Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665)
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Authors: Hampton Fancher
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2012 by Hampton Fancher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fancher, Hampton.
The shape of the final dog and other stories / Hampton Francher.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60066-5
I. Title.
PS3606.A53S53 2012 2012018178
813'.6âdc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
FOR MANON
I
seen him three times before he attached himself to me. Walking down the street on my way to work was time number one. He caught my attention because of how he was walking, like he was on drugs or something. Plus the suitâyou could tell it was a rich guy's suit, like a banker would wear, but it was dirty, like he'd been sleeping in alleys. Got a tie on even, but the thing was, he wasn't wearing any shoes. So I thought, Christ, here's some well-to-do Negro who must have gone mad, got his shoes stolen.
Then what he does is step out into the street, not looking where he's going, and almost gets creamed by one of those big tourist buses. The driver gives him a blast of the horn, he stumbles backwards and starts running away.
That was the first time. I was on my way to work, like I said. The Torture Chamber. It's a nightclub, all of it made to look like some kind of dungeon. You pay twenty-five bucks to get in, dinner and drinks are extra. Al, the owner, gets the entertainment cheap. There's not a big demand for the kind of kinky stuff these people do. He makes all the money, and what they get is free chicken dinners and minimum wage for hanging by chains from their appendages with needles sticking out of their bodies. Big Al had the idea that pain was here to stay, so why not take advantage of it?
It's a specialty club, a regular stop on the tourist circuit. Mainly Japs and people from Europe. The faggots in the show have to be careful, though, say some drunk foreigner gets inspired and tries to get involved. But Big Al's got bouncers, big mean guys in black tights wearing leather masks. You get out of line and see one of these guys coming at you, you'll go and sit back down again.
I walk into Big Al's office. He's sitting behind his desk with his back to me. I stand there with his dinner, waiting for him to turn around. He doesn't.
My mother died, I tell him.
So did mine, he says.
I mean last night.
Sorry to hear it, he says, and keeps watching the monitors. The one that shows the street out front is showing a bunch of Germans piling out of a tour bus like the one that almost hit the Negro.
Big Al's big on surveillance, got cameras all over the place. Outside, inside, even downstairs in the men's room, a camera covering the wash-up area. He'd have one in the crapper if it wasn't against the law. He's waiting for me to put down the tray, but I don't. On the desk, Spence. He spells it out: D-E-S-K. I put the tray on the desk.
Fucking Germans, he says. Tells me I'd better get downstairs. What's the rush, I felt like saying, but I just stood there waiting for him to swing around so I could tell him what I'd been waiting to say. But it was the wrong time. The Germans screwed it up.
So he sits there watching the monitors, making me wait, showing me how important he is. The girls who work for him hate his guts, and he's walking around with his big mustache, his Italian muscles, thinking he's king shit. And I'm still being punished for a gamble I took. What I did was took some piddly amount of money from the till, got caught, got punished, paid the price. He likes people to call him Big Al, but not me, I won't do it. I just call him Al.
Al, I'd like to work upstairs again.
When you're ready, he says.
I am, I'm ready, Al.
You're on probation. Go back down there and do your job.
I'm a bartender, Al.
You
were
a bartender, and would be still if you weren't a fuckin' thief. Now get back down there before I brain you.
I'm fed up with treating him right, but if I didn't, I'd go to jail. He'd tell the cops what I did, and before they'd take me away, he says he'd brain me with a baseball bat. He's got one too, keeps it under his desk.
B
eing a bathroom attendant isn't exactly what I came to New York City to do. People come down drunk, piss all over the place, vomit maybe. But it isn't just about keeping things clean. The show upstairs could inspire perverts to come down, try and suck each other off. If I catch somebody doing something shady, my job is to put a stop to it. If they don't cooperate, I call one of the bouncers. So I'm sort of a guard too. For this I get a living wage plus whatever they leave in the bowl. I don't mean the toilet bowl. It's a dish I keep on the sink for tips. I stock it with a few bucks to give 'em the idea, but at the end of the night, usually it doesn't amount to much.
Basically Big Al was taking advantage of me, had me over a barrel. I had to wear a white coat too, like the ones the busboys wear. At first I thought, okay, I'll sit it out. But after a while it was pretty clear, this had to be the most boring job in the universe, unless you like to kiss ass, which at first I tried, handing out a towel or sweeping off their shoulders with a little whisk broom. But not unless they're drunk do they want anything to do with you, and if they're not drunk, they pretend you're not there.
Drunk Germans, four of 'em. They barge in yelling, knocking into each other, not noticing me at first. Then one of 'em sees me, looks right at me, making it clear he thinks something's funny. His buddies giggling at whatever it is he's saying. I'm tempted to say something myself, but it's four against one, so I stay on my stool. The first one, after he pisses, makes a big show out of dropping coins, one after the other, into my bowl, and out they go, charging up the stairs, laughing. I take a look. The coins aren't even American. Big joke. Sometimes I get so bored, the only thing I can do is do a good jobâget down on my hands and knees with the gloves on and make everything shine.
On my way home I'm still thinking about those Germans. It's close to dawn. I walk over a grating, then back up to see if what I thought I saw I'd seen. It's the Negro, the one who almost got hit by the bus. He's laying about a foot under the sidewalk. How he got down there, I don't know. Grating must have been loose, he yanked it off, I suppose, got in there, then put it back. A stupid place to spend the night, people walking on top of you, spitting, dropping their butts. He was squinting up at me like he'd found a good place to hide. It was none of my business. I walked on. That was time number two.
I went home, went to bed, but couldn't sleep. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The trucks, the honking, all that stuff. So sometimes what I do is say “Auto” over and over again. Not auto, like car. That's not what it means. Auto is the name of my mother's mule down in Townsville, Mississippi. Auto goes to sleep anytime he feels like it, wherever he happens to be. Just stands there andâbangâhe's asleep if he wants. So on bad nights I concentrate on the mule, make a picture of him in my mind, and keep saying his name. And it worked that night; reason I know it did is because I had a dream.
It was me walking down an alley high up over my hometown, which is a dream for sure because my hometown doesn't have any hills. On this hill I come across a cat. So young its eyes aren't even open. It's lying by this pile of garbage in a puddle of water, somebody left him out there to die, just threw his ass away. I'm standing there looking at it, not knowing what to do. I don't need a cat, but I can't walk away. I guess I was supposed to rescue the thing. It looked sick, like you wouldn't want to touch it, but I did, picked it up. It was no bigger than my hand. Noises it was making was telling me it was about to die. I was gonna have to get something like an eyedropper to feed it. So I start walking down the hill to save it, but I wake up.
Then I just lie there feeling bad, wishing I could have dreamed the dream long enough to have done the job. Thinking I wish somebody would come and rescue my ass. And for some reason I start to laughing. I don't know what was so goddamned funny, but I couldn't stop. I fell back asleep and didn't dream anything, which is usually the case. When I woke up next time it was night, and time to go to work again.
Before I go, I eat pie. I buy blueberry or appleâI don't like seeds. Not every day, but about two times a week I do it, then sometimes I go a month without even thinking about it. My habit is to eat half of it and then the second half the next day. I like the first half best.
So I'm in the window eating the second half, watching what looks like a Negro lurking around down in the alley. I've seen it before, we all have. A man on crack or who-knows-what, maybe some crap he found in the back of a pharmacy, got dosed up on a bottle of pills that melted his brain pan. Anyway, he's moving around down there, looking through the garbage. Not till I get out my flashlight I use for fishing and shine it on him did I realize who it was. He didn't even look up. But there he was with my light on him, his big head, barefooted still. Maybe he was looking for shoes. I had an old pair, tennis shoes for fishing, which I never did anymore. Where was there to fish, the East River? I threw 'em out the window, one after the other, didn't even look to see where they landed. Probably hit him in the head. That was time number three.
What happened at work that night clinched it. Big Al never comes downstairs, too important, got his own private mirror in his office. He could've combed his hair up there, but in he walks, steps up to the mirror, and starts combing his hair. I sit on my stool watching him, waiting, and without even letting me know he knows I'm there, he washes his comb, dries it off, puts it back in his pocket, and says, Lock the door, Spence. I lock the door. Then he takes out this paper sack, lays it on the counter, starts bringing lottery tickets out of his pockets, new ones, putting 'em in the sack. Must've been a hundred grand worth.
He tells me, Take the sack upstairs. There's some guy in a green suit sitting with a blonde at the end of the bar who I'm supposed to hand it to and without letting anybody see me do it. The whole thing was fishy. I'm hesitating, and he gets this smirk on his face, gives me a wink and says either that or suck his dick. No way is Big Al a faggot. He came down to put me on the spot. If anybody's ass was gonna get burned handing over that sack, it was gonna be mine. But I had no choice. So I took the sack upstairs and gave it to the guy in the green suit. But that was it, far as I was concerned; my probation was over.
I
go back to my place. I make a call, find out about the bus schedules. I get my fishing pole from under the bed and put my stuff in a bag, then take the back stairs down to the alley. And guess who I run intoâthe Negro. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been there since the night before. He's wearing my shoes too. I've got big feet for my size, and for the size he is, which is a lot taller than me, he's got small ones. The point is, is they fit him. He spots me watching him and I light out for the bus depot.
After about two blocks I look around and there he is, following me like a dog. I couldn't shake him. Followed me right into the station. I get up to the window to purchase my ticket, he's so close behind me I gotta whisper my destination so he doesn't hear where I'm going. Being pissed off at a guy like this is a waste of time. What was I supposed to do, holler at him, call a cop? I go around him wishing I hadn't of thrown those shoes out the window. I sit on a bench and wait for the announcement. He's five feet away, standing there looking like he's waiting to see what else I'm gonna give him.
When it comes time to board, he follows me out to the bus like he's gonna get on it. But to do that, you gotta have a ticket. He tries to get on, but the driver won't let him, pushes him back out the door. I take a seat to the rear so I can be alone. When I glance out the window, there he is, standing there looking up at me, got something in his hand, lifting it to show me. I put my nose against the glass to see.
What I see is he's got a fist full of money, a whole roll of it. Turned out they were hundred-dollar bills. You pay as you go in this life; if he wanted to go, who was I to stop him? He didn't seem to have any faith in himself, and that's where it all started. Him and me going down to Mississippi together. I got off the bus and got him a ticket with his own money.
First step in a good relationship is paying attention, making sure you're not missing something. In this case it was simple. What was there to miss? I put him next to the window and took the aisle seat for myself. He sits real stiff, very erect, eyes forward. But after we're on the road awhile, he starts making this little noise. At first I thought he was saying “pot,” but after he said it a bunch, I figure what he's saying is “mot.” So Mot it is, that's what I call him.
Because we had time to pass, I decided to try and interest Mot in a couple of topics. I tell him about the money I made telemarketing when I first came to New York. How the Jew who ran the outfit shortchanged me on my commissions, and how I called the attorney general on him. Next thing, he gets shut down, goes to court, goes to jail. Don't fuck with Spencer Hooler, was the message there. Next I related the story of how, when I was a kid, me and Doc killed my sister's cat. Put it to sleep on the dining room table and cut it open to see what it was made of. That was back when Doc had notions about me growing up to be a doctor. Then I tell him about being a barker in Doc's carnival. The next thing I know, the sun's coming up, and I notice my traveling companion must've done something in his pants. Some of the other passengers seem to be aware of it too. I'm about to take him to the toilet they got in the back, but the driver got wind of it, yelled for me to stay where I was, that he'd pull into the next convenience, I could take care of things there. And that's what we did.
It's barely morning, already hot. The hum of this big swamp cooler in the café makes it kind of homey. I take Mot to the men's. He seems depressed from his accident. I try and tell him it could've been avoided, but he's not paying attention, must've been the bus that confused him. But with a little help, he pretty much knew how to do what it took to fix himself up, and we go back out. Being in the south now, I gotta say, our arrival did draw a little bit of attention. We sit at a booth, and I order coffee and toast. Had to butter the toast for him, almost had to feed it to him, but he got the idea.