My friend was bitten by a dog this summer. For British readers: being bitten by a dog elsewhere in the world isn’t merely painful, scary and shocking. It brings with it a real possibility of rabies. For non-British reader – really, I’m not making this up, there’s no rabies in the UK. My friend is here in Madison, and it was a drive-by bite, so he never saw the dog’s immunization papers, and can’t get it put down. He’s had to go through the course of preventative rabies therapy, and is clearly experiencing a certain level of trauma, not really wanting to go out in his neighbourhood. I suspect that, like me, he’ll now have a lifelong fear of dogs. Which, of course, may serve him well.
My experience being bitten by a dog was far more satisfying. The Miner’s Strike was half way through, and friends had organized a benefit concert with The Pogues in Camden that I planned to attend. Beforehand I decided to go up the shops to get something for dinner. As I walked up the road I noticed a bloke in a torn dirty old man mac gesticulating wildly to me from a distant phone box. I slowly twigged he was not alone in the box – he was accompanied by a 5-year old girl I recognized from the a house a few doors away, and a good-looking rather well dressed chap around my age. He seemed completely nuts.
I’d been so distracted by his bizarre behaviour that I hadn’t noticed three quite large Alsations (German Shepherds — not actual shepherds, or for that matter people from Alsace, but dogs) roaming free — I’d use the word ‘gamboling’ if they weren’t so sinister — on the pavement not far ahead of me. I am allergic to dogs (and pretty much all mammals other, fortunately, than humans), and am no sort of a dog-lover but at this point in my life I wasn’t yet terrified of them. So, despite their loud barking and generally fierce demeanour, I just kept walking. They angrily let me pass, so I let out of a sigh of relief. And then felt a pair of jaws clamp round the back of my right leg and teeth sink into my flesh.
Running wasn’t actually an option, and seemed unwise anyway, so I took about 6 more steps before the bugger let go of me [1]. Then of course I realized what the dirty-old-man-mac man had been trying to warn me about.
When I reached the phone booth he pulled me in with the other victims. The little girl’s foot was bleeding although she was pretty cheerful (much less so when I saw her the next morning, I have to say), and the good looking well dressed chap was looking very pale. One of them had called the police but… although we were only a mile from Brixton police station, some of you will remember that the police were thin on the ground in London during the miners’ strike and, anyway, I can’t imagine that a dog emergency was ever taken very seriously.
And, indeed. Eventually a van drew up with a couple of extremely young coppers who had obvious contempt for us weedy men and surprisingly little sympathy for the lovely little girl. They swaggered toward the dogs without their truncheons and, hilariously, the dogs went for them, so they turned tail and ran back to their van. Now, much more cautiously, and having gathered their truncheons, they approached the dogs, threatening them, and found the owner in his house. He was completely unrepentant, just couldn’t see what the problem was, which explained a lot.
I got some food and seem to remember going back to my digs to cook it. And then, for whatever reason, decided to go to the benefit anyway. By the time I got there I was in delayed shock and feeling pretty terrible so my friend Elspeth (an impresario) took me into the kitchen where a small group of women, all Chilean refugees, whose organization was behind the benefit, fussed over me. Elspeth made me sweet tea, and the Chilean women simply could not believe that I hadn’t gone to A&E. “You must have rabies” one of them said, and none of us could convince them that the UK doesn’t actually have rabies – they thought this was the famous English sense of humour.
After improving a bit I went into the gig with another friend, Tara (It is through Elspeth that I initially met CB, who may remember Tara who was and still is Lesley’s partner). I had no particular interest in The Pogues, but they were terrific. Tara and I stood at the very back of the hall, and a nice chap wearing a black hat and dark glasses slipped in between us. We all chatted between the songs. He was easy going, friendly, and told us he was going out with the bass player. We spent almost the whole gig together – I left a few minutes early when I started feeling a bit weak. Tara and I did exchange a glance when he deliberately edged between us – there was just enough room for it not to seem awkward I suppose but the look wasn’t about that. We were acknowledging to each other what we were much too cool to acknowledge him, which was that we knew perfectly well that he was Elvis Costello. Nice chap.[2]
[1] I met a bear in Aspen once. It was just ambling along the sidewalk toward me. Cars were passing, and nobody stopped to warn me or anything, so I figured — well, bears must just be normal round here, like cats or something — and just kept walking. We passed each other politely. I later discovered that bears are objectively more terrifying than dogs.
[2] I can tell you about my encounters with Cat Stevens and Paul Weller sometime if you like (both delightfully nice chaps, at least toward me), but I’ll keep the dinner at Damon Albarn’s house to myself.
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