CHAPTER 1
Daphne
Dear Daphne,
One year and 75 letters from you later, I don’t know if there is such a thing as a pen pal anniversary, but I’m making one because your letters are something to celebrate. Fate brought you to me and I hope soon fate will allow us to meet so I can thank you in person for giving me something to look forward to every day. From your first letter thanking me for helping your brother, I knew you were the one sent to help me.
Say hi to James for me. I miss the hell out of him but I’m happy he’s not in this shithole any longer. Unlike me, he didn’t deserve to be here. I hope he can erase the pain of this place and find the life he deserves. I hope he knows that friends aren’t always what they seem. There are few that won’t throw you under the bus to save their own ass.
I read your last letter about saving Bear, the starving pit bull tied up in the crumbling garage. I wanted to break through the concrete and metal bars and kill the motherfuckers that treated him that way. I wanted to crush their skulls with my bare hands for scaring and threatening you. Assholes that don’t take care of their pets, then have someone coming around in the freezing fucking cold at their own expense and risk to do what they won’t, then they aim a gun at you? There are so few humans left I don’t want to kill.
The only thing that settles me is that you have Mac and Tiny now. They’ve been with you almost eight months I think from what you said. It’s good they’re there to protect you and set any fuckers straight on what’s what.
I’m on countdown for my parole hearing in two days. Pretty sure I’ll be denied…again. But, who knows, miracles can happen. You happened. A miracle I never expected.
Gotta wrap up. Need to get this to the box before the bulls lock us back in our cages and I gotta turn in my damn pen. You’re the one thing in the world that makes me feel human, not like the animals they tell us we are.
Dutch
A bittersweet smile tugs at my lips as tears burn my lower lids. I hold the paper to my nose and inhale, then tuck it back into the official Cleary State Prison envelope and check my rear-view mirror.
A beat-up Ford pickup pulls up behind me—the faded blue bed, mismatched with the even more faded red cab. Another car follows close behind. They flash their lights and I wave through the back window of my high school graduation gift from my parents: a classic if not somewhat battered El Camino.
I shift into drive thinking how quickly two years has gone by, how much I’ve changed doing this work.
I signal left and head toward our first destination down the block.
Buckled in next to me is a five-gallon bucket of cooked rice, veggie, and boiled chicken I made last night. The smell is so comforting. But it only partially masks the stench of smoke as we pass the still-smoldering bones of a burned-out house.
I make up my special doggie stew a couple times a week, then distribute it to the poor chained-up dogs of this city, whose shit-fucks of owners think throwing an animal outside on a fifty-pound five-foot chain constitutes proper care.
I know I will never be able to change the way some people view animals as property. But someday, I’m going to change the laws. I don’t know how, but I’ll never stop fighting for them until there are no more chains. I won’t quit until the laws hold people responsible for all this misery and cruelty.
My entire life, anything that’s felt authentic to me revolved around doing everything in my power to help the helpless, especially animals and more specifically, dogs. If I do nothing else in the time I’m given but ease some of their suffering in a significant and perpetual way, I will die with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction I can’t imagine getting from anything else.
The El Camino rumbles as we pull to a stop in front of a half boarded-up bungalow, but it does nothing to cover up the vibrations of the Rammstein music blaring from Mac’s pickup following close behind.
When I open the driver’s door with a squeak, the wind whips against my face, burning my cheeks as I set my feet on the ice-crusted street, wiggling my fingers into my thick sub-zero work gloves. The music stops, and Mac and Tiny step out of the truck looking like two Norwegian World’s Strongest Man competitors dressed for the Antarctic.
“Hey guys.” I nod and wave as the other four volunteers of my non-profit Break-the-Chains Outreach organization pile out of the other vehicle, pulling at their hoods and tugging hats down over their ears as we all approach and huddle together, steam rising into the frigid air with every exhale.
I glance at the houses across the street, a knot tightening in my gut as I grit my teeth, hoping the day goes smoothly because in this area, things can be silent one second and go south the next.
“Fucking freezing.” Georgia, one of my tried-and-true friends and steadfast volunteers, jumps up and down to warm herself up. “I couldn’t fucking sleep thinking about them out here last night. I won’t sleep again tonight. Why can’t fucking humans be humane? They should be the ones sleeping outside when it’s five below. See how they like it.”
I nod. I didn’t sleep either. We haven’t lost a dog to the freezing temps on our outreach yet, but I hold my breath when we go into every back yard, waiting for the worst.
I pull the zipper of my father’s old military parka all the way up and clap my hands, the tips of my fingers already cold. Everyone is bundled in layers, knowing it’s going to be a long, tough day, just like yesterday and the day before.
Everyone wears their reflective neon vests, with BtC OUTREACH VOLUNTEER printed on the back.
No matter how often I do this, it makes me nervous. Walking into back yards in these neighborhoods is dangerous, even when we do everything in our power to identify ourselves as friend not foe.
Mac and Tiny’s heads swivel around, scoping out the area. We met them last spring as we tried to feed a skinny pit bull in a back yard in one of the worst neighborhoods on our route.
It didn’t go as planned.
We ended up with a nine-millimeter pointed in our faces. Then like a miracle, two of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen seemingly dropped from the sky. A pair of three-hundred-pound angels that had enough street smarts to help me de-escalate the situation. And now they’re part of my team, too.
It’s bad enough these so-called pet owners treat their animals worse than the broken-down lawnmowers they leave out in the yard. But when we come to help the dogs, help that they’ve agreed we can give, some of them still give us shit. And sometimes shoot at us.
It makes me sick. If humanity will be judged by how we treat those creatures who wish nothing more than to love us, bring us joy and be loyal, we are fucked.
Hard.
In the most painful places.
I get messages and comments regularly on my social media posts about the outreach, saying we should just call the cops. Call animal control. Let the law handle things. Don’t enable neglectful owners.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to explain the cops aren’t coming. Animal control isn’t coming. That’s the reality out here. If these dogs don’t have us, they have no one.
Before I can open my mouth to give the crew instructions, a loud POP-POP-POP resounds from somewhere across the street. I barely have time to register it as a gunshots before Tiny and Mac cover me with their bodies.