The old man had everybody in the neighborhood convinced he was a retired master gunnery sergeant in the Coast Guard Special Forces. Couple folks said something like “I never heard of the Coast Guard Special Forces.”
“Exactly,” he said. And kept walking.
The old man looked fantastic with his clothes on. Best you can ask for at that age. He was, in a word, fit. Annoyingly, in your face, fit. F.I.T. Lean and mean. Slim and slow. On a good day, he could almost walk without a limp. So, he walked like an out-of-date maniac athlete. Hour after hour, hard.
Do that for a while, you’ll look fantastic, too.
Wore a hole through his last pair of comped Nikes. [Vomeros, Size 13. – ed. note.] Apparently, all his legendary contacts on Bowerman Drive had retired to Bend and Palm Springs.
The old man had almost convinced himself he actually was a highly decorated member of the USCG’s fabled “War Dogs.” The World’s Most Unknown War Hero. Yeah, that’s it. Walk around with such craziness in your head, you find yourself with an attitude. Something between a wary Doberman and a homicidal steamroller.
Just kidding. But I leave the guns at home. Just to be safe. Have to leave Hagrid home, too. Big, old guy, he can’t keep up. Too hot already anyway. Too smart anyway. Besides, he doesn’t have to pretend he’s bad ass. He’s what called a “battlefield force multiplier.”
The old man was listening to Mark Doty’s Dog Years. Much whining about the trials and tribulations of caring for two aging seventy-pound retrievers when you are gay. peripatetic with too much money.
Forget that last part, doesn’t matter. Hagrid is a skinny one-seventy-five, the same size as his owner. Okay, he’s maybe a couple pounds heavier.
Size matters. After all.
Google Caucasian Ovcharka. Let me tell you, such a joy to live with a sweet-tempered little bear who thinks he’s a dog.