Gus

I used to live in Hanoi, Vietnam. It was pretty awesome overall. It had great weather all year, amazing food, and the women really liked western guys. It was kind of lonely, though. The expat community was all older (and richer) than me, and my coworkers were jerks, so I made friends with a stray dog.

I called him Gus. He was basically a mutt, but even though he was pretty wary of me at first, I had him eating out of my hand within a couple of weeks. I pretty much fed him in the morning, played with him for a few minutes, and that was all, since the condo association didn't allow indoor dogs.

One morning, I was filling Gus's bowl when my neighbor, we'll call him Phong, stopped me and told me that I had to get rid of him. I asked him why, and Phong was sort of flustered for a minute, then said he just didn't like dogs in the neighborhood. I told Phong I'd figure something out and I left for work. I figured I'd just blow him off unless he said something again.

The next day was a Saturday. I usually spent Saturdays wandering around town with Gus before getting drunk by myself, so I got up and went to feed him, same as usual. He wasn't there. I waited for a while before I started to ask my neighbors where he was. No one had seen him, so I started to check around the neighborhood.

I passed by Phong's backyard. He was firing up a grill and had a couple of friends over, and he said that he hadn't seen Gus for a while. He invited me over and said that Gus would show up sooner or later, but I turned him down and kept searching.

I looked everywhere for Gus. I checked every backyard, asked everyone I saw, called the local vet, everything. No luck. So I went back home to get drunk by myself, but Phong stopped me and pretty much forced me to come over and sit down. So I had some sugarcane juice and hung out with his friends. He finished grilling, and in the end, he was right. Gus did show up.