A Mistake In Logic
(Dec 18/05)
Alan had a beagle called Duncan who had a number painted in yellow on his side, his identification as a hare-chasing dog, a beagler, or simply a mistake in logic. We would walk Duncan round the block, past other neighbor’s homes and the Presbyterian Church across from Alan and Duncan’s house, on Vincennes Avenue, Pointe Claire Quebec. Duncan would stop every few steps, dog steps being much shorter than human ones, lift his piss-screed leg, always the left one, and go to the toilet on the white cone-shaped cement blocks that all the neighbors had at the foot of their lawns abutting the street. We had ditches in those days; chuck with dead leaves and littered newspapers and candy wrappers. Eat More was a popular candybar, even though it loosened new fillings from the rot of our teeth, sometimes pulling them free, then us swallowing them with a mouthful of nuts, molasses, carob powder and confectionery sugar. If you took the candybar wrapper and folded it just right, Eat More would be changed to Eat Me or Moe, or sometimes Ea Meo or Eat Mr. The variables and permutations seemed infinite. Duncan lived in a kennel that Alan’s father built onto the side of the garage, next to the fort we built out of battleship wood and straightened nails. There were a half-busted set of moose antlers tacked above the opening in the back of the garage that led into the kennel, and a deep freezer full of carrion and shotgun pellets. Alan died in a car accident some seven or eight years ago, after having just started a new injection therapy for a seemingly intractable Bi-Polar condition. Duncan passed away a few years before Alan, and was buried with the yellow number still painted on his side. I miss them both, Alan especially, and those walks we took round the block trying to tug Duncan away from the neighbor’s cement curb blocks. The weatherman said its going to be a cold Christmas.
Alan had a beagle called Duncan who had a number painted in yellow on his side, his identification as a hare-chasing dog, a beagler, or simply a mistake in logic. We would walk Duncan round the block, past other neighbor’s homes and the Presbyterian Church across from Alan and Duncan’s house, on Vincennes Avenue, Pointe Claire Quebec. Duncan would stop every few steps, dog steps being much shorter than human ones, lift his piss-screed leg, always the left one, and go to the toilet on the white cone-shaped cement blocks that all the neighbors had at the foot of their lawns abutting the street. We had ditches in those days; chuck with dead leaves and littered newspapers and candy wrappers. Eat More was a popular candybar, even though it loosened new fillings from the rot of our teeth, sometimes pulling them free, then us swallowing them with a mouthful of nuts, molasses, carob powder and confectionery sugar. If you took the candybar wrapper and folded it just right, Eat More would be changed to Eat Me or Moe, or sometimes Ea Meo or Eat Mr. The variables and permutations seemed infinite. Duncan lived in a kennel that Alan’s father built onto the side of the garage, next to the fort we built out of battleship wood and straightened nails. There were a half-busted set of moose antlers tacked above the opening in the back of the garage that led into the kennel, and a deep freezer full of carrion and shotgun pellets. Alan died in a car accident some seven or eight years ago, after having just started a new injection therapy for a seemingly intractable Bi-Polar condition. Duncan passed away a few years before Alan, and was buried with the yellow number still painted on his side. I miss them both, Alan especially, and those walks we took round the block trying to tug Duncan away from the neighbor’s cement curb blocks. The weatherman said its going to be a cold Christmas.
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