Here is an excerpt...
The last thing Rube remembers about his father are the words he uttered after they had just buried Rube’s best friend, Nips. “He was just a dog, son. Dogs are a dime a dozen.“But Nips was the best thing that had happened to him in his 10 years on Earth. A mongrel mutt he found in the woods at the end of their road, Nips had been Reuben Edwin Schwartz’s companion and confidant the last four years. His father, a non-religious man, had named the dog Rabbi as a joke. Rube called him Nips for his aggressive disposition toward strangers. He’d bark and nip at the heels of anyone he didn’t trust. Now that he was gone, young Rube felt lost. It marked a major turning point in his life.Rube’s father, Ben, was a hard man with a penchant for booze and for women. All he knew was that his father upped and left one Sunday in 1974 and never came home. The plain truth was that his mother had finally had enough with his Vodka-infused debauchery. A well-known adulterer, Ben had squandered any chance of reconciliation with Mary Schwartz, so after years of neglect and emotional abuse, she kicked him out. Rube missed his dad, but he missed Nips even more.
Never had a boy found a better friend. He and Nips went everywhere together. Sometimes Henry Rollins Hicks would tag along. A stuttering, African-American boy, Henry Rollins befriended Reuben at school, where they were both bullied as black sheep. Rube’s family was the wrong religious persuasion, even though they were not practicing Jews, and Henry was simply the wrong color. Rube knew that Henry Rollins was alright when Nips, untrue to his nickname, went right up to the frightened boy and licked his hand. It was the first stranger Nips hadn’t nipped. That told Rube all he needed to know about his newfound friend.
