Bizarro Fiction: Death of a Dog Eater by Cameron Pierce

Pike passes the sign-in sheet to the lady on his left. He stands. The fold-up chair beneath him scrapes against the floor. He waves at the people sitting in chairs. “My name is Pike Fischer,” he says. His forehead and underarms drip sweat.

“Hi Pike,” the people say.

“How can we help you this evening, Pike?” says Deidra, a mid-fifties woman with a badge that says CHORDINATOR pinned to her red overalls.

 ”I like to eat dogs,” Pike says.

The crowd gasps.

“This isn’t Dog Eaters Anonymous,” Deidra says. Her eyes glow red. Deidra is a robot. “Do you have a problem with alcohol? We are here to help people struggling with alcohol.”

Pike licks his lips. He reaches for the lip balm in the pocket of his frayed jeans. He applies cherry-scented lip balm as he says, “I eat dogs.”

“Dog eater!” A John Candy look-alike rips a fake beard off his face and approaches Pike.

“Sit down, Ronnie,” Deidra says.

Ronnie throws the beard in the air and swings at Pike, but he misses. Pike falls to the floor anyway. The fake beard lands on his face. Ronnie grabs his own chest and collapses next to Pike.

“He’s having a heart attack!” somebody shouts.

“Seize the dog eater!” somebody else shouts.

They lift Pike off the floor. He applies lip balm. He came here to get help, not kill people.

The people release Pike.

“Yuck,” somebody says.

“He smells,” somebody else says.

They run away pinching their noses. Pike is happy that he can’t smell himself. Otherwise he would probably be dead. But he’s sad that he emits an odor so terrible that sometimes it kills people.

“Leave,” Deidra says, “and never come back to this place!” She’s the only one remaining in the room with Pike.

“I need help,” Pike says.

“Get out before I call the police.”

Pike leaves the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He feels dejected and angry.
“Stupid recovering alcoholics,” he says. He wipes his eyes, then gets a good idea. He smears lip balm on his eyelids. He feels just like an overstuffed vacuum bag, happy that he tried, hoping for another shot.

He gets in his car.

He drives his car down Gosford Lane.

He stops at a red light.

He turns on the radio.

He turns off the radio.

The light turns green.

“Green means go,” he says.

He works up the nerve to go.

He goes.

He’s in the middle of the four-way intersection when a truck speeds through the red light and smashes into the side of his car.

Sometimes a minute takes an hour to pass.

The ambulance is bright. It takes Pike away.

“I’ve got you babe,” he shouts.

The ambulance people are freaked out a little bit. Pike isn’t thinking about them. He is thinking about the dog in his freezer. “I’ve got you babe,” he shouts. He can practically taste the terrier’s frozen eyes.

“Some people deserve to be sick and wounded,” one of the ambulance people says.

“Some people belong in the hospital,” says the other.

It takes one listen of The Cure’s Love Song to arrive at the hospital.

They pull up to the emergency doors and take Pike out of the ambulance. He is very worried about all the blood spilling out of him. He is also worried because the ambulance people are trying to soak it up with paper towels.

“Don’t you have anything better?” he says.

“These are double absorbent,” one of the ambulance people says.

“Double,” says the other.

“You don’t need to emphasize it,” the first ambulance person says. “Surely he knows what double absorbent means.”

“You always say something twice when it refers to a deuce. Oreo Double Stuffs? Double. Double the trouble? Double. Double Mint Gum? Double.”

“Double shut up before I double punch you in the double mouth.”

“Double. Double. Double.”

“Double, double!”
The ambulance people break into a slapping fight. Pike feels very dizzy. His elbows tingle. He licks his lips and closes his eyes.

When the world moves so fast, time and space cease to matter. We’re standing alone in a room with death, and we have always stood in that room. With dead dogs crawling up the walls. Grinning dead dogs. Our dead dogs.

In Heaven, Pike Fischer marries a poodle. He sets out to relive the same horrors all over again.