When Dogs Cry Read Online Free PDF Page B

character,’ Rube suggested. ‘Nothin’like a good choking to toughen a dog up.’ We both watched intently as Miffy eventually finished off the steak.
    When he was done and we were sure he hadn’t choked himself to death, we took him home.
    â€˜We should just throw him over the fence,’ Rube said, but we both knew we never would. There’s a big difference between watching a dog half-choke and throwing him over the fence. Besides, our neighbour Keith would be pretty unthrilled with us. He could be a bit unpleasant, Keith, especially when it came to that dog of his. You wouldn’t think that such a hard man would own such a fluffy kind of dog, but I’m sure he probably just blamed it on his wife.
    â€˜It’s the wife’s dog,’ I can imagine him telling the boys at the pub. ‘I’m just lucky I’ve got those two shithead boys next door to walk him—their old lady makes ’em do it.’ He could be a hard man, Keith, but okay nonetheless.
    Speaking of hard men, it turned out that Dad did want our help on the upcoming Saturday. He pays us quite generously now, and he’s always pretty happy. A while back, like I’ve said before, when he struggled to get work, he was pretty miserable, but these days it was good to work with him. Sometimes we went and got fish ‘n chips for lunch, and we played cards on top of Dad’s small, dirty red esky, but only as long as we all worked our guts out. Cliff Wolfe was a fan of working your guts out, and to be fair, so were Rube and I. We were also fans of fish ‘n chips and cards though, even if it was usually the old man who won. Either he won or the gamewas taking too long and he cut it short. Some things can’t be helped.
    What I haven’t mentioned is that Rube also had another job. He left school last year and got an apprenticeship with a builder, despite getting an abysmal result in his final exams.
    I remember when he got them delivered.
    He opened the envelope next to the slanted, slurred front gate of our house.
    â€˜How’d y’ go?’ I asked.
    â€˜Well Cam,’ he smiled, as if he was thoroughly pleased with himself. ‘I can sum it up in two words. The first word is
completely.
The second word is
shitbouse.’
    And yet, he got a job.
    Straight away.
    Typical Rube.
    He didn’t need to work with the old man on Saturdays, but for some reason, he did. Maybe it was an act of respect. Dad asked so Rube said yes. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to think he was lazy. I don’t know.
    Either which way, we were working with ol’ Cliff that weekend, and he woke us nice and early. It was still dark.
    We were waiting for Dad to get out of the bathroom (which he’s always likely to leave in a pretty horrendous state, smell-wise), when Rube and I decided we’d get the cards out early.
    As Rube dealt the cards at the kitchen table, I recalled what happened a few weeks earlier, when we had a game during breakfast. It wasn’t a bad idea, but somehow Imanaged to spill my cornflakes all over the deck because I was still half-asleep. Even this week there was still a dried cornflake glued to a card I threw onto the out-pile.
    Rube picked it up.
    Examined it.
    â€˜Huh.’
    Me: ‘I know.’
    â€˜You’re pitiful.’
    â€˜I know.’ I could only agree.
    The toilet flushed, the water ran, and Dad came out of the bathroom.
    â€˜We go?’
    We nodded and gathered up the cards.
    At the job, Rube and I dug hard and talked and laughed. I’ll admit that Rube’s always good for a bit of a laugh. He was telling me a story about an old girlfriend of his who always munched on his ears.
    â€˜In the end I had to buy her some bloody chewy, otherwise I wouldn’t have my ears any more.’
    Octavia,
I thought.
    I wondered what story he would have about her in a few weeks’ time, when it was dead and gone and thrown out. Her searching eyes,