Every Boy Should Have a Man Read Online Free PDF

proclaiming his innocence in the center of the cage. “That one there maimed his master, a boy about your age. Chewed two of his fingers clean off. Don’t let him fool you. His kind has a reputation for turning on you. Now scoot. Get away from that cage.”
    The boy ran to his mother, who put her arms around him. “It’ll be okay.”
    Tears rolled out of the boy’s eyes. “She didn’t do it, Mother.”
    The mother kissed him on the head and assured, “All will be well once the injured party gets here.”
     
    * * *
     
    In walked a wealthy boy wearing expensive clothes and his equally well-dressed father.
    As he walked past the mother, the kennel boss sneered, “At last, they’re here. The injured party.”
    The wealthy boy and his father lingered at the display cages at the front of the kennel, pointing at this or that man with sighs and hoo-hahs of amazement at the sheer beauty and diversity of them. And indeed, they were beautiful and diverse. In color, they ranged from the crystalline pale of a sea bell to the golden yellow-brown of a burnt meat stick. In size and shape, some were longish and thin, others smallish and thickset. In countenance, some were peppered with frecks, some with birthmarks and sunspots, others unstained. And their noses! They were generously bulbous, impertinently pointed, gallantly winged, impudently pugged, or nobly sloping like an oaf’s. One had a face so normal-looking that but for his size, he could have walked near undetected in a crowd.
    The wealthy boy pointed to this one with a gleeful utterance. The wealthy father asked the kennel boss to open the cage, and with keys a-jangling, the kennel boss did so.
    Observing this, the mother felt better about their prospects for a happy resolution. Luck is on our side , she thought. The injured parties are lovers of man.
    Then her son exclaimed, pointing to the wealthy boy, “I know him!”
    “Where do you know him from?” asked the mother.
    “From the field. He has three singing mans. He is my friend.”
    “What were you doing at the field after I told you not to go back there? Man-fighting again, after I told you not to?”
    “Yes, Mother,” the boy quietly admitted.
    “Well,” she said, “maybe it will work out.”
    The boy and his mother watched as the kennel boss removed the selected man from its cage, leashed it, and filled out the forms and had the father of the wealthy boy sign in various places. To complete the transaction, there was an exchange of silver.
    “I just love mans,” they heard the wealthy father say with a laugh. “And we already have so many of them at home.”
    The mother and the boy waited patiently, not wanting to behave impertinently, and so it surprised them when suddenly the wealthy boy and his father announced their thanks to the kennel boss and then exited the kennel without a word to them.
    The mother stiffened at the offense. “What is going on?”
    Without acknowledging her, the kennel boss swept the entire kennel floor with a short-whiskered broom while humming an ugly tune before ambling over to the main cage, unlocking it, and unceremoniously expelling their female man.
    The boy took his female man into his arms. She was happy to be out of the cage and happy to be hugged.
    The kennel boss said to the mother as she signed the release form in the designated places, “His boy says he is a friend of your boy, so no harm done. It was only a scratch anyway. But they do have a few demands. You will pay to have the latch on their door repaired, or they will have her thumbs removed. You will build her a proper kennel with a proper lock to keep her at home—a proper lock which they will inspect upon completion, or they will have her thumbs removed. Finally, you will surrender the baby man—or mans—as soon as it, or they , are born.”
    The boy, hugging his female man, glanced up and echoed, “Baby man?”
    “What baby man?” the mother asked sharply.
    The kennel boss had refilled his cup and