Aaron drops me off in front of my house around four thirty. I have maybe an hour until Mom gets home, and I sort of wonder if I’m going to spend some or all of that cleaning up after the dog. I go in through the kitchen: no dog and no crap there. I find him standing in the middle of the living room. His body is twisted in a C shape so that his back legs are sort of inching forward. His eyes are wide and looking right at me, and his little tail stump is trying to wag. The whole thing, the body language, the eyes, it doesn’t seem friendly so much as desperate.

I scan the room. I don’t see anything on the floor in here, and just as important, I don’t smell anything. “Good boy,” I say. People are always saying that to dogs on TV, and I think it’s pretty standard.

He gets even more excited as I start toward the back door. He follows me closely, still contorted like a scorpion. Sure enough, the screen door is open the same little sliver it was this morning. “Aw, Johnny,” I say. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve called him by his name, and it is 100 percent out of guilt. “All you had to do was push through.”

I’m looking at him and a thought hits me so hard that I know it’s true. That’s how he wound up chained outside. One mistake, or maybe the guy left him alone for too long and JR couldn’t hold it. The kind of guy who’d do that to a dog isn’t the kind of guy who’d need much of an excuse. And years later, JR is holding it in again, trying to make up for it or just terrified of what will happen if he can’t.

I throw the screen door wide open and hold it there. Johnny’s body straightens out and he comes charging toward me. For a moment, I kind of freak out. But he’s not coming after me. He just really needs to go. He launches himself out the door like a big black cannonball, clearing the back steps and landing a good three or four feet out into the little yard.

I let the door close behind him and give him his privacy. Then I head to the bathroom to wash the Brantley off me. When I’m done, I go back and open the door. He comes trotting up the steps and into the house like nothing happened. Then I close both doors because it’s still really hot out.

“Sorry about that, JR,” I say. Now that I’m calling him by name, I’m trying to figure out which version I like best. This one’s kind of cool because it’s like JD.

I can’t quite tell if he’s holding a grudge against me or not, so I give him a biscuit. That’s got to be his third or fourth of the day. Afterward, he has this look on his face of pure canine contentment. Another thought hits me: He likes it here.

Mom gets home a little later than usual and we have Boston Market microwave dinners, so I know it was a rough day. She’s reading the empty box as the microwave blasts away at hers. “These have a lot of salt,” she says, frowning.

“Good,” I say, after taking a bite of Salisbury steak and swallowing it down with some Coke because it’s still pretty hot. I don’t mean that it’s good it has a lot of salt; I just mean that it’s good because I like it and I don’t want her to feel bad about dinner.

She looks at my Coke. “And that has a lot of sugar.”

“Good!” I say, smiling.

She’s about to say something else, but the microwave beeps and cuts her off.

“So what did you do today?” she says, sitting down.

“Not much,” I say. I feel like that’s true — I feel like that’s always true — but I know it’s sort of a dodge, so I say, “Just hung out.”

“With your friends?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. I want to tell her not to worry about it, that they’re not that bad and that I can take care of myself, but I feel like I shouldn’t bring that stuff up if she doesn’t. Instead, I take a huge bite of the Salisbury steak and work on that for a while. She sees me chewing and doesn’t ask me anything else, and I can feel the food burning my mouth.

After dinner, Mom says, “Why don’t you take Jon-Jon for a walk?”

I’m like, “First of all, it’s Johnny, Johnny Rotten, or JR for short. Second, doesn’t he go in the backyard? ’Cause he definitely went there before you got home.”

“I think the backyard could use a break,” says Mom. “And I think Johnny could use a walk.”

“I’m not sure we’re really there yet, if you know what I mean,” I say. “I think he’s just, like, using me for food.”

But she thinks it’s a good idea and hands me the leash.

“Wait, I’m supposed to put this on him?” I say.

“That’s how the whole walk thing works,” she says.

“Then I definitely don’t think we’re there yet,” I say, but I guess I’m sort of curious. It’s not like I have far to go either, since he’s been hanging around the table the whole time, hoping for scraps and/or drops.

I take the leash and stand up. He sees the leash, which he definitely recognizes, and he sees me, but he doesn’t seem happy about the combination of the two. He starts backing up as I approach. I back him into the corner, like he’s a sheep I need to make a sweater out of. The thing is, he’s a lot more wolf than sheep. As soon as his butt hits the cabinet, he knows he’s cornered, and just like that, some switch flips inside him. His gums come up and there are those big white teeth again: all of them, this time.

He growls. It’s not loud, but there’s no missing it.

“Whoa!” I say, sort of stumbling back.

“Oh, careful,” says Mom.

But it’s already over. As soon as I stepped back, he zipped through the gap. He’s already in the living room by the time Mom finishes her warning.

“Whoa,” I repeat.

“I think he just felt cornered,” says Mom. “He was just as scared as you.”

She’s probably right, but I don’t feel like testing her theory any further. I hand the leash back to her and head for the front room. I think I’ve earned some TV.