We spill into the gym, my babies and I, since nowadays we can´t but make an entrance. Athletes chug along with their prescribed routines. Hands grip bars and thrust themselves up while the steady rower fans exhale tired breaths. It´s a typical day, but it feels all wrong. No laughter and no booming voice to provoke it. There is no Misa to be found adding another unwanted weight to an individual´s plank hold. The beloved jokester is absent.
Then the vibration begins from deep with a bag littered with cloth diapers and clothes way too small for an average human. I have an incoming call from Misa.
¨Love, I didn´t say anything earlier because I don´t like to worry you, but I was bitten by a dog this morning on the way to work. I´m at a clinic up the road getting it cleaned.¨
No, no, no. Within I feel tightness in my stomach and firmness in my jaw. An injury done and over, but the details remain too important.
¨But you rode your bike there?¨ I ask, hoping his response will ease the picture in my mind.
¨Yeah, I´m alright. They cleaned the wound and now I´m just waiting to see a doctor about vaccines.¨
It´s terrifying, but not a surprise. Getting bitten by a street dog is just one of those ominous and inevitable experiences around here. It comes with the territory. We ski around 15 piles of dog crap to get to the corner, brace ourselves when an alley lump lifts its head as we pass, and practice our rock throwing when they´re too close. It´s an experience we fear, but not enough to stop running or bicycling.
Even so, my mood dampens considering my husband´s sacrifice. Every morning he offers himself up to the gods of rabies so that I may drive the car with the boys a few hours later. He has lost items before, pieces of socks and snippets of his soles, but never a part of him as this day. The perceived danger is now real.
But where was the bite? Which dog? As the questions flood my mind, my knight in Nike training shoes steps off of his man-powered iron-horse. For my sake, he suppresses a joke about his desire to howl and simply grins. His right calf has a blood-soaked piece of gauze with 12 short pieces of tape to keep it in place.
¨They didn´t give me a shot. They said it wasn´t a big enough bite and it wasn´t close to the heart. But, if the dog dies, I should go back.¨
I ignore the red flag that popped up in my brain at this. ¨How are you supposed to know if the dog dies?¨
¨Yeah, well, I guess if I see a dog on top of the dirt mound, I´ll know. But I don´t know which dog it was, I was chased by six of them. At that spot I´ve told you about, by the old train tracks.¨
I knew where. He´d mentioned them before, always pedalling with his heart because his feet couldn´t go fast enough. But this time his backpack was hanging. A simple problem fixed by a drawstring. But enough to keep him from victory. Not defeated, but not unscathed. A simple problem that pushed him to walk around a pharmacy to purchase 50 cent gauze that the hospital didn´t have available.
A few hours later, we are at a new clinic asking about a rabies shot. Same opinion. Our efforts futile until we realize the governmental gimmick. They put Misa up to a dog watching game. The warning being ¨if the dog dies, you´re going down too my boy.¨ They convince him he is fine. The bite was on an extremity, the bite didn´t pierce his bone, etc. It all sounds good when you just don´t know. But the reality is, it´s a cover up for the lack of resources and lack of will to get what is needed. Nowhere in Puebla is this shot available. Despite the rampant run-ins. Despite the most popular road kill. Despite the injuries and illness due to aggression from the beasts. The underfunded hospitals have to convince you that you are okay, they haven´t another way.
I guess that pack of dogs will die, whether it be by illness or by vengeance.
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