Devilcountry (30 page)

School children head towards us.  
Lots of them.
 
Like a ton.
 There must be hundreds of them!  Headed our way!  They get
closer.  They clack and clang and scream and yell.  There seems to be
some type of chaperone apparition with them.  But it’s blurry.  As
they move closer they begin to organize succinctly, like an army of tiny
Spartans in two neat rows that line up perfectly.  They march on toward
us.  They are in perfect formation roughly twenty paces up from us.
 I’m freaked yet calm.  What if the dog attacks?  Oh shit!
 Ok, just be cool.”

Newspaper headlines – “DOG BITES KID!
 KID BITES DOG!  FEISTY FRIDA FROTHS IN FRONT OF FRIENDS FROM FERAL
FEFE!”

Everyone gets rabies.  I go to jail.
 Better make a run for it.  Jump out onto the street and take my
chances with oncoming traffic.  Screw them all!  I
gotta
start worrying about me!

Rabbi Levi’s words erupt in my head. “Follow the
path, and ride the word of God to the heavens.  This is the way of
Kabbalah.  This is the way of God.”  Fuck that shit! Stupid kids!
Stupid dog!  The dog looks back at me.  It is the most soothing and
confident look I have ever seen from any creature anywhere.  He asks with
his eyes, “You ready?” They swallow us.
Me, the dog, the dope
in my bloodstream, our souls.
 We become one.  The children
smile.  I am Moses parting a Red Sea of children.  They laugh,
giggle, and point.  A couple of them reach out and pet his mangy coat as
we pass through them.  
All of them maybe seven or eight
years old.
 
Probably about fifty of them.
  
Smiling, petting, laughing, petting some more.
 The two rows of children with us in the middle,
me and
my dog
.  The dog is our leader.

They pass us in a long stream.  Dog and I
walk up the hill together, sharing the same space.  Allies, bonded, the
mutual goal ahead
..
 Going up a hill.  
Nothing to see here.
 We’re platonic.  The dog
looks up passively and gives a dog smile as each child passes.  He is
stroked and loves it.  I grow jealous.  Only a dog can get that kind
of attention.  The dog looks up at the children.

“Yes, you are correct, I am a dog.  
Here’s my human friend
,
careful he may
bite
.  No, no leash needed, he’s trained pretty good.”

The last kid passes and the chaperone smiles as
she brings up the rear.  I am as light as the feather I have just picked
up from off of the ground.  I always see them there.  
In the gutter, on the ground.
 
Lost
plummage in need of an admirer.

 
        
  
The dog waits outside the yogurt
store.  I get my final check.  My boss is a sweet and decent man who
owns two yogurt stores with his father.  
He dreams of
better things.
 He pitches me his script about triple X-rated
action flicks.  I nod politely as I scrunch the payment envelope into my
pocket.

 
        
  
“You know a John Woo action scene
followed by some really hot steamy threesome action.  And it’s all
believable, y’know?  We see real emotion and character development, and
then BAM! Money shot!  I’ve got a friend over at Vivid.  We may get a
meeting.”

 
        
  
I wish him luck with his vision of
melding hot sex with
high octane
action.  I exit
the facility.  I feel bad for my boss.  On days I’m not there he is
alone all day.  Cooped up.  He mans a store that no one goes into
until after a workout or movie has let out.  
Housewives
in need of a fix.
 
Teenagers looking to kill
time.
 He’s on the leash.  

 
        
  
We walk toward home.  I am
filled with light.  Man and dog.  I am elated.  Free of encumbrance.
 Free of worldly possession.  Free of all of it.  
The big IT that clouds up our minds and world with the bullshit of
the everyday.
And there is so much of it. We stop.  Right where we
met.

Me and dog.
Right at the corner of my block.
 A sleepy
Cul–de-sac.  Four blocks in on either side of a major artery.  
Safe from it all.
 I sit down on the curb on the
corner.  
Near the stop sign where my mother dressed up
as Big Bird for my fifth birthday.
 She fashioned a
home-made
“Sesame Street” sign under the real street sign.
 It was awesome.  Especially when Steve Parker, my six-year-old
friend from down the street kept yelling, “Take it off!”

Good
times.

 
        
  
We sat there.  
On the curb.
 Quiet.  Dog nestled in the shady
spot I created underneath my legs.  He fit in there perfectly.  He
let me pet his head.  He raised his head up in approval and sleeked his
eyes back. “Oh, yeah…” he said.  

 
        
  
Then a man came out of the house
caddy corner to where we were sitting on the opposite side of the street.
 He was wearing a fishing hat, a Hawaiian shirt, loafers and black socks.
 You do not wear black socks with shorts.  EVER.  My father
taught me this.  This is the fashion move of the “SHMUCK.”
As it was deemed by my father.
 His wise words still
echoed in my mind.

 
        
  
“Craig, if you see a guy wearing
Bermuda shorts with black socks I don’t care what anybody says they are a
shmuck!  Now brush your teeth and go to bed!”

 
        
  
The shmuck walked forward onto his
lawn while pulling a hose that was attached from the back yard spigot.  He
was going to put some water on the gardenias in the front flower patch he had
cultivated.  They were impeccable.  A timid, small poodle-mix trailed
behind on a leash.  Groomed nicely.   The leash made a rattle as
the chains meshed against the dog’s neck.  The man started hosing down his
sidewalk.  I’ve never understood the concept of watering down cement.
 He was bald.  Bad bald.  
The kind of bald
that watches tons of off-brand porno and denies it later in court.
And
those black socks.  I couldn’t get past it.  It was the worse sin you
could commit.  
Worse than murder.
 At least
murder can be justified in some cases.

 
        
  
The leash gave the poodle some room
but not much.  He could walk all over the lawn but couldn’t quite get to
the sidewalk without it snapping back against the tree that it was tied to near
the front door.  The poodle started to dig into the Schmuck's
flower bed
near the curb.  
Perhaps
for attention.
 The Shmuck started to yell.  “Muffin! NO!
 Don’t do that!! I just planted those!!! MUFFIN!!! STOP!!!”  He
sprayed the dog with the hose and the dog immediately retreated.  His bald
head gleaming under the bright, suburban sun.

 
        
  
Muffin?  That’s a shit name
for a dog if I’ve ever heard one.

I
stare down at dog.  
Between my legs.
 He’d
watched the whole scene.  He looks up at me.  A few moments pass.

He
rises up on all fours.  Walks a few paces into the street
makes
his turn.  He looks at me.  I look at him.

 
        
  
“Thank you, Rabbi.” I whisper.
 He wanders away…slowly…no rush.

SPINNING BOY

I
saw a lady with her young son in the Ralph’s in Northridge. My shift had ended.
Geraldo tipped me out and I was headed home.  I was tired but I needed
food.  

He looked about four years old.  It was
late, probably 11:30- 12:00.  
Later than a four year old
should be up.
 The night shift had taken over.
 
The night shift is
usually staffed by men who wear aprons
.  They have holsters on with
tons of box-cutters and other crap dangling off because they’re there to
re-stock and do repairs.  There’s one register open and all traffic
funnels into it.  If you get to the register, and no one is there.
 You must wait.

 
          
I
had fucked up my budget once again.  After gas, and money I owed Geraldo,
I had fifteen bucks to my name.  Therefore, I shopped for exactly fifteen
bucks worth of shit.

She had short, dyed-blond hair.  A nose
that had had work done on it but still didn’t look right and large, inflamed
breasts that appeared far too solid to be considered actual human tissue. They
were huge and immovable.  The half-shirt she was wearing looked like it
was about to tear open, as if she were becoming the Hulk, but the only part
affected was her boobs.  They would tear through the shirt, green and
nipply, and wreak carnage over all who leered innappropriately.

 
         
 
She had an unhealthy tan.  
Dark and creviced.
 It covered her from head to toe.
 Like moss.  She had an orange-ish hue to her, which was strange in
January even in the Valley.  The blue, acid- wash denim jacket she wore
over her shirt was not only about ten years out of style
but
it could barely contain the madness going on on her chest.  It also seemed
to clash with the skin color she was attempting.  She wore a tight, blue
jean miniskirt that was way above the knee, and most likely no underwear.
 And heels.  Three-inch heels.  They looked so uncomfortable.
 Her nails were long, red and unreal, her makeup was thick, and the boy
wore red Oshkosh.  He had long, dusty hair that hadn’t been combed or
washed in days and was starting to matte up a bit.  And the dirt around
his mouth had been rubbed into his chin and cheek.  He had fingers
protruding into his mouth.  Yes, these were dirty fingers.  
Filthy in fact.
 His nails were blackened.

 
         
 
He was spinning in circles as they stood
in line. Pushing off on one foot, using the other to pivot.  His circles
widened and he almost tipped over.  There is something about dizziness
that can keep a kid entertained for days.  I wished I hadn’t given that
up.  When we stop being dizzy we realize that life is boring.  And
then we grow up. I wished I
was
spinning with him.
 But social decorum does not allow for it.  If anything the kid had
the right idea.  He was being exactly what he was supposed to be.  It
would be weird and abnormal if he were doing anything else.

She looked over at him and yelled at him to stop
or his life would end quickly.  I guess she wanted him to grow up.
 She looked younger than me, but her face looked older than mine.
 There were laugh-lines peeking out near her eyes.  Yet she had
managed to maintain the sveltness of a nineteen-year-old.  The effect was
chilling.  It reminded me of that Chavo De Ocho guy who was in his mid-fifties
and still dressing up as a child on the Spanish language channel the cooks
would have on sometimes when it was slow.  

There was not an ounce of fat on her.  It
looked strange.  People seem to think as long as you are
dead-thin
, you can disproportionate the rest of your body in
order to accent attraction.  All this does
really,
is put you in the running for pornography.  The more freakish you can make
your body, the more work there may be made available to you.  She fit that
mold.  We were on the border between Chatsworth and Northridge, just down
the street from a couple topless bars,
and  past
those, deep into Chatsworth, were the warehouses.  The warehouses where
people like me weren’t welcome.  
Dingy, dusty,
uncarpeted storage spaces, refitted and adjusted to accommodate cameras,
lights, sets, dressing rooms.
 
An extra bathroom
for fluffing, cocaine, and douching.
  
Dark,
cavernous, vacuous.
 These are the places where some of the most
liberating sexual acts are performed day-in and day-out on people like her.

 
         
 
About five minutes earlier I had reached
for bread while cruising down the bread aisle.  A whole aisle dedicated to
the wonderment of yeast.  I was impressed.  I felt my ass tighten
because my colon gave me my first warning shot across the bowel.  I had to
squeeze together in order to hold all that was inside.  I had eaten
earlier, a slice of pizza reheated by Geraldo, extra cheese. Some old lettuce
and no-calorie ranch dressing.  There were two pieces of bread involved
also.  These were the two slices that could not find a date for the entire
two week
life span of the loaf.  There may have
been mold on them, I didn’t care, I was starving, and I needed to eat.
 This is what you do when you are hungry.  You say to yourself, “It’s
either eat this, or my intestines start eating each other.”  God this one
really wanted to come out.  I wasn’t sure if I could even make it to the
cashier.

But that was where I was standing now.  
Proud of my accomplishment.
 Only five minutes had gone
by since my stomach hit Def-Con One, but it felt like five years.