I don’t know how long I sat there, but slowly out of the darkness a sound found its way to me. It was a soft whimper coming from behind the bathroom door. Crawling to my feet I opened the door. A four-month old strawberry blonde puppy bounced out. She had huge paws and a wrinkled loose skinned sloppy face. Her wild wagging tail swung her butt around as she showed me her joy at being set free. Suddenly, the pup stopped dead still and stared at the bed. Tail and head down she edged towards her dead mistress. She sniffed the hand that hung off the bed. Gently the pup licked Kelly’s limp hand.
Leaning over, I kissed Kelly’s cold lips. The last thing on her mouth should be a kiss, not a gun. Looking down at Kelly I wiped the tears off my face and felt myself go cold. Tears never helped anyone, tears were a luxury for folks living in safe little houses watching flicks about kids with cancer. Out here in the real world, they didn’t do shit. Taking a dish towel from the kitchen I methodically moved through the apartment wiping my prints clean from every place I had touched. Using the towel to open the front door I was almost out when I felt eyes on me, the damn pup. Looking out from the bedroom with those big lost eyes. “What the hell do you want me to do with you, huh?” I said. The pup looked at me with a depth of sadness I had never seen in a dog so young. “Fine, come on then, but I swear to God the first time you piss in my house I’ll sell you to the taco truck.” She didn’t resist as I picked her up, she crawled up to look over my shoulder, watching her dead mistress all the way out of the apartment. The damn beast weighed at least forty pounds and was well on her way towards monsterhood. But one look in those sad eyes told me her heart was even bigger than her massive paws.
I called the cops from a pay phone outside a liquor store. When they asked for my name I said it was Tom Waits, and that I lived at the corner of Heart Attack and Vine.
Climbing onto my Norton I nestled the pup under my leather jacket and rode towards home. A heart-shaped tag on her collar read Angel, no phone number no address. No evidence to lead anyone back to her mistress. John Q Straight put his name on everything he owns, but fringe dwellers know better. Kelly knew it. Information is power so don’t give any out for free. I didn’t save Kelly, I guess caring for her dog was the best I could do… I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Wind whipped at my face and Angel snuggled down against my chest. I had seen death before. As a soldier in that mess they called a war, I had even caused it. Somehow this was different. She mattered more than all the rest, maybe because she wouldn’t matter to anyone else, not the cops, I knew how hard they would try for a dead cocktail waitress from a strip joint. Not the straight world, to them the women of my world were as expendable as last night’s condom. But she mattered…If only to me and the goddamn dog.
Pounding down Highway 2 where it rose up over the 5, the Girls Girls Girls sign of Club Xtasy winked up at me from forty feet below. At seventy MPH, it would only take a flick of the handle bars to send me slamming into the low freeway wall. One quick crunch of metal and I’d be soaring out over the LA river headed for the great beyond where crap like this was all a dull memory. My knuckles went white on the hand grips. The will to survive battling it out with desire for oblivion. The pup trembled under my leather coat, it was as if she could sense how close we were to ending it all. Taking her with me wasn’t part of a deal I was willing to make. Carry your own water, leave the innocent be and if you have to step off the board do it alone. No passengers for that ride. We come in alone, we go out alone, end of story. Breathing out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding I loosened my grip. The green of Forest Lawn on my right, the brown green of Mount Washington on my left, and ahead in the distance the steep peaks of Angeles Crest. Just when you’re ready to burn it to the ground and walk away, this aging bitch we call a city can still catch you off guard with her beauty. Sure, she’s only a tarted up old whore, but when the light is right and you squint just a little, she looks young and fresh and almost hopeful.
I pulled down an old sleeping bag and made a nest for Angel on the floor. After three or four therapeutic scotches, I curled up in bed and hoped for the noise in my head to stop. There was a thump on the foot of the bed as Angel pulled herself up. She curled up very small and didn’t look at me, like maybe I wouldn’t notice her if our eyes didn’t meet. I closed my eyes until they were only open a slit and watched her as she ever so slowly crawled forward, finally resting her head on the pillow next to mine. Only then did she fall asleep. I wasn’t so lucky. I lay for a long time in the dark haunted by my fallen friend’s face. Haunted by what I knew of her last hours, by what I should have done…She reached out to me and I had failed her. I blew her off to play the hero for Piper and collect a lap dance. While I was squirting in my jeans, some freak was raping her. She was dying while I sat at the bar fucking with Turaj. If only I had gone straight to her place… If only… if… When at last I fell asleep it was listening to the rhythmic breathing of the pup.
In the dream rivers of blood flow down off the granite mountains into a boiling red ocean. I can taste sweet, iron and salt in my mouth. A young Lebanese woman lays in the white sand, the pulpy surf pounding her dead bullet riddled body. Beyond the breakers, where the sea grows calm, Kelly floats on her back. She cranes her neck to look back at me.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” she whispers, a slight smile curling up her lips. That mischievous twinkle in her eyes invites me to chuck it all and join her.
“I fucked up, Kell.”
“You just did what you always do.” We spoke without moving our lips.
“You paid the price.”
“Women always pay the price. Now come out here and join me.” I wanted to obey her. I really did. But as I watched, she slowly sank below the surface and was gone without even a ripple.
When I woke my first thought was of suicide. Again. Who would care or even notice? Closing my eyes I wondered if I even had enough drive to get up and look for my pistol. Something wet and rough dragged across my cheek. A big sloppy puppy face looked down at me with anticipation.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked, Angel stared at me, her tail starting to wag.
“What?” Nothing, just big empty eyes. “Thanks a lot Kelly, what the fuck am I going to do with a dog?” I asked the ceiling.
Pulling myself out of bed, I fried up some eggs, smoked ham, six cloves of garlic, a yellow onion and strips of stale tortillas into a hash. I split the steaming tasty mush with Angel. She wolfed the grub down in three big gulps filling her face wrinkles with egg. Grabbing a dish rag I scrubbed her face clean, “I don’t know what you are, but you sure ain’t no lady.”
I rode out with her smiling face peeking out of my jacket, ears flapping in the wind. It was ungodly early, another strong point against me as pet owner. The only time I got up before noon was when I was in the Marines or the joint, and both places it sure as hell wasn’t willingly. But I had a plan, a way to duck my new best friend, so we hit the dog park. To enter we had to clear a small chain-link sally port. I closed the first gate behind me before opening the gate into the park. Chino Prison had one just like it, only this one had no razor wire or guards with high powered rifles sighted down on me. Across the dying lawn, a group of dog owners sat and stood around a cement picnic table drinking from travel mugs and laughing at some joke I couldn’t hear. They were all young, good-looking squares. Some had tats and piercings, the kind they got to impress the world with how edgy they were. All looked up when I cleared the second gate, smiles faded as if I had farted in church. A cute little blonde gal with spiked hair and army boots looked down, afraid that meeting my eyes might be an invitation for trouble. I was used to this reaction from the straight world. Their style came from ghettos and jails, but God forbid they actually had to meet one of us face to face. Maybe it was fear, maybe I called their street cred into question, or maybe I was an ugly motherfucker who nobody wants around unless they need him. Fuck them and the bitch they rode in on.