After the whole aborted moon mission scheme,1 he had decided to finally get a real job here on Earth. Without the credentials of any business degree (he'd majored in Humanities: Augustine Tradition at Villanova), the best he could hope for in this economic climate was a menial office job in the suburbs, and this is exactly what he found for himself after a few months of the desperate job search and the horrid interview process that he had grown to hate. At any rate, this new menial office job required the slightest amount of actual labor-power. This turned him into, what Bradley himself would refer to as: "the human automaton," a snarky reference to Marx he'd level at his bosses if they ever asked what it was exactly he did around there.
What he did do around there mostly involved sucking coffee through his face while looking over the spreadsheets that would appear on his computer through the inter-office email system. Based on whatever it was the spreadsheets told him, he'd have to place telephone calls to certain people who were either hither or thither than him on the bureaucratic chain of command, in order to – you know – "get things done," which Bradley never felt he could confirm.
He had slowly managed to save up money, and after buying himself a new car he began to collect a lot of things&stuff. That's when he got the promotion and decided to buy himself a small condo near the office. He moved all of his things&stuff into the new place, and they sat in this suburban house while he was at work and then continued to sit there after he came home, because he'd just go to bed. In the corner of the room was his giant TV screen, but the only thing he watched on it was the occasional reality show his co-workers were always talking about. The kitchen was state of the art, but he usually just ate microwave dinners. The stereo-system was top of the line, but music didn't interest Bradley anymore. His favorite sound these days was the clunk-click his car would make when he pressed the button on his key-chain in succession. The sound of a locked car brought him great relief.
Every morning he'd get out of bed and take a shower. Then he'd have a small breakfast of tea and toast with butter while he practiced holding a serious expression on his face. Next he'd put on one of the suits he'd purchased2 just after getting the office job in the suburbs.
Life carried on like this for awhile, always the same routine. Bradley began to suspect that something had gone terribly wrong for him when on one Saturday evening he found himself getting a few drinks with his co-workers; the idea of which he vaguely recalled despising in his youth. This was not the reason things had gone terribly wrong though. Surrounded by all of his co-workers, it occurred to Bradley that these were in fact the only people he could remotely call his friends anymore. Everyone else had drifted away as his cold routine set in; he had stopped returning phone calls because he was too tired to "hang-out," and it wasn't long before people had just stopped calling him altogether. Bradley found it difficult to talk with anyone, discovering that nobody was actually talking to him, instead they just talked at him:
"HAh!," giggled his drunk co-worker Donna, "you know how I'm a Sagittarius, and so that's why I was a tom-boy when I was a little girl, and I think that's why my baby Courtney is too –"
"O! AND! AND! he doesn't ever put the toilet seat down – like I never asked him to or anything but at least he should consider AT LEAST this after I let him crash on my couch and all –" said Melissa while spilling some of her drink on one of Bradley's shoes.
Britney repeated a commercial she had heard, "I just love these new cut-off, they're all the rage this summer, everyone is wearing them..."
"I can't believe you got them soooo cheap!" Anne was so jealous.
"…and you can listen to the talk-radio-heads all you want, but you see the real problem that they're having is with their offensive line –" Frank interjected.
"Michael Jackson is totally still alive," Jason told Bradley for the fifth time, "the proof is on the internet!"
"Personally, I'd rather steal a Guinness than drink stale store stout," said Michael in his usual sloppy way.
Passionate debate fell around Bradley's ears regarding the latest best-movie-ever, or why whatever current media obsession is totally deserving of whatever current downfall they are enduring, as he considered the following:
1.) Everyone believed they were on a TV show about themselves.
2.) Couldn't just one person have the decency to ask how he's feeling? Probably not, probably that's just selfish.
3.) If he stayed at this job, that would only be marginally better than being homeless.
After an eternity of boredom they all exited the club and said their long goodnights. He hugged people because they went to hug him; he didn't want to leave them hanging.
The next morning Bradley woke up with a terrible hangover. After a shower he went to his closet and began to put on his best suit, stopping only when he realized that it was Sunday. He took a Motrin to help ease the pain from the night before, and decided to sit outside in his front yard3 while he drank his morning coffee. It was there that he noticed a dog sniffing around the large oak-tree at the end of his driveway. Bradley snapped his fingers and made a sound like pfft and the dog looked up at him. Its well-fed round belly and shiny coat wobbled as it approached Bradley. He held out his hand and the dog sniffed and then licked his fingers, and Bradley patted the dog on its head. He checked the tag on its collar only to find that any inscription that had been there had worn away. He scratched the dog under the ear and the dog curled up by his leg as Bradley finished his coffee.
After some time passed Bradley decided to go inside, and to his surprise, the dog followed him. He didn't try and stop the dog as it entered his house, and Bradley watched as the dog walked to the end of his hallway, curled into a ball, and drifted off to sleep. Bradley crept past the dog (so as not to disturb it), and up the stairs to his bedroom. He rooted around his closet and stared at his most expensive suit. He ripped the jacket off its hanger and brought it down the stairs, folding it gently underneath the sleeping dog.
An hour or so later Bradley was in his kitchen, staring into the pantry and trying to decide what to eat. That's when he heard the scratching at the front door, and found the dog waiting there, wanting to go outside. He opened the front door and watched as the dog walked out and disappeared into the neighborhood. After closing the door he went back into the kitchen and continued to stare into the pantry for a long time.
It went on like this for almost a week: Bradley came home from work and found the dog waiting in the driveway for him. He'd lock the car doors twice and pet the dog before it would follow him into the house. Bradley began to wonder if he'd like to own the dog. It wouldn't be that hard, he thought, he'd just have to feed the dog and walk it in the morning, or whatever. Everyday the dog would walk to the end of Bradley's hallway and lay down on the suit jacket for its afternoon nap. Then, wherever Bradley happened to be, he'd hear the dog scratching at the front door and go to let it out.
Bradley was sometimes gripped with panic if he thought about coming home without finding the dog in his driveway. At first he wasn't sure if it would be impolite to question the dog's motives, (after all, he didn't want to scare the dog away or anything), so he just imagined that the dog was making its rounds. In Bradley's mind, the dog was going from house to house, visiting all of the families in his neighborhood and spending a few hours with each – at least the ones that would let it hang around. He pictured the dog wagging its tail while watching TV with the old couple across the street – like real serious General Hospital fans – and afterwards the dog would come over to his house and take a little break before moving on to the next family – that's where the dog probably ate dinner.
Eventually his curiosity was too much for him: he had to know where the dog came from. Bradley would never make it to the moon in his life, but he would follow the dog across the county if he had to. He followed the dog out the front door and prepared himself to meet its owners (if it had any), but after a few paces the dog just sat down and looked up at him, panting. Bradley pretended to be staring at his lawn chairs, and eventually the dog started to walk away again. Bradley followed the dog and it stopped and stared at him once more. He quickly saw this method was useless and so the next afternoon he decided to attach a note to the dog's collar before it left after its nap. The note read:
"I was just wondering who owns this wonderful dog,
and just wanted to make you aware of the fact that it
comes over to my house and takes a nap every afternoon!"
The next day Bradley drove home as fast as possible, even taking a different route that actually – as it turned out – took him longer, though that wasn't his intention. Nor was it his intention to spill morning-old-coffee on his pants during the rush, but he didn't care. As he pulled into the driveway and jumped out of the car (almost forgetting to lock the doors), the dog was there with a new note attached to its collar. After the dog had followed him into his house, he patted the dog on its head and took the note as the dog moved down to the end of the hallway, taking its spot on the expensive jacket. Bradley unfolded the note and read:
"She lives in a house with six kids, two of which
are under the age of three. I guess she's trying to
catch up on her sleep! –– Can I come tomorrow?"
Bradley stared at the note and smiled to himself because he hadn't noticed that his dog – their4 dog, he supposed was the better term – was a girl. He approached the dog and she stirred in her sleep, awaking and looking up at him with her coffee brown eyes, and as he pet her snout he laid down next to her, moving on to rub her belly. They both curled up together like an 'S' on his old jacket, drifting away to sleep as Bradley wondered what her name was.5
1. A failed plan to become the first man on the moon without the help of any government, thereby giving Bradley Cochran the right to declare the moon for himself and hopefully make a million dollars selling the moon's resources back to the governments of the planet Earth. Bradley had had a strange youth.↩
2. Bradley used the last thousand dollars he had had in the savings account to purchase three almost identical suits from Hugo Boss. His favorite one – the one he looks the best in – was also the most expensive one, though the jacket doesn't quite fit right underneath the arms. As-of-late this has become the uniform he wears in life, except for when he's at home. Then he's just in his boxers.↩
3. Though Bradley had bought himself three white lawn chairs and a modest table with an umbrella – which he imagined he could sit at with maybe a cocktail on a warm summer's day – he never used them until this morning. The passing of the seasons have turned the white-lawn chairs and table a mossy green color so that when he passes them in the afternoon as he walks from his car to the front door, they remain an eyesore he tries not to think about.↩
4. The dog belonged to a Mr. & Mrs. Enoch & Madeline Kennedy, 3074 Gorky St, which is actually on the other side of the neighborhood that Bradley lives in. This means the dog had to walk about a mile to get to Bradley's house every afternoon -- a trip we can suppose was worth the peace and quite granted to the dog in this bachelor's small condo. ↩
5. Dumpy. ↩