Canine Terror
Recent discussion about scary dogs triggered a memory of the two scariest dogs I ever knew, back in my morning newspaper delivery days. I was about ten when this tale unfolded.
How well I can still recall the utter terror I felt when those two dogs first appeared over the crest of that hill, near South Catholic High School, spied me, and came racing down that hillside towards me.
It was still early in the morning, maybe 6:30 or so. I was just finishing up my paper route of 67 customers, a 3 mile walk from start to finish, delivering the papers to those last four or five customers I had along McNeilly Road, as far from my house as that route would take me.
I took my responsibility for the paper route seriously. Nobody ever had to wake me up to do this job. I just got up and did it. I was an industrious kid. It was a way of life in my family. Everyone eventually delivered papers, with the exception of my little sister, Mary.
By the time she came along, five and a half years after me, the family was doing a little better, and could afford to take care of her, without her having to earn her own way. Besides, all of us older siblings loved to spoil her. She was just such a cool little kid, and she appreciated it so much, we couldn’t help ourselves. She didn’t have to work until well into her teens, I don’t think.
This was how I earned my living, made my money, funded my baseball obsessions, bought my own clothes — if I wanted something new, that is. Oh, there were always plenty of hand-me-downs from one of my four older brothers — perfectly good, a bit out-dated maybe, but they always looked and felt like hand-me-downs, to me. There’d be elbow and knee patches, places where Mom sewed up tears, dead give-aways that they were not new. I liked to occasionally sprinkle in something new, something that I could call my own, and my paper route gave me the wherewithal to do that.
Back to the invaders, the two scary dogs. They had the upper ground on me, and looked like they had been waiting there just to ambush me. The white one with black spots all over was foaming at the mouth as they rushed down that hill in my direction.
They were wild dogs, with a pack mentality about them, and I wanted nothing to do with them. Fortunately, my paper sack was nearly empty, save the last couple of newspapers, my “extras” that I would try to sell on the boulevard for a few extra cents of spending money. I took off at a gallop, back up McNeilly Road, until I found a house that had a gated front porch, where I sought refuge from the wild dogs who seemed intent on having a piece of me for breakfast.
They looked like they’d lost interest, and kept going along the side of the hill past where I was hiding from them, but then I saw a light come on in the house, and had to bail from my refuge before someone came out and found me lingering there on their porch. That scared me almost, but not quite, as much as those wild dogs did.
As I descended the stairs from the porch, I couldn’t see them anywhere, hoping they had just kept going, so I went back in the direction I had started running from them, deciding to go up the hill, past South Hills Catholic High School, and head home up Castlegate Avenue.
But these dogs were not only mean and wild, they were smart. Just as I got to the crest of the hill, I saw the black one trotting my way, with the white, foamy-mouthed one running up from behind it, both looking like they’d been waiting there for me to stumble into their trap.
This time, I took off running at full speed, hurdling the fence along the walkway past Toner Institute, and racing across the parking lot behind the convent at DePaul Institute, scared to death that they’d catch me before I reached the convent.
My plan was to pound on the doors of the convent, pleading sanctuary to the good nuns there, who surely wouldn’t turn me away. But, by the time I got there, the dogs were nowhere in sight. Maybe I’d lost them? Maybe they’d lost interest in me? Relieved, I trudged on past the convent, thankful that I wouldn’t have to do anything as desperate as that. Nuns scared me too — but not nearly as much as those wild dogs did! I was completely out of breath, my asthma having kicked in, which combined with the stark fear, had left me gasping and wheezing. I was one hot mess of a ten year old kid. Even Lucky, the meanest dog I’d known up to that point in my young life, belonging to one of my customers who lived right across Dorchester from DePaul, seemed civil compared to those wild dogs.
I made it home without further incident with them … this time. But, every morning, for the next couple months, I finished up my route fearing those two wild dogs appearing over the crest of that hill, ready to terrorize me, once again.
Just when I finally began to forget about them, and went back to my usual day-dreaming of my life as a major league baseball player when I grew up, of wooing a pretty girl to be my bride, who would travel the world with me (during the off-season, of course) and be my partner in crime in all of the dashing adventures we would find ourselves in the middle of, battling pirates on the open sea, beating back armies of invaders in the Arabian desert, dancing on the streets of New York City with our gang of fellows, like in West Side Story — these were the worlds of imagination I lived in when I delivered those papers that earned my way in the real world — the invaders returned!
Blackie and Foamy, looking wilder than ever, ready to terrorize me some more, were coming at me again! I usually managed to evade them, though one time, Blackie got a hold of my pants leg and ripped a bite size hole off the bottom cuff, before I shook myself loose, beating him off with a folded newspaper, managing to escape, barely, one more time.
At least, they weren’t one of my new blue jeans pants — they were a pair of hand-me-down corduroys, that Mom would be able to patch back up. I shuddered to think about what would happen if Foamy ever got a piece of my flesh.
Though I only actually was confronted by those two wild dogs three or four times all told, they had me gripped in fear every morning as I walked McNeilly Road, delivering those last four or five newspapers, embraced by the stark terror that Blackie and Foamy would come racing down that hill to finally have me for breakfast.
I really hated those two wild dogs. That was real terror.
