A Letter to the Homeowner Whose Dog Bit Me on the Back of the Leg
(non-fiction as fiction)
To whom it may concern,
This afternoon as I was walking down your semi-rural stretch of road your dogs were running around outside your gate. It seemed as if you were doing some maneuver where one car was pulling in and the other was pulling out. In the meantime your smaller and ornerier dog ran up to me and started barking viciously. It continued to bark at me as I walked some 100 yards and right before your home as I thought it might turn in, it jumped behind me and bit me on the calf. Not only did it pierce my skin, the dog’s teeth ripped my favorite pair of pants. I am not hobbled and have treated the wounds topically though I hope your animal has had all its shots. One would hate to get animal control involved and have the dog destroyed.
As small compensation I am asking for 40 dollars to help in the purchase of a new set of pants and small costs in bandages and antiseptic etc. Yes, perhaps it is true that the pants were a little threadbare. That there was a small hole starting to form in the crotch and that I’d need a new pair soon anyway (after wearing this pair daily for some years). And perhaps it is true that if I’d been wearing a new sturdy pair of jeans the dog’s bite might have been reduced to mere bruising … but I have this friend who went to Iraq. He ran humanitarian detail and one day a new recruit in the armored vehicle behind him filled up a plastic bottle with his urine. He chucked said bottle at a child on a route they ran regularly. In the distance my friend saw this child’s father cross his arms and lean into the shadows. A week later as they went through this same small village the truck that this young man was in was blown up. My friend picked up body parts from this explosion shaking his head.
He said to himself, “Told you so.”
Do not be concerned. I don’t bring this incident up as a threat — though certainly being bit by a dog is a worse kind of bodily harm than being covered with urine (it’s the insult, in that case, which connects the red wires so to speak. In the roman empire they used to launder clothes with urine). I bring this up to make my 40 dollars sound all the more reasonable. As a matter of fairness but also the gesture. I walk this road frequently and am now concerned about being bit. Yes, perhaps it is not a very popular road to walk down — but I do on occasion see others. It is connected to the end of a walking trail after all. I had a brief encounter with your older household member as she struggled to get out of her car and looked very surprised that her dogs had the capacity to bite. Perhaps when she first moved into this home many years ago it was a farm. And I understand that there does seem to be some mobility issues involved in the opening and closing of this gate and that animals can and do surprise with amygdalatic responses outside of their control.
I’ve always liked dogs and I don’t want to stop. Yet as I grow older I can’t help but see these creatures as projections. Extensions of ourselves. How else could one justify having a meat consuming animal who does little more than fill the holes in our souls that require some version of unconditional love. What I mean to say is that I don’t think you have ground to stand on if you are to suggest that your dog’s actions are not your actions and that you should thusly not be held responsible.
But I started writing all of this in my head before I got home. A development occurred on the walk back. Your dog’s bite gave me a reason to speak to this tenacious jogger I see sometimes. One cloudy afternoon I saw her run past me, head first into a very cold rain. Ever since she’s been a curiosity. Like me she often wears the same outfit. Hers makes her look like the foreman in charge of a highly competent group of middle-school water department employees. They can scramble through the pipes and make repairs. Sorry, poetic license. But you too will be surprised at her preparedness. As I told her about the bite she barely broke stride. She reached up to one of the straps over her shoulder and removed a heavy-duty can of mace from what no one would assume a pocket. She held it straight up in the air by its squeeze style tactical handle and proclaimed loudly, “Don’t worry, I will revenge you!”
So I guess I’m also telling you to watch out if you don’t want to be washing mace out of your dog’s face at some point in the future. I must admit, that moment rid me of most of my indignation. The heroic gesture made me think about all those humans who have followed other humans into battle on the wings of feeling. It made me want to write or read a story about Joan of Arc.
Yes in that moment and the thoughts that came after I decided you should keep your money and that I should not mail this letter. After all wasn’t it Ghandi who suggested that one gets recompense in the soul by accepting injustice graciously and engaging with some notion of the passive love of the universe? Sometimes I try to buy that feeling with beer but it is never as good as today. Life is just life and other people’s conception of life doesn’t change that. What I mean by that is my injury had no decision in the universe. Your impact on my hurt has nothing to do with my fate. Yes perhaps fate is not real and we all pass on solely through the prison of our experience — but I suppose if there’s a way of understanding how that’s none of your dog’s business it’s none of mine either.
All the best,
your anonymous neighbor.
