She wiggles her backside and bends her spine in the shape of a kidney bean around my legs.

"Hey there," I say, and playfully scratch her rump. She warbles a high-pitched song and wiggles some more and my low laugh echoes in the hollow spaces.  

I walk back to the end wall where there's a chewed up wicker basket sitting on a chest-high shelf. The retriever nips my heels. Inside the basket, there are three worn out tennis balls and a length of twisted, colored rope. I grab the best of the tennis balls and set aside the basket on the floor.

"Fetch?" I turn and ask the retriever, and her pink mouth opens in a grin.

Each time I roll the ball down the hallway, the retriever brings it back to me. This beauty could play this game all day. After a while, I hold the ball close to her nose and lure her back inside her cage. When I close the gate behind her, she licks my hand through the chain link.

"Don't go anywhere." I point my finger at her and smile.

I walk to the far end of the hallway to see the second dog. There's a boxer in the last cage. He's sitting in the center of the cage. He's as still and quiet as a lawn ornament. His coat is brushed suede, and his body-builder's chest has a white spill on it shaped like Africa. Two of his paws look like they have tiptoed through melted ivory. He is lean and muscular, as if someone has chiseled him from a boulder made of hardened honey.

It is troubling to look at the boxer's face and head. His right ear is mostly gone, and the scrap that remains is thick and jagged with blackened scar tissue. Inside the ear cavity, veins and tendons pulse like a palm full of earthworms. His right eye is a sky-blue marble floating in watery milk. He is square and blunt, and his muzzle and forehead are as swollen as a street fighter's knuckles. If the boxer senses my unease, he does not let on. He stares straight ahead and does not look at me.

I lift the fork latch to his gate and swing it open. Nothing.

"You are supposed to react in this situation," I softly remind him.

I hunch low in his doorway so he can see my face. He turns his head and stares at the side of his cage. I place the ball on the floor in front of me. It wobbles on the concrete, and he squirms and sneaks the slightest of glances at it.

"Want the ball?" I tempt him with my friendliest voice.

He still will not look at me. His face is kind and menacing, and it offers no hint to what is inside of him. How can a living thing wear a face that says so few and so many things?

I push off the floor to stand and the boxer springs to all fours, rushes forward, scoops the tennis ball into his mouth in a single motion. He set me up...he waited until I stood up. He bumps past my knees and his cigar stub of a tail wiggles as he canters down the hallway. He opens his mouth and drops the ball into the basket on the floor.