Willie the Wonder Dog

Things were quiet this week, until last night. I went over to Warin's. As you might recall, he lives only a few blocks from me. Convenient. When I walked in the house I immediately picked up a strange, and somewhat disturbing scent. Not dangerous. Just odd.

I moved into the house slowly, quietly. I found Warin in the kitchen with Holly and a guy I had never seen. But, it was his odd scent I picked up at the door. Warin and Holly said hello and introduced me to Willy.

Willy was chattering away when I entered the room. He looked to me and never stopped. He was smoking. Weredogs, like dogs, hate cigarettes. But, sometimes we will use them to mask scent in a small room. Outside, in the open, fires can do the same, depending on winds and temp. But, I digress.

Holly got a call on her mobile and walked out to talk. Warin said he had to go upstairs. "You 2 get to know each other," he said, then left the room. I offered Willy my hand. He took it, shook it like a puppy on a chew toy, and launched off again on a verbal ramble-assault that would have sent a hyper-active shitzu in retreat.

"You're hyper," I said when after about five minutes he stopped to breath and take an extra long pull on the current cigarette in his chain.

"Actually, I'm not hyper," he said. "Really?" "No, really," he said. "It's learned behavior. I'm actually very laid back. Near corpse like. Matter of fact most of my family members and co-workers are always asking me if I'm stoned. I'm not. Not anymore. The reason I often seem so is because I watched too many soap operas as a child. It killed half my brain. Cartoons killed the other half. You see my mother was a welfare mom and to make extra money she did ironing out of our house. Why was I not in school, you ask? Well, I was home when I was not travelling as Willy The Wonder Dog Boy. See, another of Mom's money making gimmicks w⁄as to tour me with a carnival as a side show. Willy The Wonder Dog Boy. That was me. Of course, I wasnt a dog, or even half so. What we did was whenever my Mom gave me and my brothers and sisters our six-month haircuts she would save the clippings and super-glue them to my cheeks and neck. She got very good at it. It was quite convincing. So, then I would go off with the carnival. The superglue usually lasted as long as the carnival season did, until my skin was so raw that she had to stop. We really ran into trouble when I reached adolescence. Acne played havoc on my facial fur. And also my bite began to get worse than my bark. Haha. Little joke there. The outcome of all this also is that I can immitate perfectly the barks of thirty-two different breeds of dogs. I am told I could have a very lucrative career as a dog caller except for the fact that no one hunts dogs. For years I have been lobbying Alabama to step forward and be the first to declare Dog Season. I'd be set. I already have a robust business plan to release a whole series of books and tapes on how to call different breeds of dogs. Would you like me to demonstrate?"

"No, that's OK. You dont need to do that."

"It's no problem."

"No, please, don't."

"OK. Another time maybe."

When finally Warin came back down he had a half-smile on his face. I gave a little growl that only heard to let him know my displeasure and need to flee. Holly came back in and said, "Come one, Willy. Let's go."

After they left I said, "What was he doing here?"

"We need him," said Warin.

"Why is that? For what?"

"He knows about us."

"How so?" Warin shrugged. "Says he can smell us. He came right up to Holly at the mall and asked what breed she is in dog form."

"Oh shit."

"Oh yeah." Warin went to his fridge and pulled 2 Boulevards while I mulled over this information. He came back over to me, handed me one, and said, "And he claims that he lives with a family of 'gars'."

"A family of what?"

"We call them 'neos'."

"Oh hell."