Dispatched

Dispatched
　
I am not a bad person, I just like beer lots. And you know the price of it these days. Well, alright, it’s never been cheaper, but that’s even worse. Now you can afford to get drunk quicker and your wits depart that much quicker too. You spend what you have and more. I spent the money dad had given me for the vet.
The old man had finally given up on the dog. The old bugger was on his last legs, the dog that is, for ages, but he would never hear of it getting put down while mum was alive. And now she wasn’t. I will remember her last days as if there had been a bumble bee flying around the room, because she had had a little gadget implanted under her skin. Every couple of minutes it would release painkillers into her system with a friendly little, bee-like buzz.
Dad had wanted to keep the dog until she was gone; even though it was no kindness because the dog was racked with cancers as much as mum had been.
So after the funeral, dad said to take the dog top the vet and have her put down, the vet had wanted to do it ages ago so would be only too happy to do it. A mercy. Here’s the money.
I took the dog and the money to the pub and had a few pints and next thing the dog’s still there but the money isn’t. So I took the old dog back to my flat until the next day so I could at least take her to dad’s sober. Me, I mean. Next day I was walking up the road very slowly, partly because I didn’t feel too good, partly because I didn’t want to face dad and partly because the dog couldn’t go very fast; legs knackered, lungs too probably. Poor old thing is always starving, even her digestive system must be gone, food goes straight through her, so I suppose that slows her down too, no energy.
The old man would be mad, take out his grief in anger on me, quite right too, I could hardly blame him. I was walking past a derelict mill site and had to stop. The dog had slumped onto her belly, five minutes recuperation needed at least. For maybe the first time ever, I noticed a carving on the wall; a whatyemaycallit, a mortar and pestle. Which bits which, I can never remember, don’t exactly use them much. I suppose it was there as a symbol of industry, not as one of the mill-workers being ground into dust. The company shut up shop years ago and moved to parts of the world where they don’t have to worry about troublesome newfangled ideas like safety, pollution laws or paying a fair days wage for a fair weeks work. The main mill is gone. It had four cupolas on the corners, green with age. I got on the roof once to take some photographs; the verdigrised domes made it seem like some papal palace.
Standing in a daydream I didn’t hear the voice. A finger poked me on the shoulder.
‘Don’t touch’, I said, ‘I suffer from tactile hallucinations.’
‘You’ll suffer from my boot up your arse if you don’t wake up, yah dozy get.’ Davey MacMillan. Scrawny bugger, biking jacket, rides a clapped-out Kawasaki at great speed with no concern for other road-users. He nodded at the dog.
‘Who’s this, Patch?’
‘It’s a Golden Labrador. Why would it be called Patch?’
‘Golden? More like a sort of washed-out yella. Is he called Yella?’
‘Don’t let my old man hear you call his dog Yella. And he’s a she. Name’s Iona.’
‘You own a?’
‘It’s an island.’
‘There’s an island called ‘you own a’?’
‘It’s off Mull.’
‘There’s an island called Mull?’
He grinned and poked me with a bony finger again.
‘Well, Iona isn’t looking too clever, is she? Maybe you should stick her on a skateboard and wheel her home.’
As if in disgust at having to listen to this, Iona slowly rose and we continued up the road. I told Davey about messing up her big date with the vet.
‘She looks like she’s had a good kick of the ball. How old is she? Fourteen! That’s like eighty in dog years, ninety. That’s like saying she was born when the doggy Queen Victoria was still on the throne.’ This all happened a while back, so he wasn’t far off. I had the image of a doggy Victoria in my head. What breed would she be? King Charles spaniel, I suppose, since he was an ancestor. Big floppy ears sticking out of that old-fashioned bonnet.
Ever the helpful lad, Davey came up with a plan and went off home, he promised to be back soon. I sat on a broken wall and waited, Iona slumped in the shade of the broken masonry. Davey only lived five minutes away so he was soon beck, a holdall slung over one shoulder.
‘Follow me.’ He headed into the waste ground where the mill had stood.
Although the main building was long demolished, some of the smaller buildings still stood. Davey led the way through the wreckage of a stone gateway and up what had been a garden path. It led to a fairly complete and grand looking honey-coloured sandstone house; maybe the home of the mill manager, keep an eye on those feckless workers. Davey stopped and unslung the bag. He unzipped it and took out a shotgun.
‘That’s bloody well sawn-off! What the bloody hell are you doing with a sawn-off shotgun?’
‘Shooting short rabbits? Low-flying clay pigeons? I saw an American film where a guy called it a ‘sawed-off’! Ha! Get it? Sounds like ‘sod off ya bastard’, bang! We’ll finish off old but gold here and be on our way, yer old man’ll never know.’
I was going right off the idea. Fine, it wasn’t costing me anything, but poor old Iona. Could I stand by and watch this?
I told Davey that maybe it was all a bad idea and I couldn’t watch him shoot the poor old bitch.
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said,’ give me the lead.’ He walked up the path and led the dog through the door of the villa. As I made to follow, he put a hand up to stop me and forced close the front door. He shouldered it to shut it as tight as possible. I stood there and the handle of the lead popped out of the letter box.
‘Grab hold.’
I took it and stood there. I heard Davey walk further up the hall. Silence. Click. Boom. Pigeons erupted through the upper windows.
The severed end of the lead slithered through the letter box, dangled from my hand, it was bloody . I chucked it into the weeds and walked off.
Davey got the jail soon after for robbing his local shop, the one he bought milk and cigarettes in. He wore a ski-mask but they knew him right off, the girl went to school with his little sister, daft bastard.
The honey-coloured house was turned into expensive flats when the site was developed. I don’t suppose any bloodstains show on the walls of the hallway as the residents walk out of a morning to their flash cars.