The LawDog Files

by D. Lawdog

  Of course, you might also consider reaching down, taking a firm grip on both ears, and tugging until you see daylight, but that’s up to you.

  Nothing but love,

  LawDog

  FILE 43: Canis Interruptus

  This was not a Harry Potter spell, but rather, a timely Phrase of the Day

  * * *

  You had been chasing a critter through multiple backyard. He was half your age and not encumbered by the forty pounds of bat-belt and armor required by Modern Policing; therefore he was actually picking up speed as he anteloped over fence after fence after fence.

  As you were leaning against a tree, wheezing and swearing that you were going to start going to the gym tomorrow, he cleared the next-to-last fence… accompanied by the sudden joyous baritone barking that could only come from the throat of a dog the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  This is technically referred to as canis interruptus, and it engendered a warm-and-fuzzy feeling in your chest and a jaunty whistle to your lips as you strolled happily down the alley to the heartrending sounds of shrieking, tearing, crashing, and general doggy mayhem.

  * * *

  FILE 44: Buster and the Black Belt

  You’ll notice that this is actually two stories in one. The kid in the first story has gone on to a munificent career as a lousy criminal. The dog is the second one is still wearing his bandanna proudly, but, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t whacked any chickens since then. I’m sure that if he had, his proud dog daddy would have let me know.

  0900 hours:

  I was informed that my presence was requested at Bugscuffle County Justice Court, Precinct 1/2. I parked my cruiser outside the TruValue hardware store in the spot marked by the sign that reads “Thou Shalt Not Park Here,” wended my way past the nail bins, tossed a cheery wave to Jimmy Don, and scooted up the stairs to the second-floor courtroom.

  The sound of a badly mangled version of a Hank Williams, Junior song lustily warbled at the top of someone’s lungs was the first clue I had that things Might Be Interesting.

  “Godda shot-rifle, a sumthin’ ’n’ a four-drive wheel!”

  I tapped gently on the frosted-glass panel of the door and opened it to find the judge at his desk, elbow planted firmly, and chin cradled in hand as he gazed in mild bemusement at what I guess was the defendant.

  Unless it was the guy sitting next to the singer, face cradled in both hands, but I was betting he was the lawyer.

  “Ah can skin a trot, ’n’ run a buck-line!”

  I cocked an eyebrow at the judge, “I hate it when I skin a trot.” The judge snorted, there was a muffled groan from the lawyer, and the court reporter giggled. I grinned and sneaked a look at her legs before opining, “I’m guessing the defendant–”

  Never taking his chin off his palm or his gaze off of Breakfast Theater, the judge whisked a sheet of paper off the desk and handed it to me. It was an Adjudication of Guilt for Public Intoxication and a Commitment Order for five days. It was, I further noted, on a PI ticket the sheriff had written two weeks ago.

  “Ah,” sayeth I, “And the subject would be–”

  “Drunker than a waltzing pissant” opined the judge.

  “Not to mention–”

  “All of nineteen years old.”

  “And it’s only–”

  “Nine-thirty in the morning.”

  “Goodness. Should I cite him for Minor in Consumption or Public Intoxication on the way to the pokey?”

  The subject in question promptly, albeit shakily, climbed on top of the table and defiantly bellowed, “CUZ A CUNK-, CONN-, CONNTREE BOY CAN SHUR-, SHUR, SOMETHIN’, DAMMIT!”

  The judge pondered this performance for a moment. “Yes.”

  And we were off.

  1115 hours:

  Met with Reporting Party concerning a Dangerous Dog.

  I pulled into a small trailer park at 1777 Ranch-to-Market Road. I had the distinct feeling that the man waving the baby parka at me was most probably going to be the Reporting Party.

  Upon closer inspection, the baby parka turned out to be an extremely deceased chicken. The owner of the decedent had no doubts as to the cause and perpetrator of the vile deed.

  “Vicious! Brutal! Da-angerous! I want that hound locked up or put down. And somebody’s gotta pay!” He was extremely wrought-up, and to avoid getting smacked with a dead chicken, I gently removed the carcass from his grip.

  “So,” I asked, frowning as I noticed the scar tissue from where the rooster’s comb had been removed quite some time ago, “Are you sure it’s the dog next door?”

  “Sure?! Am I sure?! I saw the mutt run into my yard and maul my five-hundred-dollar prize rooster! Who’s going to pay me for my rooster, huh?! Who?”

  I raised my hand—the one not currently occupied with a chicken corpse—in a “peace” gesture. “Let me go talk to your neighbor.” Without waiting for a reply, I walked to the trailer next door, pausing to look over the back fence belonging to the bereaved chicken owner.

  Five other roosters looked back at me. All were missing their combs, and all were on six-foot lengths of chain that prevented them from touching one another.

  Oh-ho, thought I.

  I knocked on the door of the trailer occupied by the owner of the rampaging mongrel.

  It opened, and I was faced with a very large man, gray hair escaping from under a gimme cap, full gray beard and mustache braided with tiny pewter skulls, black leather vest and knuckle rings on every finger, all of which were displaying skulls, bones, and various incarnations of death worked in pewter.

  Oh. Joy.

  “Morning, sir. I’m Deputy LawDog, Bugscuffle S.O. and there seems to have been an incident with your dog.”

  I peered around the old boy, fully expecting to see a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull, but he interrupted my looking around with a slightly abashed confession.

  “It’s my fault, really. That damn rooster got up on the yard gnome and started crowing like to beat anything you ever heard. I went to the door and yelled at it to git, and Buster, well, Buster heard me yellin’ and kind of took off and jumped.”

  “All right then. Before we go any further, sir, where is Buster? I’d hate for there to be some kind of misunderstanding while I’m talking to you.”

  I suddenly realized that the man had a chihuahua draped across his forearm. Granted, it had a tiny black bandanna with white skulls around its neck, but it was still a chihuahua. Then, I noticed the Spongebob Squarepants band-aid sliding down its furry foreleg. And fresh blood under the band-aid.

  You’ve got to be… I pointed at the little creature, “Buster?”

  Buster wagged his tail happily at me.

  “Yes, sir, this is my Buster.”

  I looked at the dog. He rolled over on the man’s arm to have his belly scritched. I lifted the chicken. Seven pounds. Easily. I looked at Buster. Not seven pounds. If you stuffed his bandanna with bricks, five or six pounds. Maybe.

  “Now I know that Buster shouldn’t’a done killed that chicken. But it was in his yard, and Buster gets kind of territorial, and he kind’a gets mad at the things I get mad at. But I done offered that man a hundred bucks for his chicken even though it was in my yard where it had no right to be!”

  I held up a hand and looked at the chicken-slaughtering brute, kicking his back leg in an orgy of bliss as his tummy got scratched. I walked over to the garden gnome. It was well within the property limits. Blood and feathers everywhere.

  I left the man with his vicious killer and returned to the chicken owner.

  “That’s a five-hundred-dollar prize-winning rooster there!”

  I held up a hand, forestalling the impassioned speech that was clearly building up steam.

  “You’re about to lie to me. Again. And that would be unwise.”

  He looked at me, bottom lip quivering.

  “Take the hundred dollars. I found where—let me speak! I found where the chicken was killed. It’s not even close to your property. You don�
��t want his dog to kill your chickens, keep them off his property. Now, you can insist that I investigate and file a report. If I do so, anything I find during my investigation will be acted upon. As a creative articulation, let’s say that I find that someone around here is raising gamecocks for fighting. Well, then, I’d have to act on that. And serving search warrants and seizing everything someone owns because he’s involved in a criminal enterprise… well, that just causes heartburn all the way around.”

  He looked at me.

  I smiled.

  “Sir,” he licked dry lips, “Come to think, a hundred bucks for that chicken is almighty reasonable.”

  I handed him his dead chicken. “I’ll just go deliver the news then.”

  Buster’s owner took the news with some relief. I looked at the chihuahua, dozing happily on the man’s arm.

  “He doesn’t weigh as much as the rooster did.”

  “No, sir, that he don’t.”

  “That rooster had a black belt in chicken-fu.”

  “Yes, sir, I reckon he would have to have.”

  We looked at Buster. A slow, proud smile escaped the beard and creeped across the man’s face.

  “He sure [deleted] that chicken up, didn’t he?”

  *sigh*

  Does anyone else have days like this?

  FILE 45: The Pink Gorilla Suit

  When “LawDog” is mentioned in some parts of the Internet, this is what comes to mind. Yes, this is the Infamous Pink Gorilla Suit Story. It’s been reposted in a lot of other places, and I’ve even been cajoled into performing it live a time or two.

  It is easily the most popular story I ever wrote on my blog, and it almost never got completed.

  I had written the first half right up to the part about “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, and then I had an episode of Writer’s Block that lasted several years.

  When I say “Writer’s Block”, I had no problem writing other stuff. But the first half was written before I had a blog, and a lot of my other stories were written while the second half was still percolating.

  Weird.

  The most common question I get is something along the lines of: Where is the Pink Gorilla Suit now?”

  Hah!

  * * *

  A big part of the sheriff’s “Work smarter, not harder” philosophy involved the fine art of misdirection. If a subject was so confused that he wasn’t perzackly sure which way was up, then he probably wouldn’t be causing the sorts of problems which require extra paperwork. Or ER trips. Depositions. Lawsuits. That kind of thing.

  Which brings us to the Pink Gorilla Suit.

  *sigh*

  Tucked not-far-enough in the back of the evidence closet was a costume that the S.O. had picked up from somewhere. As the name suggests, this was a gorilla costume, mostly pink.

  Now, when I say pink, I don’t think y’all quite understand the depth of pinkness we are contemplating here: It was pink-pink. Neon pink. Fluorescent pink. A pink not found anywhere in nature. A pink that, in and of itself, constituted a radiation hazard. A shade of pink which, after a single glimpse, would cause even the most flamboyant Mardi Gras costumer to protest that things had gone too, too far.

  Pink.

  Now, bad as this mental picture is, the insane designer of this suit had apparently decided long ago that having only one eye-searing shade was simply too boring, so this poor unfortunate had added spats, gloves, cuffs, a bow tie, and a top hat.

  All very natty, and all very mauve.

  We will now pause to give the Gentle Reader enough time to fully digest the Sheer Awfulness that was the Pink Gorilla Suit.

  Yeah.

  Anyhoo, we had gotten a search warrant. Apparently, our Usual Suspects had graduated to Methamphetamine, Distribution Of and had stashed a functioning meth lab inside a garage apartment out behind the house of, and belonging to, the grandparents of Usual Suspect #3.

  Our pre-warrant briefing consisted of the sheriff reminding us of some of the knottier problems associated with executing a search warrant on a meth lab, most of which seem to involve the uncontrolled high-speed random disassembly of various items and/or people, and finishing off with a reminder that the Standard Obscenity Procedure for this sort of thing was to distract the critters long enough for officers to secure the scene without any of what the sheriff referred to as “fuss and bother.”

  That’s when the chief deputy handed me the box containing the Pink Gorilla Suit.

  *sigh*

  There I was, sulking down the street in front of God and everybody, wearing a neon pink gorilla suit with mauve accouterments over jeans, armor, and a pistol, with a search warrant tucked securely in my sleeve, and the sheriff’s exhortations to “Be Distracting” ringing in my ears.

  Bearing in mind that the search warrant was only for the garage and apartment and not wanting to find myself in Animal Control’s bad graces again, I moped up the steps to the main house and rang the doorbell.

  Light footsteps approached the door and were followed by a long pause. Then, I heard the sound of the footsteps heading away from the door.

  *sigh*

  I pulled my badge out from the collar of the suit and held it prominently in one paw.

  This time the footsteps were accompanied by a heavier tread. I waved my badge at the peeophole and was rewarded with the door opened just enough for me to be beheld by an extremely suspicious eye.

  I tipped my hat (top, mauve) politely, “Afternoon, sir. Sheriff’s office. Pardon the interruption, but we’re going to be serving a warrant on your garage and apartment. The sheriff told me to tell you that he’d take it kindly if y’all would stay inside the house until we have things under control.”

  Long pause.

  “Under control,” murmured the gentleman slowly as he opened the door a little more fully. “Are you planning on that there control thing happening any time soon?”

  Smart aleck.

  “Can’t really tell with this kind of thing, sir. We’ll let you know as soon as possible.”

  I figured I might as well get this over with. I leaned slightly right and looked around the gentleman to the lady of the house. “Ma’am,” tip of the hat again, “Mind if I borrow some of your flowers?”

  She looked at me, at the innocent tulips on the edge of the walk, and back to me.

  “Umm. Go right ahead. You do know that you’re pink?”

  “Hadn’t noticed, ma’am” I lied gallantly while selecting a pair of yellow tulips that set off my mauve spats nicely, “We’ll be around back if you need us.”

  I trudged back to the street, turned left, and walked down to where the driveway from the garage entered the street. The garage sat about twenty feet or so back, with the apartment being the second floor of the structure.

  The only ways in or out were two roll-up garage doors and a people-type door facing me, and the only windows to be seen were on the side facing the street.

  *sigh*

  Distracting. Hah.

  I looked around and made sure that I was at the junction of the driveway and the public street, set my top hat securely on the mask, straightened the gloves and spats, took a deep breath… and burst into a full-blown, top-of-the-lungs, you’ll-bloody-well-hear-this-one-at-Carnegie-Hall rendition of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. While using the tulips as the microphone.

  By God.

  *snort, snort*

  I did the works. Vocals. Backup vocals. Sound effects. Kinda-sorta instruments. Howling. The whole nine yards.

  And, of course, Dirty Deeds has that lovely guitar solo, which lends itself quite nicely to an air guitar—excuse me—tulip guitar performance.

  Well, if it didn’t, it does now.

  Unfortunately, the tulip guitar solo naturally kind of led into a dance.

  It was a fairly energetic dance. And maybe a touch expressive.

  All right! I’ll admit it. There was an amount of gyrating going on.

  However, I do not think that I was doing, quote “The gori
lla version of a fan dance,” unquote. I don’t think that you can do, quote “Suggestive things with a hat,” unquote, when you’re wearing a fur suit, and that over jeans, and I do take umbrage at the suggestion that I, quote “Gave them the ‘Full Monkey,’” unquote.

  Anyhoo, I dug down deeeeeep for that final, “YEARGH!” clutched my tulips to my chest with both paws, and slowly, dramatically, and with the greatest amount of majesty that can be summoned while wearing a gorilla suit, fell over backward onto the gentle grass.

  Hell of a performance, if I do say so myself.

  So, I lay there, pondering the blameless sky and trying to remember if, at any time during the Academy, any of my instructors had ever mentioned the words “Pink,” “Gorilla,” and “Suit” in the same day, much less the same sentence, when over my natty, mauve spat-adorned toes, I noticed some faces in the window panel of the garage door.

  I was beginning to wonder if maybe my performance was a little too good when the door opened and the Usual Suspects slipped out to stand just shy of my fuchsia carcass.

  Usual Suspect #1: “Dudedudedude, umm, dude, umm, wow.”

  Usual Suspect #2: “Umm… it’s… umm…”

  Usual Suspect #1: “Dude, this is, like, not good, okay? Not good, dude. You can’t stay here, okay?”

  Usual Suspect #2: “Umm… it’s… ummm…”

  Pink, I think to myself, pink. The word you’re looking for is pink.

  Usual Suspect #1: “Dude! Top hat! It’s not an it. It’s a he! See the hat?”

  At this point, Usual Suspect #3—the only female in the group—stopped gnawing on her thumbnail long enough to vibrate out, “Chickswearhats. Youlikemyhat!”

  Usual Suspect #2: “Furry! He’s… ummm… furry?”

  Geez. Behind the group, I saw the sheriff, hands in pockets, grass stem between his teeth, stroll nonchalantly into the structure through the door the Usual Suspects had left open. Right behind him, grinning at me, went the chief deputy.