But by the Grace of Dog [Four-Legged Friends]

Chapter 2: The Market

Chapter 2: The MarketIt took a lukewarm shower with the bathroom lights off to get Thom’s breathing back to normal, then another half an hour staring into the bathroom mirror, trying to visualize the part of him that made him so different, before he could convince himself he’d be able to continue with the day.

His original intention had been to make it home early, change, and get to the open-air market before the post-school, kids-in-tow, cranky-parent, crankier-kid crowd descended. In Thom’s experience, early to mid-afternoon was just about the best time to avoid people, short of not going at all. But the market was one of those places that Thom couldn’t stay away from, regardless of his fears.

The open-air market on the corner of Esposito and Pine had been operating in his town on Fridays for as long as he could remember. The hours were six a.m. to six p.m. officially, but weather and market conditions meant that vendors could be found as early as four a.m. in the summer or gone as early as noon in late autumn. A sudden heavy rain could empty the place in fifteen minutes, and a persistent chill could mean that things never really got started in the first place.

From the first day after his eighth birthday when his mom finally deemed him old enough to be allowed to walk to school on his own, Thom had made it a point to twist his route through the market every Friday, both on his way in, then on his way home, regardless of weather or pending responsibilities.

It had been easy to remain faceless, ignored, and unapproached. Nobody expected a kid to talk. Nobody really wanted them around for long in the first place.

That first year, he’d been big on the Cortland apple—all the sweet flavor of the Mac without the softness. Back then, his mom bought apples by the bushel, leaving them in the garage until they weren’t good for anything but sauce, and no kid in their right mind wanted their apple to smoosh instead of crunch. So, once a week, with his allowance tucked in his pocket, Thom hurried through the market and made mental notes on who had what, where it was, and how best to get back there after school. No more than four minutes after the school bell rang was when the real search began though, meticulously going along each of the tables he’d targeted earlier, then sorting through the best of the best to find the absolute best. Too many Friday night dinners went to waste due to a belly full of the perfect apple.

After that there was the season of kielbasa, a round with fresh fudge, black cherries, navel oranges, sesame chips, pomegranates, honey cakes, jujubes, and even freshly ground coffee. Of course, by the time he was sipping on coffee instead of crunching into apples he was tall and gangly, with thick black-rimmed glasses to match his unruly black hair and a frowning, studious expression to go with his antisocialism. Throughout the years, he outgrew his Yo-yo, his G.I. Joe, and his Super Nintendo, but he never got tired of the market.

Thom still bought everything he could from the market, and it was more than just a farm-to-table, support-the-local-economy kind of thing. He felt safe, anonymous, and unjudged there. The market was good to him, so he was good back. Even now, with too much time spent feeling sorry for himself and questioning the gods over good-looking neighbours trying to make friends, he was still going to pull himself up, shake himself off, and try and get there.

Unfortunately, by the time he’d redressed and walked the two blocks to get there, it was well after four and he’d missed his window of opportunity. School had let out and the entire place seemed to be crawling with people.

Thom let out a long breath and gazed at the stalls and the crowd. The sun was still bright, high in the sky, and it hurt his eyes to peer all but directly into it, but an assessment was in order. He could just hurry through, head down, and see if that would serve him all right. He could skirt the entire perimeter of the market, keeping close to the fence and see if something caught his eye from there, then scoot in and right back out, or…

Just then, while debating the right, left, or centre approach, something ran up the back of his heel. “God damn—”

He turned, glaring, and swallowed the rest of what he was about to say while a young mother attempted to reroute a stroller around him.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding anything but.

He made no move to help her but stepped to the left to get out the way and was immediately body-checked by a man half his size, but twice as loud.

“Watch out, for f**k’s sake!”

This time it was Thom’s turn to mumble a half-hearted, “Sorry.”

“Better places to stand,” an older gentleman advised. The man reached out, perhaps to move Thom aside, perhaps for nothing more than to offer a friendly pat, and that was it for Thom. He hustled away from the entrance, ducked left down the outside boundary, then turned a quick right, into the first aisle.

He breathed through a couple of quick pants while steadying himself against a table, then closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his heartbeat drumming through his ears. He took several long breaths in through his nose and out his mouth. He’d never known the market to not smell of fish, smoked meat, and that slightly rotted odour of vegetables and fruits stored in quantity. Those smells, as odd and unseemly as they were, were familiar and friendly. He swallowed the scent, making himself taste it, and giving himself an internal ten-count before opening his eyes and looking around.

The aisle teemed with vendors, customers, kids, carts, strollers, carriages, bicycles, skateboards, leashed dogs, unleashed cats, birds, and bees. His heart slipped into his stomach, and he silenced a “nope” as it tried to get out of his mouth. He agreed with the sentiment, though. This wasn’t going to work at all. He should have known when he’d run into Justin that the day was jinxed. He’d do himself a world of favours if he simply turned around and went home.

He had almost made up his mind to do just that when he saw the sign at the stall across from where he was standing: FRESH STRAWBERRIES LOCAL SWEET $2/PINT. The stall had a tarp over it and along both sides, but it remained open at the front and back, funnelling what little breeze existed through the space. The tarps ruffled so fluidly that they appeared to be made of water.

Thom lifted his face, as if to check with higher powers, and felt a cool rush of air, rich with the scent of sun-warmed strawberries. Godsent olfactory blessings aside, it was the fact that there were no other people anywhere near the stall that won him over. Berries, if they were good ones, would at least justify the trip out and he’d get another few minutes of silence to decide if he had the nerve to stay and keep shopping.

As if fleeing a crime scene, Thom hurried across the dusty walkway and ducked under the tarp. He resisted the urge to try and pull it closed behind him. He scrubbed his chin with his hand, looked at the table of berries, and heard a low, pathetic whine.

The way his body reacted, the sound could have come from the angry end of a rattlesnake. That was just surprise, though, and intrigue got the better of shock. He bent to look under the table and immediately recoiled from the smell. It was intense—wet hair, urine, and animal—and not at all fresh, happy strawberries. Whatever it was underneath the table had no place being in such an otherwise pleasant spot. Thom steeled himself for the worst and took another look.

A small to medium sized dog peered back, looking about as dejected as Thom imagined an animal could look. It was caged, and though the cage looked to be free of waste, the dog smelled even worse at eye level. It was splayed out like a deflated balloon with its chin on both of its front paws. One ear sat straight up, as if trying to display a ragged notch that could have been the result of a not-so-friendly bite or a close encounter with some barbed wire. The other ear was folded over like the corner of an old notebook. The dog looked at Thom with the sad disinterest of something that knew it had absolutely no value and deserved no pity. Which instantly garnered every ounce of pity Thom was capable of.

He reached through the bars of the cage and scrubbed the spot of fur directly beyond the dog’s dry, black nose. The dog seemed to evaluate the touch and whether it found Thom pleasant or merely tolerable, it sighed as if in agreement, and allowed Thom to continue.

“You looking for strawberries, mister?”

Thom yanked back his hand and stood, far too fast and carelessly. His knuckle raked across the rusty bar of the cage, his head cracked into the table above, and he sat back hard on the packed ground. “God, damn—”

He shut down the comment when he saw a boy staring at him.

“Yeah, that looked rough,” the kid said. “Just blame Ugly. Everybody else does.”

Thom frowned, brushing at his burning finger, hoping the rusty metal hadn’t broken any skin. Wouldn’t that make the day perfect…a good run of tetanus or maybe even a solid case of necrotizing fasciitis. “Uh, sorry? Ugly what?”

“Not Ugly what, Ugly who,” the kid confirmed. Not that it was necessary, the dog’s reaction made the concept pretty clear. Inside the cage, it sat up, started whacking the bars with its enthusiastic tail, and a spit-covered tongue lolled out from what could only be described as a wide smile.

“Are you f**k—” Again Thom cut himself off, pinching his lips together. There was no sense bitching at a child. “You named your dog Ugly?”

The boy shrugged. “He doesn’t really have a name so much, because we’re not supposed to name them. My dad says it gets you too attached. But Dad calls him Ugly now. Probably since he’s been around so long. You wanna buy him?”

“I want…” Thom shook his head, finishing that statement internally—to believe that people don’t name dogs Ugly, to know that they take care of them and keep them clean and don’t leave them sitting by themselves in a cage in this kind of heat all day—and pushed himself off the ground. “No. No, I don’t want a dog. I want strawberries.”

Thom blamed curiosity but he was sure disgust had more to do with the fact he kept talking. After all, while he’d never wanted a dog himself, he’d kind of assumed that this kind of thing would be regulated even at the market. They were dogs, after all. Everything he’d seen on social media bestowed their praises. Man’s best friend, and all.

“Why are you selling your dog? Tell me it’s not because your dad thinks it’s ugly.”

The dog pawed at the front of the cage and coughed a sound that Thom assumed meant, “Let me out of here, pal.”

The boy gave Thom a direct look. “Selling’s what we do. Had a litter of them to begin with. Ugly’s the only one that didn’t sell.”

“Do you think that might have something to do with the fact that you keep calling him ugly?” Thom asked, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

The dog reacted to its name by coughing again, this time much louder.

The boy shook his head. “Nah, I think it’s ‘cuz he’s actually ugly.”

Thom eyed the boy. “You’re a terrible person.” He slapped the dust off his palms. “Just the strawberries. A pint. No, two—”

“Shame,” the boy said, shaking his head at the dog. “Dad’s dropping him at the SPCA tonight after the market.” He gave Thom a long, sad look. “Can’t afford to keep feeding him if he’s not going to sell.”

Thom lifted an eyebrow and reached for his wallet. “Sure, kid.”

“I ain’t even joking,” the boy said, raising both hands. “Why do you think I’m trying so hard to get him out of here? Just because he ain’t the best doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve a chance, you know? We get him in the slammer and they’re not going to give him even a second. I mean, he’s pretty ugly, you know what I’m saying?”

Although Thom’s heart felt that statement a little more than he figured it should, he steeled himself and handed the boy a five-dollar bill. If he let sales pitches like that win him over, he’d be suckering himself into a timeshare in Florida before he knew it.

The kid shrugged and took the bill. “Sorry, Ugly, at least I tried. And mister, since I can’t talk you into picking up a friend today, I guess you should just pick out your berries.”

As if he understood what had been said, the dog released a heavy, lip-ruffling sigh and flumped onto his belly. Even from under the table, his gaze appeared heavy.

Thom told himself not to look. He even managed to keep himself from doing it for all of about four seconds. The moment he peeked over, as if he’d been waiting for Thom to do it, the dog reached out. It was only an inch, as if to paw the front of the cage, but his short arms didn’t go that far and he didn’t put any effort beyond that first stretch. To Thom it seemed as if the dog had been rendered exhausted by trying. And man, oh man, if that wasn’t something Thom could relate to.

Black puppy eyes locked onto Thom’s, and for a moment, he was back in his parents’ living room, watching the street parties that had been a common mid-summer theme in their suburb. From behind the glass and behind the gauzy folds of the window sheers, he watched people mingle and talk and drink beers and pops and they all seemed to have the social thing down perfectly. They made friends and connections, passed out hotdogs and freezies. And while that house had been no cage, Thom had definitely felt trapped. The worst part of it all was, he hadn’t wanted anyone to let him out. Trapped was safe. Trapped was comforting. The dog, however, seemed to want to be saved quite badly.

Thom knelt, gripping the table with one hand so he wouldn’t fall on his ass again, and reached between the bars. His fingertips barely touched the dog’s outstretched paw. The dog didn’t pull back, though. Nor did Thom have a bad reaction to their connection. Rather, a kind of warm, almost excited emotion began to twist through him. If Thom couldn’t make friends with people, maybe a dog would be the next best thing. A friend was, after all, a friend. Regardless of type.

“I’ll give you twenty bucks for him,” Thom said, still staring into the dog’s eyes. “But you throw in the cage.”

“If you want the cage, too, he’s going to cost you forty,” the kid said quickly. To Thom’s delight, the boy actually sounded pleased. Maybe the dog’s fate had been marked in hours and not days.

“Thirty,” Thom countered.

“Forty, or my dad’ll kill me.” The boy held up the bag of strawberries. “But I can throw in the berries. He won’t notice two pints.”

Thom nodded. “Deal. But I’m going to need a leash.”

Before the words had even settled in the air, there was a metal rattle, the dog sat up, and the boy was smiling behind the dangling leash he had gripped in his fist.

“You made the right choice, mister,” the boy said around a huge smile. “I just know it!”