“Bill... Bill.”
“What?”
“You seeing what I’m seeing yeah?”
“Yeah mate. Dom?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck’s in this skunk?”
Bill flicks the joint in front of him, letting its head sputter to a dim glow in the middle of the road. Its last smoky sighs drawing a near perfect picture of the coal coloured night; tracing all the wrinkles and creases of the air, capturing all the swirls and slivers.
The two lads narrow their eyes and tighten their lips, lurching forward through the fumes as they attempt to capture a gander at the mystery which made them question their perfectly good weed.
They stare at a small silhouette camouflaged in the darkness, about 20inches in height, frozen in a mid-walking position and caught in the gaze of the boys like a deer paralyzed by headlights. It balanced on one spindly toothpick of a leg; perched tall on its tiptoes with pressure trembling through its pointed ankle, so delicate that it bends with the wind.
Its bushy tail gently swept the pavement between those wobbling feet.
“Pass me a phone would ya” Bill whispered against the roar of distant cars. Dom digs in his pocket and chucks one over.
“What’s the code?”
“Didn’t get it”, Dom shrugs in reply, boring his eyes into the peculiar shadow.
“Fucking idiot,” Bill snarls behind his teeth, threads of steam from the cold rising out between the cracks of them.
Biting his top lip and staring down, bewildered at the keypad of numbers he thinks, fuck this, and lobs the phone over in the outline’s direction. It flips through the air, pointing a dim spotlight up at the night being held afloat by a few lonely stars, before spinning over the shallow craters sunken into the worn out and hollow tarmac below. The silhouette ducks as the phone shoots towards it, skimming over and crashing into the window of a half boarded up bookshop behind instead. It bounces off, leaving a spider web shatter and a sharp gasp from the glass to the air, before dully bouncing beside the trimmed claws of the matchstick feet, shining up and blooming around it.
“WHAT THE FUCK!!!” Shouts Bill and echoes Dom.
The boys leap back, the bottom of their jaws dropping as low as their tracksuits. Dom rubs his eyes. He rubs them again, and again, until the skin around them blushed. Bill remained slack-jawed, his head poking forward and back arching backwards, his body long like the neck of a turtle inching out of its shell. His brow was brooding like a bridge collapsed in the middle as he tried to believe what he finally saw: Two flopping ears, two beady black eyes twitching between the two of them, one glistening black snout, and a fuck load of short, scraggy fur; all standing on hind legs in a chequered tweed blazer. One classy English Cocker Spaniel.
“B-b-b-bbb-bb…b…bbbb –“
“Shut up”, Bill interrupts.
“Bill fuck this, fuck this Bill” Dom stammers, treading up a circle of dust and throwing his hands to the dog, to the sky, and clasping his head all in a matter of seconds. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna bounce yeah, you know this shit is too much man, fucking creepy arse dogs in the dark like – I’m just freaking man, what if it’s packing under that coat man? Fuck man, FU–
“Dom!” Bill straightens out and lights up a cigarette, “it’s a fucking dog man; you walk ‘em, run ‘em, fight ‘em. A mutt. Some pansy’s just dressed the posh dog twat up and making him do walk abouts, you know, probably for one of them uh, doggy craft parade things”.
“At one in the morning?”
“Well it ain’t midday is it?” Bill exhales a smoky sigh against Dom’s cheek, unfurling against his face and pulling his fixed gaze back towards him. And with a flick of Bill’s of eyebrows and a twist on his trainers he said, “Come, let’s kick,” and they began to leave their new dog friend behind.
“So soon?” a weathered and grating voice called out from the opposite pavement. A slight lisp stopping it being threatening, maybe even humorous if the situation had been different.
“Bill… Bill –“
“It barked you dick head, shut up.”
“It was more of a woof if anything”. The boys swung around, scanning every inch of the shadows for anyone, anything, but only finding the posh dog twat with its tongue flopped out over its chin. “So Sorry about this fellows”, the words dribbling out with threads of saliva. He began wrapping his tongue back up inside its mouth, “it’s involuntary unfortunately”.
“You heard that right? Right? Right Bill?” snivels Dom. Both lads now quivering and faltering backwards into a wired fence. Dom began coiling his fingers around the cables to keep himself upright. They had almost seized, gripped by fear as their muscles stretched tight.
“Must be one of them, them parrot dogs”, Bill blubbers, his words diluting into the air in whispers, barley louder than his cigarette now choking out on the ground.
“Nah nah, nah mate nah, there ain’t no such thing as no parrot dogs like”. Dom bolts up, staggering as he does so. “I’m sorry man you know, I just, I can’t like – I knew that Veganic Jesus strand was a bad idea man… Fuck this”. His hood whips off his head as he legs it down the road, leaving behind the shrill echo of one final apology and the dwindling tipper tapper of his trainers.
“You fucking pussy!” Bill shouts after him, quickly crunching his lips as he catches the dog’s droplet eyes in his own.
They stare through the heavy night sleeping in-between them, through the moaning wind and snarling cars, and through the low swish of the dog’s shaggy tail.
“William, pardon the pun but my monocle has seemed to have gone walkies, mind if I roam over to your side?” The husky voice asks.
“… How, how do you know my name?”
“Your scent my boy, that gluteus of yours still smells the same all grown up you know”.
“What the fuck!” Bill sputters, dropping further into the wired fence.
“William, I’m your trusty steed,” the dog says in a sad whine, his head tilting to rest upon his shoulder and eyes swelling like a puppy’s, large and glistening, making their own silvery gleam in the night. "All those times and tears we shared, you don’t recall?” He lightly takes a step off the pavement.
“Don’t fucking move! This some kind of trick yea? You being held by string?” Bill’s eyes began darting over the shops behind, “you a puppet dog-”
“A parrot dog son” he interrupts.
Bill gawks through the dull light of the phone still illuminating the dog’s face, taken back by his response.
Watching him roll the carpet of tongue back into his mouth once again, a flicker of memory sparks in Bill, something which was barley smouldering until just now..
“What’s your name?” Bill says sternly, pushing away from the fence and striding into the middle of the road.
“Oh, well that’s not particularly important, what matters is –“
“Look” Bill cuts in, “see this fat bulge down here yea?” Bringing his hands to either side of his crotch.
“William without my monocle –“
“Shut up, that bulge ain’t my dick yeah – though my dick’s pretty big, trust.” He digs deep into his tracksuit, rummaging round with an intent focus similar to reaching for the last Pringle of the packet. Finally, he pulls out a small pistol which he twists away from his body and points at the dog, focusing one stern eye down its groove. “Name. Now.”
“…Father Porkchop.”
Bill almost chokes.
“I told you it wasn’t important” the dog mutters, but it was important to Bill, and as his eyes drift up to the black void of sky and the memories of Father Porkchop flood back: How Bill used to nuzzle his head into coarse fur as Porkchop wiped his streaming eyes with a neckerchief, the way he licked better the mauve-and-yellow rose like bruises splatted over his arms and chest, and the times he helped him pack; stuffing all Bill’s toys into his bindle, and letting him ride on his back as they ran away from home again and again. Father Porkchop was terrible at directions, they always ended up sleeping in the park.
“William chum, you remember yes? Surely you know I’ll always be by your side through these rough times, pardon the pun”.
Bill’s face bloats with emotion, the foundations of it sinking inwards and scrunching up like cardboard. A lone tear stained his cheek.
Silence devoured the road.
“I think I’d remember a fucking talking dog” Bill finally trembles.
“William…”
He pulls the trigger and the night seemed to burst open; Flutters and horns and howls scattered from the explosion. And then nothing.
A few days later Bill said “Yeah fucking serious, this mutt talks no lie, gonna bring in big peas trust. You should’ve saw Dom man, ran off like a bellend- You fucking did you prick! Was dressed in those clothes too when we found it, had to pop its leg so it didn’t leg it though! Go on boy say something. It wouldn’t fucking shut up before honest, tell ‘em Dom”. But Father Porkchop refused to speak. It was still rough times.
Comments