The first time I set eyes on him, he was stomping up the footpath outside my office window, but on recollection, I’m certain that I’d sensed his presence even before he actually appeared.
A scowling slab of meat for a face and a vicious determination in his stride, he wore prison ink that covered the length of his heavily muscled arms and legs. He was a picture of rage, directed at nothing and no one in particular but at everyone and everything in general. Intimidation radiated from his body in waves, making a visceral impression, even through the glass.
Keeping up the animated pace in their hyperventilated walk-run was his mate, a wiry, undernourished version of the same, with a missing tooth or two thrown into the bargain. Together they looked as if they'd shared a cell at some point in their histories, and it was painfully apparent who had first choice of the bunks.
Somewhat counter intuitively, and I can’t say precisely why, but I came to the conclusion that the two of them were a couple. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that there was probably a good deal of very rough foreplay leading up to the inevitable forced entry that each in his respective role lived for. Stand over men, a love story.
We had just moved into the quiet, tree-lined neighborhood, and the vision of these grunting, power-walking Neanderthals in tracky dacks trodding the walkway couldn't have been more out of place with the surroundings. Some minutes later, they passed by a second time, and I realized that they were doing laps. It occurred to me that if they’d chosen this block, our block to use as their personal drome, then it was conceivable that they lived in the area as well. We might, in fact, be neighbors.
The idea was disturbing, and it took a good bit of the shine off of how happy I was to be calling this our new home. In the subsequent days I was haunted by visions of the butch Aussie Sopranos showing up to the block association meetings, eating all of the cold cuts, and forcefully cutting the queue at the dessert table. That kind of bullying at a communal pot-luck can be terrifying, and I began doing the calculus in my head of how to deal with this imagined new threat.
In the end, and maybe this was just a trick I played on myself to feel more at ease about the situation, I reckoned that despite their aggressive and menacing outward appearances, they were essentially harmless, muscled up, but probably all theater really.
The second sighting, and the first actual encounter was a few weeks later, just a street or two away from home as I walked the dog. At a distance, I spied them coming my way on a collision course, and with an animal of their own. Naively, I thought I'd take advantage of the situation and make the usual small talk with fellow dog owners, just to break the ice. You know, how old is yours, is he/she a purebred, do you live in the neighborhood, what do you think of the new zebra crossing at the children's park, et cetera.
I gathered immediately that these boys weren’t the neighborly kind, nor were they much for chit chat, and neither was their pooch as it turns out. The notion of owners and their dogs bearing a resemblance to one another may be a tired cliché, but it proves to be the case far too often to dismiss as mere coincidence.
While our Staffy cross Cattle Dog is a taller, leaner version of the ground chuck we all know as the English Staffordshire Bull Terrier, replete with the Australian working dog's pointy ears, square jaw, and an intelligence in the eyes gleaned from being only slightly removed from the wild Dingo, the boys were escorting the albino Brit version of the purebred Staffy that looked more like Tommy Cooper after a three day bender. An angry bleached pork roast with pegs would be a flattering description of the beast at the end of their rope, and you couldn't have picked an animal more likely to be accompanying this dynamic duo. The attitude from the three of them was as strong as the smell of cordite after a weapon has been fired, and while I did my best to carry through with my plan for a bit of polite conversation, the dogs had an agenda of their own.
Despite being restrained by their respective leads, the four leggers took up a mutual dislike and immediately proceeded to tear into one another with a vengeance, forcing both the thug and myself to pull them apart. I was fortunately saved by the fact that it was broad daylight on a busy street, but the hot glare and the aroma of steroids in the wind was enough to let me know that malice was a hair's breadth away, and I had better watch my step in future. With a few guttural noises that could almost be mistaken for human speech escaping his clenched teeth, and a threatening look back over his shoulder as the massive neck swiveled on it's base, the crim and his entourage were off again, with me feeling as if I'd dodged the proverbial bullet, for the moment at least.
Round three was a more casual affair, but one that foretold of enough peril to send me contemplating another real estate search just two months into our arrival at the house of our dreams.
One morning, a few weeks after the day of the dogs, I awoke early and with coffee in hand remembered that I'd neglected to retrieve the mail from the previous afternoon. I decided to venture out the front door quickly in my bathrobe and slippers, but the minute I poked my head out, ready to make a dash for the mailbox, there he was, just as he’d been at the first sighting, trudging up the footpath.
As he saw me, he slowed his march, almost passing in slow motion, and drew a forced and vicious smile complimented by a mad gleam in his eye, as if to say, "I know where you live." So much for morning pleasantries, with the net effect that I took to looking cautiously both ways before leaving the house by the front door. It’s not the desired feeling one wants about their home, their sanctuary; no mention of the psychological effect on my manhood.
Now it should be said that I'm no shrinking violet, nor am I a small, non-athletic, timid bookworm, frightened of my own shadow. I'm quite capable of handling myself physically, and can be a threat in my own right when the situation calls for it, thank you very much, but neither am I an ultimate cage fighter with a dark childhood of abuse, a non-existent pain threshold and a bitter grudge against the world. These are the subtle distinctions that I imagined to exist between myself and my malignant new neighbor. The damage to my fragile male ego notwithstanding, I had every intension from that point on of keeping my distance.
Our final encounter began innocently enough. It was several weeks later at that point, and again, I was dog walking, but this time just after dark. I’d decided to let our little prince off leash that night, as he had been so good of late at sticking close, coming when called, staying out of trouble in general, and he dearly loved going free range.
We’d had a good long tour of the streets in the village, which were pretty deserted at that time of the evening, and we were on the home stretch when suddenly, at the far end of the block, I spotted the gorilla and his roast headed our way. I must have frozen for a moment, because by the time I reached to secure my pup, he’d taken off in a headlong dash to meet his adversary. The fight was on for the animals, and even though both the menace and I arrived at the scene simultaneously, less than a few seconds into the skirmish, he chose to dive in feet first, kicking at my boy with an abandon.
Now there are few things in the world that inspire blind and ill-considered bravery more than the protection of loved ones, and the abuse of an animal, even in an attempt to break up a fight, probably makes it on to the list as a very close second. Against all rational thought, I reached with one hand to grab my dog’s collar, and with the other shoved the brute away from the melee. Being the clever beast that he is, my mutt broke free and headed up the street on the trot, fleeing the scene. My escape, however, was halted abruptly by a thudding body block that sent me sideways and the sight of a fist the size of a Christmas ham traveling rapidly in the direction of my face.
I can tell you from experience that fear is a very powerful motivator, and the fight or flight syndrome is well documented in describing the two options that present themselves instantly when danger strikes. What I discovered completely randomly on the streets of my otherwise quiet and peaceful neighborhood is that there are alternatives to the dichotomy of combat or humiliation.
My first and most urgent task was to remove my mug from the path of the flying ham, which I did with greater agility than I would have expected, given my complete lack of experience with street fighting. Even more unexpected was the comic relief that this goon unwittingly provided, miraculously transforming the otherwise frightening circumstances that I was finding myself up against into something more farcical, if no less threatening.
After missing with his first thrust, he retreated somewhat into a pose that bore no small resemblance to the Incredible Hulk, and with his fists raised in what appeared to me to be a boxing stance from the early age of pugilism as an art form, he uttered the immortal words, “Am gonna smosh yow foice in!”
Now I’d be lying if I said that this creature didn’t strike a fair amount of fear in me, mixed with the irony of suffering a potentially fatal, and most probably severe injury in a street fight, over a dog skirmish, in my pristine and otherwise sedate neighborhood, just a few meters from home. The truth is, however, that while rattled by the events that unfolded in a matter of minutes, and finding myself in a jeopardy from which there were no immediate signs of being able to retreat unscathed, either physically, nor certainly with my dignity intact, all I could muster up was an uncontrollable laughter.
As a tribute to the power of comedy, my outburst bore the gift of disarming the mongrel momentarily, and I’m not speaking about his dog. “You fink dis is funnay, do yas?”, he managed to blurt out along with a bit of flying spittle.
While I couldn’t completely erase the smile from my face, which I rightly perceived was further enflaming an already dangerous situation, I could offer up a bit of a surrender in the hope that it would cool his obvious irritation at the fact that I was taking him less seriously than he was accustomed to experiencing when his powers of intimidation were in full bloom. In a gesture reminiscent of Italian soldiers after the invasion of Sicily in WWII, I raised my hands, palms open, turned my body slightly to the side to avoid any further blow that may already have been coming my way and said with as much sincere conviction as I could muster while still uncontrollably amused by his grunt, “I’m not going to fight you.”
He hesitated, as if pondering how someone could back down and hold their ground at the same time, all the while showing amusement in the face of his formidable and violent threat. Like a Warner Brothers cartoon, the wheels were turning over in his brain and beginning to seize up with the contradictions, and as what one might loosely call the mental process was unfolding, he began to visibly and audibly snort.
In his obvious confusion and frustration, I decided to capture the moment and try a rational approach, although looking back, I can’t say what made me think that reasoning would have any effect. “This is a bit absurd really, and after all, we’re neighbors.”
I have no idea what the reminder of our living in the same community triggered in him, but I saw his face and his entire body language change instantly. He dropped his fists and and I reached out my hand. “Let’s put this behind us.”
He hesitated, then reluctantly shook my hand and turned to walk away with his last word on the subject, “Keep yow dog on 'is lead!”
Relief doesn’t begin to describe my emotional state at that moment, and while I was still a bit shaken when I arrived at our door to find my little troublemaker sitting obediently and even sheepishly on the step, I had a strange feeling that I’d just received a great lesson about human nature and preconceptions, especially those based upon appearances.
Later that evening, when I could more calmly reflect upon what had happened, it occurred to me that the man I had encountered in the street was in the end probably just reacting to what he perceived as a threat to his own precious pet, and that while all the trappings of his appearance that I’d observed over several weeks may well have pegged him for what he had been at some point in his life, for the life he had experienced and how he habitually reacted when challenged, he might have moved into the sedate and pristine neighborhood for the very same reasons that we had, perhaps even to try and become someone other than the man he had been.
Despite living only a few houses away, we never encountered one another again after that night, but I did see him from a distance a month or two afterward. He was walking with a woman who appeared to be quite pregnant and a small child. The three of them were holding hands, and the little boy had their white Staffy on his lead.
A short time later, as I was driving along our street on the way home, I spied him helping a couple of moving men load a truck that was parked in front of his terrace. There was a realtor’s sign out front announcing that the home had been sold, and I caught myself wondering what people in his new neighborhood would be imagining when they saw him stomping up the footpath, maybe even with his skinny mate, doing his morning exercise.
downandunder
