Bobby D. Lux - Dog Duty

by Bobby D. Lux

“All I want is my fair shot.”

  “There ain’t no such thing as a fair shot, Fritz. You should know that.”

  “What about checkers? I thought you were all about fair shots.”

  “That’s why they call it a game. It’s not real life. King me again. Told you a smoke would ‘elp you with that thinking cap.”

  “Let me spill it out for you. Regardless of my intentions, I’ve seen dogs like Clay a million times before, and you have too. Grand City isn’t big enough for two dogs to have an operation like what you have here and whatever and wherever you may have elsewhere. It may not be today or tomorrow, but you know that Clay is going to one day see you as hindrance. I’d take care of it now. That’s one less problem you have looming down the line, so all I’m asking is that if you hear anything, feel free to pass it my way. If you don’t mind.”

  “I ‘ave to tell ya, Fritz. I didn’t get to where I am today by ‘elping out the coppers. But I guess since you say you ain’t one anymore, then sure Fritz. If I ‘ear anything, you’ll be the first to know. Old times’ sake.”

  “Thanks,” I said, getting up to leave.

  “Game’s not over, mate. You can’t leave.”

  “You’re too good for me, Henry. Checkers isn’t my game.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? We could’a played anything. Name it. Take a seat, the night’s young still. Have a drink with me. Come on, it’s not like yer on the clock no more. What’s yer game, Fritz?

  “I don’t play games, Henry. You should know that by now.” I turned my back to Henry and walked out the same way I walked in.

  “Like I said Fritz, that face of yers is right close to that flame.”

  CHAPTER 19 - A Lot Happens in a Moment

  Several hours had passed since last call at Henry’s. The sun was hours away and we still hadn’t left South Side. The stench appeared gone. More likely, it simply permeated through us. We hunkered down in the corner of a nearby parking lot. Nipper fought to stay awake while laying on a flattened piece of cardboard. I sat alongside a dented, mid-sized sedan with a boot on the front driver’s side tire. Ernie was at the bottom of a nearby dumpster digging for scraps. I had no idea if anything was accomplished at Henry’s. And what were Nipper and Ernie doing out here with me? Why did I drag them out here with me?

  What had I hoped to learn that I didn’t know already? Clay was at the docks while I sat next to a junk pile. Why didn’t I just go to the docks and be done with it? I knew where to find him. I could’ve gotten the jump on him if I wanted to. Not that I would have done it that way. A fair fight was a fair fight even if my enemy didn’t share that sentiment. There was no honor in sneaking up on Clay. Revenge only counted when it was done face-to-face. Anything less than that and Clay still won.

  All my conversation with Henry told me was that I’m a lousy checkers player. Even if he knew something, there was no way he was going to tell me, so what was that all about?

  It was nice to feel like a cop again, but I knew it wasn’t real. I knew I was just getting a high, a quick fix. It wouldn’t be a high if I didn’t have a low to compare it to. That low is where I was when we left Henry’s. I wasn’t a pretend cop anymore. I was back to being just another dog sitting on his ass.

  I picked up the scent of a cat who circled around us. He carried something warm and edible with him. I smelled a familiar cat panic from him, but it wasn’t the hostile panic scent you usually got from cats. This guy was anxious. He eyeballed me, but he wasn’t interested in attacking. He did not seem particularly frightened of me. That was curious. He was stupid if he wasn’t.

  He crept closer and slid between a few cars in a crisscrossing pattern. As he approached, he never broke his view even while batting his package in front of him. Nipper paid no attention and Ernie was distracted, talking to himself in the dumpster. I kept my ears low, my eyes opened and empty to signal that I was no threat to you, buddy.

  “You’re fine,” I said. “Feel free to scoot on by. Say hi if you want to, because I’m not interested in sniffing beyond what I have already. Whatever you’ve brought with you, it’s all yours. The last thing I care about is an alley cat.”

  “Huh?” Nipper said. The cat took his attention back and forth between me and Nipper. “Is everything okay with you?”

  “Not talking to you, Nipper.”

  “You talking to me?” Ernie said.

  “No.”

  “Okay. We’re just in here getting some food. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  We’re?, I thought.

  “If you gotta get somewhere,” I said, to the cat, “don’t let us get in your way. You won’t get any trouble here.”

  “You sure?” the cat said, as he poked his head out from under a VW Bug with a complete set of flat tires. I nodded back at him. I can’t tell you what makes a cat good looking, but I can tell you what made one looks like a train wreck. It was this feline: clipped ear, skinny arms, and a few patches of fur that must’ve been on vacation. He sprung out from under the car, stayed low to the ground, and swung clear of me to leap up onto the rear end of the car I was leaning against. I was not happy with this cat taking the high ground on me. “Sorry, I have to go inside.”

  He pushed his wad of what I had determined to be moldy string cheese into a hole in the car’s roof and followed it down. I stood and looked in the rear window and I dropped back down immediately. How I missed it, I don’t know. There was another cat huddled up the back seat and she was about to give birth to a few kittens in there.

  I slowly rose my head back up so I could see in. Her back was to me, but the other cat could see me if he’d wanted to. He was busy tucking a towel in around her. They had a box down on the floorboard on its side, torn open to look like a bed with another small towel and some newspapers lined across it. The mother took heavy breaths and uncomfortably moaned. I caught myself being as still as possible. I didn’t want to breathe. She looked like she needed all the spare air that was available.

  I saw the total look of helplessness on the guy’s face. He wanted to help; he wanted to with every fiber of his being, but he couldn’t and he knew it. Made me think that the ordeal was tougher on him, which is a pretty ridiculous idea now that I say it. He could walk away if he wanted to. He could leap out of that backseat with a “sayonara.” She was the one who was stuck.

  Then his face contorted and he looked uglier. She licked herself and the first kitten was out. It was little more than a tiny blob of fur with its eyes closed and its arms and legs tucked in. She licked herself again and he gently scooped up the kitten and placed it in the box, nudging it in the corner. It took its first quick little breaths. I felt like my presence surely violated a bond or something between these cats, but I couldn’t take my eyes away.

  A second kitten came out, this one with a flash of different stripes of fur across its face. The father, he had to be the father, gently placed it next to its sibling in the box. A third one followed and the mother spent more time licking herself. This time the father didn’t bring the kitten over to the box. Instead, with none of the care he gave the first two, he picked up the kitten and jumped out of the car, down just a few feet from where I was. He looked startled when he saw me. I just looked at him.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “This guy didn’t make it,” he said. “I’m sorry, please excuse me.”

  He set the limp kitten down behind the rear tire and went back inside the car. I examined the kitten. No signs of life; no movement, no breathing, nothing. Something about that image wasn’t right. This was an impossible scene. If it was real and this little cat was born dead, then what was the point of any of this? Why this one? Who decided that it got no shot at living a life? I wasn’t convinced. It made no sense for there to be a slippery lifeless body lying right in front of me and I’m supposed to accept that there’s nothing there and that nothing ever was there? I knew that it did not work that way. I nudged him and rubbed his head with the dry part of my nose.


  “Come on,” I whispered. I could feel him cooling off, so I exhaled warm air up and down his tiny body, trying to compete with the twilight morning cold. I blew on his head and face and nudged him harder. Then it coughed. It coughed again! Another, and then he gurgled for breath. His throat convulsed and tried to open. I rolled him over, but no luck. I took a deep breath, loosened and relaxed my jaw as much I could, and picked him up. I kept his face pointed down, and shook him hard enough to dislodge the fluid. Who knew a few drops of phlegm could be so vicious? He was breathing and crying. He would be okay at least for that moment.

  I felt the little guy relax as I sat him down away from the tire out in the open. He lay on his side while I watched him for a moment. A single moment in time and it was just me and this little fella. This cat who would probably grow up to be a real pain in the ass, or he might get lucky and find somewhere warm to live, but I didn’t waste my moment thinking about that.

  Did I save his life? Maybe. I gave him a hand when he needed it. That was my job. That was good enough. Hopefully, he doesn’t remember those harsh few minutes that began his life. Fortunately, I won’t forget them. He’ll never know I existed. If I hadn’t been procrastinating alongside some junk car in South Side, he’d have found his end underneath the broken rear axle of said junk car. How’s that for not making any sense?

  I looked back into the car. The two kittens nibbled on the string cheese and mom tended to herself. I looked at the dad and gestured towards the hole in the roof. He looked confused so I gestured again with my best get your scrawny butt out here or otherwise I’m coming in and you don’t want that look.

  “Umm, hi,” he said, as he jumped down and kept his distance.

  “You forgot someone,” I said.

  “I told you, he didn’t… Oh my!”

  He grabbed the kitten with the tenderness he should’ve given him to begin with and brought him back inside. He placed him next to the mother, who started nursing it.

  “Thank you,” the father said, poking his head out of the hole in the car.

  “Don’t be so quick to give up on someone,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

  “Okay. Hey, ummm, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I feel like if you want to give him a name, you probably should have the first shot at it.”

  “I’ve never named anyone before,” I said, looking inside at the two kittens huddled together on the newspaper, the comics section. “Ziggy. Call him Ziggy.”

  “Okay. Thanks again.”

  He disappeared and I left them alone. For all I know, it’ll turn out to be a fitting name. Maybe it won’t. I went over and sat by Nipper.

  “Something going on over there?” Nipper said, yawning.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Hey Ernie, did you say ‘we’ a few minutes ago?”

  “Yeah,” Ernie said.

  “What’re you doing?” Nipper said.

  “Getting food. While you two were napping, I was starving again. There’s plenty of good grub in here. If you want some, you better get in here while the getting is good. Me and my new friend here have about eaten all the good stuff.”

  “Who are you in there with?” I said.

  “Don’t know his name. He’s busy eating. Oh, I almost forgot, Knox and Gash told me about Clay.”

  “What?” I said. “They did? How do you forget something like that?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know. Seems like they knew him pretty good. No one else would talk about him, but Knox said he’s always at the cat races and always bets big in the tenth and cleans up huge.”

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “Well, yeah. They wanted to know why I was asking so many questions when I just asked if they’d heard of him, so that was it. Those are dogs you don’t push the issue with. I’m not stupid. Oh no-” Sirens suddenly engulfed us. Did they find us? How? Did someone from Henry’s rat on us? Who would they have ratted to? I couldn’t go back now. “How did you deal with the noise of that for so long? It hurts so bad it’s making me angry.”

  “Don’t move,” I said. “Stop making noise.”

  A quartet of Grand City squad cars pulled up to an apartment complex near the lot. Footsteps pounded the pavement surrounding us. If they got closer, our cover wouldn’t hold. And there was Nitro. He was let out of the second to last car. No sooner did his paws hit the concrete that he spun and saw me.

  “What is it?” Nitro’s partner said, releasing Nitro to investigate. Nitro ran over and stayed on the other side of a nearby minivan. He pretended to examine the car.

  “Well, well, well,” Nitro said. “You never know who you’ll run into on the job. Don’t worry, I won’t bring the rest of the boys over here, but it does make me wonder what you’re doing at this hour out in South Side?”

  “Leave me alone, Nitro,” I said. “You should probably be working.”

  “I am working. Unlike you.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said. “Why don’t you get back to the call?”

  “Who’s your friend?” Nitro said.

  “We’re working a case,” Ernie said, from inside the dumpster. “Tell them to shut that siren off. We get it, you’re here.”

  “What? Who? You know what, Fritz, I don’t even want to know what’s going on with you.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “But humor me this,” Nitro said, “what kind of case are you working on? Is someone stealing bones from the convalescent pound’s holiday party fund?”

  “There’s that humor I’ve missed so much,” I said.

  “We’re chasing criminals,” Ernie said.

  “If whoever you are in the trash wants to keep talking, you better show yourself.”

  “You know anything about that dog, Clay?” I said. “If you do, you could help me.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Nitro said. “What? He’s someone you want to bring in? You’re a piece of work, you know that? You gotta let it go, Fritz. This isn’t healthy, this obsession you have going on. At first, I thought it was part of the grieving process or whatever you want to call it, but you sound like one of those conspiracy nuts who say they only use one dog for the same character on a TV show. And you know as well as I do that any information on a pending case isn’t just handed out to any Fido Q. Citizen. So, sorry, I can’t help you.” Nitro’s partner yelled out at him and whistled. “Back to work. I’ll be seeing you, and by that, I mean, hopefully never again, you dig?”

  “Yeah, I dig.”

  After a few minutes, the squad cars cleared the scene. Ernie got out of the dumpster and said bye to his dining companion. I felt comfortable sitting there in a parking lot in South Side. That’s how I knew it was time to leave. The three of us wandered off into what was left of the night.

  “I think it was possum actually,” Ernie said. “It was dark, I couldn’t tell. It stunk in there. Nice guy though.”

  As we walked, I imagined it was Scamper whom Ernie was talking to in that dumpster. I pictured his mangled teeth biting into some raw meat that would hopefully make him sick. I imagined the fear he would’ve felt when he realized that it was me just on the other side of that dumpster. Ernie wouldn’t know what was going on, just another derelict mutt scrounging for food.

  “You want us, eh? Well, we’re not hard to find,” I imagined Scamper said, once we were out of earshot. I heard him laugh like a buffoon. I fantasized that he’d run to the docks to find Clay lurking in the shadows.

  “I saw them,” I imagined he told Clay. “They were right there. He’s coming for you, Clay. They were at Henry’s looking for you. He’s not scared of you.”

  As we continued out of South Side, I felt Clay’s eyes watching me, hovering in the air above me without a body. I felt him stalking me, planning his attack, where he’d bite me, how he’d pin me down, whether it’d be quick or if he’d let it linger. That wasn’t imaginary.

  “So, now what?” Nipper
said.

  “You guys like to gamble?” I said.

  CHAPTER 20 - The Tenth Race

  I spent the third Friday of every month of my rookie year, except for the summer, at Chester A. Arthur High School. Officer Hart and I took part in the Junior Officers’ Club from 12:00 until 14:00 hours. We took the kids out and made them run for a half hour and do an assortment of exercises. Officer Hart then answered questions and would cover basic law enforcement techniques. Their favorite questions were how many times Officer Hart had to shoot somebody, and how many times I got to bite people.

  “He likes biting people, right? I mean, dogs like to bite living stuff, right?”

  “What’s it like to hit someone, like, with your nightstick? Are you afraid, like, you’ll break your stick on someone’s head?”

  “Are you allowed to, like, run red lights and, like, not get in trouble? I’d totally do that!”

  “How come they only let you have a moustache? I would think, like, a rad Fu Manchu or Lemmy chops would be scarier. Could you imagine if, like, a dude with, like, a full on psycho mountain man beard pulled you over? Dude, that would be so scary!”

  “Have they ever thought about purposely giving the dogs rabies because, no, listen you idiots, think about it. What’s crazier than a rabid dog? Plus, maybe, like, enough spreading of rabies would, like, create some zombie things. I don’t know.”

  For the better part of the twentieth century, Grand City was among the elite of the state’s many educational standouts. We boasted a high school graduation rate in the 99th percentile of the country. But then too many schools were built in areas that required too many good paying jobs to live in. A few too many stock market crashes forced enough “daddy’s bosses” to make difficult cuts which forced many of Grand City’s growing population to find refuge in neighboring cities. Suddenly, those good schools didn’t have enough good kids to populate them. A couple years of this domino effect and they had to board up a school or two.

  Chester A. Arthur was the first to get the wood panel on the windows and deadbolt treatment. It was a popular decision with the mutts of Grand City who always needed a large abandoned place within the city limits to throw their bones away at the cat races.