Dog Day Afternoon
In a breath Andres was up on his feet. “Come on,†he said, “I want to show you something,,†and off we went.
In a couple minutes we had ridden over to Gramercy Place between 4th and 5th, and came up the sidewalk to the front of big old two-story house sandwiched between two slightly younger apartment buildings, six-story brick structures, the kind with visible iron fire escapes descending from the rooftops. It’s huge porch fronted a neatly trimmed yard bordered with decorative wood picket fencing that stood about a foot-tall.
“This guy used to be a customer,†Andres told me, “but he couldn’t keep that dog from tearing up the paper.â€
“What dog?†I asked, as I straddled my bike.
Andres pointed toward the shadowy porch, and I strained to focus into the dusky light. My eyes finally found another pair of eyes — a doberman’s — locked on mine and looking straight back at me, and I half-gasped at the fierceness I found in them. A predator/prey acknowledgement flashed through my thoughts: “This thing had been waiting for us.”
“I hate that dog,†I heard Andres say and I saw an anger in his eyes that matched the dog’s, leaving me momentarily in doubt as to who terrified me more.
Then came the growl, canine exhaust from its low-rumbling engine of hate that revved higher and throttled louder with each passing moment, and it was clear the dog was the winner of my discontent. With my heart jack-hammering in my chest and sweat suddenly leaking from every pour, I fought valiantly against wetting myself as what felt like about a thousand chills shot from the back of my neck to the crack of my ass in record time and every hair on my body stood up as if I was suddenly electrically charged.
Then the dog came. Shooting toward us from out the gloom of the porch and down the steps into the afternoon sunlight, the beast was a huge, sleek, jet-black weapon of mass destruction that ripped off hellacious barks as it broke the fragile distance that had previously been between us.
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