this_old_dog raze he's about the size and shape of a beagle. but that isn't right. his human won't say what he is. he just laughs and tells me what he's not. one eye has been dulled down to the dimmest quartz by age and damage to the optic nerve. the other eye still glows. i hold out my hand for him to have. he sniffs it but isn't interested in exchanging pleasantries. he'd rather hobble around imagining he's still a puppy, smiling at everything he sees. "come on, dummy," the man who's running with him says. seems a cruel thing to call him. i try a few lines of my own. "he can't hear you," the man says. "he's deaf." his name is johnny handsome. i wonder if he was named for the doomed small-time hood in the film walter hill made six years after i was born, and if what hill said of his leading man is also true of this old dog: "he's a very romantic fellow. and like a lot of romantic people, he's disappointed by the way the world really works." that would make two of us. 230328 what's it to you? who go blather from