{"id":7336,"date":"2016-10-05T17:08:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T23:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7336"},"modified":"2016-10-05T17:08:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T23:08:50","slug":"double-strength-demon-dogs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7336","title":{"rendered":"Double-Strength Demon Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Roman<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie was the only altar boy from the Red Brick Alley. He was always consecrating Ritz Crackers and trying to make us eat them like communion wafers. He light-fingered incense from the sacristy, and he blessed water from Old Lady Tully\u2019s spigot and flicked it in our faces before we played Mutually Assured Destruction in the woods. When you asked if he wanted to become a priest when he grew up, he said no, he wanted to be a ninja. How stupid. He was way too big and fat to be a ninja. If anybody could get a job as a ninja, it was me, because I was small and compact, and I was the fastest, strongest, agilest sixth-grader on the North Side of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen up, Ringer. You\u2019d better hurry and sign up with the altar boys. The Apocalypse is due any day, and you need to work off some sins,\u201d Fantastic Freddie said to me for the millionth billionth time.<\/p>\n

I knew the stinking Soviets were itching to pick a nuclear war with us, and America\u2019s new president, Ronald Reagan, wasn\u2019t about to chicken out. I had nightmares about the end of the world all time. The nuns at Saint Augie\u2019s were always talking about megatons, and radiation sickness, and places in Japan where people\u2019s skin melted off and eyeballs exploded and shadows got deep-fried into walls. I worked on my fighting skills every day, and my little brother, Jaggerbush, had tons of supplies hidden all over, so we were ready for Armageddon. But I wasn\u2019t much for joining things, especially the altar boys and their stupid costumes, and I didn\u2019t admit it to anybody, but being up on the altar gave me the creeps. It made me feel transparent so everyone could see inside me and see all the things I\u2019d done wrong and all the bad things I wanted to do. But after the nuclear bombs exploded and made mushroom clouds everywhere, knowing some altar boy magic tricks might come in handy against the Soviets since they didn\u2019t believe in God.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he doesn\u2019t want to join your hocus-pocus boys,\u201d Jaggerbush said. He looked like a crooked stick figure with his long skinny arms and legs, holding the metal handle of his red wagon, staring up at Fantastic Freddie\u2019s fat head. Even his hair looked scribbled the way it stuck up all over the place.<\/p>\n

\u201cShut up, Jaggerbush,\u201d Fantastic Freddie said. \u201cYou\u2019re just mad because Father Morgan excommunicated your butt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFather Morgan the Organ made an escape goat out of me,\u201d Jaggerbush said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t eleven too old to be riding around in a little red wagon?\u201d Fantastic Freddie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t twelve too old to be pulling your pants all the way down to your knees just to take a whiz?\u201d Jaggerbush sat in his wagon, \u201cIncrease energy to the Wave Motion Engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drifted down the Red Brick Alley slower than one mile per hour. His squeaky wagon wheels sounded like a top-secret space alien radio signal beaming in from the galaxy next door. Fantastic Freddie stuck his fingers in his ears, the big fat baby.<\/p>\n

Antonio came walking down the Red Brick Alley dribbling a red dodge ball with one hand and carrying a plastic gallon of purple juice in the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s play Murder Ball!\u201d Fantastic Freddie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Ding Dong I\u2019d deliver his newspapers for him,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrow them down the sewer and tell him you got jumped,\u201d Fantastic Freddie said.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t do that to Ding Dong; I gave him my word. Plus, I needed the money, comic books were up to fifty cents apiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch out, that\u2019s Killard territory.\u201d Antonio took a swig from his gallon of purple juice. \u201cEven you ain\u2019t bad enough to take them on, Ringer.\u201d<\/p>\n

From their scrawny old Grandma down to the newest one who ran the streets in nothing but a dirty diaper, the Killards were nastier than stepping on a rusty nail. You couldn\u2019t keep track of how many there were since they all looked alike with their red hair and freckle-faces. They never played with anyone except each other, and they\u2019d fight you for no reason at all. The girls were as bad as the boys. One of them had yanked a handful of hair right out of Antonio\u2019s afro. She would\u2019ve plucked him bald if I hadn’t been there to drill her in the eye with a football.<\/p>\n

I climbed up Veteran Street with Ding Dong\u2019s paper sack slung over my shoulder. It was steeper than Mount Olympus. Every house on the left side of the street was way up at the top of a long set of steps, and all the houses on the right side were way down at the bottom of their own sets of steps, and most of the yards had chain-link fences so you couldn\u2019t even take a shortcut across the lawns.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, cuz, you collecting today?\u201d Smoothie Spoony said.<\/p>\n

I looked him dead in his spoon-shaped face to let him know he didn\u2019t sneak up on me. He was a tall sucker, but he didn\u2019t have any calf muscles at all. I was tempted to say yes just to see if he\u2019d really try to jump me. I bet I could scoop him up and body slam him, even though he would\u2019ve been in high school if he hadn\u2019t flunked so many times. But I had a job to do, so I told him the same thing I told him every time he asked if I was collecting, \u201cNope, Ding Dong collected yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

After I climbed up and down a billion steps, I finally made it to the last loop of the paper route. We called it the Street That Time Forgot because it didn\u2019t have a street sign and the asphalt was all tore up and the city never bothered to repave it and no kids lived there. The houses looked like they were about to lose their grip on the mountainside and slide down through the woods into the East Street Valley. I had one last paper to deliver before I could head back to the Red Brick Alley for some Murder Ball.<\/p>\n

Roarrrrrrrrrrrrr! <\/em><\/p>\n

A gargantuan dog sprang out from between two parked cars and made me jump so high I swear I would\u2019ve been able to grab a basketball rim. I\u2019d had run-ins with some vicious wild dogs before, but this was the biggest, meanest monster I\u2019d ever seen. He wasn\u2019t a Boxer or Great Dane or Rottweiler or Doberman or Pit Bull or Akita. I\u2019d say he was a combination of wolf and radioactive fallout.<\/p>\n

I stood my ground and barked right back at him. He stunk worse than a prehistoric creature from the bottom of the ocean. He lunged at my face. I swung my newspaper sack and caught him in the jaw. He tore the sack out of my hand and whipped it into the street. I stomped my foot at him. He snapped his teeth at me. They looked like broken forearm bones. I peeled the Hell out of there.<\/p>\n

He took off after me. He was too quick to juke out. I dove headfirst over a wooden fence into somebody\u2019s front yard. While I was in mid-air, he ripped one of my Pro-Keds right off. He leapfrogged the fence, too! The last thing I wanted was to be locked in a yard with that man-eater. I flipped myself back over the fence and punched the gas. I didn\u2019t dare look over my shoulder for fear of losing speed until I made it to the top of the hill.<\/p>\n

The monster stood in the middle of the street, snarling and barking with his acid slobber flying everywhere, daring me to come back. I picked up a rock and threw it over his head to scare him off so I could get my poor Pro-Ked and deliver Ding Dong\u2019s last paper. He jumped in the air and caught it in his mouth like a Frisbee. The rock hit his teeth with a clonk<\/em> that made me wince, but he didn\u2019t seem to mind at all. He was some type of mutant, and not the good kind. I needed reinforcements.<\/p>\n

I took off my tube sock so I wouldn\u2019t ruin it and hopped all the way home on one foot.<\/p>\n

Back in the Red Brick Alley I told Jaggerbush and Fantastic Freddie and Antonio what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds supernatural. I\u2019ll be right back,\u201d Fantastic Freddie ran home.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way,\u201d Antonio said. \u201cYou won\u2019t catch me messing with any demon dog.\u201d He took his red dodge ball and purple juice and ran home.<\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie came back with a black beaded rosary wrapped around his fist like brass knuckles and his book bag strapped to his back.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see if this unholy creature can stand up to the power of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou plan on exorcising him?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. I\u2019m going to send this mongrel straight back to the pit of hell that spawned him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaggerbush laughed and knelt one boney knee inside his wagon and pushed with the other foot scooter-style toward Perrysville Avenue. His squeaky wheels beamed their loud radio signal up into space.<\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie hummed \u201cOnward Christian Soldiers\u201d as the two of us headed back up Veteran Street. If he could pull off a victory against the killer dog, it\u2019d be a miracle. I\u2019d ask Father Morgan the Organ to sign me up with the altar boys first thing at school tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n

The Street That Time Forgot was dead quiet. No sign of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s your high-top,\u201d Fantastic Freddie said, pointing at my Pro-Ked sitting in the middle of the street like a hunk of cheese in a mousetrap.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo get it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll cover you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power of the Holy Spirit,\u201d Fantastic Freddie said. \u201cReveal yourself, hell hound!\u201d<\/p>\n

The dog burst out from behind a car like he was waiting to ambush us. He looked even bigger than before. Some radiations were known to make you grow at ultrasonic speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the power vested in me by the Diocese of Pittsburgh, I command you to exit this canine,\u201d Fantastic Freddie splashed holy spigot water in the sign of the cross at the dog. The beast didn\u2019t slow down one bit. Fantastic Freddie threw his book bag in one direction and took off running in the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cSatan leave this pooch!\u201d he did a second-base slide under a Dodge Omni then shimmied all the way underneath. I don\u2019t know how he made his blubber fit. The dog jammed his snout under the car like a great white shark attacking an underwater cage.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemons begone!\u201d Fantastic Freddie screamed.<\/p>\n

I unzipped his book bag. It was full of stuff a priest would take on a house call. Crosses, vials of water and oil, stoles, a missal, one of those gold plates with a frying-pan handle they stuck under your chin when you received communion, and other stuff he swiped from Saint Augie\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie yelled from under the Omni, \u201cThe power of Christ compels you!\u201d<\/p>\n

I grabbed the ball-and-chain thingy Father Morgan the Organ waved around to stink up the church with incense. I swung it in circles over my head like Thor\u2019s hammer and let it fly at the dog.<\/p>\n

Ka-Thump!<\/em><\/p>\n

It smacked him in the ribcage. It didn\u2019t hurt him, but it distracted him from Fantastic Freddie. He stampeded toward me. I scampered up onto the roof of a beat-up old pick-up truck. The dog launched himself up the driver-side door snapping his teeth at the air then slid back down.<\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie poked his head out from under the Omni. The dog roar-barked at him. His head disappeared like a turtle\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy God, my God,\u201d he cried, \u201cWhy have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n

The beast ran circles around the pick-up truck like such a hellion he slid out of control as he rounded the corners, his claws scrapping and scratching the asphalt.<\/p>\n

We were both trapped. The dog was too much for us. Ding Dong\u2019s paper sack lay in the street with the last paper still inside. And I was still short one Pro-Ked. The bottom of my bare foot was black as tar. God had failed us. Or at least the Diocese of Pittsburgh had.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeavenly Father protect us!\u201d Fantastic Freddie yelled from underneath the Omni.<\/p>\n

A super loud squeak blasted through the sky. The dog slammed on the brakes and his pointy devil ears shot up in the air. Jaggerbush came torpedoing down the middle of the Street That Time Forgot in his trusty wagon. I stood up on the roof of the pick-up. The dog charged up the hill toward him barking and snarling. Jaggerbush and the dog plowed headlong toward one another, and neither of them looked like they were playing chicken.<\/p>\n

A split second before impact, Jaggerbush threw two handfuls of dog biscuits up in the air, the kind that were shaped like little bones. The dog parked on his butt and took his good old time licking up the biscuits, and Jaggerbush rode his wagon all the way down the hill until he was out of sight.<\/p>\n

I jumped down onto the pavement and scooped up my Pro-Ked and pulled it on my bare foot without tying it. I snatched Ding Dong\u2019s paper sack and delivered the last newspaper. I grabbed Fantastic Freddie\u2019s fat foot and yanked it with all my might. He popped out from under the Omni.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m risen!\u201d Fantastic Freddie said. \u201cThank you, Lord!\u201d<\/p>\n

A platoon of redheaded, freckle-faced kids with dirty, white undershirts came trudging out from between the trees down at the end the street. Killards!<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d the tallest one yelled. \u201cWho said you could feed our little puppy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Me and Fantastic Freddie laid tire out of there.<\/p>\n

I made it to the top of the hill in record time. The Killards were too busy petting their mutt and taste-testing the dog biscuits to chase us.<\/p>\n

Fantastic Freddie said, \u201cRejoice Ringer. I\u2019ll tell Father Morgan you helped me defeat that evil demon so he\u2019ll let you join the altar boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour stupid voodoo didn\u2019t work one bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to join us. Your immortal soul is in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMorgan the Organ already promised me I\u2019d never make it to Heaven with my record.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t forget about the altar boy summer picnic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would I go to some dumb picnic?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s at the wave pool in South Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmm, I always wanted to go to the wave pool.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ROBERT ROMAN<\/strong> was born in Pittsburgh, PA; taught incarcerated teenagers in Baltimore, MD; studied fiction writing at Johns Hopkins and UCLA; and currently writes America\u2019s favorite Hangman puzzles. He’s had stories published in Six Three Whiskey<\/em>, Eclectica Magazine<\/em>, and The Nervous Breakdown<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Roman   Fantastic Freddie was the only altar boy from the Red Brick Alley. He was always consecrating Ritz Crackers and trying to make us eat them like communion wafers. He light-fingered incense from the sacristy, and he blessed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7332,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7336","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1Uk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7345,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7336\/revisions\/7345"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}