The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog

by Bill Boggs

  Sergio is yelling and pointing at Money Piles ringside.

  “…with more sexual assault accusations than any living athlete in the world!”

  Booming cheers.

  “Money! Money! Money!” the crowd screams.

  Money Piles stands up, beaming like he’s been given the Nobel Peace Prize for flashing his member. He’s so proud of himself, he accidentally pounds his chest with the bandaged hand and doubles over gasping in pain. But he straightens up and quiets his audience.

  “Money Piles so bad,” he says, “that most a my hashtag MeToos oughta been MeThrees and MeFours!”

  Roars of approval.

  “Money be so bad, Money make Harvey Weinstein look like clean-as-a-marble-statue Mike Pence.”

  The crowd goes silent trying to figure who those guys are.

  Sensing a lull, Sergio interrupts: “And now…dogfight fans around the world, let’s get ready to bark and…growllllllll!

  “In cage one, tipping the scales at a burly, fighting-ready 220 pounds, our latest attraction, the Costa Rican mauler, the tough and savage…Monstroooooo!

  “And in cage two, his partner, weighing in at a trim and fast fifty-two pounds…our new lean and mean, jaws-of-steel, leg-crushing machine…Little Ti-grrrrr.

  “And…across the ring…in cage three, their opponent.

  “A star outside the ring with his own YouTube channel, who proudly joined the Money Piles Mean Time syndicate just this week. He immediately demolished Mad Max and battled Big Nipper into bloody retirement. And now, he’s single-handedly taking on the undefeated Central American boar-fighting champions Monstro and Little Tiger…. Weighing in at a rock-solid seventy pounds…Spike…The Wonder…Dogggg!”

  Odd that in this dire situation I’d be pissed that he announces my name wrong—it’s “Spike…The Wonder Dog.” There’s no pause after “Wonder,” Sergio, you moron.

  He lets go of the microphone and runs outta the cage. My heart’s pounding, muscles twitching, jaws clenching. I figure I got one chance, and it’s this—I gotta make a vertical leap higher than ever before to catch the ball end of that dangling mic, and then hang on up there.

  Monstro and Little Tiger are wild-eyed, snarling; each one’s in a rage to kill. They’re rattling their cages to get out and attack. And if Monstro’s as dumb as he seems, he’s probably just now starting to wonder why the boar is white.

  The bell rings.

  I’m first to the center of the ring. I crouch to jump, but Little Tiger’s right on me. She goes for my left leg. I grab her by the neck and throw her as far as I can. Monstro’s confused. He stops comin’ at me to enjoy watchin’ Little Tiger fly head over paws through the air and crash into the side of the cage.

  I crouch. I launch. Up I go. Crowd is screamin’ the instant I leave the dirt. Straight up…three feet, up…four feet, up…five feet. I’m starting to slow. I’m scared I’m not gonna make it. Up…six feet…. The mic’s three inches away. I stretch…stretch…

  I’m at the moment in every big jump where I’m as high as I’m gonna go, and there’s a fraction of a second when I’m motionless—floating—before falling back. In that instant, I clamp on the mic. It tastes like Money cologne from Sergio’s hand, and I chip two small front teeth grabbing the metal ball, but I got it. I’m hanging above the middle of the ring.

  Booming over the big sound system is my breathing, ’cause the microphone in my mouth is still turned on. To get payback for the bad music they blast all day, I start growling as loud as I can.

  The growls are roaring louder than anything they play. Every dog in every cage is barking back at me. The place is shaking with noise. But below, Monstro and Little Tiger are snarling quietly. They’re facing each other for the first time in a ring, and as I hoped, they’re looking to have a fight.

  Maybe they’ve just spent too much time working together. Maybe, like every woman who ever worked with Regis, Little Tiger thinks she’s not getting the credit she deserves. Maybe, like Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffith, their bosses put them together but they were never really cut out to be a team in the first place. Whatever the reason, Little Tiger and Monstro now want to kill each other. I’m happy to give them the chance, but hope I don’t slip off this thing and crash down on them while they’re at it.

  They attack. She makes a mistake by goin’ directly for his throat instead of a leg. He smashes her with his head and gets his teeth into her neck and shakes her, but she gets away. Little Tiger’s already bleeding. She knows she’s no match for him, but there’s nowhere to hide.

  One of the Julios races in to save her. When he tries to get a chain around her neck, Monstro bites Julio’s leg and chases him out. He’s growlin’ as loud as he can, and he slowly turns toward her. Little Tiger’s scared—panicking—running left, running right, running everywhere, but he’s got the size to block her. He pounces, bites into her back, holds her, and shakes her. She twists away, pouring steroid-colored blood that looks like purple rain.

  Little Tiger’s dead, and Monstro is struttin’ around the cage like a man who just got out of a bad marriage without paying alimony. The crowd’s just happy to see anything get killed, so they give him a standing ovation.

  As the noise is dyin’ down, he looks up at me with purple blood dripping off his long tongue. Good thing I don’t have tongue envy, ’cause he’s got a whopper. Monstro wants to fight, which gets me wondering if he can jump high enough to bite my tail.

  The answer is yes.

  It’s OK, ’cause as you mighta figured, the plan is not to hang up there forever. I knew I’d end up fightin’ one or the other. Monstro’s leaping and nipping little tufts of hair outta the end of my tail. I roar into the mic a couple of times to distract him, and then as light as I can, drop to the floor of the cage.

  I wasn’t real eager to be fightin’ Little Tiger. If she got my leg, that’s it, I’m finished. She was great, but she shoulda fought Monstro like he was a boar, not a dog. Glad she didn’t, ’cause I’m hoping Monstro’s gonna be a more user-friendly opponent. Sure, he’s the size of one of those annoying strollers for twin babies that take up half a subway car, but he’s also just about as nimble. He’s slow, very slow. Plus, I’m figurin’ he’s stupid, ’cause of the way his tongue is always hangin’ out. You walk around with your tongue hangin’ out all day and I guarantee you’re gonna look more like a simpleton than the editor of The Atlantic.

  All I gotta do is use a combo of my strategies with Mad Max and Big Nipper, and I got ’im easy.

  I hear Sergio yell, “Here they go, everybody.”

  I start with a headbutt to daze and slow him. I plow in but bounce off his head, like when I tried to escape and slammed into the metal door of the Smiths’ trailer. I figure I musta run at the wrong angle or something, so I charge even faster and butt again. I bounce off, fall over, and get up and start looking for a plate of bologna Mrs. Smith was about to give me. I feel his fat tongue and slobbering mouth on my neck and wake up, realizin’ I just knocked myself out and was havin’ another one of my bologna dreams. I wrestle away an instant before his jaws lock on me.

  “Head of Stone” has failed me.

  “Spike goin’ down,” Money Piles is yelling. “You not so Wonder Doggy now. He make you look like little old squirrel tryin’ to fight mighty King Kong. How ’bout we just freeze your ass now, get this over with?”

  My head clears. I start hoppin’ around the ring to get him to chase me and tire out like Mad Max did. I’m bouncing left, bouncing right, bouncing all over. But he just stands there looking at me like a bored parent who’d rather be checking Instagram than watch his kid doing triple somersaults on a trampoline.

  I see a fire in his eyes. He snarls, bares his fangs, and attacks. I go leaping over him, but he rears up and swats me down like he’s blocking a volleyball at the net.

  I got no tricks left.

  I’m standing my ground.

  If I’m going to show valor, this is it.

  Come on, M
onstro, bring it on; let’s fight.

  We tangle. I’m faster, way faster. He’s stronger, but maybe not so much stronger that I can’t take him. His bobbin’-and-weaving tactic with the boar isn’t workin’ on me. I can get in short bites to his throat almost at will. I’m using those bites like Ali used his jab. But ’cause Monstro’s above me, he counters with chomps on my back each time I jab, and they’re hard bites. Hurts, stings bad—but I’m bred to handle pain. Is he?

  I’m moving my head in and out, taking quick, nasty little nips. His chest is dripping blood on the dirt.

  We tangle again. He gets the side of my face, and I taste my blood for the first time. I dart in and land a hard nip under his throat. He lets out a small screech. I nip him again. He screeches again. He’s feeling pain—good.

  He doesn’t like what I’m doing, so he starts using his power to bulldoze me. I resist just enough to make it hard work to move me. I wanna tire his legs; that’ll give me a big advantage. He’s struggling to push me all around the ring.

  The crowd starts booing.

  This clinch would be broken up by the referee if we were boxers, but nobody’s separating us, and nobody’s stopping this on a TKO; one of us is going to bark the big one.

  The crowd’s booing louder, ’cause it’s boring.

  Monstro’s panting real heavy, so I drop back quick, then charge with two head fakes that make him just miss nipping another piece off my ear. I maneuver inside and get a small chunk of his skin. I back off and spit it out. He’s mad and runs straight at me.

  “They be fightin’ like Hearns-Hagler,” Money Piles yells. “It’s Hearns-Hagler of dogs.”

  I remember bein’ with Bud watching the video of that fight over and over. It was three of the greatest rounds in boxing ever, and comin’ to mind is the powerful Tommy “The Hit Man” Hearns’ uppercut.

  Monstro’s charging again, and this time, my counter’s gonna be like an uppercut. I come in low, duck even lower, and spring for a clean grab on his neck. I’ve got him in the bull terrier throat-hold position—the one we were bred and trained to do. All I gotta do is hold on, slowly tighten down, and he’s finished. But like he’s a UFC fighter, he flips sideways and rolls over twice. Monstro’s not as stupid as I figured—it’s a brilliant move, ’cause he stops at an angle that makes me drop the grip; otherwise, his body weight’s gonna break my leg.

  I’m off balance and stretching my leg as he moves at me way quicker than I ever thought he could. He gets my throat, flips me, and pins me under all of his 220 pounds. He clenches down to crush my windpipe. No big pain, but he’s slowly cuttin’ off my breathing, so I’m only able to suck little bits of air through my nose. I’m panicking for air. Lungs are burning. Mind’s calm. I’ll fight to my last breath, but which breath is it gonna be? I’m being killed…. This is it…. Goodbye, Bud…. Goodbye, Daisy…

  For what happens next, you gotta credit the UFC, ’cause Monstro’s obviously been watching round after round of UFC battles. Instead of just takin’ another ten seconds and finishing me off like he coulda easily done, he decides to entertain everybody by grandstanding and smashing my head against the dirt floor.

  The crowd roars, so he smashes it again, and again, and again…and again…and…

  Mr. and Mrs. Smith are singing a Christmas song about a flyin’ reindeer….

  Mr. Smith’s got his oxygen mask off and takes a deep drag on an unfiltered Camel cigarette as he’s singing. The only difference between how Sinatra looks while he’s smoking and singing and Mr. Smith is that Frank has teeth.

  They finish real loud, “You’ll go down in hiss…torr…reee!”

  “OK, Rudolph,” Mrs. Smith says. “Here’s a little Christmas treat.”

  She tosses a piece of bologna at me that looks like a limp Frisbee floating through the haze of smoke in their trailer. I catch it. She starts throwin’ pieces at me as fast as she can, like it’s the annual bologna speed-heaving competition at the trailer park. Slices are bouncing off my head, my chest, my everywhere; it’s piling on the floor. I’m gobbling them down as quick as they’re comin’ in. I’m chewin’ as hard and fast as I can. My mouth’s full, and I’m rushing to chew more, and I bite my tongue. Mistake. I got the worst pain I ever felt. “Ahhhh!” This hurts…torture…torture…. Oh my God, bad pain, bad, bad pain…. Horrible, horrible, tongue-biting agony accident pain.”

  My eyes open. I musta got knocked out again and woke up when I bit my tongue dreamin’ I was chewin’ bologna. Tongue is throbbin’. And what’s that dangling an inch in front of me? Bologna? Am I gazing at the world’s biggest, thickest slice of delicious pink bologna? Maybe I’m unconscious again? But I hear a crowd chanting, “Kill! Kill!”

  No! I’m wide awake, and what I’m looking at isn’t a piece of bologna—it’s Monstro’s tongue.

  The instant he feels my right fang sinking into that tongue, his body tightens like a Slinky snapping back into place. He’s rigid. Small high-pitched squeals start deep in his throat and fade to squeaks when they get to his mouth. The crowd hears nothing. They don’t know what I’m doing. To them, it still looks like he’s got me down and is choking me.

  “Kill him, Monstro! Kill him, kill him!” they’re screaming.

  “He dead yet?” Money Piles shouts to the crowd. “What you think? What you think? Spike dead yet?”

  Monstro’s breathing is gettin’ slower and slower and slower. His eyes are crossed, which is kinda rare for a dog, unless they got astigmatism like that Boston terrier in Thomasville who wore yellow corrective goggles. I’m bearin’ down on the tongue as hard as possible. Can’t imagine the pain he’s got right now. Even though I’m doin’ this to save my life, I’m not happy hurting him, so it’s good when he lets out a gasp and passes out. His body’s in shock; not unusual to pass out ’cause a pain.

  I get loose from his slack jaws and slowly back out from under him. I hate to make a victory appearance ass first, but it’s the only way I can exit. As more and more of my body appears, the yelling gets louder and louder. By the time I’m standing in the middle of the ring, with Little Tiger in a pool of blood on one side of me and Monstro in a massive heap on the other, everyone is standing and chanting, “Spike, Spike, Spike!”

  My moment of triumph with what I’m calling “The Tasmanian Tongue Hold,” lasts about ten seconds before a Julio, James Two, and James Plus run in and throw that heavy mesh metal cover over me and get a wire on a stick around my neck. I can’t move. It’s like I got a melted airplane wing holding me down.

  Money Piles enters, and the crowd gives him a cheer. He looks at Monstro.

  “We seen Spike The Wonder Dog kill Monstro with phantom bite like Mohammad Ali use a phantom punch ’n knock out ‘The Big Bear’ Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine.”

  “Ohhhh, ahhhh,” the crowd goes, pretendin’ to know what the hell he’s talking about, or that they ever even heard of the state of Maine.

  “Now this Spike’s last fight. He be retiring undefeated, like ‘The Brockton Blockbuster,’ Rocky Marciano.”

  “Ohhhhhhh, nooooooo,” the crowd moans, like they’re really gonna be thinkin’ about me tomorrow, let alone doing MapQuest to find out where Brockton is.

  Money Piles looks at some notes he’s got written on the hand bandage, and it’s the start of the dazzling raillery of his stand-up comedy.

  “Spike oughta be arrested for animal abuse in here, the way he kill Monstro.”

  No laughs.

  “Now all my James boys know how good my girlfriend Cartier is at givin’ head—right, boys? Her sex trainer got her on the new Phallusal-lick-it diet.”

  “Strange transition,” I’m thinking, as my tongue’s hanging out dripping ’cause of the weight of the metal on me.

  James One says, “Yeah, she bad, Money. She head-givin’ champ, Champ; she love workin’ in your no-fly zone.”

  “She better at outercourse than intercourse,” Five Plus screams.

  “And, Money, you know what Bible say about h
er,” James Three says.

  A gleam enters Money Piles’ eye, like it’s a setup line he’s waiting for.

  “No, Three…. What do the Bible say?”

  “Your rod and your staff comfort her,” Three says.

  “Amen!” Cartier yells.

  Five Plus shouts, “She tell me she never defy a gag order. She better than porn star; she make Stormy Daniels look like Charlie Daniels!”

  “She is porn star, you stupid dick,” Money Piles yells. “And I was thinkin’ of Cartier givin’ Spike head…”

  Wait a minute! I get stolen, tranquilized up the ass, locked in a cage, battle multiple dogs, they’re gonna freeze me and stew me, but first Cartier gives me a blowjob? No fuckin’ way!

  Money Piles pauses to let the crowd do some “Wow”-ing and “He bad”–ing before he delivers his punch line, but he’s got the timing of an amateur comedian on open-mic night at a pop-up comedy club in Fenwick, Connecticut.

  “Oh, yeah! I was thinkin’ of Cartier giving Spike head…to a prince in Nigeria who pay ten thousand dollars if Cartier slice head off. That prince want Spike head for trophy in middle of palace dinner table. He say he pay extra five thousand for video if Cartier be oiled up and naked when she be heading to beheadin’ him.”

  I’m seriously wondering why I didn’t swallow all those steroid pills when I had the chance. Forget valor; I saw enough of Game of Thrones to avoid beheading whenever possible.

  “But that prince crazy usin’ kennel-fresh dog head for a trophy. You know why? You need to eat dog head fresh, ’cause dog head, when you add pineapple and cloves…it taste better…”

  He looks down at the bandage and reads, “…than Hormel ham…your mother make…at Easter.”

  Because nobody else is, Money Piles starts laughing. The Jameses finally realize he’s tryin’ to be funny, so they burst into the loud, fake laughs employees always give their bosses.

  “You funny, Money; oh, yeah, you funny,” James One says.