A Wet Dog (G7 to G6)

Hey, Preacher girl. How’s my pooch? D'you miss me? Yeah, I think you missed me. Woah, dog, you stink and you're wet. D'you go swimming?

Yo, you didn’t let her in the river, did you? Man, I told you not to. You know what’s in that river? Fuckin’ acid rain, man. Fuckin’ mercury and PCBs. DDT. You name it, the fish are swimming in it.

I should send you swimming, you bench hog. Scoot over. Yeah, well, fuck you. You would be too, you seen what I seen today. You hear about what happened downtown? No, the hit and run. You didn’t hear about it? Man, it was cold–blooded.

No it wasn’t. I don’t care what Kneecap say. Cap don’t know shit. This was cold man. Co-old.

Yeah, you know, I got that gig over there across from the bank. I told you about it before, didn’t I? Some crazy-ass dude – thinks he’s Deep-Throat or something – been paying me to keep track of when this guy leaves for lunch, how long he’s gone, who he hangs with, shit like that. Boring. But hell, I’ll take the money.

So I’m outside waiting for my mark to make an exit, and I’m just thinking that he’s kind-a late, ’cause the bank’s already closed – closes early on Saturdays, and he normally doesn’t take so long to lock up and get out of there. And I’m kind-a checkin’ out other folks on the street, people chillin’ on a Saturday. And I notice this chick on a bike pedaling past, and I don’t even know why my eyes follow her but they do. I remember thinking she looked really good on that bike, you know, like a natural, like in her element.

Oh, blow me. That’s ’cause you never been in your element, you wouldn’t know it if it rained on you.

Anyway, I see she’s coming to the intersection, and I also see this SUV – it’s a 4Runner, which I’d locked onto earlier, ’cause I like to keep tabs on the vehicles parked nearby – this 4Runner’s pulling out and the driver’s stepping on it, and just as I’m rolling my eyes thinking, oh yeah, hot rod there gonna gun it to the stoplight, he’s running through the light and plowing into this chick on the bike. And it’s like, “you asshole,” but I don’t even have time to think that. ’cause just like that, the bike’s flying and she’s flying and she’s flipping over the top of the SUV and man, I did not want to see what happened. But it’s like it happened so fast, I couldn’t even turn away and you know, her body’s falling and I swear I could hear bones snapping, but I know that ain’t true ’cause there’s all kinds of cars screeching and people screaming and shouting, even I’m screaming. Some guy’s running after the 4Runner hollering, but it’s like where’s a traffic jam when you need one? The driver just creams out of there. Another guy throws his coffee at it, but it don’t even come close. Fucking twisted rat bastard. But I’m thinking I don’t care, ’cause I got his number, man.

But man, that girl. You never seen anything so twisted. There’s a group of us, we’re all crowdin' around the body, but like I don’t know why, ’cause man, I did not want to see that. And it don’t seem real, man. It’s like I just seen this chick and she’s beautiful and then it’s like… like fuckin’ Picasso took a live body and mangled it for real instead of just on canvas. Face looking front and profile, limbs bent like they ain’t never supposed to be bent. A woman says she’s a doctor and people clear a path for her, but it’s like there’s blood leaking out this chick’s nose and mouth, and we all know it’s not a doctor she’s needing.

People been pouring out of the stores and apartments to see what’s going on. Cops ain’t nowhere to be seen yet, but everybody’s on their cell phones calling it in and shouting out, “Anybody catch the license plate?” and I hear myself chiming in like some Dudley Do-right, “I got it!”

But then I notice my mark’s finally come out of the bank. And it’s like at first, he isn’t even too interested in what’s going on, but then I see him ask somebody what happened. And then he’s pushing his way in to see the body. And then it’s weird what he does. ’Cause I swear he gets all pale and I’m thinking well what’d you expect, don’t look if blood makes you faint, you dickhead. But it isn’t like that. ’Cause then he’s looking all around, scared like, like suddenly everybody around him might have some contagious disease, and he just starts backing out and away from the crowd and then he’s got like his briefcase up to his chest and he starts trottin’ backwards, and I’m about to follow him, but there’s somebody pulling my sleeve saying, “This is the guy’s got the license number,” and next thing you know there’s this cop and he wants to know what I got written down, and so I’m stuck there trying to explain to him why I’ve got a notebook full of dates and times and license plate numbers and shit.

Jesus, what a day. What a fuckin’ day.

C’mon pooch. Let’s go get some din-din. Yo, thanks for watching her. I’ll catch up with you later. And man, I’m telling you, don’t go dunkin’ into that river. That shit will kill you.