There once were two pit bulls who lived in Maryland, but due to a recent addendum to Prince George’s County Code, Section 3-185.01–which stated that no pit bull terriers could be owned, kept or harbored within the county lines—the pups would have to find a new home.
It started with the landlord.
“It’s not like I wanted this,” he said, holding out a copy of the Washington Post, the headline Prince George’s County Bans Pit Bulls splattered across the front of it. “I have no say in this. No power.”
The male pit bull sighed. The female thought of the perfect Martin Niemöller quote and said nothing, mostly because she was a dog, but also because apathy had begun to sink into her bones and take up residence inside of her.
The landlord shrugged and said what all war criminals say. “Just following orders.”
The streets were an unpleasant place for the two bullies, filled with abrasive voices and the loud roar of souped-up rides with muffler deletes. They slunk through the underbelly of the city, trying to avoid the suspicious eyes of humans in uniform. Outside of a methadone clinic they found a merle cane corso tied to a parking meter, the teeth of his choke collar biting into his neck as he strained against it.
The pit bulls explained their plight to the much larger dog.
The merle cane corso rolled his eyes. “The problem is that you aren’t thinking smart. You gotta think smart. Instead of blowing your stimulus check on bully sticks and Kong chew toys, maybe try investing in yourself for once. You gotta spend money to make money, you know? Take a couple hundred out of your stimulus check. Go get you an LLC. Now you own your own business! Next, go online and get that $5K SBA grant. And that, my friend, is how you turn a couple hundred into $5K. The game is to be sold, not to be told, my boy, and yet here I am giving you free game. I’m not asking you for a penny!”
But the pit bulls had no money, and they were dogs, so neither they nor the cane corso would ever receive a stimulus check from the government. And what could the cane corso possibly know? His breed had never been discriminated against, singled out, regardless of their aggressive nature and history as Italian dogs of war.
The male dog could not find reliable work. The female dog was pregnant because when you’re poor and sad, sex is a free escape. The stakes were higher now. The female pit bull offered that she should make an OnlyFans page before she started showing. The thought of this made the male pit bull uncomfortable. And yet, he had no money to offer, nothing tangible to bring to the table, so he agreed to hold her cellphone and record her as she masturbated and moaned. At times, he would be pressured into participating, and afterwards always feeling diminished, less than who he was before. It was as if he was being reduced.
It went on like this, this erosion of his being, and then they would lay down under the Francis Scott Key memorial bridge, her asleep, spooning him while he lay wide awake, him staring at the moon while it stared back at him, always judging.
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David Simmons lives in Baltimore where he has worked as an optician, electrical estimator, and drug dealer. Simmons is the author of the fantastically bizarre “Ghosts of Baltimore Duology,” where the supernatural and strange grapple with the ever present past of East and West Baltimore. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, the Washington Post, Brooklyn Vol. 1, Another Chicago Magazine, Hobart, Snarl, 3 Moon Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Tahoma Literary Review, Bridge Eight, Across The Margin, the Washington City Paper and numerous anthologies. He is a regular contributor to Books to Prisoners, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster a love of reading behind bars, encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-empowerment, and break the cycle of recidivism.
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image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 