The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog Read online

  When I tell him what I’m doin’, he’s surprised to hear I’m way more of a TV clown than a professional pet. I let him know how much I love Bud and how good he is to me, and I’m just hoping we stay here forever, ’cause my yard is big fun, and I’m building muscles tossing tires, leapin’ hurdles, bouncing around in a big circle, and sleepin’ in my orange doghouse.

  But bein’ with Billy, seein’ his life, I’m startin’ to feel paranoid like after the time I ate the baggie of Bud’s pot gummies and thought demons were outside in the dark peering at me through the windows. I think I’m dumb ’cause I’m not as smart as Billy and I’ll never be a pro pet. And I’m embarrassed show business life is so nuts, and worrying maybe Billy thinks I’m bein’ exploited, and thinkin’ Bud’s probably too scared to make a commitment so he’s never gonna settle down and have kids that I’d be able to protect and play with. Plus, he wants to go to New York, and I’m scared of that, and I’m suddenly wonderin’ if maybe Billy’s jealous of my balls. I’m havin’ a panic attack so I run into my house.

  Billy’s barking for me to come outside, but I’m not budgin’, so in he comes and lies next to me on the cedar-chip floor. He looks around and is wondering who that woman in the big picture on my wall is, and I let him know about Cher, who he’s never heard of. I’m figurin’ he’s probably got shots of Nobel Prize winners and scientists in his doghouse, and I got Cher.

  We’re on different paths, he tells me. When you get picked out of a litter, you never know what awaits you. You just gotta be the best Spike you can be for Bud. Don’t live a fear-based life, he’s advising. As I listen to him, I’m realizing my brother, a dog, is makin’ far more sense than Doctor Phil did on Bud’s show last week.

  In the house, Bud’s stopped the kids from damaging any more songs by getting his karaoke system workin’ and singin’ a few himself. As we listen, it feels so good lyin’ there with Billy, who’s telling me, “Just be here now, Spike; be here now. We may never see each other again.”

  And Bud’s doin’ this song “The Pilgrim” that he picked off the album Kristofferson gave him. He’s been singin’ it to himself for days. It’s a real confusing song to me, all about questions like: Is the going up worth the coming down? Is believing a blessing or a curse?

  I figure goin’ up, comin’ down has something to do with jumpin’, but I’m looking to Billy for maybe more insight than that, and Billy thinks Bud’s singin’ it to himself ’cause he doesn’t really know what he’s searching for, what kinda shine he never found. As I’m struggling to grasp poetic deconstruction from a two-year-old dog, suddenly everything changes and I have to snap into action.

  Bud gets a call from Buffy about The Geyser investigation. A friend of her cousin is workin’ the legit foot and neck massage operation in the front room and hates the owners, who’re harassing her for sex all the time.

  She tells Buffy that they try to grab her crotch with what they call the “presidential handshake.”

  She’s quittin’ her job and wants to help us. Buffy gives Bud the big news—Edna’s is having some special “blowout” sale, and Bolster himself has scheduled an appointment for “tightness in the thighs,” which is code for “Get me in the back room for a release.”

  Bee Googles “Edna’s Foot and Rub.”

  “They’re nuts!” she screams, laughing. “The website must be copying reviews from Wine Spectator; listen to this: ‘Our hand-krafted massages’…. Ha, ‘crafted’ with a ‘k’”—Bee laughs—“‘offer a lush, brilliant, yet youthful mouth-feel with a hint of natural acidity,’” she reads. “‘The finish is long and elegant with an explosion of minerality that shows great finesse and focus.’”

  Calvin and Bud are suddenly lookin’ a little thirsty, but Bud’s got to get someone in there fast to catch Bolster for the investigative report. He tells Bee and Calvin what a hypocrite Bolster is because of his daily “family values” TV editorials that simultaneously condemn abortion, sex education, birth control, and masturbation.

  “I’m game to go in; sounds like fun,” Calvin offers, and tells his wife, “Don’t worry, honey. We won’t get to the hand job part with me.” She shoots him a look like, “It’d have to be a pretty small hand, honey.”

  He calls for an immediate “tightness in the thighs” appointment. Instead of the groin cam, which Bud figures is too big for Calvin’s groin, he gives him the spy cam watch that Lombardo bought for investigations.

  At Edna’s Foot and Rub, we park in the lot. Calvin heads up a long flight of stairs. He gets to the back room and tells the therapist he has to meditate before the massage, and tips her ten bucks to go outside. We see her on the back deck furiously texting, eating a banana, and smokin’ a crack pipe.

  Bud’s nervous ’cause the WGHP camera guy’s late. Calvin texts Bud that Bolster’s on the other side of the curtain. We hear live audio of what’s going on. It sounds like Bolster’s coaching a limbo dancer—“Lower, lower, lower, lower, lower…”

  The WGHP van pulls into the lot, and the girl on the deck freaks out, throws her crack pipe into the woods, and is yelling, “A TV station’s here!” Bolster looks out the window and starts madly pulling on his clothes.

  “He’s gonna head down the back stairs,” Calvin tells Bud over the watch.

  The crew guy’s getting out of the van and slowly walking to get the camera out the back, and Bud says, “Shit, he’s gonna get away, Spike…”

  Bud starts shooting video with his phone, and points at the bottom of the stairs and says, “Spike—detain position, detain position,” which we’ve been working on from the Army guard dog manual.

  I charge toward the bottom of the steps to stop Bolster. Billy leaps out the car window and is running next to me.

  Bolster’s comin’ down the staircase with something inside his pants that looks like it might be life-threatening and last longer than four hours. At the bottom of the steps, I snap into the detain stance. Billy copies me—legs apart, head up, fangs out, growling low.

  Unless he uses that thing in his pants to pole-vault over us, Bolster’s trapped. I’m feelin’ good ’cause Billy’s looking at me like, “Don’t worry, brother; you are a professional pet.”

  The next morning our picture’s in the paper. Headline: “Wonder Dog and Brother Foil TV Executive’s Escape From ‘Happy Ending’ Parlor.”

  I was sad as Billy stared at me out the back of their Cherokee as his family drove away. The windows were up, so the sound of the little girl trying to be a dramatic soprano singing “Under the Boardwalk” was partially muffled.

  Before Billy hopped into the jeep, we had an eerie farewell.

  “You will be tested, Spike,” he told me softly. Then he looked at me for a long time before he said something in Latin. “Horam expecta veniet—await the hour, Spike; it shall come.”

  Like he was seein’ my future.

  6

  Vegas

  You probably thought when we left The Tonight Show we’d never see Ike “I Got Money” Piles again. But no!

  When the phone rang, Bud was still basking in the glory of his exposé on both Bolster and Edna’s. High Point was swirling with rumors that Bolster left town for a long vacation in Thailand, and that Edna’s Foot and Rub was closed, but relocated to the back of a health food store disguised as a “Fresh, Hot, Organic, Bone Broth Bar.” Anyway….

  “I one of Money Piles’ people,” the guy on the phone says. “I James Three. Money call all his men James so not strain brain, and I be James Three.”

  “What can I do for you, Mister Three?” Bud asks.

  “Money Piles want rent that monster beast dog of yours for Max-Ex Laxative Drone delivery ring entry at MGM Grand Garden when Money fight Karl ‘The Kitty’ Williams for WBC belt. You get five thousand dollars, ringside seat, first-class transportation, high-roller suite, and Triple-Dollar-Sign Money Piles All-Access 3-D Hologram Boxing Glove Total Access Pass. No James even get that pass. You even wander around money counting room with that thing r
ound your neck. Nobody stop you nowhere.”

  “Well this sounds intriguing, Mister Three, but what does my monster beast dog have to do exactly? And what, by the way, is the Max-Ex Laxative Drone?” Bud asks.

  “Max-Ex Laxative Drone be new airborne system get world’s most highly powerful fast-acting laxative to brothers and sisters in wilderness of Midwest who home all bound up with unsightly constipation ’cause they havin’ too much fun with opioid use,” James Three says. “Drone motto be ‘When you stop, we drop.’”

  “Impressive and much-needed use of drones,” Bud says.

  “Yeah, you subscribe to Max-Ex Laxative Drone, you automatically in Frequent Flusher Program. All kinds rewards.”

  “Of course,” Bud says, “but my dog evacuates his bowels with the accuracy of a Norden bombsight. Why would he be endorsing a laxative delivered by a drone?”

  “He no endorse. He be delivered to ring by new Max-Ex Laxative Drone. Max-Ex pay Money Piles million dollars. They want drone promotion. Drone hover over boxing ring, and Max-Ex box flaps open, your beast have giant ugly stuff cat toy in jaws. Drone land and he be leaping around ring chewing on cat toy. Drop toy at feet of Karl ‘The Kitty’ Williams. You take dog to seat, and Money Piles start usual entrance sitting in money-covered fur chair carried by four naked gold-painted California girls, while we hear Jay-Z sing ‘Money, Cash, Hoes.’”

  “And my dog will be up in the air in a box carried by a drone?”

  “OK, Money Piles pay you ten thousand dollars. What else you want? Lifetime escort service coupons? How ’bout case of Money Shot Pleasure Cream? Research show it turn sandpaper rough hand of Kentucky coal miner to love glove in five seconds. Pleasure Cream sponsor Money’s Massage Madness Tournament. We get you ringside seats at finals.”

  “Er…massage tournament?”

  “Girls-on-guys tug of war. They down to final-four bracket when you be in Vegas. Ringside include free buffet.”

  “I always eat too much at buffets,” Bud says. “I’ll pass.”

  “OK, sweeten deal…want Chevy Malibu? Money buy ten bright green Malibu for his James, he have four left. What you want?”

  “I want to make sure Spike, my dog, is safe.”

  “Then you talk James Six,” James Three says. “James Six now flyin’ Max-Ex Drone over Karl ‘The Kitty’ Williams headquarters blastin’ combo Norah Jones and James Taylor ballads, sending training camp into deep trance. You try skippin’ rope to Norah Jones. So Six know drone. You interested?”

  “Yeah, sure, tell Money Piles I’m interested. But I gotta talk to Mister Six.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Bud says, “did he ever buy Willie Nelson’s guitar, ‘Trigger,’ like he was trying to do back at Fallon?”

  “No, man,” James Three says, “but Ike ‘I Got Money’ Piles buy Willie tour bus, paint it red and yellow. It now Vegas only hop-on-hop-off sex bus. Sign on side say, ‘You Come While We Go.’”

  “Remarkable attraction,” Bud deadpans. “Have Six call.”

  Bud tells me he has to make sure I’m not gonna plummet from the drone headfirst onto Mike Tyson ringside. Plus, as usual, he’s got to run the caper by Lombardo.

  “How do you know that dog’s gonna be OK carried by a drone?” Lombardo asks, as he’s spit-shining a shoe.

  “I’m going find out all of that from Six,” Bud says.

  “I’m assuming Six is a person,” Lombardo says. “So what kind of deal are they offering?”

  “Ten thousand, first class all the way, high-roller suite, special backstage pass, even an escort-service credit.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t do that. You could get drugged, robbed, videotaped, arrested, or even worse,” Lombardo says.

  “Worse?” Bud asks.

  “E.D. ’cause of guilt.”

  Bud laughs. “I’ll steer clear; not my style anyway.”

  “OK, keep me posted,” Lombardo says.

  Next day, James Six calls.

  “Your dog be safe as long as he stand still for ten seconds after flaps drop ’fore we land ’im, and we practice that,” James Six says. “If dog not able, Money Piles still pay you. There nothing to lose.”

  “OK, good, so whom do I talk to for all the arrangements?”

  “Whom James One; here he be.”

  “Mister One,” Bud says.

  “Hey, Mister Bud, you call me James, ’cause I original James. I got list to check off. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, so Mister Bud, you here for only few days; so let’s get your essentials. What you need? Here list: coke, uppers, downers, painkillers, hookers, alcohol, VR porn, gambling, pot, Viagra, fetish gear, ASMR, oxygen, growth supplement, club drugs, Ketamine, piercing, tattoos, jewelry, and smoothies.”

  “Ah…” Bud says.

  “You want get laid? You go free to Money’s Indoor Sky Diving Sex Club. It be like havin’ intercourse in outer space. Business also boomin’ at Money’s new Guys and Sex Dolls House, but you no wait; you just walk right in and get custom fitted for doll.”

  “Custom fitted?”

  “Money have only sex doll brothel, employ team of grandmothers to custom fit dicks to dolls.”

  “Grandmothers?”

  “Yeah,” James One says. “Money hire three old hippie babes from Carmel that was Sixties plaster-castin’ groupies. Nobody in world know ins and outs of dick-molding process like them.”

  “Back out of retirement like The Spice Girls,” Bud says.

  “And Money tell me, he want you mention on TV that all Money Piles’ facilities be one hundred percent sex slave free. Money only employ U.S.D.A. approved Midwest farmers’ daughters who make you feel all right while they livin’ the American Dream.”

  “God bless Money Piles, but I’m fine,” Bud says.

  “Yeah, maybe you fine now, but at drunken’ moment at four in morning you need emergency airlift of you to Bunny Ranch in Carson City? Then James need twenty-minute notice; we short on sober copter pilots that time a night. You want dog get laid? Easy round up horny strays on Strip.”

  “I think we’ll be OK,” Bud says. “I just like to go swimming, and the dog eats raw ground steak. Oh wait, maybe a little sativa pot.”

  “How many pounds pot?”

  “No, just enough for a couple of joints.”

  “I give you five pounds of Haze Wreck. Take rest home; you flyin’ private jet.”

  “Actually,” Bud says, “forget it. Just the raw meat, and another one of those special passes for my dog and swimming for me.”

  “Your Triple Dollar Sign Money Piles All-Access 3-D Hologram Boxing Glove Total Access Pass let you in all pools anywhere in state of Nevada, even pools at every private high-roller townhouse on strip, even if you not stay in one. Suppose A-Rod and J-Lo are co-po-lating madly in their private pool over at MGM? You just jump in that pool, flash your pass, and yell, ‘Lo-Rod, you two get the fuck outta your pool. I here now!’ But at The Grotto Have It Your Way Topless Pool—guaranteed fifty percent natural, fifty percent enhanced breasts—there be five-dollar surcharge to get in.”

  “Five dollars?”

  “Yeah, support breast implant research, but Money say it tax deductible.”

  Two weeks later, we’re on a jet to Las Vegas. People on board don’t have that self-satisfied look like I saw in the Fallon audience. They have a “This is where I belong; good for me” expression that’s covering up a “Holy shit, I’m on a private plane” face that they don’t want to show.

  The pilot is this big tough military-looking guy who probably wishes he had a tail gunner to shoot down some small planes for target practice on the way. He’s givin’ Bud trouble about me, says he doesn’t want “that big white dog up here.” He points to a guy at a table in the back whose hair’s gone prematurely orange and says, “He might disturb Sumner, because this is still his plane.”

  “We gotta crate him,” he growls, with a voice that sounds like he’s been smoking Camels since h
is mother carried him home from the hospital.

  “Hold on a minute,” Bud says, as he starts fumbling around in his small leather Coach bag that’s covered with bites, ’cause I thought it was an inflatable chew toy when he got it for Christmas. He pulls out my Triple Dollar Sign Money Piles All-Access 3-D Hologram Boxing Glove Total Access Pass and shows it to the captain, who starts bowing to us with his hands together like he’s a Hindu holy man who flies jets. A woman who Bud says is Wendy Rhodes from Billions gets moved so Bud and me can sit together.

  “Anything I can get for you?” the captain asks.

  “Champagne for me and a Bloody Bull shot with ice for my dog.”

  After the first hour, everybody’s had a couple of drinks, so most of ’em spend the rest of the flight sleepin’ or starin’ glassy-eyed at their phones. Bud posts a shot of him and me and Wendy Rhodes on Facebook. Ray Donovan, who seems way more relaxed than on television, comes over and wants Bud to tell him about my breed. He tells Bud he just got a beagle puppy, and I’m thinkin’, “I hope you’re prepared for a life with nonstop yapping and barking, Ray.”

  Next morning, we go to practice with the Max-Ex Laxative Drone. We’re in a big, sparkling-clean gym with a boxing ring in the middle of the basketball court.

  Ike “I Got Money” Piles is in a corner pounding on the heavy bag listening to the confidence-building lyrics of Sho’ Um BigWood, a rapper he manages.

  He spots us.

  “Who dat?” he yells, running over, pointing at me. “Who dat here for drone delivery that makin’ Money’s money piles more money piles?”