I haven't always mentioned it—'cause it's tedious—but Skeeter has been on my ass for months to start talking to Boo-Boo and I've been resisting for a number of reasons:- Starting to talk to Skeeter himself was probably a mistake. Not a critical mistake like the secret that all dogs can do it getting out (that's not such a big secret because most people don't or won't believe it), but a mistake because even when I'm snoozing or watching a program or day-dreaming there's Skeeter with his blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda stream of consciousness. He's like "Seinfeld": a show about nothing.
- I am convinced that if I start to talk to Boo, then Skeet will feel free to disappear into a book, a newspaper or his fucking World of Warcraft and leave me with Boo and his endless, stressed-out chatter about work (and things are getting worse because he's now tangling with the local union forewoman—a twat with a capital C who wanders the halls looking like the petty bureaucrat she is , dripping with cheap jewelry and stinking of one of those perfumes with an undertone of urine).
- When things go wrong in their queer little couplehood I don't want to be like one of those pathetic divorce waifs, forced to take sides and finally crying out, "Mommy and Daddy please stop fighting!"
- I don't don't don't don't want to "share" in both their sex lives. It's bad enough Skeet tells me about all his likes and dislikes when we pass men on the street, but to have to hear it from the other one too and be the one who holds the secret that these two old Marys are utterly incompatible would be too much for one little dog to shoulder.
- There are so many other reasons, all good, but the best reason is this one: I don't wanna.
But there was Skeet, always telling me how guilty he felt about this secret and how come I, too, did not feel just as guilty and there he was assuring me that Boo is just as fascinating as he, Skeet, is (which means precisely nothing) and don't I want to look into his world and doesn't Boo's world seem interesting. Most often I would just walk away, or simply ignore him when he went on and on about this.
But I'm an idiot, aren't I?
I was lying on the floor, while the two of them watched TV, and I was feeling content—a nice meal and a walk behind me, the end of the day and a nice sleep before me. I did what I always do: sighed deeply and let out a nice, long (but silent) fart.
Suddenly Boo yelled, "Oh! For fucks sake, Léo, did something crawl up your arse and die?"
I muttered, "Like it's fucking Febreze shooting out of your arse all night."
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
I did not move. Skeet pretended to hear nothing.
Then Boo said, "Hunh." Then there was more silence. The TV seemed really loud. I got up, went to the kitchen, sipped some water, let some time pass, then came back to the living room, jumped up on the sofa with Boo and curled up...like I always do.
Silence.
He said, "Hunh."
"What is it?" Skeet said, with a faux nonchalance that was rather admirable.
"Did you hear something?"
"Hm?"
"Something weird?"
"Weird?" said Skeet.
If a dog could sweat I'd've been sweating. As it was my mouth was dry and a couple of drops of piss were trickling into my dick-fur. I wondered how long this stupidest conversation ever would go on before it got somewhere.
There was more silence. I pretended to snore. Then Boo said, "I don't know. Nothing."
Later, when Boo and I went to bed, he sat up staring into space, then he picked me up and looked me in the face and just stared some more. Then he turned off the light, curled up to me and mumbled, "I wonder if I'm going nuts." And soon he was asleep.
I don't think I've dodged a bullet.
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