CftC

The Sitter Part One

This yarn is not quite one of my own, but it must be spun.  This story was told to me, so I’ve added some creative liberties to humanize this heroine of whom I have no real knowledge.  She lives in Chicago and moonlights as a baby/dog/house sitter for a wealthy, well to do family of WASP’s.  For all dog owners/lovers, this tale will have some unpleasant moments. But, I can assure you that this is for the sake of great storytelling, and since it was a 14 year old golden retriever, Air Bud was on his way out anyway...

        June 11^th, one of Sheila’s most affluent clients, the Bingham family, calls her cell phone while she is at her lunch break. She gets up to leave her fellow struggling PR reps at their patio table on the river at Chicago Cut.  To accept the call, she’ll have to take a break from trying to pick out a recent law school grad to knock her up. The Binghams typically pay her more than she makes in a week at her actual job.

Sheila, “Toss me a lighter.” She walks outside and lights up a smoke as she answers the phone, “Hi Brent! How Are You?”

Mr. Bingham, “Just fine, Sheila. We’re celebrating young Kyle’s early acceptance into Fenwick’s Junior High School program by going to our place in Marseilles for a couple long weekends. Would you be available to watch the house and tend to Roscoe?”

"Fuck yea," she thinks, "I could throw a party at their phatty pad on Orchard, have a few people over, get super baked in the media room, figure out what boy I should have over on what night. Love life. I hope that fucking sickly dog doesn’t die on me…."

Sheila, “You know I would just love to. When are you leaving?”

Brent, “I was surprisingly able to get out of work on a short notice and Carla was able to reschedule her private cooking lessons. Rick Bayless was quite flexible. We fly out Friday evening.”

"Douche Rocket!" Sheila thinks to herself, "You can do whatever you want on no notice when you’re the owner of the trading house you smug asshole."

Sheila, “Lovely, I’ll be there. I’m gonna miss the boys!”

"Shitty little brats, I hope they enjoy Wizards of Waverly Place in French. If you turn that garbage off they start shrieking like injured lemurs. And what kids prefer broasted duck from Epic for lunch to McNuggets. They’re going to get their asses kicked in high school."

Brent, “Well, Sheila, Carla and I will make sure that you spend plenty of time with the boys when we return.

Sheila, “Hope so! See you, mañana!"

She hangs up the phone and starts putting out a mass text to all of her friends about the Risky Business themed party she’ll be hosting tomorrow.

 

        The next day, at the Bingham mansion, Carla hands Sheila a list of emergency numbers she might need. Brent is at the door scolding the limo driver for showing up with only a normal sized limo, not a stretch limo to take them 25 minutes to the airport. The shitty ass kids are arguing about who has cooler apps on their respective iPads. They are maybe 8 and 10 years old, I don’t know and I don’t care. I fucking hate kids.

Carla, “Now Sheila, if you truly feel that you need to use any of these numbers to contact us, please do. But, think for a minute and make sure that it is a true emergency. It will be a very expensive phone call. You can use your cell phone if the matter is not extremely pressing. Ok, dear?” Carla is a bit of a smug cunt.

Carla and the boys start to walk out the door. The 10 year old, fucking Tad or Theodore, some sort of uppity name, grabs his mother’s leg and pleads. “Mom, mom, mommy...mommy!” She is trying not to listen, in just an hour she will finally be able to enjoy her vodka on the plane and zone out these little germ bags.

Carla, “Yes dear, what is it?”

Fuckin' Teddy, “Mommy, I want Sheila to come with us! She won’t have to sit up at the front of the plane with us, but let’s bring her! I want to see what she looks like in her bikini at the beach!” He gazes at her legs and then stares fixated on her gorgeous titties.

Carla laughing, “Oh goodness! These silly boys!”

Sheila laughs back. "Fucking little shit breathing perv!  No doubt he'll be on the news when he gets older for stringing up a hooker in a motel room or diddling a little boy or some shit."

As the wife and kids walk out, Brent walks towards her.

Brent smugly, “Ha, now no parties, you!  And there is one thing I have to warn you on, we’re a little nervous about old Roscoe here.”  He says looking down at the ancient, sleeping dog laying in the middle of the foyer.  He looks like he’s on his last legs...the George Burns of dogs.  A good dog though, he was in great shape in his younger days, but the years have been a bitch on his knees and joints. Yeah he’s put on a few in the past years, tipping the scales at around 100 lbs now.

Sheila looks down at the dog, “Yeah, he’s not looking so hot. You don’t think…"

Brent, “Shht!  You'll upset the boys!  No I can assure you, he is still alive currently. But we have been expecting the worst for quite some time now. Three years to be exact….anyway please get a hold of me if he does pass.”

Roscoe looks up at them, snorts, sighs,
and goes back to his nap.

Sheila, “Not a problem.”

        Just hours later, Casa de Bingham is jumping. The Risky Business party is a hit, everyone is wearing the appropriate white button down shirt, white socks, and no pantaloons. People are generally rocking out, chugging beers, enjoying the Jacuzzi in the Master Bathroom, taking bong hits in the media room...partying balls. Roscoe lies quietly in the laundry room. The cold tiles are insanely comfortable.

The party begins filtering out in the wee hours of the morning.  Sheila is drunkenly laughing as her guests pile out.  Her friend Vance walks out carrying a vase from the Mingh Dynasty that he poured his Jäger into. He bumps into an original Rockwell nearly knocking it off the wall as he makes his exit. Sheila gives him a hug as he exits and Vance slips his arm between them and grabs a handful of tit.

After playfully shoving Vance the rest of the way out the door, the only one left is this guy Johnny who escorts Sheila into the room where Brent and Carla make love three times a year and where Brent and the housekeeper, Marina, bang sometimes three times a day.  

Dawn breaks, Johnny looks over at the passed out, snoring Sheila and smacks himself in the head. "Damnit, another trip to the doctor...another Q-tip up my dick!"  He gets up, steals a pair of Brent’s slacks and sneaks out silently.

Sheila gets up a few hours later, not surprised to find herself alone. She walks out onto the bedroom patio and lights a cigarette. She puts on her sunglasses and contemplates the day. “Shit," she thinks to herself, “It’s almost noon. I better feed Roscoe. I hope that fucker didn’t piss all over the house.”

She walks downstairs and pours a bowl of dog food. “Roscoe! Come an’ git it, boy!.....Roscoe!....Roscoe?!?!”

A wave of panic shoots over her, "Oh no, he didn’t. Not already!" She walks into the living room. Roscoe is laying on his stomach, looking about how he normally does. “Roscoe?” she whispers. She reaches down and touches the dog. She jumps back and shrieks as she realizes that he is, in fact, dead.

The Sitter Part Two

After a bout of crying, she calls up Brent.

Sheila, “Uh, hi, Mr. Bingham. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Roscoe seems to have died in the night. What should I do?"

Brent, seemingly well prepared for the news, “Ok, thanks for calling to tell me. Hmmm, well we can’t come home to deal with it. And I don’t want to tell the boys about it quite yet and ruin their trip. How about you take it to the vet?”

“Take it to the vet?”

“Yea, take it to the vet and have them cremate Roscoe. That’ll be fine, I’ll give you a little bonus when we get back. Thanks Sheila. Gotta go, long distance!” He hangs up the phone.

Sheila looks at the large dead dog lying in front of her. She has no car, no real means of transportation besides a bicycle. “How the fuck am I supposed to get this thing to the vet?”

She decides she’ll call up a friend with a car. She rings Vance first.  "He's used to fucked up shit like dead dogs!"  

Vance picks up and grumbles angrily and incoherently into the phone. He hangs up and throws the phone against the wall, “Too early, too early for me.” The clock reads 1:30 pm.

"Shit."  She calls up one of her girlfriends, “Britney, I need a favor...”

“Fo sho, girl!  What’s up?”

“I need to borrow your car.”

“That’s cool, where you going that you need a car?”

“Just this doctor downtown?”

“Yeah, is he cute?  What are you seeing him for?”

“Well, he’s a vet, I need to bring the Bingham’s dog to him.”

“Is he real sick?  I don’t think I want a really sick dog in my car…”

“No, he’s not sick…anymore.  He died last night, I think.”

“Yeah, no.  You’re not putting a dead ass dog in my car.“  Click.

“AAHHH! I’m too hungover for this!” Sheila screams.

Sheila has no idea who else to call. She doesn’t want to call a cab.  I actually don’t know why she didn’t choose to call a cab, I’m sure there’s a reason.  I imagine it’s because she hates brown people.  She walks outside and lights a cig to contemplate her option.  The El stop is right by this fucker’s office.  I could just take him on the El.  But how to transport a dead dog on the Elevated Train Line?  Especially the Brown Line, unlike it’s name might suggest, it’s only well to do white people who are very suspicious and inquisitive.

"I could put him in a duffle bag…" she walks to the closet to search for a duffle bag. She finds a massive suitcase, probably taken by a great grandmother on the Oregon Trail, with ridiculously dated floral print. It’s large enough to carry a dresser’s worth of clothes and the dresser.  “Perfect,” she thinks.

She struggles down the stairs and drags the massive suitcase down the street and up the stairs to the train.  She looks ridiculous standing on the train with the giant suitcase. People are looking at her funny, like she either just hopped off the turnip truck or she's trying to get somewhere very far away for a very long period of time.  She gets off at the stop near the vet’s office.

She exerts herself fully getting the giant bag, with dog still inside out of the train car. She walks backwards up the stairs to the exit, dragging the suitcase up one step at a time. An especially hood looking young black man walks up to her and offers his help.

ThreeJ, “Damn, miss!  That’s a big ass suitcase you got there?  Whatchoo got in der, bricks?”

Sheila, “No haha, it’s umm…it’s just some electronics and computer parts.”

"Jackpot," ole ThreeJ thinks as he upholds Chicago’s reputation for not being able to trust any stranger and picks up the bag and runs down to the street exit.

“Wait!  You’re stealing a dead dog!  Oh fuck it!”  She lights up a cigarette and walks begrudgingly to the vet’s office.  

She goes to the receptionist counter and asks to purchase one urn. She leaves her sunglasses on and speaks no other words other than those needed to request the purchase.

She walks outside and lights another smoke as she texts Mr. Bingham. Walking down the street, she ashes into the urn,  “Roscoe is taken care of.  Lovely urn!”

Hours later at the Robert Taylor Homes or whatever government housing unit ThreeJ's crack dealer lives in, he slams the suitcase down on the dilapidated coffee table and explains that he had boosted some computer shit from this skinny ass little white girl getting off the El.

"This shit gonna pay off my debt and gimme some credit whichya too, dawg!" ThreeJ exclaims as he flops open the suitcase flap.

The dealer stares at the mess in the suitcase for a few seconds and takes a drag of his Salem 100.  He slowly looks up to ThreeJ, "Damn...white peoples is crazy."