For the Dogs

What follows is a rough draft of an incident that happened in the late summer of 2005.


Some time last summer I was watching some dogs for a family. Simultaneously, a married couple flew in, so we decided to take a walk along Butterfly Beach in Montecito.

The day was overcast, and almost raining, with nary a soul along the entire stretch of beach except for us and another lady with dogs. We walked from Miramar up the coast toward Graveyards, at the north end of Butterfly. On our way back, we noticed a dog catcher on the steps at Butterfly, and as we walked closer, he slowly made his way down to the lowtide waterline, strategically angling his timing and approach to meet with us head on.

Well. We turned back briefly, giving me enough time to put the two boisterous chocolate labs on leashes, and started toward the dogcatcher again. He'd returned to the steps, but noticed us returning, and again did his strategic approach. Having no choice, I walked right up to him, complete with my brother, the married couple, and the dogs. The only other person on the beach had stayed up at Graveyards, and I did her the favor of taking the heat off of her dogs.

"Your dogs were off leash." The guy was big, easily 6 foot 5, probably 250 pounds, and somehow his giant black cop boots were made all the bigger because of his tight-fitting green polyester issue pants. I could tell from the very beginning he had every intention of writing me a ticket.

Instead of keeping my mouth shut, I decided I'd quibble with him instead.

"Yes, but they're on now, as you can see."

"But they were off leash—I saw you put the leash on."

"Yes, but they're on leash now, and there's absolutely nobody on the beach."

"That doesn't matter. The leash law is 24-7."

"Dude. It's almost raining. It's cold. It's windy. There's nobody on the beach besides us. Come on." I reached out and gave him a broad handed pat on the side of his shoulder. "Come on."

He reached for his radio, crooked over his other shoulder, and blatantly said, "Requesting backup."

"Backup?" I asked, incredulous. "You must be joking."

"We'll wait for the sheriff."

I decided then and there that I was going to exercise my civil right to resist arrest, even if the arrest was only a dog ticket. I'd known from the second he walked down the beach that I wasn't going to get out of a ticket. And now he was calling the sheriff. What the hell did he think I was going to do, attack him with my doofous dogs?

I proceeded to walk south toward Miramar, not waiting for the sheriff, even though I saw the car drive toward the steps as I was walking south. I slinked along just against the Biltmore wall, and my married couple friends later told me he'd gotten out of the sheriff's car to look over the wall at my progress.

As I reached Hammonds, about half a mile from Miramar, (still having passed nobody on the beach), I debated taking the public access trail or sticking to the beach. The whole way my brother was berating me for having walked off, telling me how I should have kissed ass. How things would have gone much better had I not sassed to the dog patrol. He didn't want to understand that the guy was going to give me a ticket no matter what, which is why I figured lipping off to the guy wouldn't have made an iota of difference.

As I stood at the trailhead, I saw the dog patrol guy walking up from Miramar, along with two sheriffs. Two.

We met, and the sheriffs, straight out of Deputy Kamp, immediately assumed the Spaghetti Western stance: feet shoulder width apart, with a slight bend at the knee on the leg with the gun. There hands twitched mere inches above their gun holsters, ready to unclip the snaps at a moment's provocation.

"Do you want to go to jail?" One of them asked, authoritatively, in a deep voice, expressing each syllable and accenting 'jail' as he'd spoken it in italics. Like I'd never heard the word and needed elucidation.

I looked at them both. Their oversized cop glasses. Their freshly pressed uniforms. Their minty-fresh bootcamp "got-your-back" posturing. I glanced down at the two clueless dogs (on leashes), who were probably wondering why these three gentlemen had all gotten out of their cars, and gotten their boots sandy to harass one harmless dude on a windy, damp, unpopulated beach. They just wanted a scooby snack.

"Not particularly."

They explained in no uncertain terms that the dog catcher has as much authority as a cop (they do, I looked it up), and that by my walking off I was officially resisting arrest. They asked why I hadn't awaited their arrival. I said something lame like the dog catcher had been unclear as to whether he was issuing a ticket, and I didn't know why he was calling for backup, and the dogs needed their medicine, so I'd walked on. I apologized to the dog catcher, and told him I'd meant no disrespect.

He nodded and asked for my ID. I told him I'd left it in the car (it was in my back pocket) and gave him my name.

Deputy One immediately called my name in. And we waited. And waited.

My brother, meanwhile, was dressed in his usual black, with his long hair and lanky posture. He had a cellphone and his gargle of keys creating a menacing looking shape in his pocket.

After he'd spent several minutes prior to our current encounter berating me for not kissing the cop's ass, he put on his sarcastic hat, doing to the sheriffs exactly what I'd done. Talking lip.

"It's a cell phone."

"Would you mind taking it out of your pocket?"

"Do you need to make a phone call?"

"What?"

"Do you need to make a call?" He took it slowly from his pocket, mocking the sheriff with his gun-like cell phone.

The call in came back, and both sheriffs immediately renewed their edgy stance as the operator informed them that they could find no Jessie Bellinger.

"Are you sure you don't have any aliases?" the sheriff asked, hoping I'd give him my Mexican pseudonym from my crack slinging days of crossing the border under protection of the night.

"I don't have an 'I' in my name."

They called in again, and after a fifteen minute wait (it was a Sunday waiting list) they confirmed I was clean. The dog catcher gave me my $120 ticket.

"Wonderful doing business with you gentlemen," I said, snidely. "If you'd like, maybe you can sit around all week until I come back next Thursday with the dogs again. Apparently you don't have anything better to do but track dangerous dogwalkers through the raging, gang-ravaged streets of Montecito."

They gave us a comfortable distance as we walked back, but just enough to let us know that they were still on to us.

The beauty of it was climbing into the dog's owner's vehicle: a clean, Lexus SUV. Hoodlums, us.

I've seen that same dogcatcher standing around on the Butterfly steps, on sunnier days, when hundreds of people are walking their dogs, all of them off leash. He does nothing. What irks me the most is that I can't do anything, except write this. I've got your leash hanging right here, Mr. Dogcatcher Man. I hope you step in poop.