RUBBER TEETH
STONE
APPRECIATION
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.
I never imagined that my senior years would be
like this. Sitting in a rocking seat thinking back
about the time I went to visit my French uncle,
Uncle Bernard, in the country. I don't know exactly
how to write down my thoughts of life on the
French countryside. I suppose I could begin by
describing my uncle; first off, what face fills the
Besthong my after
image that the name Bernard brings to mind? If
you imagined dark skin, broken nose, and
unshaven, then you're very perceptive because
that's exactly how I remember my uncle looking.
Always hard at work, he was.
My old man referred to him as the land man.
could write about the land or I could write about
his large hands. I could write about making wine,
baking bread, or hunting frogs. But I think what
I most like to
about is the fighting dogs.
I'd
write
Uncle Bernard never bet on the dogs, but it was
on his land where they fought the dogs. To put it
more clearly, the dogfights took place on his
property. Early Sunday morning before the sun.
was up, Uncle Bernard and I went out to a large
barn that was vacant. It was far away from every-
thing else. I didn't know. his
s property extended
out that far, but it did.
"All this land is mine," he said to me. His face
was well-worked with wrinkles. Not for a second
did I doubt a word he said. Clear out to the coast I
tried to see as far as I could, and I could not see
the coast. The sun wasn't up yet, but I had a feel-
ing that it would be soon. Just so you know, most
of the talk between me and my uncle is in French,
and if I talk to anyone else it's in French too.
kid because he was interesting to me. I
mean, first off, my uncle is a hard-ass and
Dogsbestfriend is man
shows little love or emotion, but this kid brought a
smile to my uncle's face. He was happy to see him.
The kid looked over to me. When our eyes met I
turned away quickly. I did catch the color though;
they
were a pale blue, almost a soft grey. My ears
were opened. Understanding French for me is
were
much easier than speaking it. The kid with the
flute was inquiring about me. My uncle said in a
rough voice that was low, "He's my American
brother's son." I looked up to see the boy with
the flute to see how he responded to that. He
began to
to play "Yankee Doodle Dandy" on his
flute. I sat there and took it. What else was I
gonna do? I smiled to show my sportsmanship.
After the kid climbed into the cab of the truck
and was gone, I asked my uncle politely if I could
à question.
ask a
"Since you asked first, go on then." Wow. I was
excited. "Ask," he said as the next truck pulled up
and he greeted them.
"OK. What's that kid's story?"
My uncle looked over at me with smile as he
waved the next truck through. "That's what
they all want to know."
"Who?"
"The people that bet on the dogs."
He was talking down to me like as if I
was silly for not knowing, but hell,
this was my first time at a dog-
fight. How was I supposed to
know who that kid was? I must
really puzzled
because my Uncle Bernard
walked over to me and patted
me on the back. "He's a champi-
on trainer. His dogs never lose."
"What?" I asked.
"He's the best trainer."
"Oh," I said. "Je comprends." That means
"I understand."
So we
get to
have looked
I to the barn where the dogfights take
place. Three roads all come together and meet up
right at a fenced area. Here trucks with dogs in
them are parked and waiting for my uncle's
arrival. He's real French, my uncle. He hardly talks
and has a blank expression. Me being American I
always want to
swant to ask questions. But after twelve
questions with no answers I took the hint and just
shut up and took notes from the actions. Bernard
put his truck in park, got out, and unlocked the
fence. In French I asked, "Do you need help?"
And in universal language he answered by not
saying a word. My eyes followed him as he undid
the lock and unraveled the chain. Now my eyes
moved along and scoped out the trucks waiting.
Some were big, some were small, some were
dirty, old, and beat up trucks. Some were brand
new trucks. This one kid was seated on top of the
hood of a large truck playing a flute. He was pret-
ty far off in the line of trucks waiting to enter.
"Très jolie, the music." I said that as I was walk-
ing over to where my uncle was, but he just didn't
answer. Maybe because I got that Yankee-Doodle
sounding voice. I remember how I wanted to hit
him over the back of the head to give him a bump
that would match the ones in the front. He's
blood, though; I couldn't do that. My dad would
chase me in the afterlife for that. I hate quiet peo-
ple though. I guess they must hate me too,
because all I do is blab and blab and blab.
Well, I'm gonna shut the fuck up and get on
with this. All the trucks started pulling in. My uncle
eted each truck
stood there by the fence and
greeted
that entered. I stood next to him and watched.
The kid
I that I was seated on the hood playing flute
was getting close and he was still on the hood and
blowing his flute. When that truck was just about
to enter, my uncle moved up close. The truck was
a bright green color. I could tell because the sun
was coming up now. When the green truck pulled
to a stop, the kid playing flute jumped from the
hood and kissed my uncle on both cheeks. The kid
was light-skinned, a fair child. I looked close at this
Inside the barn there were old fashioned
lights. Lights that burned off oil. I guess that's
what they burned off of. Hell, my name ain't
Edison. Shit. The people inside were prepar-
I kept close to my uncle's side, who just
ing.
walked around and oversaw things. People said
saw
hello to him and he said hello back. He was
always pretty nice and never more than that. I'm
not sure how the betting worked. It was loose.
The betters had cards and would hold up their
cards when a dog they liked and wanted to bet
on was fighting. It was simple. They had it fig-
ured. I watched from way in the back because, I
don't know, it's a little gross, the sound of the
dogs gnawing on each other. It was jacked. I felt
bad for the dogs. Normally I think of myself as a
tough guy, but this wasn't tough at all. It was
barbaric. It turned my insides out. I tried to turn
away, but it was hard. The sound, so fierce,
demanded so much attention. I looked around at
the people. They liked it. Uncle Bernard pulled
me out of there and asked if I was OK. It was nice
that he did. I was about to vomit.
"Yes, I'm fine," I told him. I was lying though.
"If you want to go back to the house, you're OK
to use my
"All right," I said. He gave me the keys. I
told him sorry. He smiled and waved me off.
He understood.
I headed to his house. All along the drive back
on the dirt road I couldn't get that image of the
two dogs locked together, gnawing and tugging
on each other, out of my mind. Fuck, and the
sound of it-my God, it sounded almost as bad as
going to the drag races. Fuck, that was too much.
When I got back to my uncle's house I kept trying
to overcome it, but I couldn't. I went to the room
where I had my things and put my headphones
on.
I blasted my Slayer CD. I wanted some evil shit
to overpower this other evil shit. So there I was
with my ears taking that raw energy. I was playing
air guitar and banging my head fast as fuck. The
noise from me jumping around must have startled
my Aunt Charlotte, because when I turned fast
and looked at the entrance to the room, she was
standing there smiling. I'm sure she was thinking,
"The Americans are hella funny, yo!" I got normal
really quickly and was embarrassed as fuck. I took
the earphones off and stopped the disc's rotation.
The way it translates over, she asked, "What's
happening here?"
"Nothing," I answered.
"Where is Bernard?" she asked.
"He's at the far-off barn." I didn't know if she
knew about the fights or not, but she did, because
next my Aunt Charlotte asked if it was too much
for
me to handle.
"No," I said. "It's just a little saddening."
"Oh, sure. Coming from America where they
shoot each other on the streets, I thought it would
be nothing for you."
"
"Oh, it's something," I said. "I like dogs a lot,
more than most people."
"Oh, you do?" she said.
"Yeah. Back home I have three dogs."
She smiled big. "What kind?" she asked.
"One is a mutt. His name is Stud. The other two
are both short-haired pointers. One is Webster and
the other is a girl so I call her Marie Antoinette."
She liked my dogs' names. I told her to wait just a
sec while I went to my luggage to get my photos.
"They're lovely dogs. Very pretty," she said.
"Thank you." I could tell she was sincere. That's
one thing that is different between the French and
the Americans: the French are more sincere. After
we were finished looking at the photos she asked
me to follow her, so I did. We went through the
house and came to a room. When I entered the
lights came on automatically.
"You mustn't tell Bernard I showed you this
room." My eyes were wide. All over the walls
'were all kinds of photos of fighting dogs and
dogfighting paraphernalia. "Oh," I thought to
myself. Why couldn't I figure it out?
"Bernard once trained fighting dogs."
"Did he?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, and brushed her hands coolishly.
"I told him either the dogs go or I go."
"Boy, you must be a special lady." That's what I
was thinking but I didn't say that. I knew she was
special. I tasted her cooking. It's the best un-
American food I've ever eaten.
"You can look in here for a while if you like."
"OK," I said thank you so she could see how
amazed I was. The funnest part for me was seeing
the photos of the dog and then deciding if it
looked tough or not and then trying to guess the
number of victories. It's funny because the dogs
that shied away from the camera usually had more
victories. The tough-looking dogs' numbers were
low. It varied though; some of the tough-looking
dogs had high-ass numbers, yo! Looking at all that
dog shit eventually got boring.
No, no, I can't finish my story there. No way.
That was half of my age today ago, but I
remember it crystal clear like it was yesterday. The
one thing that's good about getting old is telling
tall tales of your younger years. That was in 1938
when I went to France. Slayer had not even played
their first show. Fuck it-I'll take Slayer back to that
date with me. Now I'm back in my Uncle
Bernard's room blasting The Who on my head-
phones, looking at the photos trying to psyche.
myself back up to go see the fight. But
just look at all the shit
I'm a wimp. I just
the walls and imagine what it
takes to train a champion dog.
on
a
About a week or two passed,
and little about the dogfights
came up, but I was thinking
about what went into the train-
ing. Out of curiosity I asked
Bernard, "So that kid playing
the flute always wins?"
"Yeah," Bernard said..
"Where's he from?" I asked. Bernard's face lit
up and he smiled. He loved this kid; I could tell.
"Russia. The north part."
"Is it cold there?"
"Yes," Bernard replied.
"Oh it is?" I said. I was feeling this fucker out.
"What's his name?" I asked.
"Marlboro," Bernard said. "His father named
him Marlboro after his favorite cigarettes. An
American brand, the most expensive and the hard-
est to come by." Bernard was still smiling while I
I was silent, thinking.
I looked at Bernard straight. I mean I looked
right at him, and right away I knew that he must
have trained this kid to train dogs how to fight.
Otherwise, why the fuck would he be so happy? I
My the
ain't no jackass. The only thing I was worried
about was if I'd have enough time to try and
train a fighting dog before I'd have to go back
home. Shit, if I wasn't gonna have enough time, I
could always change my ticket. That's no prob-
lem since my mom is French and my dad is
American. I have dual citizenship; that means I
can live in France if I like, or America if I like. It's
up to me, and with the way things are looking, I
think I might just be kicking it in France for a
while. At least until I can train a dog to defeat
one of Marlboro's dogs. It's cruel but I'm gonna
do it. I'm gonna train a friendly fighting dog to
be a champ. His name will be Rubberteeth. He's
gonna be a vicious little pit, white and black with
a patch of brindle on his left ear. I can visualize it
right now. I'm just gonna call him Rubber for
short. "Rubber, get over here boy!"
When I told my Uncle Bernard my plans to
train a fighting dog, he laughed at me.
"What's so funny?" I asked. "This isn't a joke."
"You saw the fights. You had to leave. The peo-
ple that train these dogs love this sport. It's in
them and they live it from a young age."
I felt stupid but I had good plans. I studied all
the photos in his room and I remember what I
saw. Already in my mind I had a plan. See, when
one dog clamps down onto the other dog, the
dog that's being clamped onto has to use his
paws to pull the other dog off of him. I saw that
and I thought up the most brilliant training
exercise. I'll tell you.
וויד
See, I train the dog normally and use all the
other stuff that they do, or everything that I can
find out about. But this one here I thought up by
myself. See, I'll starve the dog, not let him eat for
weeks, then I'll shove food in front of him but I'll
put a muzzle on him so he has to rip the muzzle
off with his paws to get at the food. Better yet, I'll
put the muzzle on loosely and shove the food in
there, so it's trapped in there close up so he can
smell it and have it right up there but not be able
to get at it unless he fights for it.
Four months passed. I got two small pits. One I
named Plastic and the other I named Rubber. I
trained them by myself every day. I'd get up
before sunrise, eat, and then take off for the
coast. It was really far and hard training, but I
wanted one of my two dogs to be champions. So
I had to train them well. I won't go on with all
the training details because it will bore you.
After months of hard work they were ready.
Plastic was tougher than Rubber. He showed
more determination but Rubber could run faster
and farther than Plastic and had a good obedient
behavior. That's important. The first big fight
came up. Immediately I wanted my Rubber and
Plastic to go up against one of Marlboro's dogs,
but all of the flute player's dogs were top-ranked.
So both my dogs would have to win a few. Plastic
lost really badly, but Rubber won good. It felt
shitty trying to nurse Plastic back to health while
t the same time I was trying to break the other
dog down so I could make him tougher. It made
things too hard, so I decided to go with one dog.
I chose Rubber. Of course Plastic in his first fight
lost terribly bad. He was hardly alive but I had
him doing okay again, but just trying to get him
back to where he was was taking too much away
from Rubber. So I borrowed my uncle's hunting
rifle and shot Plastic to death. I hated doing it
but I had to. There was nothing else for me to
do. Well, now all my attention was fully on
Rubber. I doubled up on all his training. Things
seemed to be going well. My Uncle Bernard used
to slip little pointers over to me every
again at dinner. I bad to be cautious though. You
never know. Sometimes even your own people
will give you misleading information.
y and
I found this out because Uncle Bernard told me
to go and get zipzium.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Nevermind," he said. "Just mix it in when you
feed Rubber and it's gonna make his teeth
stronger and harder."
"OK," I said. But I wasn't stupid. I looked up
zipzium and in fact it does make the dog's teeth
stronger; but also it weakens the fibers in the
dog's muscles. So what good are strong teeth
with
jacked
I muscle? So all my uncle's advice I
had to question; besides, even though I'm his
nephew I know he sides with the Russian kid.
Weeks passed and I got anxious because in
four days Rubber and I would get the chance to
go up against Marlboro's top dog. The four days
before the fight, no training. This was my plan.
It wasn't my uncle or any other fight enthusiast
who gave this info to me. See, I wanted Rubber.
to be soft before the fight. I wanted him to
feel loved; no chomping jaws, no running,
no pulling. Just resting, petting, and fetch-
ing. Only friendly dog type things because
once he's in there and forced to fight he will
snap hard back to his training like lightning and
the other dog will be taken.
at it was
Finally, the night before the fight, I stayed up
late with Rubber tossing him a ball around. Also,
I did not feed him. He was an obedient dog. I
felt like a creep, totally aware of what I expected
of him the next day. I tried to think that it was
for the good of my country if Rubber won this
battle.
I planned on telling all the men I thought
that it was wrong and II planned on never fight-
ing dogs again. But first Rubber would have to
win. If he lost, he'd have to be humiliated and I
would not have enough time to train another
dog. My eyes stayed open and it was mostly
because I was thinking about the next day.
Finally I was out. ZZZZ.
When I woke up, my Aunt Charlotte brought me
some hot cocoa. I drank it and it warmed my
insides. Next I greeted my Uncle Bernard. The
extent of his "good morning" was a grunt. His
stare on me was evil.
Today
"Today my dog Rubberteeth will beat the
champion dog."
He grinned and made a poooot sound. I felt that
my dog would win. In fact, I knew my dog would
win. The sun, not yet up, was someplace prepar-
ing itself to be up and Rubber and I off for the
far-off barn on foot. Uncle Bernard would go by
truck and beat us there. Oh, and just so you know,
before Rubber and I left, I gave him some water
and some cheese for nourishment.
When we got to the barn we had some time to
wait. We waited and waited; finally the time came.
It was the grand finale. Rubber snarled as he was
brought out. See, normally, a trainer never intro-
duces his dog. It's always the people of the associ-
ation who do that. I was up close, hollering. My
blood was pumping.
"Come on, Rubber!" I yelled out. Fuck this
crowd;
d; I was screaming in English. This was my
dog up against that flute player's pit. The excite-
ment was growing all through the fight. It was real
intense. Rubber won and I was happy but sad at
the same time. Rubber would walk around like a
champ and then go back to the dying dog and
nudge him and growl and sniff around. Most of
the people were all clapping. The insiders knew
that the champion trainer's champion dog had
lost. I had tears. That was my dog down there. I
jumped the barrier and went to grab Rubberteeth.
I wanted to hold him. I wanted to tell the
Federation I thought their sport was cruel, but
when I jumped the barrier and I got down there to
grab Rubber he bit into my right hand and mauled
the fuck out
of it. I guess the scars are always
gonna be there.
You just gotta know you can't beat someone at
their game and then tell them their game ain't no
good. It doesn't work that way. Rubberteeth never
fought another fight. Nowadays, he plays OK
with Stud and Marie, but he and Webster always
clamp down on one
another.
-Mark Gonzales
8. Distant mountain stone illustrating the interplay and harmonious balance
of opposite yet complementary aspects. Place of origin: unknown.