Dog Training The American Male (13 page)

“Lynnie Ruffington, I got your
dog trainer right here.”

“Lynnie, the contest is for my
listeners.”

“I’m a listener. Heck, sometimes
I’m all you got.”

“You’re an employee of Lifestyle
Revolution. You can’t participate in any on-air contests.”

“Damn it, doc, I want that anal
bleaching.”

“Sorry, Lynnie, guess you’ll have
to sit bare-ass in a bucket of Clorox. Line four, we have Judy from Coral
Springs. Speak to me Judy.”

“Dr. Beach, last month we had a
dog trainer come out to the house and work with our cocker spaniel, Damian.”

“And did the trainer exorcize the
devil from Damian?”

“Sorry, I don’t know what you
mean.”

“Does your cocker spaniel still
crap in the house? Is he housebroken?”

“Oh, absolutely. Plus he sits and
gives you his paw.”

“Sounds perfect. Give us the
trainer’s first name, Judy, Trish will get the rest of the contact information
from you off the air.”

“The trainer’s name is Anita and
she was fantastic.”

LORD
and MASTURBATER

Jacob parked the
van in the driveway and exited the rusting steel beast before its engine choked
itself off. In his hand was a pet store bag; inside—a simple tool that he hoped
would allow him to domesticate his dog and hopefully appease Nancy.

Sam heard him approach. The dog clawed
at the inside of the garage door, thrusting its sizeable bulk at the aluminum
barrier.

“Easy, boy. I’m coming. Just need
to set this up for you, big guy.”

Jacob walked around the side of
the house to the backyard. From the bag he removed a three-foot-long spiral
metal spike attached to a twenty-foot-long dog chain.

Wiley Coyote . . . genius.

For ten minutes he labored to
twist the spike into the hard, dry ground. When he finished, he tugged on the
chain, testing the strength of the device. Satisfied, he walked back around to the
front door of the house and keyed in.

The German Shepherd bellowed a
ferocious bark that put a smile on Jacob’s face.
Foofie dog, my ass. No
burglar or rapist in his right mind would break into this house with my dog
guarding it.

He headed for the interior garage
door. Opened it—

—bowled over by Sam! The dog jumped
and spun and ran through the house into the master bedroom. He leaped on top of
the bed, stripping the linen as he leaped off again and bolted past Jacob into
the living room and onto the sofa—wagging its tail, wanting to play.

“No!”

The dog barked at him.

“Hey, don’t bark back at me. I am
your lord and master. God gave me opposable thumbs, not you.”

The dog laid on the floor, contorting
its head and neck between its hind legs to nibble on an itch along its groin.

“Okay, admittedly, a longer neck
also has its advantages.”

Sam jumped up, clawing at the
back door.

“I get it, you need to pee. Got
you all set up.” Jacob unlocked the sliding glass door and closed it before Sam
could escape. Retrieving the end of the chain, he opened the door and clipped
it onto the dog’s collar.

The dog dashed outside, its chain
nearly wrapping around Jacob’s ankles. Sam sniffed an unseen trail along the lawn
before lifting its leg to pee. Its bladder relieved, the German Shepherd took a
leisurely jaunt across the open yard—the chain cutting him off, preventing him
from leaving.

“Technology . . . it’s
a beautiful thing.” Jacob closed the glass door and headed back through the
house to the garage, seeking to relocate Sam’s water bowl out back.

“Ahh! Ahh!” The blood rushed from
his face as he spotted the severed arm of a child lying on the garage floor!

 In full panic, Jacob turned and
ran—his forehead smacking into the side of the interior door. Spinning back
around, he eyeballed the detached limb, his woozy brain determining either a
small child or a midget must have seen the partially-open garage door and
crawled inside to rob him, only to have his arm torn off by his dog.

“Where are you, midget?”
Did
they prefer to be called midget or vertically challenged?
“Answer me, or my
dog will amputate your other limbs!”

That you, Vice?

“Mr. President?” Jacob retrieved
the rest of the Bush dummy from behind a spare tire. One arm was gone, its head
spun around, its right ear partially chewed.

Was it Al Qaeda?

“No, sir. It was my dog.”

Damn fleabag gave me a tea
bag. As the Decider I’ve decided that Nancy was right and the mongrel must go.
See to it, Jakester, then reattach my arm and swab my wood with alcohol.

“Sorry, sir, but the dog stays.”

That so? You might be singing
a different tune once you see what that four-legged monster did to your little
Asian dish.

“Yoko?” Jacob stared at the
cardboard box, its flaps chewed, the container lying open on its side. Having
dragged the sex doll out onto the floor, Sam had gnawed its pliable flesh as if
it were a rawhide bone. Yoko’s face was mangled, her left eye stretched and
deformed.

“Oh . . . Yoko.”

You love me long time, Jacob?

“Sorry Yo-Yo, but I’m not into
freaky zombie sex.”

* * * *
*

Ten minutes later
the garage door opened,
Jacob exiting -- wheeling a trash can to the curb. Yoko’s head and upper torso
protruded from the open receptacle, the sex doll’s remains wrapped in a plastic
garbage bag so the neighbors wouldn’t see.

Don’t do this, Jacob.

Jacob hummed, blocking out the
shrill woman’s voice in his head.

Just so you know, I faked
every orgasm.

Leaving the trash can by the curb,
he returned to the house, closing the garage door behind him.

He never saw the two ten-year-old
boys ride past the house on their bicycles.

Sam did.

 Tail wagging, the dog attempted
to chase after them—easily ripping the stake from the ground. The German
Shepherd sprinted around the side of the house to the front sidewalk—the
trailing length of chain bouncing wildly . . . looping
around Yoko’s neck!

Chasing after the kids, Sam dragged
the naked life-size sex doll down the street, the plastic trash bag quickly
shredding as it was hauled along the tarmac.

* * * *
*

Nancy turned off
Hillsboro Boulevard,
texting her producer as she drove through the residential neighborhood. The
excitement she felt back at the studio had waned as her idea had fallen under
her own self-scrutiny.
How do you know this will even work? How can I market
it to my listeners? Is it fair to Jacob? Sure, it might help his phobias, but what
if he catches on?

Her mind occupied, she never saw
the dog running in the street, heading for her car.

* * * *
*

Jacob had been
filling Sam’s water bowl
at the kitchen sink when he heard the dog barking like crazy. He glanced out
the window just in time to see the German Shepherd race out of the back yard,
trailing chain.

Jacob hurried out the front door
as Sam sprinted down the middle of the street, dragging a familiar object—a car
turning the corner . . . approaching fast!

“Sam!”

* * * *
*

Nancy looked up
and screamed, slamming
on the breaks.

The naked pedestrian struck her
windshield a split-second later, the impact simultaneously shattering the glass
and inflating her air bag, which bashed the startled psychologist in the face,
knocking her woozy.

Asshole, you just killed
someone. The cops’ll know you were texting . . . your life
is over.

Jacob ran down the street as fast
as an out-of-shape man in sandals could run. His heart nearly pushed out of his
chest as he saw the naked Yoko doll spreadeagled across the car’s shattered
windshield.

 Holy shit, your dog just
killed someone. The cops’ll know you were fucking the doll. Your life is over.

Jacob grabbed Sam by his trailing
chain, dragging the dog around to the driver’s side of the car to check on the
driver, whose face was pinned behind the inflated air bag. “Hold on, buddy!”
Using the spike still attached to the dog chain, he punctured the safety
device, powder exploding all over what now appeared to be a female figure.

Then he recognized the woman.

“Oh my God – Nancy! Oh geez, I
didn’t realize it was you.” He attempted to brush her off.

“Jacob? Oh God, Jacob, I killed
somebody!”

“No you didn’t, baby. It was just
my sex . . . my sexy new ventriloquist dummy, Yoko. Sam
broke loose from the back yard and the chain must have wrapped around the
dummy’s neck.”

“I didn’t kill anyone?”

Jacob smiled nervously. “No,
babe.”

 The smile evaporated as he saw
the neighbors close ranks from all directions. “Nance, pop the trunk so I can
hide the body . . . I mean the doll—the dummy!”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

She spit out a mouthful of
powder, her eyes focusing on the naked vaginal anatomy of the object adorning
her windshield. “Oh my God.”

“I’ll get rid of the dog, just
please pop the trunk.”

Feeling along the bottom of the
dashboard, she released the hatch as Jacob dragged the disfigured sex doll off
the car’s hood and tossed it into the trunk—in front of a dozen startled neighbors.

“You see that? He just threw the
dead woman into the trunk.”

“She was naked. Probably his
mistress.”

“Somebody call the cops.”

“I already did, they’re on the
way.”

Jacob released the dog to the
wild and climbed in the passenger seat, accepting the role of fugitive. “Nancy,
drive!”

The neighbors quickly stepped in
front of the car, preventing the driver from leaving the crime scene. Before he
could react, his door opened and two black men dragged Jacob out of the vehicle,
pinning him to the ground – the stupid dog wagging its tail instead of coming
to his aid.

 A Hispanic woman wearing a
purple surgical top checked on Nancy. “You may have a concussion.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“Dental assistant. I don’t like
the look of those gums. How often do you floss?”

Two squad cars arrived, adding to
the chaos. Two policemen exited to eyewitness testimony.

“Blondie killed the woman; the
chubby bearded guy shoved the body in the trunk!”

Jacob rolled over, gazing up into
the barrel of a gun. “Don’t shoot! No one died. There’s no body!”

“Got a body, partner. Naked as a
jay-bird. No pulse.”

Neighbors armed with iPhones snapped
photos of the naked woman.

Face to the asphalt, Jacob
struggled to speak as his arms were twisted painfully around his back, the
handcuffs biting into his flesh. “Jesus . . . it’s a
dummy!”

The Hispanic woman kicked him in
the ribs. “That’s my lord and savior you’re talkin’ about, you animal.”

The cops argued over who should
start mouth-to-mouth.

Nancy yelled at a third cop who
was reading Jacob his rights. “Let him go, you idiot. It’s a sex—”

Her words were buried under
another wailing siren as an ambulance arrived. Two Emergency Medical
Technicians hopped out, one checking on the victim, the other opening the van’s
back doors to retrieve a Gurney.

“Officers, we’ll take it from
here. Wow, she’s hot . . . oh, God, look at her face.
Artie, bring a blanket, the hooker’s naked.”

Jacob was dragged to his feet in
time to witness his sex doll, now partially covered beneath a blanket and
strapped onto a gurney, being loaded into the back of the ambulance.

Twelve minutes and two attempts
with a defibrillator later, the Yoko Ono sex doll was officially pronounced
dead.

* * * *
*

Two hours and
a coroner’s examination
later, Jacob was escorted from his Broward County Sheriff’s Office holding
cell. He was led to the front desk where Nancy was waiting, his red-faced
girlfriend sandwiched between two of the arresting officers.

“Sorry, Mr. Cope,” one smiling
cop muttered. “Just a bad misunderstanding.”

“No hard feelings, Mr. Cope,”
snickered his partner.

“I don’t see what you assholes
are laughing at. You were the ones giving mouth-to-mouth to her blowhole.”

* * * *
*

“Are you some
kind of sexual deviant?”

“No.” Jacob started the
Volkswagen van’s engine, his forehead pressed against the fur-covered wheel. “I
was lonely. I just needed someone to talk to. Even if it was a doll.”

She stared at him. Reaching out,
she took his hand. “From now on, talk to me.”