THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

30 - BOOZE

The end of my time with them began one day when we hit the spread and then exceeded the spread by about eight dogs. We were cruising through somewhere in the North Western part of Ace City, a nicer neighborhood (there were more Starbucks and less Check Cashing places; the Dog Hunters liked landmarks and didn't really dig street signs, so I followed suit). There were loud whoops of delight and cries of success. Tinto lifted Lulubelle out of the stroller and spun him around after he made camp.

"This is it! Boy, my God do I feel ALIVE!"

"Don't put me down too fast," Lulubelle told him, "I'm going to get splinters from the mulch."

Tinto was already skipping away.

Lulubelle rolled his eyes. "You've never seen this yet. But I'm sure you can predict what's going to happen next."

What happened was a bottle of whiskey. Just because I sometimes drink all the time, doesn't make me an booze expert. This bottle looked like midrange product – extremely spendy for this outfit. There were also candy bars, Mars bars and Zero bars. I wanted to ask if they were specifically used every time, but I didn't.

A victory feast. Followed by much drinking, mostly from Tinto.Lulubelle had none. I had some, telling myself I had to take it easy because dog hunting is work, real work, like I hadn't experienced since my accident, and I wanted to be ready for it tomorrow.

Tinto said this of Lulubelle: "Poor little pussy, he wants to drink, but when he does he turns blue – that's first, and then he pukes blue. It's kinda cute, in this freaky way."

"Fuck you, Tinto."

Tinto didn't exactly goad me on, but the whiskey tasted real good, and it was easy enough to drink more. So I ended up drinking too much. I was blasted before I even knew what had happened. And of course we talked about dogs. We joked about dogs, how they moved, how they moved with their owners, all sorts of things I never would have thought were worth words before I met them.

You would think, after Lulubelle had called it a night and it was just me and Tinto still slurping the whiskey and chatting, there would have been a moment when things got real serious, where the mask or whatever they are fell off and Tinto leveled with me about what was really going on, why he was really doing this, what was really going on with him and Lulubelle.

It never happened.

Tinto did start crying though, but it was over a dog they'd spotted, one which they called The Star Witch Husky, some little dog so beautiful and vain it broke his heart. I was so drunk it broke my heart too.

I guess I did sort of want to get serious, so I said to Tinto, "Why'd you pick me up man? Why'd you take me with you guys? You guys got this solid thing going here. You didn't know me. I could have wrecked the whole operation, I mean you know, just put a dent into things. I don't have to understand anything else, but I really want to know about that."

Tinto slurped whiskey like it was warm water, and stared at what I imagined was the invisible campfire.

"If you can't hack it, you're left behind. We've got dogs to hunt. That simple. Now, to your other question, why did I stop that crackhead from trying to kill you-"

"He wouldn't have killed me."

"How long you been out here? You're green and soft. You're soft like the belly of a baby mouse. My guess is you'd only been out and about formaybe a month or so."

"Doesn't mean he was gonna kill me."

"Sure." He stretched the word out until it was the size of a swimming pool,sarcasm so thick you could spread it on toast. Then he sniffed, maybe getting serious. "You reminded me of someone."

It was clear this was all he was going to say because with Tinto then shut up, and he never shut up.