The Off Season

Cade Meserve looked down at the happy gun-metal gray mutt named Kerry walking beside him: no leash, shaggy, wet from salt spray. The sky was overcast—in direct violation of all things Los Angeles. He had grown to love the gray days, the sun struggling in vain to peek through here and there. Every element was in full complement with the other; gray day with salt-and-pepper-haired dog and man; a living diorama of a certain stage of life, asking only one favor of the world: Please be quiet.

He liked walking the beach with his dog during this brief time of year. It was only allowable during the off season. Dogs weren’t permitted on the beach when normal people frequented the place. That was fair, he supposed. They could make you think that anything was fair. Rules, regulations, propaganda. All is fair in love and war. All in life is love and war. They had you there. It’s all fair. If the posted sign says NO, that’s fair. As long as it’s not posted by yourself in your front yard. In that case it’s legally actionable.

Out on the Pacific Coast Highway, people were hunched in their cars beating each other’s brains out in a barely disguised tailgating free for all. Most of them were heading home early from work on a Friday. The noise of their wheels blended with the surf. The closer you walked to the ocean, the more you could drown them out. If you kept your eyes level and straight ahead, you could almost pretend you were somewhat in the company of nature.

In the distance a wavering man wrapped in a blanket approached. His matted hair hung down under an old tan baseball cap with an indistinct logo, and he wore black shapeless pants with old running shoes. He seemed to want to look threatening, headed as he was straight for Meserve. Meserve wasn’t intimidated or even mildly threatened. He knew the type.

The man was intent on speaking to him.

“He bite?” He nodded at Kerry.

“She only bites the enemy,” said Merserve.

“I’m no enemy. I just need a cigarette.”

“I don’t smoke, bro.”

The man frowned. “You got any spare—”

“But I do have a cigarette,” Meserve interjected, before the man could ask for money.

It was a joke, a line he always used in this event. He didn’t smoke. When he went on this particular long beach walk, he always carried cigarettes to hand out to characters like the one standing in the sand before him. He never gave anyone money. It was never wise to pull out a wallet in public in Los Angeles. It was barely intelligent to even carry one while you while walking alone with a dog that loved everyone—even the enemy.

He reached into the “dog bag” hanging on his shoulder—the one stuffed with newspapers and plastic bags to handle Kerry’s excesses. Meserve picked up after his dog. When the beachgoers returned, he didn’t want them spreading a blanket on Kerry’s calcified poo. He was socially conscious, he guessed, although he didn’t think of himself that way. He had learned it as a boy when his dog Mugger left a calling card in front of the town hall that was immediately stepped in by the First Selectman—the highest official in the land for six miles in every direction—as he walked out of the building for lunch. Chalk one up for the spirit of unfairness.

“Thanks, man,” said the ragged beach wanderer. He didn’t attempt to light the cigarette in the steady ocean breeze, tucking it behind his ear instead. “I’ll save it for after lunch.”

He said it with a gruff semi-patrician flair, like he had a grand lunch lined up on his social calendar—maybe fresh lobster washed down with a nice, chilled Chenin Blanc.

“Cool,” said Meserve. The all-purpose response. It looked like the conversation was pretty much done. He gave a meandering salute to the brim of his baseball cap and prepared to move on.

“Sir?”

The deep commanding voice came from behind him. He knew already it was the sound of trouble. He was once again at cross purposes with the state...and their beach.

“Hi.”  

It was a young cop with a close-cropped blond military haircut, dressed down for this particular beat wearing a tucked in, blue LAPD t-shirt with nary a wrinkle; jeans, hiking boots. He was equipped with the usual accessories: badge on a lanyard, baton, radio, pepper spray...let’s not forget a nine-millimeter secured on the hip. 

The man was chiseled, gym-rat-tough-looking with the manner of a friendly uncle who knows he is about to beat your ass at hoops in the driveway—with one hand tied behind his back.  

His partner stood twenty feet behind him with Mr. Clean-bulging arms folded as he kept a ready eye on the proceedings. Both men wore sunglasses, causing Meserve to wonder if they could actually see anything on a day this overcast.  

“This your dog?” said the young officer, eyeing Kerry like he might be dealing with a rabid pit bull.

“She sure is,” said Meserve in his best friendly tone. Why get off to a bad start?

“I was just looking for a cigarette, and we were talking,” the man in the blanket interjected with a cringing squint in his eyes—perhaps hoping this revelation would settle the matter.

The cop gave him a look as if realizing for the first time that he was even there. It was a brief, penetrating glance as in: “I’ll deal with you later if the need calls for it.” His tight gaze shifted back to Meserve.

“Number one, there’s no dogs allowed on the beach, sir.”

Meserve frowned. There were going to be numbered items in this encounter? Not good.  “Sorry. I thought it was off season. I mean nobody’s here.” He swept his hand across the dreary cold expanse of the empty beach.

The officer kept his eyes leveled at Meserve. “It’s in effect every day of the year.  There’s a sign that tells you that, right over there.” He turned to the beach entrance near the parking lot where a large board listed about forty things that weren’t allowed on the beach. The list got longer every year. If you took the time to read through it, you might forget why you came to the beach in the first place. “There’s another sign there”—he chopped his hand in another direction—“and one over there.”  

Meserve couldn’t argue with that. You can’t deal with these people and their signs, he thought. Thoreau would be spending three life terms in prison already. He stayed silent. Ya got me, officer. I’m ready for the cuffs.

“I don’t see tags on your dog,” said the cop. He pulled out a citation pad. This was getting real.

“They are at home,” said Meserve, groping for a suitable white lie. As if an LAPD officer has never heard “I forgot it at home” before.  

“The dog needs to be wearing tags in public at all times. Is he chipped?”

“No, she isn’t.” He had considered getting her chipped a while back. Kerry had appeared on his doorstep as a runaway over a year ago. In Meserve’s sparsely populated neighborhood up the canyon road, she might disappear for two days at a time. She was spayed. The vet had determined that much. Meserve figured the dog was anti-chip. Who knows, she might decide to split from him one day too. He respected Kerry’s free will in that regard. She knew her way around. Most people would probably end up getting chipped before they ever got around to Kerry.

“Vaccinated?” said the cop, checking something off on his pad.

For a moment, Meserve thought he was being asked his own medical status. The sad thing was, it hardly surprised him.

“Yeah, she’s had her shots,” he breathed. What next? Her sex life?

“We ask this question because it’s important for people to be educated.”

When would this particular education would be over? Off to the side, the homeless beachcomber in the blanket began playing with Kerry, making quick dodges at her as she wagged her tail and scuffled in the sand. 

“We’ve had some cases in our parks of people getting flea- borne diseases.”

I’m sure you called in three helicopters and a SWAT team for that, Meserve wanted to say.

“And we do have a leash law in Los Angeles. Are you aware of that?”

“On an empty beach? She’s the nicest dog in the world. Never bit anyone.”

“I’m sure. Do you have a leash with you?”

Meserve could only shrug. It was understood that he had no leash with him. He didn’t even bother to say he forgot it.  

“Alright.” The officer turned back to the parking lot. “Is that your car parked over there?”  

They both looked in the general direction of the only car in the parking lot. Even Officer Mr. Clean turned, keeping his arms folded, serving as a witness to confirm the presence of Meserve’s eight-year-old white Toyota Camry. A black and white police SUV was parked at an angle behind it as if to cut off any angle of escape.

“Yes,” said Meserve. The “I left it a home” ploy was not going to work here either. Everyone in LA had a car—or else they were wandering the beach wrapped in an old blanket.

“The meter’s expired,” said the officer.

“The meter is broken,” said Meserve. “You don’t have to pay at a broken meter.” 

Touche! He was getting over on “the man.” It had a very sixties feel about it.

“If there are a hundred twenty working meters in an empty parking lot you are obliged to use one of them,” said the officer.

“Since when?”

“Since I just told you. It’s the local ordinance.”

“I don’t think so.”

They had reached the point of contention. Meserve wasn’t backing down. He had even checked with the city on this very point a while back. He felt pretty sure of himself.

“How long ago did you check on that?” said the officer.

“I dunno...a year or two ago.”

“It’s changed,” said the officer, getting back to his citation pad. “You got any ID?”

“Why do I have to show you my ID? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Unlicensed dog on the beach? No leash? Parking violation?”

“Come on. Really?”

“Yes. Really. Why don’t you just give me your ID? I’ll give you a ticket and we can all go on with our day?”

“I left it in the car,” said Meserve.

“Well, I guess we have to go over to your car and get it.”

Meserve looked at the sky and chuckled—more out of frustration than anything else.

“Is something funny?” The cop searched Meserve’s face. His partner, Officer Mr. Clean, moved a step closer. His arms were still folded across his chest. He looked past Meserve at a point down the beach.

“I thought that was your dog.”

“Yeah. It’s my dog. You need ownership papers now?”

“Looks like your friend is taking off with him.”

“What?”

Meserve turned and looked. Kerry was gone. So was the guy in the blanket with the free cigarette behind his ear. He was running for all he was worth, already more than a hundred yards away, the blanket flapping behind him in the wind. In his arms, with her head peeking out over his shoulder was Kerry. Meserve could barely make her out in the gray gloom of the beach.  

“HEY!” he shouted for all he was worth. “Sonofabitch.” 

He started to run, but he only got a few steps. Officer Mr. Clean was quicker. He was the “bad cop” on this team.

“We’re not done here,” he said tightly in Meserve’s ear.  

“Let me go! That’s my dog!”  

Now each cop took an arm.  

“We’ll be done in a minute,” said the first officer. “Your dog will come back. He’s not going far. Those guys all live right there near the pier. You can go get him as soon as we’re done.”

“Sonofabitch!” Meserve repeated. “Just let me go get her and I’ll come back.” He struggled but they were too much for him.  

“You don’t stop, we’re gonna cuff you and put you in back of the cruiser,” said Officer Mr. Clean, tightening his grip. “Resisting arrest. You want that?”

“I’m not resisting! Somebody just stole my dog! Why don’t you arrest him?”

“We don’t know whose dog it is,” said Officer Number One. “It doesn’t have tags.”

Meserve stopped struggling and looked at him full in the face. “You guys are unbelievable.”

“Are there any weapons in the vehicle, sir? Guns, knives?” 

They watched, stationed at both sides of the car in combat readiness as he fished his license out of his wallet in the glove compartment. He stood there, took his ticket, held it by his side waiting for them to leave. They seemed disappointed that he wasn’t putting up more of a fight.

“You okay, sir?” said the blond cop.

Meserve said nothing.

“Have a nice day,” said Officer Clean in a tone that wished Meserve anything but.

They got in their SUV, moving like synchronized swimmers, then gave him a last appraising look before driving away. Meserve watched after them as they waited to pull out into traffic on the Coast Highway. A blazing red Porsche zoomed through the signal at the intersection, just missing the yellow. They popped the lights and siren and took off after it. Meserve figured they all deserved each other. What did it matter? He had a dog to rescue.

He opened the trunk of his car, pulled out a tire iron, and inspected it. It might come in handy. He pulled out an old backpack and put the tire iron inside. It wouldn’t do to go lurching down the beach with the thing in his hand. He didn’t want to see any more cops today. He set his face grimly towards the pier in the distance, partially obscured by rolling fog. Then he set the backpack on his shoulder and started walking.

They were huddled in a dry, six-foot-wide drainage tunnel facing the pier, about a half-dozen men looking in various stages of near death gathered around a small—highly illegal—smoking fire. They always had that look, Meserve thought; ghastly but somehow spiritual. Many of them were supremely tough at the same time. Survivors, lean, almost feral. He knew a few such men who camped in the hills above his rented cabin. They could be seen now and then down in the small village buying groceries with their food stamps or cashing government checks. They looked like ragged veterans from some long ago war, or various Rip Van Winkles appearing from out of the hills to a world that they would never quite recognize again.  

Once in a while, when the temperature dropped abnormally low, the older ones would quietly die alone of hypothermia up there in their tents over the small freezing hours. They were not thieves. People often hired them for odd jobs. They were trusted even if not entirely dependable. Alcohol was the coin of the realm for most of them. If they were into drugs, they kept it to themselves. It was live and let live.  

Meserve had never heard of any one of them stealing a pet. That kind of behavior was reserved for packs of shrill coyotes that cruised the canyon at night. The thought was so galling that he wanted to walk into the tunnel and flail away at all of them with his tire iron, like Jesus clearing out the temple. He realized that he was teetering, red-lining, almost out of control. He wasn’t the type of person to get loud about it. If you took a moment to look into his eyes, you knew to back off. He knew the officers had been trying to feed kindling into that look, initiating a blaze that would get him locked up for the night at a minimum. Then the judge. Again. 

He stood off to the side of the tunnel for a moment, out of their line of vision, calming himself. If he saw Kerry in there, he would be content to pick her up without a word and walk away. No drama. If she wasn’t there, well, there were gonna be a few questions.  

The horrific thought of them cooking his skinned dog over a fire flashed through his mind. He quickly put it away. That would be bad. Unspeakably bad. He remembered his last bar fight years ago at some hole-in-the-wall in North Hollywood. The arrest, the bench trail, the long days and nights in a cell at County, the stormy divorce, the journey to sobriety. The last was court mandated. He was okay with that now. He figured it had ultimately saved the man he almost killed in that bar who now bore scars from a broken bottle for life.  

It might have been a good idea if that same man hadn’t been sleeping with Meserve’s wife. It wasn’t love in that man’s case, not even lust—only the pretext to his main purpose of getting her hooked on the benzos he sold her while emptying her bank account. The latter crimes proved even worse than the first—given that Meserve had been no saint himself during those years. Some things are forgivable in time. Her current life as a likely permanent resident in a psych ward was not. Shit happens. Some people shouldn’t be allowed the opportunity to enjoy a drink in public—even in a North Hollywood hole-in-the-wall. The man had departed California. Now he was walking around somewhere with a face like a deep-creased road map, still dealing the poison as far as Meserve knew. Either that, or he had become a bona fide psychiatrist and was dealing it legally. 

He breathed out all the gravity-free trash bouncing off the walls of his brain. This was here and now. Focus. He unzipped the backpack for ready access to the tire iron, gathered himself, then swung into the drainage tunnel. He expected they might look up at him, stunned and flustered. They barely noticed him.

“I’m looking for my dog. She’s shaggy and gray-colored.” He scanned every face, looking for the guy in the blanket. Problem was, they were all in blankets. In the dim light, he couldn’t see enough features to make a solid ID of the culprit. “I think one of you guys has her. Better speak up now and give her back.”

They looked at each other. It was like that old TV show To Tell The Truth: “Will the real inventor of the Nuclear Potato Peeler please stand up!”

Only nobody stood up. A grizzled man threw a piece of broken driftwood on the fire, then turned to Meserve. “We don’t know what yer talkin’ about. Nobody’s seen any dog.”

“Okay.” Meserve kept his cool. He walked through them, checking every face closely. He knew if he got a good-enough look, he could identify the man on the beach. He probably still had that cigarette behind his ear.

He got to the end and was about to turn around when he noticed a sort of shelf-like depression in the tunnel, about four feet off the ground. It was lined with an old blanket—what else? On top of that blanket, Kerry was lying down, open-mouthed and smiling, her happy tongue panting and her bright eyes looking straight at him.

Meserve’s heart skipped a beat. This was not unfolding the way he had expected. Still, there she was.

“Nobody’s seen any dog?” He glared at the men huddled on their living room logs. “Are you guys for real?” They stared back at him with silent poker faces. Meserve could only shake his head. He felt like he was visiting some far away island populated by people who lived by rules incomprehensible even to themselves.    

“Hey girl!” He laughed and reached out for her. “Let’s get the hell outta here.” 

Kerry’s look suddenly changed, teeth bared and growling. She snapped at him. He darted backwards, nearly falling over. Her face grew instantly calm and friendly again.

“It’s me, sweetie! Your old pal. Come on, let’s go home.” Meserve smiled, reaching again. This time she got to her feet and lunged, tearing a hole in the sleeve of his shirt. He paled, looking around in confusion. The huddled men merely stared back at him. He felt like he was in the middle of a bad horror movie. He looked back at Kerry again. She stared as if daring him to try again. This time there would be blood. 

There was a long, silent standoff. At last, Meserve backed slowly away, past the men and out of the tunnel. He stood at the opening, gazing back inside, seeing only the dog’s bright eyes reflecting the pale light from the beach. The men inside gazed back at him, saying nothing.

She belonged to them now. That’s all he knew. He didn’t know how or why. He briefly flirted with the idea of calling the cops. No tags, no chip...no leash. Okay, he nodded. It’s fair. It’s all fair. She only bites the enemy. The soft crushing echo of the waves behind him nearly moved him to tears. He turned away from the tunnel, slowly shuffling through the sand back to his car.

“He gone?” The man in the blanket, with the cigarette no longer behind his ear, emerged out of the darkness from where he had been hiding deep in the tunnel.

“Yep,” said another man, staring into the fire. “I knew she’d come back. Been over a year but she’s home again.”

“She ain’t got no home,” said a third man spitting into the fire, making a fine sizzle. “She’s just like us.”

“I carried her like an angel.” The standing man in the blanket wrapped it tighter around himself and turned to his fellows. “You get any cigarettes out of ’em?”