Walking stories

Strolling, trudging, prancing through the Haight

A few months before the start of the pandemic, we adopted Greenberg and I began walking walking walking through the Haight. Since then, I’ve kept a sort of journal of our experiences, some entries only a few paragraphs, others a few pages. Here’s the first installment of a series, NOT in chronological order.

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January 1, 2023

We get to the farthest point of the 9:30 late night walk, which is the corner of Haight Street and Central.  It’s a small apartment house, and the ground floor apartment is a bit below street level.  That means the windows are at pedestrian eye level.

Every night, I glance at the windows,  made completely opaque by curtains and shades that are overlapping and have  been drawn completely.  There’s no way any passer-by can see into the apartment.  Walking so close  and wondering about what’s on the other side of the windows, II always look at them, even just to  ascertain whether there’s a light on inside. The view in has been so blocked off, though, that  there’s no way I can see even that small detail.

The sidewalk against the building, right under those windows, is one of Greenberg’s pleasure spots,  so often I pause there to let him celebrate his power of smell. He’s eager, interested, and I wish he could tell me whether he has identified Chanel No. 5, Smear of Mozzarella  or Urine of a Golden Retriever..  

This night, the first of the year, when I pause to let the dog exercise his nose, I hear something.  It’s a human sound, so I listen closer.   It’s definitely a man’s voice, and it is  uncontrolled.  Either laughter or tears, I think.  Greenberg keeps sniffing and I keep standing there.  And after a bit, I am sure.  It’s the sound of misery, choking, halting, sad crying. 

I feel as though I’ve inadvertently come across something so raw that I shouldn’t be hearing it.  It’s like accidentally opening a bathroom door when someone is performing a bodily function.  I’m tempted to pull the dog by his leash, and walk away quickly.  But Greenberg is seriously sniffing now, and I don’t want to wreck a moment that I think is going to lead him to fulfill the entire purpose of the walk.  He begins to circle, sign of the light at the end of the canine bodily function tunnel.

I stand there, frozen on the sidewalk and imprisoned in that spot by the dog’s biology.  I am , embarrassed to be listening to something I shouldn’t be hearing.   I can’t offer a comforting smile, or a pat on the arm.   I don’t want to hear this.   The man’s crying grows louder, as the dog takes his time to get into position. 

I stand there, waiting, wishing I were anywhere else, hoping the sympathy I feel for whatever pain the man is feeling is transmitted through the window.   

After what seems like a year, the dog’s done,  he’s been given a treat, and the plastic  bag, full, is ready for deposit in a public waste barrel.

The man is still crying.  I hurry away, somehow ashamed.

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January 10, 2021

When I get home, after the adrenalin stops pumping, the fright seems to me a metaphor for how we’ve dealt with COVID-19. Raised on fairy tales, I have never given up looking for happy endings. Raised on fables, I have never given up looking for lessons.

The virus is all around us, threatening on every street corner, at every deli counter. But once attacked, every victim is alone. Those taken to hospitals die in isolation, cut off from their loved ones. 

We’re well into the crisis.  Experts and everyday people have joined forces. Scientists have taken to their laboratories to create vaccines, volunteers have been risking their lives to serve as guinea pigs. Heroes  are providing us with hope for rescue. 

But on January 6, there was another peril knocking us off our feet. This time, the monster pounding on the gate was not disease but terror, an angry crowd spreading vitriol as marauders invaded the U.S. Capitol building. It was a scare of a wholly different nature, sharing with the pandemic only two things: its ability to shock and threaten.  

We’d been mesmerized by daily death counts on the newspaper’s front page, and now we were glued to our TVs watching enraged Trump supporters attempt to tear apart the foundations of our government. Switching from station to station, we fruitlessly sought words of reassurance among the platitudes of politicians trying to sound distinguished while protecting their own electability prospects.

We witnessed these things together, but at the moment of infection, the moment of riot, we were alone, individuals. Where would it stop? 

 *  *  * 

Just before Christmas, I bundle up for the last dog walk of the day,  around 10 p.m. Often, to make the walk go faster, I play games with myself. The night before, my losing bet had been on counting 50 houses with Christmas trees or holiday decorations in the windows. There had actually been 60 along my eight-block route.

Arriving at the corner of Broderick and Haight this night, I turn to walk west up the incline on Haight Street. The nights are particularly quiet these days, thanks to the COVID-related curfew, starting at 10 p.m. 

Behind me I hear some rustling. I turn to glimpse the shadowy outline of someone lurching up the street about a quarter block behind me. I’m on alert, although the man has posed no particular danger. 

But Greenberg always seems to sense my anxiety. Usually, when we pass people walking toward us, he bounds over and presses himself against their legs, looking to be petted. Always, though, when I am the least bit wary, he barks. Tonight is the same. I haven’t said anything, I haven’t done anything, but somehow he knows that I am on alert, and he starts making a shrill racket. 

This is often embarrassing, and I usually try to hush him while apologizing to the target of his barks. In this case, it is the man behind us, who seems to be walking faster than we are and gaining on us. With Greenberg yipping and yowling, I apologize to the stranger and tell the dog, as sternly as I can, to be quiet. The man is alongside us now, and leans in to ask for some money. 

“Sorry,” I tell him, perceiving that him asking for something and me turning him down has raised the stakes of the conversation. I look up and down the street. No one else is around.

Greenberg, more into shrill shrieks than polite chitchat, continues his coloratura expressions of outrage.

At this, the man starts screaming, “dog, dog, DOG!” over and over. His face is distorted, and his neck muscles bulge as he yells as loud as he can. He is not threatening me, but the force of his voice feels dangerous, that he, a grown man of average size, is as out of control as my 12-pound dog.  

Terrified at the timbre of the man’s shouts, Greenberg goes into an even greater frenzy, barking, alternately lunging and cowering, and trying to drag me into the street. The man continues yelling. If I run, I think, he could run after me, and that would be even worse. I walk a few steps more and the man keeps up with me.

He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t threaten me. He doesn’t come closer than five feet away. But his demeanor feels unpredictable, as though he could attack at any time. Standing on the deserted sidewalk, that is what scares me.  

Suddenly, I hear another man’s voice from the other side of the street. 

“Is everything all right?” he hollers. “Are you OK?” I peer into the darkness and see the man has come out of his house and is addressing me from a landing on his front steps. As he calls, the “dog”-screamer stops. Maybe he was tired of yelling, or maybe the presence of a witness has shut him up.

“Yes,” I say, so relieved to have an ally that I run across Haight Street to be closer. Greenberg in tow, I tell him what happened, that I am not harmed or hurt in any way, just shaken. 

“Are you going far?” he asks. “I can walk you home.” 

“No need,” I say. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you came out to see what was happening.”

A minute later, on Page Street, I encounter a fellow dog-walker I have often seen in the neighborhood.  His dog is wearing a surgical keep-away-from-the-wound cone, and I know he  had been neutered a day or so before. 

“How’s he doing?” I ask. 

“Better,” the guy says.

And then, because my heart is still racing and my knees are still wobbly, I tell him what happened, ending with my gratitude for the neighbor who cared enough to investigate what was going on.

“Well, sure,” says the dog-walker. “We are a community.” 

At 5 p.m. or so on January 6, when I take  a break from watching the news, neighbors are bursting out of their houses. Some, like me, have dogs to walk. Others are just taking recesses from their TV screens. “Unbelievable,” we say to each other. “Could you imagine that this is America?” “All I’ve been doing is watching and eating.” “Well, it’s been coming for four years, hasn’t it?”

We are a community, ordinary folks in sweatpants and parkas, sharing our sorrows and fears, and that seems to help. In the terrors, the horrors, the disappointments, the outrages of recent times, our strongest feelings have been our bonds with each other.