It wasn’t his dog, he had little idea where the dirty mongrel had come from beyond spotting it sniffing around the trashcan near one of the shops downtown. Normally May didn’t pay a second glance to animals since the last time he’d tried to keep a dog around. He remembered the ugly old hound padding along with him while he’d walked for days with nowhere to go. Then he’d had a bad night and Fido hadn’t had a great one either. The mess he woke up to the next morning painted a clear picture. May didn’t keep pets, sooner or later they turned into snacks.
But he’d felt more sympathy for the hungry dog than he did most people, had spotted the half-eaten sandwich the creature was trying to reach up and snatch, all the while falling inches too short. Didn’t seem like much trouble really to pick up the discarded meal and toss it to the mutt; he knew how deep the ache ran when your stomach was hollow and empty.
Didn’t expect the dog to trot after him and flop near the low wall he’d stopped to lean against, he figured it was harmless though and he could run the mongrel off later. Digging through pockets for a cigarette, coming up short, it just made his headache worse. May mumbled under his breath and reached down to scratch at the animal’s ears when the dog crept closer to his dangling fingers. He noticed someone approaching, assumed it was probably whoever owned the scrawny dog.
“You lose something?”
