Rumors and reports had been circulating around La Mancha for weeks concerning stray dogs making a nuisance of themselves at the wedding chapel. I’d been up there a few times but hadn’t caught them in the act. Then Sam called me from the Visitor’s Center.
I see those dogs on the chapel’s live camera. Yep, there’s two of them.
I’m on my way.
I grabbed my six foot bullwhip – Big Boy* – and jumped on my golf cart. Sam was right; there were two of them. One high-tailed it into the Valley the minute he saw me. The other stood his ground though. Dog wasn’t hostile, but he was not in a mood to back down.
I don’t know who you are, but me and my buddy…I don’t know where he went but he was here a second ago…him and me we been coming here for weeks. We’ve peed all OVER this place but I don’t smell anything from you, is all I’m saying. We sort of think this might be OUR chapel.
Dog wasn’t going to back down, so I spoke to him as I got out of the cart.
Hey buddy, I mean you no harm but the people who own this place are not going to let a couple of dogs ruin their wedding venue. I know you don’t understand any of this, but you gotta go. And I recommend you not come back. Ever.
Now all this took place just north of the chapel, near that big tree by the chair shed. There was a meandering dog trail leading from the chapel down to the Beatnik neighborhood in the Valley. That trail is still there, by the way. The dogs don’t use it anymore, but it’s there and you can see it if ever you come to La Mancha.**
Anyway, I let my whip uncoil and flop onto the ground. Then I flicked a Cattleman’s crack his direction and put a little extra mustard on it. The whip made the sound that whips make and dog turned into nothing. Like smoke he was gone. I never saw a dog run that fast with his ass dragging, and when he topped the rise at the end of the trail, all four of his feet left the ground.
And that – as they say – was that.
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Oh. It’s you. Yeah, I forgot about us, and it’s been quite some time since I wrote anything. I wonder if you even know who I am anymore. Or if you ever did know me. Maybe this is your first time here reading. I wrote a lot of stuff a few years ago, and then I fell silent. Couldn’t write a thing. I’ve been living life instead of writing about life, if that makes sense to you. It does to me. I think you can do one or the other but usually not both.
~
A lot has changed here in La Mancha, we can start with that. I’m the Tower Guard now, commissioned by the Wizard Academy to guard its properties – chief amongst those being the Tower of course. I also serve meals to our students on class days. I still live on campus in my little two-room cottage, where I serve as after hours security. I truck chairs up and down the Camino and set up tables for weddings at Chapel Dulcinea sometimes. I do a little bit of everything around here, I guess I would say. Dave Young once told a student, “Gordon knows where all the bodies are buried; hell he buried most of them himself.” He said it like it was a joke, which is why Dave and I still laugh about it.
I work here now, is what I’m telling you. Life is good for me in La Mancha and I like where I have landed in this season. As for the people I mentioned in part one, most are still here but there have been changes.
Joe and Indigo got married and live together in East La Mancha behind the distillery. Seymour and Harvey are long gone, but you can still hear the frogs over at Tuscan pond. We have a new bullfrog at Spence pond in West La Mancha who sounds off around midnight and continues through the wee hours. I haven’t given him a name yet. Cheech is living with an older woman in Indigo’s family. I miss her terribly, and I hope she will remember me if she ever comes back for a visit.
Fancy Dan quit and moved away. Sam is the new manager of the Visitor’s Center; she and I are still buddies. Alex is now a cosmetologist and only works weekends. She seems happy to me. Alyssa had a baby and moved away. I haven’t seen Roxi in well over a year, and I don’t think she even lives in the Valley anymore. I hear the Old Man still lives there, but I haven’t seen him in awhile either. As for Caleb and Erika, I never wrote about them, so you don’t need an update. I didn’t write about them because they are like family for me. I might write about them someday or maybe I’ll keep Caleb and Erica for myself. Haven’t decided.
Foxy Brown’s descendants have been exploring La Mancha all summer. I just spoke to one of them in the Valley last night from the bow of Dulcinea. Elmer now lives with a witch named Glenda whom I met in South Austin. That’s a story maybe I’ll tell someday. She has pledged to return Elmer to a river eventually, but for now he lives on an altar in her home for reasons the two of them understand.
Luna graces La Mancha every month in her fullness. I still follow her around like a lovesick boy hoping for romance. It breaks my heart every time she slips behind a cloud.
Last of all, a confession: I am now the most irritating person in all of La Mancha. It’s such literary and poetic justice that I smile every time I think of it. But godammit, how else are those chairs going to get to Dulcinea in time for the Rodriquez wedding?
TG
*Whips, when used correctly, never touch an animal. The surprising noise from a sonic boom confuses any instinctual creature. They tend to leave and not come back.
**The old dog trail is no longer used by dogs, at least not for passage onto the Camino. I’m Zeus with thunderbolts of sound. They stay in the Valley and I stay up the hill. You can still see a remnant of the old trail in the distance of the photo.
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