Buster by George Pelecanos

Author:George Pelecanos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.

* * *

He did keep me, though. I don’t know how long. But the season changed. And then it changed again. Leaves turned colors and fell off the trees, and snow dusted the ground.

Uncle Joe was a kind master, and I respected him, though there was a stillness in the house. Seemed like Uncle Joe was just waiting for something to happen. Things that were put down stayed where they were, dishes went unwashed.

One day, Uncle Joe came out of the kitchen with a broom in hand and I ran away and hid under a bed. He found me and said, “Okay, Buster. Someone must have used a broomstick to treat you wrong. But I won’t. I promise.”

It was fine here, but it was not a time of discovery or excitement for me. Uncle Joe walked me twice a day, and I eagerly awaited those times, because it was then that I saw things that were new.

Lucy tolerated me. Maybe more than that. Her tail did twitch when I came over to her to say hello. She rarely got up off her bed cushion, though. And one day she stopped getting up at all. It was a couple of days like that where she just lay there and wouldn’t eat.

Uncle Joe called someone. A man with a long beard came to the house, carrying a leather case. He was heavy and wore suspenders holding up blue jeans. He was so soft-spoken that when he and Uncle Joe talked I could not hear his words. Uncle Joe gave the man some money. When their business conversation was done, the man sat on the floor cross-legged beside Lucy’s bed and talked to her in that same soft way. Then he reached into his bag and brought out a kit. He fixed a shot and gave Lucy an injection in her paw. She winced a little bit when the needle went in. Uncle Joe talked to her as her eyes got cloudy. He said they’d all be together soon: Uncle Joe, Lucy, and Olivia. Then the man gave her something through a flexible tube he had fitted in her leg vein. The man wrapped Lucy in a blanket and carried her out to his truck. I watched the whole thing.

Uncle Joe had been stoic during the death process, but when the man drove away, Uncle Joe began to cry. He was sitting in his favorite chair in the living room, where he watched TV. I went to him and positioned myself against his legs so he could feel my warmth.

“Lucy was Olivia’s,” said Uncle Joe. I guess he was talking to me, a dog, because he had to talk to someone, and I was there. “We got her from the Humane Society on Georgia Avenue. She was a puppy, just old enough to adopt. The man there put her in my arms and she fell asleep right away. On the drive home, Olivia held her and that’s how Lucy got, what they call it, imprinted to Olivia.

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