They say that Vlad the Impaler walked through the field hospitals after battle, inspecting the wounded. Those with wounds to the front of them got promoted. Those with wounds in their backs, like they’d been fleeing-Vlad had those men killed. Vlad would have made Lucy a general. Her back and haunches are unmarred. She’d fought every second she’d been in the bout.
Tough little bitch. Proud little warrior.
The match had been in an abandoned warehouse-no shortage of those here. The ring had been built in the morning out of a two-foot tall square of wood filled up halfway with dirt. Around the ring stood gangbangers, bikers, cholos and mobbed-up types. Dog matches in Detroit are like those ads by that one clothes company that always have the black guy and the white guy holding hands, except at the dog match the other hand is filled with blood money or a gun.
Tuna was owned by Frankie Arno, who lived in St. Clair Shores along with all the other Detroit dagos who didn’t get the memo that the Mafia doesn’t run things anymore. His dogman was Deets from the Cass Corridor. Deets doesn’t hold to the old ways. Deets uses a homemade electric chair to fry his curs, and hangs live cats from chains for his dogs to chew on and improve their grips. When the referee told us that Tuna came in heavy, I told Jesse to kill the match.
“Four pounds is too much,” I told him.
“Fuck that,” Jesse said. “You told me this bitch is game.”
He was a short man with a short man’s temper. He was the only man I’ve ever known to lose money in the drug trade. He bought Lucy and some other prime stock when he was flush. He also hired the best dogman in Michigan, if you don’t mind me calling myself that. Now that he was down, he was looking to recoup his investment. I do not know who he owes money to, only that they are frightening to this frightening man. This type of fear doesn’t make a man listen to reason. I tried anyway.
“She is,” I said. “She has potential to be a grand champion. That’s worth more money than one fight.”
“I’m not bitching out here. I’m not a punk.”
Across the ring, Deets studied us behind hooded eyes. Deets knew Jesse needed the purse money. Deets knew that I wouldn’t be able to talk Jesse out of the match if Deets brought his dog in heavy. Four pounds wasn’t a mistake. It was strategy. I had to hand it to him. He’d played it beautifully. I gave him a nod to let him know. He just kept staring back.
Before a match, each side’s handlers wash the other one’s dog. Keeps a man like Deets from soaking his dog’s fur with poison. Back in the old days, the rule was you could ask to taste a man’s dog if you were suspicious. I didn’t like handling Tuna, much less licking her. I know the signs of a dog who has been treated mean. When I washed her she trembled, and a deep-chest growl burbled in her chest. It sounded like a boat idling at the dock. Pit dogs shouldn’t growl at a man. We breed them to love us. I didn’t want to know what Deets had done to her to ruin that. She kept growling but she didn’t bite me. Maybe it would have been better if she had. If she’d bit we’d have put her down right there. That’s one way our world and the straight world agrees: Dogs that attack men have to go.
But instead I took Lucy to one end of the ring and Deets took Tuna to the other end. Lucy, who had licked my face with a dog’s smile just a minute before, strained to get away from me to head into the fight. The fight is a pit dog’s highest purpose. We have bred them to not feel fear or pain. We have bred them to have wide jaws and a low center of gravity. A pit dog wants the fight the way a ratter wants the rat, the way a bloodhound wants the scent. A dead game dog wants it more than they want life.
On the signal from the referee I released my hold on Lucy. The two dogs collided with a slap and the sound of snapping teeth. Otherwise the warehouse was quiet. The spectators at a dog match are like the men at a strip club. Sometimes they cheer and clap, but mostly they stare on in silence, lost in their own private world.
In the fight there’s nothing for a handler to do but watch. You can’t teach a pit dog to fight any more than you can teach a horse to run. You exercise the dog, but the dog teaches itself. There are many ways of dog fighting, styles as different as the kung-fu styles in those old movies. Some dogs are leg biters. Some go for the head. Some dogs use muscle and buzzsaw speed, while others fight smart. Some just latch onto the bottom jaw and hang on until the other dog burns itself out and gives up. Some dogs are killers whose opponents don’t get the chance to give up. They tear throats and end lives.
Tuna was a killer. She went for the throat. She had a good, strong mouth that tore Lucy up. She had four pounds on her, enough to bully her into position.
Lucy was the smartest dog I ever saw in the pit. She rode Tuna around, denied her the killing grip. Lucy turned the overweight bitch into a leg-biter. But Lucy couldn’t get her own holds to stick. Tuna muscled out of them each time. Thirty minutes into the fight Tuna worked herself out of Lucy’s grasp and sank her jaws into Lucy’s neck. She shook Lucy, trying for a tighter grip, and Lucy slid under her, got her claws into Tuna’s belly and twisted herself free. As the dogs repositioned themselves, bloody, winded, I told Jesse to pick Lucy up. The fight was over, I told him.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jesse asked. “No way.”
I could have picked her up then. I should have. But I didn’t.
It took her another half-hour and maybe her life, but Lucy finally broke the bigger dog. When Tuna went cur and we pulled Lucy off her, Lucy was still clawing to get at the beaten dog.
Tough little bitch. Proud little warrior.
It wasn’t until later, while Jesse counted his money, that the adrenaline went away and Lucy collapsed.
If she pisses, she lives. So I need to get fluids into her system. I take out a plastic bag of saline. I stick it under my armpit to warm it up for a minute. I hook the IV up onto the metal stand. I take Lucy’s leg in my hand and roll my thumb around it until the vein is visible against the bone of the leg. I wipe Lucy down with an alcohol swab. I get the IV needle out. I go to put the needle in. I stop.
My hand is shaking. Dumb animal panic. I stare at it for long seconds. I take a few deep breaths. The shaking subsides. I slide the needle in. I secure it with horse tape. I take the IV bag out of my armpit and hook it to the IV.
Next I give Lucy a shot of an anti-inflammatory drug, pre-measured out for 20 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. Next, penicillin, 1cc per twenty pounds of bodyweight. While the fluids go in her, I get back to treating her wounds. I trim the hanging skin to keep the flesh from going proud. I check her mouth to see if she has bitten through her lips. Her gums are the whitish-pink of fresh veal. Better. Not good enough.
I close the wounds. Some bites just get a little powder. I get out the staple gun for the worst of them. They bind the wounds together with a great loud CLICK. Lucy does not wince or whine while the staples snap down on her flesh.
Tough little bitch. Proud little warrior.
I will not let her die. But there’s nothing I can do now. I have to give the fluids a chance to work. She sleeps. I can’t. I watch bad teevee, something with fat people sweating on treadmills. I switch channels. People screaming at each other, throwing glasses, throwing punches. I switch again. The news, nothing but lying politicians and pretty dead white girls.