The Measure of a Man

 The Measure of a Man

This story goes back to the days of  Club Virginia and my struggles to restablish the beat up ship of my self esteem. The buzz of West  LA had worn out and Timo had left to spend the rest of his days with Disa. I was alone in the back house where the idea of conventional dwelling was disturbed by the bad neighbor Blackie, a jail-bird with a foul mouth across the fence and an apartment building behind me full ol losers staying where the rent was cheap and so were the people. It was not that they caused a lot of problems for me personally but you never could feel completely safe with these types of fringe dwellers around the neighborhood. My landlady was Crazy Mrs. Coulty who poisoned my cat but charged only $140 a month for a 3 bedroom pad that was built by her husband after World War II. I really did not clean the grimy walls and floors but vacuumed the thrift store rugs I put in and had a jerry-rigged washing machine where clothes were made ready for the clothes-line. I lived at Club Virginia for 92 months and adjusted to what I thought of as a step backwards. However, there was the unpleasant family one lot over who were low-rent slobs who never offered a pleasant word. A miserable old man sat on the front porch from sun up to sun down and he never spoke to us but only glared. He earneed the nickname of "Pinning Pedro" from Timo and it never changed. He allowed his ex-con nephew Blackie to live in a back room that was even with my back of the lot house. Blackie was a criminal with no idea what decent behavior looked like and he kept a poor dog tied up at his front porch, supposedly to scare off intruders. The lonely dog barked desperately for food or water or companionship but was only ignored or abused by the shitheads who lived back there. Twice I snuck over with a knife and cut the short rope that kept the poor guy imprisoned but in his damaged state he only ran around a bit and then returned to his captor. I called ASPCA  few times but they never took action. Eventually, I got somewhat used to the barking but felt helpless. So, one evening Billy Hogan and I were having a beer or two and suddenly there was a huge explosion and shriek of a dog. The crying continued and Bill and I regained our senses and went out my front door and realized the cries of pain were coming from Blackie's place. He was not home and Pinning Pedro stayed inside so Bill and I ran back to find that the animal had suffered a terribly huge wound in his chest. It was not evident at the time but some rotten son of a bitch stuck a shotgun out of the windor of the apartment building and shot this dog from twenty feet away. There was blood all over the porch and I was in shock just trying to make sense of this act of violence. My only thought was to phone and ask for advise from the sage Veteranarian Dr. White who had treated my animals. It was his day off but he insisted we roll the dog onto a blanket and bring to his office. We did that with an old blanket I had for camping and despite the blood and cries we managed to meet the good Dr. at his office in South Central where he ws able to put the poor guy out of his misery with a merciful injection. It was a lesson in the measure of a man. The lower end of scum humanity in Blackie's ignorant abuse, the drunken monster who shot the tied up dog and the angel of mercy vet named Nigel who brought relief to suffering even as it meant his peace was broken.

                                                 

                                                                            inside Club Virginia