Mark, There's a Beagle in My Bedroom!

by Michael Ciardi

The Kennel Club would’ve never confused Bruce for a competitive show dog, but he was about to give the performance of his lifetime. The Agency’s gurus neglected to teach him any judo chops when he was a part of Project FIDO; so catapulting into the diner like a wannabe Hong Kong Phooey was not on the menu. Instead, he relied on good-old-fashioned ingenuity in order to spring Kip from this trap. Fortunately for the beagle, if measured in ounces, the amount of intelligence he needed to disburse here would’ve filled a thimble small enough for Tom Thumb.

  Wrigley ogled the tuneful beagle as if the dog dropped down from outer space. Bruce decided to run with that farfetched notion. The cook, distrusting his own eyes, stepped back from the door with his mouth hung open like a busted hinge. Not even during his most inebriated stupors had he ever encountered a whistling canine. And this was just the beginning of his amazement; Bruce had enough words at his disposal to make even a devout Mormon gulp moonshine for comfort.

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Wrigley declared as he swung open the diner’s door. “This dawg can whistle like a regular songbird.” Bruce trotted into the diner and eyed the room’s occupants like Burt Reynolds with a crossbow.

  “My condolences to your uncle,” Bruce said to Wrigley. “How’s Dr. Zaius holding up nowadays?” Until now, Bruce had exercised caution about whom he allowed to hear him speak, but he already sensed that these country creeps weren’t going to back off without encountering a sobering shock to their sense of perception.

  “Did that there hound jist outright talk?” BR questioned in disbelief. He then stood up from the booth to inspect the dog at closer range. “I ain’t never seen nuttin’ like that before.”

  “Why don’t you go fetch yourself some mustard and biscuits, Sling Blade,” Bruce said. “I’ve come to take my man out of here.” Bruce swung his nose in Kip’s direction; he was still trying to figure out what strategy the beagle planned to employ. Since it was not every day that a verbose dog waltzed into a diner with attitude, the yokels were visibly flabbergasted. This, of course, didn’t prevent Hubba or Bubba from taking aggressive stances in front of the four-legged intruder.

  “Weez ain’t handin’ over ya nuttin’,” Bubba said, gnashing a pair of fangs that would’ve given The Wolfman nightmares.

  “Jesus Bleep,” Bruce said to Kip. “I thought CBS cancelled Hee Haw with the network’s rural purge back in 71?”

  “As luck would have it, the show went into syndication for another twenty years,” Kip clarified, although he didn’t even know why he remembered this bit of trivia.

  “Figures,” Bruce huffed. “Well, listen up, you fistful of dullards,” he then said to the three bullies facing him. “I hate to burst your artificially flavored bubbles, but the carny convention is over. I’m only gonna ask you once nicely to step aside and sit your candy-bleeps down.”

  No one within earshot of Bruce’s voice withheld their amusement, including Kip. But since he was currently tied up in fishing string, he hoped the beagle had more than a few ornery words to throw around. The Class V microchip may have done wonders for linguistics, but that skill didn’t hold much water with men who spent the majority of their lives exchanging clicks and grunts as alternate forms of interaction.

  Big Red wasn’t one to hibernate from a little danger, especially when he used other people as his shield. He didn’t mince his words when instructing the meaty cook to grab the dog. Wrigley reached down and snatched the beagle by the scruff of his neck.

  “I think ya bit off more than ya can chew this time a ‘round lil doggie,” said BR.

  “Whatcha want me to do with ’em?” Wrigley asked BR.

  “I’s say weez skin ’em out back and stir a soup stock out of his organs and bones,” Hubba suggested.

  “He’ll make us some might tasty vittles,” Bubba echoed.

  “I got a newsflash for you bunch of blowhards,” Bruce said. “Nobody puts Kippy in a corner booth, and you never put doggie in a doggie bag.” He then growled at Wrigley with his Charlton Heston impersonation. “I’ll give you two seconds to get your stinkin’ hands off me, along with your damn, dirty apron. If not, things are gonna get murkier than your family’s gene pool.”

  Kip cringed, more so because Bruce referred to him as ‘Kippy’ rather than a reaction to their current crisis. At the moment, it appeared as if the beagle had exasperated the problem. But there wasn’t any indication of worry blooming on the beagle’s brow. He had these hillbillies right where he wanted; they just didn’t know it yet.

  “Let me ask you boys a serious question,” Bruce proceeded. “Did you ever hear about aliens coming down to Earth and experimenting on the dregs of society?”

  “What’s a dreg?” Wrigley asked, before pivoting toward Big Red with another question. “I reckon they done call Auntie Ruth by that name once or twice, ain’t that right, Pop?”

  “Nah, son. They calls her a dike,” BR corrected.

  “I’ll assume she’s not holding back any flow of water,” Bruce interjected.

  “I thinks he’s callin’ us stoopid,” Hubba said.

  “I’m not a neurosurgeon,” Bruce returned, “but let’s be honest. You fellows make Lennie Small look big in the brain department.”

  By now, Big Red’s scaly ears had absorbed enough insults. He tossed his hunting knife on the table and let its serrated blade speak for itself. As it so often happened, stainless steel weapons didn’t need to talk very loudly to get their point across. “This here knife is sharper than yer tongue, dawg. I skinned me ’nuff vermin along this here swamp to stitch Wrigs a kilt fer his chunky ass. I su’pose adding a beagle to the mix won’t much matter.” As Bubba retrieved the knife, Bruce launched into his spacy line of defense.

  “Before you degenerates get any dicey ideas, I just want you to know that I didn’t come here alone. In fact, others much more anal and unforgiving than me, are watching you from outside this grease pit at this very minute. And they’re not a gaggle of happy alien campers right now either.”

  “What they watchin’ us fer?” Wrigley questioned.

  “Weez gots no business with blathering beagles,” Bubba said.

  “FYI, Mr. Low-giene, let me tell you a little bit about our semiannual butt-reaming tournament. When embarking on the final frontier, we whip out our patented Roddenberry Scope. You’re probably not gonna appreciate the size of it. It’s got more girth than Moonraker-jaw’s cranium, and it’s designed to boldly go where you don’t want anything to go.”

  Hubba missed the insult, but no one remembered when he last caught onto anything other than a hook in his gums when he went fly fishing with his face.

  “Ya makin’ no dang sense, dawg,” Wrigley said.

  “Let me put it to you real slow and simple, Number 47, so that even a cockeyed cook like you can understand me,” Bruce replied. “The species of my planet have a probe quota. Yep, you heard me right: probe. It’s not just a discontinued car by Ford Motors anymore. Anyway, it’s sort of like an interstellar scavenger hunt with lots of superfluous penetration. We’re aiming to explore and violate as many bleepholes as we can find here on Earth, and we just hit the bleeping jackpot with you backwater jack weeds.”

  “He’s buffing,” Hubba exclaimed.

  “You mean ‘bluffing’,” Kip corrected the grimy-jawed idiot. “But he’s not lying to you, guys. This creature isn’t really a dog at all. He’s just making himself appear like a common house pet so he can blend in and hunt for folks that the rest of the world wouldn’t miss if they suddenly disappeared. Isn’t that right, dawg?”

  Bruce affirmed the fib by nodding his snout. “We’re out scanning the universe for black holes right now. Oh, for the record, we never phone home, and the pieces of chocolate and peanut butter you’ll be eating ain’t made by Reese’s. So if you keep bleeping us off, we’re gonna give your bung holes a close encounter that would make Travis Walton cringe.”

  “Is he akin to John-Boy?” Wrigley asked.

  “Not quite. He’s that
logger from the film Fire in the Sky.” Bruce bolstered his position enough to compel Wrigley to release his grip on his pelt.

  “Ya know, I think I’s seen that movie,” Wrigley remarked.

  “Then you know that lubricant isn’t an amenity aboard most UFO’s. Now unless you and this nonstick bubblegum chew crew want things to get dry and deep in a flash around here, I suggest you untie my partner and pretend you never even got a whiff of us.”

  “Weez got our orders from the gov-mint all’s ready,” said BR.

  “Orders change all the time,” Kip said. “You ought to know that, being in the restaurant business.”

  “Ya’ll must think weez dumber than a box of door knockers,” Bubba snarled.

  “It’s doorknob,” Kip said, rolling his eyes. “And why would we ever think that?” Kip conceded that idioms and idiots had less in common than most people understood.

  If any of these numskulls had IQs higher than a pregnant insect, it would’ve been a revelation for both Bruce and Kip. But Big Red had just enough seasoning to prevent him from being entirely bland in the brain.

  “Hold on a smidge,” said BR as he reclaimed his knife from Bubba. He then hacked a wad of tobacco juice into his cup and leered at the beagle with eyes that might’ve turned Medusa to stone. “Ya says yer from a’nother planet? Which one might that be?” Kip almost answered for Bruce, but figured the dog had worked out all the obvious details. Unfortunately, Bruce failed to anticipate this question, and so he resorted to the first thing that popped into his head.

  “I’m from the planet Krell,” he said reservedly. “It’s at least 16 light years from here.”

  “I’s never heard tell of any such place,” BR insisted.

  “Even if you knew how to use one, a GPS won’t show you how to get to Krell. That’s why we call it outer space. We’re really out there…like far, far away. Farther than even George Lucas’s prologue scroll.”

  “Like billions and billions of miles?” Bubba asked.

  “Who are you Carl Sagan all of a sudden?” Bruce said. “Look, I’d like to tell you more about it, but I’m forbidden to do so. Unless you want me to contact my superiors.”

  Big Red might’ve not been thoroughly convinced with Bruce’s story, but he had heard enough to cinch up his britches and cut the fishing line away from Kip’s wrists. “I’s guess ya gives us no choice,” he muttered. “Weez got to set ya loose.”

  “You’re a very discerning man. Your sphincter muscle will thank you for it,” Bruce said.

  “I’s jist gots me one curiosity is all,” BR stated. “Why do all ya alien folks always wanna go diggin’ ’round in yer neighbors’ backyards fer?”

  Bruce and Kip exchanged glances, but neither of them had managed to concoct an answer to Big Red’s inquiry that sounded reasonable. But Bruce gave it his best shot.

  “It’s rather simple,” Bruce explained. “It’s lonely out in outer space. So when we get bored, we bore. I hate to resort to a trite sport metaphor, but here’s something to chew on: it’s not always better to be on the receiving end of a touchdown. And there are no tight ends left on the other team when our game’s final whistle blows.”

  “Did ya ever probe anyone famous on yer flyin’ saucers?” Wrigley asked.

  “We came pretty close,” Bruce replied without missing a beat. “Back in 69, we almost abducted Jimmy Carter, but we figured he’d soon be screwing more Earthlings in the bleep than we could outdo in a million Krellian tournaments.”

  By now Wrigley, Hubba, and Bubba had lurched away from the diner’s door, which provided Kip and Bruce the clearance they needed to leave. Before exiting, Bruce noticed the tattoo on Wrigley’s forearm.

  “That’s a fantastic Tattoo you’ve got there,” Bruce remarked. “I have a Nick Nack just like it on my shelf back home. Right next to my paddy whack.”

  “And your golden gun, right?” Kip added wryly.

  “Roger to that,” Bruce said. He then winked at Kip as they strolled out of the diner together, but not before Kip grabbed the bag of food from the table. Neither of them needed to say anything more. Perhaps congratulations were in order for Bruce’s stellar performance, but they didn’t want to get too cocksure while standing in the diner’s proximity. Still, after retrieving the dossier from the car, Kip felt compelled to say something that reflected his gratitude.

  “You were so awesome back in there. You kept so calm,” Kip said. “Where did you come up with that name for the planet Krell anyway?”

  “I was gonna say Altair IV, but I didn’t want to be too obvious.”

  “Come on, they wouldn’t have picked up on such an obscure reference.”

  “I’m not too certain. That one guy looked like the way-offspring of Leslie Nielsen.”

  “The guy from Airplane?”

  “Don’t look so shocked. Nielsen’s ratings went way up after that film.”

  “Well, I’m glad you kept a straight face through it all.”

  “No big deal. Besides, those boys wouldn’t know a straight face from a crooked one if it came up and sat on their heads and wiggled.”

  “Just one thing, and I don’t want you think I’m nitpicking,” Kip mentioned. “Why did you have to call me ‘Kippy’ back in there? I despise that name. A guy I work with calls me that all the time.”

  “Hey, don’t be an ingrate. You think what I do is easy? I needed that moniker to make the pun work. You’re just lucky those roadhouse boys aren’t grinding on you right now like Johnny Castle on a teenage girl in the Catskills.”

  “I really don’t think they were into that sort of stuff.”

  “Don't fool yourself,” Bruce said. “You were ten minutes away from taking a hike up Brokeback Mountain. That one with the bleeped-up teeth was looking at you with hungry eyes. I bet he figured he was gonna have the time of his life with you.”

  “You’re being dirty. Be nice.”

  “Suit yourself. If you want to dance around the issue, it’s fine by me.”

  Kip’s attention already reverted to the mission as indicated on the map. Until reaching the secret bunker, they were expected to hump it, and not in the way most dogs would’ve interpreted it. The map’s directed them to find a crossroad a few miles from the diner’s location. An old street sign with an “X” painted on it supposedly indicated the footpath’s entry point.

  “According to what Mark wrote down on the map,” Kip mused, “After we locate the “X” sign on the main road, we’ll be looking for a boulder between two willow trees somewhere down that trail. I guess in this case the letter “X” really does mark the spot.”

  “Why couldn’t it be a big “W”?” Bruce asked in a voice that sounded remarkably similar to Jimmy Durante. Kip decided to overlook the comment. Serious business still awaited them, and Kip needed to concentrate on avoiding any more pitfalls at pit stops. Of course, Big Red’s Diner made better cheeseburgers and fries than they did hosts. Bruce devoured the entire meal in four rapacious bites, while Kip pecked away at his burger like a bulimic bird at a feeder.

  “You gonna eat that thing or go home and meet its parents?” Bruce asked.

  “I don’t like to gulp my food like a dog,” Kip said. “No offense.”

  “Well, you should know that my instincts haven’t changed. If you drop one French fry, I’m going for your femoral artery.”

  Kip just smirked and continued to eat, while Bruce kept a lookout on the road. “You know,” Kip proclaimed, almost in a fit of giddiness. “I still can’t believe any of this is happening. My life is usually so boring. I guess I’ve really lived a sheltered existence.”

  “Well, it’s time to crawl out of your plastic bubble, Barbarino. It’s a mad, mad world nowadays, and you’ve just scooted up a rung on the ladder that matters. Feel free to give yourself a pat on the back, because I can’t reach that high.”

  “You know, there are still some people around who think I’m a pretty cool guy.”

  “Kip, you’re about as cool as a Tony Orl
ando concert in Death Valley.”

  “I’m just hoping to do something good for other people, at least once in my life.”

  “That’s more than what most people wish for,” Bruce noted. “I’ve been known to be wrong about humans before, but I think Mark did A-OK by linking you up with me.”

  Kip didn’t expect any compliments from Bruce, but he took this one in stride. He knew such praise wouldn’t come often. The two companions then continued down the road with a renewed confidence in one another.

  Chapter 22