associated in random thought

sunday dog meeting

what an idyllic sunday it is. we awoke this morning without an alarm clock, and began the day lazily, with french toast, scrambled eggs, and rutamaya coffee. (nashville: you are missing out on this delicacy.)

we took our breakfast on the patio, as the stereo played a fantastic ibook playlist through the windows. rolling stones, kings of leon, kanye west, air, sufjan stevens, and the flaming lips: this was our church music.

helen soon took to repotting plants, as i did a little research for a short story i'm about to write. of course, i soon grew weary of that, and took the dogs out to play.

in our complex, we have a daily social gathering called "the dog meeting". it is, as its name suggests, a meeting of the dogs. and we've got so many now. i bring my charley and helen's lucy (the australian shepherd/dachsund mix). dottie brings her poodle, noelle. always by her side is tom, a tall gay man, with his lab mix, skeeter. skeeter and charley chase sticks together, while lucy watches from the sidelines. maureen comes by in her sunglasses and pink lipstick, with her old britney spaniel, beau. and red-headed patrick arrives soon after, dragged by his golden retriever pup, jordan. the dogs frollick together like a motley dog race, charley leading the pack around the little fields. the humans watch, like we've all placed bets, and we gossip.

drunk jim, as we call him, has recently decided to join the dog meeting, by adopting an indistinguishable mix of a mutt, moe. he's a loud old man, who perpetually carries a black traveler mug full of some sort of alcohol. sporting a nearly full set of teeth, jim mumbles loudly in a jovial sort of way. he calls me tinkerbell. i have no idea why. he often asks tom what kind of dog skeeter is, and tom replies, with his black lab at his feet, "oh, he's a standard poodle." this satisfies jim. "great disposition, them poodles," he says in garbled words.

jim adopted moe out of loneliness, i think. you can often see him sitting outside on a bench, waiting patiently--sometimes for hours--for the dog meeting to begin. he has yet to buy his dog a leash; moe sits at his feet with a brown extension cord tied around his shelter-issued collar. yesterday, i caught jim on the bench with a dog's worth of moe fur piled around him. "i justa brushed'em," he mumbled, requisite cackled laugh following. "he sure gotsalotta hair on'em. yep!" i nodded. jim continued to brush moe diligently, puffy red hand gripping a woman's round brush.

the gossip surrounding drunk jim is legendary. some say he is rich, having recently sold some property in hyde park: THE place to live in austin if you're cool. our nextdoor neighbor rachel says that he has cancer, and is undergoing chemo, which is hard to tell, considering his naturally fuzzy bald head. jim himself tells stories about living in reno when he was young, chasing the ladies back when he had a full head of red hair.

none of us know what to make of drunk jim. one minute, he seems like a dirty old man, or an old crazy, but then he surprises you with kindness. tom said that jim flagged him down in the parking lot the other day, and shoved a wad of three sweaty dollar bills into his hand. "it's treat money," jim told him. "yer always givin them dogs treats, an i wanted to share in the cost."

then, the other day when we were under storm warnings, jim knocked on the doors of everyone of his building, alerting them to the imminent hail storm. "get yer cars under cover," he mumbled. immediately, i watched people frantically parallel-parking their cars under trees. and then the hail came.

Posted by bananie at April 17, 2005 4:07 PM