Another skeevy housemate.
This one is Pirate Jenny, or Sinning Jenny, or...anyway, she's a crack whore. I've been told not to be judgmental. This is after her boyfriend strong-armed me for fifty dollars. And she stole my cell phone. That's for the Agency to deal with. But what I was thinking of was the fact that she wants a dog.
A short idea of what she looks like: her is blonde with dark roots. She has a tiny, pouty mouth, made asymmetric, like the Twilight Zone folks in the "Eye of the Beholder", because of a badly healed jaw fracture. Her eyes, however are small slits, made somewhat more beady-looking by the application of heavy eye makeup, and her nose is tiny and perky. Unfortunately, she's overweight, so the overwhelming impression is of miles of porcelain-like skin, with a feature, here and there. Nonetheless, she is scrupulous about her toilette, and shaves off anything that looks like body hair. She does a lot of housecleaning, and tries to make me feel guilty about it. She smokes cigarettes, too, and was amazingly disappointed by the fact that I don't, because she couldn't invoke the Brotherhood of Nick O'Teen, either by bumming off me, or making me feel guilty about her constant hunger. (Apparently, smoking makes her have horrifying withdrawal symptoms...all the more reason to stay away, I suppose...) Because she spends a great deal of money on smoking various substances, she begs, borrows, and steals for everything else. Which means food, more often than not, since she can't possibly go to a soup kitchen or food pantry like everyone else...but back to the dog.
She doesn't really want a dog. What she wants is a weapon with plausible deniability.
A Staffordshire terrier – “pit bull” -- is just about perfect for this kind of thing. Unlike the former breeds of dogs favored by the lowly as weapons, they're fairly small, and don't eat as much as a German Shepherd or Doberman. I'm not one of those who will immediately dismiss anything that bears comparison with Sarah Palin as vicious, but it's worth noting that this particular kind of dog is just iffy enough for the following scenario...
What's important is that she goes all misty-eyed when anyone starts talking about her dog. It's her “sweet little doggie” and she'd be heartbroken if anyone ever thought that the dog was in any way mean or vicious. (People think such terrible things about that breed...) She absolutely loooves this dog, and is quick to run over and put her arms around its neck and maybe even give it a little kiss, because she loves it so...
What I know is going to happen, however is this. After the first day or so, she's going to get tired of this dog having to go walkies twice a day, so she'll try to get the landlord to give her a dog run in the back yard. This means that a large patch of our richly green urban backyard is going to turn to trampled brown earth, under the pooch's restless feet, pee, and poop. The dog will also not be fed too well, if only because she hasn't the money, and is unlikely to have a proper dog house until someone complains. This is OK, because this is NOT her sweet doggiekins...
...it's protection.
Let's face it, even in a rough neighborhood, it isn't hard to feel safe, if you're willing to do a few simple things. Little things, like keeping the door locked, having a cell phone around, reporting suspicious activity, and obeying the law. However, if you're a major-league cokehead, these things just don't work: people are going to want to get into your home (and out) without you wasting your high walking up and down two flights, the cell phone is just too tempting a source of money at the end of the evening, when the high is elusive, and... if you're as far down as she is, you just don't snitch.
A gun is protection, but not deniable. You can't say that you got that Sig Sauer because of its cute name and irresistably soft muzzle, or that you love that knife so much you sleep with it at night out of sheer affection. (I guess you could, in a Tarantino movie. But this is real life.) A dog, on the other hand, even if it's blatantly obvious that you got a breed to enhance your toughness, is a potential pet.
To get this protection, there are two ways to proceed. The first, and better way, is to appeal to the animal's pack instinct, to patiently get the dog's trust and loyalty, and to establish the animal's territory as worth defending. This requires that you know dogs, and have some sensitivity towards their nature, and are able to display, perhaps, true leadership of a human nature as well. This gives you a well-behaved dog that will defend its master to the death, in the manner everyone thinks of when they think of dogs.
Unfortunately, this is just too subtle for your average trailer trash princess, or ghetto king: they want a sure thing. So they opt for the second strategy, which is simple: torture the beast. Don't feed it too much: you want them hungry enough to think a leg might be tasty. Give it affection, but don't let anyone so much as look at the dog: it will make it think that people are friends, not deadly enemies. Don't let it stay inside: after a couple of weeks you won't want it around, anyway. Just keep throwing food at it so that Animal Control doesn't get too antsy, and you'll have your protection...
Until it either gets loose or you want to use it. The dog, crazed and confused, will take a good chunk out of the first warm body it finds, which with luck, will be that guy you don't like. When the police come by, they'll take the dog away...
...at which, she can weep brokenly, crying that she just can't understand how it happened. That was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest dog in all the world....
I'm glad she didn't get the dog.