July 25, 2009; The Beast

What? Were these teeth made for whistling? I think not.

I'm worried.

It's my rep. I have discussed this before. It's one thing to have lousy rep with the Mooks—I mean, who gives a fucking shit, right? But what I project out there—beyond the doors of The Fortress of Faggotry—is very important. How the neighbours look at you is how the dogs look at you is how the world looks at you. They don't care what you do behind closed doors, but there, in their world, every little move is important.

Where you shit, where you piss, what you eat, who you cozy up to and who you show hostility—it's all part of it. It all depends on how you play this game (and it is a game, like wearing clothes is a game for the hominids). You can be seen by one and sundry as the village idiot: the dog bounding about ingratiatingly, wagging its tail at any old fucking thing, and barking joyously at a whisper or a fart. You can be seen as the 'hood's pussy: whining and wimpering in terror when someone cracks their knuckles or belches, shaking when strangers come near, or peeing a little when another dog is within 100 yards. There are also the semi-steroidal alpha dogs who are always kept on a short leash because they'd eat your baby (or your fucking Yorkie) and use the bones for toothpicks.

Then there's my kind...or what I wanted to be my kind. Élite. You may come and kiss my paws but only if I'll allow it. You may call me cute, but also pay attention to the pearly-whites—they aren't there just for kibble. You may pet me in exchange for food. But you must always respect me because I may be little but I am the Ruler of All I Survey and if you don't like it, kiss my hairy arsehole. If you send those vibes out there, even the alphas will bow a little because they know that in a fight they might kill me, but they wouldn't walk away completely intact.

Well, the last few days, after weeks of work, I have been blowing it big time and I haven't endeared myself to the Mooks either. When I was kidnaped by them, I was told, quite clearly, "We will never hit you unless you get vicious." That was good because a dog my size getting smacked about loses all street cred. For this reason and for the sake of my rep on the street—and with great difficulty—I try to refrain from going after rollerbladers, skateboarders, and joggers because the Mooks added a swift smack to the leash-flyback if I bothered the aforementioned castes. They were right (and you'll won't see me say that often!)—no one on earth likes a squirrely dog.

Then...

I was out with Mook B for the evening walk a while back and we ran into Ginger and her owner talking with two ladies—daughter and mother, both old as fucking Methuselah. Ginger decided to be a real twat and ran around and around the three women and I just followed, tearing about. Problem? I was leashed and before you know it, I am roping the broads like bulls in a rodeo! One of the blue-hairs got rope burns and nearly tipped over. (Note: B never knows what to do in these situations while A and Ginger's owner are like ballet dancers when it comes to handling my long leash.) After they were all untangled, everyone, including Ginger and her owner, looked at me with those looks: that thing is not right in the head.

Oh-oh.

But it gets worse.

I was walking along with Mook A and the little old lady down the street—a pleasant but witch-faced, hunch-backed crone of a thing—opened her door as we passed. It caught me off guard and I went a little bloodthirsty. Well, the results were instant: the leash-flyback, the smack, the "Bad dog! Bad dog!" and the little old lady, whom I've met before, saying, "It might look like one, but that's no little lamb." Her voice said it all: I was nuts.

Then, the next day, with A again; a nice lady approached and had that look of affection and potential food offerings in her eyes, but when she leaned over there was this smell and, once again, I was caught off guard... Her: "Strange, he didn't look nasty." (Read: bananas, loopy, loco, psycho...any word in the thesaurus will do.)

Now in my defense, this last one is hard to explain. Dogs notice smells. We like ones humans hate and the reverse is also true. But our noses are far better and we notice smells no human can sense that set off all our alarms. Sometimes we can't even explain them. This was one of those times. Was she psycho herself? Was she dangerous? Had she drowned a puppy in her toilet? It was something and it screamed: RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

So there you have it. Worse, they were all women and women, like bitches, jabber and gossip—they have a secret network of information about everything (men, women, animals, spring fashion) and they can ruin your life in a New York minute. Unless I mount a campaign of suck-uppedness like the world has never seen since Chamberlain and Hitler, I will officially become the neighbourhood Head Case.

That must not happen.