THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

73 - NOT ANYTHING

And no, that's not the end either, because like I said, this isn't a story like that, or at least I don't think it is, even if I'm not skilled or clever enough to make it anything different. When I came in Tabby's tight little sweaty ass, I felt complete – in that moment, but that still didn't mean things were completed. I got my ass and I didn't kill myself, that was all it meant. So...

Life continued.

What happened next was, I continued to hang around Tabby. It was an odd relationship but it worked, in its own way. I felt like I was good for her, and I liked the sex and the company, most of the time.

The time stuff seemed to work too. I spent my days walking, while she did her shit with the dogs. I took big long day hikes, and knowing I'm taking a big hike the next day meant I was less likely to drink too much booze or coffee with Tabby the night before (can't do that stuff with a fuzzy head, or erratic bladder), which I think contributed to our big blow out back when. 

A good twenty-mile walk does me good. I continued to map and try to find new urban trails, finding different ways toward getting to the same place. I usually chowed down a burrito on the road, got back around the time Tabby was done with her responsibilities, and then we'd do our routine. I was never allowed in that stuffy inner sanctum until she invited me. Every time I got back to her place, her she acted like it was the first time, and that we'd been doing it forever. She still complained about everything, except when we're fucking or she's playing with her dogs.

We never talked relationship. Most of the time Tabby still continued to talk about herself, and I never corrected her when she started changing her stories, denying things she was doing and thinking a few weeks or months or years ago, or leaving out details. I honestly don't think she ever lied about anything, but it became fascinating to me the way she removed chunks of her experience, pretending certain things (mental hospitals, employment, who knows what else) never happened.

One night, when we were munching Indian take out (Tabby, it seemed, had put down sushi when she'd picked up dogs), and she was watching CNN, Tabby said, "It's funny how your brain works, you know?"

"Sure," I said.

She was focused on the screen the way a dog focuses on a new bone, her eyes, squinting, frowning. "You don't really remember things right. You know that time you told me about seeing that thing on TV,about the hiker, and then reading that article? That dude?"

"Sure."

"Well, I get interested in stuff sometimes. So I looked it up, and you know what I found?"

"What's that?" I asked, now nervous, because I suddenly knew I wasn't going to like whatever it was she had to say.

"I didn't find anything. It didn't happen."

"What do you mean?"

According to Tabby and her research, the show, the article, Johnny Bobo - none of it had happened.

I kept my eyes on my toes. When you're on your toes you're less likely to wallow in your own nonsense.

Tabby went on to tell me she'd checked every database in existence, cross referencing, doing all that stuff you do when you're an ace researcher. There was nothing about Johnny Bobo. There was no Johnny Bobo.

"If you look at it mathematically, it's almost impossible. like there wouldn't be something there, something similar. Isn't that weird?" She said this all very casually as she watched CNN.

"Sure is," I said.

"This really important part of your life, this defining part, is actually a large black hole. All I can say is, I'm glad shit like that doesn't happen to me."

"Me too."

The next day I stopped walking, or not as much.

And now we're to the here and now, mostly. These past couple of months I've been spending my non Tabby time at the Ace City branch library so I can do my own research. Tabby could be fucking with me, or because she's crazy, could be getting it all wrong. I've been on the computer and harassing the librarians, and hitting the stacks, and doing everything you're supposed to do when you're researching. Maybe it's been more than a few months. All I've encountered is the black hole Tabby talked about. It's what got me writing again. I've been researching and writing, trying to get it all straight. When did my life start, like really start? I really think it started that first time I tried to kill myself, because that was  decision that lead me toward this awareness, instead of all the ones before that that seemed to lead me away, or something. It's confusing, and I'll admit at the end of the day all I really know is...

No Johnny Bobo. 

Pretty soon I'll have to accept the black hole as straight up truth, and that means, as Tabby noted, the most majorly defining aspect of my life just didn't happen.

But Johnny Bobo had to come from somewhere, right? That's the point I was trying to make when I started this, whatever it is, this non-memoir. Call me tricky or pretentious or crude or whatever you want, but I totally believe if Johnny Bobo isn't real, was never real, then that means everything which occurred from the moment he entered my head wasn't real, which there's no way to prove anything before that time either was real. 

So I'm not real. 

But, I guess, if that's how it is, then right now I'm okay with that. Tabby doesn't seem to give a shit, and after all this time, I guess I don't either. It sort of takes the pressure off, the more I think about it. Makes me feel like I don't have to think so much, something I think I keep getting better and better at. Makes me feel like I can deal with whatever road I take into the future. With or without dogs.