there was a scuffle.
or at least there was the aftermath of a scuffle. i stepped out of the store on the haight and looked around to see dozens of people standing around, eyes agape and visibly upset. i zeroed in on their gazes and saw a woman holding a towel to a dog's neck - blood spilled out from beneath the towel. as she frantically tried to stem the flow of blood, she was screaming at a man with his doberman walking down the sidewalk. hordes of people hurled obscenities at him, yet he wasn't looking back and he wasn't running. a small group of people began to form near the bleeding dog.
"he just whipped out a knife and stabbed the dog," explained one gawker to the to the other.
realizing that they could do little but watch the woman and her dog making gurgled noises of pain, the small mob began to follow the doberman and his master. both dog and owner stepped into the doorway of an empty storefront and closed the gates behind them. more irate people crowded around the empty store - pointing fingers and making various comments about his mother. if they had torches they would have burned the place down.
feeling that the proverbial shit was going to hit the proverbial fan, i ducked into another store on my side of the street.
"the one dog was tied up in front of the store and the doberman just started to attack it," said another spectator inside the store. "the owner tried to pull the doberman away on its leash but the two kept on fighting. when he couldn't pull them apart, he whipped out this huge knife out of nowhere and stabbed the other dog in the neck." they stood inside the store, looking through the picture-glass windows to the outside.
"god-damnit, when two dogs are fighting, you don't fucking stab the other dog!" said his partner, raising her voice above the techno beat on the speakers. other customers started to join in on the conversation.
outside, the crowd had gotten much larger around the attacker's sanctuary. it became apparent that the stabber was employed as a painter at this particular storefront. not only had he closed the iron gate, but he had closed the big glass doors as well. two dozen people shouted at him from the other side of the glass. he gave them all the finger.
i wandered around through the store that i had ducked into, making my circuit past the raver gear, fetishwear and platform boots without buying anything and made my way back out the street.
by this time, the attacker had someone extricated himself from the store without being slaughtered by the mob outside his window. the mob refocused their energy from the now absent assailant to his pickup truck parked right in front of the store. the painting gear stocked in the bed of the truck had alerted them to its owner.
"FUCKER!" screamed one of the voices in the irate mob. a moment or two later a huge piece of cinder flew out of the hands of one adrenaline pumped hand and landed squarely in the middle of the pickup truck's windshield. safety glass buckled beneath the weight and a thousand veins shattered across the surface. the 'pop' sound was much quieter than i would have expected from cement hitting glass.
half the crowd around the pickup truck cheered, the other half fell silent. one of them ran to the corner of the street to see the pickup truck's owner walking away in the distance.
"LOOKS LIKE YOU'LL NEED A NEW WINDSHIELD, ASSHOLE!" he shouted.
the owner and the doberman refused to look back. <9.5.00>
all words (c) filmfatale industries 2000