Practice

Rodentia

Rodentia lives
Rodentia lives
Rodentia Lives lives

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The following is an exerpt from a novel in progress called Dessie goes Downtown. It is also being drafted as a Screenplay.

Dessie awoke with Horace’s arm across her throat. He was fully clad on his belly next to her. He was on top of the comforter, she beneath it. She remembered waiting up for him the previous evening, then taking a long hot bath, slathering her body with lotion and calling it a night. She could smell the stale smoke from his clothes, his hair and skin. She threw his arm off her as if it were an infested tree branch and got out of bed all in one motion. Rising up so quickly made her both dizzy and energized.
She threw on a pair of Levis and a t-shirt, slid into her worn flip flops, drew back the curtains to see if the truck was in the driveway. It was, sort of – it was partly on the road, the lawn and the drive. The passenger door was open as well. It was that last detail which pumped Dessie full of anger.
“Horace…” She stretched his name knowing that he was oblivious to everything right now.
“You son-of-a-bitch.” She muttered like a mantra as she walked over the dewy lawn. When she got to the truck she slipped on the wet grass, her right leg flying out with her landing on her bottom. Her hand was soon soaked and when she wiped her palm on her knee, she saw the blood. Then she saw where it came from. Under the truck was the dog from across the street, a German Sheppard. It was not moving, at least as far as Dessie could tell. She stared at its ribcage watching closely for any rise and fall. She herself was not breathing as she waited; then she saw what she hoped she would not, as the poor animal had lost a lot of blood and one of its legs was twisted in a painful angle. The dog released a raspy push of air, like it had been holding its breath too. This startled Dessie to her feet.
She did not want to deal with this crisis. Not today. She looked around for any sign of life on the quiet street, but it was only six thirty in the morning. She wiped her bloody hand on the lawn and when she bent down the dog let out a whimper as if it knew someone was there. Dessie knelt down and instinctively spoke random comforting words. She reached out to touch the dog’s back. This caused it to raise its head and turn toward her. Their eyes met. She found hers tearing up. Her fingers were gently moving through the fur onto the warm skin of the animal. The heat from the dog’s spine made her feel the chill in the air. She stood and rummaged behind the seat of the truck, finding an old blanket from Mexico. She shook the dust, sand and dried grass out of it, then gently placed it over the animal. For some reason the dog reacted as though the weight of the blanket were suddenly too much and it began to convulse. Oh shit. Dessie thought as she ran back to the house.
The front screen door slammed behind her with one solid thud. She shook Horace with both hands. The rocking woke him up.
“Wipe your mouth asshole. You’re drooling on my sheets.”
“You woke me up for that?” He did as she asked him and was about to lie back down to sleep.
“Get up right now and come with me.” Dessie’s voice was more authoritarian than Horace’s first drill sergeant during his two month stint as a marine before they sent him packing for one indiscretion too many.
By the time Horace got his boots back on, hopping from one foot to another, Dessie had dismantled the top shelf of the clothes closet looking for the shoe box containing the gun.
“What the..?” Horace was now fully awake at the sight of the gun. He whispered this believing there was an intruder in the house.
“We gotta hurry before everyone is awake,” was all Dessie said putting three bullets into the gun’s chamber while she walked toward the front door. Horace scampered behind her, confused and now worried about the loaded gun. He knew from the couple of times he had attempted to teach Dessie how to shoot that she was not the steadiest shooter. She always missed the target and usually ended up on her seat from the kickback.
“Gimme the gun, Des,” he whispered, grabbing the air behind her, trying to reach around to get the gun. Dessie suddenly stopped. Horace stopped an inch from Dessie and stood at full attention. He felt as though his ears were trying to detect the sound of the threat. His nose began to run as it always did when he was nervous. Before he could raise his hand to wipe it, Dessie turned around to face him looking more threatening than he could ever recall with that loaded gun in her hand.
“Look how you parked the truck.”
“Huh?” How I parked…the…?” Dessie moved aside so he could look out the front door.
“Yeah, so? It’s all in one piece.” Horace shifted from ready to defend the house from an invader, to defending his driving skills.
“Any reason you came in at such an original angle?” Dessie was tapping her chin with the barrel of the gun. She noticed Horace’s eyebrows raise with concern and she could hear him sniffle, not knowing what she was getting at.
“Think Horace. Think back, afterall it was only three hours ago.”
“Aww c’mon Dez…don’t shoot the tires again, I gotta get to work later.”
Dessie had circled around the truck to the other side leaving Horace rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He scampered after her. By the time he reached her backside, he heard a muffled shot from the handgun. Dessie had shot through the blanket and right into the dog’s forehead. Dessie stood face to face with Horace, shoved the gun into his belly and before he could question anything, she growled out a few words.
“Get that sorry ass truck of yours off my lawn and dispose of him with some kind of dignity.”
She returned to the house leaving Horace dumfounded by his quick awakening and sudden shock of events. All he could hear was the slapping of her flip flops, then the slamming screen door. Through the open door of the truck, he could see the keys in the ignition. He could not recall anything about the night before, the dog must have been asleep on the lawn as he drove in. He looked down at the bloody mess, lighting a Camel from his breast pocket of his shirt. As he exhaled a fog patch of smoke, he was stirred into quick action by the sound of a neighbor’s garage door opening. With cigarette dangling from his mouth, he squatted then lifted the limp dog up in two quick movements. He heaved the large dog over the edge of his truck bed, then threw the bloodied blanket over the dog’s blown apart head. He had a tarp covering his tools which he then hid the rest of the body with. He looked down at the lawn and then at the sky. Although it was overcast, it did not look like it would rain. He went up to Dessie’s house, grabbed a garden hose then rinsed the lawn until pink flowed down the street and into the sewer.