A Sid Story
1. A Man and his Dog
It has been said that you can judge a man by his dog. Sid has a small one tied to his belt with a piece of string while loafing on the pier as he fiddles with a chair he found at Northlake. 80’s Punk as full blast as his tiny GEN2 shuffle would go, he was a bit tense because the clear fishing line chosen for his mod wouldn’t hold the knot. The bowline slipknot kept slipping, this time because his dog attacked something. Damn dog. He does that all day long. Fortunately, Sid was able to keep ahold of the tiny loops pinched in the fingers of both hands as he steadied the project with his knees about chest high while seated on the piling. “Chill,” he told his dog, Chamud, and back to the knot on just another day about to get a lot more fun.
Why anyone would mess with Sid is an absolute mystery. He is the most inked-out spikey punk badass you could ever not want. He even stinks. Everything about him SCREAMS how pissed off he is and that he would love to choke you unconscious. He’s the guy walking along saying “fuck you” to nobody at all as he walks alone in lonely places. Cross him in any way at your peril. A loose cannon with a loose nut let loose. Headphones + Hat + Hoodie + Fast Walk Hunch + Clenched Fists = Sid.
Sid’s favorite song is the “Jealous Again” version with Keith (or was in Dez?) singing. That wasn’t on, but he chuckled grimly anyway because Black Flag just asked him “You don’t have anything personal against me, do you?” HaHaHa. There was a weird vocal track he never heard before mixed into the blaring volume punishing his ears. Kinda violent. He looked up from his busy hands with his bobbing head to see what the dog was so happy about and saw feet. Slipping an earbud partially from one ear, he identified the feedback source, heard enough, replaced the ear bud and stood up.
He couldn’t hear anything but the pounding blood that competed with the blaring punk, but he said anyway “in front of these witnesses you are threatening me and what happens next is self-defense unless you walk away right now” and sat back down, smiling, still holding those damn tiny slippery loops. Chamud remained standing, wagging, because he knew all about what was coming next. The dog could smell this hooligan’s assholliness as clearly as his own doggie asshole, which is pretty damn clear. Sid resumed his fiddling and almost had it when the chair was kicked from his hand. Sid lurched, grabbed throat with one hand and balls with the other, picked that fucker up, and threw him off the pier, careful to keep an ankle in hand on the way by to provide a nice torture dangle over the frigid sea far from shore.
“I hope y’all can swim because she looks pretty rough and angry down there in the pilings today, account of the storm an’ all. A person is likely to become shark food all torn up on them there barnacles in the grip of a mean tide,” Sid said and shifted his grip to the dangling man’s pant hem. “Also hope y’all has a belt.” He didn’t. Underwear either. Big Mouth did make a spectacle though, mooning crack groping his retreating waistband and still talking tough. Splash. “If you make it, I’ll be on shore waiting for you to finish that sentence,” Sid said as he picked up Big Mouth’s bike and threw it down on his head. “Watch your head,” he warned a little too late.
“I hope we don’t have to go on the run again, Chamud. I was starting to like it here,” Sid said as he walked easily to meet the floundering man who uttered only sputters at the moment. “Let’s go see what this cat has to say about the water. Maybe he’ll thank us for the bath and give us some smokes and money. Hope they weren’t on his bike. I ain’t got the patience to make him go back in an’ get ’em.
2. Chamud Becomes Infamous
Everyone loves Chamud. He’s a cute little thing. “Chamud” means cute in Hebrew, but few get scratchy throat sound right pronouncing it. The kids pet him while dotting parents smile. Wierdos let him kiss them their face with his wet little tongue. It’s all great fun, until someone gets hurt and that happens really fast. Sid keeps his dog on a very short leash at all times, never knowing what will fit his attack algorithm. Mostly wags with an occasional violent yank on his cord. Because Sid ties Chamud to his belt, these present nary a thing and he has learned a wavy walking style that keeps everything just out of his dog’s reach. Maybe a little tobacco might fall out of the cigarette he’s rolling when the dog sets randomly on another, but that’s about it.
Sid himself has no leash. He hates the cops and jarheads and busybodies. Actually, he kinda hates everyone/everything, especially the damn dog. How a tough guy ended up with a tiny dog is its own story, too good not to come back to. “You can pull your fucking head off for all I care,” Sid said for the hundredth time that hour as Chamud sprung yet again at another canine target with his snarling 1/4 fangs. Sid’s second smile of the morning was at the loving owners holding their pet in their arms as they walked past in mincing steps. “Guess they saw is coming, Chamud,” Sid said. “You’re infamous.”
Just then, Sid saw his own threat coming and ducked. Pier dude and his stupid drunken friends were coming up the path and hadn’t seen him yet. Getting a good look at Big Mouth made him shiver involuntarily. That dude looked like shit from not agreeing to Sid’s smokes and money plan. The ear he boxed three times hard was swollen up like a cauliflower. “Too bad I didn’t do the other and kinda balance it out,” Sid thought. “Must hurt to be all side-heavy like that.” He considered offering the favor of helping him level his keel right then, just to be neighborly and all. “Thinks them other five bruisers will object to my kind offer, Chamud? I say yes, so no. We’re ghost” and they melted off the trail into nowhere.
3. The MAKER
Sid’s camp is shabby but neat, slim shady, everything and nothing at once. It contains the other pet he both supports and hates, the mouse that ate his favorite old undershirt, and his candle, and his soap. Tiny poops get mixed into his coffee and tobacco. His food is under constant attack that no wrapper can withstand. Pulling nibbled bars and oatmeal packs from the foodbag is the norm. It ran over his hand once as he read, which scared the shit out of him. Tough guy.
Last night, the mouse got into the little bit of trash there was from dinner and rustled Sid from his sleep, again. That sucks, because he rarely sleeps and never well. His latest mindspool circles round-and-round the pier episode. He relives the violence over and over, amplifying it to murdurous intensity, tossing dreamland punches that jerk him angrily awake and hateful. He’s been told he screams during these night terrors.
In this state of agitation, having the mouse in the trash became yet another midnight mission to end the noise. He has devised many ingenious and humane traps, carrying the captives absurd distances to throw over a cliff or something, but they find their way back, or others. Who knows where the fuck mice come from, but this one must die and now.
With bloodthirst, Sid dug for and old and unused mousetrap he found and loaded it for bear with blue cheese, listening to the subtle skulking and smiling lustily when he heard the cracking SNAP, dismayed by the missing squeal. Sleep came, then the morning and it’s empty cheese-less trap. “Fucking mouse,” Sid said to Chamud, who wagged his lazy accord. He gave up on the mice long ago.
Sid, the MAKER and Tool User, got to work on the trap to hone its deadliness more keenly, tweaking and filing loosening the trigger until the wind could set it off. He devised a way to load the cheese so the mouse would have to worry it out and forget that death is for dessert. Sure of it’s lethality, he set about setting it and the fucking thing delivered its payload right onto his thumb.
You have noticed that Sid is a cussing man, yet the invective that spewed surprised even he. Translated here as “Ouch, that hurt,” he nursed the throbbing torment for a good long while. That pain diffused the resentment and turned it on it’s head into remorse. He felt bad for employing such deadly force upon his tiny adversary, imagining his thumbpain when applied to mousehead. This morning, he was looking forward to some crushed skull and lots of mouse blood. He had no idea, until now, how much that would fucking hurt.
“Fuck that fucking trap,” Sid said to Chamud as he tossed it never to be used again. The dog wasn’t so happy. He liked the trap idea and was hoping he’d get to eat the corpse.
4. Harsh Duality
Sid wonders often if his dog even has the capacity to be patient and thoughtful. The way he fights his cord and pulls until he chokes lends itself to impatience. Sometimes, when he sits still while Sid daydreams on a rock or stoop, Chamud seems thoughtful but bored, and invariably puts his nose on his paws and pretends to sleep, always facing away in full-alert attack mode. He’s a funny little thing.
And, you just never know. Some big dogs he loves and pounces about; others he growls at from their first distant sighting. Same with the little ones. Random. Experience has determined that small dogs are a bit more nasty and the big ones more patient, but that itself is no rule. Sid applies all this to their owners. Assholes have asshole dogs, and Chamud is a big fucking asshole.
Sid also believes that dogs see auras or energy vibrations or something because his tail tucks so far beneath his balls whenever he says “I fucking hate you.” It’s not the “fuck” part that does it, Sid suspects, because he says fuck all the fucking time. No, it’s the “hate” part Sid fears. Something about Sid gets very very ugly when he hates. When the simmer runs over into a boil, Chamud finds something to climb under and hide like a good dog.
The closest thing to a rule is that tiny dogs, which means smaller than him because he qualifies as very small, are a curiosity to Chamud because they are so few, a canine minority with a complex of their own called “Small Dog Syndrome.” Full of cowardly bravado, like the joke where the tough guy says “hold me back,” the leash provides strength in constraint that evaporates with any real threat. For Chamud, it’s all in the tail. Chamud is a Chihuahua Terrier mix and possesses a wiry powerful body paired with both a moody sulk and a savage fury. Both breeds have an upward curl to their tail, as does he, and it drops as discomfort rises until reaching its nadir tucked against his belly in a pathetic shiver.
So, when small dog meets tiny dog, small dog becomes big, thus unafraid. Not to say Chamud is afraid of big dogs. He’ll rip out their throat just the same. Rather, it’s that tiny dogs make him paternal in a hoppity alert way, prancing-like. This behavior is supremely annoying to Sid because it makes Sid appear friendly and approachable, two things he definitely is not. Chamud is a “Chick Magnet” and Sid hates them all.
A tiny, hand-sized squint of a thing on a leash approached on the path to Sid’s dismay and Chamud’s delight; he because of what was on one end of the leash and him because of the other. Sid’s world is one of the harsh duality found when the spiritual meets the physical in any serious manner. To him, spiritual values both religious and elemental, reign supreme. In shul yesterday, a co-worshipper referred to himself as “Post Denominational,” which made Sid snigger. “What’s funny about that,” the worshiper demanded. “I was a Christian who converted to Judaism both Conservative and Orthodox, then adopted the customs of the Sephardic over my Ashzinaz teachers and daven now in a Lubavicher shul,” Sid replied. “If that ain’t post denominational, I don’t know what is.”
Anyway, there is this chick walking a tiny dog and Chamud wants to say hi, which just isn’t going to happen. The Jews call it “Tzniut” and the extreme modesty is nearly fanatic. Actual contact with any female other than his wife is Issur Gamur and absolutely forbidden by Torah Law, but it extends infinitely far beyond such an obvious truth to the other extreme of “Guarding Your Eyes.” Sid literally looks at the ground as he walks to keep unwanted images from introducing lewdity to his thoughts and, thus, remain pure. That’s the idea, at least, because Sid is and looks tainted as all get out. Harsh Duality.
5. Steve Gets Cut Off
Sid only feels good when he is helping others. Maybe it is that he doesn’t give a shit about himself or that he really needs nothing at all. It’s hard to be motivated without hunger and Sid is well fed by the world he finds himself in. Everything he wants, he finds or scores somehow pretty much right away. Once, he was walking and thought “I wish I had a blue sweater.” The very next morning, when the Salvation Army Truck dumped its load of clothes at the Bay Park Feed, he found a Banana Republic Cashmere in a perfect color and size, the one he would get if he had the choice of any. This uncanny abundance follows him everywhere and is annoyingly demotive. So, he prowls the wharf looking for likely victims for his kindness.
When your friends are bums, it is pretty easy to see what they need. If toes are showing through the holes in Nick-Knack’s shoes, it’s a pretty sure bet he could use new ones. “Hey Nick. What size shoes do you wear?” and he has all he needs to fix it later. Seeing Bird on the ground shivering in a jacket and pants lends itself to the idea “Bird needs a sleeping bag.” John is sniffling; get him tissues. Bull got punched out again and needs Neosporin. Someone stuck a pin in Barney’s tire and he needs a patch. Stick-Man needs some old tires he got put onto his bike to replace the even older ones. Rob got body lice and needs a new set of clothes. Derrick lost his tent when he got hit by a car while drunk. Steve needs a beer to dodge the DTs. That’s a big list and all Sid has covered is the last bit with Steve, but hey!, it’s better than nothing and off he goes.
“Hey Steve. Need a beer?” Sid asks lamely, knowing Steve ALWAYS needs a beer. The Wharf’s drunkest drunk, he’s already drunk at 10am. “Late night or an early start?”
“I need a fucking candle” Steve replied, hunched over a rock trying to heat a can of soup by holding a lighter to a small ball of wax cheese wrapping. “This isn’t working.”
“I don’t have a candle,” Sid said, knowing he had three stashed up in his camp that he found outside a wedding in The Plaza last night. “I wanted those candles,” he thought sadly, knowing Steve needed them more. “Take this damn thing,” Sid said as he tossed the beer can in the dirt and rode off to get them. He was gone when Sid got back. “Fuck,” Sid said, and threw the candles in his bag with all the other crap he needs to get rid of today or trade for weed. “Now I have to hunt that asshole down just to give him his damn candles.”
Sid has three basic modes for the hunt: bike, skate or foot. Chamud prefers the smells walking, but tolerates the skateboard unless suddenness or loudness scares him, which is pretty much all the time, so skating kinda sucks. The bike is impossible, unless Sid ditches the dog, which he does now.
Now, Chamudi is a total asshole when it comes to dogs. Useless, he can’t camp without shivering, eat without gobbling, walk without pulling, talk without whining, or be loved. He reveals the camp, which is plain stupid. ALL of these things were learned from the lame-o previous owner, a lazy spoiled-brat. Sid hates that dog, so he “puts him away” in the ventilated box that gets buried up by camp, piece of shit, and goes hunting for people to love.
6. Tweaker Bitch
The first time Sid choked out a bitch it was just to shut her up. When he saw how good it worked, he became a killer.
It started out easy enough with a “Hello The Camp!” and went bad fast. You never know what’s gonna happen approaching a camp. Crazy Fuckers in there, sometimes. Druggies. Killers. Fiends. There is also food and weed, in Sid went to meet a toothless hag living in a hole.