{"id":4021,"date":"2013-04-24T18:37:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T18:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4021"},"modified":"2013-04-24T18:37:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T18:37:53","slug":"black-dog-white-rhino-by-molly-laich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/04\/24\/black-dog-white-rhino-by-molly-laich\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Dog, White Rhino by Molly Laich"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not drinking. What can I say? I didn\u2019t want to do it anymore. Turns out it\u2019s not enough to half-heartedly want to change for someone else, out of politeness. Without a little taste, my brain went to dark, boring places. It itched. I didn\u2019t like it.
\n     I was Brian\u2019s live-in caregiver, and then his Aunt Gladys moved in with us. On my third sober night since the incident, Gladys took Brian to a Pixar movie about sentient food that I claimed to have already seen. \u201cYou go have fun,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll just be right here in this living room working on the hot air balloon jigsaw puzzle.\u201d
\n     Brian\u2019s dog followed me from room to room, like some animal. She was a 6-year-old black lab named Sadie, and she was good to the core. She knew how to bring Brian his remote control. He just had to say, \u201cSadie: TV time.\u201d She followed behind his wheelchair, ready to pick up any dropped item.
\n     The dog looked up at me with wet eyes that said, \u201cDon\u2019t go.\u201d She watched me suck in my cheeks and fluff my hair in the hallway mirror. I went out to the garage thinking I was going to drive away with the van, but of course they\u2019d taken it.
\n     \u201cThe Rhino is better than nothing, right?\u201d
\n     Sadie wagged her tail. It was wrong to tease the dog into thinking she was invited.
\n     The only bar within walking distance from Brian\u2019s house is technically called \u201cThe White Rhino,\u201d but the word \u201cwhite\u201d has been burnt out on the roadside sign for I don\u2019t know how long. Inside and out, it\u2019s a concrete shoebox. There\u2019s just the one long bar to sit at. No tables. No food. They don\u2019t have so much as a bag of fucking pretzels for sale. I\u2019d been there once or twice before and nothing good ever happened.
\n     The bartender was a slim but ugly girl about my age. She turned around and I thought I caught the beginnings of a lower back tattoo poking through her jeans. I sat down near a kid with long hair hanging down in his face. A sharp nose pointed through at the Amstel Light in front of him.\u00a0 \u201cI mean, excuse me,\u201d he said to the bartender. \u201cHello!\u201d
\n     She nodded and looked at me. \u201cPBR?\u201d
\n     \u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy would you think that?\u201d
\n     \u201cJager Bomb?\u201d the man at the bar said. \u201cNancy, can we get three jager bombs over here? What\u2019s your name?\u201d
\n     \u201cDorothy,\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cDorothy,\u201d He put a wet hand out and I shook it. \u201cMy name\u2019s George.\u201d He leaned in for a mock whisper. \u201cThose guys down at the end of the bar have made it clear that they do not like jager bombs. But you\u2019re awesome.\u201d
\n     If you strained you could scarcely overhear the men talking about the Detroit Lions as though they were on the fucking team and fed up with carrying the weight all these years.
\n     \u201cWhat do you say, Dorothy?\u201d the bartender asked me, with a look that said something like \u201cWelcome to the jungle?\u201d but quizzically, and no need to finish the thought.
\n     \u201cI\u2019m in, of course.\u201d
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re cute,\u201d George said. \u201cI like your dimples,\u201d which was weird only because I couldn\u2019t remember smiling.
\n     Nancy laid our doom out in front of us: two shots of cough syrup and a larger glass of energy drink to drop them in.
\n     \u201cWhat is this?\u201d George said to the bartender. \u201cWhere\u2019s yours?\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m not drinking Jagermeister.\u201d She looked at me and said, \u201cWe\u2019ve been over this.\u201d
\n     They compromised on tequila and she poured herself one, not bothering with the salt and lemon.
\n     George said, \u201cBombs away!\u201d right before. I was sorry I hadn\u2019t realized I could bow out of the Jager for something better like Nancy had.
\n     George told me all about himself and I was happy to listen. He\u2019d done two tours in Iraq. It was terrible there. He\u2019d seen things he wished he hadn\u2019t, but try as he might he couldn\u2019t forget them. They sent him home with a sack load of money. I looked to the bartender and she nodded. It\u2019s all true.
\n     \u201cI\u2019m writing a novel,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to have Nancy read it as soon as I get it copyrighted. I need to put it on a CD. Really it would make a better screenplay. It\u2019s about what happened at the beginning of time, but not this time, a different time that happened behind the sun, but not our sun. You\u2019d have to read it to understand.\u201d
\n     \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll just wait for the movie,\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cNancy, can I get some singles for the jukebox?\u201d He waved a five-dollar bill around. \u201cPlease Nancy. Money for the jukebox, please.\u201d
\n     She wiped a glass mug raw in her hands. \u201cNo Crocodile Rock,\u201d she said.
\n     \u201cI promise.\u201d
\n     \u201cNo Cheeseburger in Paradise, and no Margaritaville.\u201d
\n     \u201cOkay, okay.\u201d To me he said, \u201cBossy, this one. What do you want to hear? Anything at all.\u201d
\n     \u201cBill Withers,\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t know who that is. Watch this. I\u2019ll play us something awesome.\u201d
\n     Nancy bent down behind the bar to put the glass mug away and I caught sight of the tattoo again. \u201cIs that the symbol for Pi?\u201d I asked, but no one was listening.
\n     George came back from the Jukebox and sat down with that Everlast song blasting behind him, the one that goes, \u201cAnd then you really might know what it\u2019s like\u2026\u201d
\n     \u201cOh lord,\u201d Nancy said. She turned a knob behind the bar to lower the music, and I noticed she wasn\u2019t quite as ugly as I first thought.
\n     George sang along with the music and waved his long, white fingers through the air. I thought he must be homosexual, and I wondered if it was lonely for him, to be a gay soldier in the military. The football fans had long since left. We did more shots. I switched to whiskey and drank all of it on George\u2019s dime. Nancy turned the closed sign over in the window. \u201cFuck it,\u201d she said. The rhino was one of those bars that would just close mid-sentence in broad daylight for no reason, but usually when that happened, they made me leave. Now all of us were drinking on the house. Nancy even let us smoke cigarettes.
\n     I told them about Brian and Sadie, and my betrayal, being there.
\n     \u201cMy boyfriend is a sweet guy,\u201d Nancy said. \u201cHe is. But sometimes I think he just doesn\u2019t know me at all.\u201d
\n     \u201cThere\u2019s this parrot,\u201d George said. \u201cThey trained this certain kind of parrot that\u2019s really smart.\u201d
\n     \u201cThe African grey parrot,\u201d Nancy said.
\n     \u201cRight. Its owner trained him to know all these words. They were always together, for twenty years. One day the parrot got sick and his owner had to leave him overnight at the bird hospital. But the parrot didn\u2019t understand. It kept saying, \u2018Don\u2019t go.\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m sorry.\u2019 \u2018I love you.\u2019\u201d
\n     \u201cThat\u2019s the saddest thing I\u2019ve ever heard.\u201d
\n     \u201cSad, definitely,\u201d Nancy said. \u201cDid the parrot really use contractions?\u201d
\n     Soon we were taking our shoes off and weeping over all the animal stories.
\n     \u201cCows walking in line to the slaughter!\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cPolar bears drowning for lack of ice caps.\u201d
\n     \u201cUnrequited love!\u201d Nancy wailed.
\n     \u201cCome home with me,\u201d George said. \u201cBoth of you can come. I have\u00a0awesome music and the dankest weed ever.\u201d
\n     Nancy was zipping up her coat. She pulled her long ponytail free of it and now I thought she was almost pretty. She may have even been prettier than me, from certain angles.
\n     \u201cMy boyfriend\u2019s on his way to pick me up,\u201d She said.
\n     \u201cHe doesn\u2019t understand you,\u201d I said. \u201cYou don\u2019t need him.\u201d
\n     But then the boyfriend came, and it all made sense. He looked both handsome and kind. George seemed to be thinking the same thing. \u201cWhat choice does she have?\u201d he said.
\n     The bar spit us out into the cold parking lot. Traffic whizzed in a million directions. The darkness had only just arrived a second ago. Before it had been raining. The remainder hung in the air, and I mistook the dampness on my skin for a friendly ghost. The couple started to walk away from us. \u201cBe careful,\u201d Nancy said: to me, or George, or both?
\n     George lived just two blocks in the other direction, making him four blocks from Brian. I was excited by the prospect of a new homosexual friend living so close. George walked fast. It was a little cold for the shorts and sandals he was wearing. He talked incomprehensibly about the plot of his novel. He told me how good his pot was and how much I would love being stoned on it.
\n     It looked like a dead person lived in his apartment. There were chicken bones on the living room floor, a buzzing in the kitchen, cans, boxes and papers everywhere. \u201cLet me just find the jar,\u201d George said. He went around the room picking up pillows and clothes. There was just a single, tiny nugget inside. He had a bong the size of a small child, and we smoked up what little weed he had in just one hit apiece.
\n     \u201cI have a big bowl around here we can scrape,\u201d George said, and went back to the frantic searching.
\n     \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d I said. Even just the one hit was enough. It took me inside my body and showed me how drunk I was. Brian and Gladys would probably be home by now. I saw the dog\u2019s tail wagging. I was starting to feel sorry as hell that I\u2019d come. George found the bowl and handed it to me with an unrolled paperclip already jutting out the side.
\n     \u201cI only smoke the dankest weed in that thing,\u201d he assured me. \u201cCan I read you my novel?\u201d
\n     Things were bleak, but scraping the bowl would give me something to do while I listened at least. George read a sentence, something about pigs strapped with explosives, armies of bipedal horses and other things too awful to recall. George would read a sentence, stop, look at me and explain what the thing he just read meant.
\n     I had a good thimble full of goopy resin uncovered. \u201cLet\u2019s smoke this,\u201d I told him. Smoking resin is low. It gives you a quick, dirty buzz that lifts you up about as high as a headache and just as quickly drops you down again, but anything was better than listening to him read from his schizophrenic novel.
\n     \u201cWe dropped a bomb on an elementary school,\u201d he said.
\n     \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m telling you, somebody fucked up the coordinates and that\u2019s what happened. It was an accident, but it\u2019s true. We had to go in and clean up after it. We were picking up arms and legs and putting them in trash bags.\u201d
\n     What do you say to something like that? Maybe you can try to tell yourself it might not be true. The kid was a lunatic, after all, but even if it didn\u2019t quite happen that way, it\u2019s true enough. Limbs break off all the time, and not just off of grown ups, but kids.
\n     \u201cWill you be my girlfriend?\u201d George said. He moved closer to me on the couch and I skirted away.
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re gay.\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m bisexual,\u201d George insisted.
\n     I felt betrayed and tired. Suddenly four blocks seemed like a long walk home.
\n     \u201cLet me eat you out, please,\u201d George said.
\n     \u201cGross,\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cJust for a half hour,\u201d he said.
\n     \u201cThat\u2019s a tremendous amount of time!\u201d
\n     He moved closer and put his hand on my leg. I got up and took a step backward. My shoe got caught on a Bud Light can. I acted like it was an insect, started shaking it off like \u201cEw. Get it off of me.\u201d I should have been in the van driving home from the Pixar movie with Brian, and there I was in the apartment of a trained soldier who wanted something I didn\u2019t want to give him. I should have been scared, but I wasn\u2019t. I felt deflated. He got down on the ground and clung to my pant leg.
\n     \u201cJust stay here and live with me. I can take care of you.\u201d
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re ruining\u00a0everything,\u201d I said.
\n     \u201cI know,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d
\n     I didn\u2019t know what to do. I kicked my leg away from his grip and I went out the opposite door we came in through. It opened into a courtyard of green hedges. Not a maze, exactly, but I was drunk and got turned around in the path anyway. If I can just get home and see Brian, I thought. I can put this slip behind me. I resolved to do better.
\n     I made my way toward the sound of traffic and spinning red lights. Brian lived just off the busy street. I\u2019m sure there was a shorter way through the neighborhood but I didn\u2019t know what it was. There\u2019d been an incident in the road. A squad car had parked diagonally to block the lane and the cop was standing outside of it, redirecting traffic. I was stunned in place\u2014afraid of him because he was a cop and I was me.
\n     \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Someone on the sidewalk next to me said.
\n     \u201cDead dog,\u201d the other replied.
\n     For a brief moment just before my phone rang, I thought maybe the universe was indifferent, and there was about a fifty percent chance the dead dog in the street might not be Sadie. But then they called me, and I knew.
\n     I had Brian\u2019s ringtone set to quacking ducks. A black man and an Indian were standing on the street corner. I pressed the phone quiet and the men stared at me. The ducks went off again, I shut them up, and it kept going on this way. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a duck in your pocket,\u201d the black man said.
\n     I thought: keep it up, Brian. We can do this all night.
\n     
\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013
\nMolly Laich<\/strong> makes up stories in Seattle. Read about her secret life at http:\/\/www.mollylaich.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not drinking. What can I say? I didn\u2019t want to do it anymore. Turns out it\u2019s not enough to half-heartedly want to change for someone else, out of politeness. Without a little taste, my brain went to dark, boring places. It itched. I didn\u2019t like it.      I was Brian\u2019s live-in caregiver, and then his Aunt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}