The Misanthrope (A Letter to the Skipper)

There would be no Hunter-to-Steadman relations formed down here in de bayou, no, no, no. It just won't do. So it got tored up. See?

Yeh. Shit. Case closed. Picked up a stray bitch, instead, covered in ticks--a Jack Russell/Basenji mix, God knows how something that sweet made it down down this far; saved my life for a year and a half.

Meanwhile:

Out on Walden Pond, Buford-style, Jack Jump is busy killing his own. He thought it was for its own good...Something about "potty-training gone wrong," and, well, he really didn't know what a "wry-neck" was, etymologically, until the snout of that poor, friendly mutt got caught crosswise in the good Doktor's savage hand.

"Shit on my couch, you fuckin' bastard!"

It was a clean shot, he'd told me later, over the phone, a .22 slug right atop the bridge of the nose. Said he'd "waited damned near four hours" for his former companion to come around, but the back legs were still a little sleepy, and there's a time and a place for everything...

"Hope you don't think I'm some kind of monster?" were the last words I heard. Think I stayed bent for a month after that.

P.S. It's not a question of can; but of should. That's still my perch. Yr $.02 always appreciated.