Peet’s Coffee in Pacific Heights. Three of San Francisco’s finest are talking with a slim, tall, fashionably close bearded, obviously well heeled man somewhere in his prime. From my distance the conversation is amiable; all parties grinning with ease and comfort. On the periphery a GREAT DANE roamed leashless and with impunity. As I walked into the café for a coffee I’m followed by the sole female cop. I turn to her, “Isn’t there a leash law in San Francisco?”
She gave me a curious grin, “Yes. Yes indeed there is.”
“So what gives? Three of you talking with the dog owner didn’t notice the abundance of dog and lack of leash.”
“You want to make a complaint?”
“What? You can’t enforce the law unless someone asks you to?”
“Well…”
“So I have to be the asshole for that guy to put his dog on a leash?”
“We won’t give your identity.”
“I’m not too keen on dogs. I’m really not keen on dogs off leash.”
“I understand.”
“After all, that there is one big goddamn dog. I live by Alamo Square, I don’t walk through the park anymore. ”
“Isn’t there an off leash area?”
“Sure, but the entitled use the entire park, they remove the leashes as soon as they enter the park, I’m tired of being chased, harassed, growled at, and feeling unsafe.”
“Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard of this.”
“Are you serious? I’ve talked to the head of the parks, he knows there’s a problem.”
“I usually hear from the other side.”
“Other side? Aren’t we all citizens? Are dog people special because they are the side that doesn’t get bit? I’ve been attacked, I don’t like it. Dog owners always like to imagine that they know what their dogs are thinking, hell, dogs go off on one another all the time and the owners never have an answer for that behavior… shit. They’ll tell you their dogs love kids, or they’re good with women, or that they adore the elderly; how the hell can they know. How can they know? I’ll tell you this, they don’t know.” She’s stirring cream into her coffee but glances up from her preparations. I’d better turn down the volume, after all, she’s got a gun.
“Sir, I understand dog bites, I’ve got Pit Bulls.”
Gulping, “Pit Bulls?”
She puffs out her chest in a non-sexual, more copish sort of way, “Yes, Pit Bulls.”
I mull this over for a moment. “Okay, I’m making a complaint.”
By the time we exit the café the dog and it’s feeder are gone. I sip my coffee. A skateboarder clatters by and is stopped by the three cops. Within minutes the skater kid is being jacked-up. “Do you have any priors… you sure?” The kid, a typical dopy looking skater dude shakes his head no his wind whipped hair wags back and forth. The verbal response to the suddenly officious Police is incomprehensible, “If I call you in we’re not going to find any priors are we?”
Pale and nonplused, “I donno, I had this thing…” The cop holding the kids ID looks up, “Months ago… weed.”
Down the block the giant GREAT DANE still without a leash meanders up California its owner forty feet behind is engrossed in a cell phone conversation.