November 29, 2009; Vacation, Part II

This fat fuck is on my fucking balcony! Is there no respect!

There are a few things that are worrying me with Mook B in France and me alone with Mook A. I'll start with the lack of sleep I'm getting. I'm now in Mook A's bed for the duration of the other one's vacation and though it is as cozy as you could want, it gives on to the fucking kitchen and—worse!—he leaves the kitchen door open all night in case I want to walk about and get some water. But I'll be damned if I'm moving from the fucking bed in the night hours as, I tell you, there is a ghost in there.

There's one thing you should know about dogs. We know our ghosts. When you see us pricking up our ears or hear us whining or growling at nothing...think again! It isn't nothing. We not only hear and smell the spirits which roam about, we can sense them even when they're barely around. You've seen dogs reacting strangely to places which seem perfectly banal...well, it's the ghosts. Yes, yes, yes we know that you humans think it's all bunk but that's because you're stupid.

So, for now, I live with the damn thing and dread that it will try to make its presence felt even more. I'll tell you this...I get awfully thirsty at night and I'm really happy when the sun starts to rise.

Meanwhile, there is other craziness here. Mook A is starting to talk to me. I don't mean: "Get off the fucking couch!" or "Go lie down!" I mean chats. He has taken to watching two or three movies a day and although this used to keep him fairly docile and let me sleep (curled up beside him) lately he's started to get mouthy. He always talks at the TV (losing his mind when some right-winger shows up on CNN), but this is different. We were watching Appaloosa and he said, "Do you like Westerns, Leo?" (Note: he pronounces my name in English, Mook B in French.) I glanced up at him, thinking he was just jabbering, but he was actually looking at me, waiting for an answer like. "I don't usually enjoy Westerns," he went on, "but this one has Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris and that is a whole lot of eye candy." Well, I should have known. I thought he'd shut up, but he went on. "I like Ed Harris for his eyes, which I noticed for the first time when he was in The Right Stuff. And Viggo...what to say about Viggo..." He sighed like a teen girl reading Tiger Beat. "I fell for him when he took off his shirt in Psycho. I was hooked. And I don't think he's married."

Well...a: Too much information and b: You can dream on about Viggo and you. But A went on telling me he didn't usually like Westerns 'cause the guys didn't take their shirts off but I can tell you this about Appaloosa: it was the gayest film I've seen since Brokeback Mountain. If Mortensen wasn't in love with Harris, I'll eat my Harley Davidson collar!

There is one good thing about Mook A's talking. When we're out walking, and because it's late autumn, the squirrels are everywhere and getting more aggressive and snotty with me. They've taken to taunting me on the street, running up a tree (just out of reach) and chittering at me...mocking me. That's when A steps in. "You fucking little coward!" he bellowed at one this morning. "Come back down on the sidewalk and face the music, you fucking tree rat shit. You'll be making all sorts of different noises when Leo's finished with you!" Then he turned to me and said, "Right?" I snerfed that he was quite right and he laughed his head off. You gotta like that about him, at least.

Meanwhile, we're hearing nearly nothing from Mook B in France. Apparently his sacred little iPhone is a piece of shit over there and that's after he paid to get it unlocked; a whole 250 Eurines or whatever the fuck those commie faggots over there use to buy their scag and child prostitutes.

Anyhoo...

Five days together, alone, and no one is dead yet...so I suppose that's good.

November 26, 2009; The Vacation, Part I

This is the Straight Guy (SG). Of course, he isn't sitting very "straight", in any sense of the word, but he's not far if I need him.

Mook B is away in Paris and it is the third day I have been alone with Mook A.

It started badly with A giving me a bath the first day. If you watch CSI or those shows, it seems to me that rapists sometimes force their victims to bathe before doing bad things to them. But as it turns out, in A's own charming turn of phrase, "If you're going to sleep in my bed, I don't want your filth and your nasty arse in there with me."

The first night was the worst 'cause I found out there's a ghost in the kitchen. A's bedroom is right off the kitchen and he left his door open so that I could wander or drink water in the night, but I didn't move from that fucking bed 'cause all through the night there were sounds—bumps, clunks and skitters—coming from there I had never heard before and I don't think I slept a wink. A finally got annoyed with me jumping up and down in the bed in consternation and yanked me over to the other side of the him and forced me to lie down and curl up.

The best thing about the time so far is that I almost got away. It was the third or fourth walk together and as we came out and when I usually sit as A lights his cigarette before starting, I decided to see what would happen if I yanked as he did this. Sure enough, the leash-handle flew from his hand and I was free. But here's the thing: this is a new leash (one of those extensible ones) and it all snaps back into this really heavy box. So as I ran down the stairs to get away, that fucking box was smacking me in the ass and when I got to the sidewalk my only concern was to get it away from my butt. Needless to say A caught up to me and what made it all so much worse was that Ginger was a few feet away watching this spectacle. She snerfed with disdain and I knew that my wooing of her had taken a giant leap backward.

So, just to assure A that he had not reacquired the upper hand, I decided to add something totally new to my repertoire! As we walked along this lady came over to pet me. At first I did my usual joyful song and dance for her but as her voice hit some level of delight, in octaves only a dog can hear, I decided to bite her. Not a playful bite, but a good little nip on the end of her fingers. She yelped and A pulled me back, apologizing profusely. As we walked away he was completely confused—as was the plan—and was saying, "What the fuck was that all about?!" It was soon forgotten, however, so on a later walk he wasn't expecting anything when this huge, hysterically happy and opera-soprano-high-voiced lady shrieked from across the street how cute I was and made her way towards us. I, again, did the little dance of joy but then, again, bit her too adding a series of maniac snarls for effect. The lady jumped back and said, "Is this normal for him?! Is he angry?! Is he happy?!" A just grinned stupidly, dragging me away, and said, "He's never done such things before." Heheheheh...

Except...

When we were out of view of civilized people he got insanely angry, knelt beside me, bellowed in my face and, for good measure, clomped me in the head with the leash-box. From then on, 'til today, he did not let me approach other people and when a little girl in the schoolyard begged to pet me he told her, in grave tones, "He's a mean dog, sorry."

Now, as I've said, there is a thin line between being the neighbourhood dog who's got 'tude and the neighbourhood dog who's out of his fucking mind and only the truly sick dogs want to cross that line, so I'm going to have to be careful about this or I see in my future short-leash walks and—save us all!—a muzzle. I wouldn't put that past A.

However, I am examining possible escape plans. Winter is coming and I really don't want to do the whole alleys and parks thing again so I thought that—should I get away—I'll run over to Straight Guy (SG)'s house. You know: the one who had the fire and lived here a couple of days? He owes me for taking up my space and maybe he'd keep me safe 'til Mook B gets back or until I can find another place to live. I don't want him to adopt me, no, 'cause I've seen his place (when Mook A was watering his plants this summer) and this guy is way too much of a clean-freak to want a dog around him permanently.

So, as you can see, except for the ghost in the kitchen (I wonder who it is!), nobody is dead and there haven't been any natural disasters.

Yet.

November 23, 2009; Better

Now what?

I am much, much better. But, just for good measure, after all the nausea and diarrhea had passed I took a dump on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night right in front of the fridge. I was hoping Mook A would get up for his midnight pee and glass of water (which he gets from the fridge) but no such luck. However, because I had been sick, I wasn't even punished for it. Must remember that.

I suspect you wonder why dogs eat crap on the street which makes us sick. Well, first: we don't know it's going to make us sick and it all smells good. But, most importantly, second: being a dog is an art and we must suffer for our art.

Meanwhile, my appetite is still not what it was, I'm lazy, the weight is coming back from sheer inertia... Oh! my fucking Christ! I'm turning into Mook A! Before you know it I'll be nerding out online with people named Mouse and Yogi!

I suppose that it's just as well that I'm turning into the Mook as in a piddling 36 hours or so it's going to be him and me alone as Mook B is off to Paris with his fucking iPhone (the better to keep tabs on the battle of wills between me and A). Worse, my other buffer, Cate, is now in Florida and is paying the price of abandoning me—her e-mails report the resort she's staying at is a deadzone. (Which, in Florida, means there's no one around who can wipe his or her own arsehole for the blubber, wrinkles or arthritis).

Right now Mook A and I are enjoying a kind of détente. We spend a lot of time cuddling (for warmth not love, fuckwads!) and watching TV. Thankfully, A is feeling so brainless these days we don't have to slog through his usual favourites—art films—we're getting lots of explosions and blood which is the way I like it; nothing like watching humans blown away or being devoured by zombies to cheer up a condemned dog.

Mook B keeps asking A what he wants from Paris. Indeed, between Cate and B, A is being drowned in solicitousness. I have apparently become invisible. No one asks me what I want from Paris or Florida or fucking anywhere. B has stocked the freezer with all of A's favourite foods but I continue to survive on a diet of crap kibble soaked in store-bought broth. You know what that tastes like? A Floridian's arsehole is what.

The only consolation is that Mook A's own asshole still looks like it belongs to the head cheerleader for the prison football team, so my beloved nurse visits five times a week now with a swing nurse on weekends. I wonder if their code of ethics requires them to report if I'm starving to death, being beaten or have a bladder that's about to explode. Mind, if their code of ethics requires that, I suppose it certainly requires them to report when I kill Mook A in his sleep and eat his fucking face off.

Pray for me.

November 20, 2009; So Sick...

So sick I can't even eat my fucking cookie...just carry it around and sleep with it.

Sooooooooo sick...

Barfing...everywhere...

Shitting...everywhere...

...blood...

Can't eat. Can't sleep. Wander about.

And they gnaw my nuts for being sick even as they try to commiserate. "What did you eat now?" they ask.

I think I know what it is...I think Mook A fed me something to get rid of me before Mook B goes off to Paris on Tuesday.

I'm dying here.

Ack!

November 17, 2009; Two Men and a Phone

Sometimes you can just watch them and not believe your eyes.

You can make suppositions about the dynamics of a given relationship by the way a couple deals with technology. For instance, my ex-owner, Frank, could get his daughter to buy him damn near anything because she knew nothing about technology and he knew just a little bit. He convinced her that he needed a Blu-ray player because his eyes were going and that he needed a better quality picture to be able to watch his movies. What his daughter didn't know is that he had read somewhere that the porn industry was going to switch to Blu-ray and there was nothing so terribly wrong with his eyes. So, basically, Frank got his Blu-ray for his Blue Balls. Frank would see an ad or read an article about some new gadget and he would get it and they would just all pile up around the apartment. The only low-tech thing he had was me.

Even at the puppy mill and the pound there was always some young geek trying to impress some chick way out of his league with his new mp3 player or his new cellular and you could tell if he had an iota of a chance if the chick was vaguely fascinated. (Most were not...like Frank's daughter they were mostly interested in how much skin they could expose and how high they could hike their skin-tight pants up into their snatches.)

Then we have the Mooks. I have pretty much sensed that Mook A is the technoid and Mook B the tech-tard. Every time B wants to watch a movie, for instance, A has to re-explain how the three remotes work. So it was damn odd when, three days ago, B came home with a brand new iPhone. This was not his style at all, especially since his hobby seems to be losing his cels all over creation. Moreover, he had been working for two days at getting the fucking thing and had bounced from one phone store to another getting a different story from each of them and another six different stories from his phone company about whether or not he would be able to upgrade from his current cel plan. So it was somewhat of a miracle when Mook A and I came out of the bathroom from changing his appliance and there was B with an iPhone box and about 80,000 gadgets for the thing spread out all over the kitchen table.

Though the idiot phone was supposed to be able to communicate with B's computer...well, it wasn't. That's when A was drafted to help even though it was clear (to me, at least) that he was choking with envy that B had this wondrous little toy and he did not (being unemployed and desperately poor and all). Whenever B asked a question (in the most weak, shaky and subservient little voice you've ever heard—think Minnie Mouse on a meth low) B would bellow, "Giveitgiveitgiveit! Give...it...to...me!!!" Then A would fiddle about—only impressing B with the fiddling and not fooling me at all—and pronounce, "I do not know why you can't take two minutes to do this and this instead of dragging me into your tech problems every fucking time. Have you never heard of a manual or even the tech help you're paying for!" At this B quailed and dared to say, "Why are you yelling at me?" To which A exploded, "HOW MANY TIMES AND WITH HOW MANY FUCKING COMPUTERS AND ANSWERING MACHINES AND CEL PHONES AND IPODS AND COFFEE-FUCKING-MACHINES HAVE WE BEEN THROUGH THIS!!! YOU BUY THE FUCKING MACHINE ALREADY LOADED WITH FRENCH FROM FRANCE AND WITH FRENCH FROM FRANCE MANUALS AND IT HAS ALL THESE ASSHOLE TECHNICAL TERMS EVEN A FUCKING FROG DOESN'T UNDERSTAND INSTEAD OF GETTING THE MACHINE IN ENGLISH SO I CAN UNDERSTAND AND HELP YOU OUT!!! CALL TECH HELP IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO EVERY FUCKING TIME!!!" At this point, despite the opera calling tech help always represents, B would rather do just that instead of getting another shit-storm from A.

It took hours, but the problems were solved and this is when, my friends, the dynamic shifts from the dominant "tech-savvy" person to the previously slavish techno-tard who, after all, owns the actual coveted object. It was clear, for the rest of the day, that B was delighting in showing A all the wondrous things that the iPhone could do (and it is a great toy).

Late that night, the real winner of the war was declared, though, without B even knowing it. As B slept, music from his iPhone drifting into his dreams, A was alone in the living room re-programming B's ratty cast-off cel phone.

From the bedroom there were the strains of The Police's Greatest Hits, from the other the sad beep-beep-beeps of a little machine which might—one day!—be able to make phone calls...and that's all.

November 14, 2009; Identity Crisis!

A little down the street from us live these two women. One of them is like a thousand years old and she's a bit like one of those crones in a fairy story except her hair is really, really blond. She lives with her daughter who is getting up there, in terms of crone-ism, and her hair is bright, bright red. They have a cat.

Now this cat and I have a strange relationship. Once, while walking with Mook A, the cat seemed to show some interest in me while not showing the hostility that virtually every other cat in the neighbourhood gives me. I started to approach the cat, also without hostility. The redhead told the Mook, "She really, really hates dogs" but that didn't prevent the crone, who had the cat on a leash, from approaching me and the Mook with the animal. It was strange. It was creepy-mysterioso. The cat and I touched noses. The redhead said she'd never seen anything like it.

Three days ago I was in the alley (again with A) and we came up to the apartment building where the biddies and their feline live. The cat was in the backyard behind a fence and when it saw me it came forward to the fence. This is where things get weird. I approached the fence slowly as did the cat. A gave me all the leash that I wanted so I wasn't strangling. The cat and I only had the fence between us now. We could almost touch. I could smell that hideous smell cats have but all that did was to intoxicate me a little. The cat hissed at but it was a gentle—almost lulling—sound and it moved back. I moved back. We both moved forward but so, so slowly. Almost touching again, now, she hissed a little and I noticed that she was a she

and that she stank of something else besides cat...she smelled of wet pussy (if you know what I mean, and I think you do). She moved back, just out of reach, and hissed a little and I felt I had to do something to get her to come forward again so I started to snerf and whimper and hop about. That's when Mook A said, "That's enough" and dragged me off.

"I have no fucking idea what that was all about," he said to me as we left. "I think you're getting really, really crazy and all that back and forth and shit was just a little bit queer, Little One." Note: every time Mook B wants to crawl up my asshole and hit my every nerve he will accuse me of the one thing that hits: queerness. I don't know why...must be a queer thing. But when he calls me queer and uses that epithet, Little One, I want to kill him, myself...the world. But it did make me think. What the fuck was going on between me and that fucking cat? Was it something—ick!—sexual or was that cat trying to dominate me and, from all appearances, succeeding? And what is a dog dominated by a cat but a prison bitch. Might as well just bend over and stay that way.

It gets worse.

Mook A, again, was walking me that night and when we were done he asked Mook B, "Have you ever noticed our dog walks a little faggy?" B laughed but A went on, "You know, he's always rushing ahead and when he rushes without running his back hips sway from side to side and you start to notice how little...and dainty...his paws are and how the nails clicking on the sidewalk sound like high heels."

Fucker! I could have explained that smaller dogs have to walk fast to keep up with their mooks and that we can't help how we look doing it and that all of this is the reason we tend to try to beat up on big dogs because big dogs call us "Sissy" all the time. It's how we are and it's the 'tude and...it's how we are!!!!!

But then it gets so worse.

Two night ago I was rough-housing on the couch with B. It was wild and wooly and before I knew it I was trying to hump his arm and had a massive hard on. All play stopped. A said, "Well...there you go. He's gay after all!" B laughed—laughed!—and said, "You think we've turned him?" There was much mirth between the two of them but I wasn't laughing. Not laughing at all.

Yesterday, as a kind of joke between them and the world, the Mooks bought me a new collar. It had studs on it and was made of black leather and the brand name was Harley Davidson. They both thought this was riotous but I'll tell you now: I am going to earn those studs.

Watch me.

November 11, 2009; Unexpected Journeys

And what about me, fuckwads?

It's been a weird couple of days (but then again, in my fucked up life, when are they not weird, dammit!).

Firstly, I'm off my food. I don't know what it is, but I can be perfectly satisfied with my vittles and then, suddenly, the stuff they are putting in my bowl tastes like ass. To try to get me to lose weight, they have been mixing chicken broth (low-cal the fuckers) with my kibble. This was okay because I like the smell of dead poultry as much as the next hound. But no one can eat the same goddam crap, day in day out. So I stopped eating. I figured the Mooks would get the point and change the stuff but then, last night, Mook A declared, "I am not going to change that fuckin' dog food every three fuckin' months just because the Little Princess suddenly decides he doesn't like it! When he's hungry enough, he'll eat whatever shit we put in front of him." Yeah, well...I'll show the mofo what I can eat and I'll also show him what I can shit and, more importantly, where I can shit.

Meanwhile...

Yesterday Cate came for a visit and after they all ate a nice chicken dinner (and I ate nothing) they settled down to watch a movie. I wasn't quite yet in the mood to settle down so I started to play with Cate. She was up for it and we started to have a good wrestle. Here's the thing: I'm not absolutely sure, but I think she might be up for a little inter-species slap and tickle 'cause she didn't seem to be the least bit perturbed when my pink snake began to make an appearance. In fact, she just laughed harder. However, the Mooks (those two horny, homo hypocrites) stopped the fun and games as soon as my one-eyed mole showed itself.

Then...

Ack! Ack! Ack!

Cate and Mook B started to talk about traveling. They weren't talking about it in some vague, hypothetical way either! At the end of this week Cate is going off on a road trip for a month and—oh! my! god!—Mook B is going off to Paris at the end of the month and he'll be gone for two weeks! Do you have any idea what this means? It means that for two weeks I'll be stuck here, alone, with the man who is already calling me Piggy, Princess and a slew of other awful names and who is showing no patience for my little idiosyncrasies! I am going to be here, alone, in this prison with Mook A!

This is not good.

Sure, A is good for a cuddle from time to time and he is responsible for two of my four walks a day but he's impatient with me. If he doesn't want to cuddle we don't cuddle (whereas with everyone else, they pretty much bend to my will). If I want to go one way during a walk (ie: towards something that smells good and borderline-edible) and he wants to go the other way, he'll yank me so hard that we always, always, always go his way. Mook B is my bitch. If I want a cuddle, he picks me up, and if I want to eat roadkill he pretty much lets me. He also responds when I am ready to go out (instead of doing as A does: taking me out when it's time...his time). In bed I can take up as much space as I want and Mook B just moves out of the way. I have an odd feeling that if I am not sleeping on the cold, cold floor—when I'm alone with A—that there might be like a square foot of space he allows me on the bed and that will just not do for a wandering body like mine.

And food—my god!—food! Will I actually eat when B's away? Will A be so hardcore about not giving me something that will please me that I may just have to swallow my pride and eat a bowl of ass? I'd rather starve!

And what if A gets sick! I mean, let's face it, he's not the healthiest specimen of humanhood! Sure, the nurse comes three times a week but will she save me as she's loading A into an ambulance or will she forget me, leave me behind so that I just sit here for two weeks hoping against hope that someone remembers me? Hoping that someone feeds me, walks me, takes care of me! The Straight Guy (SG) lives two blocks away but he's so caught up with getting the smoke out of his building that he won't be running here to look after me. I don't think he even likes me and lord knows I'm not overly fond of him.

How can Cate and B just go off and leave me to this monster!

I'll die! I know I will!

November 8, 2009; More Life Lessons from a Hard Ass Dog

Professor Léo speaks. The wise listen.

- Nothing bothers humans like a dog who scoots. Even if you don't have an itch, do it. Think of it as combing your arse hair and always do it on a rug or a piece of upholstered furniture. It's the little things—like zipping your anus across the shag—which count in the war between us and them. And the best thing? They invariably think it's something they're doing wrong.

- When they want you to do a "trick" (with me it's singing) build up a good head of steam—get insanely excited—and shriek like you're the big-titted teenager in a movie with a horde of zombies on your tail. It's not at all what they wanted as tricks go, but they did want you to do something—it's their fault if you didn't understand what. Shrieking works two ways: you "obeyed" and, if you're lucky, you get on the last nerve of someone else in the household and soon you have them fighting because one of them got you hysterical. Beauty.

- After they have washed or bathed, "love" them. Cover their faces, hands—whatever bare skin is available—with dog slobber. If you've just eaten (and it's something really rancid) even better, because in the guise of "kissing" you have turned this soap-smelling sissy into something with the pong of like carrion. It's "love" for them, power for you.

- When you are "playing" with a human, try to stay behind them; this way you can get a good mount on before they notice they're being fucked and general consternation sets in. Remember: they are your bitches.

- Remember the three Ds: Dash, Disorient, Destroy. When out or in, run, run, run. Nothing determines control like one keeping the other wondering—wondering what you're running to, what you smell, might eat or plow your nose into, or what you might accost. Eventually they will try to exert power, this is when you Disorient—run back to them, behind, in front of them, around them, wrapping the leash in and out of their legs as you heed their command. Soon they're spinning like a dreidle at Chanukah. Then Destroy—a good swift yank on the leash and even if they don't fall you do cut the circulation off in their legs. How can they get mad? You "obeyed" didn't you?

- Mumble and whimper for nothing. My Mooks' hair stands on end if I so much as yawn funny. It becomes a case of "What does he want???!!!" Then there is the hilarious back and forth of trying to guess until they give me something nice like a walk (I may have diarrhea after all) or a seat on the couch (I may need attention). But be careful—too much whimpering could get them probing your mouth, skin and—God forbid!—arsehole for "problems." Worst case scenario: you're off to the vet. Rectal thermometers are never amusing.

- If you are on a walk and sniff something interesting (food, maybe?) then pretend to pee as you investigate and/or eat. My Mooks never let me follow my nose (something to do with the various occasions they had to fish plastic, leaves or branches out of my butt), but they always give me the time to pee and, being stupid humans, often look away as I do. The world then becomes a buffet! Dish it up!

- "Nice" is a weapon. If you hear the phrase "Good dog!" and you have not actually set out to be such a beast, then you have done the equivalent of shooting your wad into your own eye. Humans get exasperated and they get that way very easily. If you wish to have the upper hand, this is when you must be "nice." Lick noses, lie down and show your belly in submissive pose, lean into their legs like you cannot live without them or simply sit when they tell you to. Past transgressions are almost immediately forgotten and future ones forgiven in advance.

- In dealing with guests, remember the last paragraph. Dogs who get territorial with growls or bites are bush league. That's the surest way to get banished to another room and miss out on idiot guests feeding you treats you're normally not allowed to have or pulling you up onto a sofa or chair you're not allowed to sit on. However: guests are your enemy! This is your space and guests always have a tendency to stay too long and to take up far too much of your world. This is when "nice" matters. Show the unwanted visitor how "cute" you are by "playing" with them. Shriek at them in excitement. Play with their shoes (while, also, ripping them apart), jump and dance and sing even as you nip and tug (and tear) clothing and inflict the tiniest (but also most painful) little wounds on digits and limbs. As mentioned in previous discussions, this is also when, with female guests, you explore. Depending on your region or breed, this practice is known as Beaver Boring, Snatch Snorting or Cooter Cuddling. Before long everyone is a mess of twitches and tics of embarrassment and wants to get out as quickly as possible; you, on the other hand, have done nothing but be sweet to the callers.

November 5, 2009; Fire!

Just above the car to the right is SG's balcony. Get the picture?

The evening was odd to begin with. I was alone with Mook A and he was playing his idiot game. Then he gave me my evening walk (which is normally B's job) and settled down to watch TV. Where was B? At a meeting of his professional association. Then it was very late and A went to bed, inviting me to come and cuddle with him. I did, of course (as all beds are mine in this place and must be claimed and reclaimed) and promptly fell asleep.

At one in the morning, B finally came home and he was a basket case because his meeting had gone wretchedly. I nodded awake to hear a bit of it but it was same-old, same-old though A was very consoling. B was a mess of nerves so A proposed to give him a couple of tranquilizers. I thought, "Oh-oh!" 'cause B had already smoked a joint and had a couple of beers to try to decompress.

Yadda-yadda-yadda on it went and then—what's this!?—the doorbell rang at two. B went down and I heard this familiar voice and wondered if it was worth getting out of the bed for. But the decision was made for me when A got up and went to the door. There was their friend, a straight guy (we'll call him SG) who's pretty cool about my two homos. But he wasn't cool. He was babbling, talking about a fire or some damn thing and then changing the subject about 80 times. Soon he was ushered into the house and it looked like he was spending the night (goddammit as if the fucking place isn't small enough for him to be horning in on my space!).

The deal was that SG's apartment building was apparently burning to the ground; he had been getting ready for bed, had seen an odd light at the window, gone to look and had been met by a wall of flames shooting over his balcony from the building next door. He grabbed what he could and came right over the the Mooks. The Mooks were properly condoling but then it just started to get weird as SG proposed, and the Mooks accepted, to take a walk to go look at the fire and, worse, to bring me with them. Hey, Fuckbrains!, it's 2:30 in the fucking a.m. and I need my fucking sleep, not some little quest into the cold, dark night! But nobody ever picks up on my moods so off we went.

I was in no hurry to get there as the night smelled good and I had some pissing to do, as long as we were out there. In a few minutes, though, we were watching the firemen break into SG's apartment while smoke poured out of the building next door and flames still shot out of windows here and there. Moreover, the cars parked behind the burning building had all blown up and there was a big autumn-dry tree that was threatening to explode and shoot burning leaves all over the neighbourhood. SG wasn't going to be sleeping in his bed that night, that's for sure. We watched the spectacle for way too long and I was starting to get cold. I tried to make the point that I wanted to leave by pestering all these weird people who, for some reason, were wandering about in their pyjamas and house-coats. What was spooky is that there must have been rats living in the vicinity of the fire as, suddenly, I was hearing all these weird, squeaky, noises and little skitters in the darkness. Finally, after I had put my muddy paws on one-too-many pyjama-ed people, we all toddled back to the Mooks'.

But—fercrissakes!—they weren't done yet. They drank tea and smoked cigarettes and chattered away and then SG asked B if he wouldn't mind coming with him, back to the conflagration, to see if the firemen would let him into his place to get some stuff. So off they went. A, I could see, was getting good and fucked up as he had taken his medication and was visibly wobbly. So we retired to his bed—again!—and were settling down for the night when the two other goofs came back. The firemen had told them to return in 20 minutes to get stuff out of the building.

I had a look at Mook B. There was something wrong with him. His eyes were sort of crossed and he was walking funny. I could tell his brain waves were off and that there were synapses in that pointy little head of his that were not connecting. But off B and SG went again. A decided there was no point going to bed just yet so he went outside onto the balcony to smoke and I sat in the kitchen wondering when the fuck this would all be over so I could get some motherfucking shut-eye. Why does everything happen to me!

Back they came, with a suitcase full of stuff. And on they went—talktalktalktalktalktalk. B looked really weird now and went off to his bedroom for a bit. No moves were being made towards beds or even preparation for sleep, so I sat on my little rug and snerfed with pissed-offedness. Suddenly there was B and something was very wrong with him. And the doofus was trying—politely—to move SG away from the bathroom door. SG was so preoccupied he didn't get this was happening and then there was the gusher: B puking up and down the bathroom door, on the floor, in the bathroom and, eventually, into the toilet. Not a pretty sight. And not pretty sounds, either, as when B is hurling it sounds like he's trying to snot out his stomach through his nose.

But here's another thing about couplehood: A just started to unroll a streamer of paper towel and as he continued to talk to SG about the fire and any damn thing that came into SG's head (as he wasn't particularly lucid at this point) A just went about the business of cleaning up the barf.

Finally...Finally!...they were talking about going to bed. I didn't wait as all of this was phenomenally tedious to me. I went to bed, B joined me and we fell asleep as A and SG yammered on in the kitchen until the fucking cows came home.

The next morning SG left to check the damage. The Mooks were sipping coffee when A, revealing far too much about his feelings, asked B what SG had been wearing when he got up. "The housecoat you lent him." Silence. "Do you think he's sexy?" A asked. My ears perked up. There was a brief hesitation before B said, "No." A snorted and I snerfed. You see, about a month ago A had told B, "I ran into SG on the street and he told me that he had seen you walking along and before he recognized you he had thought to himself, 'There's an attractive man.'" When B was told that story he did something I had only read about in books written by lady novelists: he simpered and blushed and said nothing but said everything.

Over the next day or so you could cut the sexual tension with a knife, though SG was completely oblivious of this. It's not like the Mooks tried to catch SG when he was changing clothes or naked in the bathroom or anything but I did notice that when SG was in that famous housecoat it was open down to his navel and A would become like those horny straights—the ones who, when they talk to a member of the opposite sex, never raise their eyes above tit-level. B was more coy about it but the whole scene became like one of those sordid Southern Gothic plays where a stranger comes into town and fucks with everyone's head.

However, when everyone was fully clothed it was a different matter. During those periods the three of them would just chatter on about "intellectual" things and then pat each other on the back for being so smart.

All I knew was this: I was not getting enough sleep, SG had the fucking nerve to put his wet shoes on my sleeping mat, my couch was being used for a bed or for the guys to talk instead of being reserved for me, and when I tried to poke SG into playing he had the unmitigated gall to push me away! And the fucker was a houseguest! (Who doesn't know that I pissed on his shoes...no one pushes me away.)

Finally, yesterday, SG was able to go home and not a moment too soon. Just before he left, though, I realized it was time to reassert my dominance and I got to do that in a most unexpected way. Mook B was taking me on my evening walk and decided he needed to make a stop at the local convenience store. Instead of taking me into it so I could warm myself a little, the fucking twat tied me to a tree! While he was in there this asshole drunk came over and started to "bark" at me. Fuck, he was pissing me off but he was staying just out of chomping range. Until, of course, I broke the leash. That's when B came out of the store, saw that I was free!free!free! and came after me.

After two days of playing fourth-fiddle to a straight guy—sexy or not (but who slept on my couch)—I figured it was time for the Mook to earn my love. So I ran and he ran. And I stopped and he tried to cajole me to come to him. And I ran and he ran and I stopped. Cajole. Run. Stop. Cajole. And all the time I was thinking: Work, you fucker! Work!

Four blocks later, and a couple of dashes across main arteries, I figured my bed and a little warmth might be a nice thing right now. I let the Mook catch me (and, of course, drown me in kisses of gratitude and adoration), and we went home.

But—my fucking stars and garters!—SG was sitting there smoking and blathering away with Mook A like it was still fucking party time! I started to think that they were all fucking queer for each other and just gave up. I went to sleep in the office where it was nice and dark and relatively quiet while the three of them said their endless goodbyes and lied about how fun and pleasant the SG's stay had been. I mean they must have been lying because no one can be that inconvenienced, not get any fucking out of it and be happy about anything.

The house is quiet. The Mooks are tired. Life is getting back to normal.

However, I did had to tear a cushion apart this morning just to remind the Mooks not to do anything like that ever again unless the fire victim comes with a bitch with a little fire in her for me.

November 2, 2009; The Ruins

Sometimes you just have to be quiet and listen...

I was walking with Mook A, the other day, when we ran into two of my favourite people in the world: Ginger's mistress and the local barber who also has a big male mutt I play with from time to time. These two know my name, and are crazy about me and—sorry, I can't help it!—I always end up dancing when I hear one or the other sing out, "Léo!" 'cause I know hugs, kisses and cuddles will follow.

Anyway, on this particular occasion here were these three people—A, Barber and Gingerlady—smoking and talking and hanging out on the street corner like they were juvie teens in some 1950s comic book about the perils of cigarettes and pool halls. I mean, that's what it looked like if you just looked. If you listened, however, it was a whole 'nuther ball game.

They're triplets of wreckage. In fact from now on I think I'll call the barber Ruin 1 and Gingerlady Ruin 2 (Mook A will always be Mook A though he definitely qualifies for Ruin status). Each had a story, all are examples of physical devastation and all have been through the grinder of the medical system and government bureaucracy. But here they were standing about outside the barbershop, talking about the most hideous things like they were banal and quotidian because, I guess, for them it is banal and quotidian.

They all know each other's secrets: that they are all "that way" (if you know what I mean and I think you do); that Ruin 1 is a widower and has just had prostate cancer surgery and that Ruin 2 walks so weird because she has an artificial leg from a motorcycle accident and that A has the infamous appliance. In the talk they shared stories of hospital stays with room-mates from hell, of medication they were all taking and which was taking its toll on their pocketbooks, their psyches and even their sense of self (they all seemed to have stories of disorientation and disconnection). All of them told of how fucking awful the medical system seemed to treat them but—paradoxically—they were all three insanely happy that they lived in this country rather than in the United States where they would be merely sad statistics.

The conversation went on for quite a while, fueled by details which would make your hair stand on end and cigarettes (go figure). It was so strange that Ginger and I just sat there listening instead of pestering each other. At one point Ginger murmured, "Do you believe this fucking shit! Makes you glad we have a short life-span, doesn't it?" I know what she meant...it seemed better to die then to turn into walking junk-piles.

Ruin 1 has his own business so he has no safety net except his savings. He was supposed to take six weeks off, at least, after his surgery but because of the realities of his new life as a post-op he had to get back to work as quickly as possible because the cost of his drugs and diapers came out of his own pocket. Meanwhile, Ruin 2 is in so much pain that she has to take gallons of morphine and even if she had a great job, she couldn't afford it; so she had to get onto social assistance merely to survive. A himself is pretty much in the same boat: with the cost of appliances, drugs and medical supplies for his nurses visits if he wasn't on assistance he would be putting all of this on a credit card and so dealing with his bowl-of-crap life and debt-stress at the same time. The Ruins talked about how to save money on food, clothing, outings...life. Again Ginger whispered, "It's a miracle they have money to feed us." "Yeah, well," I said, "if they didn't feed me, I'd be long gone." And Ginger, who pretends to be so loyal she's never on a leash said, "For me it's not just if I'm fed, but what I'm fed. The second she penny-pinches on my meals I'll be out the door so fast she wouldn't have time to strap on her leg."

What is amazing is that the Ruins kept a sense of humour during their confab. It wasn't funny ha-ha but I guess it passes for a giggle in their dark little worlds. Witness:

A: So many times it hasn't been if, just how.

Ruin 2: I hear you.

A: Too late to die young and leave a beautiful corpse—

Ruin 1: —no kidding—

A: —but I keep wondering if I want to leave things tidy or a mess.

Then—yikes!—everyone laughed.

Ginger said, "I wonder if we wouldn't be doing them a favour by dragging them into traffic." I thought about that for a second and said, "We're both white dogs—brains are hard to get out of your fur." Ginger snerfed a laugh.

Like I said...not funny ha-ha.