Pancho and Scraps

“What are you doing up here,” Pancho stated, more than asking, after rounding the corner of the freebox.

“Same as you, just cruising,” Scraps answered, nonchalant.  Aloof as always, he jumped up into the freebox, as if he’d just sniff around.  As if his being here were somehow okay.  

“She’s going to tighten the collar,” Pancho said.

“Don’t say that.  You don’t know that,” Scraps said, with a note of unease.  

“She’s going to be upset.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything, and just because I slipped out of my collar, doesn’t mean I’m going to ransack a trash can, or do anything--”

“But you will,” Pancho cut in.  “And if you hadn’t brought home that diaper, just last week.”

“Oh come on,” Scraps scowled.  “You smelled it.  I don’t know what those hippie parents were feeding their baby, but that shit was--stop looking at me like that!”

Pancho didn’t mask his disdain.  “You have no discipline.”

“We’re dogs!  What are you even saying?  You want to fall in line like a K-9?  Pass up on all the scrumptious diapers and all the goodness in life because it’s dangerous?  Live a little.  You act like you don’t remember introducing me to this park.  Remember that night--my second night in Seaview?”

“What about it?” Pancho asked, morose.

“It was so fun!  You had nothing against digging into those bags stacked alongside the can.”

“Those chicken bones almost killed you,” Pancho recalled.

“Why do you say it like that?  Why am I feeling like you’re judging me?  I was just a pup.  Not even a year old, and--”

“Old enough,” Pancho said.  He looked away from Scraps.  He sniffed the air.  A woman was walking across the grass toward them.

“Oh my God!  That’s Candy!  It’s Candy!” Scraps barked, overcome with excitement.  

Pancho winced.  Scraps raced across the grass to her, wasting no time in jumping up, paws on her stomach.  

“Hey you!” he heard Candy greet Scraps, happily.  Pancho wagged.  He couldn’t help it.  Unlike Scraps, he politely sniffed around Candy’s toe, deciding to lick the top of her foot.

“Oh, you’re so cute, Pancho,” Candy said, in that sweet voice, and then rubbed between his ears.  So good, so good, more, Pancho caught himself thinking as she pulled away.  He smiled up at her before feeling self conscious, and let himself be distracted by a scent in the wind.  He ambled a few feet away to inspect the mysterious odor, sniffing around the pavilion.  Candy walked on toward the freebox.  Scraps trotted a couple steps ahead, leading the way.

Cat shit.  Mystery solved, and Pancho looked over to Candy who was inspecting a dress, holding it up for Scraps approval.  It was a hideous dress.  Scraps wagged his approval.  Pancho rolled his eyes and decided to head back down the hill.  He needed to see Radha’s reaction when she found Scraps had slipped out of his collar.  Again.  Would she make it so he couldn’t get out next time?  Not likely.  Scraps was very good at pretending like he was being choked--he could even make his eyes bulge--how’d he do that?  

He’d watched Scraps develop into the black sheep of the pack.  Not really develop, no, it was more like he never grew up.  He had a persistent hyperactive--something or another.  A problem.  Scraps was completely overrun by impulses.  Oh, look Scraps, there goes a cat!  Every time, the ears of Scraps--usually floppy lifeless things--would perk up.  His nose would point intently wherever Pancho indicated.  Pancho thought that the old saying needed to be amended.  It wasn’t just that you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks.  Some dogs didn’t have the capacity, regardless of their age.  Pancho was suddenly overcome by a bout of humility, as he reflected, knowing that he hadn’t learned anything new in a long while.  But he’d learned enough.  

He’d come to understand the underlying foundation of being a good dog: Respect.  It had taken a couple years to learn to reign in his urges, and then he discovered an internal contentedness brought about by being a good.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want the diaper Scraps had been so excited about--of course he’d wanted to chew it to ribbons--but he knew the karma of such recklessness.  Karma, what a concept for a dog to understand.  But Radha was wise, and had imparted her knowledge.  All was for Radha, and he knew what she’d have to say about of a torn up diaper, delicious or not.  Radha couldn’t understand--she forbade such things, and Pancho could respect that.  Scraps, on the other hand, what a sorry excuse for a dog.  At least Radha had let go of that sickening baby-talk voice she’d used with him when he was a pup.  Two years old now.  Old enough to not be jumping up on people, for Kibble’s sake.

Radha took the bus into town now, gone almost every day.  Pancho had no idea where she went, and remembered the terror of being abandoned when she’d first left without him.  Scraps would have ran after her.  He didn’t get it--he just couldn’t.  She’d tied him up for two weeks straight until he finally stopped chasing after her.    

Pancho’s nose was occupied with the usual shit stains on the roadside grass, when his attention was caught by a mongoose.  Evil creature, have at thee!  The varmint scurried across the road, and  Pancho gave chase.  He felt his claws gaining no traction, but then bounded forward, his small body catapulted across the asphalt.  Suddenly, there was a loud noise, and Pancho felt a chill as the shadow of a big truck sailed over him.  The truck itself must have swerved.  He lept off the pavement.

How had he not seen or heard the truck?  Duffus, Pancho--who are you?  For a mongoose?  All that because he’d given into the impulse to chase a freaking mongoose?  What were you thinking?  That’s right, you weren’t thinking, were you?  He new the dangers of crossing Mapuana Avenue.  Radha had yelled enough about that--years ago now.  ‘Pancho, get off the road!’  It had been her mantra, back when she used to go to the freebox with him.  Back before she started taking that bus.  Pancho hated that bus.

His reflection over his own mortality--the truck’s shadow of death--was short lived.  He was thinking about the mongoose, wishing he could have given it a proper thrashing.  But what would he do if he cornered it?  That would be a time when Scraps would come in handy.  The two of them would rip it apart, and unlike the diaper, they’d be heroes.  Saviors, and proud vanquishers of the scourge of the land.  

Pancho felt his tail wag at the vision of a mongoose trapped in a corner as he and Scraps tore into it.  He almost let his mind runaway--almost forgot to look.  No cars.  Always look!  He crossed, sniffing a dead bufo toad flattened in the center, and then continued on to the familiar smells of home.  What’s this?  Another mongoose!  But no, it was only Sade, Radha’s snooty cat.  Pancho’s tail was held in a high-hello as he approached the feline.  

They politely sniffed one another’s noses and asses, upon greeting.  

“She up?” Pancho asked.

“Has been for the last half hour,” Sade answered.

“Food yet?”

“Still waiting.”  

Pancho wagged.  His favorite sound in the world was Kibbles spilling into the plastic garbage lid, and he was glad to not have missed it.  He walked around the catchment tank, passing Joel, who was still snoring in his tent.  He spotted Radha, and felt a warm glow of adoration spring like life through him.  My God, how he loved that woman.  She seemed, as usual, not in the mood for reciprocity.  Not even a head scratch after he’d licked both of her feet.  He looked up at her.  She seemed distracted.

“Where’s Scraps, Pancho?” Radha asked.  

Pancho looked the way he had come.

“Is he at the park?”

Pancho licked his lips in the affirmative.

“Krishna!” Radha exclaimed--her equivalent of cursing--and then sighed.  

Exactly. Pancho looked at her, blinking his thoughts.  He could hear hers plainly.

He watched her unclip Scraps’ collar.  Attached to a cable with a carabiner, it formed an oblong ‘O’ as she lifted it.  

“What time is it?” Radha asked, looking to Pancho.

You know I don’t have a watch.  

Through the canopy, they looked to the east for the sun, but the sky was all white with stratospheric clouds.  Neither Radha or Pancho knew how to distinguish one cloud from another, except that with these blanketing type of clouds, it was impossible to guess the time.

“You’re gonna have to look out for Scraps today, okay Pancho?” Radha asked.

She’d said his name, his second favorite sound.  He wagged his tail, eager to please, until registering what she’d said.  Look after him--as in watch Scraps?  Keep him out of trouble?  Radha, does it look like I have opposable thumbs to leash him up?  His tail dropped.  

“I’ve got to catch the bus,” Radha excused herself.  

Longingly, Pancho looked to the driveway, hoping Scraps would appear.  If Radha could leash him up, he’d be off the hook.  Pancho whined.  Scraps shouldn’t be his responsibility.  

“Okay, I’ll get you some breakfast,” Radha said.

At the word ‘breakfast’ he felt a rapturous joy course through him.  He didn’t notice the feeling or noise of his tail as it swung back and forth, thwapping against the bottom porch step.  

Then the sound.  Kibbles.  My God, it was nirvana, bliss, heaven.  His mouth watered like it had sprang a leak.  Sades emerged, noiseless as always in her approach.  Their collective dish, a trash can lid, was big enough for all three of them to eat out of at the same time.  Scraps was missing out.  The food would still be here when he returned, but it never tasted quite as good as when it was freshly poured.  

“Alright you two,” Radha said, looking to Pancho and Sade.  “When Joel gets up, try and convince him to look for Scraps.  I’ll leave the collar in front of his tent.”

Pancho licked his lips.  He’d try.  Joel wasn’t exactly easy to communicate with.  Pancho would think a thought clearly, and Joel would say, ‘what you thinking about, buddy?’ as if Pancho hadn’t been articulate.  Listen, you moron.  But like dogs, some creatures, old or young, just couldn’t put two and two together.  Pancho didn’t suppress the gloating haughtiness that welled up.  Joel might be human, but the kid was dumber than Scraps--much more inferior than himself.  

Radha slung a backpack over her shoulder.  It still smelled like chemicals--dangerous stuff.  He wished she’d stuck with that old one she’d found in the freebox, but one day, this new pack took its place.  Pancho blamed the bus.  Stupid bus.  As always, he experienced a pain, as he watched her walk down the driveway.  

He spotted Scraps’ collar.  That wasn’t right.  Radha said she’d leave it in front of Joel’s tent, but she’d hung it on a guava branch a dozen paces away.  Not only could Pancho not reach the collar, but Joel would never see it.  Even if he did, how would Pancho explain about Scraps?  Joel couldn’t comprehend something simplistic as fetching a ball, let alone the absence of his own dog.  That was the joke.  Scraps was supposed to be Joel’s dog.  Pancho knew he had to look out for them both.  He was second in line, Radha was alpha, and that’s just the way it was.

Sade ate hardly more than a handful of Kibbles, and then licked her paw.

“You are disgusting,” she said.  “Why do you always eat like this?  Just gobble, gobble, no dignity, no class.”

“Save it, Sade,” Pancho said, not even pausing to look up.  Cats could be such assholes, and Sade had a particularly distasteful superiority complex.  

Both cat and dog looked up as they heard the tent zipper.  A groggy Joel poked his head out.  

“Have fun telling him about Scraps,” Sade said, and pranced away.

“Not my problem,” Pancho called after her.  Sade’s tail twitched, a little fuck-you, he thought.

He felt a slap on his butt, and turned to see Joel looming over him.  The gangly guy had sprouted an inch over night!  Pancho wagged, looking up.

“Ho you faka,” Joel said, in greeting. “My mom leave already?”

Pancho wondered how Joel could have slept through the sound of the lid being filled with glorious Kibbles.  Yes Joel, she’s gone.  He figured Joel had probably been biding his time, just waiting for his mom to leave.  Pancho thought it was better that way.  In the mornings, they would argue about dishes, about something called ‘money’--apparently an important aspect of humanity which Pancho wasn't privy to--but more often than anything, they’d yell about personal responsibility, and Joel’s lack of it.  

Pancho agreed with Radha.  Joel wasn’t a pup.  He was nearly as tall as Jala, his father.  He’d sprang up, his smell changing, and it was quite apparent to Pancho that Joel should be the one carrying the Kibbles.  He should be the one throwing up his hands and walking away, not Radha.  Of late, when they argued, Pancho noticed that Joel was getting the last word.  Whatever that ‘not-water’ stuff that Joel drank made him stumble and stink like Jala used to.  But Jala was gone now, had been for a long time.  It was sad to see Joel smell and act like his father.  Yell at Radha, like Jala had.  Pancho had long since understood that sensible men and women had no business living with one another.  Packs needed strong alphas.  Radha was strong, but with Joel, and his sour smells, hollering nonsense, the pack was in flux.  Pancho was sure it was nonsense.  His voice would crack, and he’d just scream louder, talking over her.  Pancho would be at her side, in times like these.  His unwavering allegiance silently pledged, waiting for her to say that enough was enough.  He knew he wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but he’d bite a hole in Joel’s foot if Radha gave him the green light.

   

Joel was sizzling some bacon.  The smell was maddening, and as if on cue, Scraps came trotting down the driveway.  

With a glassy eyed grin, Scraps sped by Pancho and lept up on the back of Joel.  

Good morning Joel!

“Scraps!” Joel said, spinning and knocking the paws back down.  “No!  How many times I tell you: no jump.  Why you no listen?”

Pancho rolled his eyes as Scraps jumped up again, Joel grabbing his paws and dancing.  How was Scraps supposed to learn anything with such conflicting messages?  Don’t jump, but if you do again, I’ll give you my undivided attention?  Joel--what a joke.  Well, at least he and Scraps were on the same level.  Irresponsible idiots, both of them.  Not a lick of sense.  

“Hey, how’d you get out of your collar?” Joel asked, finally noticing the obvious.

In response, Scraps smiled and licked his hand.

“You gonna keep out of the neighbors trash?” Joel queried, but asked it in the least threatening, almost polite, tone.

Scraps wagged vigorously, an empty promise.  

Pancho didn’t particularly like Joel, but he felt that way about anyone who upset Radha.  Joel should be more respectful to his mother.

“That’s none of your business,” Sade said, eaves-dropping in on Pancho’s silent assessment of the teenager.  

“Excuse me, but it is my business.  This whole pack is my business,” Pancho said.

“We’re not a pack.  We’re a family.  You fancy yourself in charge, but you’re not.”  Sade’s green eyes challenged him.

“At least I try to do good,” Pancho said, ignoring the enigmatic look.  For a cat that supposedly didn’t like eye contact, she sure didn’t seem to mind burrowing holes into him.  “Joel doesn’t even try.  Especially when he drinks that not-water stuff.  He comes home smelling like death fumes.”

“Why does everything always come back to odor with you?” Sade niggled.

“Why do you ask rhetorical questions and tune out the answers?” Scraps shot.

“I’m trying to help your puny little brain expand.  Take a minute to catch up.  It wasn’t rhetorical,” Sade squinted.  She was sitting on the rocking chair in a mid-morning ray of sun.  Pancho admitted that she had a quicker wit than himself, but Sade never took chances.  She took no risks and stayed inside a fixed perimeter.

“What good does your vast intelligence do if you’re too scared to meet anyone new?”

“New?  Are you talking about the apes Joel brings over, or the tobacco saturated slobs that Radha snags?”

Pancho felt a jolt of anger, one borne of fierce loyalty to Radha.  Even if he didn’t agree with her taste in men, the cat shouldn’t slander anyone whom Radha chose.  Pancho was about to say something impulsive, but steadied himself, and decided, “You can be a scaredy cat.  That’s your prerogative, but you’re missing out.  Joel’s friend Pete is a good boy.”

“Are you talking about that bag of hormones with the cackling laugh--the one who yells?  Please,” the cat scoffed, and looked over to Joel who, just then, burned himself on the cast iron skillet and yelped.  “I wouldn’t let that kid’s friends pet me with a ten foot pole.”

“Pete gave me jerky--I didn’t even ask for it,” Pancho remembered.  “He just reached into the bag and tossed me a piece.”  He felt drool slipping down the sides of his lips at the memory.

“Glutton,” Sade spat.  She yawned, looking at Pancho as if he bored her.  “All anyone needs to do to win you over is give you a treat.  Isn’t that just adorable?”

If Pancho took the bait, he knew he’d regret it.  She often mocked his love of food, his undivided attention given to anything particularly savory smelling.  Pancho explained that he never begged, and she argued that his style wasn’t overt, but it was still begging.  Alright, so he wasn’t so subtle, but politeness had to count for something.  Sade said it wasn’t polite to stare.  Pancho told her that she only thought that way because of her mistrust, her insecurity and need for independence--touch on her terms.  Humans appreciated eye contact.  She disagreed.  They’d agreed to disagree after that.  Had they known about the evolution of their respective species, their discourse may have continued down interesting avenues, but like Radha, both were firm creationists.

Pancho’s attention was grabbed by the crunches of bacon.  Joel had given Scraps a scrap.  How dare he?  Human food--this was a breach of protocol, thought Pancho.  But an instant later he was running up to break the rules.  

“Okay, you too, faka,” Joel laughed and handed Pancho a strip of greasy goodness.  Maybe Joel was alright.  Pancho decided to socialize a bit with Joel, or at least not shun him as he went about washing his breakfast dishes.  Good boy.  

“You wanna cruise to the beach?” Scraps asked.

“Not with you,” Pancho said.

A peel of laughter rang out from the tent.  Joel must be playing on his Xbox in there.  Probably that game with the explosions and helicopters.  Pancho hated helicopters, and so did Joel.  Why was Joel laughing?

“Come on Pancho, it’ll be like old times,” said Scraps.

“Old times?  Like the last time we went, and you hopped in that truck, almost let them drive you away until I barked for you to get out?”

“Those guys were cool.  They would have taken me back.”

“Kibbles, Scraps!  That’s pure Kibbles.  Those guys would have dropped you off in town, and then what would you do?  They don’t know Radha or whose dog you are.”  Pancho didn’t like the avuncular tone of his thoughts, and then became distracted by a sharp itching.  He turned from Scraps to bite at something (please say it isn’t a flea!) on his haunches.  Above his tail, there was something crawling just beneath his thin fur, frustratingly difficult to get at.  Then his ear itched, and he lifted his back paw to scratch--so good.  

“Well, your loss,” Scraps said.  “I bet there’s all kinds of treats at the beach.  There was a kid with a ball last time and--”

“You’re not going,” Pancho interrupted.  

“What do you mean?” Scraps asked with his lopsided smile, ears slightly perked.  The look may have elicited a few coo’s from Radha, but it had never worked on Pancho.  In fact, Pancho hated him for the sheepish puppy-dog eyes.  Jealous, sure, but he wasn’t above jealousy.  Never claimed to be.

“Radha told me to watch out for you today,” Pancho said, sitting.  He tried to ignore the bug--it was a flea, damn it!--and project the confidence of unflappable authority.

“Watch me?” Scraps asked, and itched is own ear.  He tried to bite a fly out of the air--had he ever caught one?

“She wanted you back on the leash, but as you conveniently waited till she was gone before showing up, she told me to watch you.”

“Watch me, Pancho.  Watch me walk to the beach, if that’s what your darling Radha demanded.”

“Darling Radha?” Pancho asked, flabbergasted.  Scraps had said it in a spiteful tone.  Darling--where had he picked up a word like that?  How dare he profane the sacred connection between pet and owner?  “I don’t think I like your tone of insubordination.”  Pancho looked down his nose at Scraps.

Scraps returned a look of defiance.

“Later, daddyo,” Scraps said.

Another laugh and crashing sound tumbled out of the tent.  Stupid Xbox.  Pancho considered barking as Scraps walked away.  He started to growl.  “Scraps, get back here!”

Pancho emitted a small yip.

“Shut up, you faka!” Joel yelled through the nylon.

Scraps turned the corner and began trotting down Mapuana.  Not quite off the road, cuz fuck the rules.  He was done trying to be a good dog.  Cars would have to share the road.  Scraps was done listening to Pancho talk about obedience and respectability--what an old fart.

“Wait up,” Pancho said.

“Thought you weren’t coming,” Scraps said, pleased to hear the winded sound of Pancho wheezing.  Being a Boston Terrier would be a drag, Scraps thought.  Or maybe that was just Pancho.  He was an all around drag.  

“You’ll like Kehena when we get there,” Scraps said.  “You always do.”

On the mile walk, Scraps took pleasure in the wide eyed looks of disapproval from Pancho.  Every time a car would honk, or someone would yell, Pancho would give him that look.  Funny, really.  Meant to be threatening, but if it came down to it, Scraps could take him.  I mean really, a Boston Terrier versus… well, Scraps didn’t know what he was.  Bigger, more athletic.  Superior genetics.  

At the top of Kehena beach there were a couple of kids that were stopped from running over to greet the dogs--stopped from running into the road.  Scraps couldn’t help himself and sprinted over to introduce himself.  Pancho, cautious, stayed the course, nose to the ground on the opposite side of the road.

Scraps jumped up on the smaller boy, nearly toppling him over.  Instead of a scolding, he was encouraged, adored.  He enjoyed the rubs and love, looking across the street at Pancho who was pretending to sniff something at the base of a coconut tree.  Maybe there was something, but Scraps didn’t see how it could possibly compare to these wonderful boys and doting parents.

“Pancho!” Scraps called.  “Come say, hi.”

Pancho looked up, but then returned his attention to the tree.

“Pancho,” Scraps sang, taunting.  Pancho didn’t look.

Scraps was showered in human affection until the father closed the trunk and formed a link of clasped hands with his family.  They crossed the street as a unit.  Scraps went over to Pancho and sniffed the tree.  Nothing.

“What’re you sniffing?”

“Not sure,” Pancho admitted.  

“You didn’t need to come.”

“Yes I did.  Not for you, but for Radha.”

“Weak sauce,” Scraps said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I love her too, but I can take care of myself.  But, hey, even though you’re being a stick in the mud, I’m glad you're here.  Let’s go!”

Scraps hoped his enthusiasm for a race to the bottom of the cliff would be contagious, but he’d only made it fifty feet when he noticed Pancho.  He hadn’t moved, stretching in downward dog.

“Pancho, you coming?”

There was a rustle in the bushes across the street.  Because he was looking, Scraps saw the mongoose a second before Pancho.  It was on!  Pancho’s little frame was quick to pivot, and then he sprang forward, Scraps racing to close the distance.

The last thing Scraps remembered hearing were the clicks of Pancho’s claws slipping against pavement.  Somehow that sound, like plastic beads splattering on a marble floor, had been louder than the screech of tires.  It had been louder than the yelp of Pancho--a brief and halting sound.  Both tires--no!  No.

Scraps was there before the driver got out, whining.  Pancho wasn’t moving--why wasn’t he moving?  Pancho smelled funny--metallic.  That was when Scraps noticed that some of Pancho’s insides had slipped outside.

“Pancho, are you alright?” Scraps asked.  Pancho was messing with him, and so was the driver who was letting loose staccato bursts of disbelief.  The panic was uncalled for.  Scraps was sure everything would be alright.

Two flies began to circle around Pancho’s intestines, and Scraps smiled up at the man--the truck driver.  Shouldn’t he be putting Pancho’s insides back where they belonged?  This was getting ridiculous.

“Pancho, I’m sorry, but stop.  You’re freaking me out.”  Scraps didn’t like the trickle of unease that was filling him.  It tingled and made him feel like the time he licked a dead bufo toad.  He would have carried the toad home if Pancho hadn’t been there to warn him.  The toad was poisonous, dangerous.  Dangerous, Scraps thought the word.

As a fly landed on an open eye of Pancho.  Scraps stooped down to lick his friend’s nose.  

The frustrated man from the truck spoke a kind word of conciliation.  What it was, Scraps didn’t catch.  The man went into his truck, retrieved a blanket, and wrapped up Pancho.

“What are you doing?” Scraps asked.

The stranger gently lifted Pancho and lowered him into the bed of his truck.

“I’m sorry,” the man said.  

Scraps cocked his head, his ears lifting--the expression that Pancho hated.  The man smelled of fear and anxiety.  He climbed into his cab, and Scraps looked up at him, about to jump inside but wasn’t invited.

“No, you’ve got to stay here,” the driver said, and closed the door.

“What do you mean?” Scraps asked, but the truck was already pulling away.

Scraps took his time, cautious as he looked in both directions for oncoming traffic.  Dangerous.  He walked to the center of the road and sniffed the red stain--the stuff that had leaked out of Pancho.  The stuff smelled like Pancho, a little.  Scraps hoped Pancho wouldn’t be mad at him for not coming.  He was glad Pancho was getting help.  He sniffed again.  The glistening ooze smelled sweet.  He began lapping the blood, thinking Pancho would enjoy the taste.  Pancho, if only he’d live a little.