Dog Days of Always
So I just got into work, slightly waylaid by last night’s celebration by a tremendous hangover, as anyone who’s ever had more than three drinks with me can tell you is bound to happen. Anyway: When you’re walking around in 90 degree heat and you’re just leaving your place at 2PM, the world’s already started moving, and you’re just stepping into it, and it feels something like walking onto a basketball court just as the third period started, and you haven’t even stretched, and oh, there goes the ball. Or at least that’s how it is for me. I’m kind of an invalid, and it’ll take me two stops just to get my headphones on, and another one to pick a song, and I’ll just stare at things, not really because I’m looking, but because it’s something to focus on, and I’m not even processing it. Yeah: Like the rest of the known universe, given the opportunity, I will let a hangover render me fairly useless.
I get out at the 8th Street NRW to grab a bite before I head into work, I go into the pizza place on the corner, get money out of the ATM, and walk out. I’m about to cross Broadway and I see a guy in an FDNY shirt bending over, using a spritz bottle to spray down a dog laying on some blankets, next to a change cup with a few dollars in it, and the dog is resting his head on a milk crate turned upside down, under the awning of the shops with just enough shade to protect the dog and the blankets from the sun. The guy stands up after spraying the dog a few times, looks around, shrugs, puts the water bottle down, and goes inside. I realize I’ve been standing there watching this entire thing happen, because I see a hot, sad dog, and my heart sinks into my stomach, even more so when someone is taking the time to cool it down with some water and it doesn’t appear to be theirs. My natural, dumb reaction is to take a picture of this and post it here, because I see an act of general kindness, and it’s genuinely touching, and I don’t know how else to handle that moment but to try and share it, but my camera phone isn’t working. The dog is now on the blanket by itself, though, because the FDNY guy is in the store, and the change cup is just sitting there, and the way I put it together in my head is: maybe the guy whose dog it is got picked up by cops, or something, and this dog is all alone, and what’s going to happen, is anyone else going to stop by? Should I now go and spray this dog?
The guy in the FDNY shirt walks out of the drug store back to the dog, turns around, and looks at me: “You tryin’ to take a picture of my dog? What is this, man? We’re hot and hungry.” I fumble my phone back in my pocket and explain that I didn’t know it was his dog and was worried, but “uh, I’m glad it is, it looks like a nice dog.” It did. The guy asked me for some change and I fumble out a single and put it in his cup. While I’m doing this the dog comes up to me and puts its head on my leg - it looked like a pitbull-mutt of some kind, and a genuinely sweet dog - and he’s telling me man, I’ve got the worst heartburn right now, you ever get that? It’s so bad, I don’t know what to do about it.
Hold this, I tell him, and I hand him what little is left of my iced coffee and start digging through my bag, and he’s telling me thanks for (looks at the cup) this man, and I say, no, wait, and I find the white bottle in my bag with the red top, and pull out two antacid tablets. I’ve started to have to carry them around with me or have one at least within a five-minute reach since I went to the ER in late March for an ulcer/reflux attack, which was the first (and only) time I’ve ever had to go to the ER. I couldn’t breathe and it was generally terrifying, so, you know, whether or not I really need them, I’ve still always got them with me, for the most part.
I hand him two and he takes both immediately. Aw, thanks man, appreciate it, thank you, I can’t believe you had these on you. I mumble something about it not being a problem and I take my coffee back and I leave, and while I’m standing on line for lunch at a truck, and I realize he took both the antacid tablets, and aren’t you not supposed to take more than one in a day? I’m starting to get paranoid that I might’ve just sent this guy to the hospital.
I walk to the office and find a table and set my lunch and messenger bag down and dig through the bag to find the bottle and read it, and I’m peeling back the label and my heart’s pounding, and even so, even if this is a problem, What the fuck am I going to do about this? What can I do? Tell him to get to a hospital because someone gave him two antacid tablets and didn’t tell him that if he took both he’d OD on them? Take him to a hospital? Fuck I don’t even and there it is: “Don’t take more than two tablets in 24 hours.” He’s gonna be fine. I walk down the street to the office, and I put my headphones in, and I realize Wilco’s “Poor Places” was on before I took my headphones out to take the picture, and for some reason, the song won’t come back on, and I’m not even surprised at the quasi-coincidence. I’ve never not been a sucker for panhandlers, in the five years that I’ve been here, but the ones with kids and dogs really, really get to me. What page is the story on, Paolo? It’s not. It’s on my shitty Tumblr. I know this one made the front page, so did this one, and this one, and I know it was just a subversive aside to put this in perspective, and one that was spot-on, but yeah, I don’t know who does this that’s not unaware of what doesn’t make the front page. Their lives are probably easier if they exist, and I’m sure they do, but I wouldn’t want to be them. At the same time, I didn’t wanna be me for about twenty minutes today, either.
