Boys Life

bald head aglow under the lights. His voice was hushed and his face grim as he said hello to Dad. Then he looked at me, and he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Cory?” he said. “Do you want to see Rebel?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “I’ll take you to him.”
    “He’s not… he’s not dead, is he?”
    “No, he’s not dead.” The hand massaged a tight muscle at the base of my neck. “But he’s dying. I want you to understand that.” Dr. Lezander’s eyes seized mine and would not let me look away. “I’ve made Rebel as comfortable as possible, but… he’s been hurt very badly.”
    “You can fix him!” I said. “You’re a doctor!”
    “That’s right, but even if I operated on him I couldn’t repair the damage, Cory. It’s just too much.”
    “You can’t… just… let him die!”
    “Go see him, son,” Dad urged. “Better go on.” While you can, he was saying.
    Dad waited while Dr. Lezander took me into one of the rooms. Upstairs I could hear a whistling noise: a teakettle. Mrs. Lezander was above us, boiling water for tea in the kitchen. The room we walked into had a sickly smell. There was a shelf full of bottles and a countertop with doctor’s instruments arranged on a blue cloth. And at the center of the room was a stainless steel table with a form atop it, covered by a dog-sized cotton blanket. My legs almost gave way; blotches of brown blood had soaked through the cotton.
    I must’ve trembled. Dr. Lezander said, “You don’t have to, if you don’t-”
    “I will,” I said.
    Dr. Lezander gently lifted part of the blanket. “Easy, easy,” he said, as if speaking to an injured child. The form shivered, and I heard a whine that all but tore my heart out. My eyes flooded with hot tears. I remembered that whine, from when Dad had brought Rebel home as a puppy in a cardboard box and Rebel had been afraid of the dark. I walked four steps to the side of the table, and I looked at what Dr. Lezander was showing me.
    A truck tire had changed the shape of Rebel’s head. The white hair and flesh on one side of the skull had been ripped back, exposing the bone and the teeth in a fixed grin. The pink tongue lolled in a wash of blood. One eye had turned a dead gray color. The other was wet with terror. Bubbles of blood broke around Rebel’s nostrils, and he breathed with a painful hitching noise. A forepaw was crushed to pulp, the broken edges of bones showing in the twisted leg.
    I think I moaned. I don’t know. The single eye found me, and Rebel started struggling to stand up but Dr. Lezander grasped the body with his strong hands and the movement ceased.
    I saw a needle clamped to Rebel’s side, a tube from a bottle of clear liquid feeding into his body. Rebel whimpered, and instinctively I offered my hand to that ruined muzzle. “Careful!” Dr. Lezander warned. I didn’t think about the fact that an animal in agony might snap at anything that moves, even the hand of a boy who loves it. Rebel’s bloody tongue came out and swiped weakly at my fingers, and I stood there staring numbly at the streak of scarlet that marked me.
    “He’s suffering terribly,” Dr. Lezander said. “You can see that, can’t you?”
    “Yes sir,” I answered, as if in a horrible dream.
    “His ribs are broken, and one of them has punctured his lung. I thought his heart might have given out before now. I expect it will soon.” Dr. Lezander covered Rebel back over. All I could do was stare at the shivering body. “Is he cold?” I asked. “He must be cold.”
    “No, I don’t think so.” Zo, he pronounced it. He grasped my shoulder again, and guided me to the door. “Let’s go talk to your father, shall we?”
    Dad was still waiting where we’d left him. “You okay, partner?” he asked me, and I said I was though I was feeling very, very sick. The smell of blood was in my nostrils, thick as sin.
    “Rebel’s a strong dog,” Dr. Lezander said. “He’s survived what should have killed most dogs outright.” He picked up a folder from his desk and slid a sheet of paper out. It was a preprinted form, and at the top of it was Case #3432. “I don’t know how much longer Rebel will live, but I think it’s academic at this point.”
    “There’s no possibility, you mean?” Dad asked.
    “No possibility,” the doctor said. He glanced quickly at me. “I’m sorry.”
    “He’s my dog,” I said, and fresh tears streamed down. My nose felt clogged with concrete. “He can get better.” Even as I