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T H E D O G I N T H E WA L L They said that’s where Lulu went, that was the smell. Not rats. Fifty years go by. They say Yes, they don’t change their story, it’s true. A low cement-block fence around the house, a collie dog bark, four kids. Not collie but collie dog, Howdy as in Doody, The Stooges on someone else’s TV. It barked less than we kids howled, all of us waiting to move in, the dog’s tail in our faces. No room for a big dead dog, our first built house, 2 by 4s at most, no crawlspace. Propitiatory, an offering to a worksite in winter, a shovel 90 to the head? They laugh. We never saw the dog again, the old house too far to run back to, our scent long gone, the busy roads with their big cars, the pawing, clawing against the sheetrock my ear touches. Squirrels? The panting. The whine. 91 ...

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