Pumping Up Napoleon Read Online Free PDF Page A

and the lady cry out, ‘Oh, please don’t!’
    Jim wiped up the splashes with a Kleenex and offered to re-wash the linen. ‘He’s an old dog,’ he’d said, by way of apology. She’d nodded and said of course it was just an accident, but soon after that they got a letter from the Committee saying something must be done.
    â€˜It’s him or us!’ said Jim.
    Now here she was, aiming to pay over good money to learn how to massage the canine species. It was all nonsense – he was sure of that – and wouldn’t last. Still, if it gave her something to think about.
    â€˜There are all kinds of things to consider,’ said Betsy, excited after the first lesson. ‘You have to get to know the client: he or she may have arthritis, or painful old scars from fighting….’
    To pass her course Betsy had to get in so much practice. ‘We are not getting another dog,’ said Jim. She wouldn’t need to, said Betsy; she would massage the homeless ones.
    But it seemed there was a boom in dog massage and a shortage of dogs needing it. People in parks were getting offers from students who wanted to practise on their pooches. Stray dogs found themselves being petted, fed and passed around. There was an epidemic of canine caressing. Some people, even some dog owners, thought it was all going too far.
    â€˜The dogs aren’t complaining,’ muttered Betsy to Jim at the Public Meeting. By then she was working as a volunteer at the pound. ‘You don’t see them biting the hand that strokes them.’
    A man stood up, identified himself as ‘an ordinary dog-lover’, and suggested proposing a new law to prohibit the therapeutic massaging of dogs in the city without a licence.
    â€˜But where do you draw the line between ordinary, casual, spontaneous contact and serious intentions to heal?’ said a woman.
    Without getting to his feet, Jim cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and said loudly, ‘When they stop calling it stroking and start talking about effleurage .’ Betsy hit him on the arm and looked away, red-faced.
    To get enough practice, Betsy ordered a blue rubber dog from a catalogue supplied by her training course.
    â€˜Is it a dog or a bitch?’ asked Jim as he watched Betsy go to work on Bluey’s shoulders.
    Betsy wouldn’t answer.
    They were probably asexual, thought Jim, a fact he ascertained later: no realistic orifices. Even the mouth was sealed and the eyes closed, with a little furrow between them as if the dog was working through its pain.
    â€˜If I were a dog would you stroke me?’ said Jim.
    â€˜Don’t be disgusting,’ said Betsy.
    Betsy talked of setting up a charity when she qualified, to provide dog massage for people who couldn’t afford it. ‘I’d like to call it CHUM,’ she said. ‘Short for Canine Healing and Massage.’
    â€˜That’s CHAM,’ said Jim. ‘You know, I’m thinking of starting a charity myself. I’d call it SAG. That’s short for Stroke a Granny. Just think of all the poor old ladies out there who can’t afford that kind of therapy.’
    Betsy ignored him. She set up a stall near the subway on 72nd Street and got people to give donations. Bluey went along for demonstration purposes. Jim lurked behind her chair, not wanting to leave his wife alone in a city full of nutcases. Besides, it gave him a chance to eyeball the ladies who stopped to admire Bluey and even pat him on the head. He was amazed to see how many people gave money.
    Hanging about on the street had its compensations: ‘I wouldn’t mind stroking them puppies,’ he muttered under his breath, as a smiling girl with bouncing breasts walked by.
    â€˜Don’t be disgusting,’ said Betsy.

Girl on a Pedestal
    The editor of the Buckington Bugle is worried about my tendency towards broadsheet, big-city cynicism. ‘Stop trying to be Julie