Almost No Memory

A MAN IN OUR TOWN

A man in our town is both a dog and its master. The master is impossibly unjust to the dog and makes its life a misery. One minute he wants to romp with it and the next minute he slaps it down for being so unruly. He beats it severely over its nose and hindquarters because it has slept on his bed and left its hairs on his pillow, and yet there are evenings when he is lonely and pulls the dog up to lie beside him, though the dog trembles with fear.

But the fault is not all on one side. No one else would tolerate a dog like this one. The smell of this dog is so sour and pungent that it is far more frightening and aggressive than the dog itself, who is shy and pees uncontrollably when taken by surprise. It is a foul and sopping creature.

Yet the master should hardly notice this, since he often drinks himself sick and spends the night curled against an alley wall.

At sundown we see him loping easily along the edge of the park, his nose to the breeze; he slows to a trot and circles to find a scent, scratches the stubble on his head and takes out a cigarette, lights it with trembling hands and then sits down on a bench after wiping it with his handkerchief. He smokes quietly until his cigarette has burned down to a stub. Then he explodes into wild anger and begins punching his head and kicking himself in the legs. When he is exhausted, he turns his face up to the sky and howls in frustration. Only sometimes, then, he will pet himself on the head until he is comforted.