When Dogs Cry Read Online Free PDF Page A

even though I knew it would be standing up within forty-eight hours. I was happy though, but not only for the haircut. The conversation too.
    With my hair congregating around my feet, I paid twelve dollars and said, ‘Thanks a lot. It was nice talking to you.’
    â€˜Same here,’ and the large hairy barber smiled and I felt guilty about the magazine. I could only hope he would understand the different layers of my soul. After all, he was a barber. Barbers are supposed to have the answers to running the country, along with taxi drivers and obnoxious radio commentators. I thanked him again and said goodbye.
    Once outside, it was still mid-afternoon so
Why not
? I told myself.
I might as well head over to Glebe.
    Needless to say, I got there and stood outside the girl’s house.
    Stephanie.
    It was as good a place as any to watch the sun collapse behind the city, and after a while I sat down against a wall and thought again about the barber.
    The importance of it was that he and I were really doing similar things, only in reverse order. He was remembering. I was anticipating. (Hopeful, almost ludicrous anticipation, I admit.)
    Once it was dark, I decided I’d better get home for the dinner. It was leftover steak, I think, with vegetables boiled into oblivion.
    I got up.
    I slipped my hands into my pockets.
    Then I looked, hoped and walked, in that order.
    Pathetic, I know, but it was my life, I guess. No point denying it.
    It turned out to be later than I thought when I finally left, and I decided to get the bus back to my own neighbourhood.
    At the bus stop there was a handful of people waiting. There was a man with a briefcase, a chain-smoking woman, a guy who looked like a labourer or carpenter, and a couple who leaned on each other and kissed a while as they waited.
    I couldn’t help it.
    I watched.
    Not obviously, of course. Just a quick look here and there.
    Damn.
    I got caught.
    â€˜What are
you
lookin’ at?’ The guy spat his words at me. ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’
    Nothing.
    That was my reply.
    Absolutely nothing.
    â€˜Well?’
    Still nothing.
    Then the girl got stuck into me as well.
    â€˜Why don’t y’ go and stare at someone else, y’ weirdo.’ She had blonde hair, green eyes shrunken in under the streetlight and a voice like a blunt knife. She beat me with it. ‘Y’ wanker.’
    Typical.
    You get called that name so many times around here, but this time it hurt. I guess it hurt because it was a girl. I don’t know. In a way, it was kind of depressing that this was what we’d come to. We can’t even wait for a bus in peace.
    I know, I know. I should have barked back at them, nice and hard, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Some Wolfe, ay. Some wild dog I turned out to be. All I did was steal one last look, to see if they were about to level some final fragments of abuse at me.
    The guy was also blond. Not tall or short. He wore dark pants, boots, a black jacket and a sneer.
    Meanwhile, the briefcase man checked his watch. The chain smoker lit up another. The labourer shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
    Nothing more was said, but when the bus came, everyone pushed on and I was last.
    â€˜Sorry.’
    When I got on and tried to pay, the driver told me that fares had just gone up and I didn’t have enough money for a ticket.
    I got off, smiled ruefully and stood there.
    The bus was pretty empty.
    As I started walking, I watched it pull away and shove itself along the street. Many thoughts staggered through me, including:
– How late I’d be for dinner.
    â€“ Whether or not anyone would ask where I’d been.
    â€“ Whether Dad wanted Rube and me to work with him on Saturday.
    â€“ If the girl named Stephanie would ever come out and see me (if she knew I was there at all).
    â€“ How much longer it would take for Rube to get rid of Octavia.
    â€“ If Steve clung to the memory of