Or your money back

"Come here boy." The man's voice was harsh with tobacco and recent exertion.
The mutt was covered in coagulates of blood and bits of gristle from a recent encounter of which it had been the victor.

It must be mentioned that the dog would have made prime fodder for one of the more bizarre entries in the annals of recorded dogdom. Its build was on the portly side, with the strongly articulated musculature, bristling coat and squat legs of a bulldog. Its face, on the other hand, was hardly fit for inclusion in dogdom at all. Put charitably, it had the elongate snout of a Russian wolfhound. But if the observer were to get down to brass tacks, if he were to strip away the veneer of simile, he would undeniably conclude birth had crowned the dog with the face of a rat. The only part of the dog whose proportions were correct, so to speak, was the neck, but it must be remembered that this correctness was only the result of wild imbalances that teetered on either side of this bridge.

The bloodied dog was lingering sheepishly in the dying light beyond the door.

"I said come here boy." The dog's eyes dished up at the hard gaze. Its docked tail flagged as it crossed the threshold, following the man down the ratty carpeted aisle of the trailer and into the small bathroom.
The man closed the door and turned on the spigot. The tub started to fill. Cold water. The dog's eyes rolled.
"Shut up now and sit. There you go. Gonna get a shine on that coat again ain't we now."
The man picked his nose and flicked the fruit of his foraging into the rising water.
It was soon full.
"Git, boy." The dog looked up pathetically. "Git I said." He pointed at the tub, looming over the sanguinary dog. The dog crouched down and would not get. Belting out a curse, the man stooped down and grabbed the dog's studded collar, heaving it clean into the tub. It howled and splashed and scrabbled.
"Just where is it you think you're going dog. Now hush." He pinned it against the enameled iron and reached for the bottle of shampoo. "Hush dammit! There's other folks around besides us. And we wouldn't want them knowing what you've been up to. Lord, what an ugly old dog you are. And mean too. Hush now, that's right, be easy. Take just a minute."
He emptied the bottle over the dog's rump in a liberal swizzle, working the lather up the spine to the neckfold, to the crown of its rodent's head, and to the ears, the lather blooming from white to slurrid pink as he worked. He squeezed more shampoo into his palm, then worked the legs down to the bloodied paws, one after the other. The dog shivered, its breaths quick and shallow, but it did not struggle.
The man stood back after some time. Satisfied that the shampoo had accomplished the deep, gentle cleanse it advertised, he sat down on the edge of the tub.
"You know what they say. This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you. And it won't even make you nice to look at."
Bracing himself with his feet, he bore down on the dog's neck to force it under water. It bore the weight for a few seconds before collapsing onto its hocks and into the water, the man nearly following. A fragment of chewing tobacco escaped his mouth and fell into the water with a muted plink.
"Shit a brick."
Keeping his weight on it, he let the dog's struggles rinse the lather from its coat for him as the water took on the color of the floorslurry in an abbatoire. After several seconds more he stood and let the dog breach and struggle aright. Once it had caught its breath it let out a tremendous sneeze that seemed to exceed the conceivable capacity of any canine set of lungs, as if its innards were nothing but a great wheezy bellows. It looked up, its eyes now placid and altogether doglike, without trace of pain or fury.
"Oh no you don't!"
But it did. It shook itself dry in a tremendous wave of contortions and contractions which, beginning at the head, seized its entire body in a convulsion from which the water went forth in a pink applescented rain before the last tremor winked out at the right hind-paw. The man was drenched. He looked at the dog for a moment in silence.
"Hell, I deserved it, didn't I?" The dog's tail rose in a tentative wag. "Now git!" No sooner had he opened the door than the dog bolted through, a streak of sodden enthusiasm. He let it out the door into the fenced yard. When he'd closed the door he leaned his head against it and closed his eyes.

When he woke from his nap the dog was pawing at the door. The sun had set and the warm nights were over. He hardly recognized the thing when he went to let it in. "You got to be five finger fucking me. What'd you see, the ghost of every dog you ever whooped?" Every bristle on the dog's hide was standing on end. Worse, the neck fur had risen into a pronounced collar that set the dog's face off even more starkly against the body. It slunk off to a corner and groaned as it settled onto a patch of balding carpet. Groggy with sleep, the man plodded to the refrigerator and reached for a beer.
"Be damned if it wasn't the shampoo."
He stood a long while drinking and looking at the dog.

*
Well, I'm sure as hell hoping so. I've got a situation with your shampoo.
Yeah, I got a complaint to make.
About the shampoo.
Well, it's like this. I used it to wash some hair, and now the hair won't settle down. I mean it's just standing up like someone sat him in the 'lectric chair.
Well no, it wadn't my hair I washed. But like I said, the hair I washed, the shampoo just plain screwed it up. He looks like a hairmetal mascot if you know what I mean.
I did, yes.
Of course I tried brushing it down. I just said so.
Well I wouldn't be calling you if I didn't think there was something else I could be doing about it.
Today. A couple hours ago.
It's still standing up. Just on end. Like I said before.
I don't know. What's the difference what scent it is. It ruined my, it ruined that hair all right.
All right, okay. Lemme get the bottle. Just a sec.
All right. It's Apple Zephyr. Zulu, Edward, Papa, Hotel, Yankee, Romeo.
OK. Yeah, lemme just look. OK, that's 52187352. Now what am I going to get for this?
Well look. I don't have a camera, so you're not getting a picture. But you've got my word.
Look, lady, it says right here on the bottle that if I'm not satisfied you'll reimburse me. Your friggin shampoo ruined my dog's coat.
Just a second now. What do you mean doesn't apply to dogs? It doesn't say anything about dogs on the bottle, lady. Just if I'm not satisfied I'll get my money back. Well I'm not satisfied. And you know what? I've got a dog hiding in the corner of shame, and he sure as shit ain't satisfied either.
Yeah yeah, I'll submit a written complaint with the UPC code and original proof of purchase. Count on it. Listen, let me ask you something. Do you like doing this job? I mean do you like stiffing saps out of 3.99 when the product don't work? What's in it for you? And where the heck are you anyway? What kind of accent is that?
No, no, that's it. I called about one thing and you couldn't help me with it.
Oh yeah...and thanks for talking to Mason Dewey. Mason Dewy always appreciates a load of crap.

*

"I'll be...I want that money back. Whaddye say, dog. I think we should head over to the head office tomorrow and get that money back, don't you?"
The man lurched to the refrigerator for another beer. He twisted the cap free and took a tremendous quaff.
"Hell fire."


-To be continued