Man Yells At Dog
We have a snow day here in Philadelphia, so I’m home from work, as I no doubt will be by Wednesday as well if the prediction of Blizzard: the Return is accurate. By any standard, two feet and change in a single storm is a pile, and with an extra foot or more on the way, this will be the snowiest Philadelphia winter on record.
I had to take a ride out to the Home Depot this morning: I haven’t written about it, but Christina and I finally tiled the bathroom floor in a classic large-white-octagon-small-black-diamond pattern, a project we undertook in December. We’re in the middle of phase two: the tub surround, which when complete will be white subway tile with black trim. Once that’s done, we move onto the perimeter.
Anyway, I was pulling up to my parking space (reserved, Philly-style, with a garbage can preventing someone else from stealing my territory) when I saw a large man in a bright orange jacket having a loud argument with Li’l Bits, my neighbor’s pit bull. Li’l Bits is a barker, especially with strangers, and the man, who was also really drunk at noon, was having none of it. “You shuddup,” he yelled/slurred at the dog. “You shuddup! You wanna fuck with me? You wanna fuck with ME?!? Shut your fuckin’ mouth!” All of this did nothing but get Li’l Bits, who is just as harmless and as sweet a pup as can be, riled up, and she just barked louder than before and jumped at the gate.
By any standard, this was pretty awful behavior, but the context made the man’s belligerence even more worrisome: late last summer, someone walked up to my neighbor’s house and shot Li’l Bits’ older brother, Buddy. Just shot the poor dog in cold blood, three shots to the chest and walked away. To this day, I don’t think anyone knows who did it. So as I backed the car into the space, I tried to figure out who to defuse the situation, because I didn’t know if this was going to be a repeat of what happened 6 months ago. For all i knew, this could be Buddy’s murder in the flesh, but what did that matter considering the dude was three times my size, drunk, and enraged.
“Shuddup, you fuckin dog, shut up!” The guy would not let it rest. He was in an argument with a dog and losing. Badly. “Shut up! Shut– I’M THE BIG NIGGER ON THIS BLOCK, you hear me? Now shut UP!!”
I stepped out of the car with my groceries and yelled, good-neighbor-style, to the dog, “Li’l Bits, you stop barking at that man! You be a good girl!”
It didn’t shut the dog up, but it was like ice water up the drunk’s rear end. “I love you,” he shouted at Li’l Bits, unconvincingly. “I, uh, I looooooove you…”
As I slipped around the big guy, he muttered, “I didn’t mean no disrespect.”
“Hey man, it’s not my dog. But she’s a good girl, isn’t she,” I added in Li’l Bits direction as I walked toward my porch.
The man also kept walked down the sidewalk. “I didn’t mean nothing,” he said again, “I’m just having a walk. I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” I replied, as I stepped into my house and pulled the door shut behind me.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Or was it dog yells at man? I’d love to know what the pup was saying.