by Tom Schreck
Al—A Basset Hound who flunked out of the Nation of Islam’s bomb sniffing program due to poor hygienic habits, Al shares Duffy’s life and is his nearly constant companion. Partial to cheeseburgers, naps and disobedience, Al is his own man, er, dog.
Officer Mike Kelley—Duffy’s cop friend and regular at AJ’s. A no-nonsense guy who rolls his eyes at Duffy’s exploits yet always seems to be there when he’s needed.
The Fearsome Foursome—Rocco, TC, Jerry Number One and Jerry Number Two—these guys are always at AJ’s, always engaged in inane conversation and always enjoying an adult beverage. Their debates, ranging from Arnold Ziffle, to Disney controversies to John Wayne’s impacted colon, are spirited if not of elevated intellectual pursuits.
Claudia Michelin (AKA the Michelin Woman)—Duffy’s regulation-loving, rotund boss who lives for the day she can fire Duff.
Dr. Rudy—The sweaty, stressed out friend to Duffy who’s always there to bail him out when he’s in a jam—especially if Duffy buys him something to eat.
* * *
Duffy Dombrowski
and Wilbur the Dog are both
tough guys with soft hearts.
—Ginny Tata-Phillips
* * *
The Hound Who Went Moo
By Tom
“It was the guy from Fondue,” TC said confidently.
“What?” Jerry Number One said.
“That show about karate. Fondue,” TC said
I had just gotten in to AJ’s after sparring. I got hit a lot and my head had that unpleasant dull ache. Sometimes getting hit made your head kind of warm and lightly pulsating, which I kind of liked. This wasn’t one of those times.
“There use to be this blind old Chinese guy and he would make the grasshopper snatch the pebbles,” TC said.
“That grasshopper must’ve been on steroids,” Jerry Number Two managed to say in between Cosmo sips.
I held the cold Schlitz to my forehead and it felt wonderful. I debated whether to join the Foursome conversation. I always did. Their conversations often became a vortex that could suck you in and drain the intelligence right out of you.
“Kung Fu,” I said “The fucking show was called ‘Kung Fu’ and it starred David Carradine.” I probably could’ve done without the vulgar expletive but my head hurt.
“You sure, Duff?” TC said. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“But a TV show named after a melted dairy product does?” Rocco said. He sounded annoyed. Rocco lived life annoyed.
“Nevertheless the show was cheesy,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Anyways, the karate guy in the show killed himself in an act of autoapixalation,” TC said.
AJ’s Tavern went silent. The TV, set on Sportscenter and the loud icemaker, created the only sounds. The two Jerry’s, Rocco and AJ the bartender stared at TC.
“Autopixalation. It’s when guys try to whack off by hanging themselves,” TC said.
Silence.
“Autoeroticism,” Jerry Number Two said.
Silence.
“If you hang yourself or cut off oxygen to your brain you get a really intense orgasm. The trick is stopping the asphyxiation before death”.
Silence.
“How freakin’ lazy can ya be?” Rocco said.
“Autoeroticism? I think I did that on prom night. Made a mess in my brother’s Dodge Dart,” TC said.
I slid my empty in front of me and AJ replaced it. I rubbed my eyebrows with my thumb and forefinger and tried to get the visual of a pubescent TC on prom night soiling his brother’s Dodge Dart out of my head. I tried to think of Aaron Boone’s home run, Elvis’s Hawaii concert and Notre Dame beating Miami. Nothing worked.
“Mooooo!” The sound jarred me out of my thoughts and amazingly enough got the Foursome to shut up.
“Mooooo!” It sounded like a cow doing Bruce Springsteen. It vibrated off the walls and you could feel it as much as hear it.
Standing in the threshold of AJ’s back door was a Basset Hound with a mostly white head. The sunlight was behind him so it was difficult to make out his features.
“That’s not AL. Al doesn’t moo,” Jerry Number One said. Al is my Basset Hound who was much larger and though he bays, barks and generally makes a racket, he doesn’t moo.
“Mooooooo!” It came again.
“Another goddamn bastard hound,” Rocco said.
I grabbed my Schlitz and headed over to see our visitor.
“Mooooooo! Grr…..” The hound wasn’t pleased with my approach. I’ve learned a little bit about dogs from living with AL and approaching strange dogs wasn’t easy. I decided to sit in the hallway and not face him. The Foursome remained quiet and stared.
After a long pause the hound approached. I slowly went to pet his head and he allowed me to. He had a very distinctive white ear with a slight lace pattern of brown in it and it was something I had never seen before. I grabbed for his tag and it read it. It said, “Duke” and underneath it said “If found return to Don and Shelly” and it had their address and phone number.
I took Duke back to my place. I was a bit apprehensive about Duke and Al meeting. Al’s social skills are somewhat lacking and breaking up a Basset Hound fight is like intervening on snapping turtles. Their low center of gravity and closeness to the ground make them tough to get at and I didn’t want to lose a finger.
So when Al greeted us at the door and failed to jump up and kick me in the nuts—his customary greeting—I was surprised. And when Duke ran around me to meet Al I was shocked. The two of them did the age-old Basset greeting of smelling each other’s asses, forming the never ending rotating circle of ears, slobber and noses.
When they separated, Al got behind Duke and started barking to get his attention. Al can be relentless when he wants your focus but Duke didn’t seem to care at all. This, of course, made Al bark even louder and more persistently.
“Shut up!” I yelled loud enough to strain the tendons in my neck. Meanwhile Duke had lain down on the carpet and proceeded to lick his paws. Al just kept going and I went to get my water Uzi, my weapon of choice in combating the war on Al’s noise pollution. When I stepped around Al he unexpectedly went to his left and forced me into the coffee table, which still had the saucepan I ate spaghetti out of last night at two in the morning. The saucepan banged off the couch, bounced into the table, and knocked over three Schlitz cans right over Duke’s head.
He didn’t move and he didn’t stop licking his paws.
Nothing.
Al ran around me to his kitchen water dish in obvious need of refreshment. I stood above Duke and called to him.
“Duke! Dukey!, Duke!” I yelled getting louder with each.
Nothing.
I picked up the saucepan and spoon and banged them together like a cowbell.
Nothing.
It looked like my new houseguest was deaf.
I tried calling Don and Shelly and got no answer. They were only a town or two over so it was time to take a ride. I got ready to feel like a hero when I returned their beloved hound.
The two boys climbed into the Cadillac. Al, customarily used to the front seat, surprisingly moved over a tad when Duke walked across the elbow rest and sat next to him. Al did a 360, mumbled a little bit and went to sleep. Duke put his front paws on the passenger door forming a bridge over Al and shot me a look that I interpreted as “Hey, asshole, roll down the window.”
I did and Duke mooed all through town. You would’ve thought that Al was the deaf one because he didn’t stir. Don and Shelly only lived about 15 minutes away and when I got within four blocks the mooing went to warp speed. I pulled in their drive way and before I could let the hounds out Duke jumped out the window and ran around the house. Al and I followed along.
The back of the house had a deck and sliding glass doors that were left wide open. I heard the mooing shake the walls of the house. I looked down at Al who cocked his head and kind of snorted, which was his way of saying he didn’t know what the hell w
as going on.
“Hello…Anyone home?’ I called at the threshold of the deck doors.
No answer.
I stepped into the house.
“Hello…Anyone home?”
No answer and Duke had stopped mooing. I resisted the urge to call after the deaf dog and walked around the corner. I followed Duke to a garage, headed down the three steps and couldn’t believe what I saw.
The garage was filled with Basset Hound crap.
I don’t literally mean crap like, you know, dog shit. I mean Basset Hound C-R-A-P. There were Basset Hound flip-flops, windsocks, sweatshirts, calendars and baseball hats. There were costumes for the dogs, antler ears, car stickers, ladies pajamas and all sorts of figurines. There were Basset Hound tumbler sets, Basset Hound wine and Basset Hound oven mitts. There were even cases of books by some jerk who wrote murder mysteries with Bassets in them.
I mean who bought this shit?
In the corner sat a desk, cluttered with invoices, receipts, paperwork and a master calendar. The calendar was marked in bright red and I noticed today had a big star on it and the words “Wizard of Oz Waddle.” I had no idea what weird world I had just drifted into.
The calendar magic marker must’ve leaked or broken because the paperwork was covered in red liquid. There were red footprints on the cellar floor leading out to the door. It dawned on me that it seemed like a hell of a lot of ink and Duke was sniffing it like crazy. Then he stopped and whined.
That’s when it sunk in.
It wasn’t magic marker ink. I was looking at someone’s blood.
According to a stack of fliers I found on a shelf above the desk the Waddle was the annual event/picnic to raise money for rescue Bassets. It was part of the Wizard of Oz festival in Chittenango, just a couple of towns over. I called my cop friend Mike Kelley and filled him in.
“Duff, until someone reports someone’s missing we can’t do anything,” Kelley said.
“What about the blood?”
“C’mon, Duff. That could be a bad nosebleed, a paper cut, who knows?”
“Something doesn’t feel right. The dog just shows up at AJ’s, the open patio doors, the blood…”
“Things don’t feel right all the time. It doesn’t mean a crime has been committed.”
“Moooooooo!” The sound jarred me
“What the hell is that?” Kelley said.
“The dog I was telling you about.”
“Sounds like an elephant.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
Kelley hesitated.
“I guess this means you’re heading to the Wizard of Oz Festival, huh?”
I didn’t say anything but I looked up and saw Duke. He wasn’t mooing now. He had started to whimper. Al waddled over to him and licked his eyes.
“Yep,” I said.
Duke rode with two paws on the passenger seat and two paws on the dash. He bellowed his earthshaking world greeting every 3.5 seconds. The ride was only about twenty minutes but I already had a headache. Al’s sleep drool was crusting up the velour on the 76 El Dorado’s seat but I do think he had a disturbing nightmare or two because his back legs got going a couple of times.
The drive into the town of Chittenango was, well, unusual. People dressed in ruby slippers, witch getups, tin men and scarecrows and cowardly lions were all over the place. A sign let me know that a parade was starting at 1:00pm. I cruised through the town kind of feeling like I landed on a different planet when a started seeing arrows pointing to a “Waddle.”
Yep, a “Waddle.”
There was a parking lot and a field with a bandstand. Tents, booths and what looked like a basset obstacle course or something, was set up. In the center of it all was a large tent with a sign that read “Slobber Shoppe”. I pulled over in the parking lot next to it and got out.
“Duke! That guy’s got Duke!” A guy next to the Slobber Shoppe yelled. He was built like a compact offensive lineman and he was walking right toward me. When he got close enough I could read his nametag. It said “Gary, President.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what this guy governed but before I could finish my contemplation, the president of the Bassetopolis charged me. I wasn’t ready and he went low, got me by the hips and planted me like Lawrence Taylor on Joe Theisman.
“What the hell—” I tried to get out.
“Where the hell are Don and Shelley!” He wound up and went to hit me. I got my hand up and blocked it and was able to roll out of his grip.
“Look, Mr. President. I don’t know what your deal is but I’m looking for Don and Shelley. Duke wandered into the bar I hang out in Crawford”.
The president was up but he had his hands on his knees trying to get some air. I guessed that tackling kidnappers wasn’t a regular presidential duty.
“But, you had Duke. What the hell are you doing with Dukey!”
Before I could tell him he spoke again
“Wait a minute. Where the hell did Duke go?”
Somehow in the melee I lost my grip on Duke.
Gary looked at me and I looked back at Gary. Before we could say anything the Chittenango High School Marching Band went it to a loud, very brassy upbeat version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Apparently, it was one o’clock and the parade had begun. Gary turned and waved me to follow him. I did.
He headed from the waddle grounds to the street where the parade was approaching. We cut through an alley and it put us on Main Street about fifty yards ahead of the parade. The streets were packed three deep and the marching bands, munchkins, cowardly lions and what not went on for blocks. I couldn’t imagine finding a short, deaf dog in this mess. Someone dressed like Dorothy, complete with pig tales and Ruby slippers was leading the parade. A Toto impersonator trotted along next to her.
“Shelly’s gonna kill me,” Gary said, mostly to himself.
The band transitioned through “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with the drum majors doing a staccato march.
That was when we heard it over the crowd noise.
“MOOOOOOOO!” came about twenty feet down the sidewalk to our right.
“MOOOOOOOO!”
Then we saw Duke’s body dive through two senior citizens on the sidewalk and over the orange plastic barrier.
“That’s him!” Gary yelled. “It’s those damn agility classes!”
Now being a Basset Hound companion myself, I had never uttered “agile” and “Basset Hound” anywhere near each other.
“Shelly took him to agility classes. Shelly’s freakin’ nuts.” Gary said mostly to himself. He wasn’t looking at me. He tried to follow Duke through the crowd.
Duke was running through the line of tubas and French horns going in and out of them as they moved like he was an Olympic slalom racer.
“MOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Duke’s yell threw off the saxophonists and two of them hit a sour note. Duke, of course, couldn’t tell and he didn’t slow down at all. He broke free from the band and bumped into the one remaining living munchkin who was marching behind Dorothy. The poor old guy went down hard and I wondered to myself just how good the Lollipop Guild’s health insurance plan was.
I didn’t get to process that thought completely. Duke raced ahead for Dorothy.
“MOOOOOOOOO!”
Dorothy spun around. The little Toto re-enactor freaked out and ran into the crowd yipping and yapping all the way.
“MOOOOOOOOO!”
Duke bared his teeth and charged Dorothy. Before she could do anything he sunk his teeth into her right ankle right above the ruby slipper. Dorothy screamed but Duke wouldn’t let go.
I froze but Gary ran into the middle of the street to pull Duke off of Dorothy. He grabbed him by the hind legs and tugged.
“Ahhhh!” Dorothy screamed. “Son of a bitchin’ bastard hound!” Dorothy said, as she reached for her bloody ankle.
Quite a mouth on little Dorothy, I thought but given the situation I decided to keep it to myself. A small crowd gathered around her and came
to her aid.
“Fuckin’ no good Basset Hound. I fucking hate them!” The American icon said.
“They probably won’t let us back,” Gary said. “This Wizard of Oz thing helps us make money for the rescue dogs.”
I had rejoined Al who had wandered into the Basset kissing booth and where for a half an hour he licked ice cream off of toddlers’ faces for a dollar a kid.
“What a mouth on Dorothy, huh? I mean her legs were ripped up pretty bad but I was expecting more of a ‘Golly Gee Willickers’ out of her, you know,” I said.
“Weird thing is she works with animals. I was surprised at her language too.”
“She works with animals?”
“Yeah, she’s the manager of that chain pet store over in the strip mall a couple of blocks away. We’re not big fans of the pet stores,” Gary said.
“You’re a dog guy and you don’t like pet stores?”
“Damn right. They get their dogs from puppy mills. Deplorable places.”
