High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale (Joe R. Lansdale) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

My Dead Dog, Bobby

This little short-short is one of my more popular stories. In one way it's amusing, but like most stories of this sort, its roots are not amusing. When you think about what it's really about, it's pretty damn depressing. But there's humor in horror. Robert Bloch, one of the greatest writers the field has ever known, proved that time after time. He was a great influence on me. I consider this a kind of Robert Bloch story. Or maybe Fred Brown, another of my favorites.

Voice wise, however, it's all me.

It first appeared in a small magazine, was then photocopied by readers to share with friends, told aloud, and talked about for some years before it was reprinted again. It was even read on Welsh radio.

It was inspired by eating too much popcorn, which always gives me bad dreams. There was a time in my career when popcorn and its influences were of great importance to me. I'd eat it before bed and it would give me a stomachache and bad dreams. Next morning those dreams would become a story or stories. My record of sales for stones based on gorging popcorn was remarkable. These days, the types of stones I write are not popcorn inspired; in fact, I don't eat a fraction of what I used to eat. My stomach can't take it. I like to think what I do now is just as good, or better. But there certainly was a type of story that seemed to come out of this habit, and I don't write that sort anymore. Occasionally I miss them and turn my head to the cabinet where the popcorn resides.

I always end up eating a proper amount however.

But who knows. Maybe a good gorging is just around the corner.

MY DEAD DOG, BOBBY, DOESN'T DO TRICKS anymore. In fact, to look that sucker in the eye I either have to get down on my knees and put my head to the ground or prop him up with a stick.

I've thought of nailing his head to the shed out back, that way maybe the ants won't be so bad. But as my Old Man says, "ants can climb." So, maybe that isn't such a good idea after all.

He was such a good dog, though, and I hate to see him rot away. But I'm also tired of carrying him around with me in a sack, lugging him into the freezer morning and night.

One thing though. Getting killed broke him from chasing cars, which is how he got mashed in the first place. Now, to get him to play with cars, I have to go out to the edge of the Interstate and throw him and his sack at them, and when he gets caught under the tires and bounced up, I have to use my foot to push on one end of him to make the other end fill up with guts again. I get so I really kind of hate to look in the sack at the end of the day, and I have to admit giving him his good night kiss on the lips is not nearly as fun as it used to be. He has a smell and the teeth that have been smashed through his snout are sharp and stick out every which way and sometimes cut my face.

I'm going to take Bobby down to the lake again tomorrow. If you tie him to a blowed-up inner tube he floats. It's not a bad way to cool off from a hot day, and it also drowns the ants and maggots and such.

I know it does. We kept my little brother in pretty good shape for six months that way. It wasn't until we started nailing him to the shed out back that he got to looking ragged. It wasn't the ants crawling up there and getting him, it was the damn nails. We ran out of good places to drive them after his ears came off, and we had to use longer and longer nails to put through his head and neck and the like. Pulling the nails out everyday with the hammer claw didn't do him any good either.

My Old Man said that if he had it do over, he wouldn't have hit my brother so hard with that chair. But he said that about my little sister too when he kicked her head in. She didn't keep long, by the way. We didn't know as many tricks then as we do now.

Well, I hope I can get Bobby back in this sack. He's starting to swell and come apart on me. I'm sort of ready to get him packed away so I can get home and see Mom. I always look at her for a few minutes before I put Bobby in the freezer with her.