What if . . .
In August of 1964, I decided to drop out of the Brooklyn Polytech Aeronautical Engineering program to fix what is wrong with the world. I was 19.
What did it to me was a story in The NY Daily News about an abused dog, having been kicked to broken bones and thrown in a ThriftyMart dumpster, rescued by a lady and her daughter and suffering through 8 months of surgery and rehab, donated by caring people and overworked veterinarians.
I just snapped. Plain as that.
The fine for abusing an animal to this extent was $100. The people and doctors who brought Frankie, the injured dog, back to health had donated about $5000 of their billable time to do that.
Fuck it. I just snapped. I realized that what was wrong with the world was that I was not planning to make it better. I was simply planning to have a career, and to be happy in an imperfect world. That, right there, was the problem. Me.
I called the Daily News and offered a $50 reward for any information that led to the conviction of the people who beat Frankie, but the reporter laughed me off with . . . "Kid, $50? You got moxie, but nobody needs $50 enough to put any time into this. Donate your money to the animal shelter."
Fuck it. I just snapped.
I left the repair and well being of the dog to the people who cared for it. I understood that Frankie's suffering and healing were inevitable, unstoppable events. What I had to bring to the party was vengence, the weight of vengence laid onto the right side of the scale.
Time . . . time passes slowly, and so it did.
One morning, months later, I woke from a rock solid sleep, feeling the best I felt in a long while. Popped a mug under the one-cup brewer and pulled the curtains open (it was 9:30 already!). Frankie gave me his "open the f#cking door please, NOW" look, and so I did and he ran out to the yard.
I watched him through the window, rolling around in the sunlight. I tossed my clothes into the machine and wondered if all the blood would wash out. I can still hear their bones snapping.
Page written by Dave Leo