The Blasphemy Tour (opening)

Rev slowed as they approached the border at Fort Erie and chose a car lane that had virtually no line-up. Carefully manoeuvring into the narrow lane, which was marked by concrete dividers on either side and a huge concrete pillar on the driver’s side—whose function intrigued, and absolutely eluded, her—she pulled up snug behind the car in front of her.

Almost instantly a voice boomed out over the speaker. “BACK UP YOUR VEHICLE!!” Simultaneously, a border guard appeared out of nowhere and walked briskly toward their car, making forceful ‘back up’ signs with his hands.

“BACK UP YOUR VEHICLE NOW!!” The voice commanded.

“All right, all right,” she grumbled, puzzled by their urgency, and put the car into reverse. She grabbed onto the back of Dylan’s seat for leverage, turned to look behind, and started to back up.

“Rev!” Dylan said almost immediately. But too late.

She heard the clunk. Then the clatter. And when she turned to face the front again, she saw that the rear view mirror on her door was gone, clipped by the concrete pillar. So that’s what it was for.

She mumbled something as she opened her door to retrieve it.

“REMAIN IN YOUR CAR!!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she ignored the command. It was just a rear view mirror and it was sitting right there.

“DO NOT EXIT YOUR VEHICLE!!”

She exited the vehicle. More or less.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Dylan didn’t dare glance over—he was staring straight ahead in disbelief, exclaiming with full Irish, “Bloody hell—” Besides, he knew what had happened. “Please tell me you fell out, you’re on the ground, and you’re going to stay there,” he managed to say.

“Yes, yes, and—” she tried to stretch her legs, but apparently her knees were doing their very best imitation of concrete— “don’t have any choice. I hate this growing old—” she growled.

“Yes, well, we can commiserate about the tragedy of being over forty later. Perhaps when we turn sixty. Because at the moment we’re surrounded by half a dozen border guards. All of whom are seriously armed.”

“What?” she popped her head up.

“Men with guns!” Dylan shouted.

“Oh.” She ducked back down.

“PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!!”

Dylan raised his hands.

Rev also raised her hands. Her head hit the pavement. “Shit!”

Dylan winced. “Are you—still conscious?”

“Yes. Unfortunately. I really—”

“—used to have abs. I know.”

“STEP OUT AND AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE.”

Dylan did as he was told.

“STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE!” The voice repeated.

“Just give her—” he looked over at her— “an hour.”

“Oh shut up.”

Two of the three guards who had been aiming at Dylan swivelled to Rev.

“She was talking to me,” Dylan said quickly. “Rev?” He was afraid to look directly at her in case that looked like they were colluding to—do something.

“M’AM, KEEP YOUR HANDS RAISED, STAND UP, AND STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE!!”

She grunted. And cursed again.

“He called you ‘m’am’,” Dylan said out of the side of his mouth. “That should give you—motivation.”

•

Although the Chief Officer had, spread out in front of him, their passports, birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, and DBR cards (Dylan’s homemade DO BLOODY RESUSCITATE!! cards), he still asked.

“Names?” His pen was poised over the lengthy, and sadly empty, form in front of him.

“Chris Reveille.”

“Dylan O’Toole.”

“Address?”

Rev told him.

“And where is that exactly?”

“A bit northwest of Sudbury. Near the border between Ontario and— Montreal,” she said with a straight face.

Dylan quickly looked away to hide the grin.

“And Penticton?” The officer looked at Dylan.

It was too easy. “Same general area,” he replied, pursing his lips.

In the year since Rev and Dylan had quite by chance reconnected, some twenty years after they’d gone through teacher’s college together, he had introduced her to life as a housesitter. As a result, they divided their time between her cabin on a lake in a forest (a bit northwest of Sudbury) (near Montreal) and Paris, Portland, Peru, or wherever else he could get a housesit. (Penticton was simply where most of his stuff happened to be in storage; long ago when he had applied for a driver’s license, having a fixed address seemed like a good idea, and nobody, apparently, had checked to determine whether the address he’d given was actually residential, so using it a few years later when he applied for a passport seemed—wise.) In fact, the speaking tour they were at that moment starting so eventfully followed a mishmash route determined by the engagements arranged by Phil, their contact at the Consortium, and Dylan’s housesitting arrangements.

“Phone number?” The officer continued.

“Oh, I don’t have a phone.”

He looked up at her.

“No one north of Toronto has phones yet.”

Dylan snickered and quickly looked away again.

“So how can we reach you?”

“Well the mail comes through. Once the lake thaws. In August.”

Dylan was shaking ever so slightly.

“’Course, the dogsleds run all year. Though the polar bears killed half of ’em last year. One even came right into my igloo.”

A guffaw turned into a cough.

“I see. And what is the purpose of your travel to the U.S.?”

“Um, we’re on a speaking tour,” Dylan thought he’d better take over.

“This speaking tour. Is it a paid tour?”

“Yes.”

“That is how you’re going to be supporting yourself while here?”

“Yes.”

“And so you have work visas?”

“Oh. Um—we’re being paid an honorarium that is, I believe, exempt from—”

“Who’s sponsoring this speaking tour?”

“The American Atheist Consortium.”

The Chief Officer looked up from the lengthy form then. And one of the other border guards, having heard that part, walked over.

“Hey, I remember you two,” he said. “You were charged with, what was it? Blasphemy! For what you wrote on that Right-to-Life billboard.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t convicted,” Rev spoke up.

“Yes, we were,” Dylan said, turning to her. How could she have forgotten? Of the two of them, she was the more worried about it. Being, of the two of them, the more formally employed. He just then noticed her glare.

“Oh yeah,” Rev remembered, turning back to the Chief. “But we got a suspended sentence. The conviction was just—”

Dylan stepped in again. After all, he was the one who’d just royally blown it by announcing they’d been convicted. Though of course it was easy enough to check. As it no doubt would be. Now. He turned to the Chief, “The conviction provided a platform for the judge to make headlines, and history, by showing that The Bible is itself blasphemous, since what we had written on the anti-abortion billboard was from The Bible.”

“‘Blessed are they that bash their babies brains out’,” the officer volunteered. “Or something like that,” he added, when his superior gave him a scathing look.

“This speaking tour,” the Chief Officer continued the interview. “What exactly are you going to be speaking about?”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s any of your business,” Rev chafed. “What?” she said to Dylan when he poked her. “He can’t detain us just because we intend make good use of the freedom of speech while we’re here. In your fine country,” she added belatedly, turning back to the Chief. But then couldn’t help further adding, “The one that gives such warm, fuzzy welcomes.”

The officer put down his pen. And struggled for control. “You have to understand that post 9/11, we’re just a bit more concerned about who gets into our country.”

“I understand that. What I don’t understand is how exiting one’s car increases the threat level.”

“Well as long as you’re inside your vehicle, you’re contained,” he explained. “Obviously you’re less able to put our lives in danger.”

“That would be true if I’d planned to come at you with a knife. Or a piano wire.”

The officer, and Dylan, looked at her curiously.

“But if I’d put a bomb in the car—”

Dylan noticeably slumped in his chair. The officer picked up the phone.

“—and was willing to give my life to Allah to get at the 72,000 virgins…what?”

•

So as they sat in the designated quasi-secure area, watching a team of Michelin men carefully unpack their car and set each item some distance away, in another designated quasi-secure area, Dylan idly commented, “It’s 72 virgins, not 72,000.”

“Someone’s been doing research for our book,” Rev looked over at him, smiling happily.

As soon as the trial was over, they’d been approached not only by the representative of the American Atheist Consortium suggesting a speaking tour, but also by a representative of a major publishing company offering a book contract. Which both delighted and annoyed Rev. Delighted, because she’d spent the last twenty years writing, and despite thousands of queries to agents and publishers, had not been able to get a single book published. And annoyed, because she’d spent the last twenty years writing, and despite thousands of queries to agents and publishers, had not been able to get a single book published.

“Well, the hadiths say 72,” he qualified. “The Qur’an itself doesn’t actually mention a number.”

“What are the hadiths? The Biblical form of the hads?”

“No,” he grinned, “they’re sort of like addendums to the Qur’an.”

“Hm. I’ve never understood the appeal of virgins anyway. I mean, wouldn’t you want a woman with experience, someone who knows—”

“A woman who knows?” Dylan shuddered theatrically.

•

An hour later, they sat looking out at all of their belongings sitting on the pavement. Red tape, ironically enough, was being strung around the area in which said belongings sat.

“We could call Dim,” Dylan suggested. Dmitri had been their lawyer for the blasphemy trial. He was also one of Rev’s former students.

“Or we could call someone who actually knows law. Dim doesn’t know dick.”

“Actually—”

“Right, okay, he does know dick. Still, we need someone—”

“Who knows American law.”

“Alan Shore! We could call Alan Shore!”

“Do you have his number?”

“No.”

“Then we can’t call Alan Shore. Even if he were real.”

“Spoilsport.”

“How about your buddies at LSAT? You’re still writing questions for them? I mean, while we’re doing this tour thing?” Freelance test development was Rev’s employment. She wrote critical reasoning questions for the LSAT. Questions like ‘If X, Y, and Z are true, which of the following is also true?’ And ‘Which of the following would most undermine the argument made in the passage above?’ It’s the kind of job someone with a degree in philosophy did. When they weren’t driving a cab. Dylan, on the other hand, wrote travel articles. Which fit perfectly with his housesitting lifestyle. And his almost history degree.

“Yeah. Which is why we’re not calling them.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Let’s just call Phil. Surely the Consortium must have legal counsel on call.”

•

“And you know,” she said a while later, as they continued to stare out the window, since it was the only show in town, “even if there is a potential bomb in the car, that wouldn’t necessarily be a threat. It’s looking at it that could turn it into a real bomb. And even then, there’s only a fifty-fifty chance of that happening.”

“Hm.”

“So maybe we should tell them to stop looking.”

“I don’t think the Chief would appreciate the finer points of quantum indeterminacy.”

“Still. He should have said that there’s potentially a bomb in our car. Not that there’s a potential bomb in our car.”

“You could tell him that.”

A while later still, Dylan said, rather listlessly, as he handed Rev a Pepsi he’d gotten from the vending machine in the room, “So I guess there’s no point in asking whether we could fix the car while we wait.”

“You could do that?”

“Well, no.” He took a long drink from his own Pepsi, then stretched out in his chair again. “I thought we could find a phone booth, I could go inside, and come out MacGyver.”

“You mean Superman.”

“I was being patriotic. Being at the border does that to me. Another half hour and I’ll break out in the national anthem.”

“No you won’t,” she scoffed.

“I might. If I knew the words.”

She laughed. “We are soCanadian.”

“Anyway,” she said, “there aren’t any phone booths anymore. Remember? They took them all away when cell phones were invented. By Satan.”

“There’s still phone booths,” Dylan said. “There’s just not any phones in them anymore.”

“At least no working phones,” she amended.

“And the ones that have working phones don’t have phone books.”

“Or you could come out as Benton Fraser,” she said after a moment.

“I like how MacGyver dresses better.”

She laughed. “And yet, don’t you remember your first practice teaching assignment? You went all young Republican on me. Gone was the rat’s tail, and the earring, and the lime green t-shirt,” she poked at the lime green t-shirt he was currently wearing. “You were such a—disappointment.”

“Yeah, well. Look how that turned out.”

She smiled. He’d ended up quitting his first teaching job, which had been up on some reserve, after just three days. To join a band called A Bunch of Drunken Indians. He played tambourine.

“At least I didn’t get fired,” he said. “Countless times.”

“I could count them,” she said cheerfully. “If I had four hands.”

“Speaking of which, maybe Dad’ll come, and rescue us both. You’d fit right in on the mothership.”

“Hm.” She seemed lost in thought.

“What were we talking about?” she finally said. “What was your point—with the phone booth?”

He thought for a moment. “Can’t remember.”

“Geez,” she said, “it’s like we’re still—shit!”

She sat up straight and looked out anxiously at all of their stuff. Sitting nicely exposed on the pavement.

He had suddenly had the same thought. “No, didn’t we use it all before—”

“Yeah, in a Betty Crocker kind of way.”

“Oh. And where exactly are your—” he hazarded a guess “—brownies?”

“Well, more like ‘pudding in the middle’—brownies. They’re in with the sandwiches,” she answered his question.

“Okay,” he said, thinking quickly, and standing up to do so. “In an hour or so, if we’re still here, we’ll just casually say we’re hungry, we’ve got food in the car, could we please just—”

“Right. First giggle and they’ll know.”

He giggled. “You’re right,” he sat down. “We’d never pull it off.”

“Well, let’s not worry. Unless they bring in a—uh-oh.”

A grey SUV had pulled into the lot, and clean-cut young man in a uniform got out. He opened the back passenger door and a dog got out. A huge floppy dog. A very eager and excited, huge floppy dog.

“Wow. What is that?” Rev wondered aloud. “Looks like a cross between a Great Dane and a—”

“Bear.” Dylan looked at the dog with interest.

“Yeah. I thought police dogs were, well, police dogs.”

“There is no such breed. They’re all German Shepherds.”

“And that’s a bit stereotyped, don’t you think?” she asked.

“What, you think they should hire French poodles instead?” he giggled.

“Well, actually, the French—”

“Or Siberian Huskies!” he blurted out, gleefully.

“Why don’t we have a dog?” she wondered aloud a short while later, as the Chief Officer presumably explained to the K-9 unit, of two, whatever needed explaining. “Why isn’t there a Canadian something? Regardless,” she got back on track, “that’s gotta be an explosives-sniffing dog, right? So we’re okay.”

“You mean they specialize? To that extent?”

She shrugged. “Ask an Epistemology prof something about Metaphysics and he’ll refuse to answer on the grounds that it’s not his field.”

“Really? That’s a bit—something.”

“‘Articulate’ is not the word you’re looking for,” she grinned.

“It’s not, no,” he grinned back.

•

“What kind of sandwiches?” Dylan asked another short while later, when the dog had apparently eliminated their two suitcases, his laptop, and their box of books and cds. Several miscellaneous bags remained.

“Tuna.”

“Oh, good, yeah for sure we’re okay. The dog’ll never find tuna.”

“Could work in our favour. The tuna might mask the—uh-oh.”

The dog had found the lunch bag. And pretty much swallowed it whole.

Dylan pondered the situation. “What happens when—”

The dog had resumed checking out the remaining bags, then suddenly seemed to forget what it was doing. It sat down. And wagged its tail. Dylan grinned.

The officers conferred and then the Chief and the K-9 unit came into the building through the waiting room. Suddenly the room was far too small. Since the dog took up a full quarter of it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the dog’s partner was saying to the Chief. “We just came from a scene, sir, and Peanut—”

Rev let out a small snort. The young man glared at her.

“—ate the evidence. That’s why he—he’s got the— He’s hungry,” the young man finished.

“And you didn’t think to take him off duty?” the Chief glared at him. The young man, not—Peanut. It’s hard to glare at a giggling dog.

“No, sir. It was a very small amount and given Peanut’s size, I thought it would have no effect.”

In the moment of silence that ensued, they all followed the Chief’s gaze. Which was fixed on Peanut. Who was stepping once to the right, then once to the left—lifting his front paws absurdly high, like a Lipizzaner stallion—then cross stepping three times to the right, into the wall; he then repeated the pattern in reverse, left, right, cross step to the left. Into the wall.

“What the hell is he doing?”

“‘Thriller’. Sir.”

Dylan burst out in a delighted giggle.

“Me and the guys at the unit—after class— The K-9s are very smart, sir.”

As the Chief started to leave the room, Peanut jumped and turned half way around, wiggled his bottom half, then jumped and turned again to face them. And wiggled again.

“That’s not in ‘Thriller’,” the Chief said, stopping at the door.

“No,” the young man agreed. And looked at Peanut curiously.

“Um, what kind of dog is that?” Dylan asked the young man, as the three—four—of them waited in the waiting room for various decisions to be made.

“It’s a Newfie. A Newfoundland dog.”

“We do have our own dog!” Rev said. The young man looked at her. “We’re from Canada.”

“Oh.”

“And you really call them Newfies?” Dylan asked.

“Yes, why?”

“Oh, not important,” Dylan smiled as he and Rev exchanged a look.

“Their thick coat and webbed feet make them perfect for swimming in the cold ocean water,” the young man said, “such as is off the coast of Newfoundland. So I hear,” he added.

“Never been?” Rev asked.

“No. Never been much out of here,” he confessed.

“And that would explain it,” Rev said sotto voce to Dylan.

“He’s got webbed feet?” Dylan was staring at Peanut’s paws, intrigued. “Can we see?”

“Sure. Peanut, come ’ere.” Peanut got up from the quadrant he’d claimed and lumbered over. “I’m Jon Tucker, by the way,” the young man said, reaching out his hand to Dylan. “But everybody calls me Tuck.”

“Dylan,” Dylan replied, shaking his hand.

“Rev.” She joined in.

As did Peanut, who offered his paw.

“I miss Bob,” Dylan said, smiling broadly as he shook Peanut’s paw.

“He used to have a dog,” Rev explained as she too shook Peanut’s massive paw. “Bob. But Bob left him. For Fifi. Who lived on a farm. With lots of kids.”

Tuck nodded with understanding. As did Peanut.

“You wouldn’t leave me, would you Pea?” He ruffled Peanut’s loose and very full coat. “You’re my little Sweet Pea,” he said in a gushy voice, and Peanut planted a big sloppy one on Tuck’s face.

As the Chief walked in. And stared.

Tuck jumped out of his chair and stood. “Sir.” He straightened.

Peanut, perhaps feeling the need to stretch a bit, sauntered past him through the open door into the larger office.

Dylan and Rev also got up.

“All right, here’s the situation. I’ve made several phone calls,” he sighed, “and this is what’s happening. You,” he pointed at the young man. “You’re aware that eating the evidence is cause for dismissal.”

Tuck looked devastated.

“Not you, the dog.”

“Oh. Right. But—”

“We’ll find you a transfer.” He sighed again. Clearly this was becoming a long day.

“And as for you two,” he directed his attention to Rev and Dylan, “we’ve got a meet set up for tomorrow morning. Our legal counsel will be here, as well as your Mr. Brightson and, presumably, legal counsel for the Atheist Consortium.”

“But—” Rev objected.

“As for tonight—”

“We’re not free to go?” Dylan asked.

“You’re not cleared for entry yet, no. So I’m keeping your passports. And your driver’s licenses. Your car hasn’t been cleared yet in any case. We can’t get another K-9 unit here until tomorrow.” Tuck shrank the tiniest amount.

“You can have these back,” the Chief handed over their birth certificates and DBR cards.

“As for tonight—” he ran his hand through his hair. “We’ve got a holding cell, but that’s not really appropriate. Tucker, make a reservation at the nearest hotel. And provide transport.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And show them which bags they can take with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But we’re not under arrest or anything,” Rev clarified.

“No. Just—please don’t go anywhere. I believe you’d agree it’s in your best interests to be here for the meeting tomorrow.”

Dylan nodded. Rev conceded a nod a moment later.

“Oh—” the Chief stopped on his way out. “I’ve had pizza brought in, you’re welcome to—” he stopped in the doorway. The five large pizzas that had been perched on the corner of his desk were now five empty boxes on the floor. Peanut was asleep in the corner, grinning, and wagging his tail. The Chief ran his hand through his hair.

“So,” Tuck said to Rev and Dylan, when they were all in his SUV and on their way out of the border station parking lot, Rev in the front, Dylan in the back with Peanut—his head, like Peanut’s, sticking out the sun roof.

“Phtt, phtt, ummmrrpht, ummrrpht—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Rev turned to ask Dylan.

“Trying to get that jowls flapping in the wind thing going. Like Peanut.”

“It’s not working,” she pointed out the obvious.

“No. It’s not,” Dylan agreed cheerfully.

“So,” Tuck tried again, “Do you have any preference as to where we go for dinner? Chief said I can claim it as expenses.”

“Pizza’s good,” Dylan said.

“So very good,” added Rev.

“Okay, pizza it is. I know a great place close by.”

“Phtt, phtt, ummrrpht, ummrrpht—”

•

He took them to Bette’s Bar, a comfy basement bar furnished with old upholstered furniture and a couple of chrome and formica dining room tables. Peanut had obviously been there before and knew he was welcome. He made a beeline for the kitchen.

“It’s got karaoke!” Rev shouted as they walked past the bar, with its few occupants, toward the small stage. She actually broke out into a trot.

“What’s she going to sing?” Tuck asked.

“God only knows,” Dylan muttered, remembering the last time she sang, which was in the car on the way, too much of the way, to Montreal. She was enthusiastically tone-deaf.

“Oh I love that song!” Tuck followed Rev onto the stage.

“No, I—”

Rev quickly made a selection, then stepped away from the machine, mic in hand, ready to sing. Tuck took the other mic and once the song started—she’d chosen The Beatles’ “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da”—he sang along, adding harmony. Or trying to, given Rev’s tenuous grasp of pitch.

Part way through the song, Bette and the entire kitchen staff came out to watch the horror that was Rev singing. Or to thank her for not choosing “Hey Jude”. At some point Rev realized, somewhat impossibly, that Tuck had a really great voice, so she switched from vocals to air drums. The kitchen staff cheered. And went back to the kitchen. At about that point, Dylan decided to join them on stage. He played air tambourine. Tuck really did have a beautiful voice. He had amazing control not only of pitch, but of volume and timbre as well.

“Oh wow, this is just like old times,” Dylan said when the song had finished. “Let’s do another one,” he said.

Bette had reappeared and caught Tuck’s eye with her query.

“A couple large,” Tuck called out. “No, make that three,” he said. “I forgot about you two,” he turned to Dylan and Rev. “So should that be four?”

“No, we can split a large,” Dylan said.

“Make ours vegetarian?” Rev asked.

“One vegetarian,” Tuck called out.

Bette nodded and returned to the kitchen.

“What was the Drunken Indians’ favourite song?” Rev asked, turning back to the karaoke machine.

“‘One little, two little, three little Indians’.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Well, they’d changed the words.”

“To what?”

“Kill Whitey.”

Peanut strode out of the kitchen at that point, a grin on his face and tail wagging.

“Hey, you guys want a show?” Tuck asked.

“Sure, what did you have in mind?”

“Peanut, come ’ere!”

Peanut bounded up to the stage.

“Have a seat,” Tuck gestured grandly. Rev and Dylan claimed a table and sat to watch. Tuck made a selection at the karaoke machine, then turned to Peanut.

“‘Do ya wanna get rocked?’” he asked him in his best Def Leppard voice.

Peanut shimmied in excitement.

Tuck started singing as an old Tommy Roe song began to play. “‘I went to a dance just the other night,’” he made a slow circle in the air with his right hand, and Peanut did a slow circle to the right.

“‘I saw a girl there, she was out of sight,’” Tuck made a circle with his left hand, and Peanut did a slow circle to the left.

“‘I asked a friend of mine who she could be,’” he continued. Peanut was totally focused on Tuck, trembling with excitement, waiting for—

“‘He said that her friends just call her Sweet Pea.’” When he heard Tuck say his name, Peanut let loose for a moment with a full-body wiggle, then immediately concentrated again.

He stepped toward Tuck as Tuck stepped backward, completely in time to the music —“‘Oh Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me’”— right, hold, left, hold, right, hold, left, hold. Then he broke out into a freeform prance and shimmy on “‘Come on, come on, come on and dance with me!’” Dylan was wild with delight, hooting and applauding.

Then Peanut stepped backward, as Tuck stepped toward him, “‘Oh Sweet Pea, won’t you be my girl?’” Then broke out again in a silly freeform that was full of nothing but energy and bliss. “‘Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you be my girl?’”

Dylan almost had a stroke when he saw what Peanut did with the brief percussion solo that followed: a complicated eight-beat sequence of up, down, right, left, rollllll, up, hold.

The song changed key for the second verse, but the choreography remained the same. Slow circle to the right, then to the left, then, to Dylan’s great delight, the forward and backward walk followed by the Peanut’s over-the-top freeform for the chorus.

“That was fantastic!” Dylan bubbled as Tuck and Peanut finished the song and sat down at their table. Peanut didn’t need a chair; he just sat at their table, and his head easily cleared the top.

“Thanks!” Tuck beamed with pleasure at Dylan’s appreciation.

“How long did it take to teach him that?” Rev asked, equally impressed.

“Well, a while,” Tuck confessed. “But—”

“But I’ll bet he didn’t mind.”

“No, I don’t think he did,” Tuck ruffled Peanut’s coat.

Bette brought out a pitcher of beer and three glasses. Peanut didn’t drink beer, of course, but he apparently had his own water dish. At least, it had his name written on it.

“To Peanut and Tuck!” Rev raised her glass in a toast.

“Yeah!” Dylan clanked his glass to Tuck’s then to Peanut’s dish. Peanut grinned and thumped his tail.

Bette returned with their pizzas, one vegetarian for Dylan and Rev, one pepperoni and mushroom for Tuck, and a double meat-lovers for Peanut. Rev and Dylan grinned when they noticed, as Bette set Peanut’s pizza in front of him, that it was already cut into bite-sized pieces. Peanut stared at it, intently, then looked at Tuck, just as intently. Tuck made a show of blowing on the pizza. Peanut stared at it again, intently, then looked at Tuck again. Tuck blew on it again. Satisfied, Peanut dug in.

“He burned the roof of his mouth on the cheese once,” Tuck explained. “Ever since, Bette doesn’t bring his out until it’s definitely cool enough for him to eat, but he insists just the same that I blow on it to make sure.”

“Well of course,” Dylan said.

“So,” Rev asked, after they’d had a few bites, which was about the time it took for Peanut to totally finish his, and he had left the table, “how is it you two came to be in the K-9 unit?”

“Well, I majored in music.”

“Ah,” Dylan said, and Rev laughed.

“But I wasn’t any good.”

“You sounded pretty good up there,” Dylan said. “You’ve got a beautiful voice.”

“I—thank you. But it’s not up to performance standard. Classical performance standard,” he amended.

“You could sing non-classical,” Rev said.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too. And I tried a couple times to get a band together, but, in the meantime, I switched my major to business.”

“Well,” Rev said, “they’re so closely related—”

Tuck grinned. “You know how they say you should think about what you really love to do, what you would do even if no one paid you, and that’s what you should do?”

“Yeah, whose bright idea of career counselling was that?” she muttered.

“Well, I realized I love to hang out in bars—”

“And you found someone to pay you to do that?” Dylan asked, wonderfully interested.

“No,” Tuck laughed. “I figured I’d become an agent, a scout. I’d discover new bands and make them rich and famous. And myself in the process.”

“Ah, so that’s how you became a—” Rev feigned understanding.

“No, that was Dad,” Tuck sighed. “He paid for my university. And when music didn’t work out, and I switched to business, he said I had two years after I graduated, and if that didn’t work out either, I had to join the academy.”

“He was a cop,” Dylan said.

“He was a cop,” Tuck agreed. And sighed again.

“And it didn’t work out,” Rev stated the obvious. She was good at that.

“No. It seems they’ve got to be famous before you sign them. And if they’re famous, they’re already signed. Plus, I realized I’m not that good with the high end of things. I can prepare a killer business plan, and I schmooze well enough with the guys in the bands, but I don’t do meets with the banks very well.”

“So why the K-9 unit?” she asked.

“Oh, well,” he said oddly, “I don’t like guns.”

“You mean they wouldn’t let you have one,” she took a guess.

“That too,” he confessed sheepishly. “In the K-9 unit, the dog is the gun. Peanut’s trained to defend and attack.”

Rev and Dylan looked over at him. Doubtfully. Since he was lying belly up on the couch—the whole couch—paws hanging limply in the air. His eyelids were fluttering, and his tail was wagging.

Tuck reached for the pitcher. “A refill?” he asked.

“You’re in charge of transport?” Dylan asked.

“I am,” he said and turned his glass over.

“Then, yes, another round indeed!” Dylan held his empty glass under the pitcher’s spout, Rev followed suit, and they each took another slice of pizza.

A little later, after Rev and Dylan had filled Tuck in on how they came to be where they were, Tuck asked, “So what’s your speech about?”

“What speech?” Rev asked.

“Well, it’s a speaking tour—so I assumed—”

“Ah. Right. Well Phil said—Phil’s our contact at the American Atheist Consortium—he said we’d never get past the first sentence.”

“Apparently we’re speaking at a lot of Bible colleges,” Dylan explained. “He’s billed us as Bible Enlightenment.”

“Which is not untrue,” Rev interjected.

“No,” Dylan agreed.

“So I have the first sentence written,” she announced happily to Tucker.

“You do?” Dylan looked at her inquiringly.

“‘Hello.’” She said.

“A little formal, don’t you think?” he said. After a moment.

“What, you’d go with ‘Hi’?”

“Yeah.”

“People would never hear ‘Hi.’ We need at least two syllables.”

“Okay, how about ‘Good Morning.’ Three syllables,” he said proudly.

Rev considered that. Carefully. “What if it’s afternoon?”

“Okay, ‘Good Morning slash Good Afternoon.’”

“That’s stupid. ‘Slash’.”

“Well we wouldn’t actually say ‘slash’,” he groaned.

“So,” Tuck just had to interrupt, “Do you two always have this much—”

“Fun?” Rev supplied the word.

“We do, yes,” Dylan supplied the answer.

And they grinned at each other.

•

(free download of complete novel at jassrichards.com)