Gutter Dog

part 2

Some gutter dogs turn to each other, running in small packs—only small packs, mind you. The larger ones are broken up. These dogs find comfort in each other’s rough coats and warm bodies. Brothers and sisters-in-arms, they have strength in their numbers and get the tastiest trash. Three or four dogs can easily run off one. Some groups will even hunt the odd nocturnal roaming rat or feline. Indeed on the streets of the old city, Fido suspiciously outnumbers Fifi.

Rat or cat be damned, but should a gutter dog fashion himself a revolutionary, capable of ruling man and turn his anger to violence, well then … he disappears. It is okay to victimize the less powerful dog but never attempt this with the human; he is always more powerful. Even if you overwhelm the solitary man, tomorrow others will come and that will be the end of any dog and his pack.

Alas Jefe was neither leader nor follower and so pack-dog he’d never be. He’d survive on his own, keeping his nose to the ground and a keen eye. Food was found in the waste of the day, and now and then a charitable human shared her kitchen leftovers. He subsisted on scraps of food and when he was really fortunate, scraps of affection. He continued to crave human acceptance, remaining strangely affable and easy-going, always ready to forgive the next the previous’ misdeeds. He couldn’t help himself. Back then his heart was open.

Longingly, he would look upon the dog parading proudly—tail raised high. Often sure of breed and given regular baths, the pampered pet wasn’t to be seen wandering the street without his master. Slave or not, Jefe would have readily changed places but he took comfort. He knew. No fine fido survives the streets and maintains his brilliance. Remove the leash that binds and soon a louse-ridden coat dulls; a tail lowers. The street levels everyone.

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A trip to paradise for any gutter dog is finding a nice tourist or two in the Plaza. Visitors often share their overpriced and under-spiced fair, slipping a morsel or two under the table in between swallows of a mojito. Rum, lime and mint—the favoured drink of Ernesto. Hemingway fans can sip and flip through the Old Man and the Sea with the soul-reviving sun above and the dogs Papa loved curled up below. If one is particularly fearless and washes the vermin away after, she might even scratch a thankful and needy pooch behind the ear or tickle a spine with a tentative touch. For the time the tourists spend with the gutter dog, he not only eats from their table but also samples the elusive sensation of human acceptance.

All is fleeting. Before the dog knows it, the tourists have finished their drinks and meal of fried chicken, rice, and beans. They spend a short time chatting with a waiter who eagerly awaits his tip. Maybe a joke is shared over the dog. If El perro receives the scraps of occidental goodwill, el camarero gets the loin. Rivalled only by the taxi driver, no comrade benefits from the capitalist necessary-evil like the waiter, earning more in an evening than a doctor in a month.

The tourists overlook the bill. They’ve been told to pay close attention. More than a few cheques are artificially fattened. Everything seems okay. They leave the plaza. Their shadows disappear into the black of a side street. The city is safe at night, unbelievably so, the threat of a communist prison deterrent enough for most would-be ne’er-do-wells. But it’s dark, very dark. Rubber soles flip-flop against the cobbles. It is a reassuringly hard sound. With the population of gutter dogs and their inevitable by-products, you don’t want to hear a gush.

The dog trails. He listens to their foreign tongue. Their tones are friendly.

A host beckons as they pass his establishment. They stop and read the menu displayed outside. The dog stops also. Inside a tropical-shirt clad band performs Guantanamara for the third time that hour. Bands rove the streets of the old city, playing several establishments a night. They perform a set of three songs at each stop, never two and never four. After three songs you feed the hat. The tourists disappear into the noisy din. The host looks down. The look in his eyes, his hefty arms crossed and resting on his full stomach, confirms dogs are not welcomed. Esta la vida. The dog returns to the plaza. There will always be others.

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part 1

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Photo Courtesy of the public domain. It has been edited.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Havana_Cuba_20170128_095923_Nevit
© Nevit Dilmen [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

Gutter Dog is copyright Pryde Foltz and was previously published in Strays. For further information click on the photo below.