Chapter 6: The Morning After. Sunday 6am, Tom Riley's bedroom.
It woke me up when Tom climbed over me to get off the bed and pulled on his white boxers. He left the room then came back a few minutes later from the bathroom. Like me he didn't shave every day, it looked like he only shaved once a week, and just on his chin and under his nose but he had some black peach fuzz growing by his ears.
I still had 70 minutes until I needed to have Mom's car back in the garage. He had me gather all my stuff and we went outside and got in my car. We drove to Star's and parked in a specific parking spot around the side. He mumbled that they opened in 40 minutes and we had to move quickly. He said the owner didn't want us taking seats from his breakfast regulars.
We parked near the corner of the retro looking stainless steel and glass diner and walked around back, he pounded on the heavy kitchen door. The area behind the diner stunk like used fryer oil.
The door opened and a smiling older Hispanic man appeared, I assumed was the other owner. They spoke briefly then Tom gestured for me to follow. We moved quickly across the cramped but clean back kitchen, past the dish washer, and out the swinging stainless steel doors into the empty diner with lots of shiny chrome, wooden booths, four tables, and two long bars with swivel stools mounted to the floor.
I've been here before but never saw the place empty. Plus on those visits I came in through the front door, we entered through the back door so I got turned around briefly.
Tom had me sit on one of the stools near the grill and steam table, everything was turned on, hot, and ready to use. He immediately cooked breakfast for two: fried eggs, toast, hash browns, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. He was very skilled on the grill, looked like he's cooked lots of eggs. I was super hungry but kept quiet while he set silverware and all the other necessary stuff in front of me. He placed two tall glasses of ice water, a bottle of Cholula, a bowl of coffee creamer and sugar packets, ketchup, and a chrome rack loaded with plastic tubs of jelly. He never asked me what I wanted for breakfast; he just made his regular, twice.
I spun myself around on the stool to look around the diner. It looked like something from the World War Two era when a burger and fries cost fifteen cents and a small house in Amarillo probably cost eight thousand bucks, I saw the table I sat at on my spy missions here. On this visit I finally saw the sign for the bathrooms, the small jukebox, and the little windows in the ceiling I never noticed before. I think this diner was designed to look like it used to be a rail car but I think he said it was built in a factory and delivered here by semi-truck like a double-wide mobile home, but this place had the kitchen enlarged later on. I eyeballed the inside dimensions of the diner at 24ft wide and 80ft long.
While he got breakfast started I walked down to the far end of the counter to use the bathroom. They had a small corner with two doors, one for each sex. The bathroom was tiny, just a standard toilet and a sink. On the wall was a mirror with an old light bulb and a paper towel dispenser. Just outside the bathroom doors was the small juke box that held 200 CDs. One song was ten cents to play but it had a sign saying it was out of order.
Back on my stool I saw the eggs pop and sizzle on the griddle and saw two piles of hash browns cooking nearby. The toaster popped-up four slices of bread, he rolled them across the butter wheel and cut them in half. Next, he set out two oval white dinner platters. He asked if I drank coffee and I said yes, so he quickly grabbed a heavy white mug and held it above the griddle and asked if I used cream or sugar. I said yes, so he reached over and tossed a spoon up into the air. It cart wheeled through the air and he caught it in the empty mug (with a loud KLANG!), then he turned around and slid it onto the counter in front of me. Next, he reached back for the coffee pot and filled my mug. I was impressed and then tried to peel open one of those coffee creamers and two packets of sugar. I mumbled "show off!' but he was moving too fast to respond.
Less than two minutes later two identical plates landed on the counter. Tom dashed around the counter and sat beside me, we silently ate our food. He ate fast so I picked up the pace too. With a mouth full I told him it was good. He nodded yes but kept shoveling in the food, he kept glancing up at the old clock on the wall. We each ate a small pile of hash browns, two eggs-up, four pieces of white toast, coffee, orange juice, one sausage link, and a glass of water. Bacon was the only thing missing but he said it was too expensive for a free breakfast.
By the time I smeared grape jelly over the last slice I turned to him and admitted I was really full. Tom peeled open a packet of strawberry jam and used his spoon to spread it on his last piece of toast too. I took the last sip of coffee from the heavy white mug, "you want more?" he mumbled while chewing a mouth full of toast and jelly, I nodded no. He turned and glanced at the clock (6:29am) on the wall above the display case full of sliced pies. I was due home in half an hour. Tom started eating even faster. I cleared my dish and stacked everything on top of it, except the glasses.
Movement to our left caught my eye as the old guy walked across the diner to unlock the doors; the first customers of the day were starting to take seats at the counter near us. Tom went behind the counter and took all our dishes and set them in a tub on a cart by the swinging doors and wiped down the counter. I remembered seeing him run the dishwasher on my first spy mission here. My guess was his deal with the owner was we had to be out of the way by the time he unlocked the doors, we were about 90 seconds late. A couple of the customers said `hi' to Tom since he was an employee with a very familiar face. (Tom was the youngest diner employee and considered the cutest one too so he was very popular with the customers and many of them wanted to see him take over as the breakfast cook. He did fill-in if the regular cook needed to take a break.)
Tom told me before that the breakfast crowd was a bunch of regulars, many of them were retired and they've been eating at that diner for decades and always sat in the same spots along the counter so we cannot occupy those seats once the front door is unlocked. He said the core breakfast crowd basically pays the utility bills for the entire year, so the owner kisses their butts.
We walked out the front door (@0631) towards the car, he pressed his finger into my back like a pistol and reminded me to do exactly what he said, and I smiled and coughed at his silliness. We drove back to his place, Tom reached over and held my hand on the way and softly told me that he had a great time, he wanted me to come back soon. He held his hand like a pistol and pressed it against my chest and slid it around until he thought it was against my tit and reminded me even though he was letting me go I still had to do what he said, I agreed but didn't know if I should act scared or entertained. I had no experience with role playing stuff.
I dropped him off at the end of their driveway and drove back across town with mental images of his body and how his body tasted. Cooking breakfast for us was a very nice thing too, I really liked that. I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror at a traffic light on the way home and noticed I had a really dorky smile without realizing it. It's not that often I saw myself looking truly happy.
On the ride home I recalled the feel of his dick in my mouth and swallowing his come, I realized that all the stuff I worried would happen never did. All the conversations I wanted to have didn't happen either. Our date was more low-key than I expected. The way he talked about his last boyfriend made me think I'd end up getting fucked hard all night (aka: rode hard and put away wet), but I wasn't.
I parked in the garage with thirteen minutes to spare. I'm sure Mom's gonna look me over, check signs of rough play, white strings in my hair, rope burns, handcuff marks, bruises, etc. Crow will examine me with his nose and smell Tom and know exactly where I was all night and what I had for breakfast and where I ate too.
While the garage door slowly lowered I went in the utility room and immediately started a load of whites in the washer, then grabbed the dog bowls off the stand and scrubbed and re-filled both of `em. When Crow ate he drooled a lot, so his food bowl got a crusty ring that I scrubbed off every day. Great Danes were not big eaters but they are sloppy. People looked at Danes and assumed they ate as much as a Saint Bernard but that's not true. They ate about the same as a 70 pound dog. Danes are naturally low energy after they reached about two or three years of age, but before then watch out because they can be very destructive and anxious.
We learned not to feed him on the floor so Mom bought him a bowl stand, it's made of iron - like porch railings. It raised his stainless steel bowls to two-feet four-inches above the floor. Danes can get a condition called Bloat which was a dangerous (deadly) stomach problem that was usually fatal. It caused part of their stomach to get the blood supply cut off and then the only thing to do was put them down, so never let a Dane be physically active for an hour after eating and never feed them on the floor. To us it meant we could not leave food in his bowl so one of us always knew when he ate to help prevent Bloat. The best time was when the last person left the house and Crow would be inside alone for several hours. We usually fed him in the morning after his first trip outside. On weekends he usually fed himself after we ate breakfast.
Despite their size Danes are somewhat frail. It's like the dog concept taken to an extreme, so their size made them vulnerable to stuff other breeds tolerated well. Speaking of dogs I wondered where my dog was, I walked around the house and saw no sign of him. I even looked in the 3rd bedroom, which had a bed and dresser but everything was empty.
My mother's bedroom door was at the far end of the hallway, I saw the shadows of skinny legs prancing in place under her door so I tiptoed over and silently turned the knob and let him out, seems he spent the night in Mom's room. It's actually hard for him to get into her bed because it sat up high. Her bed top was about waist high for her, but her mattress was at least ten inches higher above the floor than mine. Crow had to get on her bed with a running leap. We discussed building steps or a ramp for him at the foot of her bed. I wanted to buy some boards and build steps and cover them with some kind of carpet for improved traction.
The biggest distraction (for the dog) in her room was her full length mirror which stood against the wall just outside her bathroom door. In that mirror I tried repeatedly to teach him it was his reflection, but he always reacted as if it was another dog (although I suspected he might have been showing off). He gave the other dog stink-eye as if he might suddenly attack. I really don't think he ever fully understood it was him and me. He's even growled at the mirror before. When she first got the mirror I brought him up close and turned the mirror around slowly so he could see there was no dog behind it, just a bare wall below the windows. The dog in the mirror was like a dog on TV. I don't think he ever fully understood the concept of his reflection, he hated the mirror but it still caught his eye. In a similar issue I showed him large photographic prints of himself and tried to teach him the Great Dane in the picture was Crow, but he didn't seem to understand (or maybe he didn't believe it was possible). I think he can see pictures but his eyesight just doesn't create much realism, so he lost interest quickly. Maybe I should introduce Crow to (his nose in) a small handheld mirror first, then move up to a bigger one. Or maybe connect the camcorder to the big TV and let him see himself on the sofa watching himself on the TV.
I often wondered during the day when he was home alone if he ever went into her room to challenge dog in the mirror. I was also devising a way of teaching him about mirrors by starting off teaching him about his own shadow first. I think the concepts of a reflection and a shadow would be almost the same in his brain: it looks like a dog but it's not real, has no scent either. It's hard for my brain to grasp how dogs think, living in a world where their primary sense is smell. I don't think dogs really trust their vision that much. Although I've seen TV shows that depict dog eyesight as not being hugely different from ours, maybe less detail and less color. So the question becomes do they discount their vision because it sucks or because they don't understand what they see in a world full of human technology? After all, dogs are kind of like creatures from long before the Stone age.
He went straight to the kitchen door so I let him out. Crow trotted around the back yard sniffing important spots before doing his morning business. I watched him thinking to myself, `...decisions, decisions...' I sat down on a lawn chair and waited. It's a world of smells to his dog nose, but I wondered what scents he found. I was pretty sure there were never any strange dogs in our yard. But he might also smell squirrel, raccoons, or possum, they live all over Amarillo. We also have white tail deer and occasionally coyotes in town too. A coyote is just a long-legged wild dog, just like a Zebra is just another horse with stripes. I've heard from neighbors that they saw coyotes run along the tops of the rock walls looking in yards for cats to harvest.
In Amarillo the population of stray animals was kept under control by the coyotes. Maybe that's what he smelled.
After doing his business Crow came to me and pressed the top of his head against my body and twisted it around like he was itching his face, then he touched his nose to my jaw, which was his way of saying he was glad I was safely back home and the pack was re-united again. I dragged my fingernails firmly up his back to see if he was shedding his summer coat yet, it was thin but yes he was starting to shed his summer coat. He loved having his back scratched, his skin flinched and he leaned into me so I could scratch him more, which I gladly did. I knew all his favorite itching spots and the more fur I removed outside the less I had to vacuum-up inside. He stood with his head pressed into my stomach for a minute while I scraped his back with my fingertips to loosen old fur. Mom and I figured out that the more protein he had in his diet the more fur he produced, the worse his shedding. I guess all that extra protein had to go somewhere, right?
We also figured out when he first begins to shed the old fur turns slightly dark brown. If you look at his back in direct sunlight at just the right angle he really turns a brown color, then I know it's time to start doing rub downs outside. His shedding starts at the top of his back near his neck and spreads over time. After the rubdown I picked up his fresh poop and dropped it in the trash can, double bagged. That is what we do with all our old plastic grocery store bags.
I leaned my face near his ear and told him, "Hi Crow!" which I know he understood. He knew that 'Hi' was a greeting for when you first arrived, I usually waved when I said it. Crow actually tried to speak a few words of English, 'Hi!' was his first word but it took weeks until I recognized what he was doing. He made a loud squeak every time Mom and I got home for the day, so I'm sure he knew it was a greeting. I asked visitors to say Hi to him when they came over but he only said it back to people he knew, like us and Daniel and sometimes to Bethany too. When Crow said Hi he always yelled it, I guess to show enthusiasm. Sometimes I got a vibe from him that made me think Crow had a very old soul and cared deeply about us, almost like a wise old grandfather. I'm sure he didn't like us talking to him like he was a child, but in our world he was only four years old so it was hard not to. I also thought his brain could feel embarrassment and did not like to be belittled or embarrassed.
And now months after the stabbing I think that event changed him a bit, he's more unfriendly toward strangers at our door, and when repair guys are inside he always stands in front of Mom, like a body guard. That is kind of what the breed was designed for, but it turned out they were too frail for police work.
Let me tell you that when people visited it took some extra effort to explain the dog situation to avoid problems. Sometimes we had to lock him in a bedroom. When it came to visitors he always wanted to meet them, as if he assumed they must have come over to meet him, not us. Visitors were sometimes a major ordeal, unless they were little kids, then Crow didn't care. I think he saw small kids as a nuisance but he liked sniffing babies close to their face. I think he enjoyed looking at babies up-close, like maybe they might think he was an actual monster.
It was always funny when people with a baby came over to see his big black nose beside a six month old infant's face. Infants usually laughed loudly at Crow, he looked like a big soft toy to them. We never had a problem with him near small children and babies, Crow always got super cautions when small humans were in the house. We believe dogs fully understood and could recognize children and babies from any species. Mom said it was universal, and the appeal of an infant is also universal. A baby baboon or raccoon would mentally register as a baby to any other animal on the planet (mammal, fish, reptile, or bird).
Allow me to explain something I truly believe about the dog's personality. You may find this hard to believe, but I believe Crow is very aware of his rank amongst humans, like how he felt he might be in competition with Tom over 2nd place in the pack hierarchy. When we walk to the school baseball field he often wants to drink from the water fountain, but he cannot operate it himself because he can't work the button. He would only try to use it when I was there because in front of other people he would be too embarrassed to stand up on his rear legs and lower his face to the bubbler but have no water come out. He would hate to have a failure like that in front of others, except me.
The night of the stabbing I was sure he tried to work the button to get water but failed on his own, he tried it because he was alone in the dark, and it was the perfect time to experiment. He likes to experiment with people things but rarely does it in front of others, because he doesn't like to be seen failing.
Personally, I think he has rather sophisticated thinking for a four legged animal.
I've tried lots of things with him as an experiment but he rarely shows any interest. I tried to teach him how to draw, how to ride a skate board, how to wear shoes, how to turn off the TV, and I got in big trouble for teaching him how to open the refrigerator. He can reach into all our sinks but cannot work the faucets. We had to add inside latches on all our cabinet doors.
Probably the #1 enemy to Crow is he hates baths and bath tubs, but loves swimming pools. I think part of his problem with baths is the issue of scent and bodily control. We'd like him to smell nice but he wants to smell like a dog.
If I had time I would love to obtain just the top part of the water cooler on the baseball diamond so I could teach him how to operate it at home when there was nobody else around. I'm sure at first he'll get frustrated and give up but with time I think I could teach him how to work it. Dog paws are not very coordinated, not designed for pressing buttons, but if he practiced I think he could do it. He just has to overcome his own beliefs about what he can and cannot do. When I taught him words I taught Crow that his front paws were called HANDS and he has four fingers and a thumb just like people.
Mom thinks that the big difference between dogs and people is that we walk on two legs and they walk on four, plus we have hands with fingers and a thumb and his are not individually controllable like ours. She says their central nervous systems are rather primitive compared to ours. And she says that dogs see and understand that too. She also thinks that dogs all seem to be somewhat autistic, by our human definitions. She also thinks I might have Asperger's too but never had me evaluated, but there really isn't much treatment for it.
We went inside and I emptied the dish washer and did all the stuff in the sink and moved the laundry into the dryer and started another load in the washer. I heard Mom shuffling down the hallway so I quickly started her coffee. She was quieter than normal this morning, I told her that Tom made me breakfast at the diner. I offered to cook breakfast for her but she said she wasn't hungry, so I started her coffee and went to my room to check my email on CompuServe. I emailed Mom to tell her we should go to Star's Diner some weekend for breakfast (@ 0630), she'd love the place. It's small, cozy, mom and pop diner, classic Americana. From what I saw most of their clientele were Hispanic in that part of Amarillo. Same with his high school, I read it was like 60% Catholic-Mexican. I also wanted to be there for breakfast to see their core customers, see what they looked like. That might tell me how Hispanic Tom was on the inside.
I had a gut feeling I wasn't seeing the real Tom Riley yet, and I wanted to know what he was like when he was off-stage. I'm afraid of having my heart seriously broken so I am looking into his life to get a view of him beyond what he wants me to see.
My email box was empty so I went back to the utility room and folded laundry from the dryer.
I turned on the TV and put it on Animal Planet so Crow had something to watch then I went to my room and did homework. Just before lunch Mom changed it to NFL football.
It was around noon when it started to rain and Crow told me he needed to go outside, so I slipped on a windbreaker and walked him to the baseball field. For some reason he was in a very playful-silly mood and tried to make himself slip on the wet grass by making sharp turns while running fast, but he never fell. I suppose it's possible he was experimenting with how much traction he got. It's not that often that I saw him act like that, but something about running on wet grass in the rain brought out the young dog in Crow. He made me laugh watching him race around having fun being a long legged dog in the rain. Of course he heard me laugh and then hammed it up even more.
On the way home I didn't hold his leash (it sat on his back) but he stayed close beside me the entire walk except for a few places he stopped to sniff. Whenever he got scent obsessed I jokingly reminded him: "Crow if you want people to treat you like a person then you gotta stop acting like a dog!"
On the walk home I saw yet another Crown Vic parked on the street by the sidewalk, but it looked empty. I glanced at the license plate, it wasn't a Texas plate but I couldn't' tell what it was, it had no logo or outline printed on it. It was like dark navy blue characters on a white background, I think it said US GOVT on it somewhere.
Oh that reminds me, I forgot to tell you before, something else unusual about Crow. Even today as a four year old male dog, he never saw another male lift a leg to pee, so he still crouched to pee just like he did as a baby. It looked funny but leg lifting was learned, not instinctive. They usually learned by seeing another dog do it, but he was a very sheltered puppy and really didn't have contact with other dogs. I tried to make sure he never caught anything like distemper so I probably sheltered him too much. He literally spent hours every day inside my shirt like a baby kangaroo. I think he liked it when I let his head poke out between my shirt buttons. I never got him a rabies shot because he was an indoor dog, Crow had the exact same risk factors for contracting rabies as me, but distemper/parvo was a true airborne risk, however, his risk factors were extremely low, nearly zero.
When we walked and another dog came toward us I always stood between them to block direct contact. I also carried an old golf club to push other dogs away, but if they tried to get past the golf club that was when they got a tiny warning squirt of pepper. If that failed they got a full blown shot in the face, which always stopped `em in their tracks so we could leave the area.
When Crow was about eight weeks old and I first started walking him to the park Mom made me a small pump spray bottle of vinegar to scare loose dogs away. A small spray at their eyes got most of them running away, but after a few months it no longer worked on larger dogs, which was when I got my first pepper spray can.
Crow really had no experience how to relate to dogs except where to sniff. Dogs learned how to do dog stuff with the rest of their littermates but he never had any, he grew up cuddled against my stomach (inside my pouch) or in his own cage. He's been bit by small dogs running loose before, it seemed the smaller they were the more they hated Crow. And innocent Crow had no idea what to do except hope I'd protect him, which I did. Dogs are not supposed to be in Stiff Park off the leash, but every time we go there we run into stray dogs. It really pisses me off and I wish the city animal control people would set traps and round `em up.
I looked into buying a CO2 pellet gun but decided to stick with sprays instead.
After his last attack we never go outside the back yard without some kind of self defense weapon, sometimes I carry a small knife just in case it attacks me.
Usually I kept the pepper spray can in my hand. I had to get between them sometimes because a fight could start if one of them flinched the wrong way, so I really was the barrier. Dogs that have never been sprayed had no fear of pepper spray cans, that's why I had to be the barrier. In four years I've sprayed about ten dogs that got too aggressive in the park. One weird lady called the cops because I sprayed her off-leash chow after it bit Crow's leg. The chow was instantly stopped and was blinded for about thirty minutes and she was furious, but I aimed it at her when tried to slap me for spraying her dog. She was one of those eccentric people (cat lady) who believed all rules did not apply to her or her dog. The cops never came to our house. She was a real nut case; I actually flipped her off as we walked away. There are many signs with park rules and it clearly states all dogs must be on a leash. The city parks people say they are going to build an off-leash dog park inside Stiff Park but it's not there yet, but she felt the rules only apply to other people's dogs. The things she said taught me she lived in some kind of fantasy world where nobody was allowed to have a different opinion from hers. Mom said she sounded like a very lonely person who sat in front of the TV all day and believed everything she saw on the boob tube.
I remember the day the chow bit his front leg I told Crow to `get that dog!' but he glanced at me with a look of "Do whut?" But he finally tried to bite the chow, but biting a chow is like biting a pillow, so I sprayed the chow in the face and it screamed and ran around like a headless chicken trying to rub its eyes on the grass.
For lunch Mom cooked hand-made burgers on the gas grill outside. I sliced potatoes into strips for fries, and pan fried them on the stove. She had the sound on the football game cranked way up, I think it was the Cowboys playing the Saints down in Irving in Texas Stadium. Crow tried to go unnoticed on the couch near Mom, I sat in a recliner as we watched the third quarter, score tied nine to nine. Her half-pound burgers were fantastic but she didn't make them very often. They look too thick to cook when you first put them on the grille.
Dallas was in a first down and goal situation with eighteen seconds left in the quarter. New Orleans blocked every pass so they kicked a field goal and moved ahead twelve to nine when the period ended. I did my math homework on the recliner with the game blasting on the TV.
We didn't have any buns so Mom served them on toast with mayo, BBQ sauce, mustard, thin slices of raw onion, tomato, and a layer of lettuce that kept the bread from getting soaked. I drowned my fries with ketchup and drank two cans of root beer. Mom actually belched really loud after her first can of pop, so I threw a French fry at her but Crow intercepted it mid-flight, it never even touched the sofa!
The game ended with New Orleans winning by three after a field goal in the last 20 seconds.
"Mom, your precious Cowboys suck!" I told her while we were both at the sink doing dishes, but she argued back that it wasn't their fault because the Saints had so many penalties and the Saints were almost as corrupt as the 49ers.
She got a fake horrified look on her face while we stood side by side in front of the kitchen sink but she reached over and turned on the water full blast, grabbed the sprayer and drenched me, I ran into the TV room to dry my face. With an evil grin on her face she told me I should take it back, she pressed into me and pushed me to the sofa then pulled my ankles and slid me onto the floor, Crow looked confused not being able to tell if this was a fake fight or real and if it was real who would he protect, the dog whined very loudly in protest.
Mom ripped my shirt over my face then proceeded to tickle my sides (I'm super sensitive there) and I laughed like a child while she sat on my stomach and tortured me, Crow stood feet away and whined loudly with his tail swaying really fast.
"Take it back or go to your room evil child!" She yelled with a big smile on her face.
We wrestled on the floor for a minute then she finally said to stop and got up, Crow was still clearly agitated, I could tell he wanted us to stop. Mom left for the kitchen I grabbed Crow and pulled him to the floor, he immediately started to chew on my arm and make his play growling sound. I yelled in fake pain which made him pause, but my arm was already totally wet with dog byproduct and he was half on top of me panting and looked very happy. He still loved wrestling but didn't fully understand exaggerated fake wrestling. I think dogs also don't fully understand the difference between dog and human skin, nor do they care. Judging by how they react to shots I'd say dog skin is not as wired for sensing pain like human skin is.
"Okay you win!" I told him as I got up and ran for the kitchen door, we both ran outside and I chased him around the back yard and was able to bat the end of his tail a few times, which made him tuck it under his butt and turn sharply. Finally it looked over, Crow on one side of the yard, his tongue dangling out, blood red, tail swaying, front legs spread apart as if daring me to chase him, he was ready to dart either way, but I'd had enough. My arms were scratched and red but I'd had enough. "Go in?" I gestured with my hand for him to follow me. I stopped by the hose to rinse my arms before we went inside. Crow was near me watching so I sprayed him very lightly with the hose.
I asked if he wanted a `rub' and he wagged his tail so we went back into the yard and I rubbed him firmly against the grain, it loosened a lot of fur. I stood with him for almost three minutes rubbing him and removing hundreds of loose hairs. I noticed when he started to shed his loose black hairs started to look brown in direct sunlight so I could see exactly where to attack his coat with my fingertips. His fur was too short to brush.
There is a cheat mode for dog fur when they're shedding which is to get him in the shower and shampoo his entire body then let him air dry. After he dries take him outside and do the fingertip backwards rub and he'll lose a vast amount of fur all in one go. He loses so much fur he starts to look like he's growing bald on his back.
The way I understand it is on a dog several hairs grow from each follicle so the difference between coats is how many hairs grow at the same time.
Back in the TV room I sat on the recliner and finished my homework, Mom turned the TV sound way down and sat back on the sofa and offered her help on my homework. I had three algebra problems left, she leaned over so I turned my workbook towards her, she took it and gestured for a sheet of paper, and in about ten minutes she finished my last three problems and handed it back so I could copy them in my own writing. That's one of the nice things about having a mother who was a nerdy genius, but it made it harder to bring friends over because they always thought she's angry because she's often very quiet (shy) around strangers (my friends from school).
Sometimes I wonder if my mom had a mild case of autism too.
For her half pound burgers Mom used two pounds of 80% ground chuck. She mixed in diced yellow onion, garlic powder, salt, and diced chives. She cooks them medium rare by temperature and brings them inside. We toasted buns or bread on the grille too, but inside we had raw onion slices, mayo, mustard, relish, tomato slice, and lettuce. She uses lettuce to protect the lower bun from leaking juice from the beef patty. Instead of catsup we use BBQ sauce for dipping the burger, we prefer Stubb's Original. Mom even puts Stubb's in her homemade chili batches. She says it's the hottest `regular' BBQ sauce at the grocery store.
BTW, if you've never tried it, we like chopped lettuce, ranch dressing, raw onion, with taco meat or chili on top. During football games we like raw celery and Greek Tzatziki as the dip. For movie nights we like rice with melted butter instead of microwave popcorn. And if it contains HFCS we never buy it, she said she stopped buying Coke when sugar disappeared from the label and was replaced with HFCS, which is just a cheap junk sweetener.
Mom says the refusal to offer catsup on hot dogs by some restaurants is mostly bogus. They're adding a slice of raw tomato but isn't catsup 97% tomato anyway? Same thing with relish... why put on relish and pickle slices when relish is diced pickles? So we use pickle slices and no relish, we use tomato slices but no catsup. And always buy the catsup with no added sugar and no HFCS either.
But one thing we proved through experimentation is it really does matter what order and location the items get placed on the bottom bun. Their position between the buns can have a big effect on how it tastes in your mouth. I used to add lots of catsup and mustard until we proved that using small amounts of condiments but controlling where they were on the bus was actually better. Now, we use better ground beef and a lot less toppings.
Mom says one of the most important ingredients on a burger is salt. She says cooking burgers on the grill causes most of the salt to fall apart and disappear so we salt the buns after the condiments are added. Our goal with burgers is so we can taste the ground beef, and we stopped buying frozen burger patties at the store because they all contain scrap re-cycled dead meat.
Later on I walked Crow back to the ball field and took six photos of him, I wanted to finish off that roll of film and get it developed. I told Mom I needed more photo paper and developer concentrate, she told me to write a note and leave it on the refrigerator door. (Kodak T-Max Replenisher, Kodak 8.5x11 B&W V-Print paper, and four rolls of 36 exposure TRI-X 200 ASA film). I think she had the hots for one of the guys at the camera store, the son of the owner was in his late 20s I think. I wonder what she saw in him?
I got an email from Tom thanking me for the great visit, my reply was the same thing back and asked when we could get together again. I also reminded him we should get our test results in the mail in a few days.
Daniel said he was fine, but he was mid-conflict with `Nappy,' they argued a lot. His father was not the most pleasant guy in the world. I towered over everyone in their house, which I think pissed off his Dad too. We usually called Daniel's father 'Napoleon' (or Nappy) when we talked about him (In ASL we call his dad: NP). Daniel was not like his father, you could tell by looking at him that he resembled his mother a lot in the face and his hair color, but their entire family was short and skinny. I bet his father was five foot, five inches tall (in platform shoes) and maybe one hundred pounds. His dad was an accountant and would kill Dan if he knew he got high at least once a week. I'm surprised he didn't actually kill Daniel when he started wearing eye makeup to school but I think that's when Nappy stopped smiling and Dan started appearing in gym with bruises he wouldn't talk about.
Mom asked if we got tested. "Yes Mom, we should get our results soon. I swear I'm a virgin, mine's gonna be negative." I stuck out my arm and showed her the tiny red dot. "I told her the only way I'd have an STD was if you could catch it in the air outside.
"It's not your results I'm worried about."
She set her hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. "Don't be in too much of a hurry to grow up honey, you're only young once, so enjoy it, make it last, have lots of fun, okay?"
"Yes Mother," I said knowing it pissed her off when I said 'Yes Mother' after she told me she said it to her mom during high school too. She slid her hand down my arm to my elbow and stared in my eyes like it might be the last time she'd see me still young and innocent. She headed for the laundry I put all our dishes in the dishwasher and went to my room.
I emailed Daniel and told him we should get together one night this week. For some reason I felt a bad vibe from him, even a couple hundred feet away.
I worried about Daniel a lot, he's really been unhappy for years now. I think he's way more vulnerable than he realized. He's tiny, deaf, and struggled to communicate with the rest of Planet Earth and his parents never got him any extra help. I wished I could adopt him, he'd get much better care with me as his guardian. I'm only a few months older, but he's so small he always looked younger than he really was. He taught himself sign language from rental videos. His parents thought that with his (three thousand dollar) hearing aids his hearing was cured, but that's not true at all. I'm trying to get him to apply for disability the month before he graduated from high school. After it got approved (which it will) I think he should sue his parents for willful neglect. He should have had speech therapy since kindergarten but never did, his parents probably thought since he cried normally he didn't need help making sounds. I've heard Dan cry and it sounded weird too.
I think some of their lack of action with regard to his deafness was they were ashamed they did not give birth to a perfect blond haired, blue eyed Norwegian boy. In their ancestral town in Norway there was a widespread belief that babies were born deaf because of recreational drug consumption during pregnancy. But Daniel was born with hearing and became deaf around his first birthday when the doc thinks he had a stroke, which is extremely rare for an infant just learning to walk.
As you read this book you should know I'm translating his horrible speech for you. Dan admitted he had little idea what he sounded like to other people, when I gave him written phonetic examples he nearly cried. Even worse than that people thought he talked funny because he was stupid, I've heard him called `retard' for years. Almost nobody knows he's deaf, the school principal knew but did nothing for him, which was a violation of his civil rights and federal laws. I think only the principal and his advisor knew he's deaf. I knew in the future a tsunami of legal shit was going to fall upon our school administrators and some teachers, I wanted to be there when the judge banged the gavel and the school was fined millions for negligence and civil rights abuses. They were in denial about the latest ADA laws but I read them in the library. He said he submitted a written request for speech therapy and was turned down, he asked for written transcripts of the principal's speeches at school assemblies and was told no.
AHS said `no' any time he requested help because of his hearing. Without realizing it they're digging their own graves each time they deny him equal treatment as defined in law. The school even has the US Federal Code books in their library where it clearly outlines their obligations for handicapped students. Dan warned me he might need to drive to another town on I-40 to find a lawyer able to take his case, due to the local attorneys being too close to local government. When I offered to drive him Dan kissed me.
We had gym together every Tuesday (and Thursday), then we both had one more class that day and we had twelfth period off so we walked to his house during 12th period and got high in his back yard. I told him again that I loved him and we hugged as I left for home. Crow patiently waited on my arrival every day, he always greeted me in the kitchen. On the way home I thought about updating Dan about Tom and me but decided not now, but Dan and I were so close I felt I owed him the truth.
A few blocks northwest of us (close to the elementary school) lived four other boys that Dan hung out with, they met in 4th grade and he said they did dick stuff and still do to this day. I didn't know exactly what they did or where but I'm sure they still hung out. He said one of them had an empty one-car garage in their back yard and that was where they met. But now that he had a proper boyfriend I'm not sure if Dan saw the Boner Brigade any more. I don't think it was a group of gays, just very horny teens who met to satisfy their sexual urges. They wanked together or wanked each other but I doubt it went further than that. I remember Dan told me once he sometimes dressed like a little girl and danced for them and slowly stripped naked and wanked and came on the floor in front of them. I think he said they all put on monthly shows like that for the group.
They had two sofas and a few old arm chairs in the garage and set up something like a small platform with lighting and a stereo for music and put on shows. Usually their shows contained dancing and strip tease. Dan said in middle school he was plagued by constant boners and needed to orgasm twice a day so the dance routine was a great outlet for that energy. Then one weekend they started allowing strangers to come in and watch, but they paid (a lot) to get in.
In fifth grade Dan usually only had lunch money, maybe one dollar. By eighth grade it was normal to see he had a wad of twenties in his wallet.
At home I saw an envelope in the mail from the blood testing service, when I opened it was surprised by all the stuff they tested us for, and of course I was negative on everything: HIV, Herpes, Hepatitis, and a list of venereal diseases too. With a quick note to Tom I listed my test results and I asked how his looked. I went to Mom's room with a floppy disc and copied my report on her scanner and saved it to my disc and emailed it to Tom and Mom. I thought about emailing it to Dan but feared he'd misinterpret why I sent it, like maybe I wanted to fuck. I'm pretty sure if I asked him he'd immediately say yes. Truth be told I think if anyone wanted to pay for sex with him (male or female) he would probably never say no.
When we were in his back yard on Tuesday and I got up to leave and we hugged he didn't have a shirt on and when I had my hands on his back that was the first time I felt his bare flesh in months, he felt just like Tom except I felt his ribs. I couldn't get the image of what happened to us in gym out of my mind. I'll tell you in a minute.
During the week Tom and I discussed seeing a movie Saturday night. When he wrote back he said two films that looked interesting were Body Double and Forrest Gump. Both were playing at the West Cineplex, but Body double was a re-release from ten years ago. I got permission from Mom and we set a date for Saturday night, he'd drive over at 6pm and already got permission to spend the night at my place. Once in a great while Maria went out on a date so they had to ration their car on weekends, that's mostly why he had to ask.
Tom said Westgate Cineplex was safer because there were too many gangs that hung out in the parking lot near I-40 on the east side.
Tuesday Evening.
Tuesday after dinner Daniel rode over. Mom didn't like it when he ate dinner with us and Dan was well aware that my mother was not his fan but his attitude was sort of like `who cares what she thinks, she's not the boss of me,' so he either ignored or deliberately annoyed her. I think he thought it was funny to come over which forced my mother to talk nicely to him, so he played it up like they were friends knowing it bugged her but she couldn't say anything. If she ever brought up the subject I wouldn't hesitate to stick up for him. I don't think she realized how close we were. I think she believed I'd become flamboyant after exposure to Daniel.
Just to tease him while Dan was over I took a shower and came back to the room wet, with a towel around my waist. I pulled it off and finished drying myself and my hair in front of Dan while he sat on the bed with Crow. I stood facing him while we talked and I slowly dried and brushed my hair. Dan could not take his eyes off me the entire time, but we get the exact same show in the gym locker room so it really is nothing new, except here it was okay to stare and comment. Crow was stretched out with his back pressed against Dan's leg, Dan pet Crow the entire time. I think part of why Crow liked him so much was he knew he could beat Dan in any physical contest so he never presented a challenge to pack rankings.
About the time I finished drying and styling my hair I asked Dan to play something on the stereo, we kind of liked the same music so he scooted off the bed and got to his knees by the stereo to look through my tapes. Just to keep up the tease with my underwear in hand I walked beside him and reminded him I had no Culture Club in my collection so he grabbed Human League instead and put it in the player and pressed play then crashed in bed with his head on my pillow while I pulled on some old sweat pants but no shirt.
Dan looked like a sleeping sixth grader on my bed, I sat beside him and slid my hand under his t-shirt and fingernail scratched his back all over, he just smiled with his eyes closed and enjoyed the attention. Carlos and I were the only people on Earth who actually touched Dan, I'm sure he craved loving human contact. I noticed after a few minutes that he was very still, so I stopped scratching his back and leaned over to look closely at his face, sure enough he was sound asleep! In fact, he and Crow were both asleep, so I went to start a load of laundry.
Let me tell you what happened in gym today, 9th period. We were running basketball drills on the football field, every time the coach blew the whistle everyone changed directions (180 degrees), but Daniel can't hear the whistle. He changed direction after he saw everyone else do it which bugged the coach that he was always last to turn around (as if he was being disrespectful). Finally the coach stormed out onto the field and yelled at him, "What are you deaf?" he shoved Daniel backwards really hard and knocked him to the ground. You gotta remember Daniel is like 93 pounds, the coach is like 6'4" and 250 pounds of muscle so his shove easily knocked Dan on his ass. Dan reacted to the pain in his shoulders. I think the coach thumped him hard when his hands contacted Dan's upper body.
When I saw it I ran over and got between them and held out my arms like a barrier. Daniel was on the ground afraid to get up and the coach was furious and shouted at him to get up but Dan stayed down. I got between them and said, "I'm warning you, don't ever hit him again." The coach stepped into my personal space and shoved me backwards to the ground near Daniel, so I popped back up to my feet and stood between him and Daniel and said "You're out of control, Coach." That really pissed him off and he ordered us off the field, but I shouted "You back away first!" A bunch of kids nearby laughed and shouted "FAGS!" at us but I stayed between him and Daniel. He blew his whistle in my face and shouted: OFF MY FIELD NOW!" (then he turned and walked away) I stepped back and offered a hand to Daniel and we jogged to the showers.
Dan had dark red handprints on his upper chest from when the coach hit him, I had marks too. Since they were still outside doing drills I used the PE office phone to call 911 and reported students were assaulted by the coach and had bruises, maybe the coach was under the influence. Daniel and I were pissed off, time to teach Coach Neanderthal a lesson. We sat in his office waiting for police to arrive. Two cops walked in (one in a uniform, the other in a suit) with the principal and took photos, and statements. Then both of us made statements in writing. While that was going on our class hit the showers and the look on the coach's face when he saw two cops and the principal in his office was worth the price as far as I was concerned.
He went from all big and bad ass to a nervous laugh and an obvious look of fear like he started to realize he fucked-up and could actually lose his job (today).
The coach ordered us to leave his office but the principal told us to stay and asked coach to take a seat. Eventually we left and hit the showers, by then it was just the two of us and the bells had already run for our next classes. While we were changing we saw the principal and Coach use the toilet stall to collect a urine drug specimen.
I was late for my next class but nothing was said, but I saw two cop cars still parked outside the gym during 11th period. We left school between 11th and 12th period, that's primarily why we got high that afternoon, something we didn't do very often. I told Daniel the school was reluctant to do anything to me because of my mother. I heard later that the principal was forced to suspend the coach (that day) for the rest of the school year for assaulting children, weeks later we saw in the newspaper that he also tested positive for cocaine and THC. Daniel said thanks that afternoon but he just wanted to go to school like everyone else without being in constant fear for his safety.
The AHS principal had told Dan's father earlier in the semester he should consider putting Daniel in a state home for mentally slow children, but his father said he intended to put Daniel in a state University for a Master's degree in something. That way Daniel would be a lot less likely to be dependent on his parents or the state for the rest of his life. He wanted Daniel to achieve independence through success. That was one of the first things I heard Dan say his father said, that the principal was a fool and he wouldn't be working there next fall.
When we discussed future lawsuits against the school for violating the ADA laws I asked why he didn't want to pursue it right away and Dan told me the new ADA laws that went into effect next month increased the fines and broadened the definition of a violation, then he'll re-submit requests for services and hire a lawyer. Dan confessed he kept a secret notebook of every incident, time-date, and witnesses. He started doing that during 8th grade. He said he reports each incident by filling out a 3x5 card at the principal's office so they have a long record but nothing was ever done. The principal's secretary said Dan's appearance provoked attacks, so it was self-made, therefore they aren't legitimate complaints. Dan said every time he went into the office to submit a complaint with a bloody face they told him it was his own fault. He predicted in a couple years he'll get the last laugh.
Dan said if the school secretary (an older local woman) was shredding all his 3x5 complaint cards she will likely end up in a federal prison. And if the principal ordered her to do it then he will likely also end up behind bars. On the plus side at least both of them will have plenty of time for the civil rights trials, and maybe even read the ADA codes.
When I came back from folding laundry I saw Mom was sitting in bed reading with her door wide open, the rest of the house was dark. I silently shut my door and gently sat beside Dan, still asleep on his stomach with his face buried in my pillow. The bed movement caused him to roll to his side but he was still asleep. I slid my hand under his shirt to feel his side which was soft flesh over ribs, then he took in a deep breath and opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Nice nap?" I asked. He smiled and nodded yes and rolled on his back and stretched and yawned.
I slid my hand across his bare tummy and up to his chest and side to side across his flat round nipples, he just smiled back. "You shouldn't take a nap in the evening you know, you'll be up to 1am now!" We both chuckled but he said `nah' and sort of adjusted his position and put his hands behind his head while I rubbed him under his shirt.
Just to be bold I pulled out my hand and rested it on his crotch, he was limp. We've touched each other this way since we were little kids. To us it wasn't sexual, to us it was very intimate and reinforced our friendship and honesty.
"Can I ask you something personal?" I said with my hand still on his crotch.
He nodded yes, "Is Carlos cut?" He smiled and looked sideways then smiled and nodded no. "Does he taste good?" Again Dan smiled and nodded yes. Then he cleared his throat and softly said, "He's really thick." I had no reason to doubt what he said.
"Trim the bush?" I asked and he replied with, "Shaved, sometimes we shave each other, it's very romantic." The way he speaks the word `romantic' sounds like he said: Woe-manic.
Dan set his hand on my thigh and reached over and goosed me back. He's done it hundreds of times in the past. If he reached down my pants and grabbed it I probably wouldn't stop him but we've never really crossed that line, but we've stood right on the line hundreds of times since grade school, but it was always on the outside of our clothes, whatever they happen to be at the moment.
I told him he probably should go home before Napoleon noticed his favorite whippin' boy was missing. It seemed at first neither of us wanted to end out time together. He had his arm rested on my thigh and his fingers probing my shorts to feel the outline of my dick while I had my hand squarely on the lump in his jeans and I manipulated him slightly through his pants. It felt nice but it was pretty innocent.
I reached down and pulled his hand off my crotch and stood up so I could pull on a shirt while he tied his shoes. Once again we hugged before I opened my bedroom door. That time I slid my hand down to his butt and rubbed and squeezed his butt cheek. Dan does have kind of a nice `school boy butt.' There is an age in maybe 5th grade when many boys' butts kind of get bigger and wider as they start to use those leg muscles more, that's what gives them bigger butts.
I walked him to our very dark back yard with the dog, Crow headed out to take care of business while Dan and I walked to the back corner so he could pee on the grass. After he was done pissing we went back to the narrow walkway between the kitchen door and the rock wall. I put my palms on his face and planted a kiss beside his mouth. Dan smiled and pushed my gym shirt up and put a big smooch on my left tit, and turned to walk his bike out the gate.
If I'd helped him over the wall he could walk home three times faster than on his bike on the sidewalks. As he turned to shut the gate I signed to him that I loved him, he smiled and rode off. Lifting Dan over the wall always involved man-handling his ass so we only did it at night. Helping him over the wall was sort of like lifting weights, the military press.
I always hoped our fun little intimate times left him with a warm feeling that lasted several days. I wanted Dan to feel like at least someone on Earth cared about him. I hoped he jerked off thinking about me later on. Crow and I went inside and went to bed, it was just after 9pm.
Tom and I started planning our next movie date; he said he'd have to work Sunday as a trade for all of Saturday off. I offered to come by and wash dishes for a couple hours on Sunday to help out but he never replied to that.
We decided to see the movie Body Double since it had more bare flesh than Forrest Gump. Neither of us were fans of Tom Hanks.
I was surprised by how sharply Tom dressed on our last date, Mom was very friendly with him. Tom was the second friend I had that Mom approved which was weird because she didn't know much about him. I started to wonder if she had a change of heart after our big fight when she told me I was gay and I said some really bad shit to her. I also wondered if she used her government connections to do a background check on Tom and Maria and that's why she suddenly approved of him.
Write the author: borischenaz mailfence
There were a lot of hints in that chapter about things to come. Did you catch any of them? I am slowly planting the seeds for the story line to grow over the next several chapters. If you've never read this book before be warned this book changes course dramatically.