The Dogs of San Francisco
Up on Alamo Park I walk Diva. There is a spot on top of the hill where I can let her off the lead to throw an object for her to chase and race around and work up a lather while, in between, she attends to her bodily functions. This morning when I throw her chewed up tennis ball she dissolves in the rolling mist. Trees and shrubbery appear as pale imprints. Erased along their edges, they resemble plant life on the floor of the ocean from which, as I watch, now looms a fabulous sea creature. This is Tim, surrounded by twenty canines attached by tentacles to a rope around his waist. When he stops they stop.
I greet him: “I see business is barking as usual.”
“You got to get down and dirty first,” Tim says, reaches into the satchel across his shoulder for a plastic sack, pulls one out, and slips it over his right hand. He was majoring in psychiatry at the time of the economy bust. His practice never got started. People who need him most cannot now afford him. He is good with dogs though. Clients hand over the keys to their kingdoms to have their little beasts exercised, as I do when I am out of town. When we meet we discuss life in general and today, dogs in particular.
“A lot of people tell me they love their pets and would die without them but they are too damned busy to walk them.” he says.
“Or just bone idle.”
“In some cases, possibly—no probably is nearer the mark.”
“I wish I had your patience, Tim.”
“This is not work really, it is entertainment. When owners complain about their pets I tell them, ‘Get a robot. You don’t need to feed them. Plug it into the wall let it do its tricks. No pooping.’”
“That is so soulless.” I say.
“That’s my little joke with them. No man is an island. Humans need human friendship. If other humans let certain individuals down badly enough, they may destroy their confidence, sometimes completely. They may break down. When that happens a cat or a dog may be the only friend they have in the world.”
Then it happens again. It is as if Tim’s words have found a nerve and pulled its trigger. I feel myself going to pieces. I try to reel myself in.
“I n-n-need,” I begin, but for some reason of late, I have begun to stammer. I kick start again. “P-p-people n-n-need soul m-m-mates.”
Tim’s eyes pounce on mine.
“You OK, man?”
He may be the right man in the right place to talk to about this problem but not yet. I am not ready for that.
“Sure.” But I feel that emptiness that comes with something lost.
We watch a Dalmatian squat. When he finishes, Tim bends to scoop up what looks like a ring of German sausages, steaming on the morning air. He pulls the sack inside out, drops it into his pouch and picks out a fresh piece of plastic.
“You were saying,” I say, still pulling myself together, “D-dogs help the human condition?”
“Don’t knock it. Dogs don’t talk back and they sure as hell don’t chase wallets or skirts. Some of my clients prefer dogs to people. A dog makes them feel good. Dogs hand over power over dominion to their owners. Dogs may fill the void when there is no one else. They are a warning device. They let you know when strangers are around, even if they only wag their tails at burglars, or bite the mail carrier.”
“But—“
“Hold on. Let me finish,” he says, his eyes widening in a comical way. “Do you known how many people depend on their dogs to dispose of leftover food? Sometimes those doggy bags really are for their pets. So here I am double-jobbing, street cleaner and dog walker, picking up the scraps they jettison. I mean, why shouldn’t I charge them double, man?”
I smile. For his services, Tim charges top dollar.
“Here’s another from my cracker barrel—any idea how many people believe their dog will bark to save them next time the San Andreas cracks open?”
A Kerry Blue goes down on her haunches.
“Uh-oh.”
He stoops to scoop up another dump.
“Better keep moving,” he says, shoots a wry grin and moves on with his circus.
Diva now has a friend, a tired looking Labrador with rheumy eyes and white muzzle. He springs to life when Diva nips his ear, nothing vicious, just having fun and then his owner drifts my way, as might a ghost from a graveyard, a woman in her thirties with a certain elegance, in a tan winter coat belted round the middle, and fleece-topped boots.
“Hello—is that your dog?”
I nod, smile.
“I think he has paint on his coat,” she says of Diva. It is true. Diva’s fur looks like a decorator used it to clean his brush.
“She,” I say, “is a bitch. Australian sheep dog I p-picked out at the p-pound. Or, maybe she chose me. Anyway, each of us is grateful for the other.”
“They really do show their appreciation when rescued from the pound.”
“Maybe they know just how close they came to oblivion.”
The Labrador tires, flops down beside his mistress. Diva wanders off and returns to deliver the ball at my feet, backs off and yelps. I pick it up and hurl it, and ball and Diva vanish.
“This old fellow is from a pound in Tucson,” the woman says. “Seven years ago December. The previous owner left him in the desert and drove away. I got him after—” she throws her eyes my way, confiding, “—after I broke up with my husband.”
Diva lays the ball at my feet and yelps, backs off, sits on her haunches, tongue lolling. This time I give the ball a kick, sending it into the shrubbery.
“I was in Tu-Tu-Tucson for s-s-six weeks, not too long ago,” there I go again. “Are you f-f-from there?”
“Not at all.”
There is a pause, brief enough for her to take in more information about me, glancing at my shoes then my eyes, before turning away saying, “I am from right here in the city of Saint Francis. I moved back with my parents.
I take a deep breath.
“I was in Tucson for a movie,” I volunteer.
“Are you an actor?”
“For part of a shoot—I wrote the script and directed.”
“A western?”
“It was about Billy the Kid.”
“Surely there have been too many movies on that theme.”
“Far too many and most of them mythical. Cinema tends to leave out the facts while somehow telling the truth.”
“And your movie succeeds where others fail?”
I recognise the hint of mockery in her voice and feel a rush of blood to my face.
“It was a documentary. Its aim was to expose the mythology about Billy,” I say evenly and without impediment, as one might pitch an idea across a table to a producer, full of self-belief. “The real story of Billy the Kid is one of emigration and hard times. Billie’s mother was from Ireland, probably pregnant when she sailed here on the migrant boat. She gave birth in New York, took in laundry for a living. She married and the family moved south to New Mexico where Billy’s troubles began and ended. The sheriff who became Marshall, Patrick Garrett, was a migrant Irish farmer—but you don’t really want to hear this stuff. You want go home and have breakfast, right?”
“No, please, I’m intrigued,” she says. “Do go on.”
“Another major character in the plot was Lewis Wallace, ex-soldier and at that time, governor of the New Mexico Territory, about to pardon Billy, but under provocation the kid shot his guards. Garrett ruthlessly tracked him down and killed him, which part Hollywood got right. Wallace was also a writer. At the time the Kid died, he was putting the finishing touches to his best-seller, Ben Hur.”
“I know something of Wallace and Billy the Kid,” the woman says in a matter of fact way. “You must know that there are at least forty-five movies in existence.”
“Then I am p-preaching to the converted,” I say, and the wind drops in my sails.
“I teach media studies,” she says. “Movies are my subject.”
Now I am the one doing quick takes—noting the commanding way she stands, legs slightly apart as if ready to defend her position, hands not so deep in her pockets, the confident angle of her head, the chic cut of her straight blond hair. She looks, well, attractive and now that I think of it, contrary.
“I d-don’t think I have s-seen you here before,” I say.
“Perhaps not,” she says and the shutters roll down, as if her privacy has been transgressed. I take a deep breath, holding in air for a slow count to ten, then expel it slowly. But nothing happens. I feel twitchy.
“Well, nice talking to you,” I say, and calling Diva to heel I hook the lead to her collar.
“Her name is Diva?”
“Yes.”
“How lovely—my dog is Fleet,” she says, now I note certain warmth in her voice, a sea change, or perhaps a trace of desperation.
“Fleet—as in ‘track’ or ‘harbour’?” I say
She chuckles.
“—As in speed.”
I project a disengaging smile and move towards the downward path knowing that with each step the fog will swallow me for, as yet, I am ill-disposed to confide in perfect strangers that the woman in my life is missing, that she packed and left without a word, sometime in those weeks in Tucson and that if I had not gone there, searching for the lost soul of William Bonnie, my life might be as it was before.
At least, I have the ever faithful Diva to help fill this awful void but, for now, that is simply not enough.
I greet him: “I see business is barking as usual.”
“You got to get down and dirty first,” Tim says, reaches into the satchel across his shoulder for a plastic sack, pulls one out, and slips it over his right hand. He was majoring in psychiatry at the time of the economy bust. His practice never got started. People who need him most cannot now afford him. He is good with dogs though. Clients hand over the keys to their kingdoms to have their little beasts exercised, as I do when I am out of town. When we meet we discuss life in general and today, dogs in particular.
“A lot of people tell me they love their pets and would die without them but they are too damned busy to walk them.” he says.
“Or just bone idle.”
“In some cases, possibly—no probably is nearer the mark.”
“I wish I had your patience, Tim.”
“This is not work really, it is entertainment. When owners complain about their pets I tell them, ‘Get a robot. You don’t need to feed them. Plug it into the wall let it do its tricks. No pooping.’”
“That is so soulless.” I say.
“That’s my little joke with them. No man is an island. Humans need human friendship. If other humans let certain individuals down badly enough, they may destroy their confidence, sometimes completely. They may break down. When that happens a cat or a dog may be the only friend they have in the world.”
Then it happens again. It is as if Tim’s words have found a nerve and pulled its trigger. I feel myself going to pieces. I try to reel myself in.
“I n-n-need,” I begin, but for some reason of late, I have begun to stammer. I kick start again. “P-p-people n-n-need soul m-m-mates.”
Tim’s eyes pounce on mine.
“You OK, man?”
He may be the right man in the right place to talk to about this problem but not yet. I am not ready for that.
“Sure.” But I feel that emptiness that comes with something lost.
We watch a Dalmatian squat. When he finishes, Tim bends to scoop up what looks like a ring of German sausages, steaming on the morning air. He pulls the sack inside out, drops it into his pouch and picks out a fresh piece of plastic.
“You were saying,” I say, still pulling myself together, “D-dogs help the human condition?”
“Don’t knock it. Dogs don’t talk back and they sure as hell don’t chase wallets or skirts. Some of my clients prefer dogs to people. A dog makes them feel good. Dogs hand over power over dominion to their owners. Dogs may fill the void when there is no one else. They are a warning device. They let you know when strangers are around, even if they only wag their tails at burglars, or bite the mail carrier.”
“But—“
“Hold on. Let me finish,” he says, his eyes widening in a comical way. “Do you known how many people depend on their dogs to dispose of leftover food? Sometimes those doggy bags really are for their pets. So here I am double-jobbing, street cleaner and dog walker, picking up the scraps they jettison. I mean, why shouldn’t I charge them double, man?”
I smile. For his services, Tim charges top dollar.
“Here’s another from my cracker barrel—any idea how many people believe their dog will bark to save them next time the San Andreas cracks open?”
A Kerry Blue goes down on her haunches.
“Uh-oh.”
He stoops to scoop up another dump.
“Better keep moving,” he says, shoots a wry grin and moves on with his circus.
Diva now has a friend, a tired looking Labrador with rheumy eyes and white muzzle. He springs to life when Diva nips his ear, nothing vicious, just having fun and then his owner drifts my way, as might a ghost from a graveyard, a woman in her thirties with a certain elegance, in a tan winter coat belted round the middle, and fleece-topped boots.
“Hello—is that your dog?”
I nod, smile.
“I think he has paint on his coat,” she says of Diva. It is true. Diva’s fur looks like a decorator used it to clean his brush.
“She,” I say, “is a bitch. Australian sheep dog I p-picked out at the p-pound. Or, maybe she chose me. Anyway, each of us is grateful for the other.”
“They really do show their appreciation when rescued from the pound.”
“Maybe they know just how close they came to oblivion.”
The Labrador tires, flops down beside his mistress. Diva wanders off and returns to deliver the ball at my feet, backs off and yelps. I pick it up and hurl it, and ball and Diva vanish.
“This old fellow is from a pound in Tucson,” the woman says. “Seven years ago December. The previous owner left him in the desert and drove away. I got him after—” she throws her eyes my way, confiding, “—after I broke up with my husband.”
Diva lays the ball at my feet and yelps, backs off, sits on her haunches, tongue lolling. This time I give the ball a kick, sending it into the shrubbery.
“I was in Tu-Tu-Tucson for s-s-six weeks, not too long ago,” there I go again. “Are you f-f-from there?”
“Not at all.”
There is a pause, brief enough for her to take in more information about me, glancing at my shoes then my eyes, before turning away saying, “I am from right here in the city of Saint Francis. I moved back with my parents.
I take a deep breath.
“I was in Tucson for a movie,” I volunteer.
“Are you an actor?”
“For part of a shoot—I wrote the script and directed.”
“A western?”
“It was about Billy the Kid.”
“Surely there have been too many movies on that theme.”
“Far too many and most of them mythical. Cinema tends to leave out the facts while somehow telling the truth.”
“And your movie succeeds where others fail?”
I recognise the hint of mockery in her voice and feel a rush of blood to my face.
“It was a documentary. Its aim was to expose the mythology about Billy,” I say evenly and without impediment, as one might pitch an idea across a table to a producer, full of self-belief. “The real story of Billy the Kid is one of emigration and hard times. Billie’s mother was from Ireland, probably pregnant when she sailed here on the migrant boat. She gave birth in New York, took in laundry for a living. She married and the family moved south to New Mexico where Billy’s troubles began and ended. The sheriff who became Marshall, Patrick Garrett, was a migrant Irish farmer—but you don’t really want to hear this stuff. You want go home and have breakfast, right?”
“No, please, I’m intrigued,” she says. “Do go on.”
“Another major character in the plot was Lewis Wallace, ex-soldier and at that time, governor of the New Mexico Territory, about to pardon Billy, but under provocation the kid shot his guards. Garrett ruthlessly tracked him down and killed him, which part Hollywood got right. Wallace was also a writer. At the time the Kid died, he was putting the finishing touches to his best-seller, Ben Hur.”
“I know something of Wallace and Billy the Kid,” the woman says in a matter of fact way. “You must know that there are at least forty-five movies in existence.”
“Then I am p-preaching to the converted,” I say, and the wind drops in my sails.
“I teach media studies,” she says. “Movies are my subject.”
Now I am the one doing quick takes—noting the commanding way she stands, legs slightly apart as if ready to defend her position, hands not so deep in her pockets, the confident angle of her head, the chic cut of her straight blond hair. She looks, well, attractive and now that I think of it, contrary.
“I d-don’t think I have s-seen you here before,” I say.
“Perhaps not,” she says and the shutters roll down, as if her privacy has been transgressed. I take a deep breath, holding in air for a slow count to ten, then expel it slowly. But nothing happens. I feel twitchy.
“Well, nice talking to you,” I say, and calling Diva to heel I hook the lead to her collar.
“Her name is Diva?”
“Yes.”
“How lovely—my dog is Fleet,” she says, now I note certain warmth in her voice, a sea change, or perhaps a trace of desperation.
“Fleet—as in ‘track’ or ‘harbour’?” I say
She chuckles.
“—As in speed.”
I project a disengaging smile and move towards the downward path knowing that with each step the fog will swallow me for, as yet, I am ill-disposed to confide in perfect strangers that the woman in my life is missing, that she packed and left without a word, sometime in those weeks in Tucson and that if I had not gone there, searching for the lost soul of William Bonnie, my life might be as it was before.
At least, I have the ever faithful Diva to help fill this awful void but, for now, that is simply not enough.
© Peter McNiff 2010
Peter McNiff, current affairs producer based in Ireland, independent documentary film maker and web designer; short fiction broadcast by RTE and BBC; included in short story anthologies published by Heinemann (London) and Phoenix (London). Has a Jacobs Award for television work; a Hennessy/Irish Press/New Irish Writing award; Cultural Person of the Year (2004) in his home town Greystones, Co. Wicklow.
http://www.petermcniff.comhttp://www.wicklowgold.com
http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/PeterMcNiff
