Read Online One Good Dog by Susan Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

pavement was beginning to wear on my pads. I’d never spent much time on pavement. People were everywhere, and I dodged them like a video-game master. No one was going to get a hand on me. I wasn’t going back to that cage.
    Mostly, I kept to the alleys, having already figured out that my kind kept to those canyons like wolves in the wild. Miraculously, I found a nook ready-made for sleeping, about the size of my cage, which was oddly comforting, beneath a set of back stairs. Yes, it bore the scent of my kind, but the scent was very old, and I had to take a chance that this place was up for lease. There was even a ragged cloth, which I nosed into shape. It felt like a good place, and I was instantly asleep. I’d rest awhile and then go see what else I could find to eat. Maybe see if there were any females around looking for some company.
    Before I fell asleep, I licked my paws and thought, This isextraordinary. Not twelve hours ago, I was cage-bound, my life as circumspect in its routine as a monk’s. My battle of the week accomplished, kibble in my dish. My whole life contained in that cellar. Now here I am, making my own plans, eating like a king, thinking already about mating.
    The only problem with this living in paradise was that my wound, the jagged rip my late opponent had sliced into me, had begun to hurt.

Chapter Ten
     
    The Fort Street Center is in the worst part of town and serves homeless men, providing a hot meal, a gathering place, and, for twenty of them, a place to sleep out of the elements. Adam knows about the center only because it’s one of the hundreds of charities that solicit him every year. He’s maybe thrown a few bucks its way, without really thinking about the mission or the nature of the cause.
    Homelessness
is not a word that Adam thinks about with any degree of interest. To him, a “homeless man” is a bum, a street person, a schizophrenic off his meds. A panhandler. An annoyance. Someone to dodge as he goes down the street, much like a stray dog. Might be diseased or drunk. Shaking empty paper cups, begging for coffee money. Giuliani got rid of the squeegee men in New York, so why couldn’t this city find a way to get the street people off the street? That’s what Adam thinks whenever some indigent crosses his path on the sidewalk.
    If Adam has given any thought to the why of homelessness, it is to believe that as he is a self-made man, these must beself-undone men. Victims of bad habits and bad decisions. Everyone knew of the guy who chose to live on the street rather than in his home, where his abandoned wife or caring children couldn’t keep him. Common knowledge. Or the guy who just fucked his life up so badly, no one wanted to be near him, his own violence and temper putting him on the street. The guy who won’t even try to hold on to his family.
    Adam has spurned his lawyer’s offer to go with him. He will report to the Fort Street Center by himself, a man with free will. No hand-holding, no audience. No billable hour. Not sure what to expect, Adam dresses in his usual business attire. Most likely this Bob Carmondy fellow will be overjoyed to have a man familiar with business at his disposal. Maybe the worst that will happen is that he’ll hand Adam the books. These nonprofits are so often run on shoestrings, or, worse, like lemonade stands. Adam looks at his freshly shaven face in the mirror as he knots his Harvard tie. He tries not to see the dark circles of restless nights beneath his eyes or the faint yellow color tinging the whites, like pale echoes of the brown of his irises. Or the hollowness of his cheeks. The new gray in his hair. He’s even looking forward to putting in some volunteer time. That’ll look just fine, with tweaking, on his curriculum vitae. It is no longer enough to have enjoyed the career path he has been on: promotions and bonuses labeling him a man of substance. The ignominious departure from Dynamic has made him less than attractive; in this day