Jimmy is part Pit Bull. That’s all his mom-companion, Lior, who lives with him in Inwood, can tell me when I meet them this past Saturday morning. That, and she saved him from neighbors who’d been his abusive keepers.
He’s part Akita, I say. Look at that tail.
That’s what other people say, too, she says with an enormous grin crammed full of teeth.
Can I touch him? Can I play with him? Is it okay?
Yes, please!
So I do. I look into those eyes, one blue and one green, tell him he’s beautiful, a good boy, the best boy, and the beautiful good best boy leans against me in a heartbeat. My own heart is beating as fast as his, both of us happy to have made the acquaintance.
You’re touching him right where he’s been hurt, she says. That’s where he has a scar.
I hadn’t searched for any scars, for anything other than just a cradled armful of warm dog. I don’t move my hand from the hurt spot, from the scar. I don’t search for it even now, knowing where it is.
Oh, he loves you, Lior says. He loves you.
I love him, I say. You are lucky to have him. And he’s lucky to have you.
I have to go, so I say so long to two of the most glorious grins I’ve come across in quite some time. My own lasts the rest of the morning and well into the day.