I had a dog in high school that was amazing at three things: hunting, swimming, and running away. This dog, you come home from school, you’re tired, you just want to open your door and you open it, and his little devil brown snout wedges itself between the door way and gone. He’s gone, and you won’t see him for thirty minutes, and you can’t be like, “Fuck you, fucking fuck,” and go inside. Because he jumps in the lake, attacks the ducks, eats the neighbors orange tree, humps the other dogs, shits in everyone’s pool. They have a neighborhood committee determined to drive him out-of-town.
One day, I’m running late for school. Leaving the house. UNG! wedges his little brown snout: “Frisco! No, no no!” Gone. I chase after him, but he’s a demon. He’s running toward the lake. “Frisco!” Running at full speed. We’re angling at each other. And he’s running. “No!” And running. “No!” And Running. “No!” Splash into the lake. His little beady head popping up and down, as he swims around. I look, I grab the closest thing to me, these oranges and I start launching them—trying to kill Frisco, and my neighbor comes out and says, “those are our oranges.” There was a generational war over whose tree the fruit belonged to, as it was on their property, but spilled onto our side. I picked up an orange, threw it at his fat head, missing; flew past him; hitting a beautiful swan in the neck—and I killed it. And I felt so horrible. I wanted to die, and of course my neighbor screams at me and makes it worse.