Antonio Bonillio was a dark skinned elsewhere national in his early 70s living on the streets in Washington, DC in 2009. I was an animal cruelty investigator in DC at the time and Georgetown, the very northwestiest part of northwest DC, was part of my jurisdiction, congressionally-chartered.
I relished the calls from upset wealthy people brunching in the whitest part of Chocolate City, “there is a STREET PERSON with two DOGS on M STREET. IN GEORGETOWN.”
They would all say, “IN GEORGETOWN,” like, with both a question mark and a period at the end of it… Like, “do you know what I mean.”
Through the phone receiver, I could smell on their breath that he wasn’t white either.
“What is the issue, ma'am?”
If entitlement has a sound, it was the silence in the phone punctuated by a DC spring day on a VIP patio in Georgetown.
“There is a STREET PERSON. With DOGS. On M STREET. NORTHWEST. In GEORGETOWN.”
“I’m sorry, ma'am, you’ve reached the Humane Law Enforcement Division, we only address issues of animal cruelty; if there are dogs running at large I can refer you to DC Animal Control.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you responded to animal cruelty.”
“But… there is a STREET PERSON. With DOGS.”
Yes, I know. In GEORGETOWN.
What I would have given to have seen footage of this woman’s outrage the first time we spoke. Or any of the subsequent four times she called to place cruelty complaints.
Because she insisted, and because there was an exceptionally good coffee place I liked in Georgetown and I could park anywhere I wanted with those blue lights on my truck, and because it was just fun to do, I went to M Street looking for this street person every time this lady called me from her lunch table.
It was like he was expecting me when I found him on the bridge that connects Foggy Bottom to Georgetown. When I went to shake his hand, he told me, “watch that one,” and gestured to his little black dog, who was already furrowing her face and leaning towards me.
Antonio was emaciated. A picture of poverty, really. He had bright eyes and baked skin and no fat to spare. He told me to drink more water, he said the key to staying alive is drinking more water.
“How much water should I drink, Antonio?”
His dogs, however, Blackie and Scruffy, were obese.
Antonio’s steeze was pretty clever; he posted up outside of Whole Foods, and begged for food for his dogs. He wouldn’t go in, he didn’t ask for money, he absolutely never asked for anything free, just for patrons to take his money and buy some meat for his dogs while he waited outside with them.
He didn’t trust dog food companies, so he would beg people for plain chicken, bread, fish. Lots of fish. He said Blackie was from Puerto Rico, and she grew up on fish. He stole her from a fisherman who beat her. He gave the man a bottle of booze and then snuck into dude’s house at night while he was passed out drunk, stole Blackie and peaced out to Florida with her, where he got Scruffy from a similar situation.
I convinced the owner of The Dog Spot on Wisconsin Avenue to groom Scruffy for free, because she was getting to be such a wreck. It took a whole day with Antonio to get him to let Scruffy go into a room without him. The dog got mad shitty for grooming, and as a result, she got a horrible haircut. Really awful. I mean, it was fast, and free, and she was bad, and it looked all of those things.
Pacing and chain-smoking my American Spirits outside of the Dog Spot, Antonio only didn’t go inside because I told him Blackie was too aggressive to go in there with him, so he had to leave her outside to go inside to check on Scruffy.
After the worst twenty minutes of his month, Antonio laid eyes on Scruffy, with a haphazardly-tied pink bandana to indicate her gender, wonky because she was surely trying to bite whomever was tasked with sticking it on her fat neck. He cried out, “My dog!”
Oh shit. He’s gonna freak out, I braced myself.
He burst into tears and ran for Scruffy, who looked even more relieved to see him, and he wrapped his arms around her fat little body and wailed, “she’s so beautiful! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! She is the most beautiful dog in the world!”
Dogs and even the competent-to-own-one homeless humans I’ve known are certainly not “the” “most” “important” “problem” “facing” “us” “today.”
But if we can create a culture of compassion towards something so specific, something as simple as a relationship, if that translates from townhouse to no house, if we can get the gist that love anywhere is love, if we can hold up love as a solution, then it serves as a model for solving, or whatever, “greater” “problems” “exist.”
And that’s why I give a shit about homeless people’s dogs.
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