Charles Soule, Jr., "Boy with Dog," 1860-65
I'd imagined she’d been called far worse names than bitch, the biting curses almost forgotten now. She was with him, she was for him, his protection from loneliness, the depredations of his living rough, broken—spine skewed, skin inked over, blurry mementos of his other lives. (The tie that binds is sometimes a frayed rope loosely tied around a neck, as worn and soft as his gaze towards her, how softly he’d spoken.) Her name was Chevelle Marie, and I thought she might’ve been named for the last finest joy he’d known—a car, a girl—a boyhood lost and found in a dark gray blocky pit-bull. (I told her she was pretty; she wriggled all over with delight.) Chevelle Marie was a good dog; she’d listen, then lead him out of Hades if she could.
