DP Tool Club 26/CD_ASCQ_26_1295.iso/vrac/df9511g.zip/6L

Text File | 1995-11-01 | 33KB | 781 lines

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 THE HELIX DOG
   by Franchot Lewis
 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


   In the early 80's Jimmy Lee had a Variety Store, a couple of
 doors down from the corner at 14th and P. He sold smokes a dime
 cheaper than the Asian. Five minutes before I was due to take the
 bus for my job at the post office, I found myself kicking shoe
 leather. For the second time in twenty-four hours I obeyed orders
 from my brain to restock my supply of nicotine. I rushed to Jimmy
 Lee's. It was eighty two degrees and not yet eight o'clock. My
 forehead dripped. The heat almost fried my butt. I went six blocks
 in a minute to save that dime and to give Jimmy Lee play and a
 holler. He was a brother trying to make it on dimes. He was having
 it hard.

   The moment I went into the store, I knew that something was
 wrong. There was no music. The radio wasn't on. The shop sounded
 dead. He had one customer when usually he had many. The one
 customer was an old lady wearing a gloomy bolo dress. Usually there
 are several young ladies, office workers, secretaries and clerks,
 wearing nice dresses, skirts and blouses, stopping by to buy Jimmy's
 dollar stockings before they went on to work.

   I looked around. The shelves were empty. I said, "Jimmy Lee,
 you need to restock."

   He didn't hear. The old lady asked him for something that he
 said he no longer had. She said: she'd come five blocks to buy
 from him. Jimmy said he was sorry, but that didn't help the old
 lady. She said, she now has to walk six more blocks to the Asian
 store. The lady left. Jimmy leaned on his counter and fumed. I
 glanced at my watch -- eight o'clock.

   Where were my Winston soft packs? Sold out for the day?

   I didn't see any smokes for sale. It took Jimmy a long time to
 answer me. He answered with a whisper, I had to strain my ears
 to hear him.

   "Jimmy Lee," I said. "What the matter, man?"

   His eyes looked glum and red. His face was long like he'd been
 beaten terribly -- like he had been turned into nothing but a
 young boy's piece of meat. "I've been burglarized," he said. "They
 cleaned my ass out." I hate to say it, but judging from the way he
 looked, he could have just as well announced that he had been
 buggerized.

   It wasn't the first time that his shop had been broken into to;
 he'd been hit three other times. Several of the other shops on the
 street also had been burglarized multiple times. Well, it is hard
 running a store in a low income neighborhood. It's like running
 backwards holding your third foot. And it gets harder still when
 the store owner is like Jimmy Lee -- and can't get insurance.


   Well, I told him that I was sorry. "I won't be able to get my
 smokes here today."

   "I'm not having it, " he spoke louder, his tone stronger -- his
 voice gathering strength and anger: "This has to be the last straw,
 this time I have to do something!"

   Outside on the street a car door slammed and I heard footsteps
 approaching the shop. I turned around and looked, an uniformed cop
 came into the door. The cop looked almost like Jimmy: same height,
 same build, same complexion, about the same age.

   "Is that you, coming here now?" Jimmy asked the cop.

   "I'm on duty, Cuz," the cop answered. "Just could get away."

   "Your own first cousin's problems aren't important to you, are
 they?"

   "You ate a bag of prunes or something and you're ready to shit,
 right?" Jimmy Lee's cousin smiled. "Say good morning?"

   "Right," said Jimmy Lee.

   "I told you to get a watchdog," his cousin said.

   Jimmy Lee reached under the counter and grabbed onto the handle
 of an ancient Colt 45 that his and his cousin's grandfather had
 owned. It belonged to their great, great grandfather, who did some
 Buffalo Soldiering in the Old West -- fought Indians -- and after
 the buffalo soldiering -- fought night riders who tried to drive
 him off his Kansas homestead. The gun was an old gun that looked
 old, like it hadn't been fired since right after the Civil War.

   "You're going to get yourself shot with that," his cousin
 warned.

   Jimmy Lee's eyes went wet. His face seemed to yowl; sputtered
 words: embarrassment, confusion, and anger. He lifted his head
 up to break his cousin's stare. He set his jaws, like I bet he
 had done when they were children. When he looked in my direction,
 his muscles tightened and he then focussed his eyes on the counter
 top. I thought I heard discretion telling me to leave. Jimmy Lee
 said his eyes were still wet from the sweat that fell into them.
 His shirt was soaked from all the perspiration and frustration he
 had worked up while cleaning up after the cracked-heads or the
 crack heads, or whatever simpletons or --ton who had broken into
 his shop and hauled off everything they/he could carry, and that
 included merchandise and coins from the video game machines.

   His cousin shook his head. "Get a dog." He laid his arms on
 Jimmy Lee's shoulder. "You open your shop on hard luck street,
 surrounded by thieves and simple people. You can get short
 tempered, but do not get short sensed."

   "Look at this store. I'm out of stock for the second time this
 month, not because I sold it but because some low-life skunks
 stole it and I'm tired of that," Jimmy Lee said, and slapped his
 hand on the handle of the old gun.

   His cousin waited before replying, gave the time he took to his
 eyes to let them survey the empty shelves, then when he did reply,
 he kept his tone low and easy. "Jimmy, before you do another thing
 you must stop, think inside and out. Think with your brain not
 with your emotions."

   "With my ass, right?" Angrily, Jimmy Lee smacked his fist hard
 into his hand.

   "Well, you're leading with your ass," his cousin told him.

   "Shit."

   "You got to work your frustration out; getting hot and getting
 a gun is no way to match wits with habitual thieves--"

   "I told you what I'm going to do and that's that," Jimmy Lee
 said.

   "You're going to upset your sleep and the rhythm of your life,"
 his cousin plead with him to re-think what he planned to do.

   Jimmy Lee said, "I've been on my own since I was seventeen, and
 this little store isn't much but it is a beginning. It's all my
 life's effort and I can't afford to just let somebody walk in here
 and steal it from me--"

   "So, you are going to sit here all night with that antique gun
 and--"

   "And?" Jimmy Lee finished the sentence. "Blow the heads off
 anybody who tries to break in here!"

   His cousin shook his head.

  Jimmy Lee said, "If I don't, do you know what the thieves are
 going to do to me? They are going to turn me into a bitch. I won't
 be able to buy food for my kids, or take my wife out for a meal.
 It will be hot-dog stand time for us. The thieves are trying to
 steal me down to my drawers. I'm going to have nothing. It is bad
 enough to have a business and lose it, but it is terrible, awful,
 if somebody just steals it away from you."

   His cousin tried to sound very reasonable, "That gun is a time
 bomb . . . ticking. It is your anger that is ticking it off."

   "You are talking through your ass. What do you know?" Jimmy Lee
 replied angrily.

   "Trouble has gnawed through your brain."

   Jimmy Lee rolled his eyes, said, "My rents increased. I get
 burglarized. Taxes are grinding into me. I get burglarized. I try
 harder and harder and I get more and more crap."

   "So you are hanging on a crucifix? So what? You want a special
 medal? Who said life is easy?"

   "The hell! What crucifix! I'm in a fix. I've got bills and no
 stock. I'm going to have to borrow to restock."

   "Don't let your brain keep sizzling like your temper -- and
 burn a hole in your head," said his cousin.

   Jimmy Lee stared hard. The heat from his eyes must have
 scorched his cousin some, because it did me. It felt like a gas
 furnace door had opened. I flinched and turned away. Discretion
 was yelling louder for me to leave. Jimmy Lee came after his
 cousin with disrespectful words, the kind spoken to set a fire
 under a man's balls. His cousin tried to be professionally cool.
 Jimmy wasn't having any of his cousin's coolness. Righteous anger,
 the sort that you hear preachers talk about in church, the white-
 hot righteousness that drove old Samuel to call Saul a bitch, and
 drove Jehovah to evict the fallen angels from Heaven.

   This righteousness is what ran Jimmy Lee's motors. He wanted
 to get his cousin angry too, and was pissed because his cousin
 hadn't come in angry. How dare his cousin not be angry, he was.
 His store had been burglarized again. He said that some criminal
 had his number, made him victim, tattooed the word `victim' on his
 ass, and that his own first cousin should have been pissed. Maybe,
 Jimmy Lee thought, that once the anger had been shared his misery
 would be lessened. He started to curse his cousin, calling him
 stupid, idiotic and a know nothing with a big mouth, but he
 couldn't continue with this.

   "Gotta stop this," he mumbled. This was no way to win over
 adversity. He couldn't continue. He couldn't. With a wild shout,
 letting the volume of his voice jump upward several octaves, he
 screamed: "Never again!"

   The heat got so much that I slipped out the door.

   Two nights later Jimmy Lee had his body hunched down in a chair.
 He snored. His lap held the old 45 Colt. His hand lay over it,
 reassuring him in his napping that the gun was within reach. About
 every fifteen minutes he woke with a start and cried out: "Who's
 there?"

   Through the night he dreamed; thought he heard noises at the
 front door, at a side window and at the back door. He jumped out
 of the chair, clutching the gun. Every sound he heard alarmed him,
 caused his head and his heart to thump, and his tongue to go dry.
 Everytime he checked there had been no one trying to break in, and
 he returned to the seat, and to his napping position.

   At 3AM he jumped with a start. He heard a pounding on the back
 door? Juiced up on adrenalin, he grabbed the gun, but he couldn't
 control it. It burst with fire.

   "Damn you! Damn you, damn you!" he shouted, to the persons or
 person on the other side of the wood and the metal of the back door
 -- who were/was trying to break in? The old Colt 45 did not stop
 until it exhausted itself, then, Jimmy Lee let it collapse, fall
 to the floor.

   Jimmy Lee swore he saw soot and ash around the holes in the
 wooden part of the door where the old Colt had blown bullets
 through. Jimmy Lee had raised Hell to defend his store, and he
 felt righteous, and spent.

   "Damn," he said. "I've done it. I've done it."

   He dared not open the door to confront what he thought he might
 have wounded or done worse. He called the police.

   The police arrived in ten minutes. They found no burglar. No
 sign of anybody being shot: no blood on the other side of the
 door. They saw the holes, found the slugs of the old Colt. Police
 Patrol Sergeant J. Pugsley, the ex-sergeant of Jimmy Lee's cousin,
 was the senior officer present. After he apologized for the gun
 control law, he confiscated Jimmy Lee's Colt 45.

   "It's a very pretty gun," the sergeant said. "But I must take
 it."

   "Why?" Jimmy Lee asked. "I only used it once and that was to
 frighten off burglars."

   "Used once in the heat of emotions?" The policeman said. "I wish
 I could brush this off, but the politicians would have my pension."

   Jimmy Lee said, "Why? Can't a shop keeper have a gun in his
 store?"

   The cop, "I can't see why not, but I'm not a politician. When
 I see something against the law I must do something about it
 whether I accept the law or not, as long as I am a policeman I
 must. I might be able to interpret here and there criminal intent
 but I accept the law. As it is now . . ." His voice trailed off.

   Jimmy Lee said that he understood.

   The sergeant concluded, "My advice to you is to get strong
 locks, put up iron bars."

   Jimmy Lee replied, "I did that. I had a whole new system of
 iron bars, gates, grates all around the back like I have on the
 front."

   "Why did you take them down?" the sergeant asked.

   "I didn't," Jimmy Lee said. "Somebody stole them."

   "How? Did you have the equipment properly installed with the
 bars cemented in the brick of the building?"

   Jimmy Lee said,"I did. I paid three thousand dollars to install
 that system and somebody came along and stole the whole thing."

   The sergeant shook his head.

   "What is a honest man suppose' to do?" Jimmy Lee asked.

   The sergeant said, "When I was with the canine unit I would
 loan my dog out for the night. I had old Shep, a big, mean ugly
 bitch-dog. She would sink her teeth into a burglar right into the
 seat of the denims or rip the shirt right off a felon's back,
 right down to the t-shirt, or tear into sneakers, clean through
 the socks to bare feet. No burglar wanted to confront Shep twice.
 I think biting burglars are good for a dog's teeth. It prevents
 tooth rot."

   Jimmy Lee looked so serious as he listened. Maybe a bit too
 serious, so the police sergeant winked, then smiled.

   Jimmy Lee asked, "You don't lend your dog out anymore?"

   "Not on K-9 duty any more," the sergeant said. "Shep's retired.
 When I get home from work and am feeling low, Shep comes and lies
 at my feet--"

   "You like that dog a lot?" Jimmy Lee said.

   The sergeant said, "Yes, we were a great team. And to a dog,
 that's the number one thing: making her part of a great team."

   "You think I should get a dog?"

   "Put good locks on the door first," the sergeant replied. "I am
 foremost a compassionate man. I wouldn't want some kid fooling
 around breaking in and getting bitten. It is the professional
 thieves. A good lock will weed out the kids from the pros and keep
 out the kids, a good mean dog will feast on the professional
 thieves. Eat them alive."

   Jimmy Lee said, "My cousin suggested that I should get a dog.
 I thought he was wrong."

   The sergeant said, "You can't go wrong with a good dog."

   "Maybe, you can help me pick out a good one, huh?"

   The sergeant nodded. "A little police community relations work
 when I'm off-duty, why not?"

   The next day after closing time Police Sergeant Pugsley knocked
 on the door of Jimmy Lee's Variety Store, and Jimmy Lee was happy
 to let him in. Jimmy Lee shook his hand, vigorously, and introduced
 the sergeant to me. I was at Jimmy Lee's because he wanted new bars
 and grates put around his store. I had just finished taking the
 measurements to write up a cost estimate for the job. Construction
 work was my part-time job. The work wasn't as steady as my regular
 job, sorting letters, post cards and packages, but I was working
 for myself, and my moonlighting job paid me a lot more money.

   I said, "I know Officer Pugsley. He loaned his dog to Old Victor
 who had the shop on Third Street three years ago."

   Pugsley let out a big laugh. "I remember that. There was this
 big colored dude with a record as long as my arm -- screaming his
 head off! Shep had his bejeemers clamped in her jaw and she would
 not let go. We had to let her keep that part of his trousers and
 jockey shorts she had bitten off. That dude didn't like Shep one
 bit. He didn't like the way her teeth felt bitting into his
 thieving hide!"  Pugsley laughed loudly. "You know something? I
 had previously arrested that particular gentleman fifteen times,
 and fifteen times I'd warned him that one fateful day he would
 have to deal with Shep. Shep and Shep alone."

   Jimmy Lee grinned. The thought of burglars getting bitten
 pleased him. He decided he would soon, for sure, have a mean dog
 guarding his place.

   "I want the meanest guard dog you can get me," Jimmy Lee told
 Pugsley. "The kind that bites through clothes and tears off chunks
 of a thief's flesh!"

   "Must stop at the cotton briefs," Pugsley said.

   "I want a flesh tearer!" Jimmy Lee said.

   "We train them to rip underwear only, unless the perpetrators
 continue to resist and threatens the dog, then the dog can revert
 to instinct."

   "Who's going to handle this dog? Jimmy Lee, you?" I asked.

   Pugsley replied, "Boss man will handle it. It will be his dog."

   "Yes. It will be my dog." Jimmy Lee said.

   "Won't you be afraid of a dog like that?" I asked.

   "I won't!" Jimmy Lee said.

   Pugsley said, "Who's afraid of his own dog? The dog might bite
 you once or twice until you train her--"

   "Bite ME!"

   Pugsley nodded, "While you are training the dog, before the dog
 gets use to you and knows you are the boss man."

   "I see." Jimmy Lee said.

   Pugsley smiled. "Once trained the dog will be won over by you:
 the man who is in charge of her, a real dog man, a man who cares
 for the dog, a man who will teach the dog courage, and who will
 go out of his way to take care of the dog. A good dog man! You can
 hardly find a good dog man around anymore, but that's the kind of
 man a good mean dog will work for and sacrifice her life for -- if
 that becomes necessary."

   Pugsley took Jimmy Lee out beyond the suburbs, way out into the
 country to a dog farm. They met Jack Talbert, the owner and chief
 trainer at the dog farm. Pugsley listed the qualifications he
 thought the dog for Jimmy Lee should have and Talbert said, "Gents,
 you are in luck. Bejesus! Do I have a dog for you."

   Talbert left the room and returned a few minutes later. When
 Jimmy Lee saw the animal that Talbert returned with, Jimmy Lee
 wondered if he hadn't made a mistake. It was a ferocious German
 Shepherd: a huge animal even for a German Shepherd -- a beast!
 When the creature saw Jimmy Lee, it growled a howl, a horrible
 sound, Jimmy Lee told me, was like something out of a nightmare.

   Jimmy Lee was taken back. When startled, cornered or frightened
 Jimmy Lee has a tendency to bark back a little sound himself, and
 he did bark at the dog, then a frenzied epithet: "Zeig Heil!"

   The dog quieted, stopped growling, stared at Jimmy Lee, then
 cowed.

   Jimmy Lee said with the absolute certainty of stating the
 obvious, "Just what I figured: it's a Nazi SS goon reincarnated
 as a dog."

   Jack poo-poohed that, and explained, "The dog is responding to
 the forceful positive of command."

   Jimmy Lee turned to Pugsley. "Really?"

   Pugsley nodded.

   Talbert said, "You presented the proper forceful attitude and
 the dog responded properly".

   "That's a big dog," said Jimmy Lee. He turned again to Sergeant
 Pugsley. "It is gonna cost a lot to feed this dog. Judging by how
 big he is, it's gonna take an effort to keep it from feeding on
 whatever it wants."

   Pugsley laughed. "On WHOEVER it wants?"

   Jimmy said, "On whatever it wants."

   Pugsley grinned. "This is the kind of dog a boss man wants." He
 slapped Jimmy Lee on the shoulder. "Right, boss man?"

   Jimmy Lee replied, reluctantly, "I guess so . . . right."

   Pugsley said, "Keep the dog in the back or outside behind the
 store until closing time. But, also, before you lock up, walk the
 dog up and down the block a few times to let the jitterbugs know
 you've got a dog who won't let them mess over you. Can't even spit
 where you walk without it growling at them and they'll have to
 deal with it."

   Jimmy Lee hedged, "Sergeant, maybe a more--"

   "A more what? A more placid dog? A more sissy dog?"

   Jimmy Lee finished his sentence, "A more manageable dog."

   "Boss man, what do you want?" Pugsley said.

   "Sergeant Pugsley, you're the expert."

   Once Talbert started to put the dog into the back of Pugsley's
 station wagon, the dog began to bark, and to growl, viciously, and
 bared its teeth. This caused a feeling of unease in Jimmy Lee's
 stomach that turned into a stomach ache. The dog kept carrying on
 like crazy. Pugsley tried to command the dog to stop. The dog kept
 growling. Jimmy Lee shouted another "Zeig Heil," but the dog still
 kept misbehaving. Sergeant Pugsley shouted at the dog too, and it
 continued growling viciously.

   Finally Talbert said, "I better muzzle her for now."

   "Good idea," Pugsley agreed.

   Talbert said to Jimmy Lee, "Part of your training for the dog
 is that you must be the only one to take the muzzle off. She must
 learn that."

   All during the trip back to the city Jimmy Lee heard his
 stomach grinding and grinding, felt his tension climbing and
 climbing, scaling the distance from the pit of his belly up to
 the top part of his torso, pulling his muscles up into knots. Jimmy
 Lee wondered how he had gotten into this situation. He knew nothing
 about dogs, just that they bite people and shit on the street. And
 there he was -- he had written a big check, had taken possession
 of a dog-monster. And only a thin leather thong of a muzzle stood
 between him and vicious canine teeth.

   Jimmy Lee squirmed in the front passenger seat, crammed his
 head forward and to the side to look into the rear view mirror at
 the monster in the back. The dog's eyes pointed straight up at him,
 and those eyes did growl too. The leather muzzle looked to be very
 thin.

   Pugsley glanced up and glimpsed the look on Jimmy Lee's face.
 He reached over, slapped Jimmy Lee on the shoulder and said, "What
 are you thinking of, boss?"

   Jimmy Lee said, "That damn dog behind me. Muzzle or no muzzle I
 don't trust him."

   Pugsley laughed. "Don't go browning up the back of your pants.
 I'll help you train her."

   Jimmy Lee sighed. "Thanks."

   Pugsley said, "We'll go little-by-little, step-by-step until
 you've gotten it."

   Jimmy Lee looked grateful again. Pugsley smiled.

   Back at Jimmy Lee's shop, Pugsley suggested, "We should put the
 dog in the store for tonight."

   "Good idea," Jimmy Lee said.

   The dog was growling, had been growling all the while. Pugsley
 took the dog by the collar firmly, got a good grip and guided the
 dog into the store. Pugsley said, "Tomorrow I'll help you take her
 out and after work we'll start the training."

   Jimmy Lee said, "Good." The sergeant smiled, and Jimmy Lee asked,
 "You're going to take the muzzle off him?"

   "A dog wouldn't be worth a good kick of the boots if she can't
 show her teeth. We want a burglar to stare down this dog's jaw into
 hell. The muzzle blocks the opening to hell. The muzzle has got to
 go."

   "You're going . . . going to -- the first time, right?"

   Pugsley looked at Jimmy Lee, then he spoke to the dog, "Want
 your muzzle off, dog?"

   The dog growled. Pugsley held tight to the dog's collar. "Look,
 you big strong dog bitch, I am the supervisor here." He tightened
 his grip on the collar, increasing, stretching the tension around
 the dog's neck. "Don't get any ideas about biting me. Bite me and
 I'll kick your butt."

   The dog growled.

   Jimmy Lee winced. "Is this how you handle it?"

   Pugsley said, "This dog is a bitch dog. She must be taught
 who's the boss." He tightened his grip on the collar, and before
 he continued to address the dog, Pugsley let out a growl of his
 own. "I'm going to remove your muzzle. I expect you to remember
 your training: chomp on the bad guys, but not to mess with the
 bad-ass guys like me who command you, dog."

   The dog growled. Pugsley slapped the dog on the head, looked
 her in the eye. "See that man there," Pugsley pointed to Jimmy
 Lee, "He is the boss man, don't chomp on him, and you know -- you
 better not chomp on me."

   Then expertly, quietly, without another harsh word, Pugsley
 removed the dog's muzzle. He held tight onto the dog's collar. The
 dog began to bark fiercely and to growl and to show its teeth. All
 the time the dog did this Jimmy Lee moved backward toward the door
 slowly. He told me his feet built up a good head of steam, just in
 case he had to make a run for the street. He was thinking, that
 animal was capable of taking the skin off like a razor.

   Pugsley was in his element, enjoying himself immensely. He held
 onto the dog's collar and took long hard stares at the dog. He
 growled as the dog growled. He barked as the dog barked. He held
 onto the huge animal, and as the dog moved left, he moved right;
 as the dog howled, he howled. Pugsley guided the animal in his own
 tried and true way.

   Then he returned to threats. "Bite me, dog, and I'll kick your
 hide raw!"

   After a bit the dog quieted down and Pugsley said, "Don't get
 too relaxed. Now, you've got work to do."

   The dog barked. Pugsley released the dog and she immediately
 began to circle and to bark at Jimmy Lee. Pugsley grabbed the
 dog's collar quickly.

   "Listen, didn't I tell you he is the boss." Pugsley barked the
 words at the dog. "Don't mess with the boss man. Mess with those
 who mess with the boss man." Pugsley let the dog go. This time she
 just glared at Jimmy Lee and growled quietly.

   "You're set for the night," Pugsley told Jimmy Lee. "You can
 lock up now."

   "Thank you," Jimmy Lee said. "Thank you a lot."

   Nothing prepared Jimmy Lee for what he found the next morning.
 He found nothing. His store was cleaned out -- broken into and
 cleaned out. All his merchandise -- gone -- and the dog too!

   Jimmy Lee couldn't believe it. When he first saw what had
 happened. He couldn't speak. It was like somebody had dumped a
 bag of shit down his throat -- left-over from fertilizing the
 crime growing in Jimmy Lee's neighborhood.

   Sergeant Pugsley arrived at the store just a few minutes after
 Jimmy Lee. When he saw what had happened, tremendous disgust rose
 on his face. "What in the hell did Jack sell you!" he shouted.

   Jimmy Lee looked too upset to answer.

   "A stupid dog!" Then Pugsley howled, "Wait until I see Jack!"

   Jimmy Lee looked like he was going to cry.

   Pugsley said, "Fellah, you have a refund coming. I'll see to
 that."

   Not much later, I came by. I had the day off from my regular
 job. I had been up all night drawing up my bid on the work Jimmy
 Lee needed done.

   "Omigod!" I said. "Who?"

   "Some little shits," Sergeant Pugsley hissed, like he was
 going to strangle somebody, then he thought about what he was
 saying. "Yeah, maybe it just isn't the boss man's day." He looked
 like he was ready to leave. Jimmy Lee gave him a stare that said,
 Big Deal.

   "There are other dogs," Pugsley said.

   Jimmy Lee looked like he wanted to get rid of Sergeant Pugsley.
 His eyes said to the officer: Just leave.

   Pugsley left, said that he had to make roll call.

   Jimmy Lee's face looked grim. I thought I should go. I said,
 "Jimmy Lee?" And he answered, too quietly. Probably . . . maybe
 he was getting used to being kicked in the ass and didn't have
 enough energy left to yell.

   "This isn't a lot of fun," he mumbled.

   That is when he told me that the watch dog had been stolen too.
 I said, "You shouldn't have gotten a mean dog."

   He said to that, "Real cute."

   "Next time get a more adjusted dog. With a mean dog, people just
 feed them, and they might go with anybody who feeds them," I said.

   "Hey, get it, there won't be a next time. This time was it. This
 is not a lot of fun. This was right tight shit, no fun. And it
 really isn't easy to handle. I'm broke. No more dough. There is no
 place to go for dough."

   "I know, I have been there before," I said.

   "I'm going to have to go out and get a job."

   "Don't do that." Then I suggested that he should talk to Old
 Mr. Sam.

   "The numbers guy . . . gambler?" Jimmy Lee asked.

   "The old numbers guy. He is a cool business man and he helps
 people too."

   "I have never dealt with loan sharks."

   "Sam is no loan shark; he charges less than bank rates."

   "He's crooked."

   "Sam is no crook."

   "If he got his hooks in me, he would bleed me for sure."

   "I can see why you're broke, you don't listen," I said.

   Jimmy Lee muttered something. I could see he wanted the
 introduction to Sam, but he was full of misinformation and his
 own prejudices were twisting around in his gut. I wanted to help
 him and so I pushed him a little harder to talk to Sam until he
 snapped at me. "I'll lose this store to him."

   I laughed real loud and Jimmy Lee began to shake. I knew that
 must have hurt. I apologized.

   Jimmy Lee said, "But I need money for everything."

   "Talk to Sam."

   "Alright," he said. And gushed a loud breath of air.

   Later that morning I spoke to Sam and he asked if it would be
 okay to come around to Jimmy Lee's store that afternoon. I called
 Jimmy Lee and a time for the meeting was arranged.

   Sam was sixty-seven or sixty-eight, almost seventy. There was
 much of the wise and tough, old uncle in his personality. He told
 me a while ago that his hobby was people. He liked to observe
 people and to help them if he could, and that he only lent money
 to people who deserved it. These were people who wanted something
 out of life and weren't lazy and who would pay him back so that he
 could help others. He said that he only made a modest profit from
 his loans; the banks paid him more on his certificates of deposits
 than he charged his borrowers.

   Sam greeted Jimmy Lee as he would a brother, and said that he
 had walked by Jimmy Lee's store many times; and was sorry that he
 hadn't come in before now. He had planned a while ago to come in
 and buy something, but was glad he had been invited in to talk.

   "I understand you have had some problems with break-ins?" Sam
 asked.

   "Yes, and they stole my watch dog."

   "Those things happen, but you must go on."

   Sam and Jimmy Lee talked about the store for a while, and Sam
 agreed to make the loan. Then, Sam said, you must do something
 more about your security.

   "I am going to have bars put up."

   "Good, but bars aren't enough, man. The lazy boys today are so
 wicked. They eat through bars like they're candy, bite clean
 through them with their nasty teeth. I know you have been getting
 the short end of things, and if you would let me, I'll get you
 what you need to protect your store."

   "The police took my gun away," Jimmy Lee said.

   "No guns, man. Police don't want to see a brother with a gun.
 You need more than a gun. The lazy good for nothings have guns.
 They'll shoot you, man, before you can shoot them. Suppose you
 wounded one of them? Their no-good greedy lawyer will sue you,
 man. I've found the best security for a place like this is a good
 watch dog."

   Jimmy Lee said, "But they stole my watch dog."

   "They've never stolen any a mine."

   Jimmy Lee mumbled, "You've been lucky."

   Sam smiled. "God has blessed me; let Him bless you too. Let me
 put one of my dogs in here and your problems will go."

   I asked Sam, "The Helix dog?"

   Sam smiled. "Who told you?"

                                {DREAM}

 Copyright 1995 Franchot Lewis, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
 Franchot is a writer who keeps an eye on Government, he lives in
 Washington, DC. Email to: [e-mail]
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