Authors note: Last two were heavy as fuck, here’s a light one.
Police Dog at Airport by Gordon Glasgow
I’m no bark of a generation, I just have something to say about the canine condition. Experience pain, articulate it. Experience love, articulate it. Articulate, articulate, articulate, state the fact and move on. To some of the ones who matter most to me I can’t exactly do that, so I lie down to write my memrawrs that hopefully will one day be translated. I can smell with confidence that I’m no Jean-Pug Sartre. I don’t hold a bone to Labrador Dostoevsky or Shiba-Inu Schopenhauer, and certainly not to the late, great, Simon de Beagle, may she rest in treats. But please take a gander at a day in the life of my experiences.
It’s a cold, dry morning on Rockaway beach. I just took a saunter down toward Shore Front Parkway. My mister is by my side coughing while smoking a long piece of tobacco, wearing a colored cap and a down-feather jacket. I look at him in wonder. It’s right below freezing, no precipitation. The humidity is 39 percent or so, with a strong gusty wind that flows aggressively against my ears at the rate of 24 km per hour.
Mister lets me off the rope and I begin to sprint. There’s too much to take in all at once, so many essences to smell and gravel to stomp across, millions upon millions of sand to roll in. There’s the overwhelming scent of seaside goldenrods and black chokeberries, along with the sweet sensation of my snout mingling with the grass, Ammophila breviligulata, the sun shining all the way through.
It’s a slow-moving day at the flying place. I sit stoically in duty trying to smell all that comes my way, eager to make sure nothing appears that could go boom. My friend Maxwell, a bloodhound of Belgian ancestry, sits two rows behind me, trying to smell for the human powders that make them deranged. Three rotations ago, Maxwell found twenty-two pounds of white derangement powder on a missus carrying a stroller, he was then quickly promoted to the day shift to work with me. The woman was sent to prison to be locked up for many cycles, something me and the rest of the fellows think is an injustice. Why not just punish them with a strong, ‘No! No!’ Prison is something I’ve never understood and will sadly never have any power over. It’s an unfortunate aspect in a life of duty, not control.
Maxwell and I became close last year when I sensed an elaborate ticker on a disheveled looking gentleman. The man dropped his belongings and ran fast. My mister and I had trouble apprehending him. Mister tried to pull out his shooter but I nudged him not to, the man was running farther away. Maxwell came in from his blindside and stopped him in his tracks. Many blue misters in uniform joined quickly after.
Maxwell is an astute canine and a male of sharp senses. Although we smell little at each other, I’m quite comforted when he’s around.
I’m sitting still patiently now, craning my neck left and right, to and fro. I wish I could articulate some musings to all the misters and missus around me. But my muzzle is sealed, I remain calm and focused in the line of loyalty and obedience. There’s musics playing from the caffeine stand 12 meters away that’s sharp in my ears, it’s a beat-beat song with both a mister and missus yelling at each other to a specific rhythm that repeats itself. I don’t know what they’re saying in this musics but from the tone I perceive that they are angry about great romances from the past and present.
Humans tend to feel so much pain and anguish from such romances. Their cerebrum is twisted in a negative way — a great tragedy, one could bark. Rarely with all their mentals do they look at the tastier side of life, the look here at this thing you can rub yourself against, side of life, the wake-up and smell the garbage, side of life.
Upright beings. They are caught up with woe, so much. As quite a big boy with lots of senses I would be fibbing if I didn’t say that sometimes humans lend me a sense of sadness that I would not otherwise have, an awareness of life’s end more than life itself. But somehow, inexplicably, I love them, I love them all, I love them dear, and I cannot help it. It is my obligation to save them from themselves, an assignment from clouds above to look after their well-being. So I sit here. And I keep on sniffing.
A gorgeous mister and missus pass me, gliding along, holding the palm of each other’s paws. There’s deep tranquility in their eyes. I smell for weapons but receive nothing but toasted walnuts and eucalyptus.
‘What a beautiful upright sex partnership,’ Maxwell smells to me after they pass.
‘Rghf mmm,’ I respond.
I had an orchiectomy (they cut my balls off) when I was a very young pup, relieving me of any prospect of sexual pleasure beyond mere humping. My main mister who taught me the ways of discipline must have thought it was a good idea to keep me focused. I can’t say he was wrong.
Every time the uprights pass me with such tranquil looks in their faces, arms together, snouts combined, I do tend to bask in the wonder of sexual desire, an experience I’ll never know but will always long for. It’s also give and take — I may never get to fuck, excuse my language, but they will never get to smell, to really smell, a donut on the street, in all its complexity and flavor. My mouth begins to drool just at the thought of it, much like humans with their intercourse. Whether a pastry or a penis, so much of what’s good in life is made up of sensual pleasure.
The line at the, ‘are you naughty,’ area is beginning to lengthen and slow. There are so many uprights to sniff at once, so many misters and missus beginning a journey toward a new dwelling land, but none of them has anything that will go boom. For the most part, I only detect sulfur and vegetable oil, a normal day on the job.
I have to micturate, I nudge my mister lightly to let him know. He waves his hand in a certain way which means that my break will be in exactly 14 milli-cycles. I’m so excited.
A lovely little pooch from the state of Chihuahua comes strolling toward me. She’s led by quite a large missus in a soft fleece tracksuit who smells like the back of an old vehicle.
The lovely Chihuahuan lunges toward me to smell hellos.
‘Chihuahua-woww,’ Maxwell smells to me.
I smell him to be quiet and to focus on his job, I remind him that I’m his superior, that one can’t feline-call all the lovely little Chihuahuas in the world, especially not at the place of duty.
‘You can be a real schnauzer,’ Maxwell responds. I choose to ignore him. He’s lucky he’s so good at his job finding the mental derangement powders, otherwise, he’d be sent to the pound for a few months. That’s just Maxwell’s character. And although it is awfully offensive to call any dog a schnauzer, it is a matter of pure disrespect to say this to a Labrador Sea dweller like myself. Roof.
The Chihuahuan and I are stuck ass to nose as we wait for the line to move. She begins smelling to me a long tail of the arduous journey she’s been on, the various canines whom she’s trotted in and away from, the many different humans she had called her own. It was really drab stuff, which is usually the case with these dogs. Spoiled canines who don’t work or hunt tend to become so incredibly self-involved.
‘I can’t talk right now.’ I smell to her as she obnoxiously wags her tail in my face. ‘I’m working.’
And now she continues to smell about how much she hates the flying place.
‘I’ve had quite enough of your asshole,’ I lightly smell to her. But she doesn’t get the message, and I’m forced to signal to my mister that the large lady and her Chihuahuan need a special looking at by the men with hand-gloves.
Dear observer, you might think me a wicked hound for taking these steps. But I assure you they were fine. It actually worked out better for both of us. The massive missus and the Chihuahuan were able to skip the, ‘is anyone here naughty,’ line while I was able to avoid another 15 minutes about some pooch’s time living in the back of a vehicle somewhere down south. Yawn.
‘Fucking prick,’ the Chihuahuan says to me as her missus is whisked away by three humans in blue. I’m used to these abuses.
I look back with longing and shame, but what has to be done must be done.
The line now passes with few more issues. Another Labrador Sea dweller walks by. He smells to me that his human is a writer of stories. I look up at his mister. He has a pronounced nose and bad hair, with a particularly stupid and lazy energy. The human stares at his blue-light machine, laughing like a moron.
‘Your mister looks nice,’ I casually lie.
The Labradorian wags me for my service. I nod and return the respect, keeping the line moving.
It’s break-time in the grassy place close to where the loud machines soar away — a little pee-pee here, a little poo-poo there. It’s so nice out today. Arugh.
It might surprise you to know that I’ve never been on a large soaring machine. I’ve actually never even left the state of big apples. It’s the greatest city in the world, my mister always recites, usually on Sundays, holding a large glass full of crazy beverage, chanting the soliloquies of a melancholic music giver by the name of Boy George and his Culture Club.
I am used to listening to Boy George on the Sundays where I do not go to the flying place. He is my mister’s favorite, so Boy George, particularly a melody titled, ‘Do You Really Want to Roof Me,’ is also my favorite. We’ve had some good times to that sound.
The greatest city-place in the universes, the big apples is close to my heart. I am a real New Yorker and a dog of great honor, just another quiet barker who toils day in, day out, in this great land of fragrance, in this country of dreams.
I sometimes think of my old friend Karl, a Shepard of German ancestry who was lost in the chew of labor. I would like to dedicate this specific memrawr to him, may he also rest in treats.
Copyright: HarperKibbles