Dog of Night

He was a rotten-lab.
200+ pounds of sweetness.
That is wee child #1 at 5, and Hawkeye the dog in his dotage. I think he was 11 or even 12 years old in this picture.
He was Caprice's dog.
Although he was a bread thieving, cat killing, can popping, cow chasing, sheep shit eating dog. I really loved him.
We had our disagreements to be sure, two strong wills that are in the same weight class, four legs or two legs, invariably will.
Most of our disagreements involved the bed.
We both wanted to sleep next to Caprice.
At first I would just say his Name and he would roll off the bed, after a while though he just started to scoot over. He would brace his back against the wall, wait for me to doze, and then kick me off the bed with all four feet.
Then we started to wrestle for the privilege.
I did not always win.
See, his mouth was very large and full of very sharp curved teeth. He would clamp his mouth over my wrist, his fangs actually touching on the one side, teeth just dimpling the skin. Then he would smile at me with his big slobbery lips and I would acquiesce.
In his prime he didn't bark much.
He would creep about silently through the house and yard.
Doing whatever it was that he did, pee, guard against trolls, chase off the evil kitties of the neighborhood?
I never knew.
Until one night.
Caprice and I were at her Mom's house watching a movie. He was laying content with us, gnawing on the femur of some hapless bovine.
In no hurry at all, he got up, stretched and ambled off. He had a "dog" door in the back and he headed in that direction.
I say "dog" door, it took up the bottom half of the door. I could fit through it with ease. It was more of an ommpa loompa door.
He was gone less than a minute or three, the movie played, the night was full of night sounds, all was well with the world.
Then the screaming started.
No warning, no bark, no growl, no clickety clack of 200+ pounds of rottweiler-lab mix sprinting across concrete.
Just sudden screams.
Really really loud screams.
So I ran outside.
And what to my wondering eyes did appear? A dog (Caprice's Dog) playing tug of war with a man.
The man did not seem to be enjoying it. He was the one screaming.
See, Hawkeye had his calf clamped in his mouth and was doing his best to pull the man back into the yard. The man was trying to finish climbing over the fence. He had everything but the leg almost over.
He was screaming.
Hawkeye was smiling. All four feet planted, slowly backing with a little shake of his head now and then.
I laughed.
Probably not the best thing in the situation.
But oh my Honking Hell.
You just don't see many things funnier than that.
The Caprice and The MIL were screaming from behind me for the Hawkeye to let him go.
He (Caprice's damn dog) Just smiled and winked at us, still slowly backing away.
There was a ripping squishy sound and the man continued his descent, not gracefully, to the other side of the fence.
Then he ran away. Limping.
Hawkeye (Caprice's Freaking Bear) ambled over and dropped the man's pant leg at my feet. It contained a rather large chunk of the fleeing mans calf.
I really loved that dog.

Phobia

You probably cant tell.
In this picture I am terrified.
 That kind of fear that makes you want to hide under the warm covers and wait until your pounding heart slows. The fear that cripples your limbs and gives you tunnel vision.
For real.
I always knew that were things that I am afraid of.
Alligators especially. Did you know that they eat people?
I am often mistaken for a people, so yes, alligators frighten me.
Its water.
I am astonishingly Aquaphobic. 
Not to be confused with Hydrophobia, which is also the fear of Rabies. 
I have plenty of reasons for this. 
All of them and none of them really explain the rigid limbs and the hyperventilation when I even smell a swimming pool.
Its quite ridiculous.
I remember my first open water triathlon. I was giving myself the "talk" all the way up to the edge of the lake. All sorts of positive and uplifting things. 
I could only see a tiny hole directly in front of me, I felt like I was breathing through a coffee stir stick, my arms and chest were cramping and my ears were ringing so loud that I thought (hoped) I was being abducted by aliens.
That was before I even got my toes wet.
The start of the swim in any race is madness. Chaos and frantic activity. Bobbing brightly colored noggins and the slick seal skinned wet-suits brushing past your grasping hands and flailing feet. 
Its shallow at first.
I could see the bottom 5-7 feet below me. 
Stroke-stroke-stroke-breathe. Panicked gasping breath.
I was controlling it. Then I swam over the ledge. 5 feet to 30 feet in a split second.
I felt my heart shudder. Frail organ.
I felt my mind grind to a halt, breath stopped in my lungs. I forgot how to swim. Instantly I forgot.
I sank. 
Like a rock.
Then I was on the surface, on my back. Breathing.
That swim took forever. Cost me hours of my life.
I was in the water a really asinine amount of time.
Hyperventilating will slow you down on the swim.
Ah the lessons we learn.
But do we?
Learn?
I don't.
I went spearfishing this year.
Its just like hunting. 
With a spear.
Except to get to the fishies you have to hold your breath and dive down under the freaking water. 
As deep as you can go.
As always for me. That first dive.
My heart seizes up, an engine without oil.
The biggest part of my brain fights me constantly in the water. Most of the rest of my mind is busy imagining drowning. Monsters of the deep. 
Leviathans.
I do it anyway.
The part of me that's me.
Does it anyway.
Don't be afraid.

.: Moonchild

.: Moonchild

The tale of Fast Eddie

He never smiled.
Well, he would show his teeth, but it was slightly awkward when he did. Like a Mockingbird whistling the refrain to "purple rain" or a parrot saying the first lines of "Mein Kampf", it was just off. We called him Fast Eddie because he wasn't.
Fast.
Not even a little teeny tiny bit.
A long time ago when I was working for my Dad painting some condos, we had to invent a new speed. We had this older guy working for us that moved at a speed somewhere between super slow motion and dead. We called it "KENtSPEED" and forever in my mind that is what it will be.
Fast Eddie moved just slightly faster then KENtSPEED, but a little slower then a glacier.
Always.
He even talked slow.
In what some might call "irony" but is actually just a happy coincidence, he drove his car really fast. He had a 1978 Trans Am with the Shaker hood, Edlebrock Carbs, Slam shifter and the Big 400 with 350 heads. It was in mint perfect condition.
It was Fast Eddies entire life and existence.
The only thing he ever talked about with any sort of animation, his eyes would glaze and he would stop stuttering. He Might even move his eyebrows up and down a little, to really emphasize a finer point of the "goddsdamned best vehicle that mankind has ever, or will ever see"
Fast Eddie and I got along pretty well, I only saw him one night a week on my mandatory weekly night-shift, he was on a permanent night shift. We tried working him during the day once, but he frightened the customers. So back to night shift he went.
Humans are generally complete asssholes. The guys on the night shift were no exception to this rule. They started making fast Eddie the joke.
I don't know exactly what they would do, probably just the normal stupid things that the cretinous drudges do to someone that is slightly off. Someone that never smiles. Someone whose only interest in life is an old Pontiac.
Whatever it was, it was mean. It changed Fast Eddie, slowly. It was not an instant thing, it happened over months. He started to get this crazed, haunted expression. He reminded me of a cartoon character that knows the ground could disappear at any moment. That any given second someone was going to yank the rug out from under him exposing the endless black pit.
He still did his job, the same as he had always done it. But when the Jackals damage something the buzzards start to circle.
The bosses took notice.
Not, of course, that the animals were biting at Fast Eddie, but that Fast Eddie was suddenly not their idea of an ideal employee.
Because to the Jackals and Buzzards, it not enough for you to do your job, never. You have to "fit in" as well. Run with the herd.
This was years before Columbine, years before the "bullying" bull shit that pervades the media. Even then though, in the halcyon years, I had this niggling fear that one day Fast Eddie was going to come into work with an AK-47 and kill everyone he could find.
It was the not-smiling.
He saw people, saw what they did, how they talked and interacted, how they made nice with one another. So he tried, even though it made no sense to him at all, he tried. He really did try, anyone with half an Iota of empathy, anyone with even an inkling of intelligence or imagination, would have seen it. He really did try.
Some people just don't fit in.
So one night I got to work to find Fast Eddies Trans Am wrapped around the last light pole in the parking lot. The drivers door was open and there was no sign of Fast Eddie.
I went in and no one knew, or would admit, to knowing what had happened. According to all of them Fast Eddie had just suddenly stood up, without a word, and just walked out.
I never did find out what the sons of bitches had done, But later on I had my own run in with their Boss. I still have dreams. happy dreams, about shooting him in the face with a 45lc.
As to fast Eddie?
I watched the surveillance video probably 20 times. He walks out of the building and gets into his car. After a minute the car rapidly accelerates and he drives it perfectly straight into the pole. No brakes, no swerve.
He had clearly made a choice and followed it through. After a few seconds he got out of the car and walked away.
He never claimed the car, or his final paycheck. I like to think that he found a job working on his Pontiacs.
I doubt I will ever know.
I started out to write this memory as a little slice of humorous life.
But that just would not have been fair.

Stranger things

Some of the conversations I have with people border on the absurd.
Scratch that, let me re-phrase, very few of the conversations I have with people could be considered normal.
Possibly because I do not fit into the "normal" spectrum, but I think that the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Either that or Karma-man hates my guts for stealing his weed in a previous life.
I had a female walk up to me at work the other day and throw a hand drawn floor map at me. Then she screamed (loudly) "I want my 48 feet back!"
I had no idea who she was or what the hell she was talking about. Fearing that she was having an episode of some sort I plastered the "concern" expression on my face and remained silent.
She plastered the "furious hate" expression on her face and stood staring at me with her arms folded.
I felt that she was ready to stand there all the live long day so I relented and said "Huh?"
She took this for the green light and was verbally off like a shot. After about a three minute rant, three minutes by my watch, which I kept glancing at, I got the gist.
She had given me a hand-drawn request for some small interior project she wanted done the week before, measured out with her very accurate paces, and I had the absolute gall! The nerve! The GOD-COMPLEX! To give her back a blueprint, computer generated from the stupid building plans that reduced her spacious 48 feet to a paltry 32.
I was confounded. Rendered speechless.
She took this as even more encouragement and started wailing about the unfairness of life, the stupid domination of men and their even dumber ability to pee wherever they feel and my idiotic reliance on such inane things as "BLUEPRINTS" "TAPE-MEASURES" "LEVELS AND LASERS" and other such malignant tools of Herr Satan.

I had recovered sufficiently by this point to try and reason with her by explaining that on the 4th floor, there really was only 32 feet between the walls in her area and That I would be pleased to walk over with her and show her. Using the tape measure that, since time immemorial, has given us dumb ass Americans the measure of feet, inches and so forth.
She actually threw her laptop bag on the ground and screamed at me that only if I gave her the 48 feet back which I had taken from her was she ever going to let this drop.
She turned on her heels and marched directly into the CEOs office, slamming the door behind her.
Not before I was able to hear the screamed, "I just want my 48 feet back....."
Stunned Silence.
I heard the click of a keyboard, the hum of a printer.
Then Laughter.
Not a roar of laughter, not a group, not even the dual chorus of two folks laughing at a good joke. 220 people within hearing distance and one guy was laughing.
One.
I turned to see who it was.
A Director, of another Division.
To my somewhat stunned expression, he laughed even harder.
Patted me on the back and said "your job really sucks"
yes.
Yes it really does.

Clout

I was asked the other day what my "clout" score was.
This surprised me. I had thought that the only ones that kept track of the clouting, were Santa with his naughty list at the north pole and St Pete and his list of bad shit people do.
I have not really kept track of the clouting in recent years. No notches in my belt or self mutilation, tattoos or stickers.
So I gave it a quick think.
Most recently I clouted a van. With my boot first and then my special fiberglass and steel reinforced clouting glove.
It was late, I was tired, and the damn juggalos inside the van threw a beer can (1/2 full, I am an optimist) at me. I guess they didn't know that with the kickstand down the motorcycle stands all by itself.
wonders shall never cease.
The wonder to me, even as I was busy trying to clout in the passenger door of the van, is that 6 very large humans of indiscriminate gender and/or sobriety would run from one guy. Not actually "run" per se, but reverse in their jugavan away from me whilst screaming like frenzied frolicking female ferrets.
Not actually "large" either. More like morbidly obese.
Toms clout score: 6 (5 for the door and one for the widow)
Juggalos clout score: 1/2. Had the beer can actually hit me I would have given them 1, had it hit my bike I would be writing this from jail.
I guess I could count clouting the inmates, I could probably even count the clouting of Dan with the golf cart.
How far back do they want this scoring to go?
Do you get a negative clout if you get clouted back?
If your Brother clouts you or you clout him, is that different from clouting strangers?
What about clouting with objects?
If I clout someone with, say, a baseball bat. Is that more or less points if I clout them with the handle I broke off a refrigerator?
Its confusing.
I answered by saying I wasn't sure, but probably somewhere in the low thousands.
To my answer I received an incredulous look.
and a mystifying reply. "That's impossible, Justin Beiber has the only perfect clout score , and its 100"
Bullshit says I. If that little androgynous nymph has ever clouted anything in his life I would eat garden snails. In fact, the only way he has a clout score at all is if you somehow get points for getting the shit kicked out of you in first grade for being a whiny little floppy haired troll.
Blank stare.
Then I saw his piggy little geek eyes light up.
"Its K-L-O-U-T. Its your on-line influence."
I said, no, its C-L-O-U-T, and it means "to hit, or strike."
He sniffed at me. Then started to go into a long explanation of this new "scoring " system that involved your followers, who you follow, what you like, blah blah blah blah. He droned on and on. He started to get supercilious and condescending at the end of his tirade.
So I smiled, and to demonstrate the reality of my argument.
I clouted him.
Tom: 1
Stupid Geek: -230
(he gets -1 for the clout, -1 for being silly and -228 for the squeaky little sound he made when he got clouted.)
Luckily for him, I was not wearing my special clouting gloves.

Rope

How can you not like a rope swing?
Tarzan inspires all of us. Admit it.
Not just the scantily clad Jane, but the swinging on vines.
Like many of us in this country, my first experience with a rope swing came at scout camp.
Scout camp. What an anachronistic group. You do realize that the Boy Scouts were started because a certain Sir Baden Powell thought that the youth of his day were too soft to serve their country in war?
Anywhen, that is neither here nor there.
The rope swing at our camp, went across a "river". Really it was more of a hyped up stream. In the late summer the snow-melt that filled the stream was long gone, leaving us a foot deep trickle to adventurously swing across.
As everyone knows, the rope swing is not so much about skill as it is about hand strength. Panic and fear of water greatly help in this endeavor, as does the natural hand strength found in teenage boys.
Swinging across was not really the problem, letting go was. So we had three of the older boys go first to catch the rest of us. One mighty swing and we would travel the vast 9 feet to the opposite bank.
Leaders went first, then the boys, with one leader left to catch the rope and hand it off the the next boy.
We had leaders, women leaders. Even at that age I found it odd that a group called the "boy" anything would have women leaders?
Ah, well.
All the leaders but one were across, and me. I loved the rope swing. So I stayed till last, pushing the other mewling brats in front of me so that I could have a go with a little run and jump plan I had been formulating.
A leader, lets call her... "Susan" (Her real name) was waiting with me. She was one of the Mom leaders, and she took the  whole "scout" thing real serious. She was all about "regulation" she absolutely refused to wear or do anything that was not in the handbook or the catalog. Even her uniform was immaculate. It was regulation every thing, her husband seemed rich to all of us. His kids always had the coolest stuff and she was always dressed exactly like she should be. She bought the entire uniform thing out of the BSA catalog. She even had the recommended knee high socks that begin where her regulation skirt ended. Pleated and pressed and tucked in.

I had a uniform shirt and a Rambo knife. That was good enough for me.

She terrified me for some reason. It could have been her voice, or maybe it was how close together her eyes were? My younger brother told me it was her fingernails. They were long and painted in breathtakingly garish colors. They were also as sharp as  razors. Whatever it was, she scared the hell right out of me. Her sons were punks. The youngest had bitten a chunk out of my little brothers leg years before and the oldest had gotten his ass stomped by a neighbor for hitting his fiat with a bottle rocket. Punks.
She was their mom, to the bone.

(JimmyJohns was Blue)

It was down to me and her, the Rope the river and a small horde of boys waiting on the other side.
Later this same day, she pulled me aside and held my head up so that our eyes met, she dug her fingernails into my jaw and leaned in real close, she whispered in my ear "If you ever, ever tell anyone! I will come into your bedroom at night and KILL you!"
It was not until a few years ago that I realized she sounded exactly like Christopher Walken.
So I reached for the rope, thinking she would be the last one across. Actually, I was hoping that she would walk the five feet to the bridge and just let me swing across alone. But the other Leader, lets call her "Shirley" (her real name) had swung across with a hoot and a lithe turn of the ankles. Shirley kicked ass. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, her regulations started and ended with "do exactly what I say", she wore moccasins and drove a 4WD Jeep Eagle.
I guess she had thrown down the gauntlet.
Susan grabbed the rope from my hands and went for it.
Kids today. They will never know the joy of living in a non-recorded life. Had this been now, all the little hipster scouts would have had their phones and DSLRs and GOPROs pointed directly at the action. You tube would have loved this one.
It would have gone viral.
She went in a downwards trajectory, and when the rope should have started to swoop her across to the other side, her fingers, or perhaps the nails, failed her.
She plummeted the 6 or 7 feet straight down with a girlish squeal.
The splash shot up as high as the banks on both sides. She hit knees first and flopped forward on her stomach.
I was the only one left on her south side.
The regulation scout skirt had flipped up on her back.
It took me a second or two to realize what I was staring at. The sound my mouth made when it snapped shut caused Susan, still on her hands and knees, to glance back at me. Realization, em-bareass-ment and sparkly hatred swept across her algae smeared face.
The catalog apparently, did not have a regulation underthing for women.