“Okay Jean, so what do you want to do with them?” Ronnie said.
Ben looked around for a second before it caught. He always thought it was strange when someone called Mimi by any other name than Mimi. The same thing happened to a lesser degree with his mom and dad, but to him Mimi and Papa were universally Mimi and Papa to everyone. Up until just recently he would have corrected anyone who got it wrong.
As the pups were getting their privates checked by Ronnie, Douglas Dorschstein drove past the clinic in his pickup. Although he had promised Jerry he would stop in to inform Dr. D about the escapee, and to pick up some more of the supplement, he had actually planned to blow that off and check on the factory instead.
He changed his mind when he saw that old bat’s classic woody Wagoneer parked in front of the clinic. Let’s just kill two fucking dumb ass birds with one shot, he thought. He swung his work truck into an open spot between a shiny new pickup truck and that fuckable dingbat Ronnie’s VW with the ‘my other car is a horse’ bumper sticker.
Doug cut the ignition, but before getting out he grabbed his little bottle of Tylenol from the center console. He twisted it open as he admired the brand new four door extended cab truck parked next to him. He shook out a little baggie from the Tylenol bottle, and as he popped the last of the smaller pills and washed it down with his can of Guinness he thought, A little hair of the dog, going to need it to talk to this pack of crazy bitches.
He made a mental note to hit up Dr. D for some more pills, and to steal some from Jerry’s supply when he got home. His waste of a wife better have some left. If she was blowing through her shit as fast as him he’d have to skin her ass for it.
He paused to let the rush wash over him for a minute, and noted the nav screen, stitched leather headrests, and sunroof of the fancy truck next to him. He whistled appreciation as he shoved open his door and banged it into the side of the much nicer truck, twice.
“Oops, sorry fuck stick,” he said as he got out and tossed his empty Guinness can into the truck’s open rear window.
Back at the reception desk Mimi gave Ronnie a little look that the vet tech quickly picked up on. She said, “Hey guys, take the pups into exam room two, get their weights on the little scale and measure their lengths. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Ben picked up the box and Kelcy took the clipboard and pencil, and they headed off down the hallway.
“We’ve not decided what to do with them yet,” Mimi said as she watched her grandchildren disappear down the hall. “Their mum’s thinking the pups are away for sawdust,” she said, “and she’s concerned the kids have dealt with enough loss for one year.”
“Not only the kids,” Ronnie said quietly as she looked at the grandmother.
She raised her volume and said, “She has a point, those pups are in tough shape and should really be admitted. We should do a full workup.”
Mimi nodded, understanding Dr. D could be within earshot.
Ronnie lowered her voice again and said, “Even with that I give them less than even odds, but I know you want to keep them, and I can guess what the kids think. You obviously won’t admit them, and you won’t want to buy the formula from us. I can give you a recipe for an excellent homemade version.” She switched back to her normal volume and said, “Of course you’d also want to schedule their regular shots and checkups.”
“Let’s say we don’t keep them, what would happen to them?” Mimi asked.
“Well, we won’t take them unless someone agrees to pay for their care,” Ronnie said, “Most shelters won’t take puppies that small. We don’t have many angels, it’s a short list and you and Duncan were at the top of it. I think Dr. D knows a local rescue that specializes in placing rescue dogs from the high kill shelters down south. I think they get some very young pups. The sad truth is the southern shelters just blue juice their strays and unwanted pups so apparently this saintly woman drives down and collects them before they get euthanized. We could ask.”
Mimi mulled it over as Ronnie came around the counter and they started down the hallway towards the exam rooms. She paused to touch Mimi on the arm and said in a low voice, “I can give your grandkids some great websites that map out how to care for premature and orphaned pups.”
Mimi bristled and said, “I have an eye pond too, you know.”
“Ipad?” Ronnie asked.
“Aye, that’s it!” Mimi said.
Their laughter quickly faded as the front door opened and Doug Dorschstein walked into the clinic.
They didn’t find him to be an attractive man, inside or out. He was in his mid-thirties, tall, fit, but with the severely lined features of a much older man. He also had sunken, shifty eyes that Ronnie attributed to a drug problem. She knew he was a local contractor who dabbled in real estate development, but she’d also heard he had more than a questionable reputation. He came in from time to time to chat with Dr. D in her office, sometimes loudly, but Ronnie couldn’t make any of it out.
She caught part of their hallway conversation once and knew they had some kind of real estate deal going on, but Ronnie liked her job well enough to not poke her nose in. The clinic was usually buzzing with local happenings as most people in Pembury had pets, and tended to blather on during their appointments but Ronnie wasn’t one for gossip. She had enough first hand exposure to Doug to form her own opinion, and she was pretty sure the guy was simply an asshole.
Mostly Ronnie didn’t like the way he looked at her. She knew that look and it wasn’t the nice flirtation she enjoyed from several of her customers, even a few married ones. This was a slimy, ogling look that she was sure included him imagining her in some kinky leather slave helmet and a ball gag.
Mimi had other reasons to not like Douglas Dorschstein.
“Ladies,” Doug said as he approached the desk, taking a long moment to look Ronnie up and down, “Dr. D in?”
The hell hound in the back started up again. Doug flinched and Ronnie had to shout over the barking, “She’s in back and we have something to tend to, you can wait here.” She motioned for Jean to follow her down the hall.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Walker,” Doug said in his nicest voice as the barking stopped, “Might I have a word?”
Mimi nodded to Ronnie and the vet tech went to join the kids.
Doug smiled until she left the lobby, and then he moved closer and towered over the petite grandmother.
“You haven’t been returning my calls,” he said.
“I told you Mr. Dorschstein,” Mimi said, “I am not interested in continuing any work you may have started with my late husband.”
“I fully appreciate that Mrs. Walker,” Doug said as he took a half step closer, “And of course I want to be respectful of his passing…but promises were made.” He stared down at her, glaring with his bloodshot eyes.
Jean Marie ‘Mimi’ Walker seldom had to show her claws but she kept them fully sharpened and ready at a moment’s notice. She had been born in a house without running water and had survived The Blitz, and a helicopter crash. She had nursed soldiers under fire in Korea and lived through near drowning, two fires, a motorcycle accident, and had recently handled the death of her husband. She was not going to be pushed around by this pish-slinging bampot.
She turned to face him full on and seemed to grow a few inches. “Listen to me carefully, Mr. Dorschstein,” she said without raising her voice, “I am not interested in any more of your blowhard bullshit. This is my family’s land and I will do with it as I see fit. You’ve made your money and I suggest you find yourself fortunate, and bloody piss off.”
Doug took a step back and blinked a few times. Mimi held his eyes for a few more moments, folded her arms in front of her and turned on her heels. She didn’t look back as she walked to the exam room, mostly so Doug wouldn’t see her hands shaking. Oh Duncan, she thought, why the hell aren’t you here?
She disappeared around the corner and down the hallway as Doug’s beer and barbiturate addled brain was catching up to what
had happened, and was slowly getting pissed.
Fuck that uppity crazy Irish bitch, he thought, And fuck that skinny little tart, and fuck Dr. D for today.
He stomped towards the front door, grabbed the door knob and stopped. Was there an implied ‘or else’ in that snooty bitch’s tone? he thought, Did she just threaten me? What the fuck is it with these people? First her husband, and now her.
Doug twisted the door knob back and forth a few times and rattled the door in its frame. As there came another round of booming dog barks from the back of the clinic he pressed his forehead to the sun-warmed glass and rotated his head slowly back and forth.
“Fuck her,” he said to the ceiling. He turned and crossed the lobby in a few long strides, stretching out his hand and letting his fingers rip off a wide swath of the missing pet posters from the bulletin board. He slapped the free puppy treats and flea collar pamphlets off the reception desk as he rounded the counter and moved into the hallway.
The tired looking paneled exam room hallway had five doors, and all of them were closed. At the far end of the hall was a wide door marked PRIVATE that gave access to the back half of the building. He had been back there a few times, and knew it contained the surgical area, pharmacy cabinets, and treatment kennels. There were two doors on the left. At the end was Dr. D’s office and the unmarked door was a spare exam room currently used for retail stock storage.
Between the doors was an ancient looking informational poster from a pharmaceutical company showing the stages of heartworm disease. The infected dog on the poster didn’t look too good, but the shiny protected dog and his smiling family holding out the heartworm pills were doing just fine.
Better living through drugs. Amen to that, Doug thought.
On the right side of the hallway were exam rooms one and two, so indicated with framed signs ringed with cartoon cats and dogs. Doug had never been in either exam room. He assumed they were identical, and decided he’d just try them both.
He grabbed the knob on the first door and flung it open.
Chapter 19
Aaron had been his typical fucking dumb-ass self, and even with Jerry’s direct oversight he still had to restack the barrels a few times. Some of the ones at the end of the row were still crooked and she gave up and finished it herself.
He wasn’t a bad worker, but tasks involving stacking similar shaped objects were apparently a challenge for him. In the process of that stacking, and restacking, he had dropped three of the barrels and they popped open, spilling gallons of that crap all over the cages and the floor. The smell was horrific. There wasn’t great ventilation in the kennel as the rows of tightly packed cages covered the small windows.
Aaron started to hose down the slime but apparently also didn’t understand the complex mechanics of how water flowed downhill, and he ended up just pushing most of it under the cages. When he mumbled some shit about errands with his dad Jerry took over the hose and booted him out early. Normally she would have chewed him a new one but Jerry was happy to see him go. She wanted a shoulder massage and a quick fuck in the worst way but she was so frustrated with him she decided to just finish both tasks herself.
Doug was equally no help in either department which was no shocker. He had gone back to the house shortly after barking a few orders. Besides, with his late night out she figured he was in no shape to take care of her. They had pretty much stopped fucking lately anyway. The real estate shit he was working on and this chemical fiasco thing had him running in circles and out at odd hours. He was pretty much constantly high or drunk, or both.
Jerry only got a few details out of him when he was straight enough to make any sense, but she was sure most of the problems were caused by him being an asshole to someone, and thusly deserved. Even so, some things were better in this last year. He gave her more walking around money and they had this little pre-fab house on the land he bought, and the kennel things were taking off. Of all of the scams and business startup stuff they’d tried over the years, she was pretty sure this one was going to work out.
She turned up the boom box when her fucking jam came on and she gyrated with the hose as she sprayed the purple slime down the drain. The smelly stuff was thick and clumped and didn’t go down easy. Not as easy as me, Jerry thought, and laughed out loud as she douched out the fucking gross cage that the little Houdini bitch escaped from. As Jerry line danced in place to her achy breaky heart the thick hose ground into her crotch and she wondered how Billy Ray was in the back seat, or maybe even that little slut of a daughter of his, or maybe both. She suddenly wished she hadn’t booted Aaron out so quickly.
Jerry drug the hose out of the main door and around to one of the two newly installed kennel sheds. Doug had put them up on both sides of the original cinderblock center kennel so they could take in more dogs. The new kennels were built with corrugated steel walls and ceiling panels riveted to a steel frame. Each kennel held dozens of the same clamshell type cages they had in the main kennel.
Jerry sprayed the dogs and the cages while they were still inside, giving each one a thorough hosing. The new side kennels had a dirt floor so she was ankle deep in mud by the time she finished.
She hated the next song, some Dolly shit, so she pulled the hose back into the center kennel and turned down the music. Leaning over the little work desk she did some math regarding the dog food and supplements. Doug had said he was going to stop by the Doc’s place for more supplies, which he had better fucking do. They were running low and had a few dozen more of the little fuckers to fatten up. All these things did was eat and shit.
Jerry gave up on the math. Her head was aching and she needed a smoke break. She walked the perimeter of the fence, knocking the mud off her boots and checking for signs of that little fucker who escaped. Their place was pretty isolated, from the kennel she couldn’t see any of the neighbors. Jerry looked north to the nearby hills that defined the edge of their property and the larger hill just beyond. That spot had an awesome view of Cape Cod Bay and on a clear day you could see Boston. Doug wanted to buy that land and build her an amazing house up there. The land that their house and the kennels sat on was a pretty spot, too. Well, it had been when all the trees were still here.
They had bought three plots of land from that old British fuck and immediately cleared all of the trees and split it up for houses. Doug plunked down a few McMansions on the east side of Morgan Road along Cape Cod bay. He had intended to do the same thing with this chunk and the old factory plot up the road but he ran into some snag with zoning and mitigation, or some shit like that. She assumed those plans were still on hold. Doug had been pretty sure that old fuck he bought the land from had stirred up shit to get the project stalled.
Jerry stubbed out her butt and fired up another as she climbed into the back of the van with the hose and sprayed out the cages. As the poo and vomit ran down the van’s floor she was reminded of a night not long ago when Doug had come home all worked up about the land fiasco.
He staggered in a little late and a lot drunk, and she had been dipping into their stash of shit from Dr. D. all night so they were both plenty lit up. He was already rambling about the old man as he came through the door.
“…can do whatever the fuck I want with my land,” he had slurred in her face, “I never promised to keep it pristine fucking wetlands, well maybe I did but fuck it, it’s not fucking Walden fucking Pond.”
Jerry had made the mistake of asking him what Walden Pond was. She knew that look on his face but for some reason just couldn’t stop herself. When he was on a roll it was best to let him go. He also hated when his younger, and therefore obviously dumber, wife didn’t get one of his esoteric God damn references. They had ended up in a super fucking fight that night. She didn’t recall exactly what was said after she tossed the first beer bottle at him. She didn’t eat comfortably for a few days afterwards but he also didn’t piss right for a few days. Jerry could dish it out as good as she got.
It seemed odd to her that they f
ought more now than the first few years they were together, when they didn’t have a pot to piss in. When she met Doug he had been doing drywall and she was shakin’ her shit in Providence. She got preggo and they moved to that shitty place in Rockland. That’s when her mom had given her the knapsack. “For baby shit,” her mom had said.
Jerry had lost the baby, at least that’s what she told everyone.
Chapter 20
Doug stepped into the first exam room and came face to face with the biggest and most pissed-off German shepherd he had ever seen. The massive dog exploded into a new round of huge barks and Doug could feel its flying spittle and hot breath on his face. There was enough of a pause before it lunged for Doug to get a good look at the size of the beast.
The exam table had been rolled down to the lowest position and still the animal’s big head was level with Doug’s. The dog was all black which made its eyes, huge white fangs, and the red tongue dancing behind them really stand out. The dog also had one of those white plastic cone things on. The cone didn’t look to be much more than a turtleneck on its furry mane.
Doug assumed it had been in a car accident. There were lighter shaved patches on the dog’s sides, and in them were trails of thick black puckered scabs and rows of stitches and staples. They looked pretty bad, and he didn’t blame the dog for being so fucking ornery. Doug couldn’t help but wonder what the car must have looked like after hitting this werewolf. His foggy brain added, Or maybe this Franken-hound had just been assembled from leftover parts of wolves and bears.
Standing next to the agitated dog’s puffed-up neck fur was a portly bald guy wearing a university sweatshirt with a badger on it. One of his hands had a firm grip on the dog’s thick leather collar and the other held a few wraps of its leash.
Dr. D, the short, rotund Indian vet was crouched behind the monster. She was drawing blood from a spot just below a bright blue gauze pressure bandage on its huge hind leg. Doug was pretty sure the uneasy look on her round face was there well before he had burst in. The hound was bigger than she was.
Spot and Smudge - Book One Page 7