Tag: Short Story

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I used to daydream that my dogs understood me when I spoke to them. I’d make up their responses and speak out loud for them in a goofy voice. They came to recognize this goofy dog voice of mine and would get excited when they heard it. I’d carry on conversations between my dogs and myself in these voices, a sensible one for me and a goofy one for them, imagining how cool it would be if it were real, if they really were thinking what I was saying in this goofy dog voice. I used to think it would make life with dogs so much simpler. Ask them what they wanted, and they could tell me. I’d done this all my life up till a few days ago, when I no longer had to.

“I’m not eating this,” Hamish says, putting his nose up at the kibble I just scooped into his bowl.

Franny looks up from her already empty bowl. “I’ll eat it.”

I give her a stern look. “No you won’t. You already had yours.”

“But I’m still hungry.”

“No. You need to lose weight,” I say.

“But if I lose weight, I’ll be cold and light as an earth worm and the birds will carry me away to some far away tree branch and eat me.”

Hamish shoves his bowl away with his snout. “I’m not eating this. It has rat poop in it.”

“So that’s what that was.” Huckleberry licks the crumbs off his lips. “I’ve been wondering all week what that new flavor was.”

Hamish pokes at his food with his snout. “It’s been there since he opened the new bag.”

“What?” I ask. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Burger God” →

Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I get the stepladder from the garage, open it up under the flickering kitchen ceiling light and up I climb. My three dogs gather around to watch. We spend so much time together it’s as if I can hear their thoughts.

“What’s Raud doing up on that ladder?” wonders Hamish, a honey-brown Labrador and golden retriever mix and the youngest of the three.

“This is new. Maybe it involves food,” thinks Franny, the calorically challenged yellow Lab.

“Is there a ball up there?” wonders Huckleberry, the chocolate Lab. He’s obsessed with anything that can be thrown so that he can retrieve it. But some things are better for retrieving, like his ball, which is always nearby. At the moment he’s dropped it at the base of the ladder. “You could really throw it far from up there, Raud.”

As I unscrew the knob that holds the frosted glass bowl over the light, the memory of installing these lights to replace the fluorescent tube lights crosses my mind’s eye. The fluorescent light felt too much like an office. I put the knob in my shirt pocket and lower the glass bowl, placing it on the step ladder’s fold-out shelf where the paint bucket goes, dried blue and cream paint drippings surround it. I check the bulb’s fit. It’s loose like I thought, so I tighten it, then replace the glass bowl and screw the knob back in place.

Standing on the stepladder, I look about for the next distraction, avoiding going back to the drawing lessons on the drafting table. Learning to draw cartoons takes more concentration than I realized. Outside, it’s raining hard. The gentle patter on the patio awning has become a steady growl. Though it’s only midday, it’s dusk out there.

When lighting strikes so close there’s no separation between the flash and the boom, my whole body startles so badly I lose my balance. As I fall, I reach out to grab the edge of the kitchen counter, but I’m too slow and the blue Formica swoops up toward my head. Continue reading “Forget the Biscuits, Gimme Tacos – Dog Tongues” →

The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

It’s Monday. I sit on a park bench across from the restaurant where the guy I’m following has gone inside for lunch. I sink my teeth into my sandwich, a foot-long Italian I got at the corner deli, when a mellow, slightly slurred voice says from behind me, “That sure is a big sandwich, one of the biggest I’ve seen yet.”

Portland has a transient problem. Following my guy through the Southwest Park Blocks was a begathon of the homeless asking for spare change, but not my dimes and quarters. One got snarky when I offered him that. He wanted nothing less than a fiver.

I don’t normally spend my afternoons following people, but I got a call last night from an old girlfriend I hadn’t spoken to since I shot the photos for her wedding. As Eva and I small-talked on the phone, I did the math. It had been seven years since their wedding and the title of that old Billy Wilder movie, The Seven Year Itch, popped into my head.

I’ve never been very good at the long-term relationship thing. I must have ADD when it comes to relationships. How do people do it? How do they keep it interesting? After years together don’t they wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? Or considering how much we base our identity on who we are with, do they ever daydream of being someone else? Seven years seems to be as good a time for that as any. But for me and my attention span, seven years would be poison ivy from hell.

Eva was calling about her husband, Stan. She was worried about him. “Call it what you will, women’s intuition, but I know something is up with him. He’s acting odd. He’s not himself. I think he’s up to something.” She still had that soft voice I remembered from our time together that sounded kind even when she was voicing her suspicions, a trait I don’t remember her having. I guess people change.

“And you think he’s stepping out on you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I appreciate the chance to catch up, Eva, but why call me with this? Isn’t this what you talk about with a girlfriend?”

“Actually, I’ve hashed it out a lot.” She cleared her throat, paused for a moment, then rushed on. “It’s like this. I could ask Stan to his face and he’d deny anything and everything. You never got to know him but that’s how he is, at least that’s how he is now, not so much back when we married. I need proof that he’s stepping out. Hard proof. That or to know what’s making him act weird. And then I thought of you. You’re handy with a camera, you can get me that proof. I can put it in his face and say, hey, what’s up with this?”

I had learned to keep my nose out of other people’s business. “It sounds cheesy but wouldn’t a private investigator be better suited for this? Someone with experience?”

“A stranger? Ugh.” She pauses and I picture her scrunching up her face in distaste. “Look, Dixon, you and I haven’t kept in touch but we remained friends after we dated and I always respected your honesty.”

I laughed. “Not everyone feels that way.”

“That’s their loss. I’m not asking you for a freebie. I can pay you. Come on, what else do you have going during the week? It’s not like a lot of people get married on a Monday or Tuesday and need a photographer.”

She had a point; business had been slow. Not a lot of Millennials were getting married so they could start a family in their parents’ basement. Besides, being asked to look into someone’s personal business was different than just sticking my nose in it. “What do you want me to do exactly?”

“Just follow him around and take some photos if gets up to anything, especially during and after lunch. If he’s up to anything it’s then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“His phone habits. He’s hard to reach during that time, he never picks up, and it’s a while before he calls back. Plus, he’s around someone with a cat. I’ve seen the hair on his clothes. I know lots of women with cats but very few men.”

My imagination ran with the intimate details of their failing marriage. We settled on a daily rate, she gave me the pertinent info on where they lived and where Stan worked, and I told her I’d get back to her.

*   *   *

I can see Stan through the restaurant window as I chew my sandwich.

“That mayonnaise sure does smell good,” the guy behind me slurs.

I don’t turn around to look. Acknowledging him will just encourage him to hang around. His slurred speech paints enough of a mental picture of who is behind me and where this is going. I don’t want to see him and endanger my appetite. Though it’s curious the drunk has asked about my sandwich because they usually just want cash to buy more fortified wine. Who eats when they can get juiced?

The drunk slurps as he smacks his lips. “Are you going to eat all of it? That’s a lot of sandwich, even for a big guy like you.” Continue reading “The Dog That Talked – Episode One – Mayonnaise & Tuna” →

Dirt

Published on by Raud Kennedy2 Comments

“Franny, don’t eat that,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dirt.”

“So?”

“Dogs aren’t supposed to eat dirt.”

“How would you know that? You’re not a dog.”

“Thank god for that or I’d have to floss the dirt out of my teeth every night before bed.”

Fleegle sniffs the dirt pile Franny has been eating. “He probably read it on one of his books on dogs.”

Franny’s tongue is dark brown with dirt. “Another book written by a two-legger.”

Dirt crumbs stick to Fleegle’s nose. “A two-legger who wishes he were a dog.”

“Yea, so he could eat dirt without being picked on by the other two-leggers,” Franny says and picks up another clod of dirt in her mouth. She looks at me. “Want some? Fleegle’s teaching me to share.”

Next Bartering with Biscuits – The Princess

Previous Bartering with Biscuits – Sharing the Canine Way

First Bartering with Biscuits – The Puppy

Sharing the Canine Way

Published on by Raud Kennedy9 Comments

“Are you going to eat all of that?” Fleegle asks as I bite into my sandwich.

Franny drools at his side. “Yea, that’s a lot of sandwich for one dog.”

“I’m not a dog,” I slur around my mouthful of sandwich.

“You sure smell like one,” Franny says.

“And I wonder why that is,” I say. “Living with two shedders.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Fleegle says, also drooling. “Back to the subject at hand. Are you sure you’re going to eat all of that sandwich?”

I nod as I chew.

Fleegle shakes his head with disappointment. “Didn’t they teach you to share when you were little?”

Franny cocks her head to the side. “He used to be little?”

“He claims he was once long ago.”

“If he was little we could just take that sandwich away from him,” she says. “Teach him to share the canine way.”

Fleegle tilts his head at her. “But that’s not how I taught you to share.”

“It isn’t? I take your sticks from you all of the time. Isn’t that you sharing?”

“I drop the sticks to stop you from biting my back leg.”

“Oh, and I thought you were sharing.”

Next Bartering with Biscuits – Dirt

Previous Bartering with Biscuits – How Honest Can a Butt Wiggle Be?

First Bartering with Biscuits – The Puppy

Chapter 16 – How To Become a Coyote

Published on by Raud Kennedy6 Comments

While visiting a hidden field in Forest Park, Fleegle finds an appealing scent on the ground and commences rolling in it. Knowing his tastes in scents, I call him to me in a vain attempt to stop him from smearing himself in the source of the scent. By the time I get to him, Fleegle is finished with his rolling and is strutting around the field like he is master of all he can see.

Franny emerges from underneath a very large fern on the edge of the field, gives the breeze downwind from Fleegle a sniff and says, “I smell poop, really strange smelly poop.”

Fleegle wags his tail high in the air. “That’s not just any poop. That’s the caviar of poop.”

He struts upwind of me. “Ugh, not coyote poop again. That’s the rankest poop of all. And don’t tell me beauty is in the nose of the sniffer, we’ve had that conversation before.”

Franny tilts her head to the side. “But I thought you ate caviar?”

Stupidly, I say, “You do,” as she ambles over to where Fleegle rolled.

She gives it a sniff, then says, “Well then,” and …

“No, Franny, don’t do that,” I shout to no use.

Fleegle pauses in his tracks. “Boy, why didn’t I think of that? Get the scent from the inside out. It could last for days.”

Next chapter – Invasion

Previous chapter – The Boy Bit Of God

First chapter – The Puppy