One Bright American Morning

One Bright American Morning

One bright American morning. Birds are conferring in trees outside small suburban homes; minivans are humming, children grab-assing, parents developing new stress lines. A man in a Friday-Hawaiian shirt and mother-made Docker’s cut-offs is proving he’s not too old to boogie down the street; he ignores depressing pit stains already present at the premature hour of 8:30 AM, temporarily forgets the shockingly pale circular tan line on his right ring finger, steps in something, woa, hold on, pretty stinky. Lifting his right foot to examine the something now, and yes, the man’s suspicions are confirmed: this is dog shit on his casual Friday sneakers.

             He looks what-th’-fuckly around him, finds no dogs to bring the hurt to, and begins shuffle-marching around on the month old black top. Cars pass, passengers look curious. The man trails the shit onto the weedless sidewalk and over the impeccably manicured lawn of a man he knows from the Home Owners’ Association and who is, uh oh, nodding and frowning: guess who’s not getting invited to Linda Gland’s Fondue Get-Togethers any more, Pal. Outcast, he stops marching and sad-bastards himself down on the curb.

            He watches the morning traffic: carpooling parents white-knuckling their way to elementary schools, distracted High-Schoolers driving cars too expensive for their own good, University students that may or may not be clients of his, laughing pretentiously into their black coffees at their fat, lazy, mustached, nervous, porn-addled-since-Marideth-left—probably  depressed, possibly alcoholic, definitely cries when watches 16 and pregnant, continually eats cheese-wiz from the can, still owns two years supply of Muscle Milk powder (because it was on sale one day at GMC next to the gym he went to for two weeks untold years ago and never went back)—drug flashback having, lonely, etcetera, etcetera, Property Manager. His heart races, he feels a little dizzy. He tries to hide his face in his knees but catches a whiff of shit so strong he almost loses his Honey Bunches of Oats. He loses but then regains some Honey Bunches of Oats. He watches the street.

            At 8:40 or so, some girl, carelessly, arrogantly, drops a blue plastic unicorn from the window in back of a Minivan. The Unicorn had an improbable smile, blonde hairdo and legs frozen mid-prance. All of that lasted until about the fourth or fifth car, at which point the poor little guy just couldn’t keep it together any longer. Ten cars pummel over the Unicorn before the Property Manager can finally to part the traffic, like Moses,  and retrieve the tiny blue pieces. I will love you, my friend, since no one else does. He puts the Unicorn in his shirt pocket.

              By 9 o’clock the street is nearly deserted. The Property Manager is, uh-oh, rocking back and forth with Docker’s cut offs exposing a little too much pastey white thigh. He has begun incanting something in an unknown language. He is stinking like shit. Stinking especially like shit because, now that there are no cars, there is nothing to disturb the fetid stench surrounding him. The essence of dog rises up, unimpeded, through curling nose hairs, into his brain. It brings switchblades, leatherjackets and names like Chip to shittify the inner alleyways of his olfactory bulb, to drag race along his Corpus Callosum.

So the Property Manager got to thinking, What do I have to do to catch a goddamn break? Ey, Chip? Why me? Either, he decides, the shit is as it seems—malevolent turd of a sociopathic dog—or, and this idea walloped him like the 10 ton number 1 bus from Eureka, Jackass: this feces is political. Of course, it’s all coming together now. That song in the Eighties about lynching landlords, the effeminate singer who ran for mayor of San Fransisco, all those things Papa used to say about communists and their hatred of free enterprise and boogying and casual Friday sneakers. That really was the ghost of Ronald Reagan that came to him last night, and he really is in trouble!

He leaps between two cars parallel parked along the street and spies the whole street thoroughly, eyes truly open now! He cups his ears, straining to hear any clandestine snickering. “Here to destroy my way of life!” he hollers at the empty street. Al Qaeda? Marxists?! Are the dogs in on it? Oh ho ho this goes right to the top! CIA, the President of the United States, Illuminati! He sees a small gray finger-puppet of a dog frisk down the street, and he dives under the car behind him, sucking in his gut, to shimmy under the rear axle.

Immediately he regrets the way of life comment. It’s the dogs, of course, why didn’t he see it? Dogs, dog shit. After the eons of canine oppression there’s no telling what kind of doom they have planned for the human race. Are they dog Marxists? It was stupid to antagonize them like that. With difficulty he is able to maneuver one arm around and into his Docker’s pocket, groping for something, anything, to show the dogs he was just kidding about “the way of life thing” and that, really, he’s on their side. He hears the jangling of a collar and some investigatory sniffing from behind him, but he can’t turn his head to see if it is a dog—regular enlisted-man, dog storm trooper. The breathing gets heavier, is it his own?

“Those donations to the SPCA were ameliorative at best!” he takes a chance and yells, “I was fooling myself. I know that now and I acknowledge my debt to the International Woofers of the world!” He makes several failed attempts to woof the Internationale.

He seems to have passed the test; the dog leaves him alone. He attempts to shimmy out from under the car, but his shirt seems to be caught. He will die under this car. He flails his arms and kicks his feet like a drowning man. His phone rings. He is in no condition to answer it. He knows who it is anyway. He is late for work.

What if the dogs are not in on it? What if there is no it? No conspiracy against him? Maybe even no sadistic dog? Just dog? There are still no cars on the street, no breeze, no sound of leave rustling. He begins to feel alone again. His blue Unicorn friend is stabbing him in the chest. He tries to move off of him but fails, resigns himself to the stabbing discomfort. Alone. He maneuvers his hand back into his shorts for his phone and calls in sick to work. 

At 9:30, Marge Trujillo, 3 year secretary at Sterner and Fister Property Management, 6 year reigning Hot Dog eating champion of Northern Humboldt County, and this year recipient of “World’s Best Mom” mug—which she accepted graciously but which she felt, frankly, was a long time coming—was too busy fist-pumping to the most recent single by the Biebs to notice the phone ringing. When the single ended and the existentially mortified Emmy “This-Is-Just-a-Summer-Job” Fister was able to alert her to the red flashing “message” light, Marge received this message:

“Goddammit, [Grunt, sigh, confined breathing]. No, I’m not… [sexual grunt?] Listen. I’m, huh, not coming into work today. Oh god what the hell. Listen, you can pray for a dog revolution here but you’re really just alone in the world right now, oh god this is not working. Marjorie, nooo. Make sure you, somebody at the office, maybe have This-Is-Just-a-Summer-Job do it, or whatever. One of you women there call Terry about the leak at John Mougham’s place on 12^th street. The kids there say there’s a leak.. a big FUCKING [another sexual grunt?] leak. I don’t know. Sorry about the Fucking. There’s a cat. Box. Shit floating around since four P.M. yesterday. Sorry about the shit. Um. I think we bit the big one here…Sorry. Uh. Then go home. Everyone go home. Tell Fister to take Summer Job home. Everyone home. Don’t eat my Snicker’s bar in the freezer I’m saving that for a special occasion. Oh… oh god! [sound of passing car] Help! Help me! [click].”

     Marge, confused, but excited she gets to take the day off, shoves an ooo still cold and sticky, chocolaty, Snicker’s wrapper in her bottom drawer and calls Terry, the repair man.

Terry, woken by Marge’s call, searches for his one clean pair of jeans in the dark and finds a pair that, well, will just have to do. He takes two resiny bong rips, a good-morning sized swig of tequila, and prepares to be hassled for yet another day.

He arrives at John Maugham’s place at 10, has the leak fixed by 10:45, makes the required “I’m sorry, man, I’m just doing what I can” face at the unhappy tenants who, hey that’s new, hold up a wet shivering cat. He’s out of there by 11. Minimal hassle, all in all, alright. Passing the pet store he remembers he has to get food for his pit bull.

When  he gets home Sarah leaps from the couch into his arms and commences face-licking. Terry unloads Sarah, big girl, slits open the food bag with his handy dandy box cutter and pours the food in her surplus army helmet/dog bowl. Then he goes to take a shit.

When he gets out of the bathroom, Sarah starts scratching at the front door.

“Ah, you too buddy?”

Terry snatches the leash from behind the couch, wrestles Sarah into the collar and takes just a teenyweeny snap outa his roommate’s Yoshi bubbler before leaving the house. Two houses down Sarah takes a shit the size of Newt Gingrich, right on the sidewalk, in record time, and doesn’t even bat an eye. Terry, shocked and awed, scopes the scene for potential hasslers, finds none, and keeps on walking.

When he gets back home, he turns off his phone and jerks it to some girl he saw proselytizing for the SPCA at a bus stop—why yes, I would like a flyer lady. No I haven’t thought much about my dog’s vagina lately but maybe we can get together sometime and talk about it? Yeah?

When he gets done with that he turns on Maury and, during a commercial for Wyotech, thinks, maybe I’ll go back to school, or get my Class A license or something.