Early Dogs. The first thing we saw when we rounded the corner on Bourbon was a muscular man, holding a rope, the two ends attached to two barrell-headed dogs. Take a pit bull, and double the size of its head. Big mean dog.
Within one minute Gary had decided that man was a bouncer, and the dogs were used to intimidate rowdy bar patrons.
The next day he wrote his mother that New Orleans has a private security company that employs men with large dogs to stand on street corners and keep the peace. Seriously. An image bubbles in Gary's mind into an industry.
Money Dogs. That night, a man had a black dog in his bicycle basket, and Gary asked if he could pet it. If you've been to the French Quarter you know this dog, and you're probably a few dollars shyer for having petted it. You pet the adorable dog, the man tells you he can't find work, and can you spare some change, etc. A few nights later the same man and dog approached us. "Would you like to pet my dog?" We said, "We met you and your dog yesterday. No thank you." He laughed knowingly.
Get Out of Jail Free Dogs. A few days in we began counting the dogs, and we saw a dog every five minutes. I tried to get a kiss out of Gary every time we saw a dog, but that lasted one kiss. I asked the ghost tour guide why I was seeing so many dogs.
"The panhandlers have dogs." We shared the story of the money-making dog we met the first day. He said, "That took some effort. Most of the homeless just get a dog so when the police arrest them, they just say, 'But who will take care of my dog?' Then they don't go to jail." Another tour guide said there was no call for anyone to be homeless or unemployed in New Orleans, because of all the rebuilding going on. Gary was swayed by this man's opinion and dropped his homeless donations to one dollar per request. His heart was so hardened he said it was nice that the police didn't have to arrest the dog-owning beggars; it freed up their time to escort parades under our hotel balcony. Harsh!
And, the Moral of the Story. That's why when Gary saw the open bag of dog food under the overpass, he knew it must mean a homeless dog-owner camped out there. But ... it was a big bag, so it must be an entire community of homeless men and homeless dogs. Again, an image bubbles in his brain and turns into a story.
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