It Was A Bad Week, That Is For Sure

I worked at (name of company). Sam and I walked to work together. It was a cold morning, they have all been cold mornings this week though. Still, there is something magical about the cold, misty air.

I got to the office just after 8.30. There was a lot to do, the first month of the new financial year and I only had the usual 2 days to do it in and this office is disorganised, and Elaine is resistant to helping me.

It is weird, you know, I can’t take a difficult situation and think of it as a challenge, instead I always think about it negatively, I always kind of resist it and feel like I don’t want to do it, feel like I don’t want to be there.

I don’t seem to be able to make it a challenge. You know, rise to it.

I never really seem to feel like I am the expert. So, I guess I am always feeling like I am under the pump and there is always that possibility that I will fail. Sad isn’t it.

It would be nice to feel good at something.

Oh, you know, they are your typical not for profit types… a bit wet, a bit twee, a bit your cardigan set, everyone has a slight tinge of beige.

There are a lot of women who work there and, I’m sure, there was the district smell of cunt in the air… even coming from the boys who work there, I reckon. Not too many Y genes amongst any of them, dick or not.

As I got there just after 8.30, I left before 5pm. I met Sam on the corner of Queen and La Trobe and we walked home together.

We got Buddy harnessed up and headed off to the supermarket to get dinner. We took the long way around to give Buddy his daily walk.

We were walking up Gertrude Street on the usual route that we take him when we walk him to the supermarket. Gertrude Street to Napier Street down to Johnston Street and then back around to the supermarket.

We had just crossed over George Street and Buddy was in the garden by the corner doing his normal gardening act, when I first saw a guy coming from Napier Street with a big dog.

We kept walking and the other guy with the big dog kept coming towards us. His dog looked like a honey-brown coloured American Staffordshire Bull Terrier. (Later we would google a few dogs and, without trying to sound too dramatic, I reckon the guy had a Pitbull, which I think probably explains his reaction) 

As we passed by, he let his dog get closer to Buddy, as we were pulling Buddy away. His dog attacked Buddy, quite unprovoked, swiftly and with determination. The other dog bared its teeth and grabbed Buddy by the muzzle, he suddenly had Buddy’s face in his mouth, and pulled Buddy off the ground, as Sam tried to pull Buddy away. He had Buddy’s mouth in his mouth.

Then he let him go and we pulled Buddy away.

“Put a fucking muzzle on your fucking dog as it is fucking vicious,” screamed the other guy, instantly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Put a fucking muzzle on your vicious dog…” Bloody curdling, hysterical, the veins were bulging in his neck and eyes.

“Your dog attacked my dog,” I said.

“You are kidding me, mate, your fucken dog attacked mine! Your fucken dog is vicious.”

Sam said later that he had rotten teeth, but I didn’t notice… so, he was probably a junkie as well.

He had that bloody big dog and he was screaming at us, hysterically. I wanted to get away from him, he was, clearly, nuts, and I saw what his dog did, deliberately, silently, intentionally. We walked through the crowd of people sitting on the footpath. He kept screaming at us, “Put a muzzle on your vicious dog. Your dog attacked mine.”

He kept talking over me every time I tried to say something, it was pointless.

I wanted to get away from him, I didn’t trust him to control that dog, he clearly didn’t know how to control that thing… or worse, he could let it go in revenge, if he really believed Buddy was in the wrong. We headed around the corner into Napier Street. He followed us hysterical, still screaming at us, threatening, with that big dog, which was in an agitated state by this stage. And suddenly we were down a deserted road with a mental case with a vicious dog in the dark on our own.

He just ranted at us, illogically.

I said to Sam, “Come on, let’s go back to the main road where people are.”

I couldn’t keep my little mate safe. I let some mental case with a mental dog get to him and hurt him.

The guy kept screaming at us, he seemed to be getting more and more hysterical. He seemed to be totally convinced that Buddy was the vicious dog that attacked his dog.

He kept ranting.

We crossed the road and headed down Napier Street. I said, “Come on, we are going to the police station.”

He stopped following us then, we left him behind.

We went to the Fitzroy police station. They said they couldn’t do anything. “Dog fights are a civil issue, not a criminal issue.”

“I am sorry, but he is a complete loser with a vicious dog.”

“We get all types around here with the commission flats.”

“He is dangerous and deluded.”

“If it ever happened again call 000 straight away.”

“Thanks.”

“If you see him out there again tonight, give 000 a call.”

I was really upset. We kept walking to the supermarket.

I felt really upset. I could have accepted his dog biting my dog and him apologising, these things happen, dogs are dogs. “Sorry mate.” Well, maybe not quite, his dog was a vicious beast, but I’m sure you get my point.

What I can’t accept, is his reaction, his delusional response, his total belief that Buddy is vicious, that Buddy is the dog that attacked his dog. His total denial. I guess, his best form of defence is attack, as they say.

I wanted to get Buddy home and locked away and safe. I felt vulnerable on the street in the dark, even outside the supermarket at the back. I felt nervous standing there, waiting for Sam. I was aware of all the shadows, of all the shapes coming out of them.

It didn’t make sense, this idiot’s reaction, until we got home and googled the dog. The dog that most resemble this guy’s dog, without trying to sound too dramatic about it, was the Pitbull.

Then it made more sense.

Even this loser knows that if we reported his dog for attacking Buddy, his dog would be destroyed, well, get into trouble. Probably, it has already attacked another dog and he has been told to keep a muzzle on it, hence his deluded protests. In his feeble brain, I reckon, the only thing he could do, in panic, was to lash out at us and make it sound like it was our fault. You know, stupidity acts in self preservation without too much logic to back it up.

We had Bali Sambal for dinner.

I felt sad for the world for the rest of the night. Sad that it is full of losers, sad that those people were born losers, probably through no fault of their own. I felt sad that the world is full of haves and have-nots and that I am one of the haves who has to put up with the have-nots, from time to time. I felt sorry for him and his, what I can only assume, fear at his lack of knowledge and his low intelligence and his inability to know what is the right thing to do and his stupidity, which just doesn’t work for him. I felt sad for him that he was under some delusion that such a dog would make him big and powerful and strong.

I wondered about the validity of being a bleeding heart liberal, who did it really help? I wondered if the right-wing cunts are right and maybe we should stop feeling sorry for the dumb arses in the world and we should just lock them all away every time they are too stupid and too lacking in resources not to keep out of trouble. We can just build bigger and bigger prisons and every time one of the lower socio economic morons breaks the law lets just lock them away under tougher and tougher sentencing until us smart ones, the lucky ones, feel safe enough to walk our dog down the street.