|
At the time, Jimmy had sympathized just to get the Dog back to work. But he now saw new meaning behind what the Dog had said was every dog's philosophy of life: "If you can't chew it or screw it, piss on it." It wasn't so much this philosophy that made dogs so serene, walking along, sniffing everything.... What other philosophy could they have, not talking, the way they did? And him, talking the way he did, the way all people did, didn't he arrive at the opposite conclusion when?-- Yes, the time he had, Jimmy remembered, was when.... "You're a scream!" his first ex-wife had screamed at him after he pissed away their ex-bank account to take on a broken-down Joke and Trick Shoppe. Trying to explain it to her, he'd repeated what the owner had told him: "You come in for a switch-blade penis and end up buying the store and some people will call you a sucker for that. But if you convince your customers that their lives can be made more exciting, more rewarding by buying a rubber chicken or a set of glass nudie ice cubes and they buy that chicken or whatever works for them and they see themselves linked to excitement or power or magic, or at least the potential for it, then that rubber chicken has made their lives more exciting. So what's the dif? Who's fooling who?" Somehow, Jimmy now knew, the old guy, even his ex, must have seen that Vegas was in his cards and he wished he could tell the Dog-- Vegas! All around Jimmy, The Strip was reflected in the windows of the ambulance. Its electric pinks seemed closer than ever and made the thought of leaving for his sister's quiet, doily-filled house already begin to grow stale. But that was okay. From now on, everything was okay. For a dog, four legs and a tail might be destiny, and it might be for him too but?-- Hadn't he just cheated death itself? |
|
"I mean it, Jimmy," the Dog was saying, "You were right and I won't leave your side 'til you let me make it up to you." Jimmy weakly lifted a finger to indicate to the Dog that he'd heard--that the Dog had been right all along too but...what's the dif? Ignoring the splitting headache he felt coming on, he began to imagine the two of them, on stage-- A paramedic roughly pushed the Dog aside. |