Blackouts

by Justin Torres

Here’s what I remember of the dog: she spent all day in a crate, even though Mad Man worked from home. She was untrained, destructive. At the sound of my entrance, she freaked, and then at the sight of me she freaked harder, paddling her front paws furiously against the mesh metal door, which made the unlocking only more difficult and extended her agony. She never barked, because she couldn’t; she had been bred not to bark, but barks lived inside her, I read them in her face, in the way she opened her mouth and pulsed her vocal cords. A light reddish brown, achingly handsome—she looked healthy, expensive. A basenji. I remember her black eyes, deceptively kind and questioning, and how the skin of her forehead wrinkled to a peak in the middle as she pulled her brows down at the sides. At home, this was her most constant look, one of silent imploring, but when we were alone together a shadow would pass, and her features would harden into rage. She often tried to bite me.