Trouble On the Beach

[wilomn]

The Guy, he cried once for his beast Trouble, who was none.

I’ve pondered another dog, but for now it’s still a no. No time. No space. No guarantee the damn thing wouldn’t outlive me. Maybe in the fall.

A lot of people think their dog is hands down, no doubt about it, couldn’t be any other way what are you stoopid, best dog that ever was, that even without the special bond they share their dog was just smarter and nicer and prettier and smelled better and learned faster and fetched better and raised the seat when It peed in the toilet then put it back down when it was done so your mom who lived with you since that thing with Uncle Joe wouldn’t fall in and soak her butt cheeks. They’re wrong. Every dadgummed one of em; wrong. My beast was better by far.

Now I’m not running for any tax payer funded public office so I’ll tell you true, Trouble, my mutt, was the best dog/beast ever. He was really something special. Not a barker, not a whiner, not a complainer. Smartest damn dog I’ve ever known. I could nod my head right or left and he’d go that way. Didn’t need verbal commands. Sat on my foot. His whole damn life that beast would park his bony ass on my foot. That was pretty cool.

Looked just like a wolf, Trouble did. Mistaken for one all the time. And rightfully so. His father was pure, his mother mixed. Black and white and grey and silver, the quintessential wolf.

You know that sound you make when you want to quietly get someone’s attention? The pssssst, sound? I could make that sound and he’d stop whatever he was doing, eating, playing, even sleeping, and look to me to see what I wanted. A nod of my head or a wave of my hand and away he went. Always happy to do whatever as long as it was with me. I reciprocated. Didn’t need a leash and like little kids. Always left the pinapple chunks and peppers, licked clean, in his bowl when he got Sweet and Sour Pork. Loved loved loved bread. Hawaiian Sweet bread was his favourite followed closely by sourdough and pizza crust. Like his dinner rolls too.

He would rarely let strangers tough him and never took food from one. Many times I was asked, “Hey Mister, can I pet your dog?” or “Is that a wolf? Can I pet it?” to which I almost always answered, “It’s alright with me, but it’s up to him,” which was almost always followed by the vain endeavors of people he didn’t know trying to touch my dog. Generally he ignored them completely, they weren’t even there as far as he was concerned. It was really interesting and often amusing to see. Same thing with food when offered by people he didn’t know. He’d sniff and ignore. Smartest damn dog ever.

There was a time, getting on a few years ago now, when he and I spent a goodly amount of time at the beach. In the sun and sand and sometimes the Pacific Ocean, it’s salty water cool on our feet making our tongues pucker with its briny tang. He never complained about either. Shook a lot of damn sand off his coat, but he never complained.

We were there, on the beach, on Sunday evening, as far West as you could get and still stay dry, right on the edge of the terrestrial world. At its border with the liquid realm of the ocean broad and deep, watching the orange globe that was the sun gradually sink, turning red as it sank below the horizon into the dark blank slate past the edge of the world where the ocean stopped and the sky began, moving below the dark slate line that marked the border between earthbound and heaven sent that divided terrestrial from divine, where unknown was the watchword, beginning a journey that in twelve short hours would encompass half the earths circumference ending when once again light brought morning shooing away the last lingering darkness, delivering on the promise made every evening of another day on the morrow. We sat there and thought that, right there on the edge of the world, in the sand, near the waves, the evening’s breeze just starting to clean the beach of the trash ten million tourists had left behind.

The sun disappeared, the sky still blue above only above the clouds now, lit from below in lustrous peach and purple, seeming closer and larger than they really were, I was quite digging the show, as was my friend in the fur suit. Trouble, well, he appreciated a good sunset just a s much as the next dog, but if you’ve seen a dozen, you’ve seen a hundred. Indeed, he was far more interested in what his now was telling him that night than in the sunset.

Dogs on the beach, are, technically, against the law. They’re generally a little more hardcore about enforcing it during the day that they are at sunset. They, the cops, are relatively unseen after dark. Exceptions though, there are always exceptions.

Trouble was the type to explore, to take advantage of the opportunities that were constantly unfolding before him. That nose of his was good, real good. He’d know your :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: was going into heat a week before she did. That however is another story entirely. Damn Dog.

So, he’s exploring as the sun slowly took the last of the sunset light out of the sky, the beach gradually growing into a strip of white bordered by black water waves to the West and the lights of the boardwalk fifty yards to the East. Close to the water it’s getting darker. I’m watching and appreciating, he’s running and sniffing and occasionally digging furiously for a few seconds, then more running.

He’s fine. We’ve done this before. He only poops at home and I’ve got a plastic bag in my pocket just in case. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, as I sometimes say. I was really a nice evening. I could see a goodly distance up and down the beach, people were few with a fair distance between them and I was at peace.

I know where my dog is, but I’m hardly watching him. I know he’ll stay away from people, even if they put considerable effort into, let’s just say, ‘petting’ him. I also know that when I call or when he’s done, whichever happens first, he’ll rejoin me. We’ve done this many many times.

If you’re a regular at that particular stretch of beach, down there boardwalk way, then you’ve probably seen the cops trying to be sneaky.Parking next to the drum circle then walking into the crowd to bust people drinking or smoking things not allowed to be drunk or smoked on the sand. The helicopters checking the crowd, radioing to their ground dwelling counterparts locations and descriptions of ne’erdowells, the ATVs zipping along, their tri-wheeled trails criss -crossing the sand leaving snake trails in their wakes. All, as I mentioned, are generally gone by this time of day, no doubt doing copious amounts of paperwork to insure proper handling of all the criminals taken off the streets during their shift. No doubt…

On this particular Sunday though, there were a pair of those sworn to protect and serve putting in a bit of overtime making sure us miscreants weren’t miscreanting too much. Like letting out really cool beasts run loose on the beach. Very big No No, that is.

Now, I knew there was no way they’d ever get him in their paddy wagon no matter how hard they tried. He wouldn’t go close enough. Not that the oh-so-pleasant lady officer of the law who so obviously wished her father had sired only sons, didn’t put out a good effort. She called. She clapped. She whistled. She slapped her thighs with her hands and may have, I was too far away to tell for certain, offered him a treat.

He ignored her. He’d jog toward her, then make a 90 degree turn and jog off. After about three minutes, which can be a really long time when you’re trying to corral a loose dog who doesn’t know you, he tired of ignoring the frustrated truncated penis denied upholder of the law, and rejoined me where I as, my butt firmly planted in the double divot my ass had carved out for itself in the sand while I watch the show. Shows. Both of them.

I knew, as soon as it was obvious that I was, indeed, his destination, that the nice lady in the bulky uniform would be coming to see me. I hoped she wouldn’t give me a ticket, but not too much. Why waste the effort?

Her partner, looking also to be of the he-man-I-can-lift-more-than-you-even-though-you’re-the-one-with-the-penis, stayed in the SUV, behind the tinted windows, wearing her mirrored sunglasses in the growing gloom.

“That your dog?” asked the one who had tried to ‘befriend’ him down the beach.

“He looks to me,” I replied. I had paid for him when I got him, but I prefer to think of it as his liberation fee, not as his purchase price. I don’t, didn’t, want a slave. Seeing her obvious confusion I said, “Yeah, he’s mine.”

“You know it’s against the law to have your dog on the sand,” she said, becoming officious.

“It is?” I asked.

“It’s not sanitary. What if he pooped? What would you do?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything until I had pulled the plastic bag out of my pocket. Then I informed her that, “I was prepared,” and waved the bag in front of her. Perhaps with a bit of sarcasm in my wave, but it was hardly noticeable there in the dusk.

“You weren’t even watching him. Do you even have a leash?” she oh-so-kindly asked me.

Perhaps had she taken her mirrored Aviators off, it was rather dark at this point, she might have seen the long thick wide black nylon leach draped over my shoulders. I held up one end of the leash so she could see it. “I saw you trying to get him in your truck,” I said.

“He’d be on his way to the shelter if he had,“ she said, her stance aggressive now, her hand caressing her seventy-two inch long three inch wide Maglight flashlight, obviously slightly put off by either my beast, who had been calmly sitting on my foot since he came back, or me. Or the both of us. I wonder if she and her tubular accessory were in a close and personal relationship.

“He’s not much for strangers,” I told her. “If he doesn’t know you, he’ll pretty much ignore you. I knew he wouldn’t go in your car.” I knew if I gave him the signal he’d take off and the worst she could do was write me a ticket. I returned my attention to the waves breaking a few feet away.

“What’s in the bag?” the nice lady asked me, indicating the brown paper bag which had obviously escaped her razor sharp perusal of me upon her arrival, that was propped between my crossed legs.

Every now and then I run scenarios through what passes for my mind. You know the type of thing. If such and such were to occur, what would the outcome be. I’ve seen a bunch of people get busted for alcohol on the beach. One of the most common denominators of them being caught was the brown paper bags they were drinking out of. What cop would ever think that inside a brown paper bag in the hands of a miscreant on the beach at sunset, would contain anything other than alcohol, an illegal and arrestable offence.

My new best friend forever obviously thought I did.

“Water,” I said. Then I was quiet. I had set this up before and nothing had ever happened.

“Water,” she repeated. I don’t think she believed me. “You sure about that? Just water?”

Being something of a self-styled wordsmith I answered most eloquently, “Yup.”


“Take the bottle out of the bag,” She says, all nice polite cop now that she thinks I’m busted. I could see it on her face. The dog goes to the pound, the smartass goes to jail. It was pretty neat as far as she was concerned.

To say she was a tad disappointed when I pulled out a half empty bottle of Mountain Spring Water would be a bit of an understatement. “Put the leash on your dog and keep him off the beach. Next time I write you a ticket.”

“Thank you,” I replied, snapping the clip on Trouble’s collar, well pleased with just about everything. Couldn’t have gone better if I had planned it. Which, of course, I am simply not smart enough to have done. All in advance like and all.

We had fun like that sometimes, Trouble and me. I miss that damn dog.

[wilomn]

Wow, I have never read anything I've posted up here before that had so many typos. And I remember proof reading this one. I have to apologize to those of you who may have been confused. Some of those misspellings significantly change not only the meaning of the sentences but the rhythm I try to maintain in my story telling.

I'm going to have to re-do this one for sure.

[JLC]

LOL...I loved the story, even with the typos. I hadn't replied because I figured folks would start thinking I'm some sort of stalking fan-girl.

[wilomn]

Looking back, I think I wrote this when I was having a bad time with one of my molars. Chemo did a number on my teeth and I was taking Vicodin. No excuse for being sloppy, but a good lesson in what not to take when the writing bug bites.