A Friend of the Earth (47 page)

‘See if she'll heel, Ty,' Andrea says, and I dig into my pocket for a Milkbone, pitch my voice low – ‘Heel,' I command – and she tosses up her ears and sits right down at my feet on the warm pavement.

That's when the girl appears, dressed all in black, a slight hunch to her shoulders, the long stride, high-laced black boots and hair the color of midnight in a cave. She's got her head down, watching her feet, and she doesn't see us until she's almost on us. ‘Oh, hi,' she says, not startled, not surprised, and I can see the glint of the thin silver ring punched through her left nostril. How old is she? I'm a poor judge, but I'd guess thirteen or fourteen. ‘You must be the new people, right?' she says, and there's a chirp to her voice that brings me back thirty-seven years.

Andrea's giving her a world-class smile. ‘We're the Tierwaters,' she says. ‘I'm Andrea, this is Ty.'

The girl just nods. She's looking at Petunia now, the smallest frown bunched round her lips. ‘Isn't that a, what do you call them, an Afghan?'

‘That's right,' I say, ‘that's right, she's a dog.' And then, for no reason I can think of, I can't help adding, ‘And I'm a human being.'

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Marie Alex, Russell Timothy Miller and Richard Goldman for their advice and assistance.

T.C. Boyle's novels include
World's End
, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction,
The Tortilla Curtain, Riven Rock, A Friend of the Earth, Drop City
(which was a finalist for the National Book Awards),
The Inner Circle
and, most recently,
When the Killing's Done
. His short story collections include
Tooth and Claw
and
Wild Child
, and his stories appear regularly in most major magazines, including the
New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's, Granta
and the
Paris Review
. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages.

T.C. Boyle was recently inducted into the Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in California.

Also available by T. C. Boyle

Talk Talk

Dana sits in a courtroom with her legs shackled as a long list of charges is read out. But there has been a terrible mistake – she didn't commit any of these crimes. She and her lover Bridger set out to clear her name and find the person who is living a blameless life of criminal excess at her expense.

The Inner Circle

In 1939 on the campus of Indiana University, a revolution has begun. The stir is caused by Alfred Kinsey, a zoologist who, behind closed doors, is a sexual enthusiast of the highest order and as a member of his ‘inner circle' of researchers, freshman John Milk is called on to participate in experiments that become increasingly uninhibited…

Tooth and Claw

This collection of short stories finds Boyle at his mercurial best. Inventive, wickedly funny, sometimes disturbing, these are stories about drop–outs, deadbeats and kooks. With a unique deftness of touch and a keen eye for the telling detail, Boyle has mapped the strange underworld of America.

After the Plague

After the Plague
is a masterful collection of short stories – tales that superbly veer from the psychological to the slapstick, from surrealism to satire, once again proving T. C. Boyle to be one of America's most formidable writers.

Star has travelled to Drop City to be free from society's constraints, but when the hippies decamp to the wilds of Alaska where they intend to live off the land, the group runs into trouble, unexpected friendships are made and dangerous enemies are born.

East is East

Hiro Tanaka impetuously jumps off a boat near the coast of Georgia, only to wash up on a barrier island populated by rednecks, descendants of black slaves and a colony of crazed artists. Tanaka is caught up in a hilarious and complicated spider's web of misunderstandings. And his sole place of refuge on the island only sinks him deeper…

Riven Rock

Shortly after marrying Katherine, Stanley McCormick suffers a nervous breakdown, is diagnosed with a tormenting sex mania and is imprisoned in the forbidding mansion known as Riven Rock. Stanley is confined for the next twenty years, yet Katherine remains strong in her belief that one day he will return to her whole.

World's End

Walter is a dreamer, and a lover of drugs, alcohol and speeding on his motorbike, until he crashes into a barrier and loses his right foot. Walter is a descendant of Dutch yeomen and since the day of the accident he has been haunted by their ghosts and becomes determined to find his father who deserted his family years ago, and to uncover the secrets of his ancestors.

Visit
Bloomsbury.com
for more about T. C. Boyle

By the Same Author

Novels
When the Killing's Done
The Women
Talk Talk
Tooth & Claw
The Inner Circle
Drop City
Riven Rock
The Tortilla Curtain
The Road to Wellville
East Is East
World's End
Budding Prospects
Water Music

Short Stories
Wild Child
Tooth and Claw
After the Plague
The Human Fly
T.C. Boyle Stories
Without a Hero
If the River Was Whiskey
Greasy Lake
Descent of Man

First published in Great Britain 2000

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © 2000 by T. C. Boyle

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

eISBN 9781408826836

www.tcboyle.com

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