A shriek from outside, a sickening noise almost inaudible, and then another I couldn’t identify. Tires on a curb? And then angry shouts, a deep, bellowing male voice, a woman crying hysterically.
I’d been dressing for a run. I went outside.
An SUV in the middle of the road, and a man older than me standing in front of it, furious. “Do you see there’s a fucking dog?” Another woman’s voice, furious, from an upstairs window across the street. “They should be shot! They should be shot!”
The SUV drove off, slowly.
Tufts of fur lay in the street.
One of them had a collar.
“They drive too goddamn fast on this street!” the man shouted, at me and at no one, at the sky. “The assholes! They just don’t care! And this!”
Another car turned onto our street from Fountain, approached us standing there. The man seemed angry at this car, too. The little dog was in mid-street: no way to drive past. I held up my hand, palm facing the driver. After a second, the man did too. He yelled. “There’s a fucking dog here! Can’t you see?”
The car stopped. I realized the angry man wasn’t the owner: he wouldn’t touch the dog. A few people stood on the sidewalk, watching. One woman was crying, but not enough to mark her as belonging to the dog.
The dog’s owner was nowhere in evidence, and the dog was in the middle of the street, with traffic oncoming.
I knelt, slipped my hands gently beneath the dog’s shoulders and hips — anxious not to do more damage — and immediately knew I needn’t have worried. There was no more damage could be done to this dog. It was sweet and little, a terrier, cat-sized, not fifteen pounds, still warm. Not a mark on it, as far as I could tell.
It came up cleanly from the asphalt. I carried it over to the sidewalk, laid it down gently as though it made a difference.
I thanked the driver for waiting. He looked stricken. “Is he gone?” I nodded.
I walked back over to the dog.
A woman knelt there with me: we took the dog’s collar off. The tag had a registry number, and another man, a calm man with a phone on him, called to report it. I stood there for a moment longer until I realized there was nothing more I could do.
I went running.
I ran too hard. I paced myself okay at first, but then I passed a particular local business, gazed idly at its neon sign in the darkness as I waited to cross Santa Monica, and several blocks later I realized I’d been running as hard as I could.
Dammit Chris! You made me cry first thing in the morning! Did anyone get the license plate #? Are there any laws that would make the driver face any consequences? I hope they find the owner.
Back in my very first newspapering job, in this little coal-mining town in East Tennessee, I wrote a column about how disturbing and callous it seemed to me that dogs were either chained or left to run loose and, frequently, meet this end. As usual, you did a much more compelling job. But the saddest part is how little seems to have changed in 25 years.
Angry/depressed. I keep expecting similar things to happen here - our street is the only one without stop signs along its length, despite being entirely residential, and drivers go way too fast along it. And there are toddlers living on it, too.
I also dislike the irresponsibility of the people who let their animals roam free in such an environment; at our previous place in this state, there were no fences, and dogs were either chained, ignored and miserable (like our neighbor’s) or allowed to roam at will, being a danger both to themselves and to people. There are many reasons why I don’t have a dog, but an inability to give it the sort of life it needs without bothering other people is one of them.
Poor little animal.
No one got a license plate number.
From what I heard from witnesses, the woman who hit the dog came back, heard a chorus of neighbors telling her she should be shot, and took off again. One woman said she had a dog in the car with her. I suspect she feels pretty goddamn horrible. I don’t know if I’d have gotten out of the car, either.
She was clearly driving too fast: the width and clutter of this street pretty much means any speed over 15 miles an hour is way too fast. People routinely drive at 60. Another witness says the dog darted out between two parked cars in front of the car. Were I to point out blame, which I am disinclined to do, I’d have to use at least two fingers.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. A 20-year-old woman died in the Ivanpah Valley last month, rolling her car at least three times off Morning Star Mine Road. Every time I got up to more than 50 miles an hour out there I’d almost hit some protected wild animal or other.
Maybe Obama could enact a national 35-mph speed limit in the upcoming energy bill, and mandate all but emergency vehicles be fitted with governors. That would solve a whole bunch of problems at once, wouldn’t it? Plus it would piss off the wingnuts, which is always good.
chris, i’m glad you were the one able to move the dog with dignity.
sometimes even well-cared-for dogs get loose; that happens. we were very diligent parents, but once when we were loading the car, my very young daughter ran right into the street shrieking with laughter, and i barely snatched her back from an oncoming car. 2 seconds of distraction. it still scares the hell out of me, 18 years later. my kids think i worry too much about bad things that might happen.
the speeding always bothers me. it doesn’t allow for anyone else—dogs; pedestrians; cars on crossroads that can only see a safe space to cross, not the speed demon coming.
This really touched me. I’ve stopped to save baby opossums in the road after their mother had been hit. I’ve stopped to save fledgling birds who weren’t up to the task of getting out of the road. The list goes on. Unfortunately, more often than not it’s too late by the time I see them because someone else has already come through and done all the damage that can be done. And it never stops bothering me…
I misread the words “The SUV drove off, slowly” today morning as “The SUV drove off, casually” in my head and that one crucial difference completely colored my reaction toward the driver. I’m strangely placated to learn that she’s most probably feeling horrible about what happened. I’m sure she’ll be a much more careful driver in the future. And yeah, faced with a mob reaction like that, I would try to stay safe as well.
Nice post…
@chris and your 35 mph. Funnily enough, I have recently entertained a fantasy in which Congress passes a federal law making all vehicular offenses punishable with mandatory jail time. But it would only be in effect for two or three years, just long enough to remind people that they do not have a right to drive, and their responsibility as drivers includes considering the consequences of their performance.
My working theory is that we (in the US and other car-laden nations) are now of a generation that has never known limited access to vehicles. We always had at least one car growing up, many families had two, many provided cars for their teens as soon as they could legally drive alone. I’m not saying that’s inherently bad, but it’s led to a prevailing attitude that even the most inept driver has a right or even a need to be on the road. I actually kind of enjoyed last year’s oil price boom because it forced so many people to think twice about jetting down the road - in terms of frequency at least, if not conscientiousness.
In this case, it’s the metaphorical collision of the young lady’s sense of vehicular privilege, however unconscious it may be, and the fact that there are still roads out there where the speed limit doesn’t mean “You can go at least this fast” but “This is the maximum safe speed.” I live on one of them, and regularly get tailgated by people who want me to go 45 mph or faster on a curvy, unlit, two-lane road on a dark night during deer mating season.
Not long ago, I read a report about a fatal one-car crash on a wet night, in which the trooper said the driver was going under the speed limit but too fast for the conditions. Do drivers even think about that any more?
i’m a nervous driver. part of it is that my dad was an investigator for a personal injury firm, and he told me every single gruesome story as i was growing up. part, too, is that drivers seem to have gone completely nuts—speeding, no signals, weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, chatting on cellphones or applying makeup or whatever, blasting nuclear music that shakes other cars, yelling and gesturing at people who get in their way, etc.
my son got his license when he was 18; he flunked the first test, and i nearly cried when he passed the second one. within a couple of months, he had 2 accidents with airbag deployment—one of them was pulling out of a parking space! we junked the car and took him off our insurance.
it took him a long time to be able to buy a car and insurance. then he got busted in albany for unsafely peeling out of a fast food place, and he had been drinking underage, so he lost his license and had all kinds of stuff to go through before driving again. it’s been over 2 years, and he’s still finishing up some stuff. he’s learning his safe driving lessons the hard way, which i don’t mind at all; i’m just glad nobody got hurt in the process. i haven’t said “i told you so,” because a judge and the DMV have said it for me. more effectively.