Mark, There's a Beagle in My Bedroom!

by Michael Ciardi

Since Mark neglected to specify the distance from the pathway to the bunker on the map, Kip and Bruce hiked at least five miles before they rechecked their location. A bevy of rocks and trees were situated in an unsystematic pattern along the Black River, but there was nothing that resembled what Mark stipulated in his instructions to Kip.

  “Mark told me the bunker’s located behind a big rock set between two willow trees,” Kip said to the beagle. “But I don’t see anything like that, do you?”

  “It’s starting to sound like a lot of balderdash to me,” Bruce answered. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tuckered and downright thirsty.” Bruce proceeded to sniff the ground, hoping to pick up a scent that might’ve pointed them in the right direction. “Maybe we should’ve turned off the path somewhere?”

  “No,” Kip said. “The map doesn’t show us that. Mark said the bunker is situated alongside this river. We just have to keep following this trail until we find it.”

  Bruce looked genuinely impressed with Kip’s stamina. “Hey, someone finally got his second wind,” he mentioned. Kip’s enthusiasm still didn’t prevent the beagle from venturing off the path toward the river’s edge. He descended a low spot on the embankment and lapped at the flowing water. After imbibing in the refreshing H2O, the dog settled gingerly into a patch of pink lady’s slippers flourishing on a weedy slope. Kip glared at him crossly.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Kip demanded to know.

  “Chillax. You’re acting like a mother hen pecking seeds of discontent. I’m just taking a little breather. Sometimes, when they’re aren’t any roses, you can still stop and smell the other flowers.” The beagle then stretched out on the ground and inhaled the wildflowers with a certain degree of reverence.

  “Who are you Tiny Tim all of a sudden? You don’t have time for you to go tip-pawing through the tulips now. We’ve got to find Dr. Wells’s bunker by 5:30 this afternoon or you’ll be kaput.”

  “Stop being such a clock watcher, Kip. It’s really starting to tick me off. Besides, a true canine doesn’t even know the meaning of Time. Other than a stylish ditty by Pink Floyd, it’s a device devised by your kind to keep the masses in line. You’re all tethered to leashes that you can’t even see yourselves tugging on.”

  “Well, aren’t you showing your dark side all of a sudden? Just remember, I’m risking my ass to save your hide, Bruce. And if you really want to know the truth, to me it looks like you’re giving up.”

  Bruce picked his head up from the pink flowers momentarily, and then, in his best Meryl Streep impersonation, said, “The truth? I don’t even know what is the truth.”

  “I’m not in the mood for this game right now,” Kip sighed.

  “Fine. That’s your choice, or Sophia’s,” Bruce smirked.

  “How do you imitate all those celebrities’ voices, anyway?”

  “It’s a little talent, but it’s never gonna make me rich. I don’t do Meryl’s voice very often, though. It gives me Streep throat.”

  “That’s better than deep throat.”

  “I guess that all depends what end of it you’re on, doesn’t it?”

  “Point taken.”

  “Tell that to Lovelace,” Bruce countered. “For a Boreman, she bored no man like they bored her.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” Kip said, holding out both hands. “I think we better stop here before we go NC-17.”

  It soon became evident that Bruce intended to rest for a few minutes in spite of Kip’s reservations. Eventually, Kip found a small rock to sit on beside the wild orchids. He didn’t realize how tired he was until he stretched out his legs.

  “You see,” Bruce said. “You’re all cramped up, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Kip conceded, while examining the flowers more closely. “Hey, these flowers aren’t tulips after all.”

  “I guess I’ll put away my ukulele then.”

  “They look like lady’s slippers. You know, as a kid I used to find these things growing in the woods and I picked them for my mother. She told me it was illegal to do that and I could’ve been fined or arrested.”

  “Moms sure spun spools of spinsters’ tales back then, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah, but I looked this one up years later, and she was right.”

  “Wowsers. Can you imagine getting tossed in the clink for picking a flower? The other inmates would cower whenever you sauntered into the cellblock. That would be just your luck, Kip.”

  Kip couldn’t contest what was probably truer than he even realized. Maybe they both needed a respite to rejuvenate. “You know,” Kip thought aloud. “You never did tell me what the “5” stood for in your full name, but I could guess it at this point.”

  “You could try.”

  “It obviously has something to do with the Class V microchip, right?”

  “Is that your final answer or do you wanna phone a friend?”

  “You mean that’s not it?”

  “Not by a long shot or a short one either.”

  “Okay…so what does the “5” mean then?”

  “I take it you recall where the first part of my name originated?”

  “Yeah. It’s from the mechanical shark in the movie Jaws,” Kip said. “I still don’t see what a prop shark has to do with a beagle though.”

  “Do you remember the scene where Hooper dove down in the water to check out Ben Gardner’s anchored boat?” Bruce then reminded Kip of his jutting canine tooth, which looked similar to a shark’s tooth, with a little imagination.

  “Is that the part where the green head with a missing eye popped out and scared the living crap out of everyone?”

  “The very one. Anyway, before that happens, Hooper found a shark tooth in the hull of Gardner’s boat. Someone with an infinitely worse sense of humor than I thought it would be a clever idea to name me Bruce because of that single tooth’s similarity to the one stuck in my ugly muzzle.”

  Kip appeared partially confused. “I get it now…almost. I still don’t understand the number five being part of your name though.”

  “Jaws spawned three sequels, but each far worse than the one preceding it. If Edward D. Wood Jr. were still alive today, even he wouldn’t have the audacity to make another Jaws sequel. So you see, it’s fairly safe to assume that you’re looking at the only Bruce 5 on the planet.”

  “That’s a pretty cool story when you think about it.”

  “I try not to think about it, Kip, but I do have one question that’s been badgering me for about 30-dog years.”

  “I’ll help you if I can,” Kip offered.

  “In the book, did Hooper bang Chief Brody’s wife?”

  Kip paused. He hadn’t read Benchley’s novel since the summer of 1978, right after Jaws 2 reminded audiences that it really wasn’t safe to go back into the water. But he was pretty sure about his answer. “I believe so. The shark killed him in the book, too.”

  “That’s what I’ve always been told. What an eye-opener. Thanks for clarifying.”

  “That’s it? You were actually troubled by this?”

  “Yeppers,” Bruce said. “And I’ll tell you why. If by some miracle, hypothetically speaking, someday someone wrote a book about my life, I wouldn’t want to be like Matt Hooper in the novel. He’s the character everyone wanted dead. And no matter how much we hated and feared the man-eating shark, it was still somehow satisfying to know that the arrogant oceanographer got reconfigured into shark poop.”

  “Maybe all cheaters should be carved up and served like chum,” Kip smirked.

  “Don’t you mean all home-wreckers?” Bruce asked. “Because, technically speaking, Brody’s wife was the cheater and she didn’t die in the book. Our real predators aren’t in the sea after all. They walk on the land among us everyday.”

  “This is getting too deep for me, Bruce.”

  “Sorry. You’re right. No one wants to think about The Deep, unless they’re imagining Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt.”

  For a few minutes
they sat side-by-side in silence, listening to the river’s water flow over the smooth stones in front of them. It was a rarity for either of these two to keep quiet for this long of period. Even with this short-lived attempt to ignore the time, Kip didn’t feel safe after they kept idle for more than ten minutes. Bruce sensed the fear in his mannerisms.

  “You wear your fear like some people don Canoe cologne,” Bruce said. “Why are you so jumpy? You’re not the one chipped here.”

  “I don’t want to screw this mission up,” Kip said. “Mark trusted me to get you to the bunker alive, and I now feel obligated to do it. We aren’t safe sitting out here in the open like this.”

  “Do you think the bunker is going to make us any safer?”

  “Mark seemed to think so.”

  “There is no sanctuary, Kip. Didn’t you see Logan’s Run?” Bruce noticed that Kip refused to back down on this point. “Mark must’ve informed you about the cyanide in the microchips, huh?”

  “You know about that, too?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Then you must understand why I’m being such a stickler about keeping on schedule. He told me the capsule’s core inside you is slowly dissolving. But if Dr. Wells demagnetizes the chip before it melts, you’ll be okay.”

  Bruce yawned, as if he had heard this same spiel more times than he cared to cogitate. “Is this where I’m supposed to shiver and look like I just pinched a loaf on the new carpeting?”

  “You must want to live,” Kip reasoned. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come this far with me or Mark. It’s okay to be afraid sometimes, Bruce. It doesn’t make you any less of a dog in my eyes.”

  “Outside of being forced to watch The View with Barbara Walters in the raw, I’ve never been terrified of anything in my life,” Bruce stated.

  “The simple fact is we don’t have all the time in the world.”

  “Neither did Connery’s first replacement. What’s your point?”

  “You must be a little scared sometimes,” Kip insisted.

  “Not even an iota.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t pull that macho dog crap with me. In reality, everyone is frightened of something.”

  By averting eye contact with Kip, Bruce hinted to a concession. “Well,” he admitted, “Maybe there is one other thing that keeps me restless now and then.”

  “I knew it. Okay, tell me what it is.”

  “Are you sure you really want to know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You must remember the film version of The Exorcist, right?” Bruce asked.

  “Oh, god! Another movie? Not again.”

  “Cool it. I’m not talking about George Burns here. Anyway, a lot of people still say that The Exorcist is the scariest movie they’ve ever seen. I agree, but not for all the scenes involving the possessed girl. The part that gives me the shivers every time is when Lieutenant Kinderman visits the MacNeils’ house to investigate Burke Dennings’s not-so-mysterious murder.”

  “What’s so scary about that scene? The way I remember it, it’s one of the milder moments in the film.”

  “Maybe from a casual observer’s point of view. But I remember Kinderman warning Regan’s mother to beware of a giraffe in the fall when the house is hot, especially one on a magic carpet. Do you realize how many autumn nights I stayed awake waiting for that bleeping giraffe to fly through my window like a crazed Aladdin and attack me in my wicker basket?”

  “That chip in your neck is melting a lot faster than I thought,” Kip said. “Either that or you’re extremely hard-of-hearing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kip tried not to laugh at Bruce’s malapropism. “Lieutenant Kinderman never said anything about a giraffe on a magic carpet,” he explained. “He said ‘draft.’ And he used a magic carpet as a simile for the way bacteria can potentially enter a house through an open window.”

  “You’re pretty confident about that, aren’t ya, Captain Howdy?”

  “Very confident.”

  “Then how do you explain that orange-colored, paper mache figure Regan sculpted and showed to her mother earlier in the film?”

  “I don’t remember that part.”

  “It was a weird hybrid animal that looked sort of like a deformed giraffe. And you could see it mounted on a silver rectangle that resembled a magic carpet. And I’d also like to point out the embroidery pattern Regan’s mom stitched in the waiting room when she took her daughter to the doctor’s office. It’s clearly a giraffe on a carpet.”

  “You’re really stretching for a link now, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe, or maybe not. Answer me this: when Burke Dennings died, he literally flew out of Regan’s window onto the infamous flight of stairs at the end of M street, right?”

  “That’s the way Blatty wrote it,” Kip agreed.

  “And strangely, the actor who played Burke Dennings, Jack MacGowran, died of flu complications shortly after The Exorcist was completed. It was his last role. Tell me that you don’t see an eerie coincidence between the way Dennings flew and MacGowran’s flu ended both their lives prematurely?”

  “No one with normal functioning brain cells would make such a comparison unless he lived in his mother’s basement for far too many years.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to beg to differ with you on this issue, Kip. I’m sticking with my translation and you can stick with the version you’ve never seen.”

  “You know, Bruce, whenever I talk to you my mind rotates more times than Linda Blair’s head on a Ferris wheel.”

  The banter might’ve continued, but a sudden ringing of the cellphone Mark had given Kip shifted his attention back to their present circumstance. Kip patted the envelope he held, and realized he still had the phone tucked inside it.

  “Are you expecting a call?” Bruce inquired.

  Kip reached inside the envelope’s sleeve and fetched out the electronic device. “No. Mark said he wouldn’t call on this phone unless there was an emergency of some kind. It’s a secured line.”

  Bruce inspected the cellphone’s keypad a moment before determining what they needed to do next. “Answer it,” he advised. “Put him on speaker, but be careful what you tell him.” By the sound of Bruce’s tone, it was obvious that he expected the worse. Kip did as instructed and accepted the call.

  On the line’s other end, Mark’s voice sounded perfectly natural. Kip couldn’t hear any trace of distress in his tone whatsoever. “There’s been a change in plans,” Mark indicated.

  “But we’re almost at the bunker,” Kip refuted.

  “I understand,” Mark said, “but Dr. Wells just contacted me with information that it isn’t safe for you to proceed as planned. We need to abort this mission ASAP. Return to Big Red’s Diner immediately. Do you understand?”

  By now, Bruce had heard enough. He motioned for Kip to lower the phone so that it was in range for him to speak into it. Kip leaned over and held the phone next to the beagle’s snout.

  “Kip, did you hear my instructions?” Mark repeated. His voice was a bit more unsettled.

  “We heard you the first time,” Bruce responded.

  “Who’s this?” Mark questioned.

  “It’s your friendly neighborhood beagle,” Bruce answered. “I’m sorry they got to you, Mark, but we’re not turning back. It’s nothing personal, but I gotta hang up now.” The beagle nudged the phone’s power button with his nose, thereby disconnecting the call. “If it rings again, don’t answer it,” he admonished Kip.

  “Why? He might be telling us the truth.”

  “Kip, you can’t be that witless. He’s more chipped than Dresden’s china.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “My doggie sense is tingling. You don’t need a giraffe flying through your window on a magic carpet to tell you that there’s some evil bleep at bay here.”

  “What kind of evil are you talking about?”

  “The kind that makes Pazuzu look like Olivia Newton John before she squeeze
d into her leather pants at the end of Grease.”

  “You know, you don’t have to be so dramatic all the time,” Kip countered.

  “Pardon me, but I’ve got chills, and they’re multiplying.”

  “Well, just don’t lose control.”

  “As long as you shape up, you’ll be the man, because my fate is set on you.”

  “Why do I feel like my life is turning into a pulp fiction musical all of a sudden?”

  Bruce used his best Mike Hammer voice and said, “Beats me, Zuko. Go ask Tarantino.”

  Chapter 26