Dustin
©2007 by LeeZard Dustin had been passed around quite a bit before we hooked up. He was about two years old—a magnificent, classic Collie. I wanted him the minute I laid eyes on him. Dustin obviously felt the same way. As I walked over, his upraised, feathered tail began to wag the entire rear third of his body and he broke into a huge canine grin (my fellow dog-lovers will understand). A squat, heavy-set man instantly appeared out of nowhere and asked if I wanted to buy the dog. I should have known; virtually everything is for sale at Englishtown, New Jersey’s famed open air flea market. It is more than 100 acres of junk, used auto parts, a smattering of genuine and faux antiques, clothes old and new, livestock, produce and just about anything else related to human consumption. I’d been ambling down one of the wide dirt pathways, enjoying the cacophony of commerce, when I spotted Dustin. He was tied to the cab of a beaten flatbed truck parked between a collection of your grandma’s old ...