Night Out

I was supposed to be being tattooed. We drove up to the Ave. and I went to see Hector. As usual he had someone still on his table, the Shop was all closed up, so I headed to the Bar. I ran into Bryan, who is working at the Shop now. He told me I must not have gotten his messages earlier today. I hadn't. Postponed.

I was supposed to get tattooed. My arm is almost but not even close to being finished and well, no one can finish it except Hector. There was a big pitty outside the Bar. All tied up and lonely looking. Very stoic but beautiful 100-something pound puppy. O.K. So "puppy" probably isn't the most accurate term. Some drunk fool's dog. we both had a bad feeling about the pup.

Next thing I know, I'm drinking a beer, chatting it up with some friends, and a guy runs in saying something like, "if you own a pit bull, it's getting killed." Well half of us own dogs and half of that half shouldn'town dogs - but do.

I guess the pup - Apollo - had an owner that shouldn't have been. Drunk douche had left the bar not 10 minutes earlier. Apparently made it just across the street and half a block down before - who knows what happened - his dog is in a death match with some other dog. I know why Apollo wasn't on leash - his leash AND collar were shit so must have gotten out of them, but the other dog...who knows.

We went outside to figure out what was happening. Stood on the corner for about a minute. Figured out it was a dog fight in front of Connolly's. Went across the street to get more context. About a dozen people hanging around like a fight ring and only one person trying to do anything about the situation. Great. Ian turns around to go back to the Bar. I run down the street toward the fight.

The rest is a little hazy. Bits and pieces of images too vivid and the rest, gone. The dogs were fighting to the death. Not because they wanted to anymore, but because they had to. It was the quietest dog fight I have ever witnessed. Both dogs didn't make a peep. The look in their eyes was both sad and drained. They wanted to be done, but nobody was doing anything.

A broom handle up the ass, tentatively, but nothing. Banging, punching, kicking, stomping, nothing, just - not death - survival.

I came up, started yelling for water - first things first - but I noticed that had already been tried. I took the trash bin on the sidewalk and started banging it. Ironically, Ian and I had just had - about an hour prior - a good long discussion about dog fights. I am very much afraid of them, very nervous for them to occur and overcompensate with the preventative measures. He told me things, and others have as well, on how to stop fights depending on their severity.

In reality, the only thing that works, is what works in the particular situation you are in with the particular dogs that are fighting at the time...and really, that could be any number of things. So, you start at the top and work your way down. After preventative, there is:

1. Water
2. Noise - banging, anything that will distract the dog(s) from what they are doing
3. Grab the hind legs and pull

This last one really only works if both dogs are getting pulled at the same time. Broom sticks up butt holes, really are just a variation of #2 and really, it doesn't work.

4. Put something - door - between the muzzles, noses - and squeeze it until it's shut.

This is really the best but last option. It's not always available but once the door, gate, whatever is shut, the dogs are still separated.

By the time I got to the fight, #1 was tried, #2 I tried, #3 worked once two people got up the courage to grab two fighting pit bulls hind legs.

The conviction they hold in their jaws when they are in a death/survival match is enough to keep you from wanting to get in any kind of way...I don't blame one soul...I was not about to grab onto either dog, dogs I had no way of knowing if they were HA or not.

Really, this is just a very clinical description of this massively terrible, bloody fight that I witnessed. It is too difficult for me to describe what I actually saw. The blood, the tearing...if you haven't seen it, you just haven't.

I just hope the puppies are O.K. I hope their parents are douche bags, but not so much that they won't shell out for the damage that was caused. I would estimate Apollo at about 2 G's, hopefully not more, 'cause that would just mean he was FUCKED up.

Poor pups.

Nick's Lick Her

Nick's is the liquor store on the opposite side of the side street from my apartment. I'm not sure who Nick is. Mohamed runs the place. He most likely doesn't own it, but he runs it. When the alarm goes off in the middle of the night, he is the one that comes and turns it off.

As far as I can tell, he's been there for a long time, at least 5 to 10 years. Ian and I ended up running into some people up at the Russian River earlier in the year that had lived down the street at one point, many years ago. They asked how "Mo" was doing. He introduces himself as "Mo", most people in the neighborhood, at least the women, call him "Mo Mo".

Anyway, Nick's. "Nick's" is written vertically on the South side of the building in black paint. There are a few signs that protrude off the building on the East side, the entrance side. The top one is white and lights up and reads, "Nick's Liquor". Just beneath that is another white sign that reads, "Liquor" and below that is another light up sign that is yellow and looks like at one point it spun, this one also reads, "Liquor". Most everyone calls the place Nick's, but when we're feeling saucy or asking if someone knows where we live, we mention it as, "Nick's Liquor, liquor, liquor". Seems redundant but at least none of the signs read "Grocery" or "Deli" as a lot of other corner stores in the O-town do; at least it's accurate.

Dinner of Champions

I went next door to Nick's to buy some much needed beer. The woman at the counter had a pickle in a bag, waiting to be purchased. Her man counterpart was in the process of picking up a few other items. Total purchase was a small handle of the white Carlo Rossi, a $.99 bag of honey roasted peanuts, and the pickle.

Dinner of Champions.