L.A. Success (2 page)

“Hear about Alice?” he asked. Alice
was the special or challenged or gifted—whatever means not too bright now—woman
who lived on our street. She was nice, but she had a short memory. She kept
asking me if I was going to plant some grass. She asked every week. And then,
just to mess with her, I said I already had and it was going to need mowing soon.
For months after that she would stop to stare at it every time she passed by,
looking really close for the blades. Then she started over again with the
planting question. I couldn't avoid her because she was always going up and
down the street when she walked all the neighborhood dogs. She did other stuff
that cracked me up. One day, when traffic was routed through our neighborhood
because of the presidential visit, Alice went out into the intersection and
started directing the traffic, sending cars left and right. And since none of
those drivers had ever been down our street, they just did what she told them
to, running the stop signs and everything.

“Nah, I been busy,” I said.

“Her uncle found a group home for her.
They thought her being alone all day might not have been the best arrangement.
I'm happy for her, but I have to admit I don't know what I'm going to do with
Buster while I'm at work.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

“Well, I was thinking. Just temporarily,
perhaps, it might take your mind off things to walk Buster. Given that you've
not already found something to distract you, of course. It sounds ridiculous, I
know, but Alice actually charged us a fortune, so it wouldn't be that big of a
waste of time.”

The other thing I remembered about
Alice was the bunch of pink plastic gloves she kept tucked in her pocket. For
the poo that she didn't touch.

“I got something right now,” I said,
hoping he wouldn't ask me what. It sounded like a good idea, but I needed a
night to decide if I could deal with the gloves.

“No prob. Again, hope you're feeling
all right. We'll get together for a drink soon.” And he was off.

4

After sleeping on it, I decided I
was going to walk that dog. I needed distraction and money. I hadn't given up
on the Arnold plan, and the shirt I had was getting smelly. Two more days at
the most and I would need a new one, so I had to make a little cash.

That evening, when Tim's restored
Mustang came tooling down the street, I walked down to talk to him. He was
looking at some letters he had pulled out of the mailbox when I arrived.

“Hi Lonnie. Feeling okay?” he asked.

“I'm surviving. Just wanted to see
about Buster. I'm thinking of walking the little bastard after all,” I said.

“Well, sure. That'd be great. It'll
help me out a lot.”

“So what did you give Alice to do
it? I mean walk Buster.”

“I gave her thirty dollars a week to
take him out in the mornings and afternoons.”

I calculated the math on that and I
was thinking it wouldn't be worth it. Tim could see I wasn't going to go for
it.

“But you should consider that
everyone on this street is in the same position as I am now that Alice is gone.
There are twelve dogs that need to be walked. Alice took them four at a time, a
total of about three hours a day.”

Damn, that gifted Alice was smarter
than I'd thought. That was tax-free money.

“That's great. I'll walk them all,”
I said, still counting money in my head.

“Sounds good. I'll phone the
neighbors and tell them I have someone. Come by my place in the morning and
I'll give you the list.”

“Can you spot me a little?” I asked,
and he said no problem. He gave me the first month in cash. And like that I had
a job.

I went down to the pier to get some
new Arnold shirts. Then I picked up some hamburgers and fries to go from
In-n-Out, and some bottles of booze. I made it back home just after sunset.

While I ate, I thought about my
schedule for the next day. I had to get up early because Tim worked regular
hours. I had been staying up late forever, so I decided to get sloshed so I
could fall asleep before midnight. But when the time came, I didn't feel tired,
even with the booze. My mind was racing. I hit play on the frog CD and got into
bed anyway, and everything in my head got flushed out when I heard the hypnotizing
barking, as if I had taken a strong sleeping pill.

In the morning I put on a fresh
Arnold. I figured I'd go get the list fast and then come back to eat breakfast.
Tim was pulling out of his driveway as I came down the street. He stopped,
pulled back in, got out of the car, made some gestures with his hand like he
was pointing up in the air, and ran inside. He came out a few seconds later
with a piece of paper and a key chain full of keys.

“I almost forgot about you. I'm in a
rush. Here are the people who need their dogs walked. I wrote down the names of
the dogs and their breeds, along with vet numbers, should anything happen. And
here are the keys.” He handed it all to me, got back in the Mustang and hit the
road.

At ten o'clock I went to get my
first four dogs: two weimaraners, a beagle-looking mutt, and a terrier. Before
I even stuck the keys in the locks, they were at the other side of the door
waiting for me, making dog noises. I wondered if they'd be disappointed when I
opened the door and they didn't see Alice, but they didn't give a shit. I liked
that. I could've been a dirt bag or something and they would've wagged and
wagged their tails anyway.

Everybody had left leashes by the
door, but as I was walking down the street with the mutts, I realized what I
was missing. We came to a sweet lawn and one of the weimaraners kind of rounded
his back and looked like he was going to stand up on his back legs, but he
froze when his front paws were really close to the back ones. Then he got this
queer look on his face and stared right at me. And then the turds. They were
big, those turds. I was thinking, okay, I gotta go get a trash bag and use that
until I can get some poo-touching gloves. So I was walking away when I heard
this crazy voice yelling in Mexican. I turned around and this fat woman came
running over from behind the bushes and pointed at the turds. I explained, but
she didn't understand. She kept pointing to the turds, saying “No leave, no
leave.” Every time I opened my mouth, she started up again with the “no leave”
and the pointing. So I took off my shoe, and she got all scared as if I was
going to throw it at her. Then I took off my sock. I put my hand into it and
scooped up the turds. I held that warm, steamy poo out as far from my nose as
possible and walked over to the nearest trash can. I didn't keep the sock. That
lady didn't even say
gracias
.

The next dog that wanted to take a
dump got a little kick in the ass, followed by a sprint to my yard. I got the idea
of letting all the dogs crap on my lawn since I didn't have any way to pick the
stuff up. I stood there with them in front of my house, but they refused to
cooperate. I knew they were dying to do their business, but they had to walk
around and get inspired by a nice lawn first. Okay, I guess I kind of do that
in my own way with the sex, so I understood. We walked around for a while, and
whenever one of them would arch its back and get that crazy look, I'd kick it
in the ass and take off running to my place. At the end of the day, I had a
dozen or so piles in front of my house. I'd had enough of dogs for a while, so
I just left the turds there.

5

Tim had been right about how the
dogs would help me take my mind off things. It's like everything was falling
into place, and my days were nice and broken up now. I'd wake up, have some
breakfast, and then wash an Arnold, usually in the sink unless I had a whole
load of clothes to do. Then I'd take my morning dog walk, eat lunch, and take
the afternoon dog walk, this time with my Gatorwine or Gatorbooze. Then after
dinner and a little bit of the tube, the frogs would bark me to sleep. I was
thinking this setup was pretty sweet.

I was glad to have a routine. If you
don't have something interesting in life, you need a routine. It substitutes
nicely. Right before the dog walking, I had thought about taking up smoking so
I could have a routine. Imagine a really addicted smoker guy. No matter what he
does throughout the day, he has to stop to go smoke every thirty minutes. So
he's sitting around thinking about how much life sucks, and after a while he
says “time for a cig!” so he puts all that on hold and puffs away. Then he says
“hmm...what was I thinking about? Oh yeah, life sucks.” He's got emotional
hills and valleys. But me, I wondered if I would be a good smoker. You can't
just take it up like that. If you don't have the will power to start with a
pack a day, you have to ease into it slowly. Maybe try the nicotine gum, and
then do a couple of cigarettes a day and work up from there. I didn't have time
for all that.

6

Over the next couple of weeks,
things started to get pretty blurry. My consumption of booze increased a lot
because I was feeling frustrated about having been dumped and I didn't know how
to deal with it. I kept up the routine as best I could, but now I was getting
an occasional surprise.

One evening Mrs. Oldhag came over
and knocked at my door.

“Hey baby, nice to see your old
bones,” I said. I was thinking she'd like this because she was old and crusty
and probably never got called baby anymore.

“Mr. Herisson,” she said, “I was
totally against the recommendation of your services, but took pity on your
current state when it was explained to me, by the only neighbor who appears to
care about your feelings, that you were currently 'down and out'.”

“Thank you, Mrs...” I stopped myself
from saying Oldhag, which is what I called all the oldster women in the
neighborhood.

“But I must now inform you that you
are never to walk my dog again. I've come here to pay you what I owe you and
end our agreement. Mrs. Jurgensmeyer will doubtless be over to do the same.”
She took a couple of bills out of her designer purse and held them toward me. I
took them with a smile.

“Thanks Mrs. Oldhag,” I said. Oops.
She puckered up her lips and squinted when she heard that. “Hey, wait a minute.
Why can't I walk your dog anymore?”

“Twice this week I have had to
retrieve Mr. Noodler from the Jurgensmeyer's house when I returned in the
evening. Grey, Mrs. Jurgensmeyer's weimaraner, destroyed several articles of
clothing and chewed on various pieces of furniture in my house, where you
misplaced him.”

“Look, I'm sorry, but it won't
happen again. Those two weimaraners look a lot alike. I'll start looking at
their tags before I bring them back so I won't mix them up,” I said.

“My Mr. Noodler is a dachshund, Mr.
Herisson.”

So I guessed that had settled it. I
went and got her the key to her place, and she left.

I had Mrs. Jurgensmeyer's key ready
for her when she arrived. I just handed it to her without saying anything, and
even though I must have looked all pathetic, she didn't care.

“Mr. Herisson,” she said. “My nephew
Franky will be walking the dogs from now on. You may give me all the keys,
except for Tim's. He alone has decided to remain your client.”

“Okay, look, I messed up this week.
Your dog chewed on some stuff, and that's not cool. But I won't do it again.”

“You have long been aware of our
collective feelings about your residence. You have done nothing, even after our
insistence, to beautify your home. As a result, the value of all of our homes
on this street has decreased substantially. Did you think we were going to
continue to pay you to make your home even less desirable by leaving dog
excrement all over your lawn for weeks at a time?”

“I picked all that up. That's not
fair!” I said.

“You've picked it up only one time
in over three weeks. I'm not here to argue with you. It is, after all, my dog
and my choice. The keys, please.”

I handed her the keys. I gave her
Tim's key as well.

“He can walk Buster, too. One dog
isn't worth my time.”

“Good evening, Mr. Herisson,” she
said in a way that made me understand she didn't think I deserved to be called
mister.

7

One afternoon I was looking for something
to watch on TV when the doorbell rang. I looked over and could see the shadow
of someone through the window. I had no idea who this could be, and I didn't
really want to talk to anyone. Also, I wasn't wearing shoes and I was thinking
that to cross through my living room I was going to have to step on a lot of
trash. But at the same time, I had a real mystery here. Who was going to ring
my doorbell at this time of the day? Everybody was supposed to be at work. I
stood up, and, instead of lifting my feet to walk, I just slid them forward. I
made a path through the cans, bottles and pizza boxes all the way over there.
Then I patted down my crazy hair and unlocked the door.

“Who the hell is it,” I said as I
opened the door. I like to keep the upper hand on these kinds of surprises, so
I always act all pissed off as if I don't want to be disturbed because I'm in
the middle of some important crap. But then I had this dude in front of me who
was throwing off my tough-guy act with his bizarreness.