There's a Good Dog...

by Chris Middlehurst

  “Well,” Greg said to himself with tears of gin welling in his eyes, “it’s been a long six weeks.”

  I remember sitting with him as he was about to fall asleep watching TV once. It was some war film or other but Greg rewound it backwards again and again. Over and over the explosions on the beaches gave birth to jumping soldiers running backwards onto the ships that receded back to England. Tearful greetings of sadness were followed by a bicycle ride through a non-descript village in the twee South followed by a family of three stuffing cutlery in their mouths to bring the food back onto their plates which were then sucked up back into the cupboards by some magic force. Then he would pause it on the mother’s exasperated face for a moment, her features stretched grotesquely across the flickering screen, then fast forward it again. He did this until tears were streaming down his eyes and I didn’t know whether he was laughing with joy or crying with sorrow.

  Chapter Eight

  “So I’d been on the job following this athlete broad for the past two weeks, right? Now I’d been drinking a bottle of JD every night of the way just to stay sober, know what I mean? Ever tried following an Olympic swimmer without getting snitched?”

  “Well, I-”

  “Don’t answer that, you sick fuck! Anyway, it was a first for me. Three weeks doing 60 lengths back and forth and back forth and hiding behind toddlers who’d have punctured their floats if only they knew what was good for them. She finally caught me when I was trying to get some of her faecal fluids for testing. The old plastic bag trick: I’d snuck a carrier under the rim of her favourite toilet seat. The one with the sea horse patterns on the side. I hid around a corner waiting by my usual spot but when I saw the clock strike one I went to check she hadn’t done the dirty on me. I bent my head down between the door of the cubicle and the ground. Nothing. An old lady looked at me like I was some kind of pervert. I flashed my badge at her. She nodded with understanding and left. Pushing the door, I peered round the corner. Cubicle. Empty. Toilet. Empty. Then I hear: “Looking for something?!” I whip around and put my hand over my mouth just - like this you see - in time to stop myself from swallowing the bagful of warm shit and piss she lobbed straight at my head.”

  “Jeez.”

  “You’re telling me. I’ve felt shit-faced before but not like this. And I wasn’t prepared for another round. “I’ve got another bagful of the stuff and I’m not afraid to use it!” she said. Can you believe that, Harry? She had sack loads of the stuff!”

  “Fancy that!” the man called Henry muttered.

  “Excuse me!”

  With a world-weary flick of his right earring, the barman turned to the pock-eyed youth with the guilty look in his eye.

  “Ay up? What’s up?”

  “Hi there. I want to report that there’s a real mess in the gents toilet.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’s a smorgasbord, man. Paper lying everywhere, broken flushing chain, wet paper towels clogging the sinks, piss overflowing the urinals, shit in the soap dispensers. I’ve been in here nearly every day since I moved to this part of town and I’ve never seen it this bad. It’s a disgrace.”

  The barman stood silent for a moment, staring at the counter. Then he looked up again and levelled his gaze with the flatulence inquisitor.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” he snarled.

  “What?” the youth jerked his head back.

  “Come on, admit it. I’m no sucker. You don’t fool me. It was you that done it and you expect me to clean it all up now, don’t you? Eh?”

  The youth fidgeted nervously.

  “Well, uh... yeah.”

  Balefully, the barman reached for a mop and bucket and withdrew from sight.

  We sit in a different place this time opposite where we were the last time we were in the Mucky Duck. Some man with a nose shaped like a turkey’s head is sitting next to his bug-eyed lady staring into the distance while she whispers unspeakable rituals into his waxy ear and I can tell they must be sexual because he starts to pinch her nipples beneath her white moth-eaten turtleneck sweater with two dirty tweezer-like nails. Whatever she says in his ear is directing his glass-eyed sixteen-pint stare right towards me and for not the first time in my life I feel like I’m really in trouble. I turn my head to the left and to the right and then back to him but his gaze hasn’t budged. Then I realise with some shade of a relief that it’s not me he’s staring at with such an evil rat-catching leer: it’s Greg.

  “Whudduyuluckinat?” he growls.

  Greg looks up from his half pint.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Whudduyuluckinatyoocnt.”

  “Me?”

  “Nahthdog.”

  “What?”

  “Thdog!” He hammers his fist down on the table.

  My stomach drops six feet. My legs turn liquid jelly. He does mean me.

  “You mean me?” Greg asked.

  “Course I mean you, you cunt!”

  My stomach rises six feet. My legs turn solid iron. He doesn’t mean me.

  But the man steps up anyway and before I know it my eyes are blinded. Now what? I hear shouts and the distant scream of a woman or is it that white parrot back at the vet’s? I think it’s the white turtleneck but I can’t be sure. Something hits the back of the seat hard as I wipe my eyes against it to clear my eyes. I can see fine now. Greg’s body slumps sideways over the table where the glass cracked his face open. A man I don’t know is stooped over him, bashing his head on and off the table like a chocolate orange. It’s vaguely humorous in a way. I notice I’m the only one laughing as Greg’s head finally cracks open like a hairy egg and dark yolk oozes out. Pus out of a rotten watermelon. The man from above stops his movements and turns towards me. His face is red with the drink. Or is it the blood?

  “Now now,” he whispers. “Now now. There’s a good dog... there’s a good dog...”

  I relax as he gathers me into his arms and presses me against his heaving heart. The rest of the pub is silent. The woman in the turtleneck jumper is nowhere to be seen. I can practically taste the warm glow of the pub as reds and hazy yellows dart in and out of my eyes. Then two rusty fingernails blackened by dirt come into sharp focus as the man turns me over in his arms and gently nudges me in the ribs. I want to lick his hands and show me that I appreciate his loving gesture when suddenly I hear a scream and NO NO NO NO NO a gasp from the crowd as he raises me high above his head higher than the world higher than then I feel the force in his fingernails and the rush of air as he brings me crashing back down to earth and launches me into the floor and in one motion brings his boot slamming onto my head as I hear the loud POP! of one of my eyeballs and the soft hiss of the other as it leaks silently into the spongy carpet.

  I’m in real trouble now, aren’t I?

  The End