Read Online Why They Run the Way They Do by Susan Perabo - Free Book Online Page A

said, crossing those arms as I climbed the steps toward him. “I want a dog to lie on my feet.”
    â€œMost dogs’ll want to run every so often,” I said, reaching the top. My words came out thin and wheezy. It was weary work, climbing, and I wasn’t sure how many stairs I had left in me.
    â€œDon’t you have a fat, old dog?”
    I gathered my breath. “Sure I do. I got a few of ’em in fact. But even fat, old dogs need to get up every so often.”
    He twisted his lips into a lopsided frown. He looked like a child when he did it, a young child experimenting in the bathroom mirror with what his own face could do, and I nearly busted out laughing.
    â€œWhat is it you need to see?” he asked.
    By now, frankly, I was more than a little curious. I’d been to a lot of houses, met a lot of people. And I know they say everyone’s different, that we’re just like snowflakes, no two alike and all that, but I think that’s a load. I think most people are alike. I think most people go from the job to the TV to the pillow. In between are meals and a quick game of catch or checkers and a telephone call and one minute of looking out the window wondering what happened to someone.
    But there was something about Jerry that wasn’t like a person you met coming and going, something about the way he was old and young all at once. Plus, if I was going to talk him into taking more than one of my dogs (four was the number I had in my head right then), I was going to have to warm him up a little bit first.
    â€œI need to look inside,” I said. “I need to see where the dog’ll be kept.”
    â€œThe dog will be kept in the dungeon,” he said. “And forced to wear a clown costume.”
    â€œListen, you’d be surprised,” I said. “I’ve had some real weirdos. Once I—”
    â€œNo need for stories,” he said, opening the door.
    I figured he must have just been moving in. The first two rooms we entered—what might have been a living room and dining room—were empty of furniture, the walls peeling paint. Our footsteps on the wood floors echoed all the way to the high ceilings.
    â€œWhere you comin’ from?” I asked. “Out of state?”
    â€œPardon?”
    I gestured to the emptiness. “I’m guessin’ you just bought the place?”
    â€œI’ve lived here for fifty years,” he said. “So it depends on your definition of ‘just.’ ”
    In the kitchen there was a breakfast-nook-type area with a small circle table and two wood chairs. There was nothing on the counters, and I don’t mean there were no plates or cups or cereal boxes. There was just nothing —no toaster or sugar bowl or roll of paper towels. The only thing in the whole room that would have moved in an earthquake were two dog bowls in the corner by the fridge. One of the bowls was filled to the rim with water.
    â€œYou got a dog already?” I asked. “Lookin’ for a pal?”
    â€œNo dog.” He cleared his throat. “Just the bowls so far.”
    â€œA dog needs bowls, all right,” I said.
    â€œThen you’re satisfied. I can—”
    â€œJust one more thing,” I said. “I need to see where the dog will sleep. Some people, they—”
    He held up his hand. “No stories,” he said.
    He led me to a small room off the kitchen. If it hadn’t been connected by wood and plaster you couldn’t have convinced me it was part of the same house. First off, it was tiny compared to everything else—maybe it had been a laundry room or a mud porch. But now it was carpeted with thick brown shag and stuffed with furniture: a fat brown recliner, a rickety old tray table, and one of those big fancy TVs with cables and speakers and slots for movies and whatnot. The Andy Griffith Show was playing on the TV. There was an open jar of pickles and three cans