Colonel D. Bob Amick pretended to be gracious when the old man handed him the keys to the new patrol vehicle. The old man pretended to be generous.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, the Home Owners Association and the entire security team, let me say thank you and welcome aboard. The Colonel shook the old man’s hand and smiled. The smile reminded the old man of a cartoon shark. Wouldn’t want to turn his back.
The old man decided to go with a Jeep. He wanted something Nicolas Cage on steroids might drive. Something that would frighten Trump supporters as he drove around the night, exploding out of the shadows with a dark roar of shock and awe. That’s what the old man wanted. Every boy does. But you don’t get to be an old man by doing always what the boy wants. Not prudent.
So, he did the next best thing, two words: Jeep SRT8. Nearly five hundred horsepower, eight-speed automatic transmission. Added some mufflers, took out the rear seats and named it Walter White. American-made muscle.
Sometimes, in order to be who you really are, you have to pretend to be something you’re not. The next step is to actually become that person. Two words : Meryl Streep.
The old dog remained a complete K9 SWAT team, when he wasn’t napping. Not the size of the dog in the fight, the fight in the dog. Two words: Viet Cong. Rest my case.
And he was humongous. The Notorious TBG. The Black Gang is a Caucasian Ovcharka, that’s a mountain fighting dog who can take care of himself. Literally. The dog, now huge, then was just a puppy. A gift from a grateful and relieved Eastern European client. His last client, really. That anybody knew about.
Almost three feet high at the shoulders, nearly six and a half feet long from nose to tip of tail. A lean one-eighty. What they call an ‘independent thinker.’ The Black Gang is a dog of Ghor, mentioned as early as the eleventh century in The Seljuk Chronicles: “A remarkably fine breed of dogs in Ghor so powerful that in frame and strength every one of them is a match for a lion.“ Maybe that explains Gang’s large mane. Head like a bear with one-inch long fangs curved inward.
The old man had once taken his dog to visit the old folks’ home where his sainted mother had spent her last day’s watching Jeopardy and playing bingo and drinking Ensure. The dog filled up the mother’s studio apartment and her face filled with the brightest smile of wonder. Shortly thereafter, the Board at the old folks’ home lowered the limit of visitor’s dogs to forty pounds.
With family and intimates, The Black Gang was the second gentlest dog he’d ever had. That was part of the fun. Sure, he could go off if provoked, right through a plate glass window after an intruder. But he didn’t provoke easily. He was just scary to look at. Like having a zoo animal living right in the house. When he came running around the corner of the barn, like he thought he might have heard trouble at the front gate, had the look of a fighting bull.
But a little child could stick his arm practically down the dog’s giant muzzle. And The Gang loved the Chihuahua who lived down the road.
The dog could smell trouble. The old man didn’t really have to stay too alert, he just had to keep one eye on the dog.
Nothing goes unnoticed.