San Dimas, San Gabriel County. You can hear the 210 roaring away to the north, the acoustics of the mountains reflecting everything back as it had done since the landmass was formed. Maybe on a quiet day you could still hear the echo of sound waves repeating themselves for the last one hundred years. Bill had dropped me off in the middle of the suburbs before going to visit his family, leaving my afternoon free to meet with one of San Dimas' more notable people; Jim Bischotti. I stroll along the white sidewalk, admiring the pre-WW2 era suburb. San Dimas felt like a small town somewhere else in America, though off towards the East I could make out the twitching reflection of Central Los Angeles. Two women went past me, power walking and lifting one kilo weights. We exchanged smiles and I walked a little further up the street, my bowels requiring me that I drop my trousers and evacuate into a drain. As I did so I couldn't help but be reminded of the film 'Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey' that was set in the quaint little town. Perhaps there would be a themed restaurant somewhere, where I could play air guitar and say 'Excellent!', guaranteed for some big laughs. I myself began to giggle at the thought.
“Excellent!” I said. But nobody had heard me. I continued walking.
Jim Bischotti lived on East Juanita Avenue in a beige bungalow. There was a well kept garden outside in which a Black Willow grew in it's centre, shading his house in the midday sun. I knocked on the door and it was answered quickly, almost as if he had been waiting behind the door for me.
“Come in, come in.” he said. We shook hands and I entered. His home was impeccably tidy yet there was the odour of dog hair faintly, catching the back of my throat when I took a deep breath.
“Can I get you a soda?” he said. I accept and make myself comfortable on the sofa, looking at my blurred reflection in the fifty inch television across from me. Jim returns with a large bottle of Dr. Pepper and two glasses, pouring out the two drinks then sitting in a leather recliner facing the window. The shadow of the Black Willow branches cut across his face like camouflage.
“So tell me about your detective agency.” I ask after sipping the over-carbonated beverage. Jim laughs, waggling his eyebrows about.
“It all started off when I was out of high school, looking for work. I was desperate for money, couldn't even get a job delivering pizza. But as I was walking round I noticed all these lost pet posters. Cats, dogs, a parrot or two. Some of these had big money rewards, especially towards Hollywood, you know? And I was walking round so much I ended up seeing half these pets, so I started returning them to their owners. In a month I'd claimed nearly two thousand dollars in pet bounty.” he said.
“So that's when you started to do it full time?”
“Sure. My papa was in the rangers, he taught me how to track animals and that kind of thing. I combined that knowledge with a good work ethic and found I had a knack for it.”
“How many pets would you say you've found since you started?”
“Oh, I'd say...maybe...five hundred or so? Mostly cats, but plenty of dogs and then there's the exotic animals. Snakes, ferrets, even a few turtles.”
“Could I come along with you, see how you work?”
“Sure.”
We are driving in Jim Bischotti's van as he explains to me his most recent case.
“American shorthair, two years old, owner lives on West 2nd Street. Cats are natural explorers, sometimes they get lost by accident, especially the young ones. But I take the time to go round the owner's house, see if there's any evidence that might lead me to wonder if the cat's lost or if it left home, you know what I mean?”
“Sure. Cat's are dicks.”
“Well, no, not really. Out of all the animals cats are the least domesticated. They have a lot of pride. Sometimes they don't like the cleanliness of their home or if the owner got a baby, a new pet, that kinda thing.”
“Don't a lot just get run over?”
“That's sad, but true. I only charge half my fee if I find a pet has been R.K'ed...that's roadkill.”
“Got it.”
“I'm in touch with the police and sanitation guys, they let me know if they find something. I even go and collect unidentified animals, keep them in a freezer at home in case anyone calls up. Anyway, here we are.” he says, pulling up outside a house. I follow him as he walks around the side of the house and stands in the yard.
“Aren't we going in?”
“No, I already went in. I'm scrying at the moment.” he says, breathing in heavily and closing his eyes. He murmurs to himself. “Overflowing trash can...barbecue...road nearby, busy...fifteen cats on this street...”
“What are you doing?”
“I'm scrying...I'm accessing my memory for pet information and comparing it to present variables, like maybe it's hot so the kitty can smell someone cooking barbecue down the street.”
“Yeah, or maybe because it's September the cat is lonely.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I got a feel, now to do the leg work.” says Jim. He walks to the end of the yard and climbs the fence. I follow.
For the next two hours I follow Jim Bischotti as he climbs over fences, walls, crawls under bushes, sniffs at the soil, asks people questions. It's quite exhausting work, not to mention embarassing. All the while Jim keeps giving me titbits of information about his work:
“Sometimes pet's are kidnapped. We had a gang operating in this area last year, taking dogs and holding them ransom. I worked with the sheriff's department on that one.”
“You know, missing pet posters are so outdated? I encourage people to e-mail their neighbours nowadays, everyone has smart phones so...”
“I once went down in the sewers to look for a puppy. All I found was human shit.”
“Now and then the pets don't want to go home. They attack me, they run away again. It's so sad when that happens.”
“I'm a virgin. I'm not ashamed of it either, too many people are having sex nowadays.”
“It's amazing some of the stuff I've found whilst searching around. I thought about setting up a side business of just finding anything, but that's too big a piece of pie for me too chew on. I'll show you my treasures when we get back to my house if you want.”
“At midnight after crawling around in the dirt for fifteen hours I call it a day. Sometimes a pet just doesn't want to be found.”
“I usually carry round a bit of raw meat in my pockets to attract all sorts of animals. I'm lucky now and then.”
"I love cats."
Surprisingly we come across the missing cat, having only taken us the better portion of the afternoon. Jim holds out a hand to stop me.
“Wait here partner. This is where it can get messy.” he says. I nod, leaning against a chain-link fence and tapping a cigarette out of the packet. I watch as he slowly crouches down and begins to talk in a high pitch voice as he moves towards the cat.
“Hey Atticus, come here boy. Come here. Come here Atticus, that's a good boy. Come here. Come here. Come on, hey there, hey, come on, come on. That's a good boy. Good boy Atticus. Come here. Come here. Come here. Good boy. Oh, who's a good boy? Come here, come on.” he says. The cat stared at him. It begins to walk away but the teenager pounces on the cat, immediately it shrieks and hisses, clawing at him. Jim tucks his chin into his neck and the sides of his mouth right down as he struggles clutching the mammal close to his chest as he runs back towards his van. The cat is now howling and moaning as Jim clutches it by the scruff of the neck, opens a side panel on the van and tries to push the cat in, all the while it hissing and scratching him. Eventually it's in.
“Wow...that looks to be quite stressful.” I say.
“Yeah, sometimes they come easy, sometimes not. But I found him, and that's the main thing.” says Jim, checking the cuts all over his arms. He lifts up his shirt to reveal even more cuts all over his torso, some look to be quite deep.
“Are you okay?”
“This? This is nothing. If you think this is bad, you should see it when I try to catch a dog.” says Jim. There are tears in the corner of his eyes.
“Don't vets usually have like...a stick with a rope on the end?”
“Oh those aren't humane. I think this way is the best.” says Jim. The cat is still howling in the back of the van as we get in and drive back to it's home, I wait in the cab whilst he manoeuvres the cat into a cardboard box. After giving it back to the owner he returns with twenty dollars clutched between his thumb and forefinger.
“Cha-ching! Come on, let's go to Taco Bell and celebrate.” he says.
As we sit in Taco Bell I ask Jim a question that's been on my mind since I met him.
“Why don't you just get a normal job? It seems like this is quite stressful and you don't get paid much.”
“That one didn't pay too much, no. But some of them do. And it's not just the money, I'm reuniting pets with their owners. The look on that woman's face as I brought her cat back well...nothing quite comes close to it.” says Jim. I look at him to see if he's bullshitting, but he seems to believe himself. Covered from head to toe in dirt, the cuts all over his body occasionally bleeding still, the slightly vacant expression on his face as he stares out of the window whilst eating a burrito. He was an idiot. But perhaps we needed more idiots in this world. I wished Jim Bischotti good luck as I left, hoping that he would continue to search for missing pets for the rest of his life.
