Chet The Dog

Outside The Cave

Or what used to be the cave. “That might have been a small earthquake, Chet,” Bernie said. “A tiny shift of the tectonic plate, and presto!” No idea what he was talking about, but it’s always fun listening to Bernie. As for small or tiny, I didn’t get that either – the whole cave was gone. 

He sat down with the big flat can in his lap. I sat beside him. “A little space, there, boy.” I tried to give him a little space. “Got to be careful opening this – old film’s fragile.” Slow and careful, Bernie unscrewed the top. We peered inside, me and Bernie. Was that film? I didn’t know what film looked like, but what I saw was a wad of paper, folded up small. 

Bernie unfolded the paper. It turned out to be a pretty big sheet, and on it was a painting, the colors mostly blue, red, and black, although you can’t trust me on colors, Bernie always says. The painting was all about a train going into a tunnel, or two trains going into two tunnels, or even more, but I don’t go there. 

“Wow,” said Bernie. “This is great. Know what we’ve got here, Chet?” I waited to find out. “A Martin Ramirez original.”

Martin Ramirez? The name rang a bell. I remembered a perp named Zigzag Ramirez, but he’d been into truck hijacking, not painting. 

Bernie folded the painting back up and put it back in the can. “Good boy,” he said. I wagged my tail.

Tags: Death Valley, Dog On It, Martin Ramirez, Spencer Quinn

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 7:44 am and is filed under Chet The Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.