A Black Cat, and a Pit Bull Cross Merlot's Path

Greetings Voignier, and of course, kind readers,

Early this morning we had an odd thought, a sort of uneasy forshadowing, while taking my morning constitution down the West Side Drive bike path by foot, walking the two odd showdogs dogs of our neighbor Paul, whose business drew him away to Montreal to film a new "feature", starring himself and a woman known as "Animale" in certain circles. Merlot agreed to the task in return for a favor, as Paul often Boat sits, if you will, when we are away on business. From the moment we started out, the phrase rang in our head: "no good deed goes unpunished," which is what our housekeeper Emily told us before we left.

The dogs, Stewart and Ponzi, are a breed with which I am unfarmilar, and have not interest in learning about. Not being a dog person, I was in no position to answer the questions put to me as their guardian, by passersby. Several looked our way, as if we had kidnapped the dogs, who never seemed so stop making waste stops along the banks of the Hudson. But these ackward moments were small compaired to what happened when a black cat crossed our path, and Stewart gave chase, breaking his leash. By the time we caught up to him, we had made Morningside Heights, after he had managed to cross the highway at 79th, following the cat through riverside park the whole way. At 110th, he made a left, never breaking stride until he passed Broadway, heading east until he met with the very large, odd and unsettling bronze statue depicting creation, hell and heaven all at once, at St. John the Devine's Church on 110th, stopping for red lights, of course. The devil's dangling head always gives us pause on viewing it, but less so this time, as we had to get Stewart tied up again, if you will.

Ponzi and I had given chase close behind, in what seemed like the longest walk of my life. It was at the statue that Stewart stopped to water the grass, if you will, and where we were able to reattached his leash to the collar around his neck, after a suitable thrashing about the ears and backside. The black cat, of course, was long gone by now. We planned to window shop at two wine stores to see the featured bottled selections currently on display on the walk back, and thereby make lemons into lemonade, if you will. We where however, unable to go in for fear of someone stealing he most onerious show dogs, and so we decided to walk two blocks to the east to the Central Park. It was on that walk, down the Morningside hill to the park where Stewart and Ponzi had got hold of a discarded roasted chicken platter with rice and beans, nearly yanking our arm from it's socket. No amount of pulling or josteling would get these two off their found booty.

When they finished there meal, we continued to the park, where we met a young gent with a very different kind of dog than Paul's two prized showdogs. On meeting, things appeared casual and friendly, until, it seems, the other dog got a whiff of what Stewart and Ponzi had just finished off, at which point he seem to re-enact Christoper's behavior from last night. The Strange dog began biting before he did any sort of barking, which in our experience is exactly the sort behavior in conflict that will do the most physical harm; and this was not exception. The strange dog, were he a man, was the kind of man who would just as soon knock another man's teeth out as look at him. The dog we faced did his best to chew Stewarts bottom to the bone, while Stewart for his part did his best to get the strange dog's massive jaws off his backside. Ponzi, oddly enough did not seem to want to get involved, and so it was left to myself and the owner of the other dog to pull these two animals apart. The young man, for his part, was quite good natured about it, given the circumstances, to the point when a large woman approached his dog with a pot of boiling water, which she started upon seeing the whole thing unfold from her 3rd floor kitchen window, on Central Park North, just across 110th Street. On seeing the woman with the boiling water approach his dog, he expressed his feeling that she was being "a real motherfucker," if you will.

The owner, who called himself what sounded like "Joel Nickbone," seemed to take it in stride, until he requested that I pay to have his dog's teeth cleaned, which was remarkable, since witnesses actually felt compelled to call 911 on behalf of Stewart, by cellphone, while the strange dog seemed unphased. I, of course, offered to write him a personal check, to which the young man uttered that I was being "a motherfucker," and that he'd rather not bother to take my "motherfucking rubber check". We, of course, told him it was all we had, knowing we would need to use whatever cash we had to get Steward fixed at the Vet. The police, for there part, where good about it, taking the strange dog away from the owner and issuing him a ticket, to which he explained to the police too that he felt, and he could see that they were behaving very much like "a couple of real motherfuckers too". And he fed the ticket to his dog, as he told them so.

And so, we spend several hours at an east side animal emergency room, waiting on Stewart as he was stiched back up, and his hide bandaged. While waiting, without boxed wine to drink, we watched a rerun of a Charlie Rose interview with Joan Didion, who lamented the loss of her husband of 40 years. By contrast, it was quite a sad site to see, whereas, watching Paul's showdogs get chewed was not as bad as one would expect.

It is said that one measure of a society is the way it allows its members to treat animals. I am not sure what it means, when some members leave there guardianship disinterested parties such as myself, while others allow their dog to literally eat other dogs. All in all, we think it a good night for a glass or two of something different, we think.