The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog

by Bill Boggs

  She takes a last, slow drink of limoncello. “This stuff is great! Try it this morning on corn flakes with raisins and ground flax seeds. Finish the bottle, please, my treat. Bye-bye, everybody.”

  “Remember, Donna,” Buffy’s cousin Gail calls out, “the distance between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”

  Donna stops with the door open. “Huh? Er…right…er…ah, yeah, and that’s just the sort of thing I hear the manager and home-plate umpire arguing about a lot, I think. Bye! Bye! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Oh, I’m a little bombed,” she says, stumbling off.

  I’m tryin’ to figure out if what Gail just said is an explanation of the thing Buffy wrote at the bottom of the party picture. My brain’s hurting exploring the subject, so I focus on Daisy curled up in Buffy’s lap. The last bit of sun is shining on her nose. I’m wishin’ they’d all go to Nello, get bombed, and leave me and Daisy here for some possible romance.

  “Gail,” Buffy asks, “why did you say that Einstein thing to her?”

  “’Cause in my experience, only a drunk at a bar can make any sense of it,” Gail says.

  That night Daisy and me finally get to be alone. I’m missing my chance for fatherhood with her. The special scent’s not there to tell me she’s in the mood for some mutually assured pleasure. It’s not like with people. Dogs have a way more organized approach.

  Daisy’s really smart and curious, and a history expert, ’cause Buffy’s listening to all kinds of audiobooks on the morning drives to the station. She lets me know that General Patton had an English Bull Terrier named Willie that she heard about in a book on Generals Patton, Marshall, and MacArthur. With my vast knowledge of pop culture, I’m able to tell her the same guy who wrote The Generals also wrote Forrest Gump.

  She tells me she was sorry to hear I’d been painted green, and then wonders what I’ve been thinking about recently.

  I immediately start explaining my dilemma over the controversy reported on Extra about the dwarf Dopey and fears of how he’s gonna offend millions of people if they remake the movie Snow White. I point out they’re organizing woke rallies in Times Square to make it Snow Person and Six Others, with Dopey in a spa for slow learners, who’s visited by Doc on a regular basis. The others will give him high-fives while they’re singing, “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It’s Off to Stagnant Wages We Go.”

  For Daisy and me, it’s a night of hope and longing and sadness, ’cause we know we can’t plan a life together. We’re just dogs. We won’t be flying back and forth between New York and High Point for visits. Yeah, maybe Bud’ll go down South to see friends, or Buffy might come up here with her a few times. If we’re really lucky with timing, maybe we’d even be able to swing a mating session. But we can’t plan a life together.

  Buffy and Daisy will be in town while Bud’s away. These couple of intense days with each other might be the happiest time we will ever have. Buffy’s handwriting under the photo is making sense.

  These are the crazy, sad things you let yourself contemplate when you’re in love. My heart is aching. I gotta stick my head in the toilet.

  18

  Gone Dog

  The bad day starts like a good day. Bud takes me for an early-morning walk in the park. Andy comes over and gets Bud, and they go to the dock to board the cruise ship.

  Buffy checks out of the Lowell and comes up to our place with her suitcase and Daisy. She leaves Daisy and me together and heads off to her ABC thing. As soon as Buffy leaves, we wrestle around for a while in that nimble way only bull terriers can do together. Then we jump on the couch and curl up. She’s got her head pressed under my jaw, rubbin’ against the red collar from Pledge.

  It’s the first time either of us is sleepin’ with another dog. She smells so great. We’re blissed out. Hope you in your life have felt like this—not about sleepin’ with a dog but, you know, the bliss part. Unfortunately it wasn’t gonna last.

  Larry David Seinfield Garcia wakes us when he comes to get me for the noon walk. He’s takin’ Daisy, too, but to get his company’s permission for Daisy to go, Buffy has to sign three different release forms, an insurance waiver, and give out so much personal information, that a kindergarten student with a toy computer in Moscow has probably already stolen her identity.

  We leave The Cheshire Gardens Mews and turn left. We cross Madison and are halfway down the street toward Central Park when I smell the heavy scent of Ike “I Got Money” Piles’ cologne blowin’ up from behind. I’m wonderin’ why anybody in this fancy neighborhood would want to smell like cooked peas and gardenias? Daisy’s wrinklin’ her nose, ’cause the cologne smell’s getting stronger.

  I’m figurin’ some handyman or doorman saw the new TV ad saying, “Wear this and smell like piles of money” when…

  I hear a crack. Larry David Seinfield Garcia gets smashed on the head and falls face first onto the pavement. A man leaps out of a car next to me. He and the cologne guy behind me grab my leash and start tryin’ to drag me into the car. Daisy takes a bite out of one guy’s ankle, as I realize I’m being abducted by James One and Five Plus. I lunge to bite Five Plus but miss just as he whacks Daisy straight in the face with a little club.

  I’m snappin’, tryin’ to get to Plus when James One shoves something up my ass, and I got horrible pain. There’s blood gushing from Daisy’s mouth, but she comes right back at them and gets whacked again. I’m twisting to get the thing out of my ass as I get dragged on my back by my leash and pulled up into the car by a smelly guy they’re callin’ Julio, who’s one of those guys who’d been following us on the walks and feeling my muscles. He throws a heavy metal mesh cover over my body. I’m trapped, can’t move.

  The car skids off while Daisy’s yelping and cryin’.

  Whatever they shoved inside me is starting to knock me out.

  “Don’t take this personal, Spike,” Plus says.

  Of course not, Plus…. You just smashed my girlfriend in the face, maybe killed my dog walker, and kidnapped me; nothing personal at all…

  “This business. We always like you. You fun, but you got too famous. Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles want you fight for him. He and rich, flabby, baggy-suit-wearin’ banking dudes in Greenwich got big dogfight operation, and you gonna be new headline attraction.”

  The only headline I want to read is “Wonder Dog Throws Man With Plus Tattoo on Face out of Car Window.”

  “It go like this—you be cool. You win your fights, all be good. You win big and are great, Money take you to mansion in Greenwich. Money introduce you to those bad rich dudes.”

  Can I then introduce those bad rich dudes to the police?

  “But after a while, if you not win one, Money Piles get bored. He bored, but you still OK, then Money Piles ship you to Costa Rica, you fight for his cousin. They got dogs fightin’ boars down there, tusks tear old slow dogs to pieces.”

  Cancel that trip, Plus. I got zero interest in Costa Rican tourism. Forget boar tusks; who wants black sand on a beach?

  “But he bored and you not OK, like last big star Mean Brenda who took too many bites and all them cuts not healin’ fast enough, then ’cause you male, Money get you jerked off. He sell Wonder sperm to fight-dog breeders.”

  Actually, Plus, I’m not plannin’ to lose my virginity hooked to some machine operated by Money Piles. Clamp the thing on your own dick.

  “He sell Wonder sperm to fight-dog breeders. Then he fatten you up for Spike dog dinner in Thailand. You get froze alive, and he ship you to Bangkok.”

  You know, Plus, somehow you’ve finally managed to convince me that I actually don’t like what I’m hearing, so if I gotta chew through ten steel cages and knock down walls, you’re not getting me.

  “Over there, they be watchin’ your dogfights on close-circuit network Greenwich got rigged up in Thailand. Crazy people there pay to eat star dog. They make Spike stew of you. Watch videos of you fightin’, eat stew, and smoke great hash. They bad.”

  The car’s bumping along to who
knows where. James One and the Julio guy are laughing and drinking tequila. Plus is on the phone with Money Piles. I’m worrying about Daisy and Larry David Seinfeld Garcia lying on the pavement. The worrying only stops when the drugs they shoved in my ass finally get me. I pass out.

  19

  The Hour Shall Come

  Remember when I said, “You don’t like flyin’? Try it as a dog”?

  You don’t like hard-core rap music? Try waking up trapped in a cage on a dirty cement floor with a guy screaming about pumpin’ a gat fulla’ slugs into someone’s cheddar.

  Last night, instead of relaxing my way to sleep by calculatin’ the number of times I think Conan O’Brien’s audience has to be cued to applaud, I’m countin’ the number of “motherfuckers” blasting from “N. W. A.”

  By the way, if you’re thinkin’ I’m gonna stop with the light-hearted moments of saucy jest because I’m now part of a massive dog fighting syndicate in mortal danger of bein’ frozen to death and stewed—forget it. Somebody told Bud, “Never lose your sense of humor; it’s the most valuable possession you have.” I’m probably the only dog in here doin’ a monologue in my head to keep from goin’ completely nuts. Because this sucks!

  So here’s what’s goin’ on:

  First, I’m calm. I got my emotions under control, and I’m focused on doin’ what I need to do to prevail, like Lombardo always says. He loves the word “prevail.”

  I woke up really sore from that cigar-sized tranquilizer James Plus shoved in me. My achin’ ass makes me question the vast popularity of anal sex and the consequences for half the people involved.

  I got no idea where I am, but it feels like a long walk from anywhere. Judgin’ by the little bit of horn honkin’ I hear, I figure it’s city, not country. Escape’s only possible through one door, and there’s a guard on it day and night. From what I see when the door opens, it leads to another larger area.

  I’m in a corner in what might be a VIP space just for me. There’s a “Wonder Dog” sign on the wall. I’m in a big cage lookin’ out at a huge steel space that’s probably specially built inside a warehouse. It has its own ventilation system, which it needs, ’cause the guys workin’ here smell like they’ve been rolling around for two days in mounds of salsa-covered dog shit.

  They got a couple of dozen dogs in small kennel cages set pretty far apart. In the middle of all of this, there’s a circular steel fighting cage, bigger than a boxing ring. It’s got a dirt floor, and in the center, hanging down, is a cord and an announcer’s microphone, just like they had in Vegas. The drone almost got caught up in that cord one time when we were doing landing rehearsals. They got bleacher seats circled around the fighting cage.

  Flashing on one wall is a big electronic betting board with pictures of dogfight match-ups and betting odds. Above that is a giant, massively retouched photo of Ike “I Got Money” Piles, and over his head he’s holding his boxing belts with wads of money dropping from them. Mounted on the walls are flat-screen monitors with tapes of past dogfights. If I’m lucky, I’m gonna be able to see the styles of dogs I might be fightin’.

  Hidden in a corner, making it look like part of the wall, is the freezer. I woke up seein’ the ugly sight of a dead pit bull being dragged out by her frozen-solid tail. She got packed in a container full of ice and covered with fish for shipping halfway round the world. Monde Cane.

  They give me a good breakfast of a lot of raw meat. There’re a couple of red pills jammed in the ground steak. I don’t think these are vet-prescribed holistic vitamins, so I hide ’em in the back of the cage. Gotta keep a clear head.

  Julio from yesterday and another even smellier guy named Julio are in charge of me. They took me out of the cage, and walked me around on a chain leash they attached to my collar. Every dog is lungin’ and snarlin’ at me, biting the metal and shaking their cages, wantin’ to tear me apart. They got a crazed look in their eyes, ’cause of the loads of steroids bein’ fed to them.

  A couple of other workers stop by to look at me, and James Plus shows them my big mouth and gleamin’ white teeth and my long, sharp fangs. It’d be real easy to bite off a finger when James Plus has my cheeks pulled back and his hand in my mouth, but that’s not gonna do me any good right now.

  Money Piles isn’t around, but everybody’s always calling him by the full Ike “I Got Money” Piles name. They talk about him in the same hushed tones people use in cramped dining rooms in small New England bed-and-breakfasts. They act as if Money, this crooked, sleazy, sex-addict hustler, is a member of the royal family.

  What about Daisy and the two smashes to the face, and Larry David Seinfield Garcia? Has he got brain damage from that whackin’ he took? Did he even wake up and tell people what happened? Any witnesses? Surveillance video?

  This has gotta be real, real bad for Buffy, I don’t even know if she can contact Bud on the ship. Most of all, I’m scared of how Bud’s gonna explode when he finds out somebody stole me. How’s he gonna get back and find me? He’s trapped on a ship not making any port stops. They’re sailin’ around in the Atlantic on a press cruise to nowhere.

  I spend part of the first day on a treadmill, which has got to be the most boring way to get exercise ever invented. I’m eatin’ more meat, hidin’ pills. I’m just playin’ things as cool as possible and actin’ like I’m lookin’ forward to goin’ into the ring.

  My only goal is preserving myself and, if possible, not hurting my competition. I gotta see what develops so I can figure out a way to escape. Or maybe I’ll get rescued. I’m hopin’ real hard there’s some clues back on Sixty-Third Street. This looks like a totally hidden operation, or the cops would’ve found it a long time ago.

  Fight One: Mad Max

  “Today, you got first fight, Spike,” James Plus says. “You go in against Mad Max, who not lose no fight yet. You got big odds against you, so you win, you make more piles a money for Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles. You lose, you off to bad start, have to give you easier fights and lower odds, mean less money for Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles. Ev’ybody wanta see The Wonder Dog. You first fight a night, gonna be full house.”

  All afternoon I’m watchin’ videos of Mad Max in action. He’s a lumbering, black and gray, muscle-bound dog who looks like he’s part Staffordshire terrier, part Great Dane, and part mentally challenged. He probably outweighs me by around thirty pounds. Max has only one way of fightin’. He’s a “swarmer.” He comes straight at you snapping and biting. He forces you against the cage, then drags you away to pin you and go for the throat. He killed one dog, and in the other fights he won ’cause he had ’em down and helpless.

  He wins fast, ’cause when he charges, the other dogs make the mistake of charging him, too. I’m rememberin’ things from the ESPN classic fights I watched with Bud, and I see that Max fights the way Joe Frasier did against George Foreman. Smokin’ Joe came chargin’ right in, got knocked out, and lost the title. And I spot something else—in Max’s one fight that lasted more than two minutes against a fast, smaller dog named Big Larry, Max’s tongue is hangin’ out. So I’m figurin’ he’s also like early “Big George” Foreman, who came out throwin’ punches but got tired fast ’cause of bein’ too tight and lack of stamina. That’s how Ali beat “Big George,” by takin’ him to eight rounds and usin’ the “Rope-a-Dope.”

  The bleachers are packed with greasy gang members who look like they got into the U.S. by wading through a sewage tunnel but haven’t bothered to shower yet. Up in the VIP box behind a window is Money Piles with a couple of rich-lookin’ guys in blue suits and long red ties, who I figure are the big, bad dudes from Greenwich.

  I’m being paraded around in front of the circle of bleachers and bombarded with words of encouragement like, “Wonder Dog’s a pussy!” “You ain’t on TV now!” “Glad that faggot Bud’s not here!” “Mad Max gonna put you to sleep like them stupid YouTube people you puttin’ to sleep.”

  I’m calmly struttin’ around doin’ a dog’s version of “Walk Like a Man.
” I show ’em the slow-motion walk, and a guy in the crowd yells, “He playin’ with us now, oh yeah, he playin’ that Wonder Dog shit now.”

  I get the clue Mad Max is more of the crowd favorite when they give him a standing ovation, yelling, “Olé! Olé!”

  I don’t care.

  Ever since I woke up yesterday, the smell of the other dogs, the cages, the ring—everything here—set my fighting instincts on fire. My jaws are twitching with feelings my ancestors had.

  When they took off my red collar and threw it in the back of the cage and put the chain around my neck to bring me out tonight, everything was sharp and focused. Inbred powers are turned on.

  I’m gonna fight, and I’m gonna win.

  Sergio, the announcer, finishes and runs outta the cage. A bell rings. Like I figured, Mad Max charges across the ring straight at me. He’s faster than I thought. His eyes are yellow from drugs. His big mouth is wide open. I let him almost bite me before I bounce to the left and start bouncing around in a wide circle, just like I did a million times in the big backyard in Thomasville. But now, I’m bouncing faster than I ever thought I could. Max is runnin’ after me. I shift and bounce to the left. Then I bounce right. Left, right. He’s confused and stops chasin’ me, and stands in the middle of the ring panting and barking at me.

  The crowd’s booing. Not sure if it’s about me, or Max, or both of us.

  Then he crouches. Lunges. I jump over him.

  The crowd roars.

  I hurdle him again, and I’m thinkin’, “Thank you, Mister Ali for the ‘Jump-a-Dope.’”

  He twists and charges. His sloppy tongue’s flapping around, and he’s foaming and drooling. I time it right and jump one more time. He’s mad, tense, frustrated, and burnin’ energy, so I jump over him again. He leaps straight up to get me but tips backward and falls over.