THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

70 - DOGVILLE

She didn't kick me out, or otherwise dismiss me. She told me to wait; WAGIT! was almost done for the day. I found a corner and watched them finish cleaning up. Several dog owners came by and picked up their pets, all grateful, guilty, eager to please. Tabby and the blueshirts talked about the dogs like they were children.

At one point Tabby ordered the blue shirts to go home. I was figuring out quick that 1) she was the boss of this operation and that 2) she didn't want pay overtime. There were also several phone calls at this juncture. Several dogs were still penned, now hanging out by the fence, looking bored and whining.

Tabby looked around and sighed. "You want to ride with us? I gotta take them home."

A minivan sat in back, brightly painted with her logo on the sides, and the back was carefully carpeted, with several cages bolted to the floor where back seats would have been. We cruised out of Noodleville into Pickers Park. Tabby explained to me the legal issues, the wavers, how many dogs were allowed in the cages, what a pain in theass it was constantly cleaning the cages. She talked like we'd never been apart, like I already understood most of the operation already. I let her talk and did not ask questions. I knew it was difficult forTabby to field questions, to get thrown off track.

The first owner gratefully took in their pet. The other own wasn't home.In the damp dark of the minivan Tabby fumed silently, ignoring me andthe dog whining in the back. When the lady finally showed up, all apologies, I watched through the windshield, as she and Tabby exchange words. No one looked happy, except for the dog. When Tabby hauled herself back in, pulling on her seatbelt, she said "I probably lost her." She turned to me. "It happens a lot. You know, I have really rotten social skills."

We drove back to Wag On! It turned out she lived there.

"Cuts down on costs," Tabby told me in a stuffy little room with a ceiling so low I had to bend down, a room, which I'm sure had originally been a storage space, which you reached by climbing a ladder located in the closet of the front office. No windows, a mattress against one wall, a large dusty TV against the other, a thrift store dresser against another, and then a little alcove with a shower,toilet, and sink. The bathroom area looked like it had been added by someone who barely knew how to do such things. Not hardly any room to move. Cut into the drywall next to the dresser was a crudely designed and implemented dumb waiter, just big enough for a medium-sized dog, which explained the medium-sized black dog and small fluffy white dog cuddling the bed.

The room was a mess of a sheets and clothes. Dresser drawers half open, the little table on which the TV rested seemed to serve as the basecamp for a shanty town of receipts and bills and bottles of perfume and greasy fast food bags. There was a dining room against the wall, which I sat on.

Tabby hit the mattress and played with her dogs, then checked her watch. "They're not gonna have to pee or shit for another hour or so. Thank God."

She shuffled to her dresser and stripped down to a gray cotton thong, and stood there, in a daze, until she found an oversized rugby shirt. Her body was now covered in tattoos. Well, not exactly covered, but there were enough tattoos to suggest that she was now a tattoo person. They weren't very good tattoos, a snake coiling around her bicep, a scorpion splayed over her side, a lotus flower perched on the softbulge of her belly, directly over her crotch. I'm no expert, but they looked like they had been applied as quickly as possible, without a lot of thought to detail.

Tabby wandered to her TV and flipped it on. She found a bottle and poured herself a drink, then flopped on her bed with a big angry grin on her face. Her cheeks were tight and her eyes blazed.

"I know you're judging me," she said.

"Not at all. I'm impressed."

She finished her drink and nodded. "You should be. I put everything I had into this place. I cracked my trust and there's no going back –is there? Is there?" She played with the fluffy white dog, ruffling it's fuzzy head. "I'm not going to make a profit for another five years. If I do."

"If you don't, you can always go back to the law."

Tabby watching whatever was on the screen. "I have no idea. What you're talking about."

She watched the TV. I think there was an opportunity to say something, only I had nothing to say. There was a part of me who was pissed because I had been rehearsing arguments and counter arguments based on our last argument, and now it was clear that conversation was over. Gone, gone, gone.

But then there was also that thong, all that new flesh, and desire, and danger, because I still had the impression she could easily decide to tell me leave.

"I just realized that what I doing didn't make any sense and so I took a step back, because changing careers for a third time – it gets expensive, and I didn't just want to be always changing things because I thought I was supposed to be changing them. I took a stepback and I thought, dogs. I've always loved dogs. I'm always talking about them. I'm always thinking about them. And I thought this is what I'm going to do, and it doesn't matter if I spend all my money and then go broke. This is what's real."

Not that I knew her very well, but I knew her well enough not to mention the fact she had never once talked about dogs with me. I don't know what her thoughts were, and my suspicion was she didn't know either, but I don't mean that to be mean because that also accurately describes me and I'm sure a good many other people. I was the one who talked about dogs with her in our first and last argument. At the time I'd thought she might be finally opening up a little and listening to me. Maybe I was right.

I just let her talk, because it appeared to be still what she did, and I had to admit, even though she was nuts I really liked listening to her, and watching and thinking about fucking her.

She talked for a while about dogs, and her business, most of it complaining. A silent alarm in her head went off at some point, and she put the dogs in the dumbwaiter and took them out for a good night pee and poop. When she brought them back, she sat down on the edge of her bed and stared at the TV. She then appeared to have run out of things to say, and she looked nervous and uncomfortable. I waited and didn't watch TV because except for occasional porn, there was little about the technology which interested me, especially after those years of mindlessly watching videos in the bunker. My thoughts didn't trouble me so much, and I knew if they did I could start walking and that would calm them down again.

Tabby made a frustrated sigh..

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

Staring hard at the TV, Tabby said, "You haven't even tried to kiss me."

"You want me to kiss you?"

 "Did you get even more stupid while you were away?"