so quickly had caught them both off guard. Fog went pretty quickly; alarmingly his eyes stayed open, another side effect of the injection – all the muscles in his body had relaxed, including the muscles in his big old eyes so they wouldn’t close. He stared deathly at Crystal Munday, his loving mistress, who was trying vainly to close them. It must have been some consolation that the last thing he saw was Crystal. As all the muscles in his body had relaxed his bladder also gave way, the poor old dog wet himself, the final, unprepared for insult and flooded the porch with everything that was left in him.
“He’s still alive!” Crystal said to the vet, panicked. “His eyes are still open! Fog?” she said shouting the poor old dog’s name.
“He’s definitely dead, it’s just a reaction,” the vet said blandly, packing away his “stuff”.
“A reaction to what?” Radar-Sophisticate asked but the vet just went right on packing. Radar tapped the vet sharply on the shoulder where he was kneeling on the ground and the vet looked up, surprised. “A reaction to what?” Radar-Sophisticate repeated, leaning close to the man and gesturing at Crystal.
Surprised to find himself having to give any explanation the vet suddenly went into some brief detail but Radar-Sophisticate could tell the man really hadn’t wanted to. He left Crystal and the big, dead dog in a pool of its own urine, Crystal crying over the dog and stroking his big head. When the vet returned he’d the nerve to look irritated Crystal was still grieving. Unfolding a canvas tarpaulin with the same mundane thoughtlessness as if he weren’t standing in a pool of dead dog urine, “If you grab his hind legs we can get him onto the tarpaulin,” he said to Radar-Sophisticate who looked at Crystal sitting forlornly in the pool of dog urine.
“I want him buried here,” she said.
“Oh, we can’t do that,” the vet said; he had the dog by his head and was trying to lift the dead weight up. “City ordinance laws, you know, city ordinance prevent that – the dog has to be cremated. Say, pal, you grab his legs? He’s quite the brute!”
The two struggled with the big dog, the stupid vet couldn’t believe how much the dead dog weighed and was struggling his side. “Jesus!” the vet said, struggling to get Fog over onto the tarpaulin.
On Radar-Sophisticate’s end the dead weight was familiarly heavy but not completely unmanageable.
“What about your son?” Radar-Sophisticate wondered as they drew up alongside the Jeep.
“Oh, we’ll just cover him with the other half of the tarpaulin,” the vet said.
“Your son?” Radar-Sophisticate asked but the man was struggling with his side, trying to get a corner of the tarpaulin to pull over the dog and didn’t hear.
“What’s that?” the boy asked, pointing at the tarpaulin.
“Wet wood,” the vet said, struggling away, sweat and other bullshit dripping off his forehead.
“Your forehead’s sweating, Daddy.”
Fog’s head appeared, suddenly lolling out of the canvas tarpaulin; without stopping the vet kneed the dog’s head back inside the tarpaulin like he was deflecting a football. There followed a brief spectacle as the vet and Radar-Sophisticate both tried to cover the dead dog; in the end Crystal had to pull it over him.
“Why are you crying?” the boy asked her as the vet was trying to hoik the tarpaulin up over the tailgate of the Jeep. It was too high for him to lift Fog onto. “For Christ’s sake!” the vet was saying, with each effort battering the poor dead dog against the tailgate. On the third attempt he managed to get it so that the dog’s head rested on the tailgate - then it lolled once more from out under the canvas.
“What’s that smell?” the boy was wondering, turning about in his seat and trying to see what was going on behind him.
The sight of the dead dog’s head was too much and Crystal suddenly said, “I don’t want him cremated, I want him buried here, with me, where he grew up.”
“City Ordinance won’t allow that, besides, he’s all wrapped up now,” the vet repeated distractedly trying to knee the dead dog in the head again and up over the tailgate. Crystal put her hand on the dog’s head, preventing the vet from kicking him.
“I asked you not to do that,” she said coldly.
“Who’s all wrapped up?” the little boy wondered, looking around for someone else.
“Please don’t do that,” Crystal told the vet. She was standing taller than him; she’d stopped crying, too.
“Holy shit, lady, I told you, you’re not allowed to bury a dog on your property!” he said and made as if to knee the dog in the head again but Crystal really stopped him this time and put her hand on his chest.
“What dog, daddy?” his boy was asking.
Radar-Sophisticate was tired of the vet and his insensitivity, even to his son – apart from kicking old Fog’s head about his son should never have been there being exposed to such peculiar parental behaviour and obtuse, morose bereavement. “You want Fog here?” he asked Crystal, who nodded; angry, Radar-Sophisticate scooped Fog up in his arms off the tailgate in one go and in doing so the tarpaulin fell, uncovering the dead dog but it couldn’t be helped. The little boy screamed at the sight as Radar-Sophisticate walked by back into the property, the massive dog’s head lolling, the dead eyes staring wistfully at the kid; even to the little boy it was obvious this was a dead dog his father was fucking around with and not a cord of wood.
“I’m in shock! I’m in shock…!” the kid began yelling crazily.
“Close your eyes!” Radar-Sophisticate shouted at the kid.
“Daddy!” the boy cried, eyes shut tight.
Crystal looked angrily at the vet. “I’m burying my dog here, at home. And it seems quite contrary to any professional standard, almost unethical, that your son’s here to witness this disturbing circus!” she said, indicating the screaming boy. “I don’t think you care, I don’t think you give a shit,” Crystal told the man about his veterinarian skills.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” the boy was still screaming hysterically, eyes still shut; clearly, just like his father, he wasn’t veterinary material. He climbed into the Jeep, started it up, yelled at the kid to shut it and turned the car about dangerously in the drive. Revving the engine riskily as he pulled up alongside Crystal.
“Please refrain from using that type of language in front of my son…!” the vet yelled ridiculously.
“That type of language?” Crystal said incensed. “Are you insane! You drive about with your son in an open car and he’s not even buckled up? You expose him to your monstrous apathy and mistreat my dead dog not only in front of him but in front of me too? And you want to talk about my language? What kind of asshole vet are you!”
“Bury your dog at home – see if I care!" the vet yelled and sped off out the drive - he’d had to swerve around an oncoming car who hooted! loudly at him; clearly he didn’t care because his son was still unbuckled, but he'd left all his “stuff” behind, too, the sodium pentobarbital, some injections and other veterinary things he’d never come back for.
Back in the yard Crystal told Radar-Sophisticate where she wanted Fog buried.
“Here,” she said, indicating an area where the big old dog would sit under the fruit trees to keep out of the sun during summer and spring, he’d stare aloofly at the fruit that fell from the trees and hit the ground with a thunk! Such arrogance for even gravity. “Dig it deep,” she told Radar-Sophisticate. So he did, he was busy most of the day digging that damn hole, it must have been all of eight foot deep when he’d finished but the City Ordinance people would no doubt never dig any deeper than a few feet they were so officiously lazy he’d thought.
Crystal had had to get a ladder to get him in and out it was so deep. Then they laid the poor old dead (and recently maltreated) dog down – Crystal piled in his toys, some bones, his blanket around him. Then Radar-Sophisticate filled the hole back up; they were both still soaked in the dead dog’s urine and that night it stormed and rained heavily and Crystal held Radar tightly, her legs interlocking his thig
hs and pinning his legs, her arms - her grip surprising him - so tight around his neck that it had scared him. Outside in the dark night the rain poured and poured washing away the remnants of the dog embarrassingly relieving himself all over the porch.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Apart from referring to himself in the 3rd person, Chassis Albuquerque suffered from a speech defect
as a child – when he spoke, he continuously lied and to counter this habit was given a typewriter
by his parents and began to write.
“My life’s full of them, outrageous exaggerations, I write because no one believes what I say."
Chassis Albuquerque currently lives in London with his wife and baby daughter. He is on a diet
(Low Carb) and learning Polish - this is unrelated to anything literary, he just thought to mention
it.
www.chassisalbuquerque.com
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