Dogs With Jobs
by Sy Holmes
Kyle and I had been out until three, drinking in the Arts District, although I never saw any art in it. I came to curled up in the back of Kyle’s Toyota, feeling rough. We decided that the right thing to do was take some edibles and try to even ourselves out before my brother Bruce’s vow renewal. I had reached the point where I felt happy to be alive again, but then I felt myself going too far. On the highway to the Vegas Elvis Chapel, Justin Timberlake sounded too good on the radio, and I was melting into the duct-taped seat. I sensed some sort of trouble ahead, but my parents hadn’t come up from North Carolina, and I didn’t see how the stakes could be high.
Bruce was wearing a leisure suit. His wife, Hannah, and two of her sisters were in minidresses. Kyle and I showed up in shorts and T-shirts, and Hannah looked at us like we had mange. We took the photos outside the chapel, then took our places in white folding chairs in a room that reminded me of a community college auditorium. The desk lady told us that Elvis would be out shortly. When he appeared, he looked like the real deal: custom jumpsuit, mid-career gut, and a voluptuous cowlick. By the time he launched into “Love Me Tender,” it was clear that Kyle and I weren’t alone in our iniquity: the King was zooted out of his mind.
Ours was the last event scheduled that day. When the King finished singing “Burning Love,” we invited him out with us. I was glad to have someone more fucked up than me around. Bruce didn’t say anything like “goddamn, Lance, get it together, my wife is here,” but he shot me looks. We drank at the bars, we drank in Hannah’s sisters’ room at the Nugget, we drank in a restaurant that specialized in Cornish pasties. The others formed their own clique at a four-top, leaving Kyle, the King, and me to jam into a two-person booth.
“Thanks for bringing me along,” the King said, “I don’t get out much. I’m a busy man.”
The King stressed certain words when he spoke, like he was letting you in on a secret.
“Welcome to the big dawg pound, man,” Kyle said, “the respectable people abandoned us.”
“It’s an honor,” the King said. “Where are you boys staying?”
“We’re sleeping in a turnout in Lovell Canyon,” I said. “We asked Hannah’s sisters if we could stay in their room, but I don’t like sleeping on the floor.”
“Y’all should come back to my place. I’ve got a couple couches.”
“You sure?” Kyle asked him.
“Boys, boys, boys,” said the King, “I’m an entertainer. It would be my pleasure.”
The King gave us a ride back to his run-down ranch house in North Vegas. There was dog hair all over the seats of his Prius. He and Kyle did lines in his kitchen, which had granite countertops and new appliances that were out of place. I knew if I joined them I’d take it too far, so I drank more beer and hoped I could pass out soon. I went out back at one point to take a piss. In the King’s backyard, there were four or five empty kennels. When I returned to the kitchen, Kyle and the King were talking about opening an Asian fusion bistro on Fremont Street.
“Isn’t the restaurant game here tough?” Kyle asked, scratching his blonde scruff.
“That ain’t no thing,” the King replied, as he readjusted the crotch of his jumpsuit, “all you gotta do is be tougher than the game.”
“What’s up with the kennels?” I asked. “You breed dogs?”
“Now Lance, let me ask you this, son. You make much money?” the King replied, cowlick drooping.
“I work at a ski shop,” I said.
“Where?”
“Whitefish, Montana. It’s expensive as hell.”
“I’m broke too, man,” said Kyle, “I was a climbing guide out in Red Rocks, but the market got flooded, so now I drive the van behind the scenic loop moped tour. I have to stop the assholes in the supercar rentals from running my clients over, man. It’s a pain in the ass.”
“I’ve been there, boys, and it blows. How would y’all like to make real cash?”
“It’d be nice,” I said.
“Boys,” said the King, “let me cut you in on a little opportunity.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
“How’s the dog market up there in Montana, Lance?”
“The dog market?”
“Montanans need dogs, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What kind?”
“Labs? Maybe Huskies? Australian Shepherds? I know a dude who rescues Malamutes.”
“Belgian Malinois, are they in style?”
“I have no clue, dude.”
“What if I told you I could get you what the people want ?”
“I’ve got five roommates. I don’t want a dog.”
“I’m talking about selling the dogs, Lance. I supply the dogs, you drive them up, sell them, we split the profits 60/40. Take care of business.”
“I had a dog growing up,” Kyle said, “I loved him a lot, man. I actually cried when they had to put him down.”
The King raised a hand toward Kyle, quieting him.
“Think about it. Mean market price point for a Lab puppy is $847.22, as of noon.”
“I’m stoked that you breed dogs, man,” Kyle said. “Everybody’s gotta find a hobby. Your work can’t be your life, man. It can’t just be all Elvis, can it?”
“Now Kyle,” the King said, “your life is just what you do, son, and who ever said anything about breeding?”
“Where do you get the dogs, then?” I asked.
“Lance, son, opportunity is knocking . You gonna keep asking questions, or are you gonna open that door and let the King take care of the rest?”
I wavered, but he kept talking money, and I was in the stolen dog business by the end of the night. I got texts from the King with his weekly inventory. Sometimes he would just get one-offs of breeds, and I imagined him in a white, sequined jumpsuit, snatching a Labradoodle from a family’s backyard while they slept. I put up Craigslist ads in towns between Vegas and Whitefish: Twin Falls, Boise, SLC, Missoula, Butte, Bozeman, Kalispell. I’d drive down to Vegas, wired on Adderall or Vyvanse, then I’d burn back across the desert with eleven puppies in pet carriers in my Saturn Vue. I met with buyers outside Wal-Marts, churches, and municipal parks. The King set the price. I only took cash. The dogs’ papers were forged. I sold to would-be bird hunters, families with 2.1 kids, and listless young professionals. If anyone asked, I told them I worked for a rich dude who liked connecting puppy mills rescues with loving homes.
I was making more money than I had in my life. I quit my job at the ski shop, bought the food I wanted, the beer I wanted, and an old Ford Econoline with “Flathead Valley Indian Bible School” painted on the side. After that, I didn’t need much else. Kyle worked a southern route, down into Arizona. He had his own place in Flagstaff now and was dating a veterinarian.
“I’m stoked,” he said on the phone, “I’ve got a good place, someone loves me, I sleep on a bed. How about you?”
“I’m good, man. I feel useful now.”
“I get you, man, it’s like I work, and then I chill. Take naps. Walk around outside. Enjoy life, you know?”
“I don’t really care about much else now, to be honest.”
I started thinking of myself as a sort of professional, and it gave me a cold glow. I was just another type of dog, I thought, a dog with a job. Kyle was a pet, a loveable Golden Retriever. I was an Australian Shepherd. I did it on instinct. I did it because I revered the King, even though he didn’t care about me. I worked more hours, posted more ads, made more runs. It was as close to a higher calling as I had gotten. I whined when he ran out of stock.
“I need more,” I told him.
“Easy there,” the King said, “I’ve only got so many.”
“Can you get more?”
“Lance, son, I know we both want to make money, but we can’t be amateurs about it.”
“Got it. Just tell me when I can come fetch them.”
“ Stay there, boss man. I’ll let you know.”
I liked when the King called me boss man. I liked when we met up and split the cash, then I ate a bowl of Gravy Train-looking chili and kept trucking. The Great Basin no longer depressed me, staring out the windshield. It was filled with the smell of sage and burning oil. There was nothing but the road and my fingers drumming on the wheel to Elvis’s Greatest Hits. I was making it. I knew something had gone deeply wrong inside of me, but that felt like a distraction I didn’t have time for.
I broke down somewhere near Ely, headed back to Vegas. The alternator had gone out and none of the gauges worked. I hadn’t topped off and wasn’t sure if I could make it to Vegas. I called a tow truck driver in Elko who would take me as far as Wells.
He showed up in coveralls and a cowboy hat, and I climbed in the passenger seat. The A/C was out, so I stuck my head out of the window to cool down.
“You see all this?” he asked me.
“What?”
“This all used to be Saints country.”
“Like New Orleans? Drew Brees?”
“I’m talkin about the real saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.”
“Mormons?”
“The full name’s important. Don’t even think about using the M-word in my truck.”
I grunted and leaned against the door. I looked at myself in the side mirror. I was shaggy, bug-eyed, the skin on my face looked loose, and if I bent my head a certain way I could see jowls.
“You don’t sound like you’re from around here,” I told him.
“I’m from Louisiana.”
“What brings you out here?”
“The church. I was raised Baptist. Came to the truth once I got married. Her dad has a ranch out here.”
“You like it?”
“This was God’s own country and will be again. Once this whole country falls apart, it’ll be Deseret, like it used to.”
“So you can only root for BYU?”
“The first order of business is gonna be rounding up jackasses in stolen church vans.”
“I didn’t steal that van, I bought it. Cash.”
“You probably bought a couple catalytic converters and a few lengths of copper pipe, too.”
“I’m not a tweaker. I have a job.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m in the dog business.”
“Fighting?”
“Sales.”
“How about we just don’t talk until I drop you off? Would that work for you?”
I scratched an itch and wished I was in the van.
“Gotta get all the dead weight out of the Promised Land. Pronto. Don’t even know if we can wait for a general collapse. Those Mountain Meadows boys did nothing wrong.”
After what felt like seven years, we arrived at the Firestone. The clerk said they had the part in stock, but it would be a day or two. I lay on the bench inside the office. I was coming down hard, and just wanted to sleep. My phone rang. It was Kyle.
“Ay dude, what’s up?” I asked him.
“Where are you, man?”
“In Wells. The van broke down.”
“They got the King, man.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, I just swung by to pick up some fucking Mini Schnauzers, and there were a whole bunch of cop cars outside his house. I’m splitting for Kanab, man.”
“I’ll head out once I get this alternator, try to find a porch to lie under.”
“Yeah. Don’t call me. I’ll hit you up from a payphone if I hear anything else.”
“A fucking payphone, dude?”
“You got any better ideas? You wanna find out what they do to dognappers in prison?”
“No.”
“Alright. I’ll catch you somewhere, man.”
I told the clerk I’d come back in the morning. I walked out into the late afternoon sun. It felt like something tight was around my neck. I stumbled down the road to the nearest motel and got a room. I took the key and went to a bar near the truck stop, with a long mirror behind the liquor counter. I ordered a shot of Evan Williams and a Coors, took the change to the jukebox, and queued up “Jailhouse Rock.” I got “Burning Love” instead. The setting sun burned in the mirror, and I saw the chapel again, from a distance. Bruce, Hannah, and her sisters were standing there watching the King swing his hips side to side, further and further, until he came apart at the waist. Bruce and the rest turned to look my way, but they didn’t see me, and then they crumbled away, too. The scene lost color. The picture blurred and faded into the glare. There were vague shapes and sharp smells and tiny noises that hammered against my eardrums. I was in the in the back of the van, hurtling down a series of steep passes, racing across desert flats. I opened my mouth to say something, but all I heard was a lone dog, barking in the night at the end of a wrong turn.
