Author: Raud Kennedy

Raud Kennedy is a writer and an artist.

Portland Towers

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“I was getting headaches until I got the second one,” Dinty said, an earphone in each ear with wires leading to the cell phone in his shirtfront pocket. “Now all my calls come in stereo. Like a voice inside my head, right here.” He tapped his forehead with his index finger. “If it’s my boss, it sounds like the voice of God.” Mimicking his boss’s deep baritone, he said, “Dinty, public toilet five on the ninth floor has crap smears in it. Get up there with your brush.” He scratched the bald spot on the head of the Chihuahua in his lap. “Mr. Orly is like any boss, he’s obsessed with smears.”

Taking the earphones from his ears, he offered them to the dog. “Here, do you want to listen? I’ll call you and I can be the voice of God. ‘Stanley, stop shedding on the man’s uniform.’” Then the phone rang. The caller ID said it was Mr. Orly. “Oops, speak of the devil. I better take this.”

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Negotiating with Biscuits #3 – The Garage Sale

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I gather up an armful of tired looking toys and pass Fleegle in the kitchen on my way to the garage.

“Where are you going with all my toys?” he asks.

“We’re having a garage sale.”

He cocks his head to the side. “You’re going to sell my toys?”

“They’ve been sitting untouched in your toy basket for so long I figured you were bored with them.”

He follows me out to the garage, but now he’s carrying something in his mouth and it’s not a toy. “What have you got there?”

“Your remote to the television,” he slurs around the hard plastic. “It’s your donation to the garage sale. Think of it as going on a diet for the mind and you’re cutting out visual junk food.”

I do a 180 and return the armful of toys to his basket and he drops the remote back on the coffee table. Détente is established.

Back in the kitchen, he grabs his crate by its door and starts dragging it toward the garage.

“What are you up to now?” I ask.

“I’m going to sell my crate at your garage sale.”

Negotiating with Biscuits #2 – The Remote

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“What’s that you got in your crate?” I ask Fleegle, pointing inside it at something small and black.

His tail wags. “Well, Raud, that’s one of your remotes. I think it’s to the television.”

I look at him suspiciously. “What’s it doing in there?”

He sits, his tail sweeping the floor behind him. “It’s like this, I just tossed a cookie remote in my crate for you.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” I get down on all fours and crawl in to retrieve the remote, wet with dog slobber, but thankfully not yet chewed on. The crate door bangs against my feet. “What are you doing out there?”

“I’m giving my crate to you and you’re moving in. Now that it’s yours, do you want a stuffed Kong to chew on while I’m out carousing the neighborhood with my friends?”

Negotiating with Biscuits #1 – The Crate

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I hold open the crate door for Fleegle, my chocolate Lab.

He stands his ground and stares at me. “No. I’m not going in my crate.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“How come it’s my crate? Why isn’t it your crate?”

I look at the crate, which is small for me, then back at him. “Well, have you ever seen me get in it?”

“If you get in I’ll get in.”

“I’m sure you would. That would be very cozy.”

“I like cozy,” he says.

“I know you do.” I toss a dog cookie in the back of the crate.

“Oh boy, a cookie,” he says as he runs in after it. His tail thumps against the inside of the crate as the cookie crunches in his mouth.

I put a Kong stuffed with frozen peanut butter in behind him and close the door. He hears the latch close and turns around.

“Cat butt! I fell for it again, didn’t I?” he says, looking through the wire mesh of the crate door.

“Yes, you did.”

He spots the red Kong toy. “Ooo,” he sniffs the air. “I smell peanut butter.”