“I was just watching a couple of dogs out here,” I said, “and it reminded me of a story I heard one time. You ever hear it, Buck?—I mean why dogs always go around sniffing each other’s asses?”

Buck said he hadn’t heard it. “Can’t say that I’m real interested in hearin’ it, neither, just in case you was figurin’ on telling it.”

I said, that, well, sir, accordin’ to this story, all the dogs in the world held a convention back in the beginning of time, their purpose being to set up a code of conduct, hike maybe it shouldn’t be fair to bite each other in the balls and so on. And there was this one dog that had a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order that he’d got somewhere, prob’ly at the same place Cain got his wife. So he automatically became chairman, and the first thing he done was to declare the entire convention a committee of the hole. “Fellas,” he says, “canines of the convention. I don’t want to tread on no honorable dogs’ paws, so I’ll just put it this way. When we go back in them smoke-filled rooms to caucus, I’m sure we don’t want to smell nothing but smoke, and the best thing to do it seems to me is to pile our assholes outside, and if someone will make a motion to that effect, I’ll certainly be glad to put a second on it.” Well, sir, it seemed hike such a danged good idea that every dog in the convention jumped up to make the motion, so the chairman declared it passed by acclamation, and there was a brief recess while all the dogs went outside to stack up their assholes. Then, they went back inside t’carry out their business. And god-danged if a heck of a storm didn’t blow up out of nowhere, and it scattered them assholes every which way, mixin’ ‘em up so bad that not a one of them dogs was ever able to find his own. So that’s why they still go around sniffing butts, and they’ll probably keep on until the end of time. Because a dog that’s lost his ass just can’t be happy, even if one of ‘em is pretty much hike another, and the one he has is in good working order.

“What I’m saying is this, Buck,” I said. “Hang on to your own ass, and don’t try to get Ken’s. For all you know, he may be eatin’ a lot worse than dirt and I may be too, and you’ll be a lot happier like you are.”

“Is that all you got to say?” Buck said, and I could hear him getting up from his chair. “You’re sure that’s all you got to say?”

I hesitated, thinkin’ I should be able to come up with somethin’. Because it was all so clear to me, Christ knew it was clear: love one another and don’t screw no one unless they’re bending over, and forgive us our trespasses because we may be a minority of one. For God’s sake, ‘for God’s sake’—why else had I been put here in Potts County, and why else did I stay here? Why else, who else, what else but Christ Almighty would put up with it?