© 2000, 2001 Channel49_________                                        

H.E. had nothing. His clothes were ruined and filthy. His attitude was just short of incoherent. He sat on the curb and allowed his feet to dangle onto the highway-shoulder as if it were a comfortable wading pool. His days of being full of himself, pretending to be a mighty corporate wonder were over. He had just enough memory of them, however, to cause him shame.

This previously acquired knowledge of how things should work, how people should work and get ahead in the world of personal endeavors was the grain of humiliation that allowed him to perceive his condition as it truly was. He had drifted into mental insolvency. He had been too proud to start-over when his career was faced with its rightful ruin and thus had come to sitting in the street waiting for intervention from forces better ordered than himself.

He hadn't eaten in at least a day. A large youth had chased him from the trash barrels at a fast food restaurant where he could dine on the fresh leftovers of the finicky and picky. Those whose palate was too refined for the garbage that H.E. could swallow without so much as a chew. He was thirsty too. His mind swirling in and out of truck traffic drifted over the notion of drinking his own pee. If there was anything funny in this idea H.E. didn't reflect it. He did laugh however when he spied a billboard sign and surmised that the outrageous picture of a huge dog was his own reflection.

Just then a companion introduced himself. A real doggie. It barked and wagged its tail. His first friendly communication with another being in 17 months. Language came back to him and H.E. told this dog all about himself. The dog seemed to want something, to go somewhere, do something, be part of some adventure. This dog didn't want to just sit and talk all day!

"O.K. doggie I'm with you. Where should we go?" H.E. stood and felt his head go light. He felt like ten-beers-on-an-empty stomach. "Whoa, doggie. I bet you're hungry!" The dog barked its head off.

"Yup, you are."

That posed a problem. Either H.E. would have to eat the dog or the dog eat H.E. There wasn't a decent trash can in sight. Suddenly providence tugged at H.E. Crumpled up on the curb lay a ten-dollar bill. For a moment H.E. almost forgot about his new friend the bow-wow. But he guessed that this was a test. After all, if ten bucks could come to him so easily, if he passed this test much more would come his way. (It was disordered thinking like that which led to his ruination in the stock market). Brilliance showered upon H.E.. He would treat the dog to a great dinner.

H.E. patted his pal on the head and marched into a STEAK and SUDS restaurant near the roadway. The hostess made a face and seated him out of the way, in a spot reserved for people with disgusting disabilities like missing noses or puss-filled faces that would lead other dinners to gag and skip an expensive desert in their haste to flee. H.E. didn't care where he sat.

He ordered the $ 8.99 sirloin special to go and a glass of water.

The waitress refusing to offer him the salad bar, stood aloof of his presence and snidely corrected his thinking.

"We don't make orders to go." (Maybe you should go!)

H.E. was not disturbed. He giggled a little. "Just gimme the order an' I'll cut it up and you can put it in a doggie bag for me an' that'll be that," he instructed.

The waitress spied his filthy ten dollars on the table, "Alright, But it'll take awhile." She turned her tight little ass and hammered into the kitchen as briskly as her feets could get her there.

Time hung. H.E. had a conversation with an imaginary cactus plant he believed to be growing out of the table.

At last the steak was delivered. It smelled scrumptious. Smothered in it's heady juices; done to a turn. H.E. persisted, cut it up carefully into bite-sized pieces and pushed the plate forth proudly for the waitress to put into a container.

He paid the tab, tax and left a fifty-cent tip, and hurried outside to locate his four-footed pal.

Doggie greeted him with barks and tail-wags. "Lookit, what I got for you, pal ... Bet you never had it so good. Boy, you gonna love me. Yes-sir, soon God'll give me a new convertible and we'll both go to a cat zoo and yap at them caged felines. (Yuk-yuk-yuk).

H.E. opened the Styrofoam container and set the feast before his dog-friend. "Go to it! I'll enjoy watchen' it."

The dog sniffed the tidbits and then delicately began to eat a few. After the third piece, however, the dog choked and regurgitated vomit upon the remainder. Then it looked up at H.E. with sad eyes and wagged its little tail for him.

He paused for a moment and considered the total condition of himself in the world. Then he strangled the damn dog.

© 2000, 2001 Channel49_________                                        

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