Dolly was living on public aid down in Missouri with her two sons from a
previous marriage, a couple of pre-teen Nazis who liked things like dissecting
live frogs and pulling legs off grasshoppers. One-fifty a month isn't much until
you supplement it with twenty-five percent of my weekly take-home pay and double
child support from some other guy. It's hard going to work when you know that
ten hours a week is for some bitch in a backwoods Missouri town where eighty
bucks will rent you a farmhhouse for a month. And here I was, a working joe who
couldn't afford a new pair of boots.
It's a good thing I'd just finished my signature when the dog howled or I might
have dug right through the paper. The ink pen went flying out of my fingers when
I jumped up and both Maggie and I ran for the hallway. My attention had been
centered on the check and my ex and I hadn't even seen Chanci creep all the way
into the bathroom. Now she came rolling out as if something had knocked her off
her feet, paws flailing at her nose. She slipped on the linoleum and went down,
yowls getting louder as Maggie grabbed for her collar and I grabbed for
anything.
Maggie finally threw herself across the dog and pinned her to the floor.
Chanci's howling filled the apartment as she struggled wildly and whipped her
head back and forth. I already had an idea about what had happened.
"What's the matter with her, John?" Maggie cried.
"Hold her!" I shouted, lunging for her head. I guessed right away that one of
those cockroach things had bit her on the face; what I couldn't figure out was
how we were going to calm the old girl down before she had a heart attack.
I also hadn't counted on the damned thin still hanging onto Chanci's nose.
The three of us scrambled around on the floor for about thirty seconds or so --
I admit I didn't know what to do. I sure as shit didn't want to grab that thing
with my hand, but I had to do something: Chanci's head was jerking in every
direction and I could see flashes of the insect's dangling black body -- it
showed no signs of letting go. Her yowling was getting worse; I was afraid it
was chewing on her.
"John!" Maggie sounded on the verge of hysteria.
"Hang on -- I'll be right back!" I ran back into the kitchen, sliding on the
floor and cracking my knee as I came around the cabinet and yanked out a drawer.
Behind me, Maggie's cries of Stay! were getting hoarse and Chanci's yelps were
coming faster.
"John, I can't hold her!"
Both hands plunged into the midst of the aluminum gadgets and searched
frantically -- there, a pair of tongs with serrated edges. I barreled into the
hallway pointing the thing like a gun, as if just the sight would drive the
creature away, but no such luck.
"She's getting loose!" Chanci had almost squirmed out from under Maggie and I
could see places where the dog's nails had raked welts into my wife's skin. I
sprawled on top of the animal's back end and reached around Maggie, who was
trying unsuccessfully to hold Chanci's thrashing legs; any second now I expected
my lovable mutt to chomp into one of us. Pain has a way of changing personality.
I outweigh Maggie by a good fifty pounds, but that dog was still bucking under
me like some kind of wild horse. She opened her mouth and showed those old
yellow teeth and I thought, Here it comes! but before it could I shoved my left
fist into her throat and forced her head as far back as it would go against
