yorkie puppy

i was on a world wide press junket and found myself in an über posh hotel in a ravaged 3rd world country with not just my crew, but a weird assortment of other 'celebrities' as well; everyone from paris hilton to dick clark's widow. (who was one of those strange, ancient 'drag queen ladies' who engage in the ritual of exact and careful daily application of culturally female 'trappings' in spite of the fact that their eggs are decades past the dust mote stage...). as i looked at her fleshy, powdered face, orange-ish poufy hair and accidental jackie-o ensemble, i thought, 'i wonder if she knows she is living a life of pure fetish?' she introduced and listed the designer items in her closet as though she was being interviewed by smithsonian textile archivists. i was captivated by her proud presentation of her buffered existence. she went on and on about how she only shopped at neimans in beverly hills (a place that on some days looks like an upscale nursing home because of the number of wheel chairs) and every once in awhile i tried to sneak a look at paris to see if she understood the weirdness of it on any level, but she was a blank slate. just as i was settling in to take more precise mental notes, dick clark's widow screamed, 'CINDY! CINDY! OMG, WHERE'S CINDY?!' i quickly realized cindy was the little rheumy-eyed yorkshire puppy i'd seen earlier but now seemed to be missing. soon paris and i were lifting up bed-skirts and checking in far corners, but the puppy was not in the suite. 'I'LL PAY ANYTHING! I JUST WANT CINDY BACK!' I thought, 'oh, that makes it easy. everyone working in this hotel is making slave wages, she'll have her puppy back in no time.'

as everyone frantically searched the grounds (including the press), i took the room-service waiter aside and slipped him a generous amount of money and told him there would be much more when the puppy was found. the look in his eye told me i would not have to wait long. as dick clark's widow wailed in her room and every guest scurried around with their nose to the ground, i was making my way to a seldom used hallway where i'd been instructed to drop $20,000 and pick up the puppy- which is exactly what i did. i walked back to dick clark's widow's room with the puppy tucked safely under my arm and said i had paid a $20,000 ransom. 'WHAT?!' the widow screamed. 'THAT IS OUTRAGEOUS! I'M NOT PAYING IT!' 'i'm sorry, i'm not sure i heard you correctly. didn't you say you'd pay anything?' i said. 'I NEVER SAID THAT!' she screamed. i looked at the genetically inbred little canine mess under my arm and thought briefly of keeping it myself. just as quickly i tallied the lifetime cost of grooming and medical bills and realized it would easily be a $60,000 mistake instead of a $20,000 one if i did. i pushed the puppy into her arms and said (mostly to myself), 'lesson learned.' 'yes! lesson learned!' parroted dick clark's widow.

i knew she had no earthly idea what she had just said.

rookie

it was night. most of the streetlights had either been shot out or simply were never repaired once they'd flickered off- and it was dark. for some reason i had landed the overnight beat in the worst part of the city protecting what used to be a park. i'd already busted some hispanic meth-head trying to crawl through the window of my trailer/station and had him handcuffed to the bars while i waited for backup. soon i saw the comforting red and blue lights of my squad and relief flooded over me. surely they would not leave me here alone once they realized where i actually was. a dozen black and whites careened to a stop in front of my flimsy 'station'. the officers tumbled out of their cars in a jovial mood. it seemed they had all just heard the punchline of some hilarious and inappropriate joke and immediately began to slap me on the back and comment how well my 'initiation' was starting out. what? true i was young, but i had spent many of my years already in the department and had distinguished myself many times over, even putting myself in harms way to protect a fellow officer. why was i being 'initiated'? my questions rolled over them unheard. they gathered up my perp and rolled back out without anyone ever addressing me directly. anger rushed through my body. i checked my gun, taser, club and my dog. i knew before the night was over i would probably use them all just to survive.

as i rounded the park for the 2nd time, it began to come alive. the 1st thing i saw were the dim, yellow lights of a barely running ancient motor-home. it moved toward me like the hull of a giant, ancient, parasitized insect. when it found a length of curb, it stopped (or coincidentally gave out, it was hard to tell) and almost immediately the door opened to release an impossible number of scabby, enthusiastic children onto the filthy sidewalk. they surrounded me and peppered me with questions, 'are you afraid?', 'why did they put you here?', 'can we pet your dog?'. as i looked at them i could see they all lived lives of horrible neglect; torn, dirty, wrong sized clothing, rotten teeth, dirty hair, long black nails and bare, dirty feet. the sweetest one was a boy with a profoundly infected cleft palate. he had found a way to speak around his deformity and wanted to be sure i survived the night. 'whatever you do, don't go there' he said as he pointed to a place i had already passed once. 'why?' i asked. 'they will kill you if you walk there' he answered sincerely. i looked down at my dog who somehow seemed to understand that we were in way over our heads. 'thanks, i won't, i promise' i said as i tousled his greasy head.

there was no walkie reception anywhere in the park and i decided the meth-head would be my only arrest that night. soon the park was lined with a wall of broken campers and rv's. the children played in the dark, filthy park like it was the sweetest, sunny day ever born. their pure little voices made me feel on the verge of tears. at one point, they led me to the camper of a prostitute so one of them could retrieve a ball. as we approached, the door swung wide and a wrecked woman stood in the hollow as a john poured past her out onto the street. she laughed when she saw the expression on my face when i looked at the jackson pollack painting of menstrual blood between her legs. 'haha, oh, you 'jes a baby. da store don't close fo' a lil' rain!'

pete

pete was angry with diane and was speaking to her in harsh tones on the phone. i now regretted having accepted the weekend invitation and my (somewhat forced) decision not to get a rental car. the house was so beautiful and the lights of the city shining in the valley below made me think of how far this visit was turning from my expectations. pete glanced at me from his anger bubble just enough to let me know that malin had left the house while i was napping and now we were alone. i tried not to listen to the content of his conversation but he was pacing erratically all over the house and yard and it seemed everywhere i tried to duck away he eventually found me. i took a deep breath and tried to insulate myself from his words, but they grew darker and darker and i began to feel my skin crawl. it was a side of pete he had laughingly referred to, but never shown when we had spent time together with malin. i thought, 'this guy is an actual asshole and malin needs to leave him'.

i went back into the guest room and tried to figure out how to lock the door.