Read When Dogs Cry for Free Online Page B

crowd watched as Steve moved in and kicked the ball.
    It rose up and soared through the posts, and Steve turned to face the people at his side. He stared at themfor a few seconds, then returned to the game, leaving the beer can, half-full, half-empty and half-hearted as it lay abandoned next to the sideline.
    As I watched the end of the incident, I couldn’t help but notice that Steve’s stare wasn’t angry in any way. If anything, it was amused. He could have done anything he wanted. He could have said anything. He could have spat at them or hurled the can right back at them.
    But that was something
they
could have done just as easily.
    There was no way they could have walked in again, taken the shot, put it straight through the middle and then stare as if to say, ‘Well? Have you got anything else for me?’
    That was how he beat them.
    That was how he won.
    He did the only thing they weren’t capable of themselves.
    When I realised that, I smiled. I even laughed, which made Sarah laugh, and we were the only people laughing at the whole ground. For everyone else, the game went on.
    The game went on, the rain held off, and Steve’s team won by a country mile.
    When it was over, he said his goodbyes and that maybe he’d go for a drink with the other players, though everyone knew he wouldn’t. They knew. He knew. I knew. We were going home.
    There was more silence in the car than anything else, and I don’t know about Steve or Sarah, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the thrown beer can. I kept seeing the ball soar through the posts and the content stare on Steve’s face. Even when Sarah reached for the dashboardand sang with the radio, it was the memory of that stare which spoke loudest through my mind. His face was the same now as he drove, and in some strange way, I think Steve was also thinking about it. I was even expecting him to smile, but he never did.
    Instead, we were all pretty quiet, until Steve dropped us home.
    â€˜Thanks,’ Sarah said.
    â€˜No worries. Thanks for coming.’
    As I was about to get out of the car myself, Steve stopped me.
    He stopped me with ‘Cam?’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    He looked into the mirror and I could see his eyes as he talked to me.
    â€˜Just hang on a minute.’
    This had never happened before so I was unsure of what to expect. Would he tell me what the stare had meant, or how it felt to make those people look so stupid? Would he give me a guide on how to be a winner?
    Of course not.
    Or, at least, not like that.
    His eyes were soft and honest as he spoke and it was strange for me to be feeling this way about Steven Wolfe.
    He said, ‘When I was your age, there were these four other blokes who beat me up. They took me round the back of a building and beat me up for some reason I’ll never know.’ He stopped a moment and he wasn’t emotional in any way. He wasn’t telling me some sob story about how other kids hated him and this was why he’d turned out theway he did. He was just telling me something. ‘When I was lyin’ there, all crumpled up, I vowed that each one of them was going to get his share of what they all did to me. I went over it in my mind and thought about what I wanted to do. Every morning, every night; and when I was ready, I went to them, one by one, and beat the absolute crap out of them. By the time I’d got to three of them, the last one tried to make peace.’ The eyes sharpened a little, remembering. ‘I bashed him too, even better than the other three.’
    He stopped.
    He stopped talking and I waited for more, until I realised that was it, and I nodded to my brother.
    At the eyes in the mirror.
    For a moment, I wondered,
Why is he telling me this?
    He didn’t look proud or happy. Maybe just that same expression of contentment as before. Or maybe he was just glad he’d told somebody, because it sure didn’t seem like he’d tell a whole