The wet grab; the moist snag; the way you are supposed to have an urban pooch. Goddam canine control. I’m going to have to raise the same image that some contemporary comedian used recently: that of the human being walking after the dog and picking up the dog’s shit. The punch line: “And just who is the master there?” Some snap on a snare drum. The audience howls. A human being, and I know him, walks behind his dog and hopes that nobody will see the dog shit. Then this human being looks the other way, pauses a bit, and walks back to the sidewalk. Leaving the pile. Leaving the pile to the earth, for some kid to step in, for the next dog walker to mush. This dog owner- generally not an urban sort- does not enjoy doing the wet nab, the plastic baggie over the warmth, the recent heat, the smell, the gag reflex, does not enjoy at all and will often employ the avoidance technique.
Futuro is not my dog. He is PJ’s dog. Futuro is part lab and part pit bull. When you look at his jaws you see the pit bull. They are wide, thick, muscular. He carries the typical pit bull cranium and jaw structure. He looks like the Joker when he’s panting- a wide, wild smile. Leering, sneering, with some of that drool dropping. He has huge, thick, sinuous shoulder muscles and haunches. A golden coat. “Like the golden hills of California,” overheard once.
His toenails click when he walks on the hardwood floor.
PJ is on a flight to Florida. I’ve been elected to care for this dog. I’ll be dogsitting for a week. Maybe eight days, maybe two weeks. This dog will not bite a toddler under my watch.
When PJ arrived at the airport, sitting shotgun in my car, and I’d gone in to use the bathroom, and it was time for him to depart, and Footy had maneuvered into the driver’s seat, and he looked like he was dropping his boy off at the airport, PJ leaned over and hugged his dog. Never seen anything like it.
Today the rain stopped and the clouds moved slightly. A blue sky. The kind of breezes that make a dog stop and take notice. Futuro stood tall and sniffed the air, nose pointed skyward, and paused and panted and looked like the Joker. A shit-eating grin. A slight draining drool as if he’d really been working.
PJ leaned over and hugged the dog. Like you say goodbye to your mother and she’s dropping you off at the airport but she’s not going to park the car and come inside, just dropping you at the curb, and you lean over, you in the passenger seat, and you hug your mother goodbye. He kissed the dog. And that’s okay, right? He leaned over and kissed the dog on the fucking cheek. I’m hoping he told this dog- because dog’s are smart, they know this stuff, they understand - that he’d be returning soon, post haste, a week precisely. Maybe a little more. I didn’t want this dog freaking out on me. Didn’t want this dog to go morose.
I’ve never sat for a dog before. See, I’m not much of a pet person. I don’t like animal hair. And though I’m not allergic and though I don’t sneeze or cry or require an inhaler when there’s a dog or a cat around, I do notice, I’m telling you. I notice. I can still breathe, but I’m aware that the air is thicker now, muskier, dirtier.
I’ve never grabbed warm and moist turds before. I’ve never reached down with the plastic wrap folded over my hand. Reached down and snagged that shit and never tossed that bagged shit into the provided trash bin. Never even scooped it, you know, with one of those scoopers that at one time had been prevalent, before the remarkable advent of the Plastic Reach Baggie. These urban dog runs have a dispenser for the plastic reach baggie. At least they’re supposed to. This friend of mine, PJ, asked, “Say, I’m in a bind here . . . Will you watch Futuro?” And my first thought was, “The Grab.” Perhaps this story ought to be called “The Grab.”
He finally grabbed. Or she finally grabbed. Look at all the people grabbing. Look at all the people walking their dogs and not grabbing. This is a story about a dog. And this is a story about the asshole who ran from the Grab. But maybe he learned something along the way.
You start to notice how many “No Dogs” signs there are. PJ perennially blows by the proclaiming, proscribing signs and flicks them the finger, in actuality or in mind. I’m not that kind of guy. I get nervous. I’ll read the sign. Maybe I’ll go in and maybe I won’t. And I’ll be anxious. He told me a story of how a regular old pedestrian, some woman on the trail, some private citizen, had admonished him for bringing the dog on the trail when clearly there had been a sign. And once, this woman I knew back on Cape Cod, she walked their large Great Pyrenees on the beaches and in the surf and especially at low tide, all around Wellfleet, when she knew full well that she wasn’t supposed to. Wellfleet is that kind of town. Who wants dog shit on beaches anyway? But she did walk her large dog, sand and wet and grubby mouth and all, and this ranger, this beach patrol guy, came strolling down the avenue and sauntering down some boardwalk and then strolling down the beach toward us and he wagged a finger at us and he told this nice woman, generally a law-abiding square, that she’d better get off the beach with that doggy. She played stupid. That’s what you’re supposed to do. No, you can’t be belligerent; otherwise they’ll give you a citation and you’ll have to pay the fine and who wants to do that, really. You start to notice the signs.
I’ve never grabbed. A few of you have, I know, and you’ve gotten your system down and you would tell me, at a cocktail party, were the subject broached, “It’s not that bad, honestly.” And I would listen to you, start to believe you, understand it for myself anyway. But, there is always the first time. Always the first warm snatch. In the plastic baggie. Then you throw the baggie away.
And that’s far superior to the scrape and sweep method. Because then you’ve got these shit-swiped tools you need to contend with; at some point you’ll have to clean those tools. The baggie, well, the baggie you can simply throw away. And they should always provide the bin.
Aw, and look at him sleeping over there. On his own doggy bed. Owner PJ brought the little doggy bed with him. And he washed the doggy bed. And he even bathed Futuro. Now it’s eleven at night and quiet for a Friday. The lights in the house turned off; no music anywhere; no sounds of traffic; and there he sleeps, on his side, legs stretched out in front of him, next to the heater.
But he misses his PJ. When we first left the airport Futuro whimpered. I said, “Look, man, he’ll be back, alright?” Footy just looked at me. He did not grin this time. He stuck his head out the window. We were going eighty at some point and he stuck his head out the window. His ears flapping backward, his tongue out and dangling, his nose active. I watched him occasionally, looked at his enjoyment, and in watching him almost hit a braking pickup truck in front of us.
You should see how some people react on the streets. When we go walking. This one girl crossed the street. Another jumped off the sidewalk, off the curb, and went around the parking meter; a small boy on a bicycle turned into a driveway not his and waited until we’d passed; this one woman was about to get out of her parked car, she opened the door, she saw the dog, and then she closed the door. She waited. She said something to the person driving. This man, a large, tall man, stepped off the sidewalk, too. This girl walked straight for us, continuing on her way, but when Futuro reached to sniff her hand, to say hello, jumping a small amount, the woman jumped and screeched. “Jesus, some people,” I said. Then again, some people reach down to say hello to nice doggy, holding out a hand, and they actually begin petting Futuro. This dog likes people.
Picked up my girlfriend from work today. A park next to her office, and a baseball diamond over there, a school neighboring the green, and we’d decided to run Footy there. Walked through the gate and let him go and he sprinted after a piece of brick I’d found and tossed. He ran after that brick full speed. Should have seen the sprinting. Then my girl saw the sign. No Dogs. No apologies. She said, “Hey, dogs are illegal.”
We stopped, I assimilated information and judged just how nervous she was, and we watched the dog. Footy squatted and took that shit on the nice green. The nice green where the boys and girls have soccer practice and where soon there will be baseball practice and children shagging fly balls. My girlfriend says that I must pick it up; until now I’ve avoided the grab; leave it by a tree; she wild-eyed and rigid; she’s serious and we cannot leave until the warmth placed in the provided bin. The Provided Bin. The title of this story. There’s no way I’m getting out of there without picking up some dog shit. This fact bothers me. I had begun to see a way how I might survive the entire week without the redolent snatch. No gag reflex. However, I saw, by the rigidity of her stance, and the look in her eyes, that I’m reaching for that turd.
Then another car pulled up, a guy in a Cadillac with a dog in the back. The two dogs barked and whined and eyed each other. Footy strained on his leash. The other dog strained on its leash, about to jump out the window, the Cadillac parked in the Handicap Spot. This guy stepped out and let his dog run through the gate and the dog bolted across the grass and Footy could hardly contain himself. I looked at my girl and said, “See, other people run their dogs here.” She wants me to bend down for the warm retrieve.
But I don’t have the special plastic bag. “I’ll find something,” she said, and ran upstairs to her office. She returned with a plastic shopping bag and some napkins. Napkins, like you might snag off the table in diner and shove in a pocket. “What am I going to do with napkins?” I said. She made scooping motions with them.
“I’m not doing the Grab with someone else around, let’s wait until they leave,” I said. “I mean, it’s my first Grab.” I looked at the windows on this street, at the houses, up and down the driveways, to see if anybody watched. Because, were you watching the whole thing develop, you’d know everything - you’d see me squirming and my girl’s adamant stance. I grabbed her chosen tools for the job. I knew what I was going to do.
Knew what I was going to do but I couldn’t find the load.
- Aw, look at him over there! He just stretched. So cute.-
An hour later at home and - Aw, look at him over there on his bed! His tail wagged a few times and his feet twitched and kicked. He’s dreaming about chasing a squirrel; he’s dreaming about all the dogs he wanted to visit today. He hoped to grow tight with some dogs but I wouldn’t let him.
Yesterday, before this bright Saturday in Oakland in Mountain View Cemetery, and the harrowing hill climb, when I got shit all over my thumb and finger, I learned about faking it. Footy and I drove to work, after dropping Owner off at the airport, Footy sat shotgun with his head out the window, ears flapping, tongue wagging drool, hanging, like we’ve all seen them do, we drove to Silby’s office. I wanted to allow the dog to run in the open field at the school. As we all know, Silby was not down with my walking technique. Geez, what’s it take to break the law around here? And the other man, the guy in the Cadillac, he pulled up and parked in the handicap spot and jumped out of his car and let his dog out the rear door, the dog free and unleashed, and Footy went ballistic on the end of his leash, jumping and straining, barking and whining, spazzing and freaking.
Footy took a shit in this field. If I had been alone, I’m ashamed to admit this, bad social person that I am, evil one, inconsiderate, horrible, definitely social asshole, I would have let the shit stay for the young kids. Every kid has got to step in dog shit once in her life while playing some team sport, running around, the forced gag. Silby demands that I clean it up; she ascends the stairs to her office and retrieves the napkins. I walk out in the grassy field. It is growing dark. She’s going to read this one day and this an admission. I walked around in the grass, looking down, pretending to search for the pile, gazing in a sweeping arc, not seeing it really in this fake-looking, thinking to myself how difficult it would be to find the pile in the vast green expanse of the playing fields, PJ’s words “I always wait ten minutes for it to cool off and solidify partially,” ringing in my mind, I’m doing the fake sweeping arc with my eyes, not seeing the pile, then I bend over at the waist at some random moment, conscious of being watched, playing, acting, bending, a pro picker-upper, and I make a squishing move with the plastic bag at the grass, at nothing at all, and keeping my nose away from the “spot” and holding the non-filled bag away from my body, and make like I’m disgusted, and walk the empty bag, fingers squishing it together, toward the trash bin. Then I throw the otherwise clean napkin and plastic bread bag away and wonder what to tell my girlfriend. I decide not to say a thing. Heck, I couldn’t find it anyhow. Like a needle in a haystack; the supremest of difficulties, a dog pile in a vast green park, the sun going down, somewhere in Oakland, a playing field, some kid will step in it for sure, illegal, a sign at the gate on the fence, bad citizen.
People who have dogs in the city are stupid.
That’s my take on it, anyway. If this were an essay with an argument the above would be my opening line. I feel like repeating it. Who picks up moist and warm? I’m trying to avoid it. Wonder if I can hold out.
Last night, in the dark, already home, before his supper, lazing about the house, a nice neighborhood, the trees over there in the small park, behind the row of parked cars, I did another fake grab and threw away perfectly clean plastic sandwich bags. We don’t have the pro kind of picker-upper sacks, anyway.
The dog’s coat is golden. He has a mild disposition. He does not bark unless pulled over in Mexico at the military roadblock with flares lighting the road and a torch in the middle of that desert highway on the way to San Felipe. Then he’ll growl- grrdeegrrr- and bark once or twice. It’s a loud bark; a big, fast, muscular dog. You should see people skirt him on the sidewalk. When he’s excited his tail sticks straight in the air.
You walk him first thing and let him pee. Then bring him in because you’ve not eaten and it’s early and maybe you want to get some more sleep. “We’re never going to get a dog, right?” I ask Silby. She readily and heartily agrees. Then you eat. Then you take him for a walk around the block, a sort of slight jog, maybe you play “rope” or “fetch” with him. You play tug-of-war. Then you walk him to the trees and grass behind the chainlink fence and you stand there along the fence and you wait until his hind legs spread and he squats and he lets go. He allows a few to arrive and drop, paces a few waddled steps, and continues to let fly.
Now here’s what I’m thinking: in all the pictured images, say on signs, there is this dog with this one turd and you’re supposed to pick it up, or you see small dogs going and the owner dealing with scoop. But I’ve got to tell you, and please at this point imagine your own piles left in the toilet, this dog deposits a massive pile of the stuff. This isn’t one bend over at the waist and make a casual grab at the pile. No, come on; he’s got a full toilet bowl there in the grass; it would take a shovel to deal with it properly. Dig a ditch perhaps. Get the shovel and walk it over to the trash bin. But you do not bend at the waist and grab all that he has left behind, all that he has kindly dropped for you.
Futuro smiles after he is done. As in, “Now pick up that why doncha?” Then he steps forward a few paces and kicks his hind legs swiftly behind him, in the general direction of the pile, as in “That’s enough of that shit, let’s get on with the day, partner.” And I’m standing there looking at his full load. Six or seven wet substantial strands of turd. I’m not touching that. I don’t care if there are cops around, folks on citizen patrol, a lynch mob, a posse on horseback, angry mothers against such a thing, community members, school groups, church congregations wearing team-T-shirts on a village stroll, people pointing and calling me names, a rigid and aghast girlfriend, I am simply not picking up that full and massive load of wet dog shit. I’m just not. I’m a bad citizen, fine. Sue me, fine me, lock me up.
“We’re not ever getting a dog, are we?” I asked upon returning to the kitchen.
“No, honey, we’re not,” my girl said. I said Christ under my breath.
I’ve left three turds up to this point. I’m oh-for-three. I’m worried about that true first real grab. That time would be today, a Saturday, up on a hill, in the cemetery. I got his stuff all over my fingers. I stifled the gag. I cursed. I’m certain that I teared-up, my eyes welling, and I’m sure that I was grumpy.
Because our mothers will be reading this I’m not going to get pornographic. Last night, during the evening’s intimacy, the two of us in bed, the door to our bedroom mostly shut my girl making very natural and organic sounds, I touched her innocently with a magic finger in a way meant by God for us to enjoy. She seemed to be liking it. Then her moans became louder, more rapid, successively faster, piling together, until she was, well, there, and Futuro, attracted by the sounds and smells perhaps and the organic nature of the moment, jumped into bed onto both of us and sniffed and wiggled and wondered if it was time to wrestle. Silby started laughing. Her laughter was uncontrollable. I flung Footy off the bed and did some kind of loud alpha-cursing “NO!” scream that doesn’t do much, for I’m me and not PJ, and he landed on the hardwood floor and skidded some and then turned and looked up at us smiling.
She was still laughing. “Didn’t you think that was funny?” she asked. Keep in mind that the girl was at this point taken care of and I was not. Things began to wilt. “Um, no, I’m not thinking that was funny. That was a special moment you were having, we were having, and generally, call me old-fashioned and maybe normal, but I don’t like interruptions during those types of moments.” She stopped laughing. I went down, down, and lay there as if my brother had walked in on us, or, worse, my father. And there was the ol’ pooch looking up at us, his head cocked to one side, ears all jangly, looking at us as in “what’s up guys?”
And I can’t seem to shake images of large piles on innocent stretches of green and small children falling in the piles, up to their necks like quicksand. But I don’t care, because you should have seen the load. I mean, the load was unreasonable. It really was. I’m not carrying a shovel on our walks.
But then I’m thinking, against that fence this morning, still in my pajamas, the mark of a true urban slacker with an urban pooch, still in slippers, no coffee in me yet, that it would be ironic if I were to step in yesterday’s doo, in yesterday’s special go. Yes, that would be it, I’m standing there in my morning slippers, eyes still sleepy, pajama bottoms dragging in the dirt and grass because they’re too long, and I step in the should-be-in-a-toilet-bowl load and there it all is, back at me.
Thus, I make a promise, a skyward-glance resolve, a prayer if you will, a recognition, to pick up the next mess. I have to manage it. Damn it all. It’s my duty, it’s the right thing to do.
We walk to the cemetery. At one point I take off the leash. We’re way up top, on a hill, relatively isolated. We walk the roads. He chases a rock. He brings the rock back to us, barely (a whole lot of coaxing). He chases another rock. We’re on the roads, see, of this cemetery. A quiet Saturday. The sign at the front gate tells the dog owner (or dog sitter) to keep dogs leashed and to keep them on the roads and sidewalks. That makes sense; it makes sense because you don’t want your dogs to walk all over graves, doing all over the graves, stepping with special paws. Futuro runs down our thrown rocks. I bowl a rock downslope, down the road a bit. We wait for him to return it. He does not. This cute golden dog spreads those hind legs and squats some and I yell NO and girlfriend says “Oh, let him go,” and now I understand with clarity my impending task- and yes I’ve got the plastic bread bags and some napkins in my pocket- and there is no way I’m going to pull off the fake grab with her standing right over me. The cute yellow dog ( a machine! An eating, drinking, shitting machine) squats and leaves his load and then looks triumphant. He actually has a smile. A car drives up the road.
I hurry for the grab. I’m going to do it this time. I’ve got two bags. There is a whole pile. I reach into the wet and warm straight away. Grab it with the plastic. There is no substantive solidity; all it possesses is an oozy give; a grand mush in my hand. And it’s warm. My first grab!
My plan it to grab and place the stuff in the other bag, to double-bag it. I do just that. The car approaches quickly. I get out of the way. Silby grabs Futuro. One tire smears the rest of the doo into the pavement. I look down at the warm, incredibly heavy bag in my hand. There is smear all over the bag. And all over the outside of the plastic. And all over my fingers. I’m holding the bag out, away from me, my head turned. My face and body as far away from that special bag as possible. I’ve mess on my fingers. Under my fingernails. I begin colorfully cursing the gods. Cursing the one god. I wipe my hand and fingers in grass for about ten minutes. I rub dirt all over my hands and then re-swipe them on the green grass.
We walk uphill for five minutes before we find a trash bin. Finally, at long last, eons, I let go of that unique holding. Futuro bounds around like a king in his own domain, his own forest. He chases down a pine cone. I leave my right hand alone.
We played in the cemetery all day long.
On the way home, on Piedmont Avenue, a Saturday afternoon, people banding all about, the local team in a big playoff game tomorrow, people eating, older folks shuffling, he starts to falter and drag on the leash and hold his ground like dogs sometimes do when they’re inspecting a bush for a pee. I tug; he holds; I tug. Then I look back to see what in sam-hell this kid thinks he’s doing. Futuro is puking up eucalyptus leaves on the sidewalk. Bright green and wet leaves on the sidewalk. A woman jumps back, away from the dog, toward the curb. Another woman, a shopkeeper, comes out of her store. I toe with my shoe the eucalyptus hurl to the street. Footy feels better and is now a king again, walking tall with a kind of elemental swagger, the strut of a lord.
And then there was this morning. I walked into the kitchen after the morning’s dogsitting duties, the smell of mushroom omelets, Silby in her pajamas, her fleece sweatshirt, talk radio, changing to something on Pacifica, and I said, “God, I feel like such a dog.”
“What do you mean, honey?” she said.
“Well, It’s like this: I get up in the morning and pee first thing. Then we went out for a quick walk around the neighborhood, a good morning, walking tall, breathing the cool moist air. Then I come in for my dump. And now I’m hungry and I want some chow. Then I eat. After eating I look for something interesting to do, some form of play. I’m such a dog.”
“Yes, you are baby,” and she kissed me. “That’s not all you do as a dog, baby.” “You like your belly rubbed,” and she rubbed it. “You enjoy companionship, you’ve got to be around people, you like to be lugubrious after breakfast,” and then she alluded to other things I might similarly enjoy. Just an old dog struttin’ his stuff.
You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.
He’s a wild one; you’d better keep him on a short leash.
Sure it would the dog days of summer coming up on us.
Better watch out, or you’ll end up in the dog house.
I am dog-tired.
He employed dogged-persistence.
On the basketball court the other day I got dogged.
His girlfriend sure was a dog.
We did it doggy style the other night.
Went to a restaurant and came away with the leftovers in a doggy bag.
I’m not going to say it but I guess I am but it’s raining cats and dogs.
So I’m sitting on a bench the other day on Piedmont Avenue minding my own business with a dog resting at my feet. It was a grand Saturday afternoon. People walking and milling. An old withered black man in rag clothes begging for money on the corner seated. People knew him by name. One woman brought him a coffee without cream. He was also selling the homeless newsletter. Inside a sandwich shop was my girl waiting in line to order grilled sandwiches only to find out that the place didn’t have a grill. The dog at my feet, under the bench partially, panting, looking at folks idly, unconcerned and tired. We’d walked him ragged- and ourselves- on that day. Climbing a mountain in the middle of Oakland. Birds of prey (in Oakland, for chrissake) flying overhead, disturbed by our incursion. Hidden ravines, burnt down slopes of charred and felled eucalyptus. A grassy verdant slope of vibrant green; and steep; and muddy in places; a fall would have been disastrous; right here in Oakland; the dog bounding like a sure-footed king, or lord beast of the earth, confident. And so we’re ragged on this street bench watching the Saturday go by us slowly. Occasionally a one or two petted this old dog. A man, bent over with age, walked out of the neighborhood grocery market in front of us carrying two plastic bags. In one bag, in his left hand, he had two boxes of Cascade dishwasher detergent. In the other hand and in the second plastic bag he had two half-gallon cartons of grapefruit juice. That was all. That was the extent of his carrying, of his shopping. As I watched the two bags bob away and down the street, I felt it an odd sight, a curious enough one to report here. Footy yawned at my feet. The dog was up in a second when it was time to walk.
He likes being outside all day. He would prefer it if he could.
We walked him, and us, four hours.
Open a living room window wide and he stands or half-sits on a stereo speaker and he stares out the window and his nose flexes constantly. His head moving and cocking continually, his ears vibrating, his life focused and transfixed.
Man, does he know when the human is mobilizing. He knows when I put sandals on my feet and he knows when girlfriend is packing a beach bag and he knows when I’ve done the dishes and smells when I pull a sweater over my head. Footy goes to the door and stands there with this look on his face.
He does not give one heck that the Raiders, our local team, are in the playoffs this deep still into January.
Today we are going to Franklin Point, fifty miles south of San Francisco and thirty-odd north of Santa Cruz. He will run in the sand and dig holes excitedly and perhaps he’ll bump into an elephant seal.
Damn, he knows when the human is mobilizing.
Asked my girl what her favorite aspect of the old golden boy is and she said, “When he comes into the bedroom in the morning and places his head on the edge of the bed.” He does that, this golden good-sized muscular dude. He comes into the bedroom and sets his head right on the bed and looks at us; sometimes he’ll place a paw; sometimes two paws; he eases closer. He’d love to jump in with us, as he has in past instances, he sort of inches forward eagerly, albeit cautiously. And he’s so damn cute when he doing, attempting a slow forward nonchalant slide, as in, “Hey, I mean, I’m not really in the bed, you know, I mean, look, still on the floor.” And he’s smiling.
Suppose I deserve to step in his shit because I’m not picking it up all the time.
She likes it when he places his head on the bed, looking up and out of those calm quiet brown eyes.
On yesterday’s walk, the early morning pee-walk, after it was said and done, the two of us, we boys, were sitting on the front stoop in the warm sun beaming. This guy with a Santa Claus hippy beard down his chest and a ponytail, a tall thin man of about forty-five, came walking by. People say hello to nice smiling dogs with their tongues hanging and their tails wagging. This guy came up to us and laughed and he said hello and he reached out a hand. Footy jumped to the sidewalk and jumped up at the guy and the guy laughed and the guy could hardly stand. He was dead drunk. Early morning sloshed. Gone to the winds of drink. I could smell it on him. Nine in the morning. He teetered and stumbled and held out his hand pet the dog and made comments that slurred lazily and with difficulty off his tongue. I thought, “Man. . . God. . .” The dog played with his hand.
This morning is a good one with plenty of sun and dew on the grass. Also we did the early morning pee run around the block. He let go for ten minutes straight over by that one redolent tree (you crush its leaves and go ‘wow’). And then by A Caring Foot Clinic, as we were about to round the block for our own street and the homestretch, there were two local guys hanging out acting all casual. One wore a Raiders cap. One wore sunglasses. They commented on the dog. “What sort of dog is he?” and I replied “Half lab and half pit” and the guys seemed impressed and one reached out a hand and then he was petting and commenting and the other guy walked over and started petting and he said, “You know, if you pet his chest, where his heart is, he’ll really be, ah, he’ll really be, ah . . . admirant of that n’ shit, youknowwhatI mean?” and he smiled and he looked over his sunglasses at me. The dog licked and play-bit hands and the guys pet this golden dog, this yellow dog, and the other guy, the first one, said, “Yeah, this bro used to train dogs” and I said, “Oh, really?” and the fellow said, “Yeah,” and it was then that I noticed how drunk the two were. They, too, could barely stand. They tottered on their spots. Their legs wobbly, their hands shaking, their mouths lazy yet filled with smile. I smelled the drink. Rum running off their lips. Both standing shakily. Almost to the point where they would hold each other up, like you see comedians do sometime, arms around one another. Nine in the morning. And I think, gosh, what is it with this neighborhood? What is it with this town? Is it Oakland? And then I love Oakland. I love a town with early morning dog petting drunks. A rehabilitation center just over there. The dog smiling and leaping at his leash and dew on the green winter grass. Palm trees on a slope. The nose of the dog sniffing, working its own universe, knowing his surroundings, raising a casual leg at a tree or bush pause, the nose working, assimilating, and I’m still in pajamas and house slippers and don’t care about the fact that my hair is mussed or that I’m in said pajamas and don’t care what people think about me because they don’t, not like back east, and there are no cops around to cause trouble, to invent paranoia, to be assholes bothering the populace, and people are simply hanging out on street corners, waiting outside bars for the big game, preparing to go to the beach, ocean wave crashing, walking their dogs, stooping to pick it up or not, drinking if they want to drink, the smell of marijuana on gentle breezy wafts if that is the way of it, nobody crying about it, no fricking state troopers up in your ass, a mellow California morning, quiet and peaceful and healthy.
When we walk by the African store on Broadway, the one with the incense forever spilling out of it, door closed or not, Futuro grrs at the doorway, every time, almost without fail. Is it the exotic and foreign nature of the place? The odd smells, the vibe, the tall hats filled with dreads, the long robes maybe, the statues of grotesque laughing faces? It becomes a fun thing to do, to walk this dog past the African Things store on Broadway.
In the hills right in Oakland, hovering over ravines, staying aloft on pleasant days without flapping a wing, are genuine large birds of prey. And you stop for a slight pause, catch your breath, and look out over the city a gaze, the skyline, the entirety of the Bay, water from left to right as you sweep with your eye west. And there are always incredible smells. The dog’s nose working, working hard, chest beating, waiting for the human to catch up with him.
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He sure does know when the humans are getting ready to go somewhere and this time we went back to the coast. We drove on one freeway in order to miss another freeway because it was Saturday and the Raiders were playing in their Coliseum. It’s called Networks Association Coliseum. To add to 3Com Park and PacBell Park in San Francisco. But it doesn’t make us sick- these names- because this is the way of the world, it is. We don’t even notice hardly. The new modern refined capitalism: everything is bought and sold, everything marketed. We don’t notice anymore. It used to shock, those of us born of another generation, and not long ago born were we. It hurt when the first one went, the first stadium to the logo, the first college bowl game went Tostitos, Nokia, and all the rest. It doesn’t matter any longer. Now, in Boston, this on the news on Saturday as we’re about to leave the Bay and cross the mountains of that peninsula and the Santa Cruz Mountains, now in Boston the transit authority is selling names of the T stops. It used to be Back Bay and now it will be Corporate Name Back Bay. But you, American, reading this, do not even flinch at the words nor the image nor the reality. It’s all a piece of this new modern life, this grand market, selling ourselves. Heck, if I could get sponsorship I would, if I could make a monthly stipend because I had company insignia tattooed on my cheeks, I would. I’d advertise, promise I would. Sell parts of myself, sell skin, sell my home, paint my car, sticker my life with promotion.
But these are thoughts as we intentionally skirt Network Association Coliseum. How’d they pass this down at City Hall? I wonder. How’d this ever come to pass? At least 3Com and Nokia are shorter, Fleet tighter, PackBell shorten-able. Will it ever one day be Prudential Fenway Park? What is it now? I’m not going to look it up. Will we sell our souls? Have we already? We find out later, on the return trip, the Raiders having already lost their Championship game, we willing to drive by the stadium and thus take 880, that there is a catchy quote for you to get excited about: “Take It To The Net” bleeping on the stadium marquee along the freeway neighboring the massive stadium. Or “Beware of the Net” or “Nothing like the Net.” A lot of people in a lot of obvious pain.
The Golden State Warriors were playing on the day of our return. But that was after PJ’s van gave us all kinds of trouble. Footy going along for the ride.
Watch Out For The Net or some such like that.
Cross the San Mateo Bridge and ascend the mountains and the descend them to Half Moon Bay. As soon as we smell the ocean, as soon as we drive through new terrain, the dog is alert and excited and sometimes spastic. Moving from window to window, putting his feet on the seats, staring out the front window with the human adults.
We are driving PJs van that he left with us, parked on the front street, some white whale of a van, one you can stand in, one that sways from side to side in wind or on corners, top-heavy you might call it with that bubble on top.
In Half Moon Bay, at the lights, we turn right on Main Street and drive down Main Street and it is quaint with crafts shops and a natural foods store and cafes and coffeeshops and a small market. In the small market, and not the Albertsons down the street, we purchase provisions for this short jaunt to the coast. We did not know at the time, happy to be discovering this new town, engaged in a road trip with this dog, in a massive white van in which we may sleep, the ocean and the coast and the waves and the rocks, that our trip would be cut short and that I’d live through a harrowing adventure and that Footy would prove himself to be heroic. God he can stand on cliffs. We don’t know the severity of the waves, the storm that had been here a few days prior to this one, the action on the coast. When we finally leave that last hill after Half Moon Bay and descend to the rocky cliffy sandstone waves crashing beach, driving Highway One, and the severity of the waves becomes apparent and there is action and spray and people about and I’m certain smells that we cannot grasp, Futuro goes apeshit, pacing back and forth, jumping into the back of the van on the bed (the bed covered in a green tarp) and he whines some and he knows those are massive waves and he knows we are at the beach.
The beach means running like mad and splashing in the water and chasing rocks to Futuro.
We’re eating a bag of already-prepared carrot sticks and cheese and crackers. Futuro spies more waves and says, “Okay, let’s go, let’s do this.”
We drive past the lighthouse on Pigeon Point. The waves are huge and of a massive storm; they slam the coast; there is dramatic and innumerable white froth explosions as waves hit rocks. I desire to stand on those rocks. Footy desires to stand on those rocks. Girlfriend will have none of it. It’s far too dangerous, is what she says. And what if the dog gets swept out to sea, some undertow thing, some kind of riptide. There are all sorts of signs crying about the riptides and these are dangerous cliffs and the dog is wild, excited, manic.
The water is many feet higher than it usually is at this point, past the lighthouse, at Franklin Point. The beach thinner; the rocks difficult to climb and traverse; the waves loud and constant. No one is surfing this water: it is far too wild. Nobody is fishing, not like the last time we were here, and with good reason. There is action beyond scope. There is a vividness of life, an energetic vivacity, and clarity, clean air, ocean spray, blue skies unembellished, the sun beaming hard and true.
We come to our first sign. I’m not used to this dogsitting thing; I’m not used to the dog/human social organizations in public parks, either, as occurred in Oakland today, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Our first Don’t Do It sign. Darn it all, fuck it all, you’re just trying to have a good time in the outdoors, to play and run and be free, to pirouette underneath the wingspan of a hunting bird, a bird coasting on wind off the sea and not flapping its wings. There is a dog with a red line through it. As in You’re Not. Not only do they hook you up with the international symbol sign, with the line and the dog, they spell it out for you in the English language: NO DOGS. That includes campfires, motorized vehicles, camping on the beach, that sort of thing. The international proscribes signage with the verbatim and undeniable language denunciations. Don’t Do It. Shit. Something always adding to potential anxiety. Impossible to live in an anxious free world. This America is highly and uniquely anxious. Don’t Do It signs everywhere, trespassers beware I’ve got a gun. Don’t bring dogs. “You can’t have dogs taking shits just anywhere,” she says. She brings the plastic baggies. I say, “I will not be in the middle of the unconditional wilderness, or preserve, or mountains and gosh-darn ocean, and will not be the guy picking up some dog’s ass release. You see, there are massive mountains, and ravines run clean by a stream, and I’m not going to pick up some measly or even sizable dropping. It ain’t happening.”
The tow truck driver’s name was Frank. He was Latino, with some white blood in him from somewhere, and a handlebar mustache, and cowboy boots. His father had recently died. His entire family ran the garage and they were closing up in order to attend the funeral in Arizona.
Just so long as his dump isn’t in the road or right on the trail, she says.
“Right on,” I say employing an accent that puts me from Santa Cruz.
We both, because we’re new at this, have to hold a meeting about this NO DOGS sign. We think about it while eating carrot sticks and crackers. Darn. Our favorite beach on this coast, an isolated peace of rock and beach, accessed only by a decent walk through grass and dune, devoid of any parking lot on the highway, no tons of cars and no accompanying people, and there is this sign. Less favorable beaches just up the road, north of Franklin Point, there are no problems walking the dog and the beaches aren’t as nice as our beach. This is Our Beach, and we face a sign. All this trouble in the world. All this trouble with the dog. All this responsibility. Just want to enjoy ourselves on the beach, at the ocean, and not worry about what comes out of this dog, from front or back, and what by necessity must go in; a machine, a shitting machine, and he wants to run around crazily.
The girl says be careful. I tell her that I promise to be careful. We walk past the Don’t Do It sign. I may or may not have flicked my middle finger. Whether I consider myself cool or not, hip or not, revolutionary or not, no matter how grand I see myself as being, I could not shake the slight nerves as we walked through the dunes toward the beach. “What if there are stiff fines?” she asks. “What if we’ve got to pay three hundred dollars,” she posits.
“You know, Forest Ranger types are nice people. They are rarely assholes. If we don’t like the scenario when the tow truck comes then we won’t do it. We don’t have to get our car towed by this guy and his truck, you know. There will be no fines.” The girl is not impressed. Footy looks up at us, expectant, his tongue hanging and jiggling slightly with the saliva of excitement on occasion dropping.
I’m sure I flicked off the Don’t Do It sign.
We walk past the sign and the animal is oblivious to our very stupid, very small, human concerns. The cry-cry of paranoia. The hurt of anxiety. “I’ll clean up the shit,” I say to my girl to get her to go along with this. This, um, this breaking of the law. Such bad citizens, such evildoers, the incarnations of despicable. And there is this massive ocean, this full beach, water crashing and pounding this coast that I know full well will change and dissolve and disappear before I do and I also know full well that I’m not going to clean up the dog’s shit on this beach and this massive ocean. If anything I’ll bury it.
We rehearse what we’ll say when we get caught. Prepare to get caught so that you don’t look like a fool when the cops arrive to cart you away. Or slap you with the fine. And prepare your lines for when civilians walking the trail give you the old-mom propriety whine: “Hey, you know that you’re not supposed to have dogs on this beach?!” Yes, we practiced our lines: for the authorities we would say something like, “We’re sorry, we didn’t know, we’ve cleaned up all his mess and we’ll never do it again, sir, promise, sorry” and for the civilians who wouldn’t be minding their own business we would say (but not with her full support) “Oh, no, we’re cheerfully breaking the law here, have a nice day,” or “Oh, it’s okay, we’re criminals,” or “I’m a Ranger and this is my Ranger Dog,” or “Madam, mind your own fucking business or I’ll kill you,” or “This dog bites the prim and the proper,” or, and better, more in tune with my style, “Oh, the sun is so beautiful and so are you; you’re a beautiful person; we love to break the law, that’s what we do, we’re lawbreakers.” I’m thinking these things, and sharing a few of them aloud, as we move through the grass and the dunes, Footy on the end of a leash, he pulling it steadily, I occasionally saying “Heal!” and he once and awhile stopping to piss on some tuft. Already a tick crawls through his hair. I pick off the tick and fling it into the wind.
Then there is the beach. The wave crash and the slam rocks and the small nibble of beach and Footy is off his leash now and running like mad after blown foam puffs which skid across the sand. He chases them down and bites into them. Soon we’re on the rocks. This is the best part. This is before the van strokes us with its love, before the van thing happened. No civilians cried on us and no authorities converged on us with ATVs and smart uniforms and wagging fingers of No. Nothing of the sort happened that day, in fact, nothing of the sort occurred all weekend, and yet, on the rocks, in the wind and the sun, with that dog around near or semi-near, I couldn’t shake the thinking about it. But if you stick with the law precisely you become so hemmed in, so corralled, and there’s no way to go into certain parks or climb certain trails or stay in campgrounds or stay in certain hotels or motels. There have been books written on where you can go with your dog and still have a grand time. Who accepts dogs. Who loves dogs. May dogs go here. Do you know that Motel 6, the conglomerated chain, the massive franchise, those crazy folks with their red six, they allow dogs. No problem, dogs crawling over the place, a grass area for them. Let the dog run. Have you ever seen the dog runs at interstate rest areas? The bottom line is one of comedy and pain and natures that are certifiably ridiculous. Dogs! Sheesh. Shit machines and hairballs and fur smells and, sheesh, dogs. Yes, there have been books written.
Nothing happens to us, you see, and we don’t even receive frightening or scolding stares from our fellows walking in the dunes of sand. In fact, most reach down and pet his head if it comes to that kind of proximal contact. There is the strong and sharp wind; there are the waves out of control; there is the dog out of his mind, running in the sand, chasing rocks that I throw with all my might.
Footy is nimble on the cliffs. Straight up and down and it’s not a problem. All the while with a “This kicks ass,” look on his face.
Thus we know the waves were mad, dashing against rocks and cliff and crumbling sandstone, eating away at the land, remnants of a storm, thrashing and limiting human activity along the coast. For example, the two Greek fishermen that were there last time, sitting on rocks were they, were nowhere to be found. With good reason. Nobody has a fishing pole on a day like this one. No boat out there trawling around. Maybe, just maybe, down the coast ten miles, at the one surfer beach, some crazy kids were having a go at the waves. But I doubt it. In fact, I’m sure the beach, that one in particular, was closed. And I wondered about the elephant seals. The sleeping, beached, rookery: what do they do when the storm slams the beach and there is no place to rest?
You should have been there when Futuro saw his first elephant seal.
When you attempt to go from one crescent stretch of beach to another you have to cross precipitous rocks, outcropping, a scrambling effect, and you must time the run to beat the incoming waves. Run from one rock clump to another and stand there as the next wave crashes in; you might get wet; if you’re caught down on the sand you might get swept out to sea. Like that one fellow who lived down on Big Sur. PJ and Futuro met the brother of the lost one. The lost one having been slammed by a wave as he stood on a rock. There is some kind of excitement when the water comes in and swirls around the rock upon which you stand, leaving you for a moment stranded on an island. Every now and again a wave will come in and clutch at you, pluck you from land, render you watered. Maybe you’ll live or maybe you won’t. Everyone has heard these types of stories. The woman of our trio certainly had and she was very concerned about these outcroppings and running from crescent beach to crescent beach, scrambling over rocks, timing the waves and timing the slosh.
We wore hiking boots. We had warmth and wind clothes. Remnants of a storm; wave after wave; the beaches essentially isolated. Further, not a lot of breathing room, running room, most of the sandy beaches swamped. But our hearts pumping. The dog spazzing and flying and jumping. You should have seen him after we left Half Moon Bay, when you dip down to the water finally, and he saw the white froth of the crashing waves and he smelled the ocean and the salt and the breeze: he jumped around the back of the van from window to window, perching his front paws on the cooler that rests on the floor of PJ’s van for a better view out the side window, attempting to say hello to us in the front, whining and moving and looking and smelling. He couldn’t wait to get out of that fucking car. And now, released on the beach, he ran around mad. Avoided the water and then in the water running. He and I ran easily from rock to rock, jumping and scrambling to avoid the waves and perch ourselves at the next spot. We waited for our girl, our third member of this ocean posse. She was frightened and she made proclamations of not going any further, demanding that we should quit now, what’s wrong with this spot. But there was more, always more, another beach around the bend. A few times it was required of us that we take the high road on the bluffs where the high water had made it impossible to pass. Then we ran down the steep dunes back to the beach. Footy climbed and jumped and scrambled anywhere I would go and he could do steep parts no problem and he could jump from great heights to the sand and he could stand on seemingly vertical spaces on the cliff. He thought if fun to avoid the water, too. Our girl said, “What if we lose him! What if he gets knocked by one of those waves and an undercurrent snags him and then that’s it? What will we tell PJ?” I replied with the dog will be alright, the dog is nimble, the dog knows better than we do. She was not ameliorated. She would have none of it. She would proclaim her stance and declare that she wasn’t moving an inch and then we’d run ahead and I’d turn around to see and she’d be right there. Frightened but there just the same. The waves smashing. We timing. Run, man, run! Then stand safely- for the moment, so you think- on the rocks and wait for the water to go back out. Then run, man, run. The dog flying and jumping.
Finally we were on the sought-after stretch of sand. The place where we’d seen elephant seals before. There were none now. Oh, but we would see them, Footy would see one of those four-thousand pound bull elephant seals and you should have seen him. Now, however, we sat on rocks and had a breather and a moment of calm for the girl, she didn’t have to jump from rock to rock and she could watch the ocean and the sky. The wind swept in cold and hard. We wore down vests. I threw rocks to the dog and he chased them down in sprints. Sprinted him until his tongue was out-hanging. Sprinted him rock after rock, this way and that.
At one point he stuck his snout into a small crevice. A wedge between the rocks in the sand where there were a number of well-rounded stones in a pile. He desired one of those stones. He had to wedge his mouth and teeth in there, though, to get one. His body between these rocks. I was standing on higher ground in order to avoid being washed. He was in the line of the tide- every fourth wave perhaps made it there- with his butt to the sea. He wasn’t looking. I said, “Um, Footy,” and he gnawed on a rock, on his belly, and the wave washed over him entirely. He was under water for a brief second. When the small wave retreated he possessed a shocked look on his face. He shook his body vigorously. He ran from the next wave up the beach.
A day of frolic. The sun getting lower. Dog chasing rocks. Standing in wind on bluffs. At one point, when we were slowly returning up coast, and our girl didn’t want to go the wave-dodge beach way, the rock-hopping and running for your life method, and she decided instead to go by way of the bluff sandy path, she took Futuro on the leash and went that way and I insisted on the beach way and was having a fun go at it, indeed. She got lost in the crisscrossing paths up on the bluff, in the dunes and scruffy flora, paths going this way and that, so she decided to descend in return to the beach and she saw me up ahead. She called out; I didn’t hear; she called out again. Then she received a brilliant idea. She unleashed the dog and whispered in his ear: “Go get the man!” and the dog bolted. He bolted off the beach and back into the scrub brush and crisscrossing paths and our girl thought she’d lost him forever. Now what would we tell PJ. Sorry, your dog went running into the unconditionally coastal wilderness never to be seen again. And he ran and our girl panicked and she exhibited that panic by laughing. She ran down the beach to fetch me. She yelled. I heard her this time. I was clinging to a small cliff and avoiding frothy whitewater. I looked back and saw her. She pointed to the leash and held up her hands and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “He’s gone.” Then a small panic waved over me. Goddammit, now we’ve got to do the dog hunt thing and the dog calling thing, two people looking for their lost child. But then, at the appropriate moment, at the beginning of the apex of fear and worry, he poked his head over the bluff, he saw me and he tried to get to me but it was a cliff. He stood there on a vertical face. His tongue wagging, his eyes full of life. He found me! He pawed the ground. I told him to SIT! in that gruff human desperate I’m in command voice, a squawking. STAY THERE! I feared he would jump off the cliff and break a leg. But he was so damn excited from having fulfilled his mission, from having found me indeed. We were a trio again. We did the rock hopping and scrambling thing back to the main beach, back to the entry-point, ready to hike through the dunes in return to the road.
A family of Turks walked down the sand toward us. A father and mother and four children. The mother wore a head scarf. The father began to approach us. Darn, I thought, this is our first public (and civilian) reprimand. I prepared my answer- yes, no, we enjoy breaking the law, we’re lawbreakers, that’s what we do- and he got closer and I raised an eyebrow. “Hello, just want you to know,” he said, “that there’s a massive elephant seal sleeping up the beach. You should be careful with your dog, you know.” And I thanked him. And we were both eager to see a bull elephant seal again. And I was kind of interested in witnessing how the pooch would react to the monstrous beast. We thanked the family, nodded heads and such, and I hitched up the leash around my fist. We pushed toward the sleeping behemoth.
But from there you can’t tell the seal from the rocks. Our dog was well exercised. We were doing our good dogsitting duties. We were taking care of our bodies and spirits as well. And who cares, at this point, unknowing were we, what the van would do to us? We weren’t thinking of that damn van. We approached the seal cautiously. Footy could not see the guy at this point: just another stone in a mile of beach and sand. I had our girl hold the dog while I went around topside, to the side, staring at the thing. And then Footy saw him. Then the big guy with the long proboscis moved a flipper. Then he moved two flippers. He was dreaming. Footy got low to the ground. At first, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He began growling: “grrr- de- grrrrr.” Then he barked. When he did so the elephant seal, as big as a pickup truck, lifted his head. He looked up at us. He blinked. He scratched one flipper with the other flipper. The end of his flipper looked like a hand. He scratched with a finger. He made a fist. He yawned. He rolled over some. He looked at us again and he yawned. Big wide with teeth. His hind flippers began to twitch. And then he lay his head back down to the sand. The sun beamed slanted rays upon him. He slept nudged against a small boulder. Footy went ape, or at least desired to go ape, but I held his leash firmly and commanded him to sit. Footy begrudgingly sat. He couldn’t believe his eyes. I wanted, as a scientist you understand, let him go and see what would happen. I posit that the dog would have avoided close proximity with this beast. However, if he were fool enough to get close to the thick-skinned thing, or hazard to, say, nip the thing, then Footy would be crushed in a swift yet lazy afterthought move. We could not tell PJ, “Well, my man, you’re dog, god bless him, was killed by, of all things, an elephant seal. It wasn’t our fault. Footy went crazy. The seal slapped him silly and then went back to sleep but Footy was just laying there motionless, and. . . look, I’m sorry. . .” I held the leash firm. The family of Turks returned. Dad showing the kids, I suppose. Perhaps father was a marine biologist down at the institute. Futuro grr-de-grrred until we pulled him away and we departed the beach. We stopped on the bluff to watch the lowering sun, the coloring clouds, the wind-slashing waves.
Our plan, you see, was to jump in the van and find another place to watch the sunset. Some place, perhaps, were dogs weren’t a problem. Some place where the constant, though attempts were valiantly made to hide it, understanding of illegality, of paranoia, would not exist. A calm place, you see.
We jumped in the white van. The sun lowering. Cars blaring past us on Highway 1. Pacific Coast Highway. North of Santa Cruz. We were the last car in the small pullout. Dog in safely, seatbelt on, sun lowering, windswept hair and salty faces, fresh lungs, happy legs, content countenances, happiness. I placed the key in the ignition.
Turned the key in the ignition. The massive white van, on loan, and it does this sort of thing every time you start it but it always starts, chugged and churned. It would not start a lick. It did not fire. Churn churn churn. I held it. I gave it a little gas, a small amount. I’m not going to flood this thing, you understand, the sun lowering. Come on, baby.
Baby left us hanging.
The sun down now. Cars blasting by in traffic and then slowly dying down. Stars coming out now. Give it an hour, I think, must have flooded the engine. So we give it an hour. Eating crackers. Feed the dog, then, fine, and let him shit. No, please girl, we’re in the middle of the wilderness on a coast battered by waves along the second-longest fault in California, with waves that consume whole houses, please don’t pick up the shit. Finally, she didn’t pick up his leaving. Dog lapping water from his travel bowl. Dog eating supper. Total darkness now. It’s getting cold, she thought and then vocalized. We climbed into sleeping bags after I made the bed. Sheets down and a wool blanket and then our down bags. She lighted a candle. It was pleasant, you see, for all intents and purposes. But how pleasant is it when you cannot control your own destiny? The fucking car! The shit-fucking van! Goddammit. I apologize, but this is what I do when I’m pissed off: I curse. I vehemently curse. I become foul.
Try to put a pleasant face on things, someone might have said. The stars brilliant to a degree of poetry and prayer. Crystalline and sharp. The waves audible from the car. Traffic dead now and the automobiles merely occasional. The clockwise turning beam of the lighthouse flashing once, then again, and again. . .
Dog sleeping next to us. I get up, this time it’s going to work, I know. Churn churn churn it doesn’t work nothing. When the realization dawns that we are either calling AAA tonight or in the morning we choose the morning and when the realization dawns that we’re going to be sleeping here, on this spot, on this pullout slightly off the highway, we make peanut butter sandwiches and we drink some water and we settle in for the night. Take a pee in the waving grasses and gaze at stars and listen for the waves and dream of all things right.
Of course it’s going to start in the morning.
Morning: sun rising: we slept well, considering we were under duress, not there by choice, feeling tribulation. “Honey, will you shit the dog this time?” I asked with a slight albeit perceptible whine. She shit the dog. I saddled up and sat there and said a prayer dear God start and turned the key and chug chug churn and then
roar! a roar and exhaust spitting and fuel smelling but the thing started and I gave it gas and sat on it some and kept the RPMs up and finally, dear Jesus, we had a car. We high-fived. I will tell my children, when indeed I have children (with this girlfriend, I’m certain), that you should not high-five nor celebrate until you truly won the game. Don’t celebrate, my son, until you’re in the clear.
We drove to Costanoa, a resort, where we knew there’d be comfort stations and warm water with which to wash our faces and we could brush our teeth and buy some coffee. Now, perhaps, as we’d just spent fourteen hours in idle, not in control of our fate, we should have made a beeline for home. But the thing started, right? And the day was grand and beautiful, warm and sunny, the waves still stormy and the life of the sea vibrant. Maybe we should have driven it twenty miles or so, cleared the thing out, really charged the battery. Like smart people. But, you see folks, I am not smart. I’m an idealist, an optimist, an idiot.
We did all the necessary and comforting ablutions. We shit the dog. But the drop came in the middle of the road (she walked him) and so she wanted to clean it up. “Leave it,” I said. “No,” she replied. Thus, she grabbed some plastic and some paper towels and she went to clean up after the dog and I ask you just who is master at this point. Sat behind the wheel, everybody in and ready for the day’s new adventure, and chug chug churn the thing did not start. I chugged it and churned it until the battery began to die.
This is when the cursing volley began. This is when I gave no love to the dog and told the dog to get away. This is when we walked to the main lodge and ordered coffee and ate a sandwich and killed an hour sitting in Adirondack chairs on a deck in the sun. Then we walked to the van (dog inside, dog no love) and I tried it again and of course no way, no going, nothing. The pair (dog inside, dog no love) returned to a payphone and we called triple A.
The tow-truck man was a nice man with a handlebar mustache, a Mexican fellow but American, his family running a service station in Pescadero. He had a nice, blue and yellow, shiny truck. He wore jeans and cowboy boots. His name was Frank. He took this call though his father just died. Like, on that day, that morning, his family closing the shop to make funeral preparations. “We had a death in the family so we won’t be able to work on it until next week,” is how he put it. We apologized genuinely and himmed and hawed. I was alive enough and patient enough and aware enough through this mess to notice the fine day, the magnificent weather, the white froth of the ocean waves crashing coastline way down there.
Frank gave it a go. “Battery’s dying,” he said. He popped the hood. He talked about spark plugs and carburetors. He talked about Dodges of this year, make and model. “Oh yeah, they do that.” and “We’ll see what we can do.” He hooked us up to cables. He’d brought along gasoline in case we didn’t have gas. He was a nice man, this grieving Mexican service station man Frank. He charged the battery and sat behind the wheel himself and turned the key and pressed the pedal to the floor and he went for five or seven and pushing on ten minutes churning the thing, each successive churn and chug getting closer, sounding better. Finally the gosh darn tootin frickin thing started and I aimed to tell PJ a thing or two and Frank told us to not turn it off and to head for home.
And, so, alas, that is what we did.
But I must tell you that we drove to various state park beaches and bluff overlooks and parked there for a moment with the car idling and watched the breaking waves slam the coast and watched other folks enjoy the spectacle and other dogs running free on the beach and Footy spazzed and wanted out and whined and pressed his nose to the window and his paws to the cooler, tossing from one window to the next, and when the real big waves slammed in succession he spun in hectic circles and I, too, whined and pressed my nose to the window, desiring more, yearning for wave crash and water dodging, the van idling, I thought of turning it off and doing the whole process again, looking at the key, knowing that I shouldn’t, I just shouldn’t, and deciding, with the help of my girl, to turn the thing around and leave the sea finally and we climbed the hill out of Half Moon Bay and we crested the mountains and soon we were on the San Mateo Bridge again with San Francisco visible to the northwest and Oakland to the northeast, both vivid against the blue sky, and the van rolled and took us home and I cursed it and Futuro slept like a baby, like a well-exercised puppy, in the back and his legs twitched and his tail, too.
-- On the back windows, especially, of PJs van are extensive smudges and smears made by our hero’s nose. He rubs his nose upon investigation, upon being startled, upon seeking to see and smell the landscape, passing humans or vehicles or other animals. Sometimes you leave the window cracked somewhat, and he sticks his nose there and smells the air, occasionally swiping the window with his wet and moist nose. That black, cold nose forever working, sniffing, smelling. And the windows are greased. It will be a long time before PJ cleans his windows.
Which brings me to our living room window, above Footy’s bed, next to the bookcase against the wall, the rightmost window overlooking the street and the hills and both bridges. Footy has taken to placing his feet upon the speaker and staring out the window at the passing world. He does this without fail if we are leaving the house without him. He hates it when we leave without him. And so he looks down on us from above as we walk the sidewalk to our car. Before we open the doors of the car we look up at our living room window and we see our boy staring out, head cocked, eyes pensive and yet still hopeful, hoping that we’ll somehow get him and not forget him, hopeful that we’re not leaving forever. His ears are folded over, cute, puppyish. His ears are yellow and gold. You see flesh color pink when you turn his ears inside-out. He looks out over us as we get in the car. And his nose is pressed against our windows. Today, at the proper time of day, when the sun was just so over the city, late afternoon, about four o’clock, you could see his nose smudges clearly. The entire pane of window smeared and greased and loved by that constantly investigating nose of his. The window nose wipes of an eager dog.
The van windows are messy and perhaps always will. When you’re a dog owner you eventually give up caring, giving up being anal, lose the hangups. Hangups like hair or dog drool or snot or shit. We will be cleaning our windows when the dog departs. That much I can guarantee you. And I will be vacuuming for two days straight. And dealing with the hardwood floors, the dust bunnies now mixed with a thousand fine hairs. The girl has already suggested we dry-clean the wool blanket. I’m not going to go that far. I cannot go that far.
Clearly I see that if I were to become a dog owner I would not give a heck about hair all over my clothes. And I might eventually start sleeping with the sucker. You can’t help but cave when he looks at you with those kinds of eyes. Eyes that say, look, I’m just like you are, and I like warmth and human contact and love and social proximity, and there’s nothing like a featherbed and you know it, and a pillow for my head. That’s what his eyes say, anyway. And I wouldn’t give a darn about his hair in my fleece, on my blankets, in my hair, on my black shirt or black jeans where you can really see those fine white and gold hairs. No, I ‘d curl up with him, his head on my arm.
However, we will be Windexing that living room window and I will be vacuuming and there will be a mild relief at his departure. At least I suppose so.
He likes to play tug-of-war with his leash.
Today, on the second walk of the day, after he’d been overly antsy and bugging me and whining and hinting at the door, though he’d already gone a major load this morning, I began to realize just how keyed-in the human on the human end of the leash is to small patches of grass. You’re walking in the city, right, and you’re on sidewalk and crossing streets and there are parked cars and people raking or watering or gardening or parking their cars in their driveways, and this Footy Dog is sniffing like mad, moving from one bush to another, from one patch of green to the second patch of green, relatively large lawn to small strips of dirt and grass between sidewalk and street. Now I am hyper-aware of those small pieces of grass. Where will he shit? is the important question. It’s not, “Did you walk your dog today?” it’s “Hey, did you shit your dog this afternoon.” “Honey, I’m gonna go shit the dog now.” I’m on the human end of the leash (which of course does not denote masterhood) and I’m praying he doesn’t drop on Piedmont Avenue in front of all the shoppers and strollers and then there will be no doubt that I’m picking up that warmth with my doggy mitt. His nose is working overtime, his body swaying from one patch of grass to another, one bush to a flowerbed to a tree to a post to a parking meter, swinging and sniffing and lifting a leg occasionally to pee and spray and mark, and I’m praying he doesn’t go sidewalk. He’s done sidewalk before. I sort of brushed the stuff to some grass with a stick. Don’t worry, it was ratty grass and it was not your lawn. Your lawn is nice; I would never let him go on your lawn. Never before have I been so focused on small patches of green. Especially, now, those strips between sidewalk and street, where occasionally there is a planted tree and a recycling container tipped over or a garbage bin. -----
Today my girl said to the dog, “Footy, go get your ball,” and the dog turned around from our bed, exited the bedroom, trotted into the living room, fumbled around (we could hear him), and then he returned with his ball. My girl’s mouth dropped open. “He speaks English!” she yelled.
He enjoys playing with this deflated soccer ball. He holds it in his teeth and you try to pry it loose with your feet and he growls to high heaven. You press and push his body and he continues to growl. Then he rips loose and begins shaking his head back and forth violently, like he was killing something, as if that ball were a chicken and the dog had done its killing. He shakes his head in rapid twists, you can hear his collar jangle, and then you put your feet in there and try to knock the ball loose and he growls and spits and loves every second of it. It’s one of his games. He trots through the house with this ball, his head held proudly high, his gait fine and sure.
Today, on the way for a sandwich and for a pound of coffee, from two different establishments it may be assumed, I tied him up to a post for the first time. He sat on sidewalk patiently. Said hello to a few people passing by. Some avoided him in broad arcs; some held out their hands for licks and play biting and nibbles.
Though I told him NO twice, with throaty threatening language and smacks to the head, he is presently up on our couch curled in a comfortable bed. All I have to do is enter the livingroom and hiss and he’ll get off the sofa with his head hung low, charged and accused, and he’ll accept his punishment. Now that I’ve turned my back he is up there again, comfortable, silent, hoping I won’t notice and that if I do in fact notice that I’ll leave him alone finally. I can see it: if I owned a dog I’d break down completely and the guy would be on the sofa and he’d be sleeping with us and perhaps even dining at the kitchen table off a proper plate.
When you’re in the bathtub he comes up, after butting open the door with his head, and he licks your outstretched hand. Then he’ll flop on the floor. He doesn’t like to be alone. More to the point, he enjoys being around people, being with his posse, one of the gang.
He stands on a speaker and rubs a nose across the window, his head cocked, his ears flapping and, well, dog-eared.
Not so sure about the urban dog thing. If I owned a dog we’d have to have land and a large backyard and perhaps a dog run of our own. And he could roam and hunt squirrels and take as many shits as he’d like, here and there, next to trees, on rocks in the sun. But he’d leave me be in the morning and I’d be able to get straight to work without walking the dog around the block, hoping he takes his this time, aiming for the small strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, near that planted tree there, aiming.
I shall at this time report what exactly it was that we did upon returning from our coastal adventure. First, we got out of the van and locked the doors to the van and bid it good riddance. We unloaded the thing, of course. We leashed the dog. We said hello to our apartment. We were all eager- all three of us- to continue with some outdoor adventure, our bodies still yearning, our spirits not content with being shutdown on the ocean our last day. We drove the Mazda- a vehicle that, oh miracle of miracles, starts when you put the key into the ignition and turn said key- up the mountains of Oakland and to Redwood Regional Park and we parked the car with all the other folks and all the other cars and we grabbed some doggy mitts (though I’d said, come one, we’re on this massive mountain, along the longest fault line in California, in a state that is going to drop into the ocean, in a forest for chrissake, extensive and huge, trees hundreds of years old, thousands of miles of trails, geologic time extending far beyond our piddling human existences, strata and core and striation, eons of. . . I’m not picking up his dump) and we walked with all the other dog walkers on the East Ridge Trail, in the sun, amidst the tall trees. This report makes it to these pages at all because of the important fact that it was our first time doing the dog walking and human attendants social. It is an important anthropological observational moment. The humans standing around; some women with small lap dogs frightened when Footy comes up, straining on the leash, pulling me, excited and frenzied. Our dog whining to see the Shepherd, to play with the lab, to romp with the others. One older German Shepherd growled and its owner said, “Come, now, Bruiser, he’s just a puppy and all he wants to do is play.” Bruiser chilled. Footy shit and I flicked at the shit with a stick, pushing it off the trail. We let Futuro off his leash, finally comfortable with this process, for the first time, and it became evident, honestly, just how well-trained he is: he stopped on command, he responded to our voices, he listened. And man did he run and play with dogs! Sprinted nonstop until he was panting blind. A black lab, a girl, playing with him in particular, running wind sprints until they had chased all the run out of one another. Footy coming when we moved up the path. When he was tired he did not investigate all the other dogs as vigorously as he had in the beginning of our walk. The woods fresh clean and crisp. Dog Central. Families of dogs, people everywhere, a place to water them at the end of the hike. Folks standing around with casual comments while their dogs sniffed and investigated each other. “Sure is a nice day, huh?” Women with small lapdogs nervous. Our girl said, “You know, if you’re going to be that afraid, with that small, little dog, don’t bring him out to these woods on this trail.” Dog Central. Big dogs little dogs and medium dogs. Huskies are the more cautious when greeting others. Some dogs skirted Footy altogether, circling around us through the woods with averted eyes. There were no fights. Sniff snouts then sniff crotches then move along. Play if you must. Wind sprints until you’re panting blind.
Footy chased a rock. We jumped in the car. When we pulled out of our space it was replaced with another car with more dogs inside. The sun set fine. We went out to dinner and we did laundry and that’s when we saw the poor family. A family that would deserve comment in any chronicle on any subject.
--Postmen, post-people, walking the streets of Oakland delivering our mail have pepper spray. Did you know that? They have small can, like tiny spray-paint canisters, hanging on the outside of their pants pocket. Standard issue. One guy I’ve seen, a tall dude, he had his can of pepper spray on a special belt.
Now I’ve begun to memorize small patches of green. Even though I’ll be ridding myself of this dog soon. I can see that if I were to do the urban dog thing I’d have all the patches of green mapped out in my brain; move to them subconsciously; or plan routes specifically. Hmm, today we’ll try the John Street median. Futuro put down two loads concurrently today on one walk, his first walk of the day. And not two half-loads: a duo of massive squat that made my eyes bug. Christ, dog, what’s going on in there? The first one he put down properly in the small stretch of grass and trees and crawling ground plants between 40th Street and our Way here. I faked the pickup with a doo-mitt. I faked throwing the doo-mitt away in the provided bin. I looked over my shoulder. Then we went for a walk. I’m thinking the coast was clear. Tied him up as I sat in a sunny white plastic chair and ate a bagel. We coasted the streets of this neighborhood. It wasn’t long, before he growled at the football-playing kids at recess at the Hebrew Day School behind a fence, that he did his back-and-forth sniff action that precedes a laying down. He assumed the position: squatting, tail up, haunches drawn-in a bit so he can curve his anus down and have a proper drop (their anuses aim straight out or up you know, and one must curve one’s spine in the squat to do this properly, thus the often comical positioning of the poor pooches. Also, a note here, many dogs do not like to be observed, pointed at, or laughed at while they go by anyone other than their owner.) and he let forth with a second pile that defied the sequence and denied the first. It was on a scraggly patch of green near a wood fence next to a large house on the corner of two streets. I stood and memorized the green. Memorized “OK, this is on Ridgeway and Montgomery, next to the brown wooden fence and the large house.” Scraggly mangy grass is good. Perhaps some dried leaves. I do not, and could not see myself doing so, allow him near manicured lawns. Trim front lawns standing before stately homes just wouldn’t be right. Or tight lawns in front of apartment buildings, even. But take that rangy, bumpy stuff on the corner of Ridgeway and Montgomery and I’m all over it, boy.---
So we went to do laundry and that’s when we saw the poor family: a family that would deserve comment in any chronicle on any subject. I’ve never seen anything like it. Never in the existence of my good life have I ever seen anything like it. Nor have I properly imagined such a scenario. Nobody would believe it anyway. Only I didn’t see it first, our girl did. It began with the idea of doing laundry, doing it differently this time, employing some sort of technique to ease the pain of it, to entice me along I’m certain. We call it the King Yen Laundry Paradigm. You show up at the place on Piedmont Avenue, in a building called A Laundromat. That’s what the whole building is called. One could write an entire novel called A Laundromat. This place sees some action. Our girl once said, “See, this is Oakland, right? East Bay rocks the most. This could never happen in San Francisco.” And it never could, either. Nor could it happen, I imagine, in Berkeley. There’s simply not the wholesale economic and ethnic crossover. Manifested in the goings-on of this laundromat. Only I didn’t see it first. We had done the first leg of the King Yen Laundry Paradigm, having placed the dirties in the appropriate double-load washing machines, having secured our stash of quarters (such old-school technology and methodology), having left the dog in the apartment (our first “leave him” moment), and we had already ordered and were eating a bowl of soup and patiently awaiting the arrival of our pot of tea, a half hour already having transpired, when our girl went to switch the load. The pot of tea arrived. I held down the fort, so to speak. We kissed as she rose and she went to get the clothes in the dryer. Still no food when she returned. But her eyes were large. They were wide and large with a story to tell. She told me of this family. Upon her description I mistakenly saw a poor family of the Appalachian sort, perhaps some blonde scraggly kids with greasy hair, a no-toothed dad that’s how I saw it. I saw it wrong. But before I tell you about the thirty or forty black trash bags of clothes as she saw it, as she described it to me, let us get through dinner. I’d like to get through dinner first and take my own ass to the laundromat so that I can tell you what I saw. We ate the rest of dinner. Paid. Left a fifteen-percent tip (calculated to the dime) because the service sucked, and walked next door.
This is when the observation technique kicked in and my mind was blown. A family of six- mom, dad, and four children- were in the ‘mat doing what people do when their in the ‘mat: their laundry. Only this looked to be about a year’s worth of dirty clothes, or ten families’ worth of dirty clothes. Something was going on of the highest order. The father was nervous. He was nervous because he was escorting along this spectacle. People stopped on the sidewalk outside and looked in; people commented; one guy was bringing his load in a hamper from his car, stopped when he saw the interior, and promptly turned around and left. Our clothes were in the dryer and they needed some more time and we added more quarters and instead of agreeing to coffee or ice cream somewhere else, I simply desired to sit in one of the white plastic chairs and watch. There were, and this is not prevarication, forty large black trash bags filled with clothes spilling out of them in a massive pile against a wall. The man and woman were slowly making loads, picking clothes from the bags, and placing them in washers one load at a time. At that pace it would take you a week to do your dirties. But see, and you know this from your own experiences at laundromats, there were only at most three washers available at a time. There were other people doing laundry, you see. And when a washer became available the man and the woman would put together a load, seemingly picking at random from the fifty garbage bags, and place the load in the washer and then stand around and wait. I watched the dad call a racing kid over and tell the child to take the wet clean ones over to a dryer. They commanded at most two dryers. It would take a month to do this load at this pace. A slow, lugubrious and sad event for the parents. The kids gathered, ranging in age from thirteen to four years old, and brought to this foreign laundromat, for all intents and purposes mostly a white one, just out of Piedmont, and the kids running around, squealing occasionally, at times helping pops, singing a song or two, leaning against dryers, fidgeting in white plastic chairs. What were they thinking? Why not do this in four or five trips, at least? Mother- and this is for physical description purposes only- looked like an ex-crack addict. I write it this way because of the sunken cheeks, the thin, very thin, frame, sullen eyes, pocked skin, frightening, bony hands. And I say ‘ex’ because her eyes held a spirit, a glow, and she smiled a wholesome smile. She was embarrassed by this spectacle but was making the best of it. Pops probably made them do it. She and pops had an argument about how best to do this project. Things had gotten out of hand. Let’s drag this spectacular family out into the world honey and do this damn laundry. This woman, her physical being telling this to me, had been through some things. Things I probably would not survive. She was not an alcoholic and she didn’t appear to smoke cigarettes. But she had done something in her lifetime and she had done it to excess. She wore a massive overcoat. Her coat swung open to reveal a large and long T-shirt underneath. On the front of the T-shirt was printed a golden fist with the middle finger pointing at me. A huge middle finger sticking straight up and out and extending toward her right shoulder. She was telling the world something. She probably wore that shirt for this project on purpose.
Fifty bags and doing one load- slowly- at a time.
I desperately yearned to speak with pops. Waited for him to say something to me. I was obviously watching them with curiosity and a fair amount of interest. Glee, even. Look at this freak show kinds of eyes. Mom and pops kept looking over at me. Probably wanted to say something, too. Something self-deprecating by way of joking about the scene, by way of explaining it slightly. “This is what happens when you got four kids,” or “Our machines busted two months ago and pops here won’t buy new ones,” or “Ain’t life a bitch.” Their eyes bespoke of a desire to include me somehow. But we never shared a word. The kids bandled around the ‘mat in a controlled panic. Their body language shared an understanding of this embarrassing moment. But they all made the best of it. A massive mound of trash bags against the wall. The pile jutted out into the laundromat and became a part of it that night. You could only walk along one side of the place.
And keep in mind, there are others doing their dirties. We are there, for instance. And other young thirty-something hipsters with funky shoes and bellbottomed slacks, piercings and tattoos. One guy had chains all over the place, chains doing all sorts of things around his waist and buttocks. A girl with purple hair. I like the hipster glasses. Black-rimmed some of them. One fellow in work overalls like a mechanic might wear, or an airport employee. All of this bustle and shaking. People reacting to the family’s pile and then dealing with its presence. The family is never going to complete this project tonight. Florescent glow of lights. The continual machine whir. The father wears a brown imitation leather jacket with a hole in it. Now, the father, the father, he’s pounded a few in his day and looks like he had earlier that afternoon. The youngest child crawled under the table. He grabbed his sisters ankle. His sister ran around the long folding table chased by the youngest now. Every time the youngest took the corner that his sister just had he slipped. He was in socks. The eldest leaned against a dryer. The middle pushed the cart filled with wet and clean toward a dryer. Mom sat in a white plastic chair, often with her head leaning in a hand the elbow propped on a table.
That’s when the five-piece bluegrass band walked in to the laundromat.
Things were getting out of hand. Especially from a descriptive standpoint. “Only in Oakland,” said our girl.
The band walked in: a standup bass (bass fiddle if you desire to go there), two fiddles, a guitar, and a banjo. They were all white dudes and one chick. Mostly in their forties. The woman played the fiddle and she had a large butt. If the butt was worth mentioning then know that it was that big; as she played along and tapped a foot. The men were bearded. Gray beards. They looked like lefties who’d gone to Berkeley and this was their idea of Monday night grand fun. They set up in the corner, in the corner of window and wall, next to the massive pile of garbage bags, and they jammed. And they were damn good. The family was now even more nervous. The children, though, rapt with this new funk in their lives. But it was banjo hillbilly music and not jazz so at times (especially when the older white-bearded guy burst into Appalachian-toned vocals) they laughed at them. But, ah, they tapped their feet. The youngest child stood and danced. Mom smiled whole and complete and danced in her seat. Pops paced. The basslines were tight and moving. “Maybe they don’t have rehearsal space,” was our girl’s hypothesis. “Come on, you don’t need a rehearsal space for bluegrass; you can do it in a living room,” was my answer. It could only be for the kick of it. Bluegrass band in the corner of the neighborhood laundromat. A Monday night; Piedmont Avenue. Now folks stopped in to spectate. Even pulled up chairs. The machines whirring continually, going behind the music, all of the machines in use. Pops leaning against washers wishing he possessed an alternate life. Mom saying to her daughter, “Come on and dance with me.” Daughter pulled up a chair and sat right in front of the band. Her eyes were wide and she smiled. When the white-bearded guy did his Appalachian-style howling vocals again the middle boy of five put his hands over his ears. Mom’s large middle-finger T-shirt showing to the world. The band kicking it with that foot-stomping stuff. Then a mandolin player showed up. Another guitar. Another banjo and now there were two. Bass player as tall as his instrument was big. Our girl decided, against our usual methodology, to fold our cleans on the folding table and soak in more of this jam. This experience. This night at the local laundromat.
The pile of garbage bags hardly dented. It would cost eighty bucks to do that load.
I decided, the gentle warm nighttime breezes encouraging me, to return to the street scene with Futuro. He would enjoy this, I thought. When we arrived home I whistled from the sidewalk and he jumped to the window and put his forepaws on the speaker and stood on his hind legs and rubbed his wet nose all over the window more and folded his ears and cocked his head to one side. Our girl put our laundry away and I leashed our boy and went out to shit the dog.
When I returned to the avenue the band was still playing and they had an audience and there was a drunk old guy smiling without teeth and dancing in circles and the poor family was gone, their entire pile gone, no trace of them. The hipsters with the chains around his waist and his ass and his cohort the guy in a mechanic’s jumpsuit were done with their loads and were stepping into the night. The breeze was the same but the energy of the evening starting to slide; even the Chinese restaurant slowing down now; fewer cars at the intersection; and I wondered when those folks were going to finish their dirty laundry and I wondered if they would come back here to do it.
Futuro always stands in the window with his nose when you return from somewhere.
This morning a girl in a knit hat (the morning’s cold) was walking her dog in his spot and he whined and pranced and jumped to the window and ran to the door and jumped back to the window and spit all over the place. I have yet to take him out and he’s sitting by the door. Then he’ll stand and click across the hardwood and come look at me with a certain look. A look that says, at this point, “What the fuck is up, guy? Let’s get on with this.” I give him a look in return. Say things like, don’t worry, bro, soon, soon, we’ll go outside.
We took a stroll one evening and left our canine friend at home. The venetian blinds were shut so we couldn’t see the old boy jump to the window and press his wet cold nose to the window and slobber at the window, but our girl, whose hearing is much better than mine is, heard him whine some. Poor old boy had to stay inside. But I’d already shit him twice that day, and he received his evening meal, and we played ball and we wrestled on the orange carpet of our living room, and we played tug-of-war and we ran from the kitchen through the bedroom to the living room and back again. When I took a bath that evening I shut the door against him. He sat down outside the door. He tried to press it open with his weight. I growled “Get out of here,” and he walked back to his bed and you could hear the clicking nails of that walk. Needed a rest from his continual presence and so I shut myself in the bathroom and soaked until I was red and sweating and there is no anti-scald feature of this tub (which is a good and grand thing) and so I almost burned myself. Then she came home and we decided to eat out and we decided to leave the old boy inside. That’s us, walking in the dark of night, arm in arm, walking without a pooch, no hound to tie on the parking meter, an urban pet existence, free from him for a moment. We strolled and spoke of our day. Footy played with my slipper but I found that out later. We ate supper facing one another in a burger joint and we both got turkey burgers and mine with bacon and generally that is mistake, getting burgers with bacon in burger joints, because the bacon is old and cold and hard and congealed and not as good as a bacon burger could be if it was dressed with proper, fresh bacon. We talked of the day and I ate mediocre minestrone soup in a cup thank god it wasn’t a bowl and people either get full of themselves or lazy and they start feeding you crap and the best part of my meal was the glass of water and the large vanilla milkshake I ordered. Then I spilled half the milkshake. Nobody to rescue me so’s I stood and grabbed three thick white napkins and began wiping it up myself. Meanwhile, our girl enjoyed her meal because she ordered the right thing. We both decided not to go back to that place for awhile. Awhile being a year.
We ambled home. Arm in arm. A fine night, warmer, even, than the day had been. I wore a pumpkin hat. This girl from the coffee shop who is forever serving us smalls and mediums to go smiled at me. It was because she was laughing at the hat. Then we turned off Piedmont and did Howe some and then turned on 40th and on the corner of 40th I saw something familiar to me and I said to our heroine “Hey, that’s one of Footy’s favorite patches of green.” Now I’m knowing all these corners of green. “And see that? That’s one of his favorite bush overhangs. He uses that one all the time.”
His food is running low.
His owner, PJ, called from Florida yesterday. He asked like a concerned dad how things were going. They’re going fine, I said. The cute yellow dog is fine. He’s having a grand old time. Yes, and I am having a grand old time, too. I relayed to him the message of the van and of Triple A and he wasn’t happy to hear of that bit. I told him to get a tune-up; told him to change his spark plugs. He said yeah and oh. Then he gave me the winner. He handed me the ol’ lovely part: he told me he is extending his trip through the weekend and won’t be back till Monday night. Jesus, I said. Can’t you show up Saturday like you said? was the way I put the question. Why, aren’t you having fun? is how he put his question. Oh, yeah, I’m having fun, and we’re getting along and all that, but, you know, I’m done. I’m done, is how I put it. Finished with this, you know. This clicking nails on hardwood floors, this shitting of the dog (and it’s a good thing I’m cheating on the urban pet responsibility), this fooding and shitting and fooding thing, the way he looks at you when you’re neglecting him by sitting in the corner of and reading for the second and third hour when he needs to go out for the first part of the day. But aren’t you having fun? Oh, that’s grand. Yeah, I’m having fun; I love this old guy; this guy is my best friend. He’s almost out of food, I told owner. Really? Yeah. Cans of dog food are only thirty-nine cents, was his reply. So I’m going to buy dog food for him now, huh? was how I put it. I tacked on, and he’s out of dry food, too; what, am I supposed to buy him a bag of fricking Purina, too? Get a small bag, was how he put it, on the phone in Florida, talking about sea-kayaking around the Keys, talking about how manifest Hemingway’s presence is in those parts. Bars with photographs or bars with out-and-out murals of the guy. Hotels named after him. Streets and avenues. Towns. Buildings. Supermarkets. Beaches. He was just a fucking writer, was how this guy in Florida, sea-kayaking, put it. All he did was write a few books; and then Ernest said, honey, I’ll be right back, when they were on a small trip with the family, the kids in the back seat, and he blew his head off and what was the name of the hotel again. Jolly, he’s bouncing around eating lobster this guy is, getting some from his girlfriend, and tacking on three more days and I’m buying bags of Purina now. Thirty-nine cents a can, sheesh.
But I’m not going to complain, no. Let the guy have his fun, this owner, this master of a pooch named Futuro. Heck, I’ll hang with the nail-clicking hound some more, this yellow fellow, this nice old boy, this guy listening to every sound from the upstairs neighbor, this guy clenching his behind for two hours now waiting for me to get out of bed. And he’s doing it patiently, too. Occasionally he comes over and rests his head on the bed, just the snout and his eyes, and he looks at me and gives me one small whine and I tell him a story about just another hour, just one more, and then we’ll go outside and his ears turn and his head cocks when he hears the higher-pitched word outside, and he lets his body fall to the floor again and he waits, he waits, god is a good chunk of his life spent waiting.
Oh, that’s just rich, the man in the sun of the Keys just sea-kayaking around, working on his upper body and his tan, getting some on occasion, telling me about thirty-nine cent cans, asking me whether we’re getting along. Yeah, we’re getting along, this old yellow boy and I, listening to all the sounds of the apartment building, nails clicking on the polished hardwoods.
I’ll be taking another bath alone tonight, I can tell.
“See, honey,” I said to our heroine, “that’s one of Footy’s favorite spots,” and I pointed to a corner of green and a bush.
Today, did the fake grab again on Ridgeway. A small strip of gnarled grass and dirt underneath a pine. Felt somebody peering from their window across the street. Reached into my front pocket dramatically, with histrionic flair, held the bag for those peering eyes that may or may not have existed, held the bag out to my side, then stooped near his warm pile and picked up a pine cone and walked with him holding the bag out from my body, with a stinky-face made, as in holding my breath, a painful duty, and walked a ways down the street. Then I placed the bag in my front pocket again and walked around glorious, a fine day, magnificence. To the bagel joint.
Ate a sesame seed bagel on the avenue, sitting in a white plastic chair, in the full sun, and Futuro ate seeds that had fallen to the sidewalk. He looked up at me. He’s just a puppy. A nice puppy-wuppy dog, look at the good boy, look at him lick his chops.
Shangri La for an urban dog walker, dog owner, dog slave, is at the end of Piedmont Avenue. Between Brandon Street and Pleasant Valley which is 51st which is Grand Avenue. There is a strip of green between Brandon and Pleasant Valley that is approximately twenty feet wide and one hundred fifty feet long, covered with some sort of western pine, shaded, innocuous, out-of-the-way, scraggled grass, dirt, and worth the desperate walk to get there. Our yellow guy hit that turf and immediately did his back and forth sniffing, his pacing, nose to the ground, quick turns, and then he assumed the position. A new stretch of green discovered! And it’s Shangri La for the owner, you see, and not necessarily for the yellow furry squatter. The dog, naturally, would prefer the wide open spaces of a park, or the Mountain View Cemetery where we ran around the other day, or the beach, places where he can be free and strong and go at whim and pleasure, unforced leisure, but where the dog owner is under intense pressures to be proper, good, to conform. And where there are explicit signs. And where there are doggy mitt dispensers at the gate or trailhead. And where there is general societal understanding. No, the park or the beach or the cemetery is not the ideal spot for the urban dog sitter. That place is a stretch of minor green, mostly ignored, between Grand which is Pleasant which is 51st and one lonely curve of a street named Brandon.
The girl of this tale, our heroine, is a better person than I. First of all, at the Emeryville Marina this evening, set to watch the sun descend, a fine place for sailboats and small watercraft, a parking lot, and enough grass for the pooch to run, a large white sign that told us to keep the dogs leashed and to pick up the stuff, she, when he assumed the position over some finely manicured lawn, in sight of the maintenance fellow picking up garbage with a stabber pole, the man in a jumpsuit uniform, eyeing us, stoop over and placed a paper towel over his lovely stuff and then employed a doggy mit in proper fashion, her nose turned away, and then, holding her arm out at length, carried it over to and tossed it in the trash bin. As you’re supposed to do it. A fine manicured lawn next to the water and rocks and bird sanctuary, views of the Bay Bridge and a grand view of the Golden Gate across the Bay’s water, and that is how you’re supposed to do it. I, as we know by now, would have left it there, trim lawn or not, man in overalled uniform or not, signs or not, walking couples with judgmental eyes or not. The pile was thick and broad and it dropped in a line as he moved forward slowly with his squat. She moved it all together and picked it up and carried it to the trash. I asked her why she did it. Her answer: “Because. I don’t want to walk around this beautiful area and see dog shit all over the place. I’m going to do my part. You’re anti-social. Your a scofflaw.”
Then I threw stones and he ran his heart out, panting. There were other dogs on the opposite end of the small marina park- we knew that and he didn’t yet- and we desired to run the energy out of him before he met the others. So that he wouldn’t accidentally kill them. He ran and cut and stopped and jumped and ran some more. His tongue hanging, his smile wide, his eyes glowing. He caught one rock on the bounce and it cut his tongue and he bled red for a small while. Naturally, I was worried. We’ve marred the dog, a thought. We’ve knocked out a tooth. PJ will hate us. Footy is injured. But the dog didn’t care. Oh, he noticed and all, sniffing the warm blood on the stone, on his paw, on my fingers, but he didn’t care. Come on, he seemed to be saying, let’s get on with this game. And he ran his heart out with spirit.
He assumed the position for a second time. Our girl did not hesitate. She went for her reserves of doo-mitts and she bent down and this was a wet one and she picked it up like a pro and I guess she showed me how to properly be. I stand humbled. Next time I’m picking up. When I get a dog, boy, I’m picking up, no problem.
Meanwhile, this small particular human drama aside, Footy was yearning to move onward. He met another black lab. She jumped and bounced and they were fast friends. Running and wrestling, rolling and play-biting. The black lab’s owner aware of her whereabouts, watching. We sat on a bench and watched. There were smiles of true and absolute glee, a profound belonging, body language of deep meaning, as they romped and rolled and leaped and stopped and spun.
Footy does not like to be chased. He prefers to do the chasing. This black lab was a spunky, sprightly girl and she enjoyed chasing. There was a small battle going on to see who would be the chaser. This battle was played out by the two of them sprinting side-by-side, sometimes growling at top speed, nipping at snouts. And Footy won this particular game, for thereafter he was the chaser and he held to that position.
Then it was dark and I threw him a stone and he chased it down the grass and he wanted more.
Futuro is the smartest dog I’ve ever met. He responds immediately to vocal commands. He even responds sharply to non-vocal commands, like snapping of the fingers or clucking or whistling. I say, softly, “Come on, boy, let’s do this,” and he’s up with me, ready to go out the door. I say, softly, “Stay there,” and he waits patiently. I say, “Now, come on,” and he is ready to roll. In the car, we’ve reached our destination, he’s been tongue in the wind the whole ride, he can smell the sea, he saw a dog or two running in green, and his entire biology wants for him to bolt, his genes want for him to bolt, and I say, still in the front seat, “OK, buddy, I’m going to get out and you wait. Then I’ll come around and then you come.” And he waits. I open the door and keep it open and remain silent: he waits. Then I say, “let’s go,” and he jumps from the back seat and it ready. Also, he waits for you to place on the leash (a chain around his neck) or take off the leash. Further, he responds, while out walking about, to “heal,” and he can and does trot beside you without a tug on the leash. Once, in the morning, he whined at the bed for me to walk him, imploring, and I turned to him and said, “Look, I’ve a great need to sit and read this chapter for another hour. I’ll read for one hour, and then I’ll come get you and we’ll go for the walk, I promise. Don’t worry, we’ll walk in an hour.” And he went and lay down on his bed. I know he was holding it painfully. He was doing something we all would rebel against and something we would never do. He held it and waited. Our girl says, “He speaks English,” and it’s true. He understands every word, general, by way of body language and gist, definitely. And eye contact. And finger snapping and, well, vibe. He is the smartest dog in the world. That has to say bundles for the man and the master, PJ, who reared him from a small tyke of a puppy. On a farm on the ocean in Massachusetts.
This dog loves the sea. When he smells it, seated in the back seat, he has apoplectic fits moving from one window to the other.
He’s one of those dogs you see with the upper half of his body out the window, tongue hanging, ears flapping, a smile of the world on his lips.
He’s intelligent. When you poor the food he desires to begin chomping with all the power of the universe. But he waits on the small kitchen rug for you to finish opening the wet food, after the dry food has already been poured and is sitting there in the bowl, a tantalizing proposition for a pooch. He waits until you dipped the wet food in the bowl, mixed some, and you stand back. He looks at you and you at him. Then you say, “Go ahead and eat,” and he goes ahead, bends his head, and begins the chowing session.
He won’t beg at the table if you tell him not to. That’s not to say that he doesn’t hang around and hope, averting eyes maybe, lying down on the small kitchen rug and watching. But he won’t beg.
He’s lying on his side right now, on the orange rug, his bone behind his head. If I were to stand and say, “Come on, boy, let’s head outside,” he’d jump up and move toward his leash and bow his head some for you to slip on the chain.
At the marina today he drank from a water bottle in the parking lot.
He won’t bark. That has to be his best trait. Unless he has to, unless it’s absolute imperative. Thank God for the quiet, well-behaved dog. To hell with the yapper and the yipper. The snipping small lapdogs, the yelping spaz-cases, the behind-the-fence freaks who bare their teeth and act all wolfish. This dog won’t bark unless you’re in trouble. Unless the elephant seal rolls over and is four-thousand pounds.
His owner called this evening. He’s coming in tomorrow and this story will close. Futuro will jump and freak and wag his tail and his owner will tell him not to jump. I’ve been allowing him to jump. Jump and leap all over me. Bite my hands. Play tug-of-war with his rope. Our girl is already lamenting his departure. But we stop short of getting a dog for ourselves. Why? It’s not because of poo or routine or walking or dog food- I could get used to the responsibility- and it’s not because of dog hair all over the place anymore. I used to cry and moan about dog hair all the time. People who slept with dogs were the dirtiest of all human beings. Sickos is what I called them. Dirty people. I don’t believe that any longer. I wrestled with Footy like he’s my brother. His hair is all over the place. I’d vacuum more. Walk him when I needed to go out on an errand. Time my errands to his walking, his needs. Our girl loves this dog, too. She says she’ll miss him. I kissed him on his forehead this evening. He likes to nibble my feet and I let him. His owner is coming tomorrow to take him away. Then it will be quiet around here, that’s for sure.
“How’s he doing?” PJ asked. He’s fine, he’s fine.
“You’re not treating him badly now because you’re tired of him, are you?”
“Naw. But I did put him in the kitchen yesterday and close the door; he was bothering me while I was trying to read. But that’s about it. Then I took him out and ran him silly.”
“Bet he liked you after that.”
“Yeah, he liked me.”
Now Footy sleeps on his dog bed and rests his head on a green pillow. He likes to be warm. He likes human company.
Went down to Piedmont Grocery yesterday. His cans of wet food were not thirty-nine cents. They were eighty-one cents. I bought three cans. And a small bag of dry food. Spent seven dollars and eleven cents. The woman ringing me up said, “Ah, just a trip for the dog.”
“A trip for the dog, indeed,” my reply.
The market didn’t have the kind of food he’d been eating. I had to buy different stuff. I wondered if he’d eat it. I suppose every pet enjoys a change of pace occasionally. As it was, Footy went berserk over the new food. His body was shaking with excitement and anticipation. While eating he was convulsing. He gulped at his food, wolfed it in large mouthful chunks. It was gone in three minutes. I timed it.
Walked home with the dog trip in a brown paper sack. I bought Pedigree cans of wet food. The market mostly had cat food. Choice Cuts in sauce. “Recommended by Top Breeders,” the phrase, is trademarked. It’s got that little “R” after the phrase. 13.2 Ounces. FOOD FOR DOGS. “Developed With Vets.” Across the top, written in contrasting bold print, WITH BEEF. I could eat a can of this stuff, I say upon opening it. The stuff is Soy Free, it says, and is Highly Digestible. It has onion powder and garlic powder in the ingredients. “All the food your dog needs for the healthiest skin and the shiniest coat.” Wish I had a shiny coat. Don’t you want a shiny coat? There is a waving blue ribbon on the can: “CHAMPION Skin & Coat System.” The feeding chart on the back of the can tells us that a 75 pound dog should be eating 5 cans of this stuff a day. Cans Per Day, it says. Mixed with his dry food, Futuro has only been receiving one can a day, as stipulated by PJ’s handwritten instructions. One can a day, sheesh, that cheap bastard. I’m going to start throwing the stuff at him. Why, if I had a dog, why, I’d give him seven cans of the stuff. Spare no expanse. If you have a German Shepherd you’re going to be forking over nine and a half cans of the stuff. That’s ridiculous. Who’d want to do that? An urban person should never have a dog that large. But what do I know.
Footy weighs about sixty pounds. He has a golden coat and a real smile and healthy skin and a wet mouth and wet nose and I like to sprawl all over the floor and wrestle with him.
A trip for the dog, indeed.
The doggy food has a web site.
Wish I had a shiny coat.
The guy who robbed us never would have had I not voice-commanded Footy out of the room.
The dog was all over him, too, ready to kick some ass. I told Footy to go to the other room. He reluctantly agreed. And now I’m suffering for it. Should have listened to the dog.
At first Futuro growled like a mean son of a bitch. There was a loud banging at the back door, the kitchen door. I was sitting in the kitchen with Bill Evans on the stereo laying down some cool tracks. Reading a book on the French Revolution, ten o’clock at night, a lone light in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. At an oak table given to our girl from grandma. A fine dining room chair at a brown, thick oak table, reading about Marie-Antoinette beginning to seriously worry. Things were getting hairy for the King and Queen. The were locked inside, sentries at the, not willing to escape, still believing they’d get out of the pickle. “The Spanish ambassador had taken his leave in the middle of September. Louis, he reported, had lost his appetite from lack of exercise, and looked thin and pale. In November Mrs Swinburne, an Englishwoman whose son had served as a royal page at Versailles, was forced to leave Paris. She was allowed to say good-bye to the queen.” This is in an excellent book by J.M. Thompson, some say the best book on the French Revolution by an Englishman. The knock on the door was loud. Too loud for that time of night, for the circumstance, for any circumstance, including a fire or a bleeding son. Plus, it was the back door, for chrissake, already getting odd. That should have given it away. That alone should have clued me in, given rise to worry, had me reaching for my gun. I don’t have a gun. But Footy was ready to go. Just tell me when, just say the word, he said to me. I told him to get out of the room.
I turned Bill Evans down. Our girl got out of bed and hid in the living room. I answered like a buck. Like a large man with a mean dog and a gun. I don’t have a gun. Or as a man who had a black belt in something. I don’t have a black belt in anything. Okay, as a man who wasn’t afraid to die. Come to my back door, then, bring it on.
I pulled the curtain.
Opened the door. Sure enough, there was a twisted-looking man-of-the-streets standing on our porch. He was sweating. He was out of breath. But he was not in tattered or weird clothes, and he was clean shaven, and he didn’t look like a mass-murderer or anything. So I asked him what he’d like.
And he let forth a mumbled something. Wish I could properly give it to you. It went something like this, all mixed-up and jumbled and odd, and he spoke swiftly: “My wife and I need to get to South San Francisco and we’re out of gas and our apartment is right next door we’re neighbors you see I live in apartment E just next door to you which makes us neighbors you understand you and me and my wife needs very desperately to get to her sisters over in South San Francisco heading to the airport and we tried to go to the bank but the card wouldn’t work at the cash machine and we’re in serious need to get there tonight and I’m sorry, I hate to do this, but I need to ask you for eight dollars to get to South San Francisco.” That’s what he said, sort of: I blinked. Blinked and stood in the doorway to my back porch.
He did not have a gun. He robbed me without a weapon.
What he had going for him was confusion on my part, surely, and a lack of ability to think swiftly and with wit in the heat of the moment ( I must think and ponder), and a very serious desire on my part to no longer be an asshole, to trust people for once. Just trust someone for once. And this guy, a neighbor. Trust someone. And there is a slight story to that.
Not trusting, in a city once, working in a retail environment, a drunk Indian (read Native American) stumbled into the shop with a mild and stoically silent cohort after I’d just heard a wrenching loud metal-twisting bang and scrape. The man was large. Three-hundred pounds. He was drunk you could smell it, and he slurred, and he stumbled. He looked me in the eye. He asked, “Hey, man, I’ve just ripped my transmission out of the fucking car on the curb! Christ . . . Can I use your phone to call a tow truck?” And I told him where he could find a pay phone. It wasn’t far, either. But I directed him elsewhere and wouldn’t allow a man in need use my phone for a measly phone call and I deserve to die for that. Ever since that time, truly, I’ve been walking with my tail between my legs, sad and sorry.
And now! Here was my chance to redeem myself! To stand up for and with all of mankind, to be caring and nice, to help someone sweating of forehead with a desperate and panicked plea, yes, it is time to help.
“Eight dollars?” was my question.
“Yup,” he replied.
“Wait here,” I said, and walked to my wallet, searching through my front pocket and fishing out a one dollar bill and some change and fishing through my brain searching for what properly to do. I ran into the girl, hiding in the living room, her eyes wild and wide, she ready to bolt out the front door if need be, the dog curious, sniffing, cocked head, ready to do what was necessary if need be, and I was trying in absolute desperation to do the right thing. And in a way I knew I was being had. Perhaps I didn’t care. What if he’s screwing me? one of the thoughts. What if you’re being, yet again, a supreme asshole, the other thought. This time I’m going with it, I concluded, this time I’m going to give it up and hope for the best. Besides, it’s only ten dollars. And he’s my neighbor, I’m sure of it.
I found a ten in my wallet. Maybe if you know this trick, or have employed it before, you’re a crackhead or something, you know to ask for eight and you’ll get ten. Invariably. From the dumb-assed white man. Wanna jack a dump-assed white man? I’ll show you how. No, no, you just bang on their door at some late but not-to-late hour, like nine-thirty, and then they won’t be able to think fast enough and they’ll just give it to you. If it don’t work, you just walk away. But if it work, you got ten dollars like that.
However, he’s a neighbor, right?
Jacked. Took. Is that it?
Walked back to the kitchen, the dog and the girl and the turned-down Bill Evans elsewhere, behind me, and I handed him the ten dollar bill and he said, “Thanks, whew, that was hard, that was close, you’ve really helped me, I’ll pay you back tomorrow, right here tomorrow night, I promise, Apartment E, that’s me, we’re neighbors, thank you so very kindly.” And then he was gone. I was frazzled and somewhat dazzled. Took. Taken. Jacked. Stiffed.
Without a weapon.
But he’s a neighbor, right? I feel raped. Robbed in our own home, he was standing right there on our back porch! Girl said she was scared. I was angry, feeling fisted. But he’s a neighbor, right, telling the truth. Nobody who lived right next door would knock on someone’s door they didn’t know at ten o’clock at night and ask for ten dollars, she said. Thoughts: You’re right, I said. Dog raised his front legs and put them in my lap. It’s alright, he seemed to be saying, we coulda took him, but hey, it could have been worse, it’s all right, we’re in one piece, don’t worry, I’ll watch over this place. Then he licked my hand twice. Our girl convinced me. He jacked us maybe he didn’t he jacked us maybe he’s telling the truth.
Couldn’t stand it one bit more. Stood and walked outside without the dog. Ready to rip teeth if necessary, big guy am I, boy, wow. All in my shirtsleeves, too, no coat, a chilly night, sandals, big guy, boy, wow, you should have seen me. I stalked. Nobody gonna mess with me. Where would this robber go? I went to the apartment building next door, the one in which he claimed that he lived. The apartments- ha, this is the laugh, boy, look at me- were not lettered, they were numbered. Twenty-seven, twenty-six, thirty-two, bright big numbers on every door. The robber doesn’t even need to worry about the dumbass in the next building: he won’t have paid particular attention to his surroundings to a degree that he would know whether the neighboring apartments were numbered or lettered or what, the poor bastard.
This evil prick was nowhere I could see. Where would the crack fiend go? Down to the liquor store, that’s sure. So I stalked down to the liquor store on Broadway. A notorious hangout. Covered in homeless and hurtado alcoholics. I took solace in the fact that I was wearing some sort of odd hat. The odd hat made me feel like I couldn’t be properly fucked with. “Nah, man, don’t fuck with that dude, he’s wearing an odd hat.” And I had five days of stubble. Yeah, that was it, stubble on the face a reasonable beard. And my shirt was untucked. There is is, man, I’m ready to throw-down, toss me some street-mess salad, find that prick who took me and jack him back.
I didn’t find nothin.
The gangs of frightening fellows drinking and stooping and packing and smoking began to make me nervous. The night became prickly and sharp and scary. I walked home ten bucks poorer. Took on my own back stoop. A loud knock on the door. Futuro ready for some cover and I should have listened to his growl and my initial instinctual reaction, and our girl’s intuition. The whole thing was bad, from the knock onward, and I should have told the dude to get the fuck of my step. But I lack balls or quick wit or a gun or street smarts and I’m simply tired of mistrusting the people who are in need, passing judgments, missing the mark.
The bag of dry food from a trip for the dog, indeed: Purina Dog Chow. There is a blond chick standing behind a black dude, an interracial thing- there are more products and advertisements with African-Americans in them or on them than anywhere else in the country- and the blond chick is really a long-haired dog and the photograph is twisted and disconcerting and if you don’t believe me go look at it sometime. There’s a lot of peace and love on the dog chow sack photograph, that’s for sure. Some grand marketing going on, a dignified approach to selling. A trip for the dog, indeed. “Nutritional Excellence Formula.” and “Help maintain a HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM.” Omega Fatty Acids. Net Wt 4.4 LP (2.0kg). High Quality Ingredients Formulated For High Digestibility. 100% Complete and Balanced Nutrition.
Reader, I apologize, but I must continue, it is everyone else’s fault:
“Incredible Dog Food. Incredible Dogs.”
“Our pledge to you, the pet owner. At Purina, our mission is to create pet foods that go beyond just complete and balance. Through rigorous scientific inquiry, we are advancing pet nutrition toward a higher standard, one that enhances the quality of pets’ lives. This product reflects that spirit. If for any reason you are not satisfied with this pet food, please contact us on our web site. . .”
“Purina: Redefining the Possible.”
The above quantity is trademarked.
The key ingredients are as follows: Ground yellow corn, which helps maintain a healthy immune system and promotes healthy skin and a healthy coat; poultry by-product meal, which is essential for health, promotes healthy muscles, and helps maintain strong bones and teeth; beef tallow, for energy and taste, and it promotes lustrous skin and coat; brewers rice and barley, which is a low-fat high-energy source; and fortified vitamins, most notably Vitamin A, which helps to maintain good vision.
You can purchase at your local supermarket the Purina Life System (also Trademarked), which has 100% CNR, or Canine Nutrient Requirements; you can get Purina Puppy Chow, Dog Chow, Dog Chow Senior 7+, Purina Hi Pro (for active dogs), and Purina Fit & Trim, which is specially formulated for weight management. You can go to www.dogchow.com and check out their website. “The Purina Pet Care Center is the largest facility of its kind in the world. For over 70 years, we have devoted an entire staff to advancing pet nutrition. The discoveries of our veterinarians and scientists have been published worldwide-- and are the foundation of Purina formulas.”
“Dogs need regular veterinary care. Simply put, their lives depend on it. If your dog hasn’t been to the veterinarian’s office in the past 12 months for recommended vaccinations and a check-up, please make an appointment today.”
Keep in a cool, dry place.
Now Futuro sleeps next to the one heater in the living room, his nose pressed against the green pillow, lying on his side, feet spread out and straightened. The girl sleeps next to him on the couch under the featherbed, she, too, on her side. The old boy sleeps one of his last nights here. Before being carted off in the large white thing in return to Fresno. The smart, golden yellow wet nosed kid is out of here soon. I’ll walk him tomorrow for sure and this time pick up after him enthusiastically. And we’ll run and play and bound up the hill in the cemetery and chase a tennis ball through the rough grass on the top of the hill and see how high we can jump, yes. The day will be a grand one, sunny probably, a few clouds, an ocean breeze that reminds him of where he was born, helps him to recall the best day at the beach in the world, with storm waves and a two ton seal with a large drooping nose, and chasing rocks like there was no tomorrow. He’s right there when he’s chasing rocks and he’s nowhere else, you can tell. Right there and nowhere else.
