This Is Where I Leave You

he realized what was happening.
    “Hey, man,” he said, getting to his feet. “You’re on private property. Get the fuck off - ”
    Paul’s fist hit his open mouth with a loud crack, and whatever euphoria I’d been feeling disappeared in an instant. Rusco went down hard as his two friends jumped up off the stairs, not sure what to make of Paul, who was now standing over Rusco and shouting, “Get up and fight, you little pussy!”
    I jumped out of the car and ran up the sidewalk to where Rusco lay on his back, dazed. Blood spilled from his mouth, and my stomach turned when I saw that his two front teeth were gone. “Forget it, Paul,” I pleaded, suddenly terrified. “Let’s just go.”
    “Come here, Judd,” he called to me. I came up and stood beside him as Rusco rolled over and tried to sit up. His chin looked like it had been dipped in red paint, and his eyes were rolling unfocused in their sockets. When he got to his knees, Paul kicked him in the stomach and he went down again. A light went on in an upstairs bedroom, and from in the house, I heard the sounds of barking.
    “We have to get out of here, Paul.”
    “Kick him in the balls,” Paul ordered me. His eyes were blazing, the cords on his neck standing out angrily against his skin.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “We have to go.”
    The front porch light came on. I grabbed Paul’s arm and started pulling him toward the car. “Come on!” I pleaded. From the ground, Rusco lashed out with his leg, ineffectively hitting Paul’s ankle. Paul grabbed the leg and lifted it, spreading Rusco’s thighs.
    “Kick him in the nuts and then we’ll go,” he said. The blood gathering on Rusco’s chin started to run up his cheeks as Paul lifted his leg higher. When he opened his mouth to spit out some more blood, it looked like the very tip of his tongue was missing too. “I don’t want to!” I shouted.
    And then, behind us, the front door opened and a fat woman in green sweatpants and a large bra appeared, clutching the collar of an enraged rottweiler, who strained ferociously against her grip. She had the same jutting forehead as her son, the same small, humorless eyes.
    “What the hell is going on here?”
    “We’re leaving,” I said, my voice cracking as Paul and I backed away.
    “Tony, what happened? Oh my God! Is he okay?”
    The rottweiler snarled and barked at us and I could see his spit flying in the yellow light of the porch as he fought to escape Mrs. Rusco’s grip. We were almost at the curb when she said, “Get ’em, Max,” and let go of the collar. The rottweiler flew off the stairs, and we turned and ran 182as fast as we could. I could hear his claws tearing at the concrete walk, his low growl vibrating deep within my bowels. Paul overtook me on the sidewalk and jumped through the open window into the passenger seat. I jumped onto the hood and then up onto the roof, feeling the aluminum bend under my weight. I turned just in time to see the dog leap through the window after Paul. The car shook under me as the dog snarled and growled, and Paul’s screams changed from terror to agony. I screamed for help at the top of my lungs, screamed until my voice cracked and then refused to come. It would take three days before it returned, three days spent sitting in the hospital while they operated on Paul’s shoulder and performed skin grafts onto his ruined arm. I screamed and cried and pissed my pants, helplessly stomping on the roof as Paul screamed and wept.
    It was Rusco who ultimately got the dog out of the car. He came staggering down the walk, his chin and mouth caked with blood, and yanked open the door, yelling, “Down, Max!” as he went. By now the dog was in too much of a frenzy to heed his master, so Rusco pulled him out by his hind legs and tried to hold him back. The dog lurched out of his grip and tried to run back at the car, barking furiously, but Rusco stood in his way and yelled at him. The rottweiler danced around him, barking and snarling, and at first I thought it was blood dangling from its mouth, but then I realized it was a wet strip of Paul’s red T-shirt. “Get out of here!” Rusco shouted. “He’s going to get past me!”
    “Hold him!” I yelled hysterically from the roof. Beneath me, the car was distressingly still.
    “Just get in on the other side!”
    I don’t remember coming down off the car or opening the door. I remember Paul’s head jammed under the steering wheel, his body spread across the