The patio looked onto an exercise yard. A garbage can with a rake stuck in it was the only survivor on a battlefield of craters, mounds of dug-up dirt, dried-out palm fronds, a couple of old tires, crushed plastic soda bottles, and coils of dogshit. A ten-foot chain link fence went around the perimeter. Two wires threaded through ceramic insulators ran along the top. Worn-out palm trees gave up some shade.
“This way,” Skip said. They went around the yard. Skip didn’t seem to notice the hundreds of shell casings on the ground or the bullet holes in the wheelbarrow, metal storage shed, paint cans, and fence rails. He smiled weakly when they passed some sheets of plywood with people drawn on them, some with big lips and wide-open eyes. “Yeah, my gun club meets here,” Skip said, “they get carried away.”
In the distance, Isaiah saw a bald hill the color of a cardboard box. Small white circles dotted the hill like thumbtacks on a corkboard. “Hold on a minute,” he said, and stooped to tie his shoe.
“Can you make any money in the dog business?” Dodson said.
“Basically, no,” Skip said. “To breed my WindFlyer bitch I had to get her cleared for eyes, cardiac, thyroid, hip dysplasia, and I had to get a progesterone test to target the best conception date. Yeah, no kidding, right? And Road Master’s stud fee was two thousand bucks and get this: the semen had to be fresh-chilled and FedExed in a special box with semen extender and ice.”
“Semen extender?” Dodson said.
“I haven’t made a nickel off the dogs. It’s one of those passion things. God, I hate that word. But wait ’til you see the pups, they’ll blow your mind.”
“Semen extender?”
The barn had a big sliding door and a regular door, Isaiah noticing there was no lock on either. The dogs had sensed the visitors and were barking wildly. Isaiah thought if Dodson wasn’t black he’d be pale.
“Damn,” Dodson said, “how many dogs you got in there?”
Skip opened the regular door a few inches. A slate-gray pit bull with laser-green eyes jammed its head in the opening and snarled at the newcomers. “Oh shit!” Dodson yelled, jumping back. Isaiah was waiting for it. No other reason to have unlocked doors unless there was some other kind of security.
“Can’t you just see somebody trying to break in here?” Skip said, grinning. “Back up, Attila. Sit.”
Attila backed up and sat. Skip swung the door open and a swath of sunlight cut through the cool, dark barn. Isaiah smelled wet cement, wet dog, sawdust, gun oil, cordite, some sort of disinfectant, and the faintest whiff of dogshit. Chain link kennels were lined up against one wall. They’d been recently hosed down. There were sleeping pallets to keep the dogs off the cement and water bowls with clean water in them. Two of the kennels were empty, one of them twice as big as the others. The dogs were all pits, different colors, most of them normal-size. Except for Attila, who hadn’t moved, all the dogs were barking savagely, the volume almost unbearable.
“Okay, shut up,” Skip said like he was talking to his little sister. The quiet was immediate and shocking, the only sound the dogs’ panting. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
“Damn, Skip,” Dodson said. “They know who they daddy is, don’t they?”
Dodson had heard dogs could smell fear and if that was the case he was stinking up the barn. He could smell it himself. Like spoiled milk with a little BO mixed in. The dogs were watching him. Only him. Their long tongues hanging over their toothy grins. It reminded Dodson of his first day at Wayside, walking along the cell block carrying his bedding, the inmates making kissing noises, calling him lean meat and asking him if he liked to toss salads.
“Those two look really big,” Isaiah said, pointing with his chin at two black dogs. “What are they, ninety pounds?”
“I like big dogs,” Skip said. “Cool, huh? They freak people out. Go ahead, the litter’s in the back.” Dodson led the way, past neatly stacked bags of kibble and cases of canned dog food. He thought it was strange how Skip took better care of the dogs than he did of himself. Shiny metal food bowls were stacked on shiny metal shelves. Igloo coolers were marked GROOMING, FIRST AID, EARS, EYES. Spiked collars and muzzles that looked like flowerpots hung on nails. What looked like a long two-pronged barbecue fork with a thick yellow handle was hung separately like a clock or scroll.
“Is this them?” Dodson said, like he was looking at a nest of tarantulas.
“Yup,” Skip said, beaming. The litter was in a pen made from temporary fencing. The cement floor was covered with wood shavings, a child’s swimming pool full of shredded paper in the middle. Next to the pen, a lightbulb on a wire hung over an old couch bowed in the middle, a slumping pile of magazines on the floor.
“Want to get in there with them?” Skip said.
“No thank you,” Dodson said. “A baby shark is still a shark. He’ll just eat you in smaller chunks.”
Isaiah and Skip sat in the pen, the puppies bumbling over their laps, yipping, tugging on Isaiah’s shoestrings, and chewing on Skip’s Crocs. Each pup had a different-colored spot of nail polish on the top of its head. The green pup was twice the size of the others.
“How old are they?” Isaiah said.