Chapter Fourteen

When I woke the next morning I could hear the sounds of men, rustling in the front room. I heard Bob whispering at the top of his lungs.

"Shud Up..you goind to wake up Mahtee, you goind to wake up Mahtee, Mahtees goind to wake up, you go-eeng to wake up Mahtee!" He was afraid the noise would wake me up.

Nancy was lying on the bed, at my knees, with her stubby little tail facing me. I reached down and stroked her back and gathered her fur between my fingers. The little stub wiggled back and forth, an automatic response from a lazy cocker spaniel, it didn't require her to be awake. I wrestled myself around so I could press her face next to mine. She opened her big, cow like eyes, and raised her head slightly off the mattress. There was a stain, a slobber pool, on top of the covers, under her chin. Damn that Louis! I worried all night about Dr. Granger and my ex-wife. Dog slobber.

The night had been fitful. It started with a dream that my father was pushing me into the mill that Louis used to work at. The sign at the front door said "No day(s) since the last accident!" The machinery inside was still and my dad guided me to a giant red button just beyond the factory entry. The button had the word START written in big black letters on its face. My dad pointed at it and said. "It's your turn to make things happen, son" His mouth shut with the sound of a door slam, and he was gone.

I was wearing a yellow hard hat on the top of my large bandages. My bib overalls hung down to the tops of my steel toed boots. The movement and noise of the machinery started up slowly like a merry go round in hell and feathers began drifting down from the ceiling. I was standing beneath the giant washing machines and they were rocking and humming. Something like warm rain sprayed on my hands, it was hot fat from the cast iron bellies spewing down all around me. The droplets began to hurt like bee stings and I tried to run but my feet were slipping out from under me. I saw the giant box on springs and I made my way beneath it. Now the feathers that were falling had turned into dangerous vipers, and I climbed to the top of the box and fell inside. As soon as I landed in the bottom, the box began to shake wildly and I was thrown from side to side and upside down. It was about this time that I realized that I was completely nude. You gotta love the crap that happens in a dream. There was one last shudder and I flew upward and then down flat on my back. Heads began popping into the open space above me, staring down at my naked body. There was my Mom and Dad, Louis my son, and Louis my friend. There were lots of women that I didn't recognize. Then there was John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison with Mother Theresa, Adolph Hitler and Dottie Condra. Dottie was a girl in my high school who was very large and very mean. She would be a perfect date for Hitler. There was a Marching band. There was Jesus, with the halo and everything. Thank God I woke up.

I rose from my bed silently, leaving Nancy, squeezing her eyelids tightly. The busy buzzing in the front room ceased as soon as I walked in. It looked like a wax museum of my mutant friends. On the couch was my pal Louis sitting with my son. My son Louis was holding Louis' detached , plastic, tattooed arm in his hands and they both had the startled, guilty look of a couple disturbed during sex. Louis looked like he was partially melted with an empty sleeve hanging from his side. Russell was on the floor with a mongrel puppy in his lap and Bob, his legs oddly disjointed at the knees was leaning down to the dog's face and trying his best to pat it on the head. The puppy's head was bouncing up and down like a fisherman's bobber with a crappie on the hook. Russell was looking at me with his red, surprised stare. Bob was the last to notice I had come into the room and his big head swayed and snapped in my direction. "Mahtee! Russell has a puppy!" His giant teeth parted his thick lips.

"What's with the dog Russell?" I was worried that Nancy might not react well to another canine in her territory.

"It's for you Marty." Russell said with pride. " I figured you would need the company."

"Why would I need more company Russell, Nancy.." Russell interrupted.

"Marty, it's nobody's fault...It couldn't be helped." There was a bit of a cry in his voice. I looked back toward the bedroom door. Nancy had risen and was peering around the corner with a combination of fear and distrustful look on her muzzle. "I can't bring Nancy back to life, all I can offer is this little guy." He stroked the puppy's head.

"Nancy's dead?" I said with disbelief.

"She broke her neck in the accident Marty, she died pretty quick." Louis spoke as he recovered his arm from my son.

"I buried her down by the golf course Dad, she's right next to Gidrey's creek." Louis had a long face and I wondered if that's what I looked like when I was sad.

Nancy walked deliberately towards the pup, her back end pushing the bedroom door even wider. My confusion became panic and wonder as the collie I had as a child followed her into the room. As a matter of fact, every dog I have ever owned came in tow. Familiar cats crawled out from behind the couch and kitchen cabinets. Hamsters and mice scurried across the rug. Five turtles inched their way into the menagerie. My pet mynah Bird from when I was 10 years old landed on the coffee table. What was happening didn't really become clear until the fish came. Hundreds of fish, goldfish, tropical, and salt water varieties were floating in through the air, brushing my head and fingers. The room was filled with every dead pet I'd ever owned.
Every one. Including Nancy.

"You goin to keep him Mahtee, you goin to keep him?" Bob asked with the most worried face one could ever imagine.

"I'm not sure there's going to be enough room." I said to a confused audience.