The Last Time I Died (13 page)

I’m standing in the kitchen arguing with Lisa about whether or not we even want to have kids after we officially get the word that her pregnancy test is negative. She got a positive reading from the test she bought at the drug store that guarantees it’s 97 percent accurate and then went to the doctor to make sure. Turns out she was in the 3 percent.

We haven’t had sex in five weeks.

I’m watching her talk and wondering why she can’t finish a sentence but I’m not saying anything because it doesn’t matter. She’s so beautiful. Even more so when I’m angry.

She’s stammering and justifying and explaining her position of waiting until the time is right and I don’t care so I’m quiet while she rambles. With nothing to stem the stream of consciousness she’s trying to pass off as a logical soliloquy, she tangents into more haranguing about the Vegas thing. I’ve got plenty to say about that but it’s all been said before and she’s so worked up there’s no way she’d hear me. This is so much anger and avoidance, but what it is not is communication.

On the upside, the affair I’m convinced she’s having has replaced her anorexia as her preferred means of distraction from her father’s impending death. So there’s that.

I wonder what would happen if I brought my open hand down really hard on top of my almost empty wine glass. Could I do it hard enough that the bowl would shatter and the stem would jam straight through my palm and out the back of my hand? It would have to be pretty forceful and there’s a good chance of the stem running into a bone. I think the bones in your hand break easily, but probably not from wine glass stems. Still, I’m dying to find out.

We were supposed to be at the Grossmans’ half an hour ago but she won’t let go of the Vegas thing even though I know it’s not really about the Vegas thing. I know she doesn’t care about the Vegas thing because I overheard her annoying girlfriend ask her about it and I heard Lisa laugh. I don’t say anything about her annoying girlfriend. Fucking hate Michelle.

I raise my hand to about the height at which I feel like I could generate the most velocity and hold it there. I could change the course of the evening in an instant if I brought it straight down. We could have a nice, intimate four-hour chat in the emergency room waiting area. I’m losing the buzz of emotion and severing a tendon won’t get it back. Fuck it. I run my hand through my hair like I’m frustrated and then refill my wine glass. Funny how that can be appropriate in conversations like this. Civilized muggings that they are.

Fighting is the only way we connect lately so I jump back into the conversation and pile on with cheap shots and half truths to keep the conversation going. I love you so much, Lisa. Fuck the Grossmans.

Flaco keeps passing out on the train.

I shouldn’t have given him the Oxy up front. I make him write the address out for me in case he nods off for good. Not that I know the Bronx at all.

What would Lisa think of this move? Probably not much. Too impulsive. I’d love to explain my reasoning to her, but I know I’ll never get that chance. Not that she would listen.

I fall asleep for a few minutes and then jump awake when I’m convinced the train has run off a cliff and is plunging into a ravine. There are no cliffs in New York City. I’m so tired.

We get off at 183rd street. Flaco uses my shoulder more and more to keep himself upright. God damn he’s heavy for a short guy.

I follow his slurry directions for forty-five minutes and we end up outside a twenty-four-hour grocery store that claims to have a wide selection of Mediterranean options. This is the address. It’s almost midnight.

In my head I’m fighting with Lisa.

—Really? The Bronx? You fucking idiot. This neighborhood is one of the most dangerous parts of the city.

—What could happen?

—You could die.

—I’ve died twice this week. What else could happen?

It’s quiet inside. Not a lot of twenty-four-hour shopping being done right now. The check out girl looks up from her texting to watch me like the sore thumb that I am. The homies in the back by the storage room entrance slide their heavily lidded eyeballs our way and then look to each other as we approach the door.

Flaco nods and waits for them to move. They don’t. So we wait for them to speak. Apparently, this is the protocol.

—’Sup?

I don’t even know Flaco’s last name. We always paid him cash.

Flaco mumbles some garbled Spanish to the security detail and includes the words
La Medica
.

Silence. More quick looks.

The skinny one sighs and gives an almost imperceptible chin bob to indicate that we’re cleared and the rest move enough for us to get by. As they slide back, I notice each has a handgun tucked under his shirt. Despite the Oxy, Flaco looks nervous.

(If you would indulge me for a moment.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the intricacies of dog fighting—and for the sake of decorum I will assume that encompasses the vast majority of you—a quick summary of the world our man has entered: It is fight night.

The fighters are dogs. The contests are brutal. This description is invariably and inarguably accurate. This is the fantastical microcosm the owners, bookies, and fans of dog fighting have created. A self-contained hell with its own bizarre rules and specific rituals agreed upon by the participants and rigorously enforced by the hosts. To the outsider, it is the shabby and primitive distraction of mean-spirited rubes. But to those involved, dog fighting is life.

The world is kept as secret as possible but, inevitably, reports from incidental or accidental eyewitnesses bleed out into the real world. Tales of unimaginable cruelty are whispered, with only the slightest tinge of pride, between shocked relatives. Posthumous horror stories of atrocities committed in the name of competitiveness are breathlessly related by on-the-spot reporters moments after a police raid. Regretful visitors explain their initial curiosity and eventual distaste for the sport to quasi-judgmental friends. Word spreads.

I heard they have a special stand they strap the prize female dogs to so the winning male studs can rape them to make super strong puppies.

I heard they electrocute the losers with a cut lamp cord and it can take up to ten shocks to kill them.

I heard they cut fighting dogs’ ears off with wire cutters so there’s nothing for an opponent to grab onto.

The stories are shameful enough that they are forcefully dispatched to the far recesses of memory as soon as the words are processed. Ignored to better pretend the world in which we live is not so hateful and cold. The natural byproduct of this collective contrived ignorance is the preservation of the layer of secrecy shrouding the sport. Who enjoys discussing such inhumanities?

The trainers do. Training regimens are endlessly refined and continuously optimized. Once it is determined that fighting dogs are of no value beyond their win/loss record and the winnings associated therein, there is no length to which the top competitors won’t go.

The training of a fighting dog involves raising it from birth to adulthood restrained with heavy chains, and later additional weights, to build upper body strength. The dog is administered severe and frequent abuse to engender aggression and starved regularly to create severe hunger and profound desperation. They are made to tug on hanging objects to increase jaw strength and their teeth are filed to points to ensure the infliction of maximal damage to their equally sadistically trained opponents. Add to this a carefully calculated, protein-rich diet along with a generous helping of steroids and you end up with an animal composed almost entirely of angry muscles, razor sharp fangs, and mercenary attitude. A killing machine.

To prepare a dog for a fight, the combatants, usually bred for the sport, are beaten, baited, and made to spar with smaller, less dangerous animals including cats, rabbits, and smaller dogs who have been kidnapped from wherever convenient. Perhaps this is what happened to the faithful companion you left tied up outside the grocery store while you ran in for only a moment. If not yours, then thousands of others. A good trainer can go through a raft of live opponents in a week’s time. The hope is that the regimen will spark a taste for fighting, blood, and killing as the dogs mature and grow stronger. It will become part of a fighting dog’s DNA.

As you might suspect, but are trying to avoid lingering on, an event like this with more than a dozen of these very dangerous dogs must mean a great deal of bloodshed and mayhem and injury.

You are correct.

Dogs lose ears. Eyes. Blood. Legs.

The losers are destroyed immediately. No one likes a loser. But often the winners will sustain serious injury during a match and need immediate attention their owners lack the knowledge or ability to give them. Some need stitches. Some need broken limbs set to heal. Some need blood transfusions. Some need more than that. Whatever damage has been done will have to be repaired as soon as possible. Winners have to fight again, after all.

So they are taken to see La Medica.

Jesus fucking Christ.

These people are animals. The pit in the middle of the basement is about five feet deep and fifteen feet wide with a hundred frothing lower class gamblers crammed around it. You can smell the tension and the testosterone and the intensity.

The screaming. Men rabid in the throes of gambling. There must be ten thousand dollars in fives and tens exchanging hands as I walk by the ring. A pit bull is squaring off against a…

—What is that?

—Dogo Argentino. He will win.

Flaco knows fighting dogs. Not surprising.

I think of Lisa’s lawyer. He won. I should have bet on him. I wonder how well he would do against the Dogo Argentino. Probably not bad.

—You come here a lot?

Flaco grunts and keeps walking back through the crowd of fat men sweating malt liquor and yelling, cheering, pleading at the dirt circle where the pit now has the Dogo by the neck.

From what I could get through Flaco’s drugged up, third world English, La Medica owns the warehouse and hosts the fights. She’s also the bank you bet against. More importantly, she’s the doctor you see if you really want your dog to be a killer. And she’s the one to see when you want it brought back from the dead. If you pay her enough and get your dead dog there fast enough, there’s a good chance she can make that happen.

She sells and administers
las drogas
, which I understand to mean steroids, growth hormone, and the like. She also has some crazy expensive shit that she calls Angel Juice. The dogs who get injected with it fight like motherfuckers but are never the same afterwards. They say it’s worth it.

Flaco talks to a couple of tough guys who shake him down for money that he gets from me. They send us deeper into the building.

In a back room that must be a garage, several large dog cages sit in front of tricked-out low riders and chromed-up SUVs. Each cage holds a dog bigger and more muscular than the next. The owners don’t look twice at us, but the dogs watch our every move. Their eyes lit with hunger. They pace around in what little space they are allowed. I make eye contact with a black boxer mix. Those deep black pupils. Don’t worry, buddy. We’re both probably going to end up in the same place. Dead in an alley with nothing to show for it.

The further back we get, the fewer people there are and the quieter they get when Flaco asks them about La Medica.

One last dirtbag takes twenty bucks to let us go past to the back door. Flaco assures me she’ll be easy to find. She’s the only woman here. He won’t go out the back door.

—I take you here. Now you go alone.

I go alone.

In the back parking lot. Fenced in. The gate is locked tight. The door behind me shuts and I hear the industrial lock being thrown. A group of men stand around the trunk of an old Cutlass sedan. Put a hibachi in between them and it would look like a contentious family barbecue. The sounds of a vicious dog fight are somewhere in the muffled distance. Presumably, this is the VIP area.

The men notice me come out, but don’t give a shit. They’re too busy arguing about something.

She stands in the shadows across the lot watching the men who have now begun to beat on the top of the trunk, yelling at it. La Medica has the type of features that look good in this kind of darkness. Angular. Efficient. Made to live on a diet of little to no light.

I approach her directly as I have no better ideas.

She turns her attention to me but doesn’t change her position. She’s completely in control. Waiting.

I slow to a stop as I get closer. She’s short. That hair. Those eyebrows. She’s not a dead ringer for Lisa, but in this light, fucking close. I remind myself that it’s impossible. Lisa is not a crazy dog doctor. She gave to the ASPCA. I stop a good five feet away from La Medica.

—Flaco told me you could help me.

Her body is as lean and minimalist as her face. Nothing extra. Form following function perfectly.

I don’t think she knows who Flaco is but he’s the only point of reference I have in this world. I also don’t think it matters. She looks through me like someone who has survived the last decade only by trusting her instincts. I know she already understands far more about me from this once-over than I intended to reveal. I want to take a step back toward the door I came out of more than anything in the world but I don’t let myself. Finally, she speaks.

—You have a dog?

—No.

She waits like she has all night. What the hell am I doing here? I should walk away and try something else. But, what? I can’t do it on my own. Flaco can do nothing else for me. There’s nothing left.

—I need you to kill me.

La Medica looks me over.

—Who are you?

Who the fuck am I? To her I am nobody. A stranger asking her to perform an illegal act far worse than the illegal acts she is already involved with. And how did I get in here? She must have security. Someone must be watching me. How long until she snaps her fingers or nods to indicate that I should be removed from the premises with prejudice? What was I thinking? What argument could I possibly have to convince her to help me? I thought no further than getting access to her. I have no next steps laid out beyond standing here and hoping that my one last chance will come through for me. I am speechless. I am alone. I couldn’t tell you where I am in the Bronx. I stand silently like the negligible human being that I am. She has beautiful blue eyes and a cast iron presence. I can’t look away.