Drama City

SEVEN

Melvin Lee drove a 3-Series BMW slowly down an alley bordered by the backs of houses on one side and a large community garden of vegetables and flowers on the other. Past the garden were the deep woods of Fort Dupont Park. Lee and Rico Miller were off E Street and 32nd, between the Anacostia Freeway and Minnesota Avenue, east of the Anacostia River. Up ahead, where the alley came to a dead end, at least a dozen freshly detailed late-model imports were parked on the grass. Also in the group were several vans, SUVs, and high-ton pickups.

“The Way You Move,” that Outkast in heavy summer rotation, was coming from the in-dash. Lee was into it, and the way Rico was moving his head to those bursts of horns, looked like he was into it too. But you couldn’t tell if the boy had any joy in him. Only time he smiled was when he was thinking about putting the hurt on someone. Rico was one of those, seemed like he had gone from being a little kid straight to a man, skipped the fun parts in between.

“This alley don’t connect to nothin’,” said Miller, who noticed such things. “Onlyest way out is the way you came in.”

“Police ain’t gonna lock you up for watchin’ no fights.”

“Old people live in these houses, you know they ain’t got nothin’ better to do than look out their windows all day long. They gonna see all these cars, they gonna call the law.”

Instinctively, Lee reached for the joint in Miller’s hand, then thought better of it and drew his hand back.

“You can’t?” said Miller.

“I’m about due to drop a urine. I drop a positive, I’m gonna be violated like a motherfucker.”

“Your PO is on you?”

“On me hard, ” said Lee.

Lee swung the BMW into a space beside a Lexus SUV. Stepping out of the car, they could hear the thump of bass coming from down in the woods. Lee saw a boy, couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, standing around the vehicles, a neighborhood kid, most likely, paid by someone to keep an eye out for the law. Lee handed him five dollars and told him to look after his ride. The boy positioned himself beside the car.

Lee and Miller entered the woods. Almost immediately, the land graded off and dropped to a steep pitch. Down below, they could see a clearing, and then the ground rose up again. In the clearing there was much activity and many men.

“There they go,” said Lee. “Down in that valley.”

“That’s a valley?” said Miller, who had never been in the woods, outside of driving through Rock Creek Park, in his life.

“A ravine, then,” said Lee, who was nearly as inexperienced and uncomfortable in this setting as Miller, but wouldn’t admit it. “Somethin’ like that.”

They came into the clearing. Gamblers and spectators stood around drinking, smoking weed, and discussing past and upcoming matches. A bookie sitting in a folding portable camping chair took bets and cash, and wrote the wagers in a notebook. Another man sold beer, malt liquor, and wine concoctions from out of a cooler. A boom box played bomb-squad-style hip-hop. There were few women in the crowd.

On the fringes, dogfighters handled their animals, pit bulls with game-cropped ears, all leashed or in cages. Many were being scrubbed down with soap solutions, as was required, since dogs were sometimes sent into the ring with nausea-inducing chemicals on their coats. A card table had been set up to the side; laid out on it were first aid supplies: IV kits, sutures, alcohol preps, and sponges. Syringes, to be used for injectable antibiotics brought along by the handlers, were available as a courtesy as well. Also complimentary were vitamins and supplements: B12, and liver and iron extracts. Beside the table were a couple of scales.

The ring itself was constructed of wood and had been transported in sections and assembled in the clearing. It was twenty feet square, thirty-six inches high, and had hinged gates in two of its opposing corners. Its floor was covered in green outdoor carpet stained with blood.

Lee and Miller moved through the crowd. Lee nodded at those he knew and made minimal eye contact with those he did not recognize. Residents of all four quadrants of the city were welcome here regardless of gang or business affiliation. This event was for profit and relaxation. The settling of beefs or the initiation of any kind of conflict was discouraged. But things happened when gazes lingered too long.

Lee bought a couple of malt liquors for him and his boy. He then placed a bet with the bookie after examining the dogs that were next up on the unofficial card. Lee put fifty dollars on a black pit named Mamba, due to fight a tan-and-white named Lucy. He was advised to do so by an obese man he’d seen around the clubs, had a copy of the Scratch Line in his hand. Fat Tony seemed like he knew his stuff. Plus, Lee liked the way that dog looked, black and strong. Also, Lee liked its name.

The music was turned off, a signal that the fight was about to begin. The spectators and players gathered around the perimeter of the ring. In the pen, both dogs had been placed in their corners by their handlers.

A referee, dressed casually, the same as everyone else, stepped in and ordered the cornermen out of the pit. Both got out of the fighting area but held their dogs fast by their collars from outside the gates. The referee instructed them to face their dogs.

The dogs were released. They ran to the center of the ring and clashed. The crowd was loud and intense. They laughed and called out for murder and blood. The dogs were virtually silent. They fought methodically, battling for position and dominance. Both were taken down and both sprang back up. Both had been conditioned for strength and endurance with cat mills, carpet mills, and spring poles. Both wanted to please their owners and defeat their opponent. Only one could emerge victorious.

It was Lucy, in the end, who won, her jaw furiously clamped onto Mamba’s face. Finally, after a word from the referee, Lucy’s handler used parting sticks, which were nothing but ax handles, to force his dog off the other. Lucy drew back. Mamba’s right eye had been ripped from its socket; it hung by nerves, just barely connected, halfway down his cheek.

Lee was angry for listening to the fat man, and for picking the dog because of its name, an amateur play. Miller, for his part, had enjoyed the fight. His dick had got hard in his South Pole sweats when that tan dog had bit right down on that other dog’s face.

Mamba, confused and in agony, rubbed his snout on the bloody carpet, trying to do something about his useless, dangling eye. Mamba’s handler stood over the dog, berating him, calling him names. Then he picked the dog up and cradled him in his arms. He walked from the ring and headed toward the first aid table.

“You ready to book on out?” said Miller.

“Not yet,” said Lee, looking with contempt at the owner holding his crippled animal. “I’m gonna win my money back first.”

“Mamba wasn’t shit,” said Rico Miller.

Lee nodded, thinking, Fuck that animal. Let it suffer some. Cur deserves to suffer for showing no heart.

Lorenzo Brown and Mark Christianson took the Tahoe, the newest vehicle in the Humane fleet, across town, because it had the best ride and also because of the CD player in its dash. Lorenzo was a radio man, strictly PGC or KYS, but Mark liked a kind of rock that could rarely be found on the airwaves anymore. Mark called it “punk before punk.” When they paired up, Lorenzo deferred to Mark’s seniority and allowed him to drive and control the music. Mark had put Fun House into the player and turned it up.

Lorenzo looked over at Mark, normally easy mannered and genial, his face now set, his jaw tight. Mark got that way when they were making calls like this one. More than Lorenzo, he was totally committed to, some would say obsessed with, protecting animals. His dislike of animal abusers in general and dogfighters in particular bordered on hate.

But Lorenzo could understand it. Mark had been through the worst of it, had patrolled these streets during the most violent phase of the fight-dog fad, and had seen some very bad things. All while Lorenzo had been serving his time.

Mark had first worked for PETA, straight out of college, but quickly grew tired of meetings, fund-raising, and desk duty. He then took a job at the shelter, picking up strays and biters, working the 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift, going alone at night into some of the most run-down sections of the city. It wasn’t long before he became a Humane officer, wanting to take his mission to the next level.

This was the midnineties, when the fight-dog craze was at its peak. Having a pit or a rottweiler had become a symbol of power and fashion, a hip-hop accessory, like having the platinum chains or the nicest car. Pit bulls, in particular, seemed to be everywhere. Never mind that few of their owners knew how to care for them or had the desire to learn. Dogs, especially those who had lost fights, were disposable, like a shirt friends ridiculed because it had gone out of style. Mark found dogs shot in alleys, lying curbside with broken necks, thrown off roofs, and disposed of in Dumpsters with the trash.

To do his policing, he went into neighborhoods, apartment complexes, and Section Eight housing projects where his was the only white face for miles around. Places like First Terrace, around M and North Capitol, where the theft of dogs was common, and Simple City, at the time a legendary breeding ground for violent crime. Worst of all was 50th Place in Lincoln Heights, in Far Northeast. There the most serious dogfighters resided and held their matches. Dogs were flown in from Florida, with thousands invested in the animals, many paid for by drug money. The owners had much to protect. Back in that cul-de-sac, Mark encountered some of the scariest people he had ever seen.

He was physically threatened, ridiculed, and called, alternately, a faggot, a punk, and a bitch. The threats of violence bothered him, but not the names. He knew he was on the right side. He had suffered from stress-related weight loss and sleeplessness during this period, but he hung with the job.

And then time eased the situation. The culture began to change. It became less fashionable to own a fighting dog. Some handlers became sickened at the injuries and death. Others just grew old. The gangster romance thing had its window, and that window stayed open, it seemed, only for the young. Mark knew dogfighters who had quit because they’d started families, or because their women had insisted they get out of the game, or simply because they knew they couldn’t jail.

The laws changed too. Failure to provide veterinary care to an injured animal was now a misdemeanor. More important, there was a new felony dogfighting law on the books. One judge in particular, down at the District Courthouse, was known to give offenders actual jail time. The law was often invoked to help put violent multi-offenders-domestic abusers, rapists, and the like-behind bars when other charges had failed. Its implementation had made a dent in the dogfighting in the city.

Some offenders had gone on to related but less risky ventures. Many bred and sold pit bull puppies. Others trained and engaged dogs in professional weight pulls, a different kind of wagering activity that did not involve violence. Some dogs trained and bred for weight pulls even wore harnesses lined with sheepskin so the pressure would not cut their coats. Lorenzo Brown was not opposed to such contests, as the dogs, though powered up on steroids, were treated with relative care. Mark, predictably, was passionately opposed to animal exploitation of any kind.

The two of them were mostly on the same page, though. Their outlooks were different, but only by degree. There was still plenty of dogfighting and animal abuse in the city to keep them mutually focused.

Mark Christianson took the Benning Bridge over the Anacostia River and turned left on Minnesota Avenue. Lorenzo reached for the CD player and turned down the volume. They were nearing their destination. He radioed in to the office and asked for the whereabouts of the police. The MPD had been called, but Cindy at the dispatch desk did not know if officers had arrived.

Mark hooked a right onto the residential block of E Street and drove east. He went back into the alley and slowed the truck. Up ahead, where the alley dead-ended at a field, they saw many cars. A boy stood beside a silver 330i. He straightened as he caught sight of their blue uniforms through the windshield of their truck.

“It’s goin’ on,” said Mark.

“They got a lookout too.”

Mark and Lorenzo were unarmed. They had a choke pole, a wire noose mounted on a stick to control the heads of extremely aggressive dogs, in the back of the Tahoe. They had canisters of pepper spray that they never carried on their persons and rarely used. Once sprayed on an impounded animal, the annoying, burning toxin was difficult to get out of the vans and trucks.

Pepper spray was just one reason that Mark and Lorenzo preferred to work without police. Police were quick to use the spray, then leave the Humane officers to deal with the aftereffects. Some police, especially those who did not own dogs themselves, were also quick to use their sidearms. Recently, Lorenzo had seen a 6D officer empty his magazine into a teeth-baring, saliva-dripping rottie that, with patience, could have been subdued. Lorenzo had the impression that this particular police just wanted to shoot his gun.

Lack of police was fine, long as you didn’t need them. But as Mark and Lorenzo went down the alley, counting the cars up ahead, they both realized they could use some help today.

“Pull over,” said Lorenzo. “I want to talk to that kid.”

“How do you want to do this?” said Mark, sweat on his forehead, though the air conditioning was blowing full force on his face.

“Your call,” said Lorenzo.

“I’ll go in.”

“Figured you would. You got your binos?”

“My camera too.”

“I’ll get a record of these license plates,” said Lorenzo, grabbing his clipboard and pen.

“Right,” said Mark, parking the Tahoe, putting the tree up in park.

“You get burned, you come on back. You need help, you holler.”

“I will.”

“Or we could both stay up here,” said Lorenzo. “Wait for the law.”

Mark, reaching for his binoculars and camera in a pack behind his seat, did not answer. Both of them got out of the truck.

“You,” said Lorenzo, pointing at the kid, who was still standing beside the silver BMW.

The kid stepped away from the car. Lorenzo went to him.

“Take off,” said Lorenzo. “Police on their way, and you don’t want to be here for that. You did what you got paid to do. Now leave, hear?”

The kid gave him a tough shoulder roll before he walked off, a slight dip in his stride.

Lorenzo watched Mark enter the woods, stepping with care. When he looked back to check on the kid, he saw him booking down the dirt alley. Lorenzo knew that the kid would cut into the woods as soon as he was out of Lorenzo’s sight. He’d go down there and warn the players that the dog man was here, which meant the police were on the way. That’s what he would have done at this boy’s age. Lorenzo didn’t blame him. They all had to play their roles. Besides, the object was to break up the fights and, for now at least, spare those animals some misery. The kid, no matter his intent, was going to get it done.

Lorenzo walked the alley, quickly recording the license plate numbers of the attendees, and the makes and models of the cars. The way that kid was running, he and Mark didn’t have much time.