The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog

by Bill Boggs

  The crowd’s goin’ crazy booing Max after his clumsy fall.

  As he’s getting up, I pounce on him, and I get his hot, wet throat locked in my jaws. I don’t hear the crowd. I’m feelin’ weird, like I’m not really me, but like I’m another dog in another time and place. Something’s driving me I never felt before. I’m all-powerful. I got Max where I want him. I can win by bearing down and crushing his throat. I want to do it, so I slowly start to tighten the grip.

  Everybody is standing and screaming.

  The only other time I clamped this hard on anything was when I was racing around the ice rink at the Greensboro Coliseum tryin’ to hold Donald Duck’s head in my mouth by the beak. I remember the kids laughing and yelling, “Spike! Spike!”

  Now I’m hearing, “Kill! Kill!”

  My teeth are going deeper into Max’s throat. But I stop. NO! I don’t kill dogs for a master.

  A little whimper comes out of Max, like he’s a puppy again.

  I use all the force I got to flip him in the air like he’s a big furry truck tire. He lands hard on his back. I pin him to the floor and pretend to be as menacing as possible while waitin’ for somebody to come in to save him.

  A handler comes in. I let Max go and back off. He still wants a fight—he lunges at me groggily, but they get the chain around his neck and drag him out of the ring.

  I won. My skull’s pounding from what just happened. Max was trying to kill me.

  Back in my cage, I’m chewin’ on another pile of lean raw meat. I taste some of the blood that’s oozing onto my tongue. I’m glad to know the killer instinct is still in me, ’cause before I get outta here, I’m gonna need all of it that I’ve got.

  Fight Two: Big Nipper

  As I’m tryin’ to drift to sleep that night to the haunting refrains of some guy rappin’ about how mad he is ’cause his bitch got the wrong tattoo on her bottom, James Plus shows up. He gets down on his knees and is shouting at me through the wire on my cage door.

  “Today you do so good, tomorrow Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles set you up against Big Nipper. He tough, he fast. You watch your paws, Spike; he specialist on winnin’ by munchin’ real fast on legs and paws.”

  Oh that’s encouraging news, thank you, Plus. By the way, have you considered brushing your teeth this week? Your breath smells like a smoldering pile of jockstraps in the Yankees laundry room after a Labor Day doubleheader.

  “Big Nipper personally trained by Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles. He got some of the same Money Piles strategy that make Money Piles champion.”

  Really, Plus, you mean Big Nipper is giving away cars to judges?

  I stay up watching videos of Big Nipper fights.

  He’s light gray and mostly a pit bull, but ’cause he’s got a smaller head, longer mouth, and longer legs, I figure he’s got a little greyhound in him. He’s an “in and out” fighter like Roy Jones Jr. He’s lightning fast, even faster than me. He never wins on power like Mad Max. His style is first nippin’ at your legs, then biting your legs, and when he’s got you bleeding and you’re slower, he’s able to get in and chew your paws. He doesn’t have jaw power to kill on the throat. He wins by damaging you bad. The pit pull I saw bein’ dragged out of the freezer was the last dog he fought. The Big Nipper has dozens of ugly scars all over his back from where dogs were bitin’ to stop him from chewin’ on their paws.

  I need a different approach to fightin’ him, ’cause he’ll catch me if I’m movin’ around in a circle, and he’s gonna be able to jump high enough to get my leg if I try leaping over him.

  I go to sleep remembering another Friday-night ESPN show where a young “Hands of Stone” Roberto Duran charged the other guys and knocked them out early with raw punching power.

  The next day is hours of waiting around to fight the Nipper. I’m the main event, so I gotta sit in my cage during all the other fights, ’cause I’m on last. When they finally get me, I’m stiff and nervous. Gotta control the mind, gotta prevail, gotta impose my will on Big Nipper.

  The worst thing would be to realize what could happen to me in the fight. Sometimes, for an instant, I do. It’s then that I have fear. But like Evander Holyfield told Bud in an interview on boxing, “Fear can be your friend.” Back then I didn’t know what he meant. Now I understand.

  There’s a lot of bettin’, and the odds are against me, ’cause Nipper has never lost. He’s got a perfect record of every dog he fights bein’ put to sleep afterward.

  They parade me around. To loosen up, I do jumps. I hop. The crowd’s applauding. I snarl at the guys in the front row calling Bud names.

  The Big Nipper makes his usual entrance. He strides around chewing some kind of leg. There’s a small hoof on the leg, so I’d say it’s more leg of lamb than leg of dog.

  Since I got here, can you kind of tell that nothing in this place is “nice”?

  The bell rings, and we charge each other. He’s lookin’ to take a quick nip at my leg, so he comes in low. All the other dogs can’t get their teeth in him when he attacks—they miss ’cause he’s too low and too quick. I’m runnin’ at full speed like I’m going to plow right through him. I lower my head to slam him. There’s a loud crack as I hit his head, and he spills off sideways.

  He’s charging me again; this time he’s slower. I sprint and smash him with another headbutt.

  Crashing into his skull at full speed is not a pain-free experience, but it’s a small price to pay for not getting my paw chewed off. Besides, it confirms that I am “Head of Stone.”

  Can’t say the same for the Nipper. He’s showin’ the effects of two smashes. He’s shaky. He’s runnin’ away, maybe expecting me to tire out by chasin’ him round and round but, like Duran would, I cut off the ring. I charge at an angle and slam into him as hard as I can under his little cropped ear. He rolls over a couple of times and hits the cage wall. He’s ten feet away and getting up slowly. I close in to grab him by the neck. All I gotta do is hold him down till somebody runs in to save him.

  But I make a mistake.

  Money’s girlfriend Ra’sheed’duh? is in the front row. An instant before I have him, she takes a photo of me. I wasn’t stopping to pose, but the flash throws me off, and the Big Nipper’s able to get my leg. He’s dizzy from the butts, and he’s probably not chewin’ as hard as normal, but I still got only about fifteen seconds before I get serious leg damage.

  On his back, probably from that last fight with the pit bull, is a pink and raw open wound. It’s like an arrow pointing to a “Bite Here to Win” sign. I nip him there a couple of times, and soon blood is pourin’ down his sides and he’s screechin’ in pain.

  I back off—like Larry “The Easton Assassin” Holmes did in his fight with Ali, when Holmes tried to get the ref to stop it. But like in that fight, nobody’s stopping anything. So I grab the Nipper by the neck, shake him, and drag him over to the cage door for them to come and take him out. The Big Nipper has surrendered to me. He’s lyin’ quietly, quivering and bleeding all over the dirt.

  ’Cause I suddenly got the urge, I try something I saw Tarzan do in the movies after he pretended to kill a lion. It always worked great, ’cause all the lions knew how to play along with Tarzan; otherwise there’d be a lot of dead Tarzans. I put my leg on the Nipper, raise my head high, and let out a long howl of victory.

  I’m resting in my cage when James Plus comes with what he thinks is great news for me.

  “Spike, Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles watch you closed circuit from his VIP den. Money Piles no like be around ring crowd; he get pissed off by fans who shake Money hand too hard. No good for fighter hand. He here now, and he personally gonna bran you with the Money dollar-sign bran he put on best dogs. Your leg gonna be sizzling, but you be branded as best, also increase your value if you frozen. Eatin’ the branded leg of mighty champion dog get special ceremony in Thailand.”

  “Terrific,” I’m thinkin’. “It’s like you get an Academy Award and then cannibals rush onstage to boil you during the comme
rcial break.”

  James Plus walks me over to Money Piles, who I coulda found blindfolded, ’cause of him smelling of the Money Piles cologne he probably uses instead of water in his hot tub. There’s a branding iron stuck in burning charcoal on top of a small grill.

  I’m lookin’ at him with the kind of distain I reserve for big-game hunters, terrorists, and people who don’t believe in global warming.

  “Spike, you Wonder Dog. That stupid Bud be wastin’ you on TV. If he sold you to Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles, Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles woulda give him a cut a your winnings, but now he gotta find a new Wonder dog, ’cause Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles now brandin’ you mine for all time.

  I look at him and give him my big, original, TV-show yawn.

  “He so bad, he bored,” Money Piles says.

  “Oh yeah, he so bad, he bored,” the Jameses standing by him echo.

  I yawn again, this time even wider.

  “Look at that mouth; look at them gleamin’ teeth,” Money Piles says.

  “Come on,” I’m thinkin’, “you know what you want to do now, Money, so just do it.”

  “Let me see them teeth, James Plus. Let me see teeth of a Money Piles champion.”

  James Plus lifts my cheeks, and Ike “I Got Money” Piles bends down and sticks his hand in my mouth and rubs his fingers along my teeth.

  “He got fangs like tiger,” he says, just before I bite down as hard as I can.

  Money Piles is screamin’ like James Brown except there’s no music or words comin’ after the screams. James Six is beatin’ me to stop, ’cause I got Money’s middle finger between my back teeth. I twist my head from side to side, jerkin’ on the finger, and I feel the bone crack. I bite it loose and spit it at him. It bounces off one of his red Monster Fendi fur-trimmed high-top sneakers and rolls into the dark.

  The two Julios are crawling around screamin’, “Find the finger.”

  “You be OK, Money,” James Plus says. “You be OK; it real easy to sew finger back on hand these days.”

  “Oh sure, Plus,” I’d like to tell him. “There must be an old Italian shoemaker right down the block who’d be happy to do it while you wait.”

  “We take Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles and the official Money Piles finger in for repair, and you be good as new tomorrow,” James Plus says.

  “Not really, Plus,” I’m thinkin’. “Tell the champ to enjoy the rest of his nine-finger boxing career.”

  The two Julios are kickin’ me as hard as they can all the way back to my cage.

  I got revenge, like Bruce Willis after an entertaining night on the town happily executing people in that feeble remake of Death Wish.

  I’m calmly waitin’ for whatever they got in store for me. I’ve been blockin’ out how much I miss Bud. How I’ll never see him and Daisy again, ’cause after three days here, I’m kinda sure the cavalry is not chargin’ in to save me. If Bud ever finds out what I did to Money Piles, he’s gonna be proud. I just wanna settle down and get some rest.

  But first, I gotta get the sickening taste of gardenias and peas outta my mouth from the Ike “I Got Money” Piles cologne on the finger. The crap tastes even worse than it smells.

  Around midnight James Plus kicks my cage.

  “Countdown to frozen Spike now goin’ on,” Plus announces. “Money hand ruined. Money boxing career done. Money girlfriends Ra’sheed’duh? and Cartier mad ’cause Money now missin’ special pleasure finger he use when he bein’ double extra bad with them. You in deep shit, Spike.”

  “Oh yeah, bet that finger’s been in some, too,” I think. I’m wonderin’ how long Cartier and Ra’sheed’duh? are gonna hang around once their orgasm count drops below the women they compete with on the Money’s Bitches’ Climax Count tote board at his Vegas gym.

  “You be happy to hear Money Piles’ agent already sold Money Piles’ finger for a wad a cash to guy in Red Bank who collect celebrity fingers. Guy proud owner of Count Basie thumb. He say celebrity fingers now fastest-growin’ collectible market since Smurfs.”

  “Well, Plus,” I’m thinking, “anytime Money Piles wants a little spending money, he can just stick a hand in my cage.”

  “So let me give you good news now, Spike. Tomorrow at high noon, you opening attraction, and you know who you be fighting, Spike?”

  Neil Patrick Harris, maybe? Or how about Cher? I want her oiled up in a bikini, knocking me unconscious by whackin’ me senseless with a double-wired, no-padding, push-up bra.

  “You be fighting new dog team arrived fresh from killing wild boars in the big cage fights in Costa Rica. You goin’ in against Monstro and Little Tiger. They kill every boar they fight, and they got shipped up here for novelty shows, maybe killin’ old racehorses Money’s friends own, but you be first dog they kill. Closed-circuit show start at noon so Thailand see you nighttime there, and that make your frozen-Spike price be higher.”

  I don’t think I could possibly hear more comforting news before drifting off for a relaxing sleep.

  “We be playin’ nonstop video of Monstro and Little Tiger to promote the pay-per-view, so you go to sleep and you wake up watchin’ them rippin’ four-hundred-pound male boars to shreds. They great team, just like you and TV Bud be, but he not here to help you. Sleep tight, Spike. No way you can win.”

  I watch Monstro and Little Tiger on the big screens. Monstro is the size of a miniature horse—a purebred English mastiff, the toughest breed us bull terriers had to fight back in the day. Little Tiger is a female Doberman, and they did some kind of bionic Tommy John surgery on her jaw that gives her tremendous biting power—she’s got 328 pounds of bite pressure, way stronger than mine.

  I watch the way they’re trained to attack a boar. She charges first and goes for a front leg. If she misses, she darts behind the boar to latch onto a rear leg. Monstro lumbers in weaving left and right. The bobbing and weaving makes the boar miss every time he lunges with his tusks. Once Little Tiger gets those jaws on a leg, the boar spins around tryin’ to get at her, and Monstro draws blood by bitin’ away all over him.

  It doesn’t take ’em long. It’s sad to see a mighty boar lyin’ helpless with back legs that don’t work while Monstro and Tiger finish him off.

  The boar’s dyin’ in the prime of life. There’s fear and pain in his big black boar eyes. Gives me the same bad feelin’ I had watchin’ a documentary about bullfights. The way they stuck in those swords to weaken the bull’s neck muscles. I was always hoping to see a bull shove one of his horns up the matador’s ass, but it never happened. Bulls got dragged outta the ring, like I’m scared they’ll be doin’ with me tomorrow.

  Just before fallin’ to sleep, I spot something interesting about Monstro and Little Tiger. They may be a team, but they sure don’t like each other. They gotta be released from separate cages. Once the boar’s dead, they start growlin’ at each other. Monstro bares his fangs, and she curls her mouth and snarls at him. As soon as that happens, the handlers run in and hurry ’em away in different directions. They’re probably like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard at the end.

  Around three thirty, I wake up. The only sounds are a few dogs barking in their sleep, probably dreamin’ of a master they never had. Bud says, “Everything always seems twice as bad in the middle of the night.” Never understood what he meant, ’cause I always sleep straight through. But now it’s easy to know—I’m low, real low, and embarrassed that I’m so frightened.

  How would you feel if you knew you were gonna die in nine hours? Which would you want—bein’ ripped to death by two dogs or slowly bein’ frozen to death in an eight-by-six freezer? Tomorrow it’s one or the other, or worse, maybe a combo where they stick me in the freezer half dead.

  Where’s Bud? Where’s Buffy? Where are all my fans? How could this happen to me?

  Death’s waitin’ for everybody, and I got a noon appointment. OK, I know I went a little noir there, but that’s how it seems.

  I know lyin’ here feelin’ lonely and sad and sorry for mys
elf’s not gonna do any good. I could end it now by eating the sixteen steroid pills I hid. It would be fast and pretty stimulating at the start, but that’s bein’ a coward. If I’m goin’ down, I’m goin’ down with valor like great-grandfather Brick.

  I’m staring out into total dark and something from the office in High Point comes to mind. On the wall was a picture of John Wayne and his quote:

  “Courage is being scared to death but going out and saddling up anyway.”

  Tomorrow, I’m just gonna saddle up.

  Maybe there is a dog heaven and I’ll be up there runnin’ around with Pledge and Brick and every dog that ever died. Probably pretty crowded up there by now, but feels good to think of that. My guess about death? It’s a simple fade to black. Whattaya think it is?

  If this is the kind of crap I gotta dwell on in the middle of the night, I’m goin’ back to sleep.

  Final Fight: Monstro & Little Tiger

  Sergio the announcer stands in the middle of the cage. He’s about six feet tall with black, wavy hair. He’s had plastic surgery to make himself look like Michael Buffer, the famous ring announcer, who’s had plastic surgery to keep himself looking like Michael Buffer.

  Directly across the fighting cage, I see Ike “I Got Money” Piles surrounded by Cartier, Ra’sheed’duh?, and the rest of his female pleasure squad. He’s wearin’ a New York Knicks basketball uniform, big wide white hat, and he’s got five different-size gold dollar signs dangling from his neck. I spot a tiny dot of blood on one of his Fendi sneakers from where his finger bounced off. There’s a giant white bandage on his right hand. With his left, he’s givin’ me thumbs down over and over like the emperor at the Roman Colosseum.

  “Not quite yet, Money,” I think. “Not quite yet. I got a plan.”

  Sergio has the mic in his hand, doin’ his usual booming Michael Buffer imitation: “Before we begin our savage encounter between these mighty beasts, let’s acknowledge the acclaimed accomplishments of the man who makes this all possible…because…today…Ike…“I…Got…Money”…Piles…entered the book of world records…not for his outstanding work in the boxing ring…but for his activities outside of it…. Today, Ike Piles went down in the record book…”