I say “how all are we going to start Daddy? What we all going to do with this dog and Momma in the tree?” Daddy looks at me without no expression. “I done told you I trust you one hundred percent. If there were more than one hundred percent, I would trust you that much too. I’m going to leave it up to you. You know the deal. We all is going to start a whole new world up here. If you see them in it, well, that’s the way we’ll do it. But a little warnin‘ for you. Your Momma and that dog is going to need some powerful watching. They is natural born anchors and will drag on behind you until they get caught on the bottom of the sea.

They’ll stop you up and drag you under the water with them. If you ain’t want that, that’s also up to you. I ain’t rightly sure what all you did with the chicken man, but I know he ain’t come back to his house to cause a ruckus about losin’ no chickens.” I open my mouth. I don’t know, to explain to him what all I done, but he shakes his head “nope, I ain’t need to hear what all the exact details is. I got a pretty good idea what all you done out there. Tell the truth, I heard what all you done told him and I got mighty suspicious I am ashamed to admit. But makin’ up that bit where you pretended to have a brother who’s dying? that was a stroke of genius. Where you learn to say things like that? Were it from the T.V.?”

I shook my head “no, it just comed to me. I can see things in my head, and sometimes I believe them myself. In that moment, I did have a brother and he was in trouble. Ain’t that something? I was sure I did. Was sure I had a brother.” Daddy looks at me “you sure is something, being able to convince yourself of something like that. Maybe it’s my fault for never giving you one in the first place, a brother I mean, so you’d have someone to play kid games with out here. So you ain’t have to imagine one. I sure am sorry for that, but we can get along well enough I expect. You and me can get along just fine.” I nod “we sure can, Daddy. We can do all sorts of things.”

Daddy ruffles my hair and smiles. I smile back and look outside. “I see her foot kicking some. I think we get her on down here so she can get this mangy thing out of our way.” Daddy calls me the boss then and we both head out. Daddy gives the pooch a kick as he walks over it. I walk over it too, but I ain’t give it a kick this time. “Daddy?” I ask. He turns to me, “what is it?” I look at the thing lying on the stoop “what all is a dog supposed to act like? I ain’t never came close to one until this here. You said you had dogs when you was little and they was all mangy for the most part. Is this one as mangy as all the rest of them dogs you talk about?” Daddy rubs his scratchy chin and thinks “well, we done had our share of dogs when I was little, mostly bastard dogs what all ain’t been fixed up... you know what all I mean by fixed up?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I shake my head “you all know about how animals and the like are made?” My face turns red, for what reason I can’t quite tell, but I’m getting embarrassed. “I guess we ain’t had time to give you the explainin’ of it all. I’ll give it to you right quick. You take two things what all have different fixin’s between their legs. They go at it like animals do, and sooner or later, a little one comes out of the lady and it’s a brand-new animal what they both made together. Happens with everything you can think of. Dogs, cats, lions, birds, trees I think, dirt worms too I expect. You fix them up so one or both of them ain’t got no parts to fit with the other one’s parts, and that keeps them from making a new animal together. That's done since it can be a right nuisance. Having a surprise animal and all.”

“That what happen with people too?” I ask “rightly enough, although there’s some things you can do to keep it from happening. Just you learn this, always keep a rubber on you in case of emergencies.” I nod like I know what he’s talking about so he’ll stop talking about it. I think he means wearing rubber boots. Daddy continues. “Back to what I was saying. We got us some pup dogs what come from two other dogs what ain’t wear no rubbers” he chuckles “and they growed up and became wild and rucktious.

They was surprise dogs, so we ain’t got to pick how they was, like you would at an animal shop. It was like reaching into a grab bag of dogs. Kind of like this here I expect.” He toes our dog. I say. “You ain’t tell me none about when you was little, Daddy. Did you ever have nothin’ to play with when you was young what wasn’t no dog?” Daddy shakes his head. “Sometimes you got to move on from what all happened to you in the past. Besides, them dogs was too wild to play with and they was all eventually put down for being a nuisance. I spent all my time roamin’ around and scrappin’ in the bushes until it was time for supper. It went all on like that until I flat just didn’t come back. I expect I weren’t missed none too much.

Maybe I was a nuisance too. Like them dogs.”