Of Thursday Prompts don't start up till February, I took it upon myself to come up with one this week. Opening the dictionary and poking my finger down at a random location, however, gave me "Munsee: one of the two Algonquin languages of the Delaware peoples."
Further down that same column, though, was "mural" which made me think of painting which made the phrase "painting the roses red" pop into my head. So I used that for what turns out to be the 46th installment of Neighbors, our ongoing saga hereabouts. The previous sections are as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45. And here's the next!
We made quite the parade that morning.
I'd asked Honoria and Serena to wait outside for me to
get dressed and have my breakfast, but as soon as El Brujo and
I wheeled through the side door at Chrysalis House, down they
swooped, the crow passing over once to let Serena drop from
her claws, then circling back to settle on my shoulder. El
Brujo already took up most of my lap, but Serena caught hold
of my jacket as she fell, swung herself into a head-downward
position, her tail just tickling the tip of my chin.
"Onward!" she announced.
For my part, I would've preferred something a bit
subtler, but, well, I was apparently in the minority. Even El
Brujo was grinning as only a cat can. "Indeed. And how
rude we've been, keeping our associates waiting!"
Shaking my head just made both Serena's tail and
Honoria's wings brush against me, so I stopped. I grabbed the
rims, rolled us down the sidewalk toward the Ramsays' place,
and tried not to flinch when one of the hundreds of SUVs
infesting the neighborhood slowed on passing us just long
enough for me to catch a glimpse of the driver's astonished
face staring out the passenger side window.
Which was just what I needed: yet another reason
for people to notice me. Southern California's the land of
health and Hollywood, after all, a land where those of us who
are stove-in and wheelchair-bound stick out like even sorer
thumbs than we would anywhere else. Now add the crow and the
cat and the squirrel, and I half-expected the driver to lose
control of the vehicle, the SUV flipping over and bursting
into flame from sheer surprise.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking...
Anyway, I navigated us down the hill at Willow Street and
was heading along the block toward the Ramsays' house when
Honoria's claws squeezed my shoulder. "Hey!" She pointed a
wing upward. "What's up, bro??"
I followed her gesture, saw a bigger crow winging toward
us. And even though I'd heard on the radio that humans can't
recognize individual crows, I could tell it was Jefe. "A
little snafu," he said, gliding to perch on the lowermost
branch of the ficus tree just ahead of us. "Traveler's humans
got back from their ski trip or whatever, so meeting there's
right out." He cocked his head at me. "How 'bout your
girlfriend's place, 'Mano? Heather can give us the view from
the doggy side of things that way, too."
The several fears tightening my chest--fear of being
stared at, fear of getting asked questions I couldn't answer,
fear of looking even stupider than I already did--scootched
over for a couple more--fear of Deena rejecting me, fear of
her finding out that I really could communicate with animals,
fear of what that would do to her psyche's precarious balance--
and I shook my head. "As far as Deena can ever know, you
guys are helpless thralls to my indomitable will and my
prowess at training the world's lesser beings to behave, OK?
Conventional reality is all she can take right now, and seeing
me in pow-wow with half the neighborhood's furry and feathery
population--" I shook my head again.
Honoria made a rattling sound from my shoulder. "Lying's
no way to start off a relationship."
"We don't--" I stopped, took a breath, blew it out.
"We're so far away from having a relationship that it's not
even on the map yet. One step at a time, OK?"
"Ah." El Brujo stretched to further fill my lap. "But
you don't take steps, August. You roll straight
through."
That made my face heat up. "Look," I started, but she
cut me off.
"So why don't you roll yourself straight to the Ramsays'
house, knock on the door, and introduce yourself as the new
dog trainer in the neighborhood?"
Even the breeze in the trees fell silent at that, and we
all stared at her for a moment. "Uhhh," I got out then,
"thing is, Brujo, Traveler's had training. Guard dog
training. And according to him, if he doesn't bark and throw
himself at the fence trying to kill everyone who goes by when
the Ramsays are home, they won't think he's doing his job!"
She tapped my chest just below where Serena was hanging
with the tip of her tail. "Yes: according to him. But
he wouldn't be the first animal to misunderstand what a human
wants. And besides, have you listened to those poems he gives
you to recite to me? All that rubbish about howling his
lonely heart out to the moon in hopes that she will bear his
fevered message of love to my willing and waiting ears?"
Those ears folded. "Typical canine sentimentality." Her ears
came back up. "But if the Ramsays have received complaints
about the noise, perhaps they're looking for someone to train
the tendency out of him."
Jefe clicking his beak above us drew my attention upward.
"No dice, Poosy. I mean, sure, me and Trav maybe get a little
wild sometimes when his folks're gone and we party over there,
but I don't think anyone's ever called the cops."
Serena gave a nod so emphatic, it almost dislodged her
from the front of my jacket. "Mr. Traveler is a very good
dog! He would never howl and tear things up like some
dogs I could mention!"
El Brujo gave a feline shrug. "Then perhaps we should
ask him to begin doing so."
Another thick silence fell over the group, and I have to
admit, I got a little chill up my back. "Wait," I said. "You
want Traveler to start misbehaving so I can go up and offer to
be his trainer?"
"Hey." Wings flapped, and Jefe glided down to grab my
right forearm, his black eyes glinting. "That's an idea's got
some heft to it."
"What??" I glared at him, but Honoria spoke up:
"And not just Traveler!" She flailed her wings out to
take in the whole neighborhood. "We get dogs all over to
start acting up, see? Instant business!"
"But--!" The way animal speech works, I hadn't thought
sputtering would be possible. But believe me, I did some
heavy duty sputtering right then. "That's dishonest!"
"Nonsense." El Brujo sniffed. "Even at the best of
times, dogs are never more than half a snarl away from a feral
reign of destruction and mayhem. We'd merely be using that to
our advantage."
And then comes 47.
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