All out of Love

Hi

This is something I wrote while trying to get into the head of my affair. Got this idea last night when I was telling my friend how the poor man had lost all at once, his woman, her daughter and his dog. She was like, "Sounds like a whimsical Western" This may become something longer.
Some strong language and potentially offensive slurs and swears. Israel is no polite society Does not target anyone or represent my personal opinion.
Befitting song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J52UnnVBXcQ


„I love you!“
'Love you more,' he wanted to say, laughing and feeling the smile creep up his cheeks and squeeze his lower eyelids to emphasize the crow's feet. He wanted to pick her up, fling her around in a circle and fall over, rolling about with her on the pile of cut twigs and leaves by the door. But instead, only the corner of his mouth twitched north and he blinked away a tear. When Orli said 'I love you', there was genuine affection in her words. Her eyes would shine and she would reveal all the teeth she currently had. She had turned nine only recently and her frontal molars were changing. He didn't know much about child orthodontics, but with her gaps and teeth struggling to fit, her mouth was far less presentable than her mother's – yet the latter rarely revealed her perfect teeth this readily and happily, much less at him. Orli's tremendous happiness to stand before him, within hugging distance and ready to pounce, was a painful reminder, if not a nail in the coffin, that this child's love for him was stronger than her mother's; Keren would hug him – back, kiss him back, tongue in cheek, literally. She would respond to him saying “I love you” with a pleased grunt or “Oh you”, never managing to echo his words. Keren was not shy. She was a strong forty-five-year-old woman who could say “I love you” without batting an eyelash if only she meant it. For months now she had no such thing to say to him. The only love he could hope for in this fancy ground floor apartment, was the clumsy affection of a child and the learned loyalty of a young dog that was supposed to be his. As he glanced sideways at the dog, he felt his foot twitch. He needed to kick something, but not in front of Orli – and not in Keren's home, as nothing was his anymore.

He had begged that dog off a client of the bank he guarded. Then finally, he got it, after four months or eyeballing his object of desire which was not the generous bosom of the owner as his colleagues had first loudly speculated. His feelings of triumph had been vastly overshadowed by her tears. She had come running at him, in a way he would normally have pulled out his gun and shouted at her to freeze in spite of the Israeli climate. But he knew her, and there was a shiny redness on her face that wasn't sweat.
“You s'ill wa'my buppy?” she sobbed.
“Err... Yeah... Ehhh...”
“Here. Tay him!”
And with that, she dropped a huge bag of dog things beside his stool and pushed the confused wolf-colored pup into his arms. Gasping for air that would unclutter her face, she produced a vaccination booklet and asked for his name and address to change ownership.
“Lior Dreyfuss, but what... I mean, why..?”
He had been nagging her for this puppy from the very day she'd pulled him out of a pile of trash when he was only four weeks old. She was taking pictures of her new treasure near his post when he walked up and asked bluntly, “Can I have him?”. She had declined him then and every time after that, the laughter in her voice getting louder and more teasing with every “Nope” as she would walk past him faster and more playfully each time he tried to get a foot in the door.
“My landlord is a disgusting, murderous son of a whore farted from the arse of a decaying swine!” she blubbered. Lior couldn't help but shudder with suppressed laughter at the strangeness of it. This young woman, her age impossible to tell by her timeless face, was standing before him, sniffling, in an orthodox-looking black 50s dress with white trims, a gray military cap with a big bow, her thick black hair tied in pigtails, basically looking like a good Jewish girl, and – swearing like a sailor who had recently discovered the internet. “He said that if he caught Crixus piss in his ugly-ass front yard one more time, he'd kill him! He loves dogs he says, but he'd kill my puppy over some piss! Give me your Glock so I can end his dog-hating Arab ass an-”
She stopped herself just in time as two police men walked within ear shot.

Now even Crixus wasn't his anymore. His former owner had made sure Lior knew she'd chosen him special. Of all the people who had applied for him, she had consciously chosen Lior because she “could tell” from his eyes that he was a good man. As a security guard, he worked long hours while his salary was on the sad side, and she knew. But unlike Keren, this strange stranger could see and appreciate his personal value. He had painted her a picture of the ideal dog life. His uncle owned a farm where he kept several dogs who had their own house which had its own air-conditioning. Crixus would be a welcome addition to the pack. But the rambunctious pariah pup had other ideas, stirred up the pack, destroyed whatever was not of concrete and forfeited his place on that farm. There was no way Lior would lock this young, vivacious dog up in his twenty square meter apartment eleven hours a day. So he and his seemingly loving girlfriend had agreed that Crixus stay with her. Orli immediately, unilaterally, decided this was the best gift ever, and that was the unofficial end of Lior's ownership of Crixus.
As his gaze wandered back and forth between the beaming Orli and the chair-chewing Crixus, he felt his chest tighten. Orli didn't know yet what her mother and her big brother/father/uncle had discussed in the bedroom. She didn't know he was about to walk out that door for the last time. If he were to pack Crixus' things now, she would grow suspicious. By the time he'd drag the dog out the front gate, she would be audibly confused. And because he already knew he could not pretend to be his usual carefree self for the three minutes all this would take, Orli would be crying between the orange tree and the garbage container by the time he reached the bus stop. This girl was not to blame for the failure of his relationship, and neither was the dog, and both were very happy right here, right in this house where the one who had just demanded Lior's keys back, was outnumbered, yet had the final say.
While searching for the perfect good-bye words that would satisfy Orli without making him cry, Lior's gaze fell on his jacket. His heart sank. He'd dropped it on a chair by the dining table at the far end of the living room. He would have to drag himself through now hostile territory all over again, for that black rag. He would have to walk past his ex-little sister/daughter/niece, past the Sarit Hadad trapper keeper he'd bought for her birthday, past his ex-dog and past his ex-dog's toys and pillow, only to grab a cheap H&M track jacket from a chair he used to sit on and lose himself in the brown diamonds that were the eyes of his ex-girlfriend who had left before him, indifferent to what he may do in her home – counting on him to leave without further prompt. Gone shopping. Out of olives.
Too bad one couldn't buy canned Love at Shufersal. That was, in Lior's opinion, what this woman was desperately lacking if she managed to break up a family of four – if one counted Crixus – because apparently loving a man this much younger than herself was like nursing a geezer who'd mistaken Alzheimer's for new-found youth. Exhausting, unsatisfying, and not worthy of an accomplished mother and business woman with a neat apartment in French Carmel the rent of which equaled Lior's salary multiplied by three. She had a life, she'd said matter-of-factly. Needs. If his hurt were to cloud his judgment just a tad more, he'd suspected her of implying he was too short for her, and it didn't even matter which length she'd be referring to. At some distant point in the past however, Keren had appreciated the strong personality that came with the shortness, his tan Mizrahi skin that qualified for the “Nigger” label among some light Ashkenazi like herself, the wiry black hair and the mischievous black eyes that always looked like the pupils were dilated with burning lust. He had been her return ticket to feeling young. Now, all he felt was small. Small and unloved, his personality worth squat. A cockroach, his former love a can of bug spray on fire.

When he reached the chair to grab his jacket, he almost ran it over. Everything was a haze, disproportionate, shifting and overexposed. His brain throbbed against his skull to the rhythm of his heart. Shaking his head to clear it, his eyes locked on Orli's Disney DVD collection piled up between the dining chairs and the enormous flat screen TV. He snorted. According to Disney, beautiful people – or animals - had beautiful souls and their love would conquer all – even two raving prides of lions slashing at one-another in the mud. And both partners would love the other equally endlessly. Forever. The poor black girl would win over the smug rich prince, forever. Poor “black” Lior on the other hand? Right. The guy could be a thief, have black hair if need be, even be mentally challenged for lack of human contact and swing from vines, but – he had to be tall. Light-skinned and tall. And the female had to be in her late teens, not near-menopausal.
“My dick on Disney,” he muttered under his breath and grabbed the black reminder of his social standing: good enough for a monthly trip to the mall, but not to return home anywhere in or near French Carmel after having treated himself to the luxury of... H&M. And a latte. The little angel on his shoulder whispered to him that Keren's dried-up love was not all due to his lack of prestige. He was a young, wild man who would race his friends on desert highways with only one hand steering the bike while the other was holding a Smart Phone to film the action. Keren was a mature woman who had to embrace a responsible, safe and secure life for the sake of her fatherless child. While he got paid half the salary of a beggar to look into bags that may explode in his face but usually held little more than sunflower seed shells. And so the little devil on his other shoulder won again as Lior's train of thought returned to social standing. The little angel by the door had meanwhile taken to wrestling Crixus on the white flokati rug.

“Your mother's cunt,” he muttered, careful to keep it to less than a whisper. He could not stay here one moment longer to wait for Orli to turn her back on Crixus. And he could hardly pry a puppy from a bawling girl's arms, again, could he? But what of the crying boy that was about to happen? He zipped up his hoodie, strode across the room and exited this designer war zone with one last playful nudge from the tip of his foot to Crixus and Orli in turn, as he used to do in happier times. In spite of himself he slammed the door at the last moment, thankful for the noise of its shattering glass to drown out one single choked sob that escaped him.

Glossary:
"My dick on/comma..." - Cursing something, spoken "Zayin sheli".
"Your mother's cunt" - Like "Damn it/you" in English. Adopted from Arabic, spoken "Koos emmek".
"Arab" - I have nothing against Arabs, but many Arabs dislike dogs for cultural reasons as was the case here.
"Nigger" - not endorsed by me; part of the Ashkenazi Jewish population is still rather racist toward the darker Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews and uses this term - "Kooshee" - to describe dark or tan skinned people.
Military cap - like so: http://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/78/437/P13993529.jpg
Lior - pronounced Lee-or, means "My light", unisex name
Orli - pronounced Or-lee, same meaning as Lior
Shufersal - Israeli supermarket chain, no one really knows how to pronounce the name.
Guards - Israel posts armed guards in front of any potentially crowded place (=target of terrorist attack) such as post offices, banks, supermarkets, indoor train and bus stations etc.