“Is it your dog?” he asked, bending to tap it’s hard, tiny head. He had been building up to this moment for days, and she knew it.
And she wanted it. He was a good-looking boy, in his mid teens, like her, and he seemed a little shy, a little like the kind of boy
she needed to be with.
But she couldn’t handle it. She felt herself beginning to blush -- a problem that had haunted her for
years -- so she turned her eyes away from his and concentrated intently on the dog.
“No,” she replied, blunt. It was true. She
was only minding it for a couple of minutes for an old neighbour. He couldn’t believe it. She didn’t say anything else, or look up
again. He wanted to say something more, but couldn’t think of anything. He thought he’d seen her return a smile, very faint, very
quick, the other day; now he knew he must have been mistaken. He slowly turned and moved away, dumb-struck and devastated.
She
was devastated, too. And so was little Fifi, the dog, who saw the girl’s pain as something not unlike colors, swirling all around
her tear-filled eyes and blushing head.
--------------------
Tensions were simmering along on a nice, safe level, up until
the point where “Evil” Damon decided to kidnap a dog. Punchy, although sharing with the owner, had managed to get Damon into the 80m
apartment, slap bang in the centre of Paris, and a stone’s throw from the cafe at the Bourse where he (up until his recent dismissal),
Punchy and the guys, had met up each day to find out which removal-firm’s shirt they were going to pull out of the bag and put on.
Evil
Damon was a junky and a thief; and suspicion had led the boss of the little removals firm (which survived by latching onto large,
expensive firms), to kick Damon out on his ear. Damon had sworn revenge, but his energy, or what was left of it, had been redirected
into paying off a debt to a pusher; a foundation on which to quickly throw more money for more junk. And he was desperate.
He
was tall and thin, with a pointed face and beady, glinting eyes. His hair hung long, greasy, and loose; but for all that, he was generally
considered a ladies-man. His nick-name had come about because some girl had recognized an intense quality in him, along with a piercing
stare, that she had compared to the “Mad Monk” Rasputin. She had slept with him the same night. He had stolen around one-hundred euro’s
from her apartment the next morning.
Damon had jumped out of Brighton, England, for reasons that weren’t clear to anyone; possibly
not even to him. He had been in Paris for six months, with no attempt to do anything by the book, and with a healthy fear of being
sent down in a French jail. Sitting on a side-walk one day, watching the rich old ladies with those little skinny dogs they treated
like kids, the answer had come to him through a kaleidoscope of junk-fuelled logic.
--------------------
Punchy was bitterly
disappointed. Somebody shouted something at him in French as he shoved past people on the crowded Champs Elysees, but he barely noticed.
He had come so close to actually buying his first David Bowie album that he had been taken by surprise by his own quick retreat from
the shop. As a kid in Manchester, England, liking anything softer than ‘Iron Maiden’ had meant risking a “character building” session
from his three older brothers. Punchy could fight, and box (hence the nick-name), but neither would have helped.
One of his brothers
was only two or three fights away from a possible shot at the British Middleweight Title, and the fact that this was happening in
England whilst Punchy was in Paris, was more than just coincidence. The sneering jealousy of people he had known, in some cases, for
many years, had been a lot easier to handle that the glowing looks of startled admiration, and the sudden friendship of people who
had never before paid any attention to him.
Punchy had no great memories from childhood, and that particular brother, amongst
his three brothers, had been one of the main reasons; although, that brother had in his turn been persecuted -- as well as endlessly
praised -- by their ambitious, violent drunk of a father. Any good memories for Punchy were those that involved his mother; and they
too were tinged with sadness. He often put a lot of effort into not thinking about it.
As a fourteen year old, Punchy had briefly
enjoyed an intense friendship with a gentle, clever kid -- the type he wouldn’t normally have been expected to associate with -- who
had regularly played him Bowie music in his bedroom. The price for this pleasure had come in the form of embarrassed jibes, from the
couple of mates who had dared taunt him, but they had been easy enough to handle.
On the day the friendship ended, Punchy had
been so moved and excited as he sang along to one of the songs, that he’d blushed as he caught his friend’s eye. His friend had blushed
too, then looked at him, almost through him, in a way meaningful enough to force a reaction. It had ended with Punchy kicking over
the record-player and accusing his friend of being a “fucking queer". For Punchy, the incident had meant not only the end of a friendship,
but the end of a number of things, for a long time.
--------------------
She was shouting in French, of course, but Evil
Damon knew what the screaming meant because he was around the corner and into the park faster than she was able to get out the words:
“My dog! My little dog! Somebody grabbed Fifi! Oh, God help me!” Unfortunately for Madam Lassire, God was moving in strange ways,
as usual, and He helped Evil Damon instead.
Outside was exciting for little Fifi. From the safe warm colors in the face and around
the head of his loving owner, old Madam Lassire, to the explosion of the streets: the fight for territory (more pissing up trees and
occasional yelping than actual fighting, of course); the blur of colors in the faces and around the heads of the humans; the racing,
dead, growling things, vomiting poison, screaming and roaring; the good smells that somehow survived them; and, of course, the other
dogs on the street.
Unlike the girl who had called Evil Damon "Rasputin", Fifi’s reaction to being held by someone with the colors
of evil in his face and around his head was one of horror, and it desperately wanted to get away, but it couldn’t struggle free. And
each time it tried, it was violently subdued.
--------------------
Punchy looked down at the dog. It looked like the end
result of some kind of scientific project to make rats seem a little more presentable. It was tiny and skinny, but it had these big,
black, helpless eyes; and the poor thing was clearly scared and confused. When Punchy tried to touch it’s hard little head, it snapped
at his hand, then whimpered up at him. “I told this girl I’d look after it,” Evil Damon explained. “She was desperate, y’know? I’m
a soft touch. What can you do?”
Evil Damon was nervous. He was sweating. He was and always had been weird, but the change in
him over the last few days had been dramatic. Punchy was one of the remaining few to want to give the guy a chance. He had even brought
him in on the apartment knowing that it would mean throwing a known ladies-man between him and Shauna, the young Australian woman
who had advertised the place, and who had chosen Punchy over all the other candidates.
He knew that nothing had happened between
Evil Damon and her, because Damon would have bragged about it, and Damon’s recent behavior was making him feel that his friend would
not be bragging any time soon. “What’s it called?” he asked.
The question - - a dull formality -- seemed to hit Evil Damon like
a slap in the face. He looked back at Punchy, wide-eyed. He blinked, staring desperately, and for what seemed to Punchy an eternity.
“Lassie”, he said. The response was such a shock to Punchy that he actually took a step backwards before bursting into laughter. “Who
calls a thing like that Lassie?!” he exclaimed.
Evil Damon continued staring. He gulped, heavily, and it was clear that he was
offended. “The owner is fuckin' Scottish,” he said, almost demanded, as tears welled up in his eyes.
Punchy was almost in tears,
too. “She’s insane is what she is!” he laughed. He tried to stop laughing. It was obvious that Damon had been sweet-talked into looking
after the mutt, and was embarrassed enough already. He was probably getting paid for it, though, knowing him. Punchy stopped himself
laughing and apologized. Then he laughed again. Evil Damon was livid, of course. Punchy wasn’t usually like this. It was a bad sign.
Fifi
looked up at Punchy. The thing not unlike colors around Punchy’s head was potentially a sign of hope for the little dog; and when
Punchy tried to touch the dog’s hard little head a second time, it licked his hand, surprising both of them. “It likes you,” Damon
said, through a grimace that failed to imitate a smile.
“And you said she was a bitch!” Punchy grinned.
Damon didn’t respond.
--------------------
The
girl opened the door of her small studio apartment on the sixth floor of an apartment block near Boulevard de la Chapelle, failing
to notice the ransom demand for a dog that had been slipped under her door by mistake. She went to the mirror, ostensibly to check
her hair, but really to look at herself and see if she seemed as good-looking today as she knew (deep down) she was; or if she would
seem deformed from within by a complete lack of self-confidence, as she often did. But she could barely bring herself to look.
When
she was younger, she’d often heard her mother saying that her father had been a quiet, shy man. Her mother was a loud woman, and had
often said these and similar things about her late husband in a disparaging sort of way; and often whilst comparing him to her daughter.After leaving her mother’s home (recently, and with her mother’s loud but reluctant support), she had brought with her all the photographs
she had of her father; along with the few clear memories she still had.
She noticed the paper under the door -- which Evil Damon
had put there after following Madam Lassire to her apartment door, before coming back a few days later and going not only to the wrong
floor, but to a door that looked completely different to the one he had watched her walk into.
‘We have your dog. For now he
is safe. He wants to come home. He shakes and whines. We will consume (eat) your dog if you don’t bring 500 Euros in cash on the 27th
(two days) to the doors of Sacré Coeur Church at Montmartre. If you involve the police, my people will consume the evidence (your
dog). We are a very serious gang. We do this a lot. The Firm But Fair Gang.’
It was hand-printed in red ink and written in English.
After struggling to read it through a few times, using a translation dictionary, and alternating between shocked giggles and groans
of disbelief, she called a fellow college student, her one real friend, then read it through again.
--------------------
“Keep
that fucking rat, mutt, thing away from me, then,” had been Shauna’s way of saying OK to Damon’s request to have the dog stay. It
wasn’t that Shauna didn’t like dogs, but she didn’t like the idea of someone like Damon liking dogs; or, more to the point, being
soft enough to get lumbered with somebody else’s dog.
She had been attracted to Punchy at first, but had quickly gone off the
idea after sensing his ‘soft-in-the-middle’ personality. A big teddy-bear, just waiting to break down and declare his undying love
to any woman capable of accepting all that soul-bearing, sentimental belly-aching that ‘husband types’ are prone to. She was a long
way from ready for that crap.
“Why don’t you teach it a few tricks and go and earn your rent, instead of relying on Mr. Dependable
in there to bail you out?” she asked, openly baiting Damon. Damon flashed a look more dangerous than his usual seductive, designer
bad-boy pose. Shauna just looked back at him, cool, and he quickly composed himself.
“No time,” he replied. “I’m thinking about
sticking it’s feet to a skate-board with super-glue. Send it down Champs-Elysées to the roar of the fucking crowd. Get round it that
way.” He sniggered at her, like a naughty boy, but filled with a more genuine menace. Shauna rolled her eyes, as if bored by him rather
than offended, then walked out of the room, secretly pleased to see Damon back on form.
--------------------
A neighbor
had promised to have pictures made and put up, on trees, she thought he’d said. When he’d left with the photograph of little Fifi,
she’d been worried that he wouldn’t come back with it, but he had. So at least she still had that. Madam Lassire looked at the spot
that was Fifi’s favorite spot, near the fire, when it wasn’t curled up with her, of course. She couldn’t get started on the book she
was trying to make herself read. And she was only trying to read it because she was worried that, if she didn’t concentrate on something,
everything would just stop. But the words kept melting away, and time kept melting away, and then suddenly she’d be jolted from her
staring by the sound of something, like Fifi coming back. Then that would melt away, too.
--------------------
Evil Damon
went over his escape route once more. Obviously he planned to follow her from the apartment, check that she was alone, do it like
a pro. He had three or four different route’s, depending on how long it took to feel confident that she hadn’t brought the cops. He’d
had a bit of junk, after putting down a little cash that he’d picked up somewhere, but it wasn’t enough, and he was starting to get
sick again. In fact, he was so dazed and confused that he’d forgotten he was walking the dog and had brought it dangerously close
to it’s apartment-block.
Fifi whined. The little dog was missing it’s world; missing Madam Lassire and all the swirling warmth
and security and love. And the good food. Fifi whined, and was slapped hard, as Damon became aware of his mistake. Fifi yelped, sensing
the world from which it had been snatched; drawing in the scent and being driven crazy by it.
Evil Damon had noticed a change
in Shauna. A sense of disgust. Maybe she was suspicious of his problem? Maybe bringing the dog and showing a sensitive side would
help? He hadn’t made a move on Shauna because he was so attracted to her. He was scared of blowing it. On some deep level, they shared
something, but he wasn't sure what it was. It was hard to judge. It was hard to think at all.
Damon broke into a cold sweat;
then a hot sweat. Everybody seemed to be staring at him; seemed to know. The dog was yelping at them and they knew what it was saying.
They spoke dog, too, those French bastards. Fifi looked up helplessly as Damon kicked at it and led it quickly away. And that little
dog; that little mass of nerve-endings and evolved instincts; that skinny little rat-like joke of an animal, wept.
--------------------
“I
think it’s cool,” the girl’s friend said. “I mean, you didn’t leave him much room to move after what you did. I think he’s trying
to be funny... or something!” She burst out laughing.“I don’t like it,” the girl replied, sulky and disappointed by her own conclusion.
Knowing that there were no students on her floor, the girl, with her friend’s help, had decided that the good-looking boy must be
a student of English, and that the letter was almost certainly from him.
It wasn’t that the letter was so embarrassingly unfunny
that it had ruined the image she’d had of him, it was that the letter seemed, felt, so cruel. She had tried hard not to find it sick,
not to get angry about it, but she had failed. And, of course, she felt guilty about that.
“It’s boy’s humor!” the friend explained,
not entirely convinced herself, but desperate not to let the opportunity to get her impossible friend dating slip away.
“I want
a man, not a boy,” the girl sulked. There was a silence, broken only when the girl looked up at her friend, with a token gesture of
humor in her eyes to acknowledge the stupidity of the statement. Her friend burst into laughter, and kept laughing, dropping to her
knees, still clutching the letter. The girl joined in, too. They both laughed for a long time; and when the girl couldn’t laugh anymore,
she started crying.
--------------------
Punchy patted the dog after feeding it with food that he’d paid for. He felt sorry
for the dog. It had some kind of nervous disorder. He looked at Evil Damon, who had dozed off on the sofa in the lounge, then went
to the lounge table and pulled up a chair. The dog whimpered.
He was about to pick up a sheet of loose paper when he noticed
red-ink on the opposite side, so he tore a leaf from a pad instead and started jotting down some ‘song lyrics’ that he’d had in his
head for a while, based on a doomed romance he’d had back in England. The words came easily; the pain flowed out. Even though Damon
was sleeping and Shauna was out, Punchy instinctively shoved his feelings under the blank writing-pad before standing and moving towards
the kitchen. He had forgotten to put down some of the dog-biscuits he’d bought as a treat.
When he heard the front door being
unlocked, he panicked and doubled back, staring at the door as it began to open and grabbing at the piece of paper. He made straight
for his room with it. Fifi saw Evil Damon groan and twist, saw Shauna step in, and ran after Punchy, who allowed the dog into his
room before closing the door.
Damon looked up at Shauna as she moved a few things on the table and put her shopping bag down
on it. He looked around the room for the stupid dog, probably hiding under the kitchen table, then something dawned on him, and he
bolted upright. Too late. Shauna had lifted the paper from the table and was already reading it.
Damon jumped to his feet, wild-eyed.
“That... that’s nothing! It’s just a joke!” He forced a laugh. “I was bored! Can’t fucking draw, y’know? Fucking British sense of
humor!” Shauna felt her stomach turning over. All her worst fears about Evil Damon had just been confirmed. She read the words over:
‘You could always lie,
But
you could never deceive,
Now
we can never make love,
But
we can still make-believe.
‘This is a world,
In which nothing is true,
I hold you each night,
But I don’t believe in you.
‘You treat all love,
As a means to an end,
You live to perform,
But I can’t pretend.’
She was so embarrassed that she couldn’t bring herself to look Damon in the eyes. She folded the paper
in two, very slowly and neatly, and handed it to him, then walked into the kitchen with some of the shopping. Damon accepted the paper,
his eyes never leaving her.
Punchy sat, his hands trembling as he re-read the words scrawled in red-ink, glancing down at the
dog, who sat attentively, it’s black eyes searching and it’s tongue hanging out.
‘...Your dog is safe. We killed one today. The
police are in on it. We give them a share. They drink coffee and sit laughing. They could make problems for you, even if they seem
nice. I was going to chop one of the dog’s ears off and send it to you, but I want to give you a chance. We are just businessmen at
the end of the day. We are trying to help you, old bitch. The Firm But Fair Gang.’
Damon stepped up so close to Shauna in the
kitchen that he was literally breathing down her neck. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.
Shauna jumped backwards in shock,
startling Damon and almost knocking him over. “You fuck-wit!” she yelled. Damon’s survival instinct told him to freeze on the spot;
everything else he was told him to grab her by the throat and throttle her; but Damon’s instincts were much stronger than his will,
and he stayed calm.
“People wouldn’t understand it was just a joke,” he explained, in a low, menacing voice. “People think the
worst about me.”
“I don’t care if you start prancing around the place in pink knickers and high-fucking-heels, as long as they’re
not mine, you poofter!” she screamed back at him, unnerved. Damon looked at her, blank, trying to understand her words by studying
the images they conjured up in his head. What the hell was she talking about? Then there was the sight of Punchy coming straight at
him in a kind of slowed-motion, with a look of violence in his face so remarkable that Damon broke wind as he realized it was real.
A kind of inevitable sinking feeling followed and his legs turned to jelly, his body starting to collapse even before it was made
to.
The punch was so hard and so well aimed that it took out both Evil Damon’s front teeth. Fifi, in sheer panic, and desperate
to protect it’s one friend, clamped it’s teeth around Damon’s nose as soon as he hit the ground, pulling and tugging, and took out
a chunk. Shauna decided that she liked Punchy again.
--------------------
The girl was shaking a little, but more determined
than she had ever been about anything in her young life. She marched across to the good-looking boy and handed him the ransom note.
Stunned, the boy looked down at the thing and started slowly reading the English, drug-addled words. He looked up at her and she knew
instantly that he had never before seen it. “Is it about the missing dog?” he asked.
She was taken aback. “What? What missing
dog?” she demanded, her determination and her confidence collapsing. She had expected him to need forgiveness, not an explanation.“I
saw a neighbor putting up a picture of a missing dog,” he said. “I’ve spoken to him before, so... I mean, the picture made me think
about...” he trailed off. “It’s probably some kind of sick joke, this thing,” he added politely, handing back the note.
The
girl fell silent. She was lost. She waited for the big blush to start, but it didn’t. It was almost as if there was no point. She
had stepped beyond hope. What difference would it make if she blushed, for God’s sake?
“I’ll help you look for it, though, if
you like,” he offered, with a weak, hopeful shrug. The girl looked blankly back at him and felt the blush starting up, despite herself.
She turned away and held it back by sheer force of will. She finally did blush a little, she could feel it, but she decided that she
didn’t care anymore. ‘Blush, then, get humiliated,’ she told herself, ‘get a some of what you deserve, you silly bitch.’
She
felt as if she ought to devote her life to the boy on the spot, just to make up for all the terrible things she’d been thinking. How
could she have been so wrong? She looked back to him, resilient and red, but he was looking down the street, puzzled. She followed
his eye-line.
Fifi ran as fast as his little legs would carry him, bounding towards the swirl of warm colors. He was home, he
was home, he was home. But the warmth surrounding the two smiling humans was so appealing that he just had to stop for a few seconds
and jump about a bit.
--------------------
Deep down inside, Punchy knew that he had brought Evil Damon into the apartment
as a way of steering Shauna away from himself. And he knew that he couldn’t rely on Evil Damon, or anyone else, or any tricks or illusions,
or anything that involved the avoiding or staving off of the inevitable any longer. Especially his own macho bullshit.
He hadn’t
mentioned that the lyric was his, but he would. He had seen the change in Shauna as he’d slapped the necessary information out of
Damon, before dragging him and his few belongings out of the apartment for good. Shauna was clearly impressed, and he had been only
too happy to take Fifi out on it’s big walk to freedom; close enough to it’s own block to get safely home by itself.
Now, walking
the streets of Paris on this beautiful afternoon, clutching a little bag containing his new Bowie album, he thought about how far
he’d come; how much he’d risked to get here, after selling everything he owned and giving up his house in England, with only the vague
promise of a job to cling to, only a few months after a brief holiday with mates that had become a revelation. Paris was where he
belonged. Just like little Fifi, he had come so far on the journey, the big walk to freedom, that if he stayed calm and kept his eye
on the ball, he knew he would sense his way, using determination, or gut-instinct, or whatever it took to find the warm, true colors.
--------------------
The
girl recognized the dog as that belonging to old Madame Lassire. She knew which floor the old lady lived on, and the two young lovers
and Fifi went up to the apartment together. Madam Lassire heard the yelping even before she opened the door, and she knew it was real
this time. Fifi leapt out of the arms of the girl and ran into the apartment, jumping up and around the legs of the old lady, then
running in mad little circles around the room, whilst continuing to make it’s heart-felt little noises.
Madam Lassire, very emotional,
bent down and picked up the dog. She kissed and hugged it. The girl was crying already, and the good-looking boy gently put an arm
around her. The girl blushed a little, but moved in closer.“My baby, my baby,” the old lady kept saying to the little dog. “My baby,
my baby, where have you been?”
“Don’t ask,” Fifi might have replied, if it could have. But it was just a dog. A dog that looked
more like a rat than it looked like Lassie.
the end.