“I think we need a fence, really.”
We always liked the idea of gardens stretching seamlessly down the block and into the forest, houses here and there. No fences, no hedges. Freedom of movement, freedom of vision.
That was our dream.
That’s what I was telling a friend while we cooked a barbeque, an asado, for our families. Everybody sat inside at the table out of the autumn cold.
We took in the first course of black pudding, flank steak, ribs and sausages, and we started tucking in.
“Very well done,” they called out from the table to me, the man flipping the beef. “A round of applause for the asador!”
“Thank you, thank you,” I said. “Hey, but this is just the start. Wait until you sink your teeth into what’s next.”
I went out to the barbeque with my friend, licking our lips. Bife de lomo, the best cut. The knife goes through it like butter. I’d bought a huge piece, enough to feed us all and have it in sandwiches the next day on the beach.
“Wait until you to get a load of the size of this lomo,” I told my friend.
“Ah… what lomo?”
We looked on the barbeque.
It was gone.
Then around the corner came trotting a Weimaraner dog licking her chops. She’d wolfed down my entire grand-finale lomo! And the grey-coat dog was sniffing around for more. My blood boiled. I thought of hurtling my carving knife at her. She saw the fumes steaming off my head, and she bolted. I yelled after the bitch and then threw one of the kids’ toys at her. It fell in the dust of her tracks on the sandy lot.
She was gone.
And I was already planning where to put the posts for a barbed-wire electric fence.
