Talk to Me by T. C. Boyle

Author:T. C. Boyle [Boyle, T. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526630032
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

YOU ME GO

The BUG was gone, back in one of the other cages with the rest of them, hooting mindlessly, hooting for nothing except the compulsion to make noise because making noise was the surest sign you were alive no matter what size box they put you in. The sliding door between the cages had suddenly pulled back, and the BUG scuttled through it before it slid shut again and that was that, no WAVE GOODBYE, no his fingers in her hair, no her fingers in his. He would have gone with her, anything to get out of this place, even if it meant rushing headlong into the seething black shadows where the BUGS got progressively bigger and angrier, but for the fact that Aimee was there in front of his cage – Aimee! – and she had a HARNESS in her hand and she was calling his name. The excitement exploded in him and he rushed the bars, whimpering and pant-hooting his joy that rocketed all the higher because the previous day she’d gone back through that door and left him here in the CAGE, and the depression rocked him all over again, driving him deeper and ever deeper with the thought that she was never coming back.

But now, here she was! There were two men with her, one of the hose men and the one he called Arms who never wore sleeves on his shirts no matter how cold it was outside. He ignored them. He signed to her. Said, YOU ME GO.

Arms said, ‘It’s your funeral,’ and she said, ‘Just open the door,’ and the hose man said, ‘If he gets loose—’

At first he just hugged her and then he held out his arms and climbed atop her back though he was too heavy for her, he knew that, and she had to put him down almost in the same moment, but still she was AIMEE and he was SAM. Then she put a JACKET on him and he worked his arms through the HARNESS and she attached his LEAD and the door swung open, even as Arms tapped his own stinger against his thigh as if he only needed an excuse to use it and she was leading him up the corridor and out the door into the world that was as devastated and bewildering as it had been when he’d got loose and gone through it all on his own. There was the FENCE, there the DOGS. They barked and then, seeing him, they both settled down on their haunches and the one he’d bitten began to whine. That was good, that was very good, because he’d bite him again, bite both of them, tear them, pound them, kill them, if they got near her or even made a move, a single move. He bristled and barked back at them and now they both started to whine.

‘OK, Sam,’ she said, signing it and speaking at the same time, ‘want to go for a walk, get some exercise? You must need exercise after they locked you up like that.

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