Boys Life

said that, I knew all the imagination in the world could not make it so.
    “Tom, if you’ll sign this form, I can administer a drug to Rebel that will… um…” He darted another glance at me.
    “Help him rest,” Dad offered.
    “That’s right. Exactly right. If you’ll sign here. Oh, you need a pen, I think.” He opened a drawer, fished around, and brought one up.
    Dad took it. I knew what this was about. I didn’t need to be lulled and coddled as if I were six years old. I knew they were talking about giving Rebel a shot to kill him. Maybe it was the right thing to do, maybe it was humane, but Rebel was my dog and I had fed him when he was hungry and washed him when he was dirty and I knew his smell and the feel of his tongue on my face. I knew him. There would never be another dog like Rebel. A huge knot had jammed in my throat. Dad was bending over the form, about to touch pen to paper. I looked for something to stare at, and I found a black and white photograph in a silver frame on the doctor’s desk. It showed a light-haired, smiling young woman waving, a windmill behind her. It took me a few seconds to register the young apple-cheeked face as being that of Veronica Lezander.
    “Hold on.” Dad lifted the pen. “Rebel belongs to you, Cory. What do you have to say about this?”
    I was silent. Such a decision had never been offered to me before. It was heavy.
    “I love animals as much as anyone,” Dr. Lezander said. “I know what a dog can mean to a boy. What I’m suggesting be done, Cory, is not a bad thing. It’s a natural thing. Rebel is in terrible pain, and will not recover. Everything is born and dies. That is life. Yes?”
    “He might not die,” I murmured.
    “Say he doesn’t die for another hour. Or two, or three. Say he lives all night. Say he manages somehow to live twenty-four more hours. He can’t walk. He can hardly breathe. His heart is beating itself out, he’s in deep shock.” Dr. Lezander frowned, watching my blank slate of a face. “Be a good friend to Rebel, Cory. Don’t let him suffer like this any longer.”
    “I think I need to sign this, Cory,” Dad said. “Don’t you?”
    “Can I… go be with him for a minute? Just alone?”
    “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t touch him, though. He might snap. All right?”
    “Yes sir.” Like a sleepwalker, I returned to the scene of a bad dream. On the stainless steel table, Rebel was still shivering. He whined and whimpered, searching for his master to make the pain go away.
    I began to cry. It was a powerful crying, and would not be held back. I dropped down to my knees on that cold hard floor, and I bowed my head and clasped my hands together.
    I prayed, with my eyes squeezed tightly shut and the tears burning trails down my face. I don’t recall exactly what I said in that prayer, but I knew what I was praying for. I was praying for a hand to come down from heaven or paradise or Beulah land and shut the gates on DEATH. Hold those gates firm against DEATH, though DEATH might bluster and scream and claw to get in at my dog. A hand, a mighty hand, to turn that monster away and heal Rebel, to cast DEATH out like a bag of old bleached bones and run him off like a beggar in the rain. Yes, DEATH was hungry and I could hear him licking his lips there in that room, but the mighty hand could seal shut his mouth, could slap out his teeth, could reduce DEATH to a little drooling thing with smacking gums.
    That’s what I prayed for. I prayed with my heart and my soul and my mind. I prayed through every pore of my flesh, I prayed as if every hair on my head was a radio antenna and the power was crackling through them, the mega-megamillion watts crying out over space and eternity into the distant ear of the all-knowing, all-powerful Someone. Anyone.
    Just answer me.
    Please.
    I don’t know how long I stayed there on the floor, bowed up, sobbing and praying. Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe longer. I knew that when I stood up, I had to go out there where Dad and Dr. Lezander waited, and tell them yes or-
    I heard a grunt, followed by an awful sound of air being sucked into ruined, blood-clogged lungs.
    I looked up. I saw Rebel straining to stand on the table. The hair rippled at the back of my neck, my flesh exploding into chill bumps. Rebel got up on two paws, his head thrashing. He whined, a long terrible whine that pierced me like a dagger. He turned, as if to snap at his tail, and the light glinted in his single eye and the