UNITED STATES—So Lupe was on top of my belly, as I slumbered on the couch. She had the leaden weight of the blanket they put over you as you roll backwards into an MRI capsule. Lupe spoke. She told me a little story. She did the heavy lifting for this week’s column:
“I was in the Golden Hind this week.”
“That is quite amazing,” I blurted to the pit bull lab, leapin’ loca’ Lupe. “You mean you were with Sir Francis Drake.”
“Heavens no,” said Lupe. “The Golden Hind is a lounge on the West Side.”
“You don’t say. The West Side of what?”
‘Civilization, of course,” barked Lupe, being a Hollywood dog. “Well you’ve got to be on your toes, over there,” said Lupe, sniffing toward more promising territory. “You’ve really got to be on your claws over there. Did I say claws? Boy, am I getting tired over translating into human terms my meaning.”
“Toes, claws, worry not, Lupe.”
She continued her tale: “There are a bunch of 80-year-olds over at the Golden Hind, and you’ve really got to be on high alert. The all allege that the left home without their wallets,” said Lupe in her doggie way. “Don’t buy it for a minute,” she said. “They’re just weaseling a drink out of you.”
I limited myself to a very expressive WOW, as I suffering a surfeit of critters, human and non-, all twisted in nonsense over some foolery or other.
“It is a cool bar, the Golden Hind is – So is the H.M.S. Bounty, for that matter,” Lupe the pit bull lab prattled on.
I shook gravely my head up and down. It swiveled as a gimble supporting the weight of the bleeding world, like Hercules. Who needs a gym membership when Lupe the pit bull lab lies atop of you?
The geezers would take umbrage at this, but, hey, wait: was I not swiftly nearing that demographic myself?
“And there is one man there,” Lupe averred, “who carries a plastic bag and in that bag he has two… Oh, what’s that animal? It’s like a hamster.”
Nothing funner than a guessing game, as it reaches a correctness seldom matched by actual sanctimonious life.
“A rat,” I offered. “Rats are quite underrated,” I said.
“No, it’s not a rat,” spoke the adjudicator.
“A squirrel?”
“No, not that. They’d chew their way out of a prison in no time.”
“A marmot?”
“No, but you’re getting warm.”
“A nutria?”
“Exotic choice, but you’re still not there.”
“… Ah,” said my interlocutor with a mystic caption in their eyes. “A FERRET !!!”
“Yes, indeed,” I concurred. “I know it as a verb and not a noun.”
“Not one ferret, but two,’ said the adjudicator of the quiz. “Imagine you’re in a dank bar, and somebody opens a bag that contains two live ferrets. You’d be forking over the dough in no time. And that’s the grift of these octogenarians – to catch you off guard.”
Away from the streetlamp I shuffled. Still shaking my head, I was. Had a canine engaged me in this conversation? Godfrey Daniels, I’d better steer myself to the Golden Hind. It was almost closing time.
To be continued…
