When Dogs Cry Read Online Free

always the same. The other team always made sure he hit the ground especially hard. He always got up.
    We stood on the street, waiting for Rube.
    â€˜Hey boys.’
    When he arrived, Rube was puffing gently from the run. His thick, curly, furry hair was too attractive for its own good, even though it was a lot shorter than it used to be. He was wearing only a jersey, sawn-off track pants and gymmies. Smoke came from his mouth, from the cold.
    We started walking, and Steve was his usual self. He wore the same pair of old jeans he always did at the oval and a flanno shirt. Athletics shoes. His eyes took aim, scanning the path, and his hair was short and wiry and tough-looking. He was tall and abrupt and exactly the kind of guy you wanted to be walking the streets with.
    Especially in the city.
    Especially in the dark.
    Then there was me.
    Maybe the best way to describe me that night was by looking again at my brothers. Both of them were in control. Rube, in a reckless,
no matter what happens, I’ll be ready when it comes
kind of way. Steve, in a
there’s nothing you can do that’s going to hurt me
way.
    My own face was the usual, for me. It focused on many things, but never for too long, remaining eventually on my feet, as they travelled across the slightly slanted road. My hair was sticking up. It was curly and ruffled. I wore the same jersey as Rube (only mine was slightly more faded), old jeans, my spray jacket, and boots. I told myself that although I could never look the same as my brothers, I still had
something.
    I had the words in my pocket.
    Maybe that was what I had.
    That, and knowing that I’ve walked the city a thousand times on my own and that I could walk the streets with more feeling than anyone, as if I was walking through myself. I’m pretty sure that was what it was—more a feeling than a look.
    At the oval Steve had shots at goal.
    Rube had shots at goal.
    I sent the ball back to them.
    When Steve had a shot, the ball rose up high and kept climbing between the posts. It was clean, ranging, and when it came down, it rushed onto my chest with a complete, numbing force. Rube’s ball, on the other hand, spun and spiralled, low and charging, but also went through the posts. Every time.
    They kicked them from everywhere. In front. Far out. Even past the edges of the field.
    â€˜Hey Cam!’ Rube yelled at one point. ‘Come out and have a shot!’
    â€˜Nah mate, I’ll be right.’
    They made me though. Twenty yards out, twenty yards to the left. I moved in with my heart shuddering. My feet stepped in, I kicked it, and the ball reached for the posts.
    It curved.
    Spun.
    Then it collided with the right-hand post and slumped to the grass.
    Silence.
    Steve mentioned, ‘It was a good shot Cameron,’ and the three of us stood there, in the wet, weeping grass.
    It was quarter past eight then.
    At eight-thirty, Rube left, and I’d had another seven shots.
    At just past nine-thirty, Steve was still standing behind the posts, and I still hadn’t got it through. Clumps of darkness grew heavier in the sky, and it was just Steve and me.
    Each time my brother sent the ball back, I searched for a note of complaint in him, but it never came. When we were younger he might have called me useless. Hopeless. All he did that night, however, was kick the ball back and wait again.
    When the ball finally fought its way up and fell through the posts, Steve caught it and stood there.
    No smile.
    No nod of the head, or any recognition.
    Not yet.
    Soon he walked with the ball under his arm, and when he was perhaps ten yards short of me, he gave me a certain look.
    His eyes looked differently at me.
    His expression was swollen.
    Then.
    I’ve never seen a person’s face shatter like his did.
    With pride.

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    enter, the dog
    I edge closer, towards the glowing eyes I’d previously seen inside me.
    The city is cold and dark.
    This alley is filled with numbness.
    The