Damned

By

Pedro Trevino

I was damned from the start. When I was born, no one bothered to name me, and as I lay dying, reflecting on my weird existence, I was still nameless.

I was always the runt, the wimpy one. My mother, Pointed Ears, never liked me. She loved all my brothers and sisters but never me. To make matters worse, of my entire family I was the only one who survived. All my brothers and sisters were either killed by cars or poisoned. My mom and I were poisoned, too, but somehow even though we spit out blood for a long time, and our insides were probably damaged greatly, we still pulled through.

After all my siblings were exterminated, my mom was left with the kid that she did not want anything to do with. Whenever my neighbors, Pedro and Martha gave us food, Mom would never let me eat. She would bite me so hard, sometimes to the point of almost killing me, until I left the food alone no matter how hungry I felt. Countless nights I fell asleep with my stomach rumbling. My neighbors hated this. Sometimes, purposefully they would feed my mom very far away from me, but as soon as they fed me, she would leave her food alone and would run my way to stop me from eating. Sometimes Pedro would get in my mom's way so she would allow me to eat or he would pick me up and feed me on top of one of their cars. I loved him. He was a very nice person and so was his wife, Martha.

The day Mom and I were poisoned, the same people poured acid on our bodies. A few days later our skin started falling off. My owners helped us a great deal trying to cure our injuries. We got a little better, but never completely recovered. I lost all my fur. My mom lost some, too, but not entirely.

A few days after this incident, an old man came by and took my mom away. She went with him voluntarily, but I think that he did not have good intentions for her. She never came back, and I was left all alone. I loved my owners, so I traveled several streets daily with them. As I walked these roads all I kept hearing from the kids as well as the grown ups was how ugly I looked and how awful I stunk. They called me bad names and tossed rocks at me all because I had no hair, and I had a bad smell. Even my owners would say I was ugly.

There were only two people who loved me unconditionally. They would never call me names, and to them I was beautiful. They were Pedro and Martha. After my poisoning, my digestive system was not the best, and I found it very hard even to eat. Pedro bought me ham which he fed me daily, but my jaw would hurt so much when I tried chewing on it. Martha saw this and bought several boxes of Vienna Sausages which she gave me very often. I knew how to get her to give me some. All I had to do was whine a little, and she would start opening the cans. I loved the taste, but what I loved the most was that when I chewed on them, my jaw would not hurt.

I had a bad stench because I was always scratching my hairless body which brought about bad smelling sores. I felt terrible because everywhere Iƒ??d go people would always say how bad I stunk. Pedro and Martha loved me the way I was. Even though they knew I stunk, they never mentioned it when I was with them.

I loved my freedom, so all day long I visited my owners and their grandkids. Even though they were ashamed of me, I felt good just being around them.

Most nights I spent at Pedro's yard. He had three huge empty dog houses there. On two of them he had toy dogs inside. On the third house the dog sat on top of the house which I thought was an open invitation for me to get inside.

Many times at about three or four in the morning I would hear some people passing by close to my yard. I would bark to warn them not to get too close. They hated my barking. I think they were doing something that was against the law. They were the same people who had poisoned me and poured acid on my body. They threw rocks at me but found it hard to hit me because I never got near them. Everyday I would bark at them and their anger grew. I was winning the battle, or so I thought.

One day as I rested on the yard of my owner's grandkids, I heard a noise which really startled me. When I looked towards the street, I saw two young men coming straight at me with a pole which had a rope at the end of it. I ran for my life, dashing to Pedro's house where I knew I would be safe. I hid in one of the dog houses where I sat, trembling. "Please, God, don't let them catch me." I prayed. I saw one of the men enter Pedro's yard and head for the door. He knocked and Pedro answered. "We're looking for a dog that the neighbors have been complaining about for a long time. They say it has a contagious disease which they don't want their dogs to catch. The dog got into one of those dog houses." I hid some more when I saw him pointing in my direction. "Is it your dog?"

"She's not my dog," Pedro said, "but she comes here very often, and I feed her. She was poisoned and someone poured acid on her body, but she has no disease."

Is it okay if we take her?" he asked.

I could tell Pedro was hurting. Let me talk to my wife first." he said. The man walked towards his friend.

Pedro walked into the house to talk to Martha. About a minute later he came out, and what I heard almost made me die on the spot. "My wife says you may take her, but please don't let her suffer anymore. Give her the injection right away." I could hear Pedro's voice almost trembling and he could barely get out the words.

"We'll inject her right away." one of the city workers said. "Can you get her for us?"

Pedro felt like dropping dead. He had given consent for them to take me, but now they wanted him to put that ugly rope on my neck. He got the pole, and every step he took, I could see in his face, was so painful. He looked at me inside the little house, and he extended the pole and the rope. "Please don't do this to me, Pedro." I begged with my eyes. He finally got the loop over my head, and I knew it was over. I got down from the dog house and stopped.

Pedro called one of the workers. "Come and take her." he said.

The worker started walking towards Pedro, and I just froze. Pedro looked at me and his eyes watered. Instead of allowing a total stranger to drag me to the city truck, he decided to take me himself. He picked me up with so much pain and then I heard someone crying by the door area. It was Martha. She was beside herself.

I looked at her and wanted to yell out, "Please donƒ??t cry for me. It's okay. I have suffered all my life. I know how to take it. I was damned from my birth, so please don't cry for me. I'm so sorry I'm making you go through all this. Don't cry Martha. I know you love me, and I know that Pedro loves me. Please don't cry for me anymore."

"You can keep her here, Ma'am," one of the city workers said, "as long as you tie her up."

"She's too sick to be tied up." Martha responded.

Pedro took me to the cage and placed me inside. "I feel like Judas Iscariot sending Jesus Christ to the slaughter." he said. The truck left, and I looked at Pedro and Martha for the last time. They were dazed

I said goodbye to them with my eyes.

As soon as we got to city hall, one of the workers got an injection and then I felt the liquid enter my body. Here I have been, reflecting on all the things that have happened in my life from the day I was born till this very last day. I know what comes next. It only seems proper for a life that was damned from the start.

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