Dogs of Summer: A Novel

by Andrea Abreu López

My chest felt awful tight, like I couldn’t breathe. I never knew how to say goodbye to Isora. I stared at her like someone who was about to say goodbye for years.

But Isora walked me home. She always walked me home.

She called me Shit in an affectionate way and it was a small, shy, quiet affection.

A centuries-old song from back when Isora and me weren’t friends yet, even though it was our destiny, because if there was one thing I knew it was that me and Isora were made the way things that are born to live and die together are made, and I turned round and I said walk me back, at least as far as the gayhouse, walk me back, c’mon, y’know I always walk you.

Nana saw Ma cleaning, she’d tell her that she was like an axe, chop-chop. That she was like a flash of lightning. Whenever I heard her say that I’d think about how I’d never be even half as fast as she was. And then my ma would come out and tell me to get a move on, muchachita, quit standing around like a lost soul, and all of a sudden my arms and legs would freeze up and some force would stop me from sweeping and make me stand there, my eyes fixed on the clients and a dumb look on my face. And the more Ma said to get a move on, you little devil, snap out of it, the slower I worked. Which is why sometimes she told me to sit and play nice and quiet. Because I slowed Ma down as I stared through the barrier of clingfilm between me and the clients.

I thought about how I could never bring myself to tell her that I didn’t like this thing or that thing and how, if she asked me to do something, I always did it, no questions asked, like I was the Ken doll and she was a Barbie kicking my butt.

i liked isora’s insides even though i couldn’t see them i thought they must be perfect spheres

i wanted to suck up isora’s head so i’d have her inside my body

i wanted to eat isora and then poop her out so she’d be mine to store the poop in a box so i could see her whenever i wanted and i wanted to become

her to be isora inside isora isora isora isora

I loved how easy it was for Isora to say no. She wasn’t scared that people would stop liking her. She said what she wanted when she wanted.

I dreamed of healing Isora’s sadness, I wanted to be her dog and I wanted her to be my saint with scraped knees.

On days when Isora wanted to die I felt like I wanted to die too. According to Isora, the best way to do it was to fill the bathtub all the way to the top with hot water and then slash your wrists. Sometimes I wondered how she knew so much stuff I didn’t know, and then I got sad because I didn’t have a sadness of my own—my sadness was the same as Isora’s except inside my body. It was kind of like a fake sadness, like two copies of the same sadness, like a knock-off sadness. That was me. I had no real reason to be sad, so I just made one up.

She said go on, get on the bed, but I was scared to because I didn’t know if dead folks liked it when you got on their beds, much less while wearing a pair of their panties.

I didn’t like people who played chess because I didn’t understand it and that made me supsicious.