When Dogs Cry Read Online Free Page A

sky’s sinking. Dark, dark sky.
    I’m there now, maybe five yards from an animal that stares back. My eyes adjust and I see all of him, crouched to the ground.
    I see the eyes.
    The rough, ragged, rusted fur.
    Breathing.
    Panting smoke.
    Slowly, I move closer.
    Too close.
    I get too close and the dog buckles to his feet and arcs around me, watchful. His head’s down, but trying to reach up.
    He goes past me but stops to look back.
    â€˜What?’ I ask.
    But I know.
    I have to follow him.
    Gradually, he takes me back through the streets and to the oval. He moves with what I can only call a jagged grace.
    Then.
    There’s a place on that ground.
    On the dew-covered ground.
    He stops and sits there and the city seems dead around us.
    I like his eyes.
    They look like desire.

3
    F AGGOT . P OOFTER . W ANKER .
    These are common words in my neighbourhood when someone wants to
give you some,
tell you off, or just plain humiliate you. They’ll also call you one of those things if you show some sign that you’re in some way different to the regular, run-of-the-mill sort of guy who lives in this part of the city. You might also get it if you’ve annoyed someone in some inadvertent way and the person has nothing better to say. For all I know it’s the same everywhere, but I can’t really speak for anywhere else. The only place I know is this.
    This city.
    These streets.
    Soon you’ll know why I’ve mentioned it . . .
    On Thursday that week I decided I should go and get a haircut, which is always a pretty dangerous decision, especially when your hair sticks up as stubborn andchronic as mine. You just have to pray that it won’t end in tragedy. You hope beyond all hope that the barber won’t ignore all instructions and butcher your head to pieces. But it’s a risk you have to take.
    â€˜Har-low mate,’ the barber said when I entered the shop, deeper into the city. ‘Have a seat, I won’t be long.’
    In the scungy waiting area there was quite a good range of magazines, though you could tell each one had been sitting there for the last few years, judging by the dates of issue. There was
Time, Rolling Stone,
some fishing thing,
Who Weekly,
some computer thing,
Black and White, Surfing Life,
and always a favourite,
Inside Sport.
Of course, the best thing about the
Inside Sport
magazine is not the sport, but the scantily clad woman who is planted on the cover. She is always firm and has desire in her eyes. Her swimsuit is nice and open, her legs long and tanned and elegant. She has breasts you can only imagine your hands touching and massaging. (Sorry, but it’s true.) She has hips of extreme grace, a golden, flat stomach and a neck you can only imagine yourself sucking on. Her lips are always full and hungry. The eyes say, ‘Take me.’
    She’s always brilliant.
    Absolutely.
    You remind yourself that there are some pretty good articles in
Inside Sport,
but you know you’re lying. Of course there
are
some good articles in the magazine, but that sure as hell isn’t what makes you pick it up. It’s always the woman. Always. Trust me on this one.
    So, typically, I surveyed the area and made sure no-one was looking when I picked up the
Inside Sport
magazine,opened it quickly and pretended to scan the contents page for any good articles. I was (predictably) seeing which page the woman was on.
    Seventy-six.
    â€˜Okay mate,’ the barber said.
    â€˜Me?’
    â€˜There’s no-one else waiting is there?’
    Yeah, but,
I thought helplessly,
I haven’t got to page seventy-six yet!
    It was futile.
    The barber was ready and if there’s one man you don’t want to keep waiting it’s the guy about to cut your hair. He’s all-powerful. In fact, he might as well be God.
That’s
the kind of power he has. A few months at barber school and a man becomes the most important person in your life for ten or fifteen