Read Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665) for Free Online

unheard of to find such things, probably left over from what might have been her twin. It sounded nasty, and when she went to her village the following Christmas she was afraid to tell her mother, but she did. Her mother said nothing.
    There was still light in the sky, but the streetlights were on. The street completely empty. The man had gone. She didn’t like to go to bed so early, but there was nothing else to do. At least this way she would sleep through her hunger, wake up and go to work where she could eat. She drank a glass of water from the bottle and lay down.



I t rained. To get out of it he went into an English-language bookstore on the rue de Rivoli. Glancing through some Stephen King, he noticed a sign and a stairway that led to a smoke-filled tearoom with uncomfortable chairs and poor service. He took a table next to a young American girl eating bread and a salad. A redhead—not the orange flaming kind, but darker and cut short. She was tall, had a slim strong body with the hands of a boy and a redhead’s firm, almost opaque skin.
    Her face was sharp, sensuous, alert, easily given to irritation. Or ecstasy, he thought. A touch of consternation on the forehead. Nothing blurred; she was exact, she was radar. She was reading a French magazine, but he knew she wasn’t French. It was her shoes. They were scuffed, well used. This girl was an American who had done some walking.
    â€œYou ever had a fire in your refrigerator?”
    That was a good line. Stupid, but unique. She’d have a mind that might appreciate something like that. She would respond:
    â€œYou mean stove?”
    â€œDepends on what you keep in it.”
    â€œLike what?” she would ask.
    â€œArtwork.”
    That would be good. She might ask him if he was an artist. No, she wouldn’t—she wasn’t an asker. What was she? Student? No, Ph.D. maybe. Maybe just on vacation. Maybe married. Nope, no ring. Boyfriend then. So what?
    He could ask her if she knew Tartini.
    â€œTartini who?” Or maybe she would know. No, she wouldn’t know. He’d have to tell her. Italian. First half of the eighteenth century. Composer, violinist. “The Devil’s Trill.” Fuck Tartini, she’d think he was a nerd.
    He watched her eat. She used her teeth like she didn’t want to get her lips in the way. Gave her a kind of snarling affect. This girl was against her own best gift, constitutionally. What gift?
    To give, to be true, to be known. She lacked goodness. She had it, but didn’t have a clue how to live with it. She confuses it with compromise. A lady, sure, but still a teenager. Her own way or no way. A sensualist, but her trust was pinched. Her hunger, her sentiments, be damned. Yet he could see that there were mountains of it. A woman with sympathies she can’t express. Her sweetness rotting in the brig. She loved so strongly she couldn’t live with it, is what he decided. But so what, not acting on your best qualities is like not having them. But he needed something from her. Needed her to look at him, to want to know him, to help him. He needed her goodwill.
    Humor was the way: “A lot of people die on the toilet. A friend of mine’s wife just did.” That he had a friend who had a wife might help. It was a lie. But it was a grabber. “Lenny Bruce too, he died on the toilet.” That was true. Then maybe in a barnyard voice he would say, “I tol’ you not to go in the outhouse, Billy, Grandpa’s busy. / No he ain’t, Ma, he’s dead!”
    How would she respond to that? She’s too young to remember Lenny Bruce. Maybe she read a book about him. He could tell her he knew Lenny’s mother. That was true. And then she would go back to her salad. She ate fast, like she grew up with a brother who stole her food.
    He pulled out his pen, started writing on his napkin.
enraged depressed touch of self-hatred boredom too. dread of her own feelings.