The newspaper delivery boy turns his face to the wind and pedals up the tall hill by the bay, that one dotted with thin white trees and torn rope swings and bulging suitcases with the bodies of newspaper delivery boys stuffed inside. The bike makes whining noises. His deodorant smells like oranges. He listens to his heartbeat. He pedals past the house with the butcher inside. The butcher is asleep but the house is not. The butcher does not receive the paper.
The newspaper delivery boy reaches into the basket of his bike and takes the papers in their loose plastic skin and throws them onto the porches of the poet, the librarian, the teacher, the lawyer, the judge, the jury, and the executioner. He rides up the hill and he throws all but one of the papers onto their porches. He does his job as given to him by his master. For his last stop, the route takes him higher, and then over, and then back. He pedals up the crest of the hill, and the sun is orange vapor. He stops there, just for a second, and he looks at the sister bridges connecting his small town to the island across the bay. The ocean is sweating off its salt.
Look: on the top of the hill there is the newspaper delivery boy resting his bike against a big white cross and on the cross there is graffiti but he does not read it.
The newspaper delivery boy begins to pedal down the other side of the hill. He looks down that long dirt path and there are beer bottles and needles pimpling the hill’s face. He twists his wheels through the trash. There are piles of it. Some of it is burnt; some of it smells like oranges. The boy kicks the pedals so they spin backward in a circle. He coasts down the hill with the pedals spinning nothing, spinning air, which is nothing.
The newspaper delivery boy doesn’t see it yet but there is a black dog at the bottom of the hill, a dog with a big smile, a dog with no collar. The newspaper delivery boy has never met a dog without a collar before. He will not know what it means. After all, he wears no collar. But it’s true, there is a dog waiting for him at the bottom of the hill. And it has dirty paws. And there are chicken bones in its guts. And there is the question of the master.
Look: on the newspaper delivery boy’s bike is a sticker with an orange in blue swim trunks and venetian-blind sunglasses and the orange is sprouting a speech bubble and the bubble says: “WELCOME 2 FLORIDA,” but he hasn’t been, not really, the newspaper delivery boy was too young, he can’t remember, he can’t remember a thing, already forgotten is that the veil of heat clinging to his face, the velcro touch of a bigger hand holding his, all forgotten painlessly like taxes, and so the smiling orange writes the memories for him.
The newspaper delivery boy hits the base of the hill and is riding as fast as he can, trying to catch the black dog, who is running, flying, pairs of legs pumping in unison, seconds airborne, spit ropes, whale eyes, nails filing against the concrete, down twisted streets, the newspaper delivery boy white-knuckling handlebars, eyes peeled, black dog, keep going. They do. One leading the other. The last newspaper jostling in his basket. And the dog skids to a halt at the home of the butcher, which the newspaper delivery boy rode past just this morning. The house is bigger now. The butcher is asleep but the house is not. The house wants a newspaper.
The newspaper delivery boy jumps off of his bike, but the dog has run under the porch of the house and is hidden in the darkness. Even his golden eyes disappear. The newspaper delivery boy stands in the light of the old sun and listens for the black dog. And then the sound, like chewing aluminum. And as the sound grows the newspaper delivery boy knows that the black dog is eating away at the foundations. He is gnawing off great bits of wood and swallowing them. He is biting through the concrete base of the house. He is drinking the growing blood between his mountain teeth. The newspaper delivery boy stands at the steps to the porch. The house teeters. The paper sits in the bike’s basket. The dog begins to whine. He sounds like the newspaper delivery boy’s sister. The newspaper delivery boy takes a deep breath and crawls under the porch with his hand outstretched. So the black dog folds the newspaper delivery boy in half. And in half again. He drinks up the boy’s life through his neck. He puts him in a suitcase and rides the bike back up the hill. His suitcase looks like all the others. Tomorrow, the black dog will take his route. This happens every day.
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Tom R is a writer in Chicago. His work has appeared in the Militant Grammarian, Allium, Mental Papercuts, and others. He is a Pushcart nominee and CSPA award recipient. He values his privacy.