of him, much to Colin’s relief. Roy lifted his head and let his shoulders down and stopped breathing like a horse at the end of an eight-furlong race.
Colin knew a bit about race horses. His father had taken him to the track half a dozen times, expecting him to be impressed with the amount of money wagered and with the sweaty manliness of the sport. Instead, Colin had been delighted by the grace of the horses and had spoken of them as if they were dancers. His father hadn’t liked that and had thereafter gone to the races alone.
He and Roy reached another comer, turned left, out of the alley, and pushed their bicycles along an ivy- framed sidewalk.
Look-alike stucco houses lay on both sides of the street, sheltering under a variety of palm trees, skirted by oleander and jade plants and dracaena and schefflera and roses and cacti and holly and ferns and poinsettia bushes-ugly houses made elegant by California’s lush natural beauty.
Finally Roy spoke. “Colin, you remember what I said about how a guy sometimes has to do things his buddy wants to do even if he himself maybe really doesn’t like it?”
“I remember.”
“That’s one of the true tests of friendship. Don’t you agree?”
“I guess so.”
“For Christ’s sake, can’t you at least once in a while have a firm opinion about something? You never say a flat yes or no. You’re always ‘guessing.’ ”
Stung, Colin said, “All right. I think it’s a true test of friendship. I agree with you.”
“Well, what if I said I wanted to kill something just for fun and I wanted you to help me.”
“You mean like a cat?”
“I’ve already killed a cat.”
“Yeah. It was in all the newspapers.”
“I did. In a cage. Like I said.”
“I just can’t believe it.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Okay, okay,” Colin said. “Let’s not go through the whole argument again. Let’s pretend I swallowed your story-hook, line, and sinker. You killed a cat in a birdcage. So what next-a dog?”
“If I wanted to kill a dog, would you help?”
“Why would you want to?”
“It might be a popper.”
“Jeez.”
“Would you help kill it?”
“Where would you get the dog? You think the humane society gives them out to people who want to torture them?”
“I’d just steal the first pooch I saw,” Roy said.
“Someone’s pet?”
“Sure.”
“How would you kill it?”
“Shoot it. Blow its head off.”
“And the neighbors wouldn’t hear?”
“We’d take it out in the hills first.”
“You expect it to just pose and smile while we plug it?”
“We’d tie it up and shoot it a dozen times.”
“Where do you expect to get the gun?”
“What about your mother?” Roy asked.
“You think my mother sells illegal guns out of the kitchen or something?”
“Doesn’t she have a gun of her own?”
“Sure. A million of ‘em. And a tank and a bazooka and a nuclear missile.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Why would she have a gun?”
“A sexy woman living alone usually has a gun for protection.”
“But she doesn’t live alone,” Colin said. “Did you forget about me?”
“If some crazy rapist wanted to get his hands on your mom, he’d walk right over you.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“Be serious. Does your mother have a gun?”
Colin didn’t want to admit there was a gun in the house. He had a hunch that he would save himself a lot of trouble if he lied. But at last he said, “Yeah. She has a pistol.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. But I don’t think she keeps it loaded. She could never shoot anyone. My father loves guns: ergo, my mother hates them. And so do I. I’m not going to borrow her gun to do something crazy like shoot your neighbor’s dog.”
“Well, we could kill it some other way.”
“What would we do-bite it?”
A night bird sang in the branches above them.
The sea breeze was cooler than it had been ten minutes ago.
Colin was tired of pushing the bike, but he sensed that Roy still had a lot to say and wanted to say it quietly, which he couldn’t do if they were riding.
Roy said, “We could tie the dog up and kill it with a pitchfork.”
“Jeez.”
“That would be a popper!”
“You’re making me sick.”
“Would you help me?”
“You don’t need my help.”
“But it would prove you’re not just a fair-weather friend.”
After a long while Colin said, “I suppose if it was really important to you, if you just had to do it or die, I could be there when you did it.”
“What do you mean by ‘be there’?”
“I mean… I guess I could watch.”
“What if I wanted you to do more than watch?”
“Like what?”
“What if I wanted you to take the pitchfork and stab the dog a few times yourself?”
“Sometimes you can be really weird, Roy.”
“Could you stab it?” Roy persisted.
“No.”
“I’ll bet you could.”
“I couldn’t ever kill anything.”
“But you could watch?”
“Well, if it would prove to you once and for all that I’m your friend and that I can be trusted…”
They entered the circle of light under a street lamp, and Roy stopped. He was grinning. “You’re getting better every day.”
“Oh?”
“You’re developing nicely,” Roy said.
“Am I?”
“Yesterday, you’d have said you couldn’t even watch a dog being killed. Today, you say you could watch but you couldn’t participate. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you’ll tell me you could find it within yourself to pick up that pitchfork and make mincemeat of that damned dog.”
“No. Never.”
“And a week from now, you’ll finally admit that you’d enjoy killing something.”
