On April 17th I got a really bad feeling in my gut, and it wasn't from constipation. I Emailed a friend of mine and told him that he was going to crash his car if he didn't drive carefully. On April 19th he crashed his car.

Psychic ability is odd. It's fleeting and ephemeral, never fully accurate. It comes and goes as it pleases. It's factual like an Oliver Stone movie, tantalizing and, at times, fucking false. Sometimes a strong feeling will emerge. You'll say to an absolute stranger in a bar "Don't leave your wife for Mary; she only wants your money." He will get wide-eyed and blubber, and then tell you all about Mary, who is clearly a gold digger. Other times, a strong feeling will emerge, and you will tell the fat woman at the counter of the Laundromat down the street "Ray is cheating on you." She will look at you like you're fucking crazy because she is a lesbian and doesn't know anyone named Ray. Perhaps you are crazy, but if you don't ask about Ray, how do you know?

But lately, the fat lady happens to be married to Ray, and he happens to be cheating on her. Aunt Pilar really was buried without her Crucifix; she has a right to be pissed off. And, of course, Mary is a gold digging hussy. That whore!

It sounds crazy, but after you hit the mark so many times, you just begin to accept the strange feelings. I've become totally comfortable with the dead janitor that loiters in my kitchen and sometimes plays with my appliances. His name is Stu, and we get along fine so long as he doesn't fuck with my toaster. I hate that. I have a very close relationship with my toaster, and no dead, though amicable, janitor is allowed to touch it. How will I get my fiber if my toaster blows?

So it has become second nature to give into these instinctual feelings and blurt inappropriate shit to people I don't know. I'm rarely surprised when I'm on the money. But every now and then the unexplainable happens. This story is about the time I spooked everyone, including myself.

Last winter I moved into an abandoned button factory. It had been bought by my landlord ten years prior to my living there. A succession of Notre Dame graduates inhabited the place, and as they were fresh from college, it didn't occur to them to complain about what a shithole it was. I didn't complain either because it was cheap and in the middle of Lincoln Park. Plus it was a huge place. Puppy could romp and play with ease.

I lived there with three roommates. One of them, a friend of mine named Jamie, had a problem with alcohol. The only way I could tell, at first, was the continued dropping of the liquor levels. I would go to the grocery store at 10am, mark the various bottles of liquor, Peach Schnapps, Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, Moonshine, Hot Damn, Sour Apple Pucker, Tequila, and so on, and return at noon to find all of their levels dipped slightly beneath the wax pencil mark I'd made. I shudder to think what that drink must have tasted like.

By spring everyone knew Jamie was an alcoholic. We tried to help, but it was in vain, and none of us were particularly "together" either. Helping her seemed rather preachy considering our own lapsed senses of responsibility. But Jamie was the true head case in the house. By summer, she had given up on normalcy altogether, settled into the tattered recliner in our living room and fully embraced booze. Her days were as such:

9am: Rise in the tattered recliner either still drunk or hung over.

9: 30am: Vomit bile.

10am: Go to the kitchen. Get tumbler. Put ice in tumbler. Go to bar and fill Tumbler to brim with liquor.

10:15am: Watch the Food Network.

12:45pm: Go to 7-11 for Blue Raspberry Slushie and Skittles.

1:15pm: Replenish Tumbler. Watch Food Network.

4:35pm: Drunk dial boyfriend in Detroit. Cry on phone. Scream "Fuck you! Ya fuckin' Titsun!" and hang up.

5pm: Replenish Tumbler.

5:30pm: Vomit contents of replenished Tumbler.

5:55pm: Pass out in tattered recliner.

Just like Jamie, the warehouse deteriorated quickly. It was suggested by our handy man that the place was wired by monkeys. When electricity began to blow in certain areas, we wired everything through extension cords; even the washer and dryer were plugged in with extension cords. To use the toaster, we had to unplug the mircrowave, tedious considering my constant intake of fiber. Jamie would trip on the plugs. There were always bruises on her legs and elbows from tripping.

Jamie would take Puppy outside for smoke breaks a dozen or so times a day, which Puppy seemed to enjoy. She was always very curious about the neighborhood we lived in because there were so many strangers admiring her, giving her attention and holding out hands full of treats. Inside the house was a different story. Though puppy loved the spaciousness of the warehouse, she was having major digestive problems. She would vomit every day. I assumed this was from some ingestion of toxic mold until I inspected the puke and found Skittles in it.

I was working at Joe's Bar as a cocktail waitress during the Final Four tourney; it was great money. While getting ready for work one afternoon I noticed that puppy was missing. I searched the warehouse, which, given its size and all the nooks and crannies she could be hiding in, took me a long time. She was nowhere to be found. And worse, the front door was wide open.

I found Jamie in the recliner, half passed out with the Food Network playing on low volume.

Bunny: "Where's Maxie?"
Jamie: "Wha? Sheese fine."
Bunny: "No. She's missing."
Jamie: "Oh she went out to smoke wif me and... Ohhhhhhh..."

I ran outside and searched the neighborhood. I questioned some stay-at-home mommies at the playground parked a t the end of our street.

Bunny: "Have you seen a little black dog wander by?"
Mommy: "Oh yes. This lady came by and took her."
Bunny: "WHAT!"
Mommy: "Yeah. She picked her up and put her into her car."
Bunny: "What kind of car? What color was the car?"
Mommy: "It was a... Jaguar, I think... Um...yeah, a black Jag."
Bunny: "FUCK!"

Note: I know I brag about my dog all the time, but it must be said for the purpose of legitimizing my urgency that a dog like Maxie is a rare find. The people who don't like dogs, like Maxie, and the people who do like dogs try to take her. I had caught Trixies trying to untie her leash and steal her several times prior to this day. Malignant self love is a huge problem in Lincoln Park. What a cute dog. I want this dog. I will take this dog.

My Puppy wasn't just missing. My Puppy was with a Trixie in a Jag. If I didn't find her soon, I would never see her again.

Bunny: "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."

Terrified, I ran back to the warehouse and gathered my roommates into a search party. Jamie was now unconscious, and couldn't come with us. Knowing full well that if Jamie left the house on foot, we would soon be forming a search party to find her, I decided to let her sleep in the recliner.

I walked the streets of Lincoln Park with a leash, screaming Maxie's name. My roommates set out in different directions doing the same, and hours later, none of us had come up with anything. She was gone.

Roomate: "Don't worry, Bunny. I'm sure someone will take her to the Humane Society and get that chip thing in her ear run."
Roomate 2: "Yeah. Don't worry. She'll turn up. Everybody knows that if you find a dog you have to take it to the Humane Society for the ear chip thing."

But as they offered encouragement they were despondent. There was surely no way a Trixie in a Jag was going to return Maxie. I knew it; they knew it.

I got into the shower to get ready for work. I was two hours late for my shift, and I had never been more than ten minutes late for any job in my life, but I didn't care. I was heartbroken.

I drove to the bar disheveled and unprepared. When I arrived, I parked my car and headed into the building, but as I reached for the door handle, a funny feeling took hold of my stomach. I let go of the door handle and started walking away from the building. My manager stuck his head out and yelled "Hey, you're late for your shift!"

Bunny: "Yeah, hi... I'll be right with you."

I kept walking away from the building. Eventually I got to the end of the block, and for some strange reason I made a right turn. I kept walking down the next block, and at the end of it, I made a left turn. It went like this for about a mile, left, right, left, right. I didn't know why, but I had to keep walking.

No thoughts crossed my mind. It was like I was one of those horses trained to follow a route, turning left and right because I had done it so many times.

Now miles away from where I worked, and lost in some neighborhood I had never been through, I came upon a group of little girls giggling by a wrought iron fence while their nanny chatted on her cell. The girls were poking their fingers through the fence and laughing. Behind them was a new brick house, three stories tall and very expensive. In the open garage was a black Jag.

Female Voice: "This dog here is mine, but I found the black one today over by Armitage."

And there, playing in a Trixie's courtyard with a pink snakeskin collar around her neck, was Maxie. I nearly ripped the gate off its hinges to get to her, and when I did, I picked her up and carried her all the way home.

Even I am dumbfounded by this one.

Posted by jlgolson at 11:00 PM

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Posted by: Lars at September 12, 2005 12:32 PM

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