When Dogs Cry Read online

  'Well let us know what happens, okay?'

  'Yeah, bye mate.'

  I thought for a moment about the dog. Miffy. I guess no matter how much Rube and I complained about him, we knew we'd sort of miss him if something happened to him. It's funny how there are things in this world that do nothing but annoy you, but you know you'd miss them when they're gone. Miffy, the Pomeranian wonderdog, was one such thing.

  Later, when I was sitting in the lounge room with Rube, I missed many opportunities to tell him about Octavia and me.

  Now, I told myself. Now!

  No words ever came out though, and we just sat there.

  The next night I went up and paid Steve a visit. It had been a while since I'd been to see him, and in a way, I missed him. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but I'd grown to like Steve's company a lot, even though very little was ever said. Sure, we spoke more than we used to, but it still wasn't much.

  When I got there only Sal was home.

  'He should be here any minute though,' she said, in a not too thrilled voice. 'You want something to eat? Drink?'

  'Nah, I'll be right.'

  She didn't make me feel too welcome that night, like she just wasn't up to tolerating me this time around. Her expression seemed to throw words down to me. Words like: Loser.

  Dirty little bastard.

  I'm sure that at some point, a while ago, before Steve and I gathered an understanding of each other, Steve probably told Sal what a couple of loserous bastards he was the brother of. He'd always looked down on Rube and me when we all lived together. We did stupid things, I admit it: stealing road signs, fighting, gambling at the dog track . . . It wasn't quite Steve's scene.

  When he came in, about ten minutes later, he actually smiled and said, 'Hey, I haven't seen you for a while!' For a moment, I smiled back and thought he was talking to me, then realised it was Sal he was talking to. She'd been doing a lot of interstate work lately. He walked over and kissed her. Then he noticed his brother sitting on the couch.

  'Hey Cam.'

  'Hey Steve.'

  I could see they wanted to be alone so I waited a few seconds and stood up. The kitchen light poured over them as I stood up in the dimly lit lounge room.

  'Hey, I'll come back some other time,' I said too fast. I made sure to stand up quickly and get the hell out of there. Sal was giving me the best piss off look I'd ever seen.

  'No.'

  I was just about out the door when the word booted itself into my back. I turned around and Steve was standing behind me. His face was serious as he spoke the rest of the words.

  'You don't have to go, Cam.'

  All I did was look at my brother and say, 'Don't worry,' and I turned and left without worrying too much about it. I had other places to go now anyway.

  It was still fairly early so I decided to run to the station and get a train down to Hurstville. In the train's window I saw my reflection--my hair was getting longer again and standing up wild and rough. It was black. Pitch black in the window, and for the first time, I kind of liked it. Swaying with the train, I looked inside me.

  Octavia's street was wrapped in darkness. The lights from the houses were like torch lights. If I closed my eyes tight and opened them again, it looked like the houses were stumbling around in the dark, finding their way. At any moment I expected them to fade. Sometimes human shadows crossed through them, as I waited, just outside her front gate.

  For a while, I imagined myself walking to the front door and knocking, but I remembered Rube's words all too well. He'd never been inside. Never even got a close-up look at the front door. The last thing I wanted to do was overstep. I was still dying for her to come out, make no mistake about that. Yet I knew that if I had to leave again without even a glimpse of her, I would. If I could do it for a girl who cared nothing for me, I could do it for Octavia.

  In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, then vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been dragged instantly from my back and left somewhere on the ground. I wondered for a moment how I could stand outside her house so many times. I even laughed. At myself. She was erased completely a few minutes later when Octavia moved her kitchen's curtain aside, and came outside to meet me.

  The first thing I noticed, before any words hit the air, was the shell. It was tied to a piece of string and was hanging around her neck.

  'It looks good,' I nodded, and I reached out and held it in my right hand.

  'It does,' she agreed.

  We went to the same park as the first night I came, but this time we didn't sit on the splintered bench. This time we walked over the dewy grass and ended up stopping by an old tree.

  'Here,' I said, and I gave Octavia the words I wrote the previous night in bed. 'It's yours.'

  She read them and kissed the paper and then held onto me for quite a while. During that time, there were so many questions I wanted to ask her. I wanted to know what stories were in her house, what she did with Rube, why he never got inside, and whether she had brothers and sisters like me. Instead, I asked nothing. There was a definite wall set up and although I knew I'd have to face it one day, I didn't dare to do it so early.

  I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night, and even those spoken words had to struggle their way out of my mouth. It's all very well for words to build bridges, but sometimes I think it's a matter of knowing when to do it. Knowing when the time's right.

  When we made it back to the gate, I said something to her almost by mistake. My voice just seemed to say it.

  'Maybe soon,' I said, 'you can tell me more about you.' There was no hesitation in my voice. No feeling of doubt at all.

  She looked at her house, into the blunt light spread across the window. 'Okay.' Her face was kind. Honest. 'I s'pose, I can't have it all my own way, can I? You can't drown in a person unless they let you.' She was right. 'Will I see you Sunday?'

  'Of course.'

  I kissed her hand soon after that and left.

  At my place, when I returned, I was shocked to find Steve on our front porch, waiting for me.

  'I was wondering how long I'd have to sit here,' he fired when I showed up. 'I've been here an hour.'

  I walked closer. 'And? Why'd you come?'

  'Come on,' he said, standing up. 'Let's go back up to my place.'

  I'll just go in and--'

  'I already told 'em.'

  Steve's car was parked further along the street, and after getting in, there were very few words spoken in the car. I turned the radio up but don't remember the song.

  'So what's this all about?' I asked. I looked at him but Steve's eyes were firmly on the road. For a while I was wondering if he'd even heard my question. He let his eyes examine me for a second or two, but he said nothing. He was still waiting.

  When we got out of the car, he said, 'I want you to meet someone.' He slammed the door. 'Or actually, I want her to meet you.'

  We walked up the stairs and into his apartment. It was empty.

  'She's still in the shower,' he mentioned. He stood and made coffee and put a cup down in front of me. It still swirled, taking my reflection with it. Taking me down.

  For a moment, I thought we were about to go through our usual routine of questions and answers about everyone back at home, but I could see him deciding not to do it. He'd been at our place earlier and found out for himself. It wasn't in Steve's nature to manufacture conversation.

  I hadn't been to watch him at football for a while, so I asked how it was going. He was in the middle of explaining it when Sal came out of the bathroom, still drying her hair.

  'Hey,' she said to me.

  I nodded, giving her half a smile.

  That was when Steve stood up and looked at me, then at her. I knew right then that at some point, like I'd suspected, he did tell her about Rube and me. I'd imagined it on the park bench in Hurstville for
some reason, and I could hear the quiet tone of Steve's intense voice practically disowning his brothers. Now he was rewriting it, or at least trying to make it right.

  'Stand up,' he told me.

  I did.

  He said, 'Sal.' She looked at me. I looked at her, as Steve kept talking. 'This is my brother Cameron.'

  We shook hands.

  My boyish, rough hand.

  Her smooth and clean hand which smelt of perfumed soap. Soap I imagined you'd get in hotel rooms I'd never get to visit.

  She recognised me through the eyes and I was Cameron now, not just that loser brother of Steve.

  On the way back home some time after that, Steve and I talked a while, but only about small things. In the middle of it, I cut him short. I said, with knife-like words, 'When you first told Sal about Rube and me you said we were losers. You told her you were ashamed of us, didn't you?' My voice was still calm and not even the slightest bit accusing, though I was trying as hard as I could.

  'No.' He denied it when the car came to a stop outside our house.

  'No?' I could see the shame in his eyes, and for the first time ever, I could see it was shame he held for himself.

  'No,' he confirmed, and he looked at me with something that resembled anger now, almost like he couldn't stomach it. 'Not you and Rube,' he explained, and his face looked injured. 'Just you.'

  God.

  God, I thought, and my mouth was open. It was as if Steve had reached into me and pulled out my pulse. My heart was in his hands, and he was staring down at it, as if he too, could see it.

  Beating.

  Thrusting itself down, then standing up again.

  I said nothing about the truth Steve had just let loose.

  All I did was undo my seatbelt, take my heart and I got out of that car as fast as I could.

  Steve followed but it was too late. I heard his footsteps coming after me when I was walking onto our porch. Words fell down between his feet.

  'Cam!' he called out. 'Cameron!' I was nearly inside when I heard his voice cry out. 'I'm sorry. I was . . .' He made his voice go louder. 'Cam, I was wrong!'

  I got behind the door and shut it, then turned to look back out.

  Steve's figure was shadowed onto the front window. It was silent and still, plastered to the light.

  'I was wrong.'

  He said it again, though this time his voice was weaker.

  A minute shuddered past.

  I broke.

  Walking slowly to the front door, I opened it and saw my brother on the other side of the flyscreen.

  I waited, then, 'Don't worry about it,' I said. 'It doesn't matter.'

  I was still hurt, but like I said, it didn't matter. I'd been hurt before and I'd be hurt again. Steve must have wished he'd never tried to do me the favour of showing Sal that I wasn't the loser she thought I was. All he'd succeeded in doing was proving that not only had he once thought I was a lost cause, but that I was the only one.

  Soon, though, I was stabbed.

  A feeling shook through me and cut me loose. All my thoughts were off the chain, until one solitary sentence arrived and wouldn't leave me.

  The words and Octavia.

  That was the sentence.

  It wavered in me.

  It saved me, and almost whispering, I said to Steve, 'Don't worry, brother. I don't need you to tell Sal that I'm not a loser.' We were still separated by the flyscreen. 'I don't need you to say it to me either. I know what I am. I know what I see. Maybe one day I'll tell you a little more about me, but for now, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I'm nowhere near what I'm going to be, and . . .' I could feel something in me. Something I've always felt. I paused and caught his eyes. I leapt into them through the door and held him down. 'You ever hear a dog cry, Steve? You know, howling so loud it's almost unbearable?' He nodded. 'I reckon they howl like that because they're so hungry it hurts, and that's what I feel in me every day of my life. I'm so hungry to be somethin'--to be somebody. You hear me?' He did. 'I'm not lyin' down ever. Not for you. Not for anyone.' I ended it. 'I'm hungry, Steve.'

  Sometimes I think they're the best words I've ever said.

  'I'm hungry.'

  And after that, I shut the door.

  I didn't slam it.

  You don't shoot a dog when it's already dead.

  when dogs cry

  We're in the deepest part of the city now, and when the dog stops and turns around to face me his eyes are hungrier than ever.

  Hungry proud.

  Hungry to keep his desire.

  If affects me, making my heart reach further inside me, beating harder, prouder, bigger.

  He's chosen this moment to show me what I am.

  The wind starts to push through again and a storm stirs itself amongst the sky.

  Lightning roars and thunder cracks above us.

  And the dog begins.

  He reaches deep, and his fur stands on end, climbing ferociously to the sky. From his heart, from his spirit, from the everything in his instinct, he begins to howl.

  He howls over the top of howling thunder.

  He howls above the howling lightning, and beyond a howling wind.

  With his head claiming the endless sky, he howls hunger and I feel it rage through me.

  It's my hunger.

  My pride.

  And I smile.

  I smile and feel it in my eyes, because hunger's a powerful thing.

  13

  THE PHONE WAS RINGING. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. JUST PAST seven o'clock.

  'Hello.'

  'Ruben Wolfe?'

  'No, it's Cameron here.'

  'Tell you what,' the voice went on, laced with friendly malice. 'Could you get him for me?'

  'Yeah, who's callin'?'

  'No-one.'

  'No-one?'

  'Listen mate. Just get y' brother on the phone or we'll beat the crap out of you as well.'

  I was taken aback. I pulled the phone away, then back to my ear. 'I'll get him. Hang on a minute.'

  Rube was in our room with Julia the Scrubber. I knocked on the door and went in, saying, 'Rube--someone on the phone.'

  'Who is it?'

  'They wouldn't say.'

  'Go ask 'em.'

  'Do I look like y' secretary? Just get up and get the phone.'

  He looked strangely at me, got up and left, which left me in the room with Julia the Scrubber, alone.

  Julia the Scrubber: 'Hi Cam.'

  Me: 'Hi Julia.'

  Julia the Scrubber, smiling and moving closer: 'Rube's been tellin' me you're not too much in love with me.'

  Me, inching away: 'Well I guess he can tell you whatever he wants.'

  Julia the Scrubber, sensing my complete lack of interest: 'Is it true?'

  Me: 'Well, I don't know, to be honest. It isn't really any of my business what Rube does . . . but I know for sure that whoever's on that phone wants to kill him, and I've got some idea it's because of you.'

  Julia the Scrubber, laughing: 'Rube's a big boy. He can take care of himself.'

  Me: 'That's true, but he's also my brother, and there's no way I'd let him bleed alone.'

  Julia the Scrubber: 'How very noble of you.'

  Rube came back in, saying, 'I don't know what you're talkin' about Cam. There's no-one on the phone.'

  'I'm telling you,' I said on my way out. 'There was a guy there Rube, and he sounded like he wanted to kill you. So when the phone rings again, get up and answer it.'

  The phone did ring again and this time Rube came running out of the room and got it. Again, they hung up on him. By the third time, Rube barked into the phone. 'How 'bout you start talkin'. If you want Ruben Wolfe, you've got him. So talk!'

  There was no response from the other end, and the phone didn't ring again that night, but after Julia left, I could see that Rube was a little pensive. He was about as worried as Ruben Wolfe gets, because he knew without doubt now, like I did, that something was coming. In our room, he looked at me. I
n the exchanging of our eyes, he was telling me a fight was looming.

  He sat on his bed.

  'I guess that bad feeling you had was right,' he began. 'About Julia.' It wasn't like Rube to be scared, because we both knew he could take care of himself. He was one of the most liked but most feared people in our neighbourhood. The only trouble now was that nothing was certain. It was a feeling, that's all, and I could sense that Rube was feeling it now as well. I could smell it.

  'If somethin' comes up,' I said, 'I'll be there, okay?'

  Rube nodded. 'Thanks brother.' He smiled.

  The phone rang the next night as well, and the next.

  On the third call of Friday night, Rube picked up the phone and shouted, 'What!?'

  He then grew quiet.

  'Yeah.' A pause. 'Yeah, sorry about that.' He looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders. 'I'll get him.' He took the receiver away and covered the mouthpiece. 'It's for you.' He held it out to me, thinking. What was he thinking?

  'Hello.'

  'It's me,' she said. Her voice reached through the phone and took me. 'You working tomorrow?'

  'Till about four-thirty.'

  She thought for a moment. 'Maybe,' she said, 'we can do something when you get back. I'll take you somewhere.' Her words were soft but intense. 'I'll tell you things.' The voice was excitement. The voice was shivers.

  I smiled. I couldn't help it. 'For sure.'

  'Okay, I'll come over just after four-thirty.'

  'Good, I'll see you then.'

  'I have to go.' She almost cut me off, and she didn't say goodbye. She said, 'I'm watching the clock,' and she was gone.

  When I hung up, Rube asked what I knew he would.

  'Who was that?' He bit into an apple. 'She sounded familiar.'

  I moved closer and sat at the kitchen table and swallowed. I concentrated on breathing. This was it. This was it and I had to say it. I said, 'Remember Octavia?'

  There was nothing.

  The tap dripped.

  It exploded into the sink.

  Rube was halfway through another bite when he realised what I was saying.

  His head tilted. He swallowed the piece of apple and made the calculation, while I was thinking, Oh no, what the hell's about to happen here?

  Something happened.

  It happened when Rube went and tightened the tap, turned back around and said, 'Well Cam.' He laughed.

  Was that a good laugh or a bad one? Good laugh, bad laugh? Good laugh, bad laugh? I couldn't decide. I waited.

  'What?' I asked. I couldn't stand it any more. 'Tell me.'