The Pig and the Dog

NO BLANCO!

BLANCO NO!

Christine, resting her haunches on the red painted part of a curb which signifies ‘NO,’ curls her body curled into an awkward defensive position. She is yelling at Blanco, a white chihuahua who is relentlessly pawing at her leg. He hops forward, head craned back, nose up, plants his front feet on her calf and pushes off as she shakes him away. The momentum sets him vertical, a gremlin near dancing on his hinds, with his little black pads and itsy pink ding-a-ling wiggling at her. He is desperately trying for a glimpse and a taste of what is on her paper plate.

What is on her plate is baked beans, stewed okra, and a buttery charred cob of corn. Each offence by the little dog sends the meal upward, Christine elevating it parallel to her forehead, then downward again upon each retreat, aligning the plate’s rim just below her chin. Her body is partially twisted away from the animal, uncomfortably balanced on only one half of her ass. A mutual frustration is mounting between the two of them. What Blanco wants Christine will not give. The cob of corn rolls zenlike back and forth between the bank of okra and the tide of beans, a capsized vessel adrift on its flat earth.

 A loud and sharp yipyap from Blanco as he addresses the uroboros.

BLANCO! NO!

Sure handed Christine is a waitress in a busy brunch spot called Busy Brunch. Able to navigate a kaleidoscope of scooting chairs and waving patrons failing to tip for artisanal portions, there is little chance she will even accidentally lose this meal to the dog. Blanco’s victory must be dependent on outside circumstance, or a vicious attack that he is not physically capable of. Hypothetically though, say he was powerful enough with a running start to flip her head over heels like Charlie Brown at kickoff and scatter her vegetarian meal across the asphalt; how disappointing for a little carnivore! He’d snort and sneeze at that okra and trot away and Christine would be dead or something.

Nearby, James. He is sitting in a slumpy style on the tailgate of a pickup truck, dangling his legs and staring vacuously through Christine, Blanco, and the BIG LOTS! beyond. His bare thighs are kind of burning some against the metal. He has already been satiated by his meal and its unfinished remains sit on a paper plate in his lap, which he is fiddling around with. He pulls apart stray bits of pork with his fingers, wordlessly aware of some textural pleasure in this, occasionally sniffing them through dust and exhaust in the air, seeking notes of liquid smoke sauce and fatty grease. 

BLANCO!

Testosterone inducing pheromones waft about James’ head, and with all the meat he is plucking and dropping while playing, his satisfaction hangs from his sleeve. He is no help at all with the struggle below him. If only Blanco would turn and see the tiny cooked pig parts falling, bouncing from the paper plate, tumbling down from the truck. James’ face displays an idiotic absence of expression that opposes the screwed up frustration on Christine’s, or the greedy longing on the little chihuahua’s.

See the animal bits snowing. Squandered pork, once a whole pig, but not long. Nursed for a few weeks, raised in a farrowing cage for six months, hung topsy-turvy and slaughtered, wasting its squeals on a butcher wearing earbuds. See the littered shreds of swine beyond the paper plate, settling below the tailgate of the truck as James’ sizzling legs dangle above. See this meat rest beside a dollop of sour cream abandoned to the asphalt around it. There is a small bee struggling to escape it like a fly in an ointment reversed, since only the former really had a use anymore. The sun is sinking behind the shopping center. In the stadium across town a crowd is cheering and the sound drifts like a muffled hum and ambiently hangs overhead.

GOD DAMN! NO! NO! GOD!

DAMN! NO!

GOD DAMN IT BLANCO!

NO!!

Something for Nothing

 

No Body

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