One of the most awesome dogs to ever pass through the Casa del Whackos was a tiny chihuahua named Bull Taco. He came into my life the first day of my last incarceration in corporate Amerika; I went to lunch that day with my new boss(the same as the old boss), and when we returned there was this scrap of a dog hobbling on a broken front leg around the freight yard.
First day. New job. Second chance to jump start my old career. The smart thing to do would have been to continue with that day’s indoctrination, er, orientation, but I have never been accused of being smart. I eventually caught the snarky little fartbag, or he allowed himself to be coaxed into my car, and that started the whole legend of The Bullish One.
Uki, Beebe, Max, Charlie; these are the Mt Rushmore of the Casa, but there have been others who held the same promise but their time was cut short by tragic circumstances. Stevie Mae, Mr Stubb, Skinny Minnie, Victor, Bull Taco; it’s painful to recall the circumstances of their passing, but they deserve to be remembered. The following was a story we did shortly before Bull’s passing detailing how I imagined his journey from his ancestral home in Mexico to his new one in Arkansas.
RIP, Bull; it’s always too soon until it’s too late.
Dateline: somewhere along zee border
A full moon casts a long shadow, that of a lone figure with an impressive set of ears, as he stealthily makes his way towards the mighty Rio Grande. His nombre is El Zurdo, The Lefty, a moniker not taken but earned in a cantina brawl along the dry Chihuahuan desert; the other participants in the fracas earned no such names in the encounter.
They’re all dead.
El Zurdo is on a mission to transport the fruit of of his family’s farm, his destination the dispensaries located far north in the mythical land of Colorado. That such a diminutive figure can not only carry but conceal such an aromatic load is a testament to both the brawn and brains of the sinewy canine.
His contact had apprised him of a secret tunnel that would travel under the Wall being constructed along the border, but even this approach carried it’s own set of dangers. This gateway was owned and mantained by a rival family who contracted their security services to the dreadful Los Gatos, a shadowy cadre of depraved reprobates so evil that even the Kardashian Klan gave them wide berth.
The entrance to the tunnel was concealed deep in the midst of the Gatos stronghold, the Litterbox del Muerto: Zurdo picked his way through the sandy minefield, the ammonia-like stench causing his hackles to bristle and the bile to rise in his throat. The darkness of the passageway drew him inexorably onward, and with one last longing thought of a special senorita back in Juarez, he plunged into its inky depths.
The tunnel began to constrict as it vanished into the rocky depths, and it occurred to El Zurdo that every foot that he descendedid equated to many more metric tons of unstable rock suspended above his head. The clarion bells of claustrophobia had began to clatter in his cranium when he sensed a new danger in the darkness ahead, an unseen prescence so reprehensible that it could only be worthy of one fate:
Violent death at the paws of Los Crippled One!
He stealthily approached the unseen foe, coiling himself into the killing machine who’s name struck icy fear into the hearts of those who would do evil and adoration in those that would do good, and then he pounced. His razor-like incisors lanced through the torpid flesh of his mortal foe, and a horrible shriek filled the fetid air of the darkness…
Uh, Bull? That’s the covers you’re under, not some sort of cave; and if you don’t mind, could you ease up a bit on my hand? I’ve grown accustomed to having two of them…
Uh, lo siento, mi padre.
Go back to sleep, Bull…
Buenos nachos, papi.
