Art Pact 9

"You can teach me a new trick," the old dog said to me. "Go on, anything you like. Cards, something on a unicycle. Teach me to conjugate verbs in Spanish, try that."

I have chronic fumble-fingers. I have no sense of balance. And I suspected he already knew how to conjugate verbs in Spanish, because I'd once seen him order (as a joke) a bowl of cat's testicles in a tapas bar in Madrid (I didn't say it was a funny joke). He lapped another tongueful of gin and tonic out of the wide-mouthed glass in front of him and twitched his right ear - a sign that he wasn't really paying attention to me.

"How about playing the flute," I suggested. I know how to play the flute, although I'm not good at it (see fumble-fingers, above), and my sight-reading is terrible. Listening to me play is like seeing a lego model when it's just come out of the box - all the notes are there, and in some semblance of order, but there needs to be a lot of sticking things together before something like a tune starts to take shape. Also there's always a long thin bit you can't find. "You like the flute."

"I do not like the flute," the old dog growled. "That fourth-octave C makes my teeth vibrate. Thank god you're too cack-handed to play all the way up to F."

/Fine, I thought, sod you then/. I'd come to the bar to commiserate with him over Bernice, but now I was beginning to sympathise with her instead. Far from wondering why she would have left him now, I was amazed at how she'd stayed with him for so long. I suppose it was the constant refrain of "bitches" that was starting to grate against my nerves.

"Bitches," he muttered, as if on cue. I'd had enough.

"I'm a bitch," I told him.

"No you're not-" he began, then stopped abruptly. "Yes, you are."

"You're right," I told him. "I am, and I'm not. I came out here to be nice to you, so if all I'm going to get out of you all night is misogyny, you can crawl back into your kennel and play chase the ball."

"It's-"

"Before you say it, don't. I don't want to hear anything about 'oh, it's alright because it's our word'. I can read a dictionary too, you know - we invented dictionaries. You can't go around calling women bitches even if some of them technically are. I'm fucking tired of it, and I'm getting tired of you too."

I saw that on the next table across the two cats who'd been minding their own business up until now were starting to give me the eye. /Cats/ I thought to myself, then felt guilty for falling for a similar sort of bigotry to the one I'd just been railing against. The larger of the two cats preened himself, then let a slow ripple travel down his tail. He did obviously fancied his chances of being petted.

"I'm sorry," the old dog said. "It's the drink talking. Look, why don't you get us another round in?"

"Yeah, that's not going to happen."

"Well I'll get one, then." He hopped down from the chair, but as his front paws touched the ground his legs collapsed, leaving him head-down and arse-up on the floor. I saw the two cats on the next table trying to hide their laughter. "Fuck!"

"I think you've probably had enough."

"Nonsense."

"You can hardly stand!"

"This floor is slippery," he complained. "Some filthy bastard's sprayed on it. Cats, I'd say. Filthy bastards."

The amused grins on the table behind him vanished. The bigger cat stood up, and was about to leap down onto the ground himself when his friend restrained him with a paw across the chest. I held up my hands: /peace/.

"I think it's probably time we went," I said pointedly. "And it might be best if you were to keep your mouth shut."

"Bitches!" The old dog cried. "Always trying to muzzle you one way or the other. Well this dog won't wear a strap on his nose!"

I had one hand under each of his shoulders, trying to hoist him back up onto his front legs. He didn't seem to be able to support his weight on both legs at the same time, though - one would straighten up, but the minute I wrestled the other under him the first one would suddenly buckle.

"Leave me alone, you ham-fisted monkey!" he cried, and then bit me on the hand. I was so shocked that for a moment I couldn't even feel it, but then all the frustration and growing anger I'd been stoking up over the last hour just evaporated out of me in an instant.

"Fuck you then," I said coldly, dropping his shoulders. His forelegs collapsed again, dropping his head to the floor. "Find your own way out."

I stormed out of the bar and home. I didn't know it at the time, but I would not see him again for six years.