Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce chapter eight of my story Certified Sadistic Accountant. Christmas Eve started out so well and then the unthinkable happened. My novelist was coming down a flight of stairs, missed the last step and sprained her left ankle right at the stroke of midnight. She cried out in pain and required assistance to get to her feet. Her ankle is now swollen and bruised, and she is unable to get around much at all until it heals. I have been waiting on her hand and foot, staying by her side, protecting her. She has been putting ice on the injury and has taken some Tylenol (she hates medicine) and has started putting Voltaren Gel on the wounded area. Not a great way to spend Christmas but then again it could have been worse.

Him has been put in charge again. He insists on bossing everyone around. He even barks at my novelist when she tries to stand up. A genuine brute if you ask me. When he sits down, I take it upon myself to jump on his chest, stare him down, and lick his face incessantly, an act he abhors.

Hi. I’m Him and I’m trying to keep this whack-job household in order. First your novelist gets sick, Gigi, and then she sprains her ankle by missing the last step of the stairs. And now I’m stuck taking care of you and the little snowball while she rests up…again.

Well, I never! Just because you’re in charge, temporarily I might add, doesn’t give you the right to boss me around. You can boss the Maltese around as much as you like but I am more than capable of taking care of myself and my novelist thank you very much.

Yeah? Let’s see you open a can of dog food.

I am perfectly capable of…how do you open a can of dog food?

I’ll give you a hint. Your brand has a pull tab.

What is a pull tab…never mind. I’ll look it up on my novelist’s phone.

Yeah, you do that.

Apparently, all ll I will need is a flathead screwdriver.

This ought to be good…

I will slip it under the pull tab and lift it up and pull it back. And while I am attempting to accomplish that task here is chapter eight of Certified Sadistic Accountant. Bonne Année! And Happy New Year!

Certified Sadistic Accountant

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Eight

Curtis came home to find his neighbor Earl who lived in the other apartment of the duplex sitting on his front porch.

“Hello,” Curtis said confused.

Earl looked at Curtis, opened his mouth then shut it again. Finally, he said, “I have some bad news, Curtis.”

“What kind of bad news?”

“I was pulling into my driveway this afternoon when I saw something lying on your porch.”

“What was lying on my porch?”

“Haven.”

“Haven?”

“She was lying there, and I walked over, and she looked odd, and she had this shallow panting she was doing. And she wouldn’t look up at me. She just kept lying there. So, I ran into the house and got a blanket, and I wrapped her in it, and I drove her to the emergency animal hospital…”

Curtis turned and ran to his car.

“I didn’t know your phone number,” Earl called after him, “so, I waited until you got here.”

Curtis started the engine and hit the gas. He went screeching down the street, panic surging through his arteries. The kind of panic that sucks you into a vortex and cuts you off from the world. All that mattered was Haven.

Curtis found himself stopped at the four-way intersection. He looked down and saw his hands shaking on the steering wheel. He looked up again. If this had been a different time of the day, there would have been fewer cars. But it was rush-hour and even in a small town like his there was still traffic.  

Finally, it was his turn. He charged through, passed the first turn, turned right on the second and barreled up the grade to the end of the business building at the back of the property where he pulled into the first parking spot and killed the engine. He burst out of the car and locked it with his key fob and ran through the sliding doors.

“May I help you?” the young receptionist at the desk asked.

“My dog…a little Yorkie…female…my neighbor…uh…Ray brought her in today. He found her…he found her unresponsive outside my house.”

The receptionist began to calmly look through the information on her computer. “Your name, sir?”

“Curtis Cook.”

“Hmm…oh, yes. Curtis Cook. Haven. Ray…” she muttered Ray’s last name. “Yes. Let’s have you go into room number three.” The receptionist got up and walked around the desk and slowly led Curtis to room number three. They stepped inside. “The veterinarian will be with you in a few minutes.”

Curtis watched the receptionist close the door leaving him sitting on the wooden bench with his back against the wall. As he stared at the examining table a yard or so in front of him, his stomach tied into knots. A cloak of dread encircled his shoulders and the weight of it made him hang his head. As he gazed at the floor, he saw a thin crack in the polished cement. He wondered how it got there. He breathed as deeply as he could, his ears perked to the sound of voices outside the door moving about in the restricted medical area where his little dog was, and he could not go.

After about fifteen minutes passed the receptionist knocked on the outside door. “I just wanted to let you know we have coffee, tea, hot chocolate, hot cider and some snacks out here,” she said.

“Thanks,” Curtis replied just wanting to see the doctor.

She left and several more minutes passed. Finally, the handle on the doctor’s side door turned and another young woman entered. “Hello, I’m Kit, Dr. Thoroughgood’s nurse,” she said marching up to the screen by the examining table. “He’s the one who’s been caring for Haven. He’ll be in in just a moment.”

“How’s Haven?” Curtis asked. “When can I see her?”

“Dr. Thoroughgood will be in shortly to discuss that with you.”

“Can you tell me what happened to her?”

“Dr. Thoroughgood can tell you all about that as soon as he gets here. Right now, I need to ask you a few questions. Do you have pet insurance?”

“I…no.”

“Hmm. Well, I will tell you today’s visit is going to start around six hundred dollars.”

“Six hundred dollars?”

“Yes. But we have a couple of pet insurance companies we can recommend.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“Well…yes.”

Curtis stared at her blankly.

“But going forwards we recommend pet insurance to all our patients. However, since Haven is not covered, we need to know how you would like to pay for our services today.”

“Credit card I guess.”

“Well…oh, I think the doctor is coming in.”

Curtis heard the door open, and a tall strong looking man entered. He put some sanitizer on his hands from the dispenser near the door.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Thoroughgood,” the doctor said rubbing his hands together before reaching out his hand to shake Curtis’s.

Curtis reached out his hand and shook the doctor’s. Curtis noticed the doctor had a firm handshake.

“Well, Curtis. I have some bad news, I’m afraid. Haven didn’t make it.”

“What?” Curtis said stunned.

“She suffered internal bleeding from injuries she sustained from a car hitting her.”

“A car? That’s impossible. Haven is a very well-behaved dog. She never runs out into the street. And I always secure the house when I go to work.”

“I’m sorry, Curtis. But she must have found a way out and wandered into the road at the wrong time.”

Everything around Curtis turned inwards as if the world was suddenly reduced to a single breath of air. The doctor continued talking but his words were muted and useless to Curtis. Music had suddenly made an exodus from the universe.

“Again, I’m sorry mister…?”

“Cook,” Curtis heard himself say.

“By the time your neighbor drove her here there was really nothing much we could do.”

Curtis listened to the doctor’s heavy footsteps fade away as Thoroughgood walked back to the door and left.

“You can pay at the desk.”

“What?”

“You can pay at the desk, Mr. Cook,”

“Is that it?”

“We’ll give you a call tomorrow to decide how you’d like to proceed from here.”

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

 STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE SHOOTING (1966)-HBO MAX

In addition to streaming on HBO Max, The Shooting is also streaming on Crackle, Freeve, Peacock, Plex, Roko and Tubi.

The Golden Globe nominations came out two weeks ago on Monday, December 11^th and reminded me of how far American film has fallen. Three of the six Best Dramatic Film nominations are foreign films and all three are also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language. American films of late have little to no imagination or originality. And so, this week my pick is something completely different. If only American film making could get back to this level.

Listed at number twenty-one on Rotten Tomatoes 100 best westerns of all time and easily one of the most intriguing films I’ve ever had the pleasure to see is this fantastic enigma called The Shooting. This film is a puzzle, a riddle even, and one where you must pay attention to every single detail because if you don’t you won’t understand the fabulous home run of an ending this masterpiece delivers (albeit I may have liked it better without the slow-motion effect). Take notice of the character’s names, especially their meanings, and the use of color throughout. The film is directed by Monte Hellman and written by Carole Eastman. Hellman did not have Eastman rewrite any of the script. However, he started filming on page ten to take out expository material about Gashade’s ride back to the camp, which only worked to make the script even stronger.

Willet Gashade (Warren Oats), a former bounty hunter turned miner, returns tired and worn out to his peaceful mining camp after a long absence to find one of his partners Leland Drum (B.J. Merholz) dead and buried with a makeshift tombstone and his other partner child-like Coley (Will Hutchins) aiming to shoot anyone who comes by. Willet’s brother Coigne appears to be missing.

After Willet manages to get Coley to calm down, Willet tells Coley he believes someone had been tracking him as he made his way back to the camp. Coley tells Willet that a couple of days ago Leland and Coigne had gone into town, had too much to drink and Coigne had accidentally trampled a man and a child. Willet asks if they are dead, and Coley says he believes they likely are. Two days ago, Coigne took off, and shortly after someone came to the camp and shot and killed Leland, likely in retaliation. But Coley hid and was unable to make out the identity of the shooter.

The next day a young woman (Millie Perkins) shoots her horse dead on the hills directly above the camp. The gunshot alerts Willet and Coley and then they see her standing above them. She comes into their camp, asks to purchase a horse, and offers Gashade money to help take her to Kingsley but refuses to tell them her name. Gashade reluctantly agrees and their strange adventure begins.

Rounding out the cast is a young Jack Nicholson who plays a sadistic gunslinger named Billy Spear. Nicholson also co-produced the film along with Hellman and executive producer Roger Corman. John Herman Shaner was associate producer.