Every Boy Should Have a Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

destroyed.”
    The boy grabbed his female man’s hand through the bars of the cage when he heard that. Destroyed.
    The leaf-munching kennel boss raised a finger. “I never spoke that word. I only said that putting her down is one of the options, and not even the most desirable or most likely of options. It all depends on the injured party—whether or not they want to pursue it. But the charges are serious. A home was broken into. A child was bitten.”
    The boy reached his arms into the cage and hugged his man. A child was bitten.
    “You see,” said the mother, “it’s words like that that scare me. We love our man, and I assure you that she is incapable of doing the things you claim she has done.”
    The kennel boss shoved the entire vegetable into his mouth and it made a crunching sound. “I simply read the record to you, ma’am.”
    “But she is incapable of—”
    “Ma’am, I know all the old sayings— Train your man to be playful with children, but cross with thieves. There is no creature more loyal than a man. A happy man is a well-fed man, but a cross man keeps the home free of sneak thieves. Every boy should have a man. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you are like so many owners of mans. You are incapable of seeing him for what he is. Man is a predator, first and foremost. He is but good at two things: hunting and making baby mans. He is a predator. He is a carnivore. That’s right. He is no different from us. And don’t look down at me because I do this job, ma’am—I have degrees in animal science. Times are hard, so I must work here, but I am no pinheaded oaf. I have seen the studies. We keep mans from eating meat because we fear what they’ll do if they get a taste for it. Remember, ma’am, we are meat too. I know some of them have interesting talents and they make good pets, but truth be told they are wild beasts and should be left to roam the forests for us to hunt. It wasn’t too long ago that they were our top food source. You don’t look wealthy—I bet you eat your fill of man, right? The meat is plentiful, inexpensive, and tasty. I love to eat man, though I don’t want man to eat me or my children. But the wealthy—oh, they want us to protect man, to bring him into our homes as pets, to hug him. Oh, they say that it is the great creator’s will that we give up eating meat altogether, they say it is the great creator’s will that we all turn vegetarian. Vegetables are nice—I like vegetables just fine. But man is meat and meat is good to eat,” he said with a loud crunch. “Like my mother used to tell me, Stop playing with your food and eat him .” The kennel boss grinned.
    The mother said, “You are a stupid oaf.”
    “We’ll see who is the stupid oaf when the injured party gets here,” came the muttered retort.
    The kennel boss picked up a brass cup and slurped whatever liquid was in it and gargled it to help suck free the strands of green from the vegetable that had gotten stuck in his ugly teeth. The mother turned away in disgust.
    “Don’t worry,” the boy comforted his man, “Mother and I will free you.”
    The boy hugged his female man through the bars, and the frantic little man man proclaiming his innocence ran over to them and grabbed one of the boy’s hands and kissed it. “I didn’t do it, kind sir. They have the wrong man. You and Mother must free me too. You must. You must.”
    Just then the kennel boss came over and rattled the cage noisily with the brass cup, and when the frantic man didn’t back away from the bars, the kennel boss reached in and slammed the cup against his head.
    Pock !
    The frantic man released the boy’s hand and retreated to the safety of the center of the cage, holding his head and crying, “It is a lie. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”
    The kennel boss said to the boy, “Take your hands out of the cage, boy. They may look pretty, but some of these mans will snap your fingers off.” He pointed to the frantic man