I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos

Author:Juan Pablo Villalobos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction;Villalobos;Juan Pablo Villalobos;I'll Sell You a Dog;Down the Rabbit Hole;Quesadillas;Mexico;Latin America;South America;novel;translation;translated fiction;translated literature;Guardian First Book Award;trafficking;zoo;father;son;narcoliteratura;tacos;taco seller;gringo dog;Diego Rivera;literary salon;greengrocer;revolutionary;Mexico City;Adorno;humour;satire;absurd;novel;apartment building;artists;aspiring artist;cultural posterity;Roxane Gay;An Untamed State;Paul Beatty;The Sellout
Publisher: And Other Stories Publishing
Published: 2016-06-05T15:24:05+00:00

My sister had announced she had a new job: she was going to be a secretary at a dog-food factory. It wasn’t one of life’s little ironies; her boss had switched companies and was taking her with him, as a reward for her supposed efficiency. My mother was about to say: Well he’s obviously got the wrong end of the stick. Before she could, my sister announced she’d be getting a discount on dog biscuits. Mum wanted to know how much. Fifty per cent, my sister replied. My mother said it was still extortionate considering Market ate our leftovers, which didn’t cost a thing, following the principle that there was always room for one more at the dining table, especially if one of the extra diners was a dog. Back then, towards the end of the fifties, dog biscuits were a novelty and a source of great wonderment as they seemed so modern: if a handful of dry cereals could fulfil all the needs of an animal, it was as though dogs had suddenly become more advanced than humans, who still had to resort to all sorts of complicated recipes. My sister said that Market’s breath stank (this was true) and that the biscuits would put an end to it. My mother said nothing, because the truth was that up to now the mutt’s foul-smelling mouth had prevented her from growing fond of him. Actually, she did say something. She said:

‘Well, we’ll see.’

Which meant that she accepted my sister’s new job and would put her suspicions aside while we tested the effect of the biscuits on the dog.

My sister began bringing sacks of dog food home, one a fortnight. And, just as she’d said, not only did Market’s breath stop smelling but his coat turned all silky and shiny. All our neighbours wanted to stroke the animal, which became the most handsome specimen on the block. My mother was over the moon.

Until one day, Market started choking at dinner time. Miraculously, he didn’t die. Miraculously – and because Mum stuck her fingers down his windpipe, from where she rescued a piece of paper, folded up small. An obscene message that had been deposited there for my sister, inside the bag of dog biscuits. It said – I can still remember it – among declarations of a forbidden love: your legs are longer than the road to Cuernavaca. And: your curves are like the ones on the road to Puerto Vallarta. The company my sister and her boss used to work for provided services to the Ministry of Communications and Transport. It could have been worse: had the new job made similar inroads in her boss’s imagination, his similes could have been further enriched. It was all written in red ink on a sheet of the company’s headed notepaper.

Mum shut herself up in her room with Market, who wouldn’t stop whining, as if he foresaw a return to a diet of rice, stale tortillas, beans and old bones. She emerged later, as if nothing had happened, and no one spoke of the matter again.

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