I was out walking my dog—
I had a dog, once—
Good, but that’s not the story.
I was walking my dog one morning,
Roscoe, a big grey mastiff, wasn’t afraid of
anything,
when we came across this drop-dead redhead
sitting on one of those scrolly wood and iron
benches
holding a baby against her lap
so it could look out at the lake and ducks.
A little boy, it was,
waving its hands and staring like they do,
and Roscoe tried to eat it. So she shot him.
I mean her hand was in and out of her bag
like she’d been practicing.
Little chrome twenty-two,
silly pop like a penny cracker.
Set the kid off, but nobody else noticed,
joggers going by with tunes in their ears,
and Roscoe just sort of rolled over.
She sat there, trying to stroke the kid’s
hair
with the gun still in that hand.
Half-rational, using the tips of her fingers
in case the gun was hot.
She hadn’t practiced that part.
I told her to put it away
and she gave me one of those AWOL looks,
but she put it away
and when she had collected herself,
and got done yelling at me,
she said she was real sorry she had to shoot
Roscoe,
and I said: That’s all right,
he wasn’t a very obedient dog, anyway,
which
wasn’t true.
It didn’t last, of course;
we really didn’t
see eye-to-eye on a lot of things—
I mean, she had mace. Women.
Good old Roscoe.
Best damn dog I ever had.
I had a dog once…
