My neighborhood bar has an "Arts-N-Crafts" night each week. It's basically a great excuse to use glitter and paste while you get hammered. Existing somewhere between pure genius and total chaos in regards to the attendees, it's the hippest thing to do in Silver Lake each Wednesday night.
The event is held in the area normally used for dancing. I walked in and saw everyone milling about, showing each other what they'd done. Lots of folks were laying around on their stomachs as they worked on their projects. If it weren't for the highballs and pint glasses sitting next to them, they'd all would've looked like preschoolers – everyone giggling, rolling around on the floor coloring and clipping construction paper. I got my drink, grabbed some materials and looked for a place to sit. The floor was crowded, so I sat down next to an older, good-looking man near the far end of the room across the dance floor.
He saw me make way towards him and moved some of his things. "Hi there" I said. "Looks like we're working together this evening." He smiled, "We sure are! I'm Andrew." "Hi Andrew, I'm Kurt." We shook hands and got settled. "What's yours going to be?" I asked him. "I'm doing a portrait of my dogs. I have two dogs. Love em!"
"Oh that's cool. I can't have pets, my landlady won't let us have any. Besides, I'm afraid of dogs."
"Yes I know. I can tell," he told me. "How did you know? " I laughed.
"It's your forehead," he said flatly. "You have a one of those high 'Irish-Noble' foreheads. You're not going bald, you just have a very high hairline." (I wished he would've said ‘YOU'RE NOT GOING BALD’ a little louder. I've always thought that some guys didn't want to put much effort into dating me because they thought, "Well, he's cute now, but he's obviously going bald. I don't want to be around for THAT.") It's true, my family doesn't lose their hair, we just have enormous foreheads.
"OK, so why does that make me a target for dogs?" I asked him. "It acts like a radar dish. Dogs can sense your unease with them from a mile away. Isn't that true?
When I was small, every summer my sister Shelly and I were shipped out to Texas to stay with my father's family. His parents worked as caretakers of a large ranch in a little town named Dalhart. We loved it. We got to do cowboy stuff like ride horses, eat barbecue and take my grandfather's old pick up out for joyrides while he napped. One day, during one of our visits, Shelly and I were cleaning out one of the horse stalls, (as punishment for getting caught during an aforementioned joyride) when out of nowhere, two huge, black dogs came barking towards us — and it wasn't to play. They wanted to take a bite out us. We were scooping up horse poop when the dogs came. We screamed and ran for one of the high fence rails that surrounded a nearby stall. I remember myself, in an unforgivable act of cowardliness, pushing my younger sister out of the way and jumping up the rail first, leaving her to the dogs. Once on top, I was frozen with fear. The dogs were almost there and my poor sister stood there, arms outstretched to me crying, "Quick Kurtie, help me up! They're coming!" But I couldn't move. And then I saw it. In her eyes I could tell that she knew I wasn't going to lean over and help her. She was on her own. Thankfully, my grandfather came running around the corner with a shovel and banged one of the dogs atop the head, sending it and its companion yelping back to wherever they came from. He picked up my sister, lifted me off the rail and took us back to the house. Nothing was ever the same between my sister and I after that. She had lost confidence in me, and I never really won it back. Sometimes I think I wanted the dogs to eat her. But that's a whole other story.
I thought about that day as Andrew asked me his question, and wondered to myself that maybe dogs don't like me because I'm a coward. I'm the kind of guy who throws his little sister aside to save his own ass. Perhaps cowards taste better. We've got big, juicy legs from all the running away we do in our lives.
"Well," I told him, "maybe you're right. I've never had much luck with the dogs."
"Ah that's OK," he said. "At least you still have your looks."
As he said this, he reached over and caressed my leg. I was buzzed and now, depressed, after discovering why dogs really hate me. They know my secret. So, I just let the guy go for it on my legs, not because it was sexy but because it was kind of sweet. A strange, tender moment in the bar with the lights up and everyone running around showing each other what they did in arts and crafts class. The way children do. They way my sister and I did before I let her down.
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