Dead Dog's Tale

  The sun lorded over 6th Ave like a vengeful despot, wringing every ounce of moisture from the land until the streets themselves seemed ready to split apart, groaning beneath the weight of its oppression. The heat was a tangible force, pressing down on the world, stifling, unrelenting. South Tucson lay in a kind of hushed submission, the silence broken only by the distant wheeze of a struggling air conditioner and the occasional muttered curses of men who had forgotten what it meant to feel cool air on their skin. At two in the afternoon on a Sunday, the streets bore the mark of neglect, filth clinging to the cracked pavement like the remnants of a massacre. Bottles lay shattered, their jagged edges gleaming like the bared teeth of something long dead but still menacing. Needles sprawled in the gutters like the spines of a dead thing's husk, discarded, forgotten, waiting for the next poor bastard to step wrong. The ants were the only creatures that seemed to thrive in this misery,...

Blood trickled profusely from her nose, cascading down, in, and over her busted lips, pooling at her feet, splattering on mine. Her left eye dangled from its socket, a gruesome pendulum. Tears and blood left a trail of misery on the floor of my double-wide. Her beautiful face, with its exotic features and dark caramel complexion, was beaten to a pulp. She was almost unrecognizable. It was hard to look at, harder still to maintain my calm. I teetered on the brink of going nuclear. But that’s not what she needed. She needed comfort and security. I would walk the warpath soon enough. She sobbed and wailed on my shoulder, and I held her tenderly until her sister arrived. The three of us solemnly discussed what would happen next. No cops. That was a given. The police would interfere with natural justice and add unnecessary complications. Her sister would drive her to a friend’s place outside Phoenix. Her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t think to look there. Her daughter would stay with her aunt and un...