
                 DINGHY the DEAD DOG and Other Canine Murders
                       The Untold Howard Belasco Story
                                  by Joe Spy

 It was a rainy day on campus when I met my first girlfriend Elaine. I really
 hadn't found anyone I liked at Bozo Cardozo University until then. Most of
 the women there tended to fall into three categories. They either didn't like
 me because I was too freaking fat, were taken, or were available (having
 demonstrated their "availability" to half the guys on campus). Elaine was
 somehow different. Maybe it was her braided armpits, or excessive facial
 hair. I'm not sure but then again who's to argue with true love? I could
 trust her. There was a certain affinity (and odor) there as well. The day I
 gave up looking for someone to share my life, twinkies,(and money) with was
 the day that she walked into my life.

 She was standing by the door of the Computer Sciences building waiting for
 the rain to clear, when I came along. I was crossing campus on my way home
 from a busy day at the cafeteria. We spoke a few words sizing each other up.
 She took more time than I did for obvious reasons. Then she left and I felt
 like my heart just fell out onto the pavement. Strangely enough, I began to
 see her more and more on campus at different places. The big day I asked her
 out was the hardest day of my life but she said YES, and before you could say
 "hot sex", she moved in with me into my new apartment. I had moved out of an
 awful apartment building in SoHo, into an old 10 story walk-up building in
 the South Bronx. It was a bit cleaner and closer to work. Unfortunately, pets
 were allowed in the building.

 I shouldn't really say that *she* moved in with me. It would be more accurate
 to say that her and her "children" moved in with me. She had dogs. A
 *shitload* of them. 4 of the little bastards. Yes, I remember seeing them at
 her house when we were dating. I remember picking dog hairs out of the food
 when I had dinner at her place. I even remember the time she brought one
 along *during* a date, much to my chagrin. But I NEVER expected her to bring
 them to my nice apartment, to soil my floors, get dog hairs in my butter, and
 piss or shit in my shoes. This was just too much!

 I raised the subject with her once, and like the bonafide dog lover she was,
 she couldn't understand how someone could not like her "children" "But, I
 like dogs!", she would affirm, petting one in her lap. "C'mon, you don't
 honestly want to get rid of Fido do you?". She held the thing up to my face.
 It countered my look of concealed hatred with one of profound stupidity. I
 petted him, a sheepish "shit eating" grin crossing my face. "Of course not",
 I said and changed the subject.

                                The Great Idea

 She was still out to class one day when I got home from work. Fido was
 playing with a squeeze toy on the rug, and Dinghy was sunning herself in the
 window. When Dinghy saw me watching T.V., she came and walked by me, without
 warning she let out a resounding FART!. Her tail stuck straight up in the air
 and she was acting really bizarre. The fucking thing looked like it was in
 heat! I was going to give it a swift kick when I noticed a rubber band laying
 nearby. I picked it up and leaned down to where Dinghy was rubbing against
 me, aiming straight for that exposed pink puckered asshole. *snap*
 ARF-ARF-ARF! - It howled, shooting from the room like a bullet. I laughed and
 laughed and laughed while the other dog, Fido, grew nervous and quietly
 skulked out of the room.

 I was sitting there by the computer when I got a great idea perhaps
 precipitated by this event. Since I didn't have the heart to tell Elaine to
 get rid of the smelly things because I didn't like the relational
 complications that could result, I decided that it would be better if I
 disposed of them myself. I would wipe them out one by one over the next year,
 making each one disappear without a trace. If necessary, I would make it look
 like an accident. Of course, I intended to be creative and careful.

                                     Fido

 Fido was a mousy brown dog that liked to sit on the balcony floor almost as
 much as Dinghy did. He also liked to lick his big black hairy balls all over
 the place. I saw my great chance one sunny Tuesday afternoon when Elaine was
 out at class. There the little fucker sat licking its balls. It looked at me
 with some alarm as I approached although it couldn't have guessed what I had
 in mind. A gentle prod with a broomstick sent it over the edge of the balcony
 onto the *splat* pavement below. "What the FUCK was that!", I heard from the
 ground below. A female voice answered, "It's a DOG - a DOG fell out of a
 window up there!" "Shit... ", the first voice replied as the owner of the
 voice presumably had a closer look at the dogs disposition.

 I waited till the voices died down before looking over the ledge. I saw it
 sprawled on the cement in a pool of blood 6 stories down. It looked like it
 must have landed on its feet, although that didn't help it much. I didn't
 bother to clean up the mess right away because I knew Elaine wouldn't be home
 until dark and the entrance was on the other side of the building. Needless
 to say, I waited till Elaine was fast asleep before going out with a garbage
 bag and a shovel to dispose of the little bastard's remains.

                                     Leo

 Leo was a fat white and black dog that seemed to have two functions in life
 to eat and shit. In fact, it shit all over the place, and usually in the most
 unlikely places. Once, I found a turd in my shoes. Another time, I found a
 turd under the kitchen table (where I was wont to put my feet). When I came
 home from work one Wednesday evening to find that Leo had shit in my bed, I
 decided that I had had enough of Leo.

 I cornered the little bugger in the bathroom and hog tied his legs with a
 rope. He managed to bite me and leave some major scratches on my face (which
 forced me to avoid Elaine for about a week), but eventually he was helpless.
 I then took him outside to the lawn and buried his face in the shit that
 Dinghy had just left there. "See!", I shouted, pushing his snorting nose
 against the black dogt shit. "This is where you go". "This is the place!", I
 shouted, pushing his nose in again and completely forgetting that the
 information would be of little use to him now.

 I brought him back into the house and tossed him in the toilet to give him a
 better understanding of advanced waste disposal techniques (and to drown
 him). I flushed the toilet several times, using the rope to raise him up
 enough so that the toilet wouldn't overflow. It was truly unbelievable
 experience. After about half an hour of this treatment, he was still alive!
 When I discovered that the little fucker wouldn't die, I gave up trying to
 kill him and snuck him down the fire stairs to put him out the back door.
 Apparently Leo got the message. He disappeared and NEVER came back.

                                    Bonnie

 Bonnie was a female dog, a mutt that was in perpetual heat. This one was
 Elaine's favorite. It also was the one that I personally hated the most. It
 was always humping up against my leg, or jumping in front of me. And it
 always had its back to me. I never saw the dogs's face, just its asshole
 under a waving black tail. Needless to say, it annoyed the fuck out of me
 with its bizarre behaviour.

 One day, I was going to the kitchen when I saw my chance. There was Bonnie.
 Sorry. There was Bonnie's asshole and tail. Apparently Elaine had been using
 the blender and had left some scraps in the glass container. What's more, the
 glass container was still on the machine, and Bonnie was feasting on its
 contents. It didn't take much for me to grab the hind legs of the beast and
 push it all the way in its face pressed hard against the blade. It took even
 less for me to thumb the "liquefy" button. RRRRRRRRRRR The machine wailed
 suddenly grinding to a halt on some obstacle. I was disappointed because I
 had secretly hoped to "liquefy" the entire dog flushing the mess down the
 toilet when done. Now, I was left with a liquified mess AND a headless dog.
 On top of that, a surprising amount of blood managed to get by the opening
 and spatter the counter and nearby kitchen shelves. My heart skipped a beat
 when I heard the doorbell ring.

 A quick glance outside showed me that Elaine was in fact OUT SIDE THE DOOR.
 Why didn't she use her keys? I briefly wondered. I had to move fast. I
 grabbed the glass container and dog's remains and shoved them in a black bag.
 I quickly wiped all the blood I could find with a rag. This went in the bag
 as well. Then I put the machine into the top cupboard, and suspended the bag
 out the balcony window, hoping that she would be unable to see it hanging
 there in the dark (should she look out). About three minutes later and after
 another quick inspection, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

 "Hi", I said sheepishly. "It took you long enough!", she said in mock anger
 coming in and wandering through the house. "I was sleeping", I said. "You
 don't look like you were sleeping you look flustered", she pointed out. I was
 at a loss for words. After awhile, she went for a shower and I again checked
 the kitchen to make sure everything was alright. After the shower she was
 going to make scrambled eggs for supper but couldn't find the container for
 the blender. I had to play dumb while she went searching for it, telling her
 that I didn't use it and that I would look for it tomorrow. She didn't seem
 to notice Bonnie's disappearance at all. The next day I "found" the container
 for her and she dined on "blended" scrambled eggs.

                                    DINGHY

 Dinghy was an annoying waste of space. She seemed to think that everyone
 loved her and could do her no harm. Even after the episode with the elastic I
 woke up one night to find myself face to face with the nasty beast pressing
 its nose against my lips as if it expected a kiss. Sure, Elaine did stuff
 like that with it, but I couldn't stand it. I picked the bugger up and tossed
 it like a football. It landed with a thump just outside the bedroom door.

 One day, several months after I knocked off Bonnie, I was in the kitchen
 making something to eat. Along came Dinghy popping up onto the counter and
 wandering around me.  I picked it up and "returned" it to the floor in one
 deft motion. It came back up again. Too late! I laughed and sat at the table
 with my sandwich. I removed my watch and set it off to one side (I hate
 having obstructions on my arms when eating) A while later, when reaching for
 my drink, I accidentally "elbowed" the watch off of the table. It landed with
 a loud "crunch" somewhere below. I went looking for it and saw that it had
 fallen through the grate of a heating duct. After I was done eating I went
 hunting for a screwdriver to get the lid off.

 I saw that the heating duct was flat immediately below the grate although it
 led off to one side under the floor, abruptly sloped downwards. This duct was
 hooked up to a central furnace somewhere at the bottom of the building. My
 watch was sitting on the flat surface and I retrieved it noticing that the
 glass was shattered. I was royally pissed off about my broken watch when
 Dinghy began pawing me and begging for attention.  Maybe that explains what I
 did next. I grabbed the dog and shoved it DOWN the hole. A GROWWWWWLLLLLL was
 heard receding into the distance along with the *thump* *thud* noises that
 indicated where it encountered twists and turns in the duct work. An hour
 later the whole building filled with thick black smoke and the fire
 department was called. "It just jumped in there!", I later explained to
 Elaine, an innocent look on my face. "I don't know why It just did". She was
 really cross, and wondered why I didn't prevent this "tragedy". I stammered
 an explanation about how I saw it jump in there out of the corner of my eye,
 but was more worried about my watch at the time. I never though it would do
 that, I explained. Eventually she bought the whole story.

                                   Epilogue

 Elaine was just getting home from classes, or so I thought. She had a box
 with her and set in on the counter. "Things just don't feel the same here",
 she said, sadly pouring a glass of milk. "What do you mean?", I asked. "Oh
 YOU KNOW. Things just don't feel the same without my dogs". I was pensive and
 a bit afraid that maybe she had somehow caught on to my scheme. "Hmmm..." I
 said, looking at the table (and crossing my fingers). "I was just thinking"
 she started again "Could I maybe get some MORE dogs?". She was looking at me
 in earnest. I couldn't say "no" because it would break her heart, but on the
 other hand she *was* asking my opinion (for once). "I'm not sure", I replied.
 She looked sad. In fact, she looked *really* sad, her eyes growing big and
 watery. "Well, If it'll make you feel better I.." I was about to say she
 could but before I knew it she had the box open in front of me. "Some kid was
 selling these down the street for 5 cents each, aren't they the cutest!". She
 was beaming and enthusiastic trying to get me interested in what she had
 done. The box was full of puppies - THREE of them. Sure they were cute I
 thought to myself, but what about when they grow up?

