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FRESH
YARN PRESENTS:
First
They Came for the Dogs, But I Was Not a Dog
By Albert Stern
PAGE
THREE
 The
canine demographic on West 107th Street was as starkly differentiated
as that of the human residents -- the gentrifiers' dogs seemed largely
to be spoiled, lovable nimrods of all sizes, while the locals kept
Pit Bulls, Rottweillers, Dobermans, and mongrels that were some
conglomeration of the three breeds. Bedecked in chains and leather
studded collars, their ears hacked down to nubs, these dogs served
as accoutrements in the young locals' tireless cultivation of their
personal menace. The hounds were working animals, occupying the
same function as a six-shooter on the hip of a Wild West gunslinger.
As the men got older, a woman's influence sometimes softened at
least the canine profile, usually via a cute lapdog to complement
hubby's Cujo. Case in point was my building super. He owned a behemoth
named Wolf, a massive Doberman with the miles-away stare of a soldier
who has seen too much, while his wife doted on Floffy, a white toy
poodle with a skin condition. In one of life's ready-made ironies,
Floffy was a vicious heel nipper, while Wolf was a soulful creature
who would commiserate with me every time I came down to do my laundry,
nuzzling his head into my lap while I succumbed to the irresistible
charms of the gentle giant and fretted over the safety of the future
generations.
In and of itself, the idea that one of these monsters might be crying
like a helpless puppy six floors below me beggared the imagination.
All dogs go to heaven, sure, but hearing one of these inbred thick-necked
behemoths genetically engineered to maim having its doggie heart
broken left me uncertain about how to feel. It was as if I'd just
found out something like, I don't know -- that Stalin was extremely
ticklish. But if my heart didn't quite go out to the poor creature,
neither did I think there was a point in cursing it at the top of
my lungs. Like my neighbors did on that hot summer night.
The din of howling dogs was joined by the chorus of outraged apartment
dwellers, their obscenities hurled scattershot at the dog downstairs,
the dog owners who couldn't keep their animals quiet, and the people
yelling for everyone to shut up. The malice of their invective was
unsurprising -- after years of passing by my neighbors on the street
and catching repetitious snippets of their conversations, I was
convinced that many of them had as little choice in expressing themselves
by saying "fuck" as their dogs had in saying "woof."
And so the cacophony built, dogs and neighbors screaming at the
street and at each other; throughout, I could hear the plaintive
"rooooooooooooooooooooooo!" of the dog downstairs.
Then the first bottle broke. It registered as sharply as a slap,
and shocked the human voices silent. But only for a second. The
shouting started again, but this time intermingled with sounds of
laughter. Then the second bottle broke. Then the third and the fourth.
And then bottles started to rain down from the open windows toward
the front entrance of my building. For over minute, I could hear
nothing but shattering glass and rageful human screams, the noise
drowning out the canine howling. At least two or three of these
screams were deep, guttural, and sustained -- opportunistic eruptions
of explosive rage.
When there were no more bottles to be thrown, laughter echoed on
West 107th Street, along with the sounds of dog owners admonishing
their pets to be quiet and get back to sleep. The dog downstairs
was silent.
Groggy from lack of sleep, I emerged from my building the next morning
and looked for bloodstains on the sidewalk. I found none, just shattered
bottles surrounding the huge turd just outside the vestibule. I
barely missed stepping in it. The shit was piled up high in a shapeless
heap rather than a tidy sausage shape, and stood like a stele marking
the dog's betrayal and terror.
As I returned with a cup of coffee about five minutes later, the
morning sun shone on the shards covering the sidewalk after the
night's barrage. The light at that angle made the glass sparkle,
transforming West 107th between Broadway and Amsterdam into the
embodiment of an immigrant like Mrs. Weissman's dream of America
the goldeneh medinah, a land where the streets are paved
with treasures. Another image was of a German streetscape on the
morning after Kristallnacht, only this time the rabble had
turned against a dog -- but I was not a dog and I said nothing.
The glittering path ended at the shit pile that, in the time I was
gone, had been parted in two by a footprint. It was a dead center
hit -- the foot must have gone heavy into the pile, and right up
to the ankle.
And I thought, good for you, doggie -- you made what you could out
of your Kitty Genovese moment. Good luck with the challenges ahead.
I certainly let you down, leaving you to the wild animals like that.
I looked up at the buildings lining my block. In the quiet morning
hours, the street was de Chirico empty. But inside were my neighbors,
without question all up to something.
continued...
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