The Black Marble

by Joseph Wambaugh

  The little schnauzer measured inches at the withers and was disqualified. The handler’s groom at the next station vowed to cut the anesthesiologist’s heart out with a stripping knife. And without any anesthetic, the cocksucker.

  Then Philo Skinner, with an odd stare that frightened Pattie Mae, turned to her, and said: “Do you know how far people will go to win a show? In Madison Square Garden they cut the eyebrows and whiskers off a Scottie.”

  “They did! Oh, that’s gross!” Pattie Mae grimaced.

  “And they poisoned a collie. Poisoned him.”

  “Oh, my God!” Pattie Mae cried. She couldn’t even bear to hear about people who didn’t brush their animals. She sat for hours with her own Manchester terrier searching for fleas and ticks like a mother chimpanzee.

  “I’d never hurt a dog,” Philo Skinner announced. “Not for anything. Not ever. I’d rather kill a man than hurt a dog. Can you understand that?”

  He was sweating again and starting to smell. The girl just looked at the staring, droopy, beagle eyes of her boss, and said, “Yes, Mr. Skinner.”

  The time was drawing close. Madeline Whitfield’s bitch was certain to take a terrier group first. But she’d never get a chance to win best in show because Philo Skinner had other plans.

  Madeline Whitfield was ecstatic when Vickie won winners bitch. She was jumping around on the grandstand seats, banging friends and strangers on the arms and shoulders. Being congratulated, shaking hands, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “Get the photographer!” Madeline cried. “Somebody get the photographer!”

  Madeline Dills Whitfield was absolutely positive that this was her day. Victoria Regina of Pasadena was now a champion. She wasn’t going to stop here, she was going to win best in show. Let them read that in the Los Angeles Times tomorrow with their all-bran cereal. Let them see who won Best in Winter Show, 1977! Madeline Whitfield couldn’t quell the tears of joy. The more she was congratulated the more they flowed. Okay, Beverly Hills Kennel Club, are you ready to increase your membership to twenty-four? Not yet? Well, wait a few weeks. Wait until Victoria Regina of Pasadena wins Westminster! Wait until Madison Square Garden! Screw you, Junior League! She was never so happy in her entire life. All forty-three years had led her to this: her destiny. The pain, the sacrifice, had all been worth it. She was nearly a celebrity!

  In thirty minutes she would be one of the most miserable, terrified women in Los Angeles. She would be infinitely more miserable than Fran Tarkenton, who was, at this very moment, caught by the television cameras, sitting on his helmet on the sidelines, wondering what the hell went wrong.

  An exhibitor walked by the grooming station of Philo Skinner and said to a companion: “Our bitch is in season. She’s not showing well.”

  Philo Skinner, who had never seen the woman in his life, said, “Yeah, you look a little nervous yourself. Checked your drawers lately?”

  He was like that. Scared. Bold. Wild. Up again. Is this the way criminals were supposed to feel? It was as though all the conventions, all the regulations of the American Kennel Club had lost their meaning. These were the rules he lived by and they didn’t mean a thing. He felt like taking off his Brooks Brothers coat and paisley necktie and yelling, “Janitor! Janitor! Come to Philo Skinner!” He wanted to throw it all into the steaming vats of dog shit. This is what it must be like to blow a safe, to steal a diamond, to rob a stagecoach! He didn’t know it, but he was being propelled by the same megalomaniacal force as an eleven-year-old bike bandit named Earl Scheib Lopez. He was a goddamn swashbuckler!

  He went to the exercise pens and picked up Tutu, who licked his hands and face as he carried her to her crate. He put her inside and for the first time in his life he did something which would cause great discomfort to an animal. An animal he loved. An animal which was going to let him live the rest of his days like the gentleman he always aspired to be.

  “Pattie Mae, go over to the concession stand and get me some coffee. Black.”

  “Yes, Mr. Skinner,” she said, and was off.

  He took the syringe from the inside of the herringbone jacket. To be extra safe he removed it from the leather case and squeezed out a few drops.

  Philo was still feeling some effects of the bourbon and marijuana. He hugged the little schnauzer to his face and kissed her whiskers. Tutu was delirious with joy because Philo was letting her lick his face. She growled, and licked and nibbled and told Philo how much she loved him.

  “I wish I could take you with me, honey,” Philo whispered.

  Philo Skinner looked around. Most of the crowd was hovering around the ring. A few groomers were stationed at the grooming tables to watch over the animals not in the exercise pens. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to Philo Skinner.

  “You and me, we could run on the beach in Mexico,” Philo whispered. “If there was any way, you know I’d take you. I know you don’t like that fat old bitch you live with, but she’ll treat you okay. Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, Tutu …”

  And he jammed the needle into her shoulder.

  Tutu yelped and looked at Philo in disbelief. The tranquilizer worked at once, just as they said in the dog books. The dog’s eyes filled with pain, then bewilderment. She looked at Philo Skinner like a stranger. She actually growled in confusion at the man she adored. Then she began panting and her eyes drooped and looked glazed over.

  “You’ll be okay, sweetheart,” Philo whispered as he moved across the arena floor, bumping his way through the crowd, “You’ll be okay in a little while, sweetheart. Philo’s sorry.” He forced himself to walk. Walk toward the grooming station of dog handler, Chester Biggs.

  Philo Skinner had his hand under the chin of the little schnauzer, holding her head upright. Stroking the semiconscious animal under the chin, keeping his eyes riveted on his objective, hoping that he had assessed correctly, and that Chester Biggs, who often discussed sports with Philo Skinner would be …

  And he was! Chester Biggs was fifty feet away from his exercise pens, watching the degradation of the Minnesota Vikings. Gloating over the humiliation of the Minnesota team by the California team. But there was a dog groomer sitting by the exercise pens, reading a girlie magazine, watching over the eleven animals Chester Biggs was showing that day.

  Chester, you should be getting your head together. Your schnauzer bitch could win best in show. If she was my bitch I wouldn’t go to the crapper without her. You’re a dumb fucking pile of dogmeat, Chester Biggs! You deserve to get ripped off, you dumb fucking pile of dog-meat! Dogs have been stolen before. Dogs were stolen at Madison Square Garden. But you aren’t ever going to know about this one, Chester. Never!

  The kennel boy, a sixteen-year-old, pimply strawberry blond with half an erection, was looking with disbelief at the enormous fluff of pubic hair on the girl in the skin magazine. He had never seen a real one. Are they all that hairy?

  He never saw the sweaty, staring, gangling man with a listless schnauzer under his arm, skulking around the exercise pens and cages of Chester Biggs. He certainly never saw the man walk to the crate of Victoria Regina of Pasadena, and stand with his back to the kennel boy for no more than fifteen seconds. And he certainly never saw that Mr. Biggs’ champion schnauzer now lay in her cage, eyes half closed and glazed, tongue lolling, panting heavily. The kennel boy couldn’t take his eyes off the mound of fluff, tinted and back-combed like the topknot of a Bedlington terrier.

  Philo Skinner, felon. From this moment on it was Puerto Vallarta or the slammer. He felt like he was on roller skates. He couldn’t stop slipping and sliding and bumping into people as he made his way through the multitudes, toward his grooming station. He was trying to walk with grace and control, perhaps even stealth. Weren’t crooks stealthy? Instead his always long, bent-kneed gait became a slinking lope. Philo Skinner was loping through the crowd, all elbows and knees. The schnauzer bitch in his arms was getting very upset and nervous.

  “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” Philo whispered, stroking Vickie
under the throat.

  Then he thudded into a handler going the other way with a toy poodle on a lead.

  “Watch it, for chrissake!” the perspiring handler said.

  Philo thought his goose was cooked. The poodle handler knows the schnauzer! The fag handler letting go with a falsetto shriek! Throw the little bitch in the sissy’s face and run for it! Get across the Tijuana border with the three hundred bucks in your checking account before the nigger and Jew with the grooming shears arrive for the circumcision! Jesus!

  But the poodle handler didn’t even recognize Philo, let alone the bitch. How could he? The goddamn schnauzers were nearly identical. Get hold of yourself. For chrissake, you’re Philo Skinner, Terrier King!

  Thud! He crashed into a handler named Rosie Lutz, who, luckily for Philo, wore her hair like a Sealyham terrier and couldn’t see Philo let alone Vickie. But Philo Skinner panicked. He was skidding and sliding on the slippery floor. He couldn’t get traction. Jesus Christ, he couldn’t get moving! It was like a bad dream! Does anybody have a skate key? Then he realized he was slipping and sliding in an enormous pile of nerve-runny dog crap, and the offender, a 200-pound St. Bernard, was being chastised by a woman who said: “Bad bad, Cyril! You embarrass mummy.”

  When he regained his footing, Philo Skinner threw caution to the winds. He stopped trying to be stealthy and just bolted through the crowd while Vickie growled fiercely. By the time he arrived at his grooming area, the little bitch had chewed a half-inch wound in the web of Philo Skinner’s left hand without his even noticing it.

  “Mr. Skinner, what’s wrong!” Pattie Mae said, looking at Philo’s white clammy face. “My gosh, the schnauzer’s biting your hand!”

  Philo looked down and saw Vickie, all spunk and grit, shaking Philo’s bony hand around like her ancestors shook dead rats in the mountains of Bavaria. This might be a dog show, and maybe she was trained to let all sorts of strangers pinch and probe, knead and thump her withers and flanks and vagina and anus, and even go into her mouth, but she was an exceedingly intelligent and brave little dog, and sensed that this stranger was up to no good, smelling the fear on him. She wasn’t about to let herself be mistreated by someone who smelled like this.

  For the first time, Philo noticed her chesty growls. Then he saw the blood running down his wrist. Then and only then was Philo Skinner brought back to shattering reality. Pain.

  Philo screamed, throwing Vickie four feet in the air, up and down into the arms of Pattie Mae, who caught her like a Kenny Stabler pitchout.

  Vickie was howling for all she was worth now, and Philo was sliding around on his still greasy soles, holding his wounded hand by the wrist and making a hell of a commotion which attracted the attention of no more than fifty or sixty people.

  “That man got bitten!” a bystander hollered.

  “Help that man, he’s hurt!” a groomer shouted.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” someone cried.

  “Where’s the injured animal?” A smallish man in a seersucker suit elbowed through the curious crowd.

  “Right here, Doctor!” someone said.

  “Oh. That’s a man. I’m a veterinarian.”

  “Yow,” Philo Skinner said, wiping his filthy handkerchief around the wound while the veterinarian retreated.

  He was hoping the cops would be kind enough to handcuff him in front like they used to do in all the old movies and not in the back like he’d seen real-life cops do on the streets of Hollywood. He was already preparing his defense: I don’t know what got into me, Officer. I’d like to plead guilty and go to jail for oh, a year or so, because I owe fifteen thousand, and there’s this heartless kike and a nigger with a knife.

  He looked around. There were no cops. In fact, there weren’t too many people at all. Most had gotten tired of it. It wasn’t much of a dogbite after all. Just some skinny guy making a big deal out of a little blood on his hand. What a bore. People went back to watching the various rings where the action was. Or to catch the locker room interviews of the victorious Raiders from Oakland.

  “You okay, Philo?” the handler asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Better get a tetanus shot just to be sure.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Philo skinner as the handler went back to business.

  Pattie Mae’s nose was wrinkling. She kept backing up and finally bumped into the metal grooming table.

  Then Philo smelled it. His shoes were a mess.

  Vickie was trembling and whimpering in Pattie Mae’s arms. The girl was stroking her, saying, “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right.”

  Philo Skinner, criminal, suddenly wished he were a little dog and that a flower child would pick him up and cuddle him to her braless bosom telling him that everything would be all right. He figured Chester Biggs by now was leading a lynch mob across the arena floor. Philo was drenched in perspiration and stained by blood and dog shit His hand was throbbing like his head. The whiskey he’d guzzled was rising up in his throat, causing his huge adam’s apple to jerk around as he swallowed it back. The little schnauzer was staring at him with fear and fury in her eyes. There was only one thing Philo Skinner could do: He lit the seventy-second cigarette of the day. He stood and smoked. No blindfold, please. Bury me deep where the dogs can’t dig. I’m Philo Skinner, Terrier King.

  He was halfway through the cigarette when Pattie Mae said: “I just don’t know what’s wrong with the schnauzer, Mr. Skinner. She’s acting so strange. Like she doesn’t even know us. Gosh, this morning she was licking you and jumping around every time you came near her. What’s wrong with her, Mr. Skinner? I think she’s gone squirrelly or something.”

  “Squirrelly,” he said. Smoking. Staring off in the distance. Wondering if convicts get to have pets. The Bird Man of Alcatraz. Maybe they’d make a movie about him, his cell full of terriers. It might not be so bad. A few years if he confessed. By then the gamblers would forget. Well, maybe he’d make something from the movie and he could pay them. Get out, start all over. The Dog Man of San Quentin …

  “Mr. Skinner, you’re so pale. I think you’re going to faint from the shock of being bit! You better sit down. Do you think I should call a doctor? Sit down, Mr. Skinner.”

  Philo Skinner obeyed. He stepped woodenly over to his director’s chair, sat, and smoked until the butt singed his calloused fingers. Pattie Mae put Vickie in Tutu’s cage and said, “Mr. Skinner, since we’re through for the day, do you think we could just load up and go home? Honest, I’m so tired I don’t even want to stay for the end. I never thought I’d wanna leave early, but I’m so tired I just can’t believe it. What a weird day!”

  “A weird day.”

  “Can we go home, Mr. Skinner?”

  “Go home.”

  “Yes, can we? Do you want me to go get the van?”

  Philo Skinner looked around at the thinning crowd. The losers were already packing up to go. The bulk of the crowd would of course stay for the final judging, but a good many of the handlers who would not be part of it were folding up the exercise pens and grooming tables.

  “Mr. Skinner, damn it, I think you’re either in shock from that dog bite or you’re tripping on that Colombia Gold. You wanna know the truth you’re acting like a re-tard and I’m getting tired of it! Now you can fire me or not, but I’m going home! This is your last chance. Do you want me to get the van and help load up?”

  “Get the van and help load up,” Philo echoed, and Pattie Mae was off in an ankle-turning jog toward the parking lot.

  When they were loading the dogs into the back of the van, Vickie began making a fuss. She started whimpering, and then she began to bark. It was a throaty, frightened bark at first. Then it got chesty and angry.

  “Hush. You hush!” Pattie Mae said as they loaded the grooming table, exercise pens, and animals. “Hush now.” And then: “Mr. Skinner, what’s this schnauzer’s name anyhow? You never did tell me. And I asked you ten times!”

  “Name? Oh, that’s Vic—Tu�
�” Jesus Christ, he’d almost forgotten he snatched Tutu too. Tutu too. Jesus! “The schnauzer’s name is Fred.”

  “Fred. A bitch named Fred?”

  “How the hell should I know why they named a bitch Fred!” Philo was coming around, getting miserable and whiny again instead of catatonic. “It’s probably short for Fredricka. Jesus Christ, I know lots of girls named Freddie. I know a guy named Shirley, for chrissake. Handles poodles. At least we call him Shirley, the stinking fag. Goddamnit, is it my fault they call her Fred? Let’s get the hell outta here. I had enough dog shows to last a lifetime and I ain’t woofing.”

  Fifteen minutes later he was saying good-bye to Pattie Mae in the parking lot.

  “You did a great job today, honey,” he said as she jumped out of the van and clonked over to her Volkswagen. “Here’s a little thank you from Philo. Hope you didn’t mean it about quitting. Think it over for a week.”

  A week. In a week he’d be following the sun and she could have Skinner Kennels, her and Mavis. Maybe before he left though he’d get one last chance to throw this little bitch his bone.

  She looked at the five-dollar bill contemptuously. “I paid more than that for the grass you smoked up,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Wait a minute, Pattie Mae,” Philo whined. “I’m tapped right now. You just wait till your next paycheck. There’s gonna be a little bonus in there from the boss. You won’t be sorry. Just wait till next week. Meantime I’m gonna give you a call tomorrow night, talk about that dinner I promised you.”

  “Yeah, see you,” she said, heading toward the beat-up Volkswagen.

  “You wait till you get your check next week, sweetie!” Philo yelled. “Just wait.”

  Yeah. Wait till next week, he thought. I’ll send you a fucking postcard with a dog on it. A chihuahua! Puerto Vallarta, get ready for Philo Skinner!