Read Online My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh - Free Book Online Page A

the edge of the trees stood a dog, peeking around the corner at us. I have no idea the breed. It looked like it lived in the swamps, if that were possible, as its fur was matted with mud and its rib cage visible against its skin. One of its ears was also forked, apparently from some scuffle long ago, and hung awkwardly from the side of its head. We watched it trot from tree to tree.
    Jason reached underneath a tarp.
    “This is what I’ve been waiting for,” he said.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Relax,” Jason said, and pulled out a rusty tin bowl from the shed.
    He then got up and proceeded to dig through the garbage cans in their driveway. He produced several scraps of food, some pork bones, chicken skin, some old pasta, and walked the bowl of food out into the grass, where he called to the dog, although he didn’t have a name for it. “Here, mutt!” he said. “Come here, you dumb hound! No one’s going to hurt you.”
    I remember the high sun on that day; the oak shadows raked across the lawn like stripes. “Whose dog is that?” I asked. “Where does it live?”
    “It’s nobody’s dog,” he said. “It’s just a lousy cur. It digs through our trash and shits in our yard. It drives my dad nuts. He spends all day looking for it.”
    I watched the dog approach us, stopping every few paces. It looked like a worried soul with its tail tucked between its legs, and Jason laughed at its posture.
    “Come here, you stupid mutt,” he said, and rattled the bowl in his hand.
    “Why don’t you tell your dad you found it?” I asked. “You guys could keep it.”
    Jason looked at me like we had just met.
    “That’s not what he wants to do with it,” he said.
    I could fathom no other option.
    “I’ll keep it, then,” I told him. “We could give him a bath.”
    “You better not touch my fucking dog,” Jason said. “I’ll kill you if you touch it.”
    It was hard to tell if he was serious. That was perhaps the defining characteristic of his personality. Jason Landry had a way ofmaking you feel uneasy, as if you never really knew who you were dealing with. When you shared a laugh together, for instance, and he seemed a normal boy, he would then repel you with some phrase not likely to come from a child—a threat of premeditated violence, a vulgar joke. And these moments would create in you a sense of distance, chasmic at times, that you knew better than to try and bridge. In this way, Jason was at least predictable in his unpredictability, and so I was never truly afraid of him the way I was of Bo Kern, who was all action and little talk. Still, I surely didn’t trust him.
    So, I stood up off the grass while Jason coaxed the dog to, and I tried to prepare myself for some emergency. Jason set the bowl on the ground and backed away. He made kissing noises with his mouth.
    “Come on,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    The dog trotted a wide perimeter around us. It sniffed at the grass and inched closer.
    “Eat, boy,” I told him. “Get you something to eat.”
    “That’s right,” Jason said. “You better eat up while you can.”
    The dog nosed the bowl and then slowly, carefully, lifted a piece of meat with its mouth and began chewing. It licked like a beggar at the bones.
    “That’s a good boy,” I said.
    Then, after the dog began to look comfortable, after it really began to dig in, Jason ran toward it.
    “Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. “Go on, you stupid mutt!” He kicked at the dirt and clapped his hands. “Go on!” he said.
    The dog paced around in confused circles. “You worthless stray!” Jason said. “Get the hell out of here!” He picked up a stick and threw it at it. He waved his arms in the air. He kicked over the bowl of food. The dog then sprinted away into the woods, whimpering, with a noticeable hitch in its hind leg.
    “Stupid mutt,” Jason said. He then tipped over the garbage cans in their driveway. He spread out the trash like it had been