Buster Brown's Sausage Story

In my second creative writing class, we read a news story about how a butcher was left open by accident and the surrounding community 'liberated' the goods.  All around were people with sausages, giving them to each other, creating good will among men, dropping them so that even the pets could enjoy them.  Our assignment was to write the story from the point of view of a character within the community. I chose a dog.  And, since there is only one dog who has really inspired me in my lifetime, I chose Buster Brown as my voice (for more Buster Brown, visit my early blogging on the JIm and Claire blog).

It had been a long week, what with the pill popping and stomach pumping.  Humiliating to be labeled a cage jumper and even more so to be forced to wear one of those giant satellite dish things on my head.  What self-respecting canine wouldn’t want to pull an IV out of his leg? Needless to say, eating a bottle of ibuprofen for attention hadn’t gotten me the kind of attention I had been seeking and I was glad to be home again, drooling in my own bed and ‘vacuuming’ the floors.

We followed the usual route on our evening walk and my nose was once again in fine form, post-vet.  While I was there I felt like I was never going to smell anything but antiseptic and cat and fear again, but a couple of minutes out in the free world cured me and I could smell that Moose had already been by on his evening walk. I lifted my leg onto his scent in greeting.  Then I had a good growl and hackle raise at the neighbor’s yard art.  I wasn’t too hot yet, so I was feeling good, not too itchy, and looking forward to flipping my squeaky frog around a few times when we got back home and the possibility of a possum sighting.

When we rounded the corner to head back to the house, I stopped short. I sniffed and snuffled and then, before I knew what to do with myself, I let out a howl and streaked off at high speed.  Being a beagle, I follow my nose, and it takes my brain a while sometimes to catch up.  I could hear Eddie shouting after me, but let me tell you that there is no such thing as an obedient beagle when there is food involved.  And this was food with a capital “F”: spicy and sweet at the same time, tangy and fat and juicy.

I shot under the first house I got to, eager to put some distance between myself and Eddie, and found myself in an enclosed yard with a deck. Trapped! To go back under the house would mean an end to my quest for Eddie would surely put me back on the leash he had so foolishly let me off of.  I peered around, frantically.  A potted plant sat above a chair on the deck and it seemed the most logical way to access the next yard, where the smell was stronger. My legs trembled and I leapt from chair to plant to fence top, where I balanced precariously and then inched forward before free falling to the ground.  Many years of cat and possum observations had taught me some fancy footwork, although I had yet to master a graceful landing.

The smell was stronger, almost visible, wafting over from the next yard.  I howled and squeezed myself under the fence, digging and clawing my way through and then, without stopping, I was upon them.  Sausages! Everywhere! I don’t know where they came from, but I wasn’t the only one who had been drawn.  People were running out of an open doorway with bags full of them. Children dropped armloads on the ground. After months of organic dog food there were sausages dropped on the ground, willy nilly!  I could hear Eddie calling me and I threw myself at them with a furor that I reserve only for food, growing and snapping at the feet around me, choking them down at breakneck speed.

 It was the best day of my life.