The Border.

There was a goddamn disturbance out the back window a few nights ago. It sure made me mad. Yes it sure as hell did. A dog was barking forever. Tirelessly. And I needed sleep so badly. Like it was going to save my life. And I should say here that it wasn't really that late. Only about 9:30 in the evening. When does the so-called right to quiet begin?

I had tried to crash an hour before. I just simply needed to reset. In that way. Because I had decided not to smoke. That was the third day. Just like that. I won't say more about quitting smoking. Because that does not come close to describing my relationship to tobacco. To just say quitting smoking does nothing to relate to my deep nicotine addiction. I'm even addicted to the removal of nicotine. Iactually get off on the feeling of quitting. But unfortunately, more so than that, I like the feeling of relapse on Nicky Teeny (the bopper). I love picking up the phone and calling her. I can't even go into right now, because I have to say something about this goddamn dog that was barking in the neigbour's patio. The other night.

Fuck. I woke up after only half an hour. I felt like shit. I was naked and white and cold. Hunched over. I didn't feel much like being alive at that moment, in my cold house. So I'd simply tried to go to sleep. But that goddamn dog. He'd woken me up. Had he been in my dream? What the hell. A barking dog echoing around these hills is like a screen door slamming shut in a shanty in Chicago. There are always dogs barking here.

Earlier he'd gone one like that for a short while. Just as I was undressing and lying down. I heard him out there. I chose not to let it register. And he'd stopped long enough for me to finally doze off. I had relaxed and was even forgetting the day. But now he was going at it. At what? Fucking stupid dogs. There are so many dogs in LA that bark for nothing. Every yard, if you're walking has an uber-territorial mutt. And barking. Dogs like that should be made into shoes and gloves I feel sometimes.

I was wide-awake and rivetted. Like I'd just received an injection in my spine. I muscled myself out of bed stiffly, against the cold. It was rough. In the instant it took for me to quit that warm spot under the sheets and make to the window. I realized I did not recognize the bark of that dog. I thought I knew all the dogs around the back of my pad. I'd never heard this dog before. I made him for at least 45 lbs. Just by the sound.

My bedroom has the worst window looking out on the most forgotten, never examined or maintained 10 foot by 2 foot alley of the whole property. It's the very back of the lot: Just a dirt strip enclosed on one side by a five foot high peeling wooden fence, and on the other side by my bedroom wall. I have rusty old bars across the bedroom window, keeping anyone or anything from even thinking about getting in. And that's the one good thing I can say about that window.

It pained me to be awake, naked, and searching through the louvers for the source of a maddening dog's bark. It's so damn dirty back there. It's barren and desolate. There's just my hot water heater enclosed in a steel cabinet. It's a gas-fired tank and always hisses in the middle of the night. Racoons and cats sometimes rumble back there. It's a place I never go . Because there's been trouble with my neigbour on that, my western border.

Years back. When I was first living here in the hacienda. A friend of ours named Munzi was living here in 1321 . He was originally from New Jersey and had come out to be an actor. But he ended up being a grip. Still he was something of a charming Italian tough guy. He had one night gone off on the neigbour-to-the-rear's dog. Same exact scenario I was suddenly going through. He was trying to get some shut-eye. A big dog was barking only five feet from his head. Man and dog are separated only by a cheesy little stucco wall and a jalousie window which doesn't close properly becasue the house has sunk too much. In outrageous desperation Munzi finally yells something at the neigbhour. Tells him to shut up his fucking dog.

Only this neigbhour is a hardnose mexican dude. He wears a rodeo belt buckle and aviator shades. He's very ranchero in an edgy way. Like a coyote gangster out of a movie. And he didn't like Munzi yelling at him and his dog. Hostilities were declared when El Bruto cemented a 4" drain pipe, which historically had drained the rear of this property during the winter flash rains. It had been an easement of sorts. Obviously taken totally for granted by all parties. The same week all that shit went down, a truck backed into our front driveway on Sanborn. Took out five feet of the ugly white painted steel fence. And took out Raf's motorcycle too. A hit and run accident against our house.

There was nothing anybody could say about anything. And it was just the beginning. The guy sue then-owner Lisette Bustelo for property infringement. He accused her of having built illegal dwellings in her backyard and that they infringed on his real property. A bunch of bullshit. But it turns out she had to hire a surveyor to prove him wrong. Which he was, and it was obvious. But he was just playing a game. The guy was a real viper. Not the type you want to step on.

The report about illegal and sub-standard dwellings put us on L.A. Dept. of Building and Safety's radar. They sent an inspector around, who managed to weasle his way into our court, on the pretext of needing to see a gas meter or something. Next thing we know I am locked out of my great little $300/month hacienda. And the structure itself is possibly condemned. All kinds more shit is going down. There are 27 violations on the property, from illegal buildings to unsafe rooves. Lisette, the previous owner; a Cuban broad who was marired to a cop. She just folded her tents and sold the place. To me. She didn't want anything to do with the place anymore. Bad memories?

Fast forward now. I'm living in the little back house. Same bedroom Munzi had when he was driven to the brink by a barking dog. And I've just been woken up by some no-good hound. Barking without any reason.

It wasn't the same neigbour. It was one house over. It was a yard I never even consider. So far back there. And such a troublesome area too. I stand there at the window. I'm naked and freezing. My heart is beating like mad. The windows in my bedroom are all three on one wall. They are jalousie windows. The louvered kind. Very Desi Arnez in South Beach Miami style. Inappropriate as hell to a desert during winter. And these windows are filthy too. I've never seen them cleaned the whole time I've lived here.

Outside the dog kept barking on and on at this weird irregular rate. Breaking the otherwise perfect quiet of the hills around me. I cussed in frustration, under my breath. it had something of a whimper in it. My breaths were short and clipped. The quick rise and fall breath of defeat. Of powerlessness. The dog stopped barking for a moment, as if he'd heard me. He was listening to me just as I was to him. And then he started barking harder and more rapidly.

I screamed louder than I've ever screamed in my life. The words I screamed were in Spanish. As loud and mean as I could make them.

CALLETE PERRO!!!!!!!!

I bellowed it from the very bottom of my lungs.

Shut up dog was what I had screamed. Goddamn it felt good. I said it so fast, and so hot and hard. It was one part hiss, like a steam locomotive blasting off from a safety valve. But as a sound it was a brown, meat eating crunch . Like a large carnivorous animal driven mad from rotting teeth. It was partly the bluish black and violet sound of a madman screaming from the darkest most terrifyng basement cell of a psychiatric ward. In 1911 New Jesersey. The scream was all of that. And yet it still managed to be kind of spoken word.

Shut up dog. And no comebacks.