Dirty Pawlitics
By Erik Moyer
Peter Penselton retires after a grisly three decades working as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Peter is gaunt, bespectacled, high-strung, and exhausted. He spends his life savings on a cabin in rural Idyllwild to get away from it all. I am his cat. Peter unboxes his meager belongings while I replace them. We settle in nicely. He begins to learn how to relax. I help teach him.
Our first weekend there, a Golden Retriever trots by without a leash. The dog smiles, arches his back, and makes a deposit onto the lawn. Peter jumps off the porch, shouting. The dog tucks his ears in dumb confusion. Peter yanks the dog’s collar and rubs his nose in it.
“No! Bad! No!”
The errant owner waddles up in a huff.
“Hey! What in the Sam Hill are you doing? Don’t you know who that is? That’s the mayor!”
The dumb confusion shifts from the dog to Peter.
“Are you drunk? This is a dog!”
“Yeah, and that dog is Mayor Max. It’s his third term. Are you drunk?”
As it turns out, neither man is drunk, and the owner is in fact correct. The deputy is summoned and Peter is arrested for endangering a public official. Per township mandate, Peter is escorted to the police station by leash. He convulses the whole way, red-faced with indignance.
Upon arrival, Peter demands to speak to the chief of police. He is introduced to Mikey, Max’s brother. Peter spends the night in the drunk tank. He is released the next morning. Max drops the charges in a show of clemency. Peter files a court case for wrongful arrest. The judge is a dog. The case is dismissed.
Peter returns home and suffers a nervous breakdown. I nap in pity. When he recovers, rather than follow my lead, Peter begins banging away at his keyboard doing research. To his dismay, he learns that Max has an untouchable approval rating, never dropping below a firm one-hundred percent. The town is utopian on paper. That’s why he moved here in the first place. The schools are well-funded, the air clean, the roads pristine. Peter is technically their first criminal in over eight years.
His forensics bug begins to itch. Something is amiss. Upon further digging, Max’s skeleton bones are unearthed. His owner is the chairman of ARF, the Animal Rescue Friends committee. ARF is a puppet dictatorship. Unknown to the public, Idyllwild is steeped in debt and on the brink of bankruptcy. To cover its tracks, ARF fills every prominent governmental position with one of Max’s littermates. In a rare stroke of serendipity, Peter notes that Max is currently up for reelection.
Surely I can do better than a dog, he thinks.
Peter throws his hat into the ring, becoming Max’s first-ever political opponent.
Residents are in an uproar at the next town hall. They love Max and despise this new human challenger. They claim that things have never been better thanks to all his shrewd paw-licies. Peter begs for them to listen to reason.
“Your beloved Max has been robbing you blind. His party embezzles over half the town’s budget annually, with an ungodly amount allocated towards chew toys. He doesn’t do anything. He’s a dog. You think he’s enacting policy? His days are spent defecating all over town and chasing tail. You need a human politician. If Max is reelected, Idyllwild will go unequivocally broke before the end of his next term. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
The rabble attenuates to a disconcerted murmur. Couples cup one another’s ear. The votes are cast. Upon deliberation, a consensus is reached. Though undoubtedly disappointed in Max’s incorrigible political misconduct, he is deemed “still a good boy.” Max is reelected in a landslide. The townsfolk rejoice. Peter suffers a second nervous breakdown.
He stays up that night fighting the good fight, plotting Max’s imperative impeachment. The den is in utter darkness except for the dim glow of the laptop reflected upon his spectacles. I climb onto his lap and use my weight to slowly press the laptop shut.
Forget it, Peter, I telepathize. It’s Idyllwild.
Peter closes his eyes, strokes my fur, and weeps. I purr in commiseration.
About the Author
Erik Moyer is a writer and data engineer. He holds a PhD from the University of North Texas, an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and a BS from the University of Virginia. His work appears in Arts & Letters, Carte Blanche Magazine, Epiphany Magazine, Mid-American Review, The Pinch, and elsewhere. He can be found at erikjosephmoyer.com.
