Bath for the dog
As I was walking through downtown Chicago in my dream, I came upon a homeless man with a large wolf hound. I knew it was a wolf hound as I'd had a neighbor once that had one as a puppy. This one looked much much older and was very dirty. When I say dirt, I mean that it seemed to be caked in mud. I surmised that although it's owner which was begging for money to passers-by, he hadn't given much thought to the hygiene of his pet.
"Hundert bucks, mister!" he shouted at me. "Hundert bucks, and one of the finest hunting dogs to ever live, he's yours!" Said the man. His lips curled around his face like a snake and his tongue seemed to flicker between the random teeth of his smile.
"I don't have room for a dog in my apartment. (In my dream, I lived alone in an apartment) Especially one this big. My landlady would have a stroke. How much does he weigh anyhow? Eighty or ninety pounds? He's just too big. Besides he needs a bath!" I paced around the dog wondering if I could sneak him home in a duffel bag. Or maybe I could get a large suitcase with an extended handle that was set on wheels. The dog looked up at me with those sad eyes that seemed to say, "Take me away from here, my handsome prince."
"Too big, too big. Hmmm." said the snake-smiled man. He was now circling the dog as I had been. "What if he was smaller? A mid-sized dog. And he had a bath. Then what? Worth $150?" He'd upped the price. And he was now telling me, what? That he'd cut the dog down to a smaller size?
"I don't want you to hurt it. And you can't make a smaller dog from a large one by giving them a bath. Don't hurt the dog." I said pleadingly.
"Not gonna hurt him. Just give him a bath. He'll be smaller afterwards. About thirty, er forty pounds, tops! And then you give me a 150 bucks." said the man who hissed when he said the word "buckssss".
I was still trying to understand what was going on when the man pulled on the dog's leash and said "Come on! I ain't got all day."
He lead me through the city. Down back alleys and around abandoned buildings. We walked the wrong way up one way streets and across bridges that arched over the river. We finally stopped a block or two from on of the subway stations. The brakes of the subway cars screeched like mechanical crows two stories above our heads.
"Ok, hold him." The man handed me the lease and walked over to the corner of the street. There was a large metal box bolted to the ground and next to it, a fire hydrant. He unscrewed the cap on one of the arms of the hydrant. The cap swung on its chain under the metal mouth now open and smelling of rust. He then opened the box and pulled out what looked like a wide stainless steel pipe with a handle on it. "'S called a seat pipe." And before I could ask what it did, he slid the metal sleeve over the top of the hydrant. A handle fell out of one side and he pushed as hard as he could. A small spray of water plumed from the open side of the hydrant. It wasn't enough to put out a fire, but it was enough to wash a dog.
The man's tongue seemed to flicker from side to side. "They say this hydrant is connected to a stream that feed the river that feeds into the lake. They say the stream was sacred. But I think that's a bunch of crap!" He raised his arms above his head and over the hydrant like a priest about to give a benediction. He closed his eyes and then said a strange phrase in latin. I remembered it later because he said it three times and it sounded like the lyric of an old song.
"Bring 'em here!" He pointed to the dog and I walked the dusty animal to the hydrant. The dog first drank some of the hydrant walked and then leaned one side into it. She was obviously very hot and the water was a blessing she'd not seen for a long time. The man fished in his pockets and brought out a bar of cheap commercial soap. He washed the dog, just as he said he would, from head to tail and then back again. The suds turned a mud brown at first then then became white after subsequent washings. The man rinse off the dog and looked at me for approval.
"What?" I said. "It's the same dog only now it's clean. It's still too bi..." Before I could finish my sentence the man smiled and tapped the dog three times on his forehead. The dog looked up at him and fell apart. Well, she didn't fall. What looked like what happened was the dog broke apart along seams like it had been made of a puzzle. Head, tail, shanks, legs, all dropped away in different directions!
"JESUS! Man, what the hell are you doing? I didn't want you to kill it!" I screamed walking toward the crumbling mass that was a wolf hound.
"Relaxsssssss!" said the man. "She'sssss jussst fine! Look."
And when I looked I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Surrounded by pieces of wolf hound was a small black and white bulldog. Her snout was smushed where before it was long and straight. Her legs, body, everything was now in the compact form of a bulldog. She'd emerged from the wolf hound form like a large candy out of a pinata.
I stammered, "How the fu---"
"Doesn't matter how" hissed the man. "She's smaller now! Hunnert and fifty! You promisssed!" his hand darted in from of me. His palm was dirty and his nailed were long and broken. "
He WAS right. The dog was now smaller and I think my landlady would now let me have her. I gave the man the money and walked to the subway with my 'new' bulldog. I tucked her in my backpack, bought a ticket that would take me home and slept in my seat on the way home.
It was two weeks later that I told my landlady about the dog. I didn't tell her where or HOW I'd gotten him.
"What's her name?" she asked.
"Umm, don't have a name for him yet. Just got her. She's a beauty though, don't you think?
My landlady sniffed. "Too big! Can't have a dog that big living here. It'll tear up my walls and the carpet. And the mess. All that fur! My God! And I bet you don't have it housetrained yet!" She pointed a boney finger at me.
"Well, actually she came housetrained. And you said any animal that came here had to weigh under forty pounds. So, I weighed her. Thirty-five point two pounds. She's small and smart and goes outside." I beamed.
"Still two big. Get rid of her. You can have a smaller dog. But that one's too big." She walked away. He proclamation would not be disputed. I couldn't keep the bull dog.
I was broken-hearted and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to take my new friend to the shelter. With my luck, they'd put her to sleep and I could live with that. So, I put the dog in my backpack, found a bar of soap, and made my way back downtown. Back to the corner where the man with the flickering tongue and too few teeth had sold me the dog. He was gone. When I asked around to the other pan-handlers and buskers, they said they didn't know where he'd gone off to. They said I was a fool to pay as much as I had for a bulldog that obviously wasn't pure bred.
I sat down with my little dog that was too big for my apartment and started to cry. My new buddy, who'd been napping since we'd left my place, wriggled his way out of the bag and walked around to face me. She looked at me with that bug-eyed look that bulls have and did they only thing she could. She licked my face. And my ears. And my nose and my hair.
"Hey!" I giggled. "You're getting my all wet. I don't need a bath!" I smiled at what I'd said. I picked up the dog and kissed her. "You are a little flat snouted genius, you are!" I tucked her in my bag and started making my way back to a place where the EL ran over the street.
It was a longer walk this time. I wasn't being lead there and I had to retrace my steps a few times. Finally, I reached the street where the trains loomed overhead. There was corner, with the box, and the hydrant. The box wouldn't open at first until I found a piece of rebar to pry it open. The cap had been left open and a few drops of water were trickling out of it. I fitted the seat wrench to the hydrant and pushed. The hissing man must had been stronger than I was as I had to use the rebar for leverage to get the seat wrench to turn. After several tries, it finally gave way and the clear water streamed into the street.
The bulldog sat in front of the water and waited. I looked at the hydrant and raised my hands up. I remembered the words the snake-smiled man had used and recited them perfectly. Three times. I placed the bulldog in the water coming from the hydrant and proceeded to scrub her with the bar of soap. She shook the foam off and I suds here up again. We were now playing a game. I got her covered in soap and water and she shook it off, smiling and licking me the whole time.
When I was satisfied that she was clean enough. I walked over and turned off the hydrant. The bulldog stood there shaking and smiling and yapping. But nothing changed. She was still a bulldog and still too big to come live in my apartment. I pushed my wet hair out of my face realizing I was going to have to take a bath of my own when I got home to get off all the dog hair.
"I tried, girl. I guess I'm not as smart as he was." I reached down and patted her on the head. At the third pat, I heard what sounded like a egg cracking on the ground. I looked at my dog and she shivered. She shook and made more cracking noises. I saw the seams split. Around her face, tail, flanks, stomach, cracks appeared and parted. Bits fell around my dog that was no longer the dog I bought two weeks ago. I didn't see anything at first. I was suddenly struck by the fear that maybe I'd reduced her to nothing. I'd used magic and accidentally killed my god. Oh, god!
The pile of parts that was my dog, barked. I reached over and cleared away some of the former bulldog bits. It stood up. White and skinny, like a reborn phoenix, she stood as a sleek and smooth new animal. It was a whippet! Her weight was probably around seven to eight pounds. Her snout was pointy again, but this time with shorter hair, and a body made for speed. She looked like an oatmeal colored ferret with long legs and a tail that always pointed up!
I felt releaved, blessed, tired, wet and dirty. And I didn't bother to tuck her away in my backpack. I cradled her in my arms all the way home. The subway ride was bumpy and loud, but my little dog slept making little snores all the way home. I showered when I got home and the two of us slept in late.
The next day my landlady came by. She'd heard that I'd come home with a new animal and she wanted to investigate.
"Hello," I began. "She's house trained, weighs seven pounds, and she's a shorthaired whippet. She doesn't shed and her fur always stays this long. She's kind to people and rarely barks. And I have the pet deposit here!"
I tried to trust the bills at her, but she'd picked up the dog and was talking to her as if she was an infant.
"Who's a sweety pup-pup?", my landlady cooed. "Who's just absolutely the most precious. hmmm?
The dog, not to miss cue, licked her face. And then ever so gentle raised her head to nibble on my landlady's ears.
"Quit it." she teased. "That tickles." Her smile was quickly replaced by the familiar glower. She snatched the money from my hands and counted it. All the while, cradling and playing with my dog. "It's all here. Good. Fine. She's always on a lease and she doesn't sleep on the floor."
I was confused. " I thought you said you didn't want her on the furniture?"
"I don't!" continued my landlady. "She's a little thing and will get cold easily. I'll be back tonight with a doggie bed for her. In the meantime, you need to go buy her some good food. You'll not be feeding her pizza and buffalo wings!"
"Yes, ma'am." I agreed. "Anything else?"
"No. It's all good. I had a whippet when I we lived in Florida....." she walked away from my apartment still talking to herself.
The transformation of my landlady's mood, like my dog's transformation, remained. I've since given her baths, while making sure never to speak any Latin! She's taken over the house getting all the perks and attention a queen should receive. She's friendly to strangers and friends alike. She never barks unless frightened and has never had a accident in the apartment.
Best money I've ever spent on a pet. I named her "Hydra".
"Hundert bucks, mister!" he shouted at me. "Hundert bucks, and one of the finest hunting dogs to ever live, he's yours!" Said the man. His lips curled around his face like a snake and his tongue seemed to flicker between the random teeth of his smile.
"I don't have room for a dog in my apartment. (In my dream, I lived alone in an apartment) Especially one this big. My landlady would have a stroke. How much does he weigh anyhow? Eighty or ninety pounds? He's just too big. Besides he needs a bath!" I paced around the dog wondering if I could sneak him home in a duffel bag. Or maybe I could get a large suitcase with an extended handle that was set on wheels. The dog looked up at me with those sad eyes that seemed to say, "Take me away from here, my handsome prince."
"Too big, too big. Hmmm." said the snake-smiled man. He was now circling the dog as I had been. "What if he was smaller? A mid-sized dog. And he had a bath. Then what? Worth $150?" He'd upped the price. And he was now telling me, what? That he'd cut the dog down to a smaller size?
"I don't want you to hurt it. And you can't make a smaller dog from a large one by giving them a bath. Don't hurt the dog." I said pleadingly.
"Not gonna hurt him. Just give him a bath. He'll be smaller afterwards. About thirty, er forty pounds, tops! And then you give me a 150 bucks." said the man who hissed when he said the word "buckssss".
I was still trying to understand what was going on when the man pulled on the dog's leash and said "Come on! I ain't got all day."
He lead me through the city. Down back alleys and around abandoned buildings. We walked the wrong way up one way streets and across bridges that arched over the river. We finally stopped a block or two from on of the subway stations. The brakes of the subway cars screeched like mechanical crows two stories above our heads.
"Ok, hold him." The man handed me the lease and walked over to the corner of the street. There was a large metal box bolted to the ground and next to it, a fire hydrant. He unscrewed the cap on one of the arms of the hydrant. The cap swung on its chain under the metal mouth now open and smelling of rust. He then opened the box and pulled out what looked like a wide stainless steel pipe with a handle on it. "'S called a seat pipe." And before I could ask what it did, he slid the metal sleeve over the top of the hydrant. A handle fell out of one side and he pushed as hard as he could. A small spray of water plumed from the open side of the hydrant. It wasn't enough to put out a fire, but it was enough to wash a dog.
The man's tongue seemed to flicker from side to side. "They say this hydrant is connected to a stream that feed the river that feeds into the lake. They say the stream was sacred. But I think that's a bunch of crap!" He raised his arms above his head and over the hydrant like a priest about to give a benediction. He closed his eyes and then said a strange phrase in latin. I remembered it later because he said it three times and it sounded like the lyric of an old song.
"Bring 'em here!" He pointed to the dog and I walked the dusty animal to the hydrant. The dog first drank some of the hydrant walked and then leaned one side into it. She was obviously very hot and the water was a blessing she'd not seen for a long time. The man fished in his pockets and brought out a bar of cheap commercial soap. He washed the dog, just as he said he would, from head to tail and then back again. The suds turned a mud brown at first then then became white after subsequent washings. The man rinse off the dog and looked at me for approval.
"What?" I said. "It's the same dog only now it's clean. It's still too bi..." Before I could finish my sentence the man smiled and tapped the dog three times on his forehead. The dog looked up at him and fell apart. Well, she didn't fall. What looked like what happened was the dog broke apart along seams like it had been made of a puzzle. Head, tail, shanks, legs, all dropped away in different directions!
"JESUS! Man, what the hell are you doing? I didn't want you to kill it!" I screamed walking toward the crumbling mass that was a wolf hound.
"Relaxsssssss!" said the man. "She'sssss jussst fine! Look."
And when I looked I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Surrounded by pieces of wolf hound was a small black and white bulldog. Her snout was smushed where before it was long and straight. Her legs, body, everything was now in the compact form of a bulldog. She'd emerged from the wolf hound form like a large candy out of a pinata.
I stammered, "How the fu---"
"Doesn't matter how" hissed the man. "She's smaller now! Hunnert and fifty! You promisssed!" his hand darted in from of me. His palm was dirty and his nailed were long and broken. "
He WAS right. The dog was now smaller and I think my landlady would now let me have her. I gave the man the money and walked to the subway with my 'new' bulldog. I tucked her in my backpack, bought a ticket that would take me home and slept in my seat on the way home.
It was two weeks later that I told my landlady about the dog. I didn't tell her where or HOW I'd gotten him.
"What's her name?" she asked.
"Umm, don't have a name for him yet. Just got her. She's a beauty though, don't you think?
My landlady sniffed. "Too big! Can't have a dog that big living here. It'll tear up my walls and the carpet. And the mess. All that fur! My God! And I bet you don't have it housetrained yet!" She pointed a boney finger at me.
"Well, actually she came housetrained. And you said any animal that came here had to weigh under forty pounds. So, I weighed her. Thirty-five point two pounds. She's small and smart and goes outside." I beamed.
"Still two big. Get rid of her. You can have a smaller dog. But that one's too big." She walked away. He proclamation would not be disputed. I couldn't keep the bull dog.
I was broken-hearted and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to take my new friend to the shelter. With my luck, they'd put her to sleep and I could live with that. So, I put the dog in my backpack, found a bar of soap, and made my way back downtown. Back to the corner where the man with the flickering tongue and too few teeth had sold me the dog. He was gone. When I asked around to the other pan-handlers and buskers, they said they didn't know where he'd gone off to. They said I was a fool to pay as much as I had for a bulldog that obviously wasn't pure bred.
I sat down with my little dog that was too big for my apartment and started to cry. My new buddy, who'd been napping since we'd left my place, wriggled his way out of the bag and walked around to face me. She looked at me with that bug-eyed look that bulls have and did they only thing she could. She licked my face. And my ears. And my nose and my hair.
"Hey!" I giggled. "You're getting my all wet. I don't need a bath!" I smiled at what I'd said. I picked up the dog and kissed her. "You are a little flat snouted genius, you are!" I tucked her in my bag and started making my way back to a place where the EL ran over the street.
It was a longer walk this time. I wasn't being lead there and I had to retrace my steps a few times. Finally, I reached the street where the trains loomed overhead. There was corner, with the box, and the hydrant. The box wouldn't open at first until I found a piece of rebar to pry it open. The cap had been left open and a few drops of water were trickling out of it. I fitted the seat wrench to the hydrant and pushed. The hissing man must had been stronger than I was as I had to use the rebar for leverage to get the seat wrench to turn. After several tries, it finally gave way and the clear water streamed into the street.
The bulldog sat in front of the water and waited. I looked at the hydrant and raised my hands up. I remembered the words the snake-smiled man had used and recited them perfectly. Three times. I placed the bulldog in the water coming from the hydrant and proceeded to scrub her with the bar of soap. She shook the foam off and I suds here up again. We were now playing a game. I got her covered in soap and water and she shook it off, smiling and licking me the whole time.
When I was satisfied that she was clean enough. I walked over and turned off the hydrant. The bulldog stood there shaking and smiling and yapping. But nothing changed. She was still a bulldog and still too big to come live in my apartment. I pushed my wet hair out of my face realizing I was going to have to take a bath of my own when I got home to get off all the dog hair.
"I tried, girl. I guess I'm not as smart as he was." I reached down and patted her on the head. At the third pat, I heard what sounded like a egg cracking on the ground. I looked at my dog and she shivered. She shook and made more cracking noises. I saw the seams split. Around her face, tail, flanks, stomach, cracks appeared and parted. Bits fell around my dog that was no longer the dog I bought two weeks ago. I didn't see anything at first. I was suddenly struck by the fear that maybe I'd reduced her to nothing. I'd used magic and accidentally killed my god. Oh, god!
The pile of parts that was my dog, barked. I reached over and cleared away some of the former bulldog bits. It stood up. White and skinny, like a reborn phoenix, she stood as a sleek and smooth new animal. It was a whippet! Her weight was probably around seven to eight pounds. Her snout was pointy again, but this time with shorter hair, and a body made for speed. She looked like an oatmeal colored ferret with long legs and a tail that always pointed up!
I felt releaved, blessed, tired, wet and dirty. And I didn't bother to tuck her away in my backpack. I cradled her in my arms all the way home. The subway ride was bumpy and loud, but my little dog slept making little snores all the way home. I showered when I got home and the two of us slept in late.
The next day my landlady came by. She'd heard that I'd come home with a new animal and she wanted to investigate.
"Hello," I began. "She's house trained, weighs seven pounds, and she's a shorthaired whippet. She doesn't shed and her fur always stays this long. She's kind to people and rarely barks. And I have the pet deposit here!"
I tried to trust the bills at her, but she'd picked up the dog and was talking to her as if she was an infant.
"Who's a sweety pup-pup?", my landlady cooed. "Who's just absolutely the most precious. hmmm?
The dog, not to miss cue, licked her face. And then ever so gentle raised her head to nibble on my landlady's ears.
"Quit it." she teased. "That tickles." Her smile was quickly replaced by the familiar glower. She snatched the money from my hands and counted it. All the while, cradling and playing with my dog. "It's all here. Good. Fine. She's always on a lease and she doesn't sleep on the floor."
I was confused. " I thought you said you didn't want her on the furniture?"
"I don't!" continued my landlady. "She's a little thing and will get cold easily. I'll be back tonight with a doggie bed for her. In the meantime, you need to go buy her some good food. You'll not be feeding her pizza and buffalo wings!"
"Yes, ma'am." I agreed. "Anything else?"
"No. It's all good. I had a whippet when I we lived in Florida....." she walked away from my apartment still talking to herself.
The transformation of my landlady's mood, like my dog's transformation, remained. I've since given her baths, while making sure never to speak any Latin! She's taken over the house getting all the perks and attention a queen should receive. She's friendly to strangers and friends alike. She never barks unless frightened and has never had a accident in the apartment.
Best money I've ever spent on a pet. I named her "Hydra".