over the hump

there is an old lady who lives in my building. she has two dogs – one, the black one, is a Labrador and the other, newer one, is a Pit Bull. i usually see her mornings, when i’m coming home from work, and she is taking the dogs out for a walk.

mostly, those two animals run her roughshod over the parking lot and strips of grass that surround the building. i get a malicious kind of joy watching her follow the dogs, anticipating a shit with a few sheets of newspaper. when one of them humps over, she quickly splays the paper down on the ground under the dog’s ass. one time, she got all tangled up in leashes when one dog was tryin’ to cop a squat and the other crossed over to sniff its ass.

i’m basically nice to the old broad because – let’s be honest – she could have me arrested for any number of felonies that occur in and around my place on a regular basis.

and therein lies my problem.

Sunday morning, i was coming home from work and i’m extra pissed because of the jump to Daylight Savings Time. she’s out and about with her two animals, only this time, she’s in between me and the stairwell doorway. i’m not feeling much like a chit-chat, but for fuck’s sake, i can at least try and be cordial.

not long after she begins, the Pit starts bumping my hand with its nose. i tried to pet it, but it’s half-biting at my hand and slobbering all over the place. as soon as i stopped, it reared up and put its front paws on my arm, starts barking in my face. the old lady tried as best she could to get the dog down and apologized all the while for getting my suit muddy. i was about to tell her it wasn’t a big deal, when i was caught mid-sentence by a whack to my balls. the Pit had buried its nose in my crotch.

it was an awkward situation to say the least. i pushed the dog away as best i could, but it growled at me and bared its teeth. the old lady had become distracted with the Lab, who was painfully trying to shit on the asphalt in the parking lot. and to be honest with you, i was too. not shitting in the parking lot, you twisted fuckers, i mean watching the dog do its business. that shit is funny. you’ve seen it before, when a dog’s taking a crap, it looks out of the corners of its eyes like its all scared or something. anyway…while i’m laughing up my sleeve at the dog, the other one – the Pit – grabs hold of my left leg and starts going to town.

“whoa. Whoa!!! a little help here,” i said.

the old lady begins laughing. “looks like you two are getting along just fine.”

i tried to shake my leg and shake the dog loose to no avail. it stopped moving only long enough to look me in the eyes and growl. and when i reached down to push it off, it snapped viciously at my hand, never breaking its rhythm.

“when he gets like this, he’s like a wrecking machine and twice as dangerous. it’s best just to let him finish off.”

Finish Off? what kind of sick and twisted place have i decided to call home? i live in the company of fiends. monsters in old ladies’ clothes. wild animals. right-wing pigeons. chronic cough syrup abusers. human smugglers. mongers. mouth breathers. witchdoctors. identity thieves. shylocks. forgery artists. lottery addicts. mailbox vandals. aging hookers. gun runners. fashion victims. acid casualties. young republicans. bad tippers. poachers. sexual deviants. litterbugs. art school dropouts. poor sports. lawyers. video bootleggers. scofflaws. new wave crack baby criminals. dimestore hoods. hooligans, thugs, gangsters, muggers, ruffians, brutes, and heavies.

the last thing you’d want to do is let these people know that you’ll roll over, cuz once you do, they’ll come to expect it. and their dogs ain't no different.