March 29, 2010; A scene

The little fucker

It was a scene I am ashamed of, but it happened.

Yesterday Skeeter went off for the afternoon without telling me where he was going. He came back about three hours later and there was a smell. I wanted to tangle with him but Boo-Boo was there so I just grabbed my plastic bone and gnawed away at it in rage. Then Boo left, off to some Festival of Artsy-Fartsy Films. I waited for a bit when he was gone because Boo has this infuriating habit of coming back about 18 times when he is going somewhere for forgotten keys, wallet, money, tickets, hat, glasses...you fucking name it. As I waited for this to happen, I gnawed even more furiously at the bone, throwing it around in the air. The fucking thing kept whacking me in the head when it came down and this only served to nurture my temper.

Finally, I was sure Boo was gone and stared at Skeeter in his fucking La-Z-Boy and it began.

L(eo): YOU FUCKING WHORE!

S(keeter): What the hell are you talking about!

L: DON'T GIVE ME THAT FUCKING SHIT, I CAN SMELL CATE ON YOU AND I CAN SMELL THE SLURP OF ANOTHER DOG ON YOU!!! MY FUCKING STARS IT'S EVEN ON YOUR FACE!!! DON'T DENY IT!

S: (Rather too calmly for my taste) I'm not denying anything; I went to lunch at Cate's and I met Mr. C.

L: MR. C!!!??? MR. C!!!??? SO IT HAS A NAME ALREADY!

S: Of course it has a name, it's her dog, idiot.

(I felt as if my head was about to explode. He wasn't getting it. He was just sitting there watching "Bargain Hunt" and ignoring me. So I roared. He'd never heard the sound before and it made him jump and finally he was looking at me, seriously.)

S: What is wrong with you?

L: You go to Cate's house and you let some fucking pound mongrel climb all over you and you let him LICK YOUR FUCKING FACE!!!

S: He can't help it; he has no teeth and his tongue is pretty much always slapping about. Kinda cute, actually—want to see the picture?

L: YOU HAVE HIS FUCKING PICTURE!!!

(He tried to show me the thing on his digital camera's screen but I was having none of this)

L: What else did you do with him? Scratch his belly? Play with his nose? WHACK HIM OFF??? WHATWHATWHATWHATWHAT!!!

S: I should never have let you watch "Precious"—you're so over the top—

(At this I went ballistic and attacked his beloved Doc Martens. He told me to stop, but I didn't. I went to town on those fucking boots. Finally he picked me up and when he saw I was going to go for his face, he held me away)

S: Will you fucking calm down!

L: It's one thing for me to lose Cate! But when my own start going over to another dog—

S: "Your own"?

L: DON'T YOU GET ANYTHING YOU SYPHILITIC FUCKING QUEER! YOU ARE MINE! MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE!

(He pulled me into his arms, more to control me than anything, then he said the one thing he shouldn't have:)

S: Are you jealous?

L: Asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole. You fucking humans get nothing. It's not jealous, it's not love. It's covetousness. What's mine is mine. If you stray, you have to be corrected. You know that word, don't you: CORRECTED!

S: (Pissed, at last) If you don't stop this, I'm going to correct you, little mutt, with a swift fucking kick up the ass. You can go for my boots when they're coming into your mouth from the other end!

L: (After squirming for a bit and realizing it would do no good as he had me in an inescapable hold) I never want to hear that slut's name in here again. Ever. And if you bring him here I will kill him, you and Boo.

S: I happen to think you'd like him and you'd be a bully if you did anything to him—he's only 8 pounds or so and nothing but bones and skin and, besides, he's very, very old.

L: Jesus, he's got you enslaved already! (And with this I let out a howl of misery that was deep, long, low and apparently annoying)

S: Oh for Christ's sake, shut up! You, and only you, are the king of this household and for all intents and purposes the king of everyone in it. If Mr. C visits—(I growled)—if he visits, it will be on your terms but let me tell you this, you need to calm down and get over yourself. You're bordering on the truly pathetic.

Oh! that shut me up and, to a certain extent, calmed me down. It is something you never want to hear about yourself, especially if you're a dog. So I just said, "Go wash your fucking face! You smell like you just came from a fucking puppy mill. You stink so bad I wanna heave." "That's enough," he said as he put me down and went off to obey me.

All sorts of bad things happened here: Cate has a new, "cute", dog; Skeeter likes him; I showed far too much of my emotions and maybe even led Skeeter to believe I...hang on...there's a little barf in my mouth as I write this...to believe I like him; I put on such a show that I became nearly as pathetic as that toothless, walking rug Cate now owns and who is, truly, the definition of "pathetic."

When Skeeter came back he said, "Have you settled down?"

"Just shut up, turn up the TV and let's never mention this again," I said as he pulled me up onto the chair.

Then he said, "Well, I love you too."

"Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup...."

March 26, 2010; Where we are...

I better get this all in because in a few hours Skeeter is off to his nurse's appointment and if things go badly he may be spending another weekend in the hospital. He's got another one of those skin infections that has gone bad (like with his arm in December) and we're all praying that it's nothing but, as usual, expecting the worse (which is always a good way to think because if the worst happens at least you're ready and if it doesn't you're happy; in these situations, optimists are idiots).

Anyhoo...

...we were on our walk, two days ago—Skeeter and I—and we ran into Babs (aka: One-Legged Gingerlady) and Ginger. (BTW: Skeeter found out I called her One-Legged Gingerlady and got pissed and told me her name was Babs and that I was to learn and to use her real name and that's that.) Anyway, Ginger was walking behind the three of us, not growling or mumbling or anything. She was—unlike her in every way—behaving. Skeeter turned to Babs and said, "My, Ginger's being an angel today!" Babs nodded. Ginger gargled a little, under her breath, and said, in Dawg, "Fucking faggot cuntwad." (I told Skeeter about this later and he just laughed but it makes me a little nervous. Female dogs can be vengeful.)

All this to say that I did run into the vision who is causing all this Sturm und Drang, Cleo. She was sitting up on a little balcony surrounding a door except that she was on the outside of the railings—on that very thin walkway from which, if you fall, you get hurt. I thought, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!" and proceeded to do the high-wire-act on the outside of the balcony's railing to get to her. Skeeter watched in fascination but said, "You know, if you fall off you're dead." I muttered, paying closer attention to the dangerous walk than to him, "It's a fall, but all it means is some bruises." "No," he said, "you're on the leash. If you fall, you'll be hanging off the balcony by your neck until I can figure out how to save you and maybe I won't 'cause you're so awfully, awfully dumb you may not deserve to live."

Hm.

"He's right, Sugar," Cleo said in that wonderful mix of Kat, Dawg and purr which is her voice, "don't be a dolt. We'll see each other some other time."

So, quite unsteadily, I retraced my steps back to the balcony. Skeeter picked me up and said, "You're a fool for love." I snerfed.

I'm a little worried if Skeeter has to go into the hospital. As I said, Boo-Boo is so scattered with his work and all I wonder if I'll have to shit in his face to get any face time at all with him. What would make it worse is that when the other one is in the hospital, Boo spends a lot of time there and I'm left here, alone, to shudder in the emptiness. It's quite mad what they expect from dogs, isn't it!?

So cross your fingers. I have to say I am a little worried about Skeeter. These infections, one after the other after the other, despite the fact he takes mountains of antibiotics, do seem to indicate something is really fucked up with his system. If he croaks, and I'm left here alone with Boo, I would only get half the attention, half the walks (!) and, sometimes, even, no food because Boo is a pretty forgetful feller. And that's only after the funeral arrangements are over and done with.

I gotta say: as the patient wears thin, my patience is wearing thin as well.

March 23, 2010; Waiting for Boo-Boo

I heard Skeeter get up for a late-night snack, last night, jumped off the bed and toddled into the kitchen. He was shoving chips into his mouth (something he does when he is stressed out). I said, "Can I have one?" and he leaned down and gave me a chip (something he only does when he has other things on his mind).

"He's a mess, isn't he?" I said.

"If we're going to talk about this, we should go into my bedroom. Is he sleeping?"

"Yeah, after about two hours of tossing and turning," I said, and toddled after him into his bedroom. He closed the door, got in the bed, and turned down the TV; it was "Friends" (which he watches as a kind of mental comfort food and whenever it is on and it's always on some fucking station or another). I jumped up onto the bed and curled up to him.

We were comfy and he was sipping his tea and we were saying nothing. Really, it was hard to put it into words.

Boo-Boo was having some kind of a nervous breakdown cum burn out. He's always been high-strung but when it comes to high-maintenance that's Skeeter's and my territory. But tonight, when Boo-Boo got back from work very late, he was a basket case. First he bounced off the walls for a bit, then he talked in all directions: about how insanely stupid his students were; about how all the other teachers were having their little bitchy wars and trying to put him into the middle of them; about how this left him no time to work on his own business; about how work from his second job (third, if you count his own business) was beginning to fall down on his head; about how, no matter how late it was, he still wasn't finished working for the day. Then he sat down at his computer and answered e-mails. Then he got up and slammed around the kitchen. Then he made mumbled speeches about what a pig sty we all lived in. Then he slammed down to his computer again.

During all of this I was in Skeeter's lap keeping a low profile. Boo-Boo hadn't even said hello to me when he came home and there had not been so much as a pat on the head since. So I hid, on the La-Z-Boy with Skeeter, who was saying very little. But this was sure: Skeeter (who normally is decompressing at this hour, has taken all his meds and is getting ready for bed) was just staring at Boo-Boo as he slammed around. Occasionally he would nod his head at questions Boo yelled into the air, but otherwise he kept his mouth shut. He had paused the program he had been watching, he was not reading, indeed he was not doing anything except watching Boo fly off into about a million pieces.

Finally, Skeeter announced that he was going to bed and I understood why. But Boo flew off the handle and said, "That's it, just leave me here alone to deal with all this!" Skeeter stayed, though there was absolutely nothing he could do. I knew that he, too, had had a bad day at the nurse's and that things, professionally speaking, were not going well for Skeeter either, but he said nothing. He knew...I knew...this was Boo-Boo's moment and we let it play out.

Except it didn't. He was a mess for another hour or so and until it was finally decided that it was really bed time and everyone went off to their separate corners.

Now, much later, in Skeeter's bed, we were both thinking about the blow-out. Finally Skeeter spoke: "He has no hobbies. He has nothing outside of work that gives him true pleasure. So when work goes bad, it's like his whole world is caving in."

I didn't know what to say. I knew humans had their problems, I just had never paid much attention to them until they became my problems. "What are you really worried about?" I asked.

"That he's going to have a massive cardiac—"

"—Lord knows, he's at that age—"

"—shut up. Or that he's just going to crumble. I've seen him like this before and he does make himself sick—"

"—oh fuck," I said, "just what we need in this house: another sick person."

After another long silence he said, "It's not a good time to be self-employed."

I wasn't even thinking, just turning thoughts around in my head as I mumbled, "It's not a good time to be self-employed. It's not a good time to be employed. It's not a good time to be sick. It's not a good time to be out of a job. It's not a good time."

Skeeter sighed, gave me a kiss and said, " Go back to him. See if you can keep him simmered down. You do it better than I can."

"Of course I do," I said, as he opened the door for me to leave his bedroom. I turned back to him before going into the darkness to Boo's room. "It'll be all right."

"Will it?"

"I'm a dog. We know these things." He laughed a little and I snerfed and toddled off to the other bed, jumped on it and cuddled up to Boo who was, indeed (and finally) in deep sleep.

Now I suppose I have to get to work: be cuter, be nicer, be more charming, be more patient. Mother-fuck...why do these things always happen to me!

March 20, 2010; Health

It was not a pretty sight, two days ago. Skeeter was feeling atrocious as was I. I hadn't eaten normally in a couple of days and he was all anxious about his health and about this new antibiotic treatment he's on—hoping against hope this one would work and close the fucking wound he's had for over 15 months. Let's just say we weren't a happy duo.

He did my afternoon walk, downed his pain killer and then settled down to watch TV. Before he could relax, though, he was up and running for the bathroom and heaving and hurling and making all those oh-so-pleasant noises that make you want to join in for the chorus. He came out of the bathroom looking green and beaten and tried to eat some crackers. As he always does, he handed one down to me. That's when it happened: that cracker did not look tasty, it did not smell yummy and before you know it, I was turning my head away and heaving onto the floor.

After he tidied it up we just both died a little; settling into the La-Z-Boy hoping that the world would stop twirling about and that the winds in our heads would settle down to a dull roar.

"Do you think you made me sick," I asked, "or I made you sick?"

"I don't know if they're connected."

"Or more like: you dragged some hideous germ back from that clinic you go to three times a week and we're all going to die of Ebola or some fucking thing."

"Look, I cleaned up your mess and it wasn't any Ebola. It was leaves and crap and the usual shit you stick your nose into and eat without thinking."

"You should fucking talk," I bitched, "you do the walk with me, take a pain-killer on an empty stomach, then sit there for an hour smoking and drinking coffee, all on an empty stomach. Doesn't sound exactly like a health regime to me."

"Fuck you—"

"—and you with sugar on it." And we were quiet for a while and watched CNN. "You know what I like about the Americans?" I said, "they have their priorities straight."

"Hm?" he said.

"You can get a full insurance policy, in the US, for your dog or—heaven forbid!—your cat. So what the hell does it matter if you can't get insurance for your kids!"

He looked down at me and said, "You're an evil little thing."

Meanwhile, spring has sprung which means it's shorts season and Skeeter is back to walking into trees and lamp-posts as he stares, rather hungrily, at all the guys in their Spandex. "Look," I told him as we walked along and no one else could hear, "I don't mind you noticing every fucking hairy-legged gorilla who runs by, but you have got to control the things you say under your breath—"

"—No more, 'Hubba-hubba'?" and he laughed.

"That's not the one that worries me. I was thinking more when you whisper, 'What's your name, little boy?'"

He laughed and said, "You know, I have no idea how I got into that habit!"

"Well break it, it's creepy."

"Well, just bite my ankle next time," he said.

"Never you fear."

Boo-Boo is all over the place which means when we see him we don't see him. He's a basket case of nerves and end-of-semester hysteria. When he's on a tear, both Skeeter and I know to keep a low profile and just nod and smile. The real problem is he's a pain in the ass to sleep with as he is always tossing and turning and getting out of bed and getting back in, and tossing some more. I sleep as far at the end and on the corner of the bed as I can so that this doesn't bother me as much, but sometimes, when he is trying to settle down, he drags me up to his shoulder in the bed and cuddles me. This sounds nice and I do get a few winks, but before long he's bed-surfing again and all hope of deep sleep is lost.

Hey! That might be why I'm sick!

Or then of course, it could be the plastic, branches, dead leaves and dirty snow I eat, as Skeeter said.

March 17, 2010: They call me Massa.

Watching TV

Skeeter and I were watching CNN—Obama, health reform, fat-cat GOPers, mousey Dems—you know, same old, same old.

But then I had to ask: "I don't know the world of men—all that straight and queer—"

"—gay—" he chimed in as he always chimes in.

"—gay. So tell me: if there are a bunch of men who are at a birthday party, do they ever get into tickle fights?"

"Well, I have seen it."

"Straight men, I mean."

"Well, yes, with straight men. If they're reeeeeeeeeeally drunk or reeeeeeeeally high and there is a subcurrent of horniness with no women available, straight men can work out their frustrations in a number of physical ways and tickling is one of them."

"Really?!" I asked.

"No, of course not!" he bellowed laughing. Then he offered an anecdote, as he is wont to do (sigh). "When I was a kid, grade five or six, we had this stupid thing called Fruits Day. Every Thursday guys would go up to other guys and knock them in the nuts and shout, 'Fruits Day!' I mean it was a real knock in the nuts, not something friendly or chummy. Except when it wasn't. You could tell the kids who were working something out by the...er...gentleness of their Fruits Day knock. I knew that very young and one of the kids became my first partner in...'exploration'... if you will."

"Ew. I mean: interesting."

"I suspect it's the same way in athletes locker-rooms with all the towel swatting etc. The ones who are looking find each other by using supposedly über-male bonding rituals."

"Like tickle fights."

"Well, maybe. But if you look at Glenn Beck, it doesn't look like he's buying the tickle fight explanation."

"And Jon Stewart didn't either," I added. Then I was pondering something and finally said, "But isn't he married and doesn't he have kids?" Skeeter made that noise humans make that is like a snerf. I think they call it a scoff; disdain, incredulity, horror at the ignorance of others.

"You know," he said in a tone that suggested he was about to share something juicy, "I almost got married and had kids. I thought I had to. 'Til I didn't."

"Close call for that girl," I said.

"Indeed."

"But what about 'snorkeling'?"

"Well, that's a navy thing, I think. Or maybe a navy myth—"

"—that straight guys do?"

"Straight guys do way gayer stuff than queer guys, sometimes. Wrestling, for one. One of my brothers told me that there was this thing guys did called Shoot the Biscuit where, at parties or on camping trips, the guys would have a circle jerk around a cookie and tried to shoot onto the cookie. The last one to shoot would have to eat the cookie."

"Ack!" I couldn't help exclaiming.

"I'm with you on that one," he said.

I thought about it for a while and said, "That hardly sounds like good training to be any kind of decent lover...I mean HURRY HURRY HURRY!"

"Well, I don't think that was entirely the point, do you?"

"Hm." There another silence and I said, "Though it does sound a lot like a tickle fight."

Skeeter laughed his head off and said, "Now you get it."

"What a very odd world you people live in," I said, "nothing sexual is ever black and white. No wonder you're all such a mess."

"No wonder," he said.

And I fell off to sleep as he continued to watch the congressman's transgressions parsed every which way on the 24-hour news network.

March 14, 2010; Big Bad World

It's a big bad world.

Word has gotten out to all the dogs in the 'hood that I was canoodling with Cleo the cat and it's not difficult to guess who is spreading the word: Ginger. Even when I'm inside I can hear her yap-yap-yapping to whoever will listen to her. "Hey! You! Idiot lab! Yeah! You! Across the street! You know that little white Jack Russle with the brown ears! Yeah! Leo! He's fucking a cat! Yeah! Spread the word!" Because Ginger is a yappy dog and extremely territorial, none of the humans are taking any notice but their dogs are. "Oh my God! That's disgusting!" one of the dogs yowled back at her two days ago.

When I go out for my own walks I pray like mad I won't run into anyone I know and so far, so good. I did see Benjie but Benjie being Benjie (a nice, old-lady's dog) he just snerfed and said, "Things will be all right."

I even tried to talk to Ginger but she raged at me: "Don't you talk to me, you little pig-dog. I know what you do! I know what you are!"

I even got a little pissed with her and said, "If you'd given me so much as the time of day, this probably wouldn't have happened, you evil cock-tease!"

"Don't you dare use that tone with me!" she snarled. "You know you're in the wrong! You know it! You know it! You know it!"

Her "You know it!" was still ringing in my ears when I was snuggling with Skeeter, yesterday.

He looked down at me and said, "You look perturbed."

"It's not a good thing to be a dog, right now," I said.

"It's Ginger, isn't it?"

"How did you know?" I asked.

"She's shrieking more than usual. Spreading the word, I imagine."

"Yes."

We were very quiet after that. But last night...

We were walking along, enjoying the brisk spring air and were almost done for the evening when there she was, running at me like she always runs at me, except this time it wasn't to flirt but to continue her tirade. Her mistress was off talking to one of the neighbours and didn't notice that Ginger was berating me because her noise is such a constant around here that it's not even noted anymore. That's when Skeeter swooped her up in his arms—something he has never done—and pretended he was making nice-nice with her. Skeeter waved at Ginger's mistress who waved back.

"Listen to me you little bitch," he hissed at Ginger, "and I know you understand me, so don't play dumb and don't say another fucking word...just listen." Ginger froze in his arms. "If you continue trash-talking Leo all over the street, I am going to tell your lady what you are saying. She's 'different' too and she wouldn't like it one bit."

Ginger snerfed a laugh because she knew this wasn't going to happen. Refusing to speak English she said to me in Dawg, "Tell him the whole fucking street will think he's crazy." I did and he nodded at this.

He thought for a moment then said, "You know all that running around off leash you do that everyone finds so charming? How about if I spread it around that you're a biter—tell every woman with a carriage or a toddler to keep away from you because you're dangerous? How soon before you're back on a leash, or worse, kept at home? That would sure keep your little gossip's tongue from wagging about, wouldn't it!"

The worst thing in the universe had just happened to Ginger: she had been bested by a human. That can ruin a reputation and I told her so. She snerfed, but not so light-heartedly this time. She toddled back to one-legged Gingerlady like nothing was wrong, but she was grumbling the whole way. My, my, my that little bitch was some pissed off.

There is no way this is over. Whispering campaigns can sometimes be worse than yapping campaigns. But it looked like the lid was back on the boiling pot for a while and that was good enough for me.

When we got back to the apartment I was full of piss and vinegar and started to tear around. Boo-Boo asked, "What's with him?"

"He has energy to burn off, I suppose. We ran into Ginger and things got crazy."

I yodeled for Skeeter without him even asking me too.

March 11, 2010; Queer Questions

Boo-Boo was at work, so I went over to Skeeter, sitting in his La-Z-Boy, and asked to come up. He pulled me up next to him and went back to his book. But I didn't want to cuddle.

"When did you know you were a faggot?" I asked.

"The word is gay," he said.

"Forgive me for not being PC—when did you know you were a gay?"

"I think I've always known. When I was a very, very little boy—even as young as five, I think—I used to have dreams about wrestling naked with Ron Ely, the guy who played Tarzan on TV."

"Yeah," I said, "that's gay alright."

"Why are you asking this?" he said.

"Just curious." And he went back to his book. Then I asked, "And how long before you came out of the closet?"

He looked up impatiently, but when he looked at me the impatience faded and he said, "Well, I was from a Catholic, military family so it was not something you did. So I didn't until I hooked up with Boo-Boo and there was no hiding it."

"But you had a life before Boo-Boo?" I said more than asked.

"Oh, yes..." and his eyes went a little weird, and he smiled strangely and I could tell he was thinking of dirty, dirty things.

"HEY! SNAP OUT OF IT! We're talking about me here!"

"Oh?" he said and looked at me. "I thought we were talking about me. You don't think you're going queer, do you?"

"Ick! No!"

"'Ick?'"

"Sorry, I mean: Hell! No!" There was a long silence which Skeeter had the good sense not to fill. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. Finally I said, "How was it, back then, when you knew but didn't tell anybody?"

"Well, when I was very young I knew no one would handle it, at all: not my siblings, not my parents, not society. I knew—without knowing it as a fact—that I would be pilloried. So I kept quiet, even for a long time after I had to be quiet."

"Had to? You see that's the thing: there was a time when you had to be quiet. When it wasn't safe because it was so bad, or wrong, or taboo—"

"Yes, that's how it was."

"Jeez." And my head was exploding with questions but instead I said, "It's about me and Cleo."

"Cleo?"

"THECATTHECATTHECAT!!!!!!"

"Okay, simmer down. The black and white cat, down the street...?" I nodded. He went on, "And the problem is that it's bad? It's unacceptable? And to who; other dogs...?"

"Dogs, cats, some humans, rats, snakes...you name it. Worse then queer—"

"—how do you know?—"

"—well, queer dogs and cats are okay with us."

"Really?" he said, sounding like the queerest little street gossip you could every want to meet. "Are there queer dogs in the neighbourhood?"

"Yeah, probably. Benjie. Anyway, that's not the thing. I'm about to be ostracized. Ginger saw me with Cleo and this could get ugly."

"Well, you always have me." I snerfed a laugh which I guess sounded insulting because he didn't take it well. "Is that not enough?"

"You don't know how it is." Then I stopped. "Well, maybe you do."

"Yes, maybe I do." And then he hugged me really hard and I dared to enjoy the hug and then we settled back to watch TV. "Thank you," I said so quietly, I was hoping he wouldn't hear me.

"Anytime," he said as quietly.