Somehow, I knew what he was going to say by the way he was stroking my dog Brodie’s throat.
Brodie is a West Highland terrier, a stocky little white terror that at a get-together of thirty or so other “westies” and their owners a few years ago was overwhelmingly voted cutest dog. Earlier this afternoon I was walking him through our quiet leafy corner of Heidelberg. It was drizzling, and strangely cool for late July. On the street corner opposite our apartment building a small crowd hovered around an ambulance and a mangled bicycle. Having passed them we rounded the corner down the block and nearly collided with a slovenly man lurking in the middle of the sidewalk.
He looked a mess. T-shirt, vest and jeans hanging from his hulking frame. Sparse strands of greasy brown hair plastered to his skull. Fleshy boils bubbling out of his face, neck and the backs of his hands. Looming there, blocking our way, he brandished his yellowed jack-o-lantern teeth through a cross-eyed smile and mumbled in German, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” I replied, and anticipating his next question added, “he’s five.” Looking serious suddenly, he bent down and began massaging Brodie’s throat. It was disturbing to watch.
He stood up and spoke again, this time in English. “If I would be a girl dog, I would do something not nice with him.”
He leered at Brodie as I fumbled for words. Brodie sniffed obliviously at a fence.
Then it came to me. I said it in German. “Well, have a good day.”
“You, too,” he replied, and we parted ways. A few paces on I was startled to hear myself say aloud, “Brodie, you just got molested.” I turned to look at him, straggling behind me on his leash. He was shitting on the sidewalk.
