LADDIE LUCKS OUT
by Allan Argus
It was a beautiful fall morning, the cold, clean air full of subtle aromas. Laddie was standing on the roof of his small home, his nose quivering and twitching as a barely discernible breeze moved the aromas over the sensitive membranes inside. He smelled the neighbor's garbage, rotting in its plastic bag just across the street. Vegetables cleaned from the refrigerator and some spoiled milk. Nothing worth bothering with. From farther away came the faint but clear perfume of horse pucky. That had to be the stables at the rodeo grounds a good mile-and-a-half to the west. Laddie made a mental note to drop by th stables later in the day and take a roll in some fresh stuff.
"Ruff-ruff."
Laddie felt sorry for humans in the neighborhood whose nasal equipment was not sensitive enough to pick up such beauty. Or was it truth? Laddie wrinkled his brow. Truth was the next scent contacting his olfactory surfaces, one that made his ears stand up very straight. Slowly he rotated them, holding his breath so he could pick up the tiniest distant sound. A hot tingle ran through his haunches and his eyes dilated. Yes, though the scent was very faint, its message was like a sledge hammer. Somewhere within a three-block area a bitch was in heat.
"Rowr-rowr!"
But before he could go check that out, he knew he had duties to perform. Laddie bounded from the roof of his house and headed toward the back door of the big house. He paused at his food bowl and was surprised to find it empty. But now that he thought about it, he hadn't heard the door slam that morning, hadn't heard the patter of nuggets against plastic. Laddie turned to his water bucket instead and lapped until satisfied. Then he went up the back steps and entered through the doggy door. When the flap sprung closed behind him, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, ears perked and nose twitching. His thoughts kept flitting back to the scent of that overheated female dog, but he couldn't bother with that until he found out if his master was okay. Especially since the Colonel prized punctuality above almost everything else. For all he knew, the Colonel had suffered a massive stroke or heart attack. The colonel's brain may have exploded. Or perhaps he'd drowned in the bathtub, being an old codger and prone to dizziness. Laddie started into the front room, but found the door closed as usual. The colonel was a formal man and didn't like Laddie wandering in the house, but kept him confined to the kitchen and back hall.
Laddie returned to the kitchen. His empty stomach drove him to focus on food. An image arose in his mind. Hooper's Meat Shop. If he hung around the back door long enough, Mr. Hooper would give him something to chew on. Either that or a kick in the ass. The risk was worth taking, for if Mr. Hooper was not hung over and in a good mood, he could be most generous. Quickly forgetting about the welfare of his master, Laddie bounded down the walk and took the shortcut through the alley. It was another day in paradise for the big collie, a collie who though very smart, often had mental lapses due to the overbreeding of his kind through the years.
"Rowr-rowr!" came a barking call from a nearby house. It was Milo, the blond cocker who lived on the corner. Milo liked to watch television when his master, Kyle, was away but didn't know how to operate the remote control. Laddie turned up the walk and jumped into the yard. Milo was there to greet him. After trading smells, they headed for the doggy door and went into the house of Milo's master.
"Woof," Laddie said, turning the remote control device with his nose until it was pointed at the big set. Using one toenail, he tapped the ON button and then chose the correct channel. Just in time. The Adventures of Lassie was about to begin. Milo grabbed a rubber bone and settled onto a pillow to watch.
Laddie lingered himself, always turned on by the lithe figure of the movie-star collie who was so damned smart. She read signs, delivered messages, drove cars, if somewhat awkwardly, and warned of danger. Laddie wondered if Lassie ever put out. Not that they would show something like that on human television, humans being so uptight about sex. A little smile appeared at the corner of Laddie's mouth. Yeah, he sure wouldn't mind mounting that Lassie and letting her have a taste of his "bone." What a fine looking piece she was! In fact, Lassie had been one of Laddie's fantasies ever since he stumbled on one of her comics in a trash bin a block off Main Street. Laddie considered himself rather handsome, but since Lassie's handlers had never answered his postcards or sent him the autographed photo he had requested he figured he didn't have a chance with someone so illustrious.
The adventure on the tube today had something to do with a little boy fallen into a well. Lassie lowered a bucket to the boy, barked instructions for him to get into the bucket and then tied the end of the rope to a tractor. Climbing onto the tractor seat, Lassie somehow started the engine and put the monster machine into gear. As far as Laddie was concerned, this seemed somewhat unlikely. But Milo was watching without questioning the action, his big brown eyes innocent and gullible.
"Ruff-ruff," Laddie said, trying to alert Milo to a possible lie. But the cocker gave him a puzzled look, his upper lip caught on a lower canine, a pose that was decidedly goony.
With the boy saved from the well, Lassie gave mouth to mouth resuscitation, called 911 and then helped a paramedic fill out the accident report. Laddie had had enough. He left Milo watching t.v. and went back outside. But where was it he'd been going in the first place? He'd forgotten already. That's the way it was in a dog's reality. Especially when you didn't have clever t.v. writers to keep you in focus. Laddie's only guide was his nose. A nose that could smell a rotting hamburger from half a mile or more.
As Laddie wandered through a nearby park, trying to remember what his plans had been before he ran into Milo, he realized that a shit was imminent. He found a tree where other dog turds were drying, sniffed around and found just the right spot. As he was humping his back to drop a load, something thunked painfully into his side. It was a marble, fired by a kid in the bushes. Before he could think, he was hit in the neck by another marble. Half a dozen young human fiends were charging his position. Their baggy t-shirts were emblazoned with crude swastikas and each had a narrow smudge of black shoe-polish on his upper lip. He knew them well. The Young Hitler Brigade, a splinter group of the local Christians For Fair Play. As far as Laddie was concerned, this wasn't fair and it wasn't play. Squeezing out the last of his ropey turd, he snapped into action, tearing out across the grassy plain of the park. Behind him he heard yelps and whoops as the horde came after. Suddenly, a big bulldog blocked the sidewalk in front of him. Laddie swerved to a stop, hesitating a moment before turning left. One of his pursuers gained enough ground to let fly with another marble. Laddie paused on the curb of the busy street.
"Get him, Ronny," came a yell from behind. "Hit him in the head. Then we'll eviscerate him and leave his carcass for the flies."
Laddie mused that not everyone was a dog lover. He lowered his head and ears and gauged his chances with the traffic, his front paw gently rising and falling as he judged the exact time to run. When one of the gang was almost upon him, he dashed out between a city bus going one way and a garbage truck going the other. As he made the sidewalk on the far side, he heard the blat of a horn followed by the squeal of tires and then a heavy thump. A small body was airborne, sailing over a pickup truck, then smashing horribly through the windshield of a parked car. People screamed. Traffic slowed and stopped. A fat man climbed on the hood of the car and tried to extricate the limp body. There was little doubt that the kid was dead. Or seriously injured.
"Don't touch him," somebody screamed, "or his parents'll sue your ass later." The fat man backed off. Laddie stood on the other side of the street, watching.
"There's his dog," a thin, neurotic looking woman said, "he was trying to keep the fool animal from running into traffic, the poor dear. He sacrificed himself for his beloved pet."
Laddie gave a muted whine which was his way of laughing.
"Look at this mustache the kid is wearing, said the fat man. "What do you think that means?"
"I should think he was coming from a school play," said a matronly lady with an umbrella and large shopping bag. "He was probably playing Thomas Dewey, the man who ran against President Truman."
"I don't know," the fat man said. "He looks kind of like Hitler to me. And this swastika on his t-shirt ..."
The distant sound of a siren came from somewhere in the naked city, heading this way. Laddie trotted up the sidewalk and turned into an alley. The chase had taken him a little out of his way, but there was a smell on the breeze that reminded him of where he'd been heading in the first place. Hooper's meat market was just three blocks away and the scent of rotting meat had him drooling.
But as Laddie gamboled along, a rough hand reached out of a large cardboard box and caught his collar. In an instant a dirty rope was passed through and knotted and a grizzled bum with a patch on one eye staggered to his feet.
"My, my wot a pretty doggy. I'll wager there's a reward out for you."
"Rowr, rowr," Laddie barked, pulling back, but the bum gave the rope a jerk.
"Let's have none of that, mate. You wouldn't want me to run you through, would you?" He reached in his pocket and pulled out a battered pocket knife. Though of the two-bladed variety, one blade was broken off near the hilt. The bum opened the other one and waved it threateningly. Laddie hunkered down and whimpered, hoping the maniac wouldn't slit his brisket.
"Now, that's better. You behave and we can become pards. Fact is, you can assist me with a little idea I've been working on. My name's Charlie, for what it's worth."
Laddie cursed under his breath. He'd been so close to Hooper's meat and now he was captured by a one-eyed villain with a knife. The bum pulled him into the cardboard box and shut the flap behind him.
"Here's my plan, doggy. I've been prowling around this bloody town since I got in on last month's freight and I know of a big house in rich folk's town. This house has a loose basement window, loose because I loosened it. But even then, I'm too stout a chap to get inside. You, on the other hand, would fit quite nicely. Tonight, while the owners of this big house are out on the town, you're going through that window with a sack around you neck. Here! Don't whimper and try to pull away. If you don't do as I order, I'll cut your oysters out and feed them to the alley cats. Good, that's better. Now listen and listen close, mate. There's only one way into that house and one way out. You don't want to make a ruckus and get the downstairs security man after you. He drinks, and he has a gun. He'll shoot your doggy ass. So, the best for you is to take everything of value that will fit in that sack. Then make your way back to the window and freedom. Yes, that's right, old Charlie will let you go if you bring him some plunder, understand?"
Laddie hung his head. For the present, there was no way out of this situation. The bum named Charlie wrapped the rope around his wrist and tied it off. His open pocket knife was in his other hand as he scrunched down in his dirty blankets.
"I'm going to get a little shut-eye and you'd better do the same. When it's dark, we'll get to our dirty business."
Laddie lay down and closed his eyes. He couldn't sleep. All he could think of was Hooper's meat market. He wondered if his new master would feed him or give him any water before they went to perpetrate their crime. Finally, he dozed a little, dreaming of Lassie and how she had driven that tractor and saved the boy. He could sure use her now. He was awakened from an exhausted sleep by a jerk on the rope.
"Okay, rover," Charlie said, "look smart. I've a lesson to give you."
For the next fifteen minutes, Charlie went through a tattered catalogue, pointing to the items, he wanted Laddie to steal. "There's a camera, see? Here's a diamond broach. Here's a ring and here's a necklace. And over here is a watch. Make sure it's a good one, though. None of those cheap plastic things."
Laddie squinted at the pictures, not fully understanding how he was going to tell good stuff from cheap stuff.
"Well, the sun's down now," Charlie said, "so we'd best be off."
It was a thirty-minute walk to the part of town Charlie had told him about. Laddie found himself on tree-lined avenues with large lawns and three story houses set well back from the street. It was quiet and, except for an occasional street light, dark. Whenever a prowl car came into view, the bum pulled Laddie into the bushes and they hunkered down.
"If they saw our likes walking around over here, we'd be run in immediately," Charlie said. At a large brick mansion, the bum stopped, looked both ways and then pulled Laddie behind him toward the side of the house. There were lights on upstairs, and Laddie could hear a television or radio going somewhere inside.
"Here now, move sprightly. Our window is dead ahead."
Laddie was pulled along behind as Charlie pushed between two bushes and knelt. There was the sound of his knifeblade scratching along glass and then Laddie heard him lift the pane out and lean it gingerly against the wall. Then he pulled a half-pint from his jacket pocket and had a deep pull.
"Come ahead, now," he said, jerking the rope. Laddie had been hoping to snatch it out of his hand at some opportune moment, but Charlie was too alert. The bum slipped a small, burlap sack around Laddie's neck then pushed him up to the window.
"Now, in you go and make quick work of it. I want you to get the shiny, pretty things on top of dressers. You might find money too. Anything that's heavy and small is probably worth something. You're no street mutt, so you know what'll bring a dollar when we go to the fence to reap our reward. Remember our lesson! I've got a stick with a hook on it, so when you come back, I'll catch the bag and pull it through the window. Go ahead now, and be a good robbing rover."
Warm air gushed out of the glassless opening. Laddie pushed his head in and picked up a variety of aromas. One was more interesting than the others. A bitch lived here. And she was on the premises. Sensing something soft in the darkness below, Laddie leaped. He hit a bed. When he looked back up at the window opening, he could dimly see Charlie's grizzled face peering after him.
"Get to your work, now, you thieving bastard," he said, laughing low and guttural.
Laddie jumped off the bed, padded across the darkened room and out into an empty hallway. There were steps leading up and he followed them, his ears perked for any stray sounds, his nostrils fully extended. Reaching another hallway, he saw light flickering against a wall. It was coming from an open doorway. He crept to the opening and peeked around. A large, bald-headed man was slouched in a chair, a can of beer beside him on the floor. Flashing across the television screen was a cop show with sirens and guns and bodies on the tarmac. Worried-looking policemen shouted at each other. Over the violent sounds, Laddie could hear the man in the chair snoring. So much for the night watchman. Laddie crept closer, nosing the man's beer until it turned over on the floor. He remembered that the Colonel sometimes had a beer and often gave him a sip in his own bowl. He liked beer, liked the way it made him feel. As the brew frothed out, Laddie lapped it up. Meanwhile, on the television, someone was breaking down a door. The man in the chair never moved a muscle. Licking his chops, Laddie continued on down the hall. The scent of female dog was stronger now. And other smells too, interesting ones to say the least. Laddie lifted his leg and peed on an umbrella stand. He felt lightheaded. That beer had gone straight to his head. And as always, it had made him horny as hell. He came into the foyer. He saw his reflection in the black marble floor as he padded towards a sweeping staircase. There were gilt-framed paintings on every wall and even a sculpture on a pedestal. Laddie stopped to gaze for a moment, then headed for the stairs. The female dog scent was stronger in that direction. In fact, he felt he was getting very close indeed to a nice, girl doggy.
At the landing, he turned down a thickly carpeted hall. He sensed no humans in the vicinity and all the rooms he passed were empty, the doors shut. There was a dog up here, though. He could feel her psyche, her quickened pulse. Yes, she knew he was coming. A pointed snout poked out of a room near the end of the hall. A collie. A collie with coloring similar to his. Then his heart nearly stopped. The dog who was facing him looked exactly like the pictures of Lassie he'd seen on a movie marquee just the other day!
Whimpering with excitement, he hurried up. Telepathically and with body language, they began to communicate. And now he was almost certain this dog was Lassie! Her tail wagged excitedly as he began to sniff her nose.
"Thank RinTinTin somebody interesting showed up," she said, "I'm so thoroughly bored."
"You're Lassie, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course. Who are you?"
"Laddie."
"Never heard of you."
"I'm not in show business."
"Then, what are you doing in this house and how did you get in?"
"That's a long story." Laddie sniffed along Lassie's side, then under her tail. She didn't stop him.
"You still haven't told me how you got in?" came the question from her doggy mind.
"I will in just a minute. Is there a phone nearby?"
"Yes, right in here." She led him into the room she'd just come from. There was a soft-looking sofa with an indentation where Lassie had been lying. The television was on, some local news program. "My handlers leave this damned thing on thinking it keeps me company. Actually, I hate the noise of it."
Laddie found the remote and muted the t.v. sound.
"Gee, thanks. I never could figure out how to do that."
"Ah, I see the phone," Laddie said, picking up the receiver in his mouth.
"You know how to use one?" Lassie asked, awe in her voice.
Laddie turned his head. "I thought you did too."
"No, they fake all that stuff on my program."
Laddie stared at her, momentarily confused. "Fake it?"
"Yes," Lassie said, showing impatience. "I thought everybody knew that."
Laddie turned to the phone, and using one claw of his forefoot, punched the appropriate buttons. When the policeperson came on the line, he barked loudly, then whined.
"What is it, doggy? What's happening?"
Laddie barked again.
"What are you doing?" Lassie asked telepathically.
"They've got the equipment to know where the call is coming from and they'll send a squad car out. That should take care of the creep waiting outside your basement window."
"A burglar?"
"Actually, I'm supposed to be the burglar. He pushed me through the window with this bag around my neck so I could ransack the place. But he hadn't figured on me knowing how to use the phone."
"I wondered what it was for. Let me get it loose. There."
"I sure like the way you smell," Laddie said, moving toward Lassie's tail again. "You're my all-time favorite actress. But I never dreamed I'd get to smell you."
"You like my scent, huh?"
"I like you a lot," Laddie said, licking her rear end thoroughly.
"Mmmm, that's nice. Do it again." She wiggled and wagged her tail. "My handlers went out to dinner, so you don't have to worry about them catching us."
Laddie nuzzled and sniffed, completely intoxicated. Here he was with his wildest fantasy and she even liked the touch of his cold, wet nose! But what he had under his belly wasn't cold. It was hot as all get out and hard too. He put his chin up onto her back, just to test the water. She didn't try to jerk away, so he mounted.
"I want to stick it in you, Lassie."
"Ohhhh, then do!"
With a quick thrust, Laddie went deep. Lassie wiggled and bucked a little, but he squeezed his front paws around her middle and hung on. They bounced off a chair and knocked over a table with a flower vase but Lassie wasn't really trying to get loose. She was just having a good time. He could hear her panting breath and the quivering tension in her thighs.
"Oh, Laddie," she sighed, her eyelids fluttering, "you're so big!"
Outside, Laddie could hear sirens. As he screwed Lassie harder, they careened near a window and he poked his head through the curtains. Two uniformed policemen were leading a handcuffed man toward a waiting car. Before they pushed him into the back seat, one of the policemen hit him a few times with his club. Yes, it was the bum who'd grabbed him off the street just yesterday.
"Does something amuse you," Lassie asked.
"Now that you ask, yes."
"Oh, Laddie, don't stop screwing me. I don't ever want you to stop. I want you to live here with me. We'll never be apart!"
With a smile on his lips, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, Laddie kept screwing. It had been one hell of an interesting day.
(c) 1996 Allan Argus