The Mercy Blog 2: Mean Man and Me

I noticed without much fanfare or to-do, this morning, that our neighbor had a rental truck slap up against his front door. Coming down the road, from class, I saw the bed, the table, and various other accoutrement loaded inside.

I took this to mean he was moving.

I was…I must say…ok with that.

He wasn’t the easiest man to like. 

An attempt had been made, earlier in the year, to befriend him, mainly because he had the most adorable roommate: a Bassest hound.  And one afternoon, I was in the backyard with Max, the dog I live with. He’s a large white German Shepherd, and at the start of things, not the easiest dog to get along with…for other animals. Which I’ve found odd, since I also live with a cat. A cat that Max adores and tries to kiss good night, nearly every night, though Sugar, the cat, is less than eager to indulge him.

But, for some reason, other animals don’t seem to please Max. 

I was outside with him, on that particular afternoon, when said man and Basset hound were out walking. They managed the two houses down from their apartment to my backyard (and believe me, that was no easy task for either of them…they were good eaters, it seemed), and as they rounded the corner, Max began to bristle.

And, then, bark.

I smiled over the noise, and tried to show him that Max was just anxious, it was a nervous breed, and he said he understood, his sister had one and that they were good dogs, just jumpy and hard to warm up to. 

All in all, it was a polite conversation, if loud.

The following evening I decided Max should perhaps go in the front yard. There were chairs on the small front porch and I could at least sit with my mint julep and watch Max tear through the god-awful buttercups that literally crowded the front yard perimeter fence. It’s not like they were Easter lilies; no, they were smelly, waxy buttercups, also known as the state flower of trailer parks.  Have at them, I thought.

We have a leash law in this town, trying desperately to branch out far enough from City Hall to call itself a city.  And as we live in the town limits, we must obey this law.  With Max, it’s hardly a question. I wouldn’t dream of going to the mailbox without putting him on a leash and tying the other end around my waist with an extension cord looped through that and strung to the porch post, though I’ve lost the extension cord. (I have never taken Max with me to the mailbox for this very reason). 

And when we do stray, because we must, beyond the yard, he’s kept not only on a leash but a choke collar, just in case a semi, or muffler-free truck should decided to drag race down the thin strip of street we live on. Noises bother him; his training all but gone…we have managed to tether the last few remnants to his consciousness. He sits when told, he lies down when told, he’s not a bad dog, by any means…he’s just loud and obnoxious, at times, much like a teenager.

But one thing, above all else, that holds the most water with Max: he only reacts; he never instigates.

And lo to the dog who does.

I’d just settled into the rocker on the front porch when the unthinkable happened.  The Basset hound appeared from nowhere, owner- and leash-free And at first, Max acknowledged this with his typical, territorial bark.  So, at first, it wasn’t a big deal.

But, then, the Basset hound responded.

Now I have no idea what was spoken in dog language, but it irritated the crap out of Max, and he began to make sounds that I feel, more or less, cleared up any doubt that he had German in him. I like to think that Max is secretly very rules-based, and was yelling at the Basset hound that he ought to have a leash on, that he was breaking laws, that even adorable, cuddly Basset hounds had been known to go the way of the needle, even in this town, and that when the Basset hound strolled boldly into the middle of the street, Max took that as a sign of deliberate affrontery.

And right in front of my face, so fast I thought I was at the carnival on the Tilt-a-Whirl, Max climbed/jumped, sort of a climped if you will, clear over the front yard perimeter fence and took the Basset hound down, he flipped the dog over with his big paw, onto its back, and the sweet Basset hound gave up and peed everywhere.

Then, the man who owned the Basset hound was suddenly very interested in the whereabouts of his dog, who, I should add, was not hurt, just scared. He began to yell at me how awful Max was, that he was a killer dog, a beast, and how could I have such an animal, and other such nonsense.

For one of the first times in my life, I yelled back, angrily. I reminded him of the previous day when I told him, and he’d agreed, that this was a nervous breed, not to mention the fact that we’d only just moved to a new location, yard, and house, with no familiar smells, no favorite bones hidden under perfect trees, and so on…and besides, where the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was his dog’s leash.

That poor, pitiful Basset hound.  He just needed a friend. And a leash.

He was absolutely this adorable.

That man grabbed his dog, took him inside his apartment and never spoke to me again. As a matter of absolute fact, he wouldn’t even walk his dog by our house anymore, taking special care to cross the street over to the back end of the Justice Court building instead. 

That’s right, the Justice Court.  We live across the street from the blame Justice Court. 

I felt so sorry for that Basset hound, but greater still, I felt sorry for that man.

Here I’ve been on and on about mercy and forgiving, and I was so angry with him…and now, he’s leaving, moving, and I’ve seen him a hundred times a week, and I just go on my way, as if I don’t see him.

I was ok with that, too, until this afternoon.  I took Max outside, in the backyard, and our other neighbor, this crippled, scoliotic old man I’ve taken to calling Frank, to myself, was in his backyard with a rusty lawnmower, apparently broken, and a younger man I’ve never seen before had come by to help him fix it.

It was such a touching moment. What little it takes to offer some assistance, a kind word, a smile, to be a good neighbor.

That’s what I should have done, but since Frank seemed covered, I should have just, gotten up right then and walked two houses down to Mean Man’s apartment.

And with every last ounce of sincerity, offered to help him pack. Unfortunately, the rental truck had left, was leaving, actually, while I sat there and watched Younger Man fix Frank’s lawnmower.  I just couldn’t get my feet to keep up with my head.

Oh well, maybe I’ll just get into another fight with the new neighbor and give him or her a little extra mercy afterwards… 

…if they have a cute dog, that is…or, at the least, a very short, leash.

I called her Margaret Alice and her awkward daughter Michelle.

Sometimes, I dog sit.  It’s just for a precious handful of close friends, as I’ve never been one to necessarily want the responsibility of caring for living things.  Especially those that drool (which includes not only dogs, but also babies, and some elderly people).

 

I love better at an arm’s length. 

 

This morning, though, I was tending to K.P.’s dogs, she was away on business, and it’s really a very simple set-up. I’ve done it several times before. First, you separate Buddy from Sophie because Sophie, every time she is fed pretends that it is the first she has ever been fed and will eat absolutely anything at the end of her nose.  And Buddy, well, he never puts up much of a fight, so…it’s best to feed them separately. 

 

Which is what I was doing.

 

I’d unleashed him and led him to his food bowl, and slowly, he began to eat, a nibble first, he requires a lot of encouragement having grown used to barely seeing his food before Sophie gets to it, and then, after gently goading, he dives full face into the bowl. I was standing outside the fence, leaning on it, cheering him to eat faster.  I was already running late. 

 

Now, K.P.’s fence meets three other fences in the far north corner of the backyard, and as you might have guessed, this is a neighborhood “for the dogs.”  I have yet to discover one house that does not have a dog, or two, or three, or a gutter-full of wandering cats. (I’m just as confused as you are).  

 

I’m inclined to feel grateful for this neighborhood as the overwhelming majority of dogs seem ragamuffin and from mutt descent. They appear to be dogs that had been rescued, which is by all means, a positive.  There are a few pure breds, and granted, I’m sure they’re loved equally.  Sophie, for instance, is a pure bred beagle.  The dog in the immediate backyard behind K.P’s is a whining Weimereiner. 

 

And he figures greatly into this story.

 

While I was standing outside the fence, I noticed some movement off to my right. A young girl, of let’s say 12 or 13, a very healthy 12 or 13, I should add, was slowly lifting the latch to the gate of what I was assuming was her own yard. I tried to think nothing of it, but she was wearing a faded and torn Whitesnake t-shirt, which I’m not sure she had the right to wear begin but a mere child, and fuzzy pink-ish slippers, which only a mere child could and would wear, so I had no choice but to stare. She stuck out, as it were.  

 

 

She then began to bend halfway at the waist and then further over, until she was on her hands and knees.  She crawled beneath the three windows at the back of the house, avoiding the small muddy area just a little in front of the nandina bushes, until she’d reached the screen door of the back porch.  At this, she jumped up and frightened an older woman who, unknown to me, had been sitting on the back porch with the newspaper and what appeared to be coffee. I looked up, and there she was, staring at me, while I was staring at what I assumed was her awkward daughter. 

 

The older woman was only slightly startled, “Quit sneaking around and doing that shit to me.”

 

To which the pudgy adolescent replied, “Well, me and the Weinerainer are thirsty.” (It was a silly mispronunciation; capital “W” emphasis mine).

 

Immediately, I began to create a history, a backstory, for this strange pair:  a daughter on the verge of schizoid behavior, spending hours every morning trying desperately to bond with her “Weinerainer” who led a life meant only to eat, drink, poop, and sleep. It was her only friend; she spent every morning crawling around in the yard, because she was obviously homeschooled, sniffing out strange and unique smells with him: the track of a Whitetail, the musk of a Calico, the fecund guano of a random fruit bat.  

 

 

And I’m sure she recorded these events in her diary.  Diaries, rather.  She reeked of someone who kept more than one.

 

Diaries are the Facebook of the homeschooled. Her mother was a bitter chain smoker, whose husband had phoned it in for the last 8-10 years of their difficult marriage, on a rotary.  Sex had stopped after the daughter showed signs of communicative disabilities. A second child, a rubbery boy of 5, had been allowed as a means of salvaging the decaying love they thought they still held for each other.  It didn’t work.  The husband left, taking the male heir, and eventually hooked up with a Chevron attendant, you know the one from that Chevron station that’s always right on the edge of town, having been shouldered out of the city limits by Wal-Mart, and now all the mother had left was her coffee, cigarettes, a modified Fleshjack, and the paper. Her name, undoubtedly, was Margaret Alice.  The embarrassment of birth, Michelle. 

 

The girl, somewhat deflated by her continued, and ill, attempts to frighten her mother, quickly surrendered and asked the mother to unlock the screen door.  She got up, lifted the latch, and the girl disappeared behind the wire mesh. I’m sure she had oatmeal to stick her fingers into, or a bottle of syrup to start kissing.  I wondered what her mother would teach her this day, and how much, if any, I might factor into the lesson:  don’t take candy from strange men who lean on borrowed fences and stare at us; never look a dogsitter in the mouth – I’m sure there’s a parable in there somewhere.

 

I only hoped she would pay attention to her mother, while in class, and if at all possible, give her mother something to live for.  I enjoyed a private giggle, at that. I can be so mean to those I don’t know. 

 

Of course, coffee drinkers are a hard people to read. 

 

I noted as I was getting Sophie from the house to put her in the backyard, that there was a large Bradford pear tree in Margaret Alice’s backyard.  

 

Being from  Mississippi, I knew what that meant. 

 

And yet, they hadn’t struck me as Southern Baptist.