Mitchell Sommers received his law degree from Penn State, and MFA from University of New Orleans. He was a columnist for Central Penn Business Journal from 2000-2004. He is co-editor of an online literary magazine called Tatanacho www.tatanacho.wordpress.com

   Subprime

This is how you get rid of your dog.

You start by telling yourself it’s the right thing to do. You know how hard a big dog is going to make it to rent something affordable. You know your FICO score has plunged to near invisibility, that you’re at the point where it’s like the SATs, where you get 200 points for signing your name. And you know you need to keep Jason in the same school district, because he’s your son, and moving him at the end of his junior year would make you despicable, make you even worse of a parent than you already are, because, after all, you lost his fucking house.  And your wife Gwen is going to want to rent someplace that isn’t an embarrassment, something that helps them maintain the illusion that they’re not like everybody else, that they haven’t lost their house too, that they didn’t take out stupid mortgages that you can’t afford but that doesn’t matter  because houses always go up, they are investments, they are solid, like your marriage.

            You know that makes Libby Odd Dog out.

            So you gather up her rawhide chewy, and her other rawhide chewy, the dark rawhide chewy, to distinguish it from the light rawhide chewy, and her squeaky duck, and her squeaky otter, and her yarn-like object that you don’t really know what it is, and a toy stuffed crab.   You grab her special food. You grab her special dish, and her other, not quite as special dish, and you motion for her to come with you.

            She will, of course. She’s a dog. She loves you.  She’ll jump in back of the SUV, the SUV that you park in back of the convenience store and not where you actually work in the hopes they won’t repossess it. She’ll climb in the back seat, not stay there, but jump onto the front passenger seat, and not stay there either, but jump on your lap, because it’s exciting. She’s going to take a ride in the car.

            Your son comes with you.  You tell him he doesn’t have to, but you know he will. He will insist.  Your son goes toe to toe on the basketball court with guys 11, 12 inches taller than him, daring them, schooling them, making them look stupid and foolish.   Your son scrapped his Bar Mitzvah speech for a diatribe a bout the Iraq War and how George Bush was every bit the war criminal that Adolf Eichmann was, and he looked right at Gwen’s brother Ira just when Ira started rolling his eyes just a tiny, tiny bit.

            He will get in the car with you when you give away your dog. There is no avoiding that, not for either of you. And he will look at you, and look at Libby, and look at you again as you drive south, from Lancaster, almost out of Pennsylvania completely, practically a thrown doggie toy away from to the Maryland line to this place where one of your co-workers said she knew someone who wanted a big, friendly, goofy dog.  Your son will look at you as you pull into the driveway, and as you run out, and as Libby runs out, and as you hand over her rawhide chewy, and her other rawhide chewy, the dark rawhide chewy, to distinguish it from the light rawhide chewy, and her squeaky duck, and her squeaky otter, and her yarn-like object that you don’t really know what it is, and a  toy stuffed crab, and you say goodbye, and as Jason buries his face in her fur and breathes in her doggy smell, you know you will be spared nothing on the ride back. Not even his silence.