the homie

by Zach Baker

sonic was an australian shepherd.
a herding dog, a shepherding dog.
they were all shepherding dogs at first, i guess.
before that, wolves.
but we had similar hunting methods, and traveled in packs.
so eventually the two species
—man and dog—
were like: “yo
you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.
let’s go hunting and we’ll all stay fed.”

that was backintheday. a lot has changed.
sonic was a child of the ‘90s, piece of shit hunter
but a nice guy. good guy. great friend.
it was a youngest sibling kind of thing—
you just want the best for him.

then he had this growth.
hell of a growth, grapefruit-sized.
then it was like,
“what you want? you want me to kill your friend?
or chop off his leg?”
my sonic’s growth was on his leg.

and it was like, “damn.
if it was me, would I want my leg off?
or my head off?”

and it was like, “hey man:
dogs are different.
they got 3 more. they adapt.
dogs are different.”

dogs rarely make it to the age of consent.
he was only 11.
if it was my sister, it would have been a different story.
a dog is a dog.

so it was like, “alright man,
yeah, take his leg man,
yeah,
take his leg.”

Zach used to be a part-time waiter until he graduated Northeastern University with a degree in English of which he is not very proud. Zach is currently in Spain, killing it for a month. He maintains a tumblr account, shaqwaker.tumblr.com, and asks that you hit it him up at shaqwaker@gmail.com with any constructive praises or criticisms.