Bobby D. Lux - Dog Duty Page 7

  “Nit-”

  “Got it?”

  “Just let-”

  “Got it?”

  “I think-”

  “I’m asking you if you got what I’m saying, Fritz? Because I’m trying to play poker here with actual cops. Something that you don’t know anything about anymore.” I’m not talking. Neither is Nitro. Neither are any of the men in the smoky room. I turn back to the door. “You were going to say something?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You interrupted me three times for nothing?”

  I push out a breath and force myself to speak. “I got a ca… I got word that there’s possibly a criminal on the premises, so I’m investigating.”

  “Oh,” Nitro says, with a soft sincerity, “I wish you would’ve just said that to begin with. There is a criminal nearby and he’s been dealing to himself from the bottom of the deck all night, haven’t ya, Baxter?”

  I shrink as the cops explode at the table. Even Baxter thinks it’s funny while he peeks at the cards during the laughter. Donaldson waves his feet uncontrollably under the table like a baby waiting for a bottle. McMichael howls back in his chair to the point where he goes back on two legs and nearly topples over. Peters’ laugh devolves into a lurching, hacking, doubled-over cough as he hammerfists his chest.

  “Time to disappear, Fritz,” Nitro says. “By the way, I like what you’re doing with your leg. Very chic, the whole shaved look. So ironic and post-modern.”

  I’m back walking down the hallway in the same direction as before. The noise from the poker game evaporates and I find myself facing the wall at the end of the hallway; it’s an old brick wall. I feel a warm, damp breeze on the back of my head. I’m scared.

  “Nowhere to go, cop,” a guttural growl says, from behind me. It’s Clay. He’s so much bigger than me now and his face hangs low towards the ground. He’s a monster and I’m shrinking in front of him. I can’t go anywhere. I want to hide. I want to cry. I want to submit. Clay is the size of a car and his breathing is a revving engine. I’m a broken flute. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m on a call. I heard a scream.”

  “I’ll bet you did. A scream, you say?”

  On cue, the scream jangles off the walls again and stops dead at the brick wall. Scamper is behind Fritz, and, while his body is the same, what his body is in is like something out of a comic book. He’s sitting in the control center of a humanoid robot; The Super Destroyer.

  “You gonna arrest us, copper?” Scamper says, through a walkie-talkie.

  “He don’t have the guts, do you?” Clay says.

  “You’re under arrest,” I say.

  “No we’re not.”

  “Clay, you heard him. He sounds serious.”

  “I think I’ve decided to resist arrest,” Clay says. “Is that alright with you, cop?”

  “I would advise you against it.”

  “You would, would you? Or what?”

  “Be careful Clay. He’s liable to slap the cuffs on you.” Scamper says, as his exoskeleton twirls a two-by-four with its hands. “Oh, and what’s this? Looks as if I have a weapon now.”

  “I don’t need a weapon,” Clay says. “All he has to do is put those cuffs on me.”

  “Watch out for them cuffs, Clay,” Scamper says.

  “They don’t have cuffs that I can’t break,” Clay says, getting even bigger until I can’t see him or Scamper anymore. He’s all black. The wheezing in his chest is still right in front of me. There are no doors now. No wallpaper. The hallway is gone. No ceiling. The floor beneath me is gone. I can’t hear the woman with John or Nitro and the poker game. “The cuffs, Fritz. The cuffs. Just slap those cuffs on our wrists.”

  “I don’t have any cuffs,” I scream.

  CHAPTER 9 - Everyone Pretends They’re Something Sometime

  “Just put on the cuffs, will you, Nipper?” Ernie said.

  “I’m trying,” Nipper said. “If you would just stay still.”

  “I am standing still. Your mouth is shaky.”

  “It is not,” Nipper said. “You’re gonna still help me with my uniform when we’re done, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s a costume, though. Not an actual one.”

  “Don’t ruin this for me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a uniform. That’s what I want it to be, so that’s what it is. I don’t care what you or anyone says. Today, as far as you’re concerned, you respect the uniform.”

  “Whatever, Nipper. Just don’t drool all over my cuffs.”

  “I can’t do it!” I said, out of nowhere. In case it wasn’t clear, I had been dreaming. Nipper and Ernie froze, Ernie with his hind leg up in the air like he was about to leave a mark and Nipper with Ernie’s pants in his mouth – hold that thought on the pants, I’ll get back to those in a moment.

  My legs involuntarily kicked as I jolted awake. Perhaps it’s better to say that my legs tried their best in rapid succession to relieve themselves from the restraining confines of my hip sockets. In the process, one of them found its way into the corner of one of the garbage bins. As I shook the cobwebs out of my eyes, last week’s newspapers, including a damp one on top, toppled over me.

  To hear Nipper retell the story, my arms flailed like I was “playing an invisible, oh, what do they call those things, Ernie? Where you have a paddle-like thing and there’s a string with those rubber balls that I choked on that one time. You know the thing that Simon tries to do but can’t ever hit the ball more than twice? Well, anyway, just imagine Fritz had two of those things going while he knocked the trash over on his head.”

  “Are you okay?” Ernie said, pulling his leg from Nipper’s mouth.

  “Ow, Ernie. Watch my teeth.”

  I brushed off the newspapers and remembered where I was, why I was there, and wondered what Ernie was doing in a pair of tailored wool pants with a square cut out in the rear for his tail. Ernie came up to the chain link fence and poked his nose through.

  “Am I still dreaming?” I said. “Why are you wearing pants?”

  “It’s Halloween,” Ernie said.

  “Why were they in Nipper’s mouth?” I said.

  “We’re going to the dog park.”

  “Did I sleep all night?” I said.

  “The whole way through. Even when the people in the condos down the street were up screaming at each other. I love when that happens. I can yell back and I don’t get in trouble.”

  “I thought this guy was supposed to be smart,” Nipper said, under his breath.

  “Wait,” I said. “So, what’s going on?”

  “We’re getting dressed up and going to the dog park with the other dogs,” Ernie said. “You’re going too.”

  “I doubt it,” Nipper said. “He doesn’t have a costume.”

  “Let me ask you something,” I said, to Ernie. “You ever hear of a dog named Clay? A big Rott.”

  “You could’ve just said ‘Rott.’ Big sort of comes with that. Clay? Nah. Never heard of him.”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re not lying to me?” I said. “Never? He runs with little Jack Russell Terrier named Scamper. Squeaky voice. Too much energy for his own good.”

  “Sounds like every Jack Russell I ever met. Sorry, can’t help you. Why do you want to know about these two anyway? I’ve been off the streets for awhile, but I’ll ask around today.”

  “I didn’t say anything about asking around about them.”

  “Ernie,” Nipper said, “get back over here or I’m not going to fix your cuffs and you’ll look like a fool at the park.”

  “My appointment beckons,” Ernie said.

  Ernie sat down by Nipper, who resumed tugging at Ernie’s pant leg. What he was trying to accomplish was beyond me, but that didn’t stop him from hovering back-and-forth around Ernie like one of those office fans that make a lot of noise and blow a lot of air, but couldn’t cool an igloo.

  “So,” I said, to Nipper, “you’re a German Seamstress instead of a German Shepherd,
is that it? I bet your mommy and daddy are real proud of their boy.”

  That one stung him and it made me feel good. Sometimes happiness can only come at someone else’s expense. I didn’t feel bad about it.

  “Leave him alone,” Ernie said. “Besides, Nipper ain’t even a full German Shepherd, so-”

  “Ernie,” Nipper said.

  “What? You’re not. So what?”

  Nipper batted Ernie’s foot away from his face and took a step towards me and said, “Yeah, well, I’m not the one who they had to lock up, so there you go.”

  Officer and Mrs. Hart unlocked the side door from their house and joined us in the yard. They had matching robes, hers more worn than his, his smelled worse. Their slippers didn’t match; neither did their coffee cups.

  “I can’t believe you left him in there all night,” she said.

  “He was sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb him,” Officer Hart said. “He didn’t sleep at all the last few days at the department. Plus, I thought we needed to keep them separated until they get used to each other.”

  “Yeah, but all night?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? And if you actually would look instead of jumping at me, I unlatched the gate so if he wanted to get out, he could have.”

  She drank her coffee in lieu of answering. Officer Hart pulled open the already opened door and officially let me out of the garbage hold.

  “We got a surprise for you, buddy,” Officer Hart said, turning to Mrs. Hart. “Do you want me to get it?”

  “I guess that means I’ll just do it,” she said.

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “If you were going to get it for him, you would have already brought it out without asking me if I want you to get it. Of course that’s what I wanted; it’s why we came out here in the first place. But don’t worry, I’ll go do it.”

  She set her coffee cup down on the ground and went back inside.

  “It’s a whole ‘nother world out here, buddy,” Officer Hart said. Ernie crept over and sniffed at her cup. He took a lick and spit it back out right away. “Come on, Ernie. Get away from there.”

  You’re telling me.

  “Nipper,” Officer Hart said, as Nipper, who stood with Ernie a few feet away, lowered his nose towards us. “Come here. I mean it, Nipper. Come here.”

  “Go on,” Ernie whispered, as Officer Hart slapped his leg three times. Nipper took a few steps forward. I took a seat and Nipper stopped a few feet away. Officer Hart left my side and split the difference between us; he squatted all the way down, first tucking in his robe.

  “Now listen guys, we all have to get along here. Trust me, I wouldn’t have brought Fritz home with us if I didn’t think you two would become friends, got it, Nipper?” Officer Hart did what all humans do: waited until he imagined the answer he wanted from us. “And Fritz, you gotta understand that this is Nipper’s home too. He doesn’t know you just like you don’t know him. Until yesterday, all he knew was that it was him and Ernie, so cut him some slack.” He didn’t wait for an imagined response from me. I listened to Officer Hart and he knew it. “Now you two sniff each other and be done with it for good.”

  My nostrils opened and I leaned in. Not too much, mind you. I wasn’t going to look desperate and be the one to apologize. Nipper did as well. Not too close either. Good for him. I thought Nipper might have some gumption after all.

  It was the first time I got a really good whiff of him. Nipper had been in that backyard for a long time, longer than Ernie. His scent was safe. It was non-threatening. It was pleasant enough. It was sterile. He ate the same food every day. He drank from the same water bowl, from the same side of the bowl. There was nothing extraordinary about Nipper’s scent unless its complete lack of distinguishable scent was to be taken as something of note.

  “Truce?” I said, through the side of my mouth.

  “Huh?”

  “Are we square?”

  “Sure. I guess,” Nipper said.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Officer Hart said, lightly tugging us apart and letting us go.

  “Surprise, Fritz,” Mrs. Hart said, as she rejoined us with a bulging paper grocery bag.

  Mrs. Hart dropped the bag and picked up her coffee cup. She wiped the area where Ernie licked and had left evidence of his fur.

  “Thanks,” she said, as she wiped away Ernie’s wet chin fur from her cup.

  The cement absorbed the bag’s contents as they splashed out. It looked like a pile of rags from where I was standing. Mrs. Hart kicked over whatever was in the bag towards Officer Hart.

  “Don’t take it out on the dogs,” Officer Hart said, as she scooped up the bag and tucked back in the linen that had burst out. She sat down next to me on the concrete. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “No,” Mrs. Hart said, arranging the bag’s contents in front of me.

  “Wait a second,” Nipper said. “Now wait just one stinking second here.”

  “Hold on, Nipper,” Ernie said.

  “I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” Officer Hart said, petting an increasingly upset Nipper.

  “Why? Because I came up with it?”

  “Look what it’s doing to Nipper. He already tried it on. He thinks it’s his.”

  “He’s fine,” Mrs. Hart said, clearly not looking at Nipper. He wasn’t fine. By the way his eyes were aching and pleading, the poor dog’s heart was zeroed in on what Mrs. Hart was digging through.

  “He’s too big, honey,” Officer Hart said.

  “No, he’s not.”

  “He’s bigger than Nipper. He’s thicker.”

  She smothered me with the contents of the bag. She wrapped things around my waist, tucked my arms and legs into dark sleeves, and adjusted my collar. She tugged my tail through a hole in what I assumed were pants that I was now snuggled into.

  “That’s not right, man,” Ernie said.

  “See, it fits,” Mrs. Hart said, stepping away from me. Then I saw what she’d done to me. Tight felt pants that were essentially chaps now covered my back and hind legs. Ridiculous. A long-sleeved shirt with stars and meaningless stripes below a flimsy shirt collar and fuzz balls glued down the front that were supposed to be buttons. I felt something bounce against my side and saw a plastic baton wavering from a thin nylon belt that was connected across my back by Velcro.

  Even the smell of the outfit made me sick. The chemically treated plastic, the cheap dye coating the fiber, and the dusty felt that must’ve been sealed away in the bag for months. I could only imagine how idiotic I looked. A fake cop outfit for a real dog. What was I, some sort of joke now? A show pony? Some human fantasy to represent something I never was in the first place? I never had to wear a toy costume to know what I was.

  No. I bit at those sleeves and tried to shake those pants off, but the more I shook, which wasn’t very hard considering my leg, the more they stuck to me like when a human without sense a humor rubs a balloon against you. Detective McConomy tried that move on me once in my rookie year. Key word being once.

  “He don’t even want it,” Nipper said.

  “It’s not his fault,” Ernie said.

  “Stop taking his side, Ernie,” Nipper said.

  Mrs. Hart bent down and held my head in some attempt to relax me. She tried to balance a cop hat on my head. I knocked it off and she came back again with an elastic strap that was supposed to rest under my chin. I fought it and tilted my nose up and away from her while making a concerted effort to not show any teeth. I had to suck in my cheeks just to make sure no fangs accidentally frightened her.

  The only things I saw were her eyes. For years I’ve heard people, cops mainly, apply a lot of attributes to human eyes. They’re globular balls in the head. Sometimes the middle part gets big in the dark and sometimes it shrinks. That’s it. You can’t see fear in them. You can only smell fear. Here’s a tip for you humans: when you get scared, you emit a foul odor intended to scare off your predators. It’s meant to trick them into thi
nking you’d make for a rotten, disgusting meal. That’s fear. Naturally, humans are unaware that this stench comes from their pores. More often than not, it’s drenched away in the deep end of your sweat. I assume it still works on some predators, but we dogs have been around you so much and for so long, eh, we’re used to it.

  Fear also has a distinct sound too. It’s basic, but it’s unique. Too many heartbeats and too many rapid breaths exploding over one another and there you go, pussy cat.

  But those eyes? They aren’t windows to anything. The only thing I get out of looking into a set of eyes is figuring out what you’re looking at. And if you should be looking at me, I’m going to stare back until I’ve figured out why. Plus, eyes have a limited range of motion and are easily injured. If they were so important for survival, they wouldn’t be so vulnerable.

  The lines that surrounded Mrs. Hart’s eyes? Those were a whole other story. Now we have a conversation going on because there’s actually something tangible there. You don’t see her lines at first; it’s not until you get up real close that you see that she has more than you thought she might. They were faint that morning, but the nature of lines is that once those creases take hold, they don’t go away. Her lines were fine and soft and on a man they wouldn’t be given a second glance. Something I’ve gathered about adult human females is that once they start to age they aren’t treated with the same respect. The lines around her eyes looked like me.

  I stopped fighting and put on the stupid hat. Dressed up like a phony cop.

  Ernie the sailor.

  And whatever they decided Nipper was going to be.

  Simon appeared with a box of junk.

  This is what they called a holiday.

  CHAPTER 10 - The Unveiling