Testify

Tomorrow I’m going to testify before the Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Special Committee of the Tennessee State Legislature to tell what I know about the Looby bombing because there isn’t anyone else to do it.

I am both very excited and scared.

I also feel a kind of mix of pride and sorrow that I can say what I know and that I know things probably no one else in the state knows. It’s a strange thing to be sitting underneath the only brain who knows a big, important thing.

It’s also such bullshit. Why did it take 60 years for anyone to look into this? Why should I be alone in knowing this stuff? It’s not right.

Someone tried to kill that man, that hero, and then no one gave a shit. And he had to live in this community knowing that no one gave a shit enough to solve his assassination attempt. That sucks.

Anyway, I’m not the best person to do this, but Fate has made me the only person who can and so I will try my best and try to tell Looby’s story in a way that maybe will spur someone to give him some measure of justice.

Can You Fistfight a Dog? Should You?

This morning… okay, first, what you need to know is that, unless you check and make sure it has latched, there’s a 50/50 chance the kitchen door is not latched. It’s just shut. Since I walk the dog at the buttcrack of dawn and I’m not always 100% completely awake, sometimes, it’s not latched. I try hard, but I am also mostly asleep.

So, this morning, Señor Asshole bounds off as usual into the neighbor’s yard. And then, because it’s dark, he promptly vanishes, even though I talked to him again today about the importance of being a good boy.

Off I tromp through neighbors’ yards, looking through their garbage for him. No fucking sign.

I decide my only hope is to go to where we normally start our walks, out by the creek, and see if he shows up. I turn around to head back that way and who comes bounding from behind me? And then who trips over something in the neighbor’s yard and does a full front roll?

Yes, Señor Asshole.

But where has that motherfucker been? I’ve been in everyone’s back yards. I saw no sign of him.

So, we go for our walk. We get back. The orange cat is outside, which is… not where he was when we went for our walk. We get into the garage. There’s the kitchen door standing wide open.

So, I think that asshole came back to the house. INTO THE HOUSE. And left me wandering around the neighborhood for fifteen minutes, calling for him.

I’m going to have to start leashing him up before I even open the door, which I hate, because back when he behaved, the moments where he was in my back yard, near the door, doing his first pee of the day, gave me a chance to get the elderly orange cat situated with breakfast without the dog or the other cat bullying him out of it.

Still, it must be done. This is the third neighborhood gallivant of the week and it’s only Wednesday. That’s one day gallivant-free and I need like 95% gallivant-free walks.