Dog Bite Story (2010)
So Joe, Jennifer, and I took a trip heading south out of Mexico City. It must have been 1979, and we were on a mission to buy fabulous Mexican baskets from their makers in a little village outside Taxco, - a town too small to be on any map, so I don’t know how to spell its Mayan name - then eventually to drive them to the U.S. where we’d sell them and get rich. Or at least pay for our trip.
Ten-year-old Jen vomited pretty much the whole way from San Miguel to Mexico City and then from DF to Taxco. The next day, rather than ride up one more mountain, she decided to stay in the hotel, by herself, for the half-day our business would take. Her Spanish was okay, so Joe and I coached her about ordering some food or whatever else she might need. She ended up spending the whole day in the room, eating stacks of Maria’s, those blandly wonderful Mexican cookies. I shudder when I think about this, my leaving a child alone in a strange hotel in a new city in a foreign country. It was the 70s, I was adventurous and naïve, and ThankYouJesus, it turned out fine, but still…
Joe spoke perfect Spanish, so he started asking around; where is Tlamacazapa? Everyone answered the same way, looking up into the distance with a hand gesture, swooping up up up. So up we went. The town was nothing but modest houses built on the sloping dirt road; no café, no pharmacy, not much of anything. Joe told the townspeople what we were looking for, and they sent out for baskets to be brought to a central location, In an hour, then, Joe said, and we set off to explore.
A woman stopped us on our walk up the road and invited us to see some masks. We followed her, climbing over a fence and into a compound of simple huts. We were shown into a dirt-floored house where I laughed out loud to see a huge color television with “Bye Bye Birdie” on its shockingly big screen. My high school had performed that musical, so I sang along with whatever number was being sung at that moment. Oh, a witch; the white lady sings along with the magic box! Someone brought a straight-backed wooden chair and insisted I sit in it just inches in front of the tv. How Jennifer would have loved this, I remember thinking.
As we left the shabby neighborhood with a few straw masks slung over our arms, I was surrounded by a pack of small yapping dogs. Later Joe would say I walked as if I was at a lady’s garden party, but I was pretending to be invisible, a habit I have that doesn’t ever work. One of the circling little curs snapped at my leg and bit me, sharp and hard. OW. Joe threw some rocks, we clambered back over the fence, and I rolled up the leg of my jeans to see the damage: a big hunk of flesh poking out of my left leg and enough blood for mild panic. I revised my thoughts: Thank goodness Jennifer wasn’t here! We hurried down to our meeting place and asked for help. People brought water for me to wash the wound, and we loaded the truck bed full of gorgeous woven goods and headed back to the city.
Taxco is, of course, a real city with antiseptic and bandages, so we played doctor, had a couple of drinks for medicinal purposes, and decided to see an English-language movie to take my mind off things. And what was showing? “The Pack,” a B movie about terrorizing wild dogs! So ends the story of the dog bite in Tlamacazapa. But of course there’s more to this story. Stay tuned for Part 2.
Ten-year-old Jen vomited pretty much the whole way from San Miguel to Mexico City and then from DF to Taxco. The next day, rather than ride up one more mountain, she decided to stay in the hotel, by herself, for the half-day our business would take. Her Spanish was okay, so Joe and I coached her about ordering some food or whatever else she might need. She ended up spending the whole day in the room, eating stacks of Maria’s, those blandly wonderful Mexican cookies. I shudder when I think about this, my leaving a child alone in a strange hotel in a new city in a foreign country. It was the 70s, I was adventurous and naïve, and ThankYouJesus, it turned out fine, but still…
Joe spoke perfect Spanish, so he started asking around; where is Tlamacazapa? Everyone answered the same way, looking up into the distance with a hand gesture, swooping up up up. So up we went. The town was nothing but modest houses built on the sloping dirt road; no café, no pharmacy, not much of anything. Joe told the townspeople what we were looking for, and they sent out for baskets to be brought to a central location, In an hour, then, Joe said, and we set off to explore.
A woman stopped us on our walk up the road and invited us to see some masks. We followed her, climbing over a fence and into a compound of simple huts. We were shown into a dirt-floored house where I laughed out loud to see a huge color television with “Bye Bye Birdie” on its shockingly big screen. My high school had performed that musical, so I sang along with whatever number was being sung at that moment. Oh, a witch; the white lady sings along with the magic box! Someone brought a straight-backed wooden chair and insisted I sit in it just inches in front of the tv. How Jennifer would have loved this, I remember thinking.
As we left the shabby neighborhood with a few straw masks slung over our arms, I was surrounded by a pack of small yapping dogs. Later Joe would say I walked as if I was at a lady’s garden party, but I was pretending to be invisible, a habit I have that doesn’t ever work. One of the circling little curs snapped at my leg and bit me, sharp and hard. OW. Joe threw some rocks, we clambered back over the fence, and I rolled up the leg of my jeans to see the damage: a big hunk of flesh poking out of my left leg and enough blood for mild panic. I revised my thoughts: Thank goodness Jennifer wasn’t here! We hurried down to our meeting place and asked for help. People brought water for me to wash the wound, and we loaded the truck bed full of gorgeous woven goods and headed back to the city.
Taxco is, of course, a real city with antiseptic and bandages, so we played doctor, had a couple of drinks for medicinal purposes, and decided to see an English-language movie to take my mind off things. And what was showing? “The Pack,” a B movie about terrorizing wild dogs! So ends the story of the dog bite in Tlamacazapa. But of course there’s more to this story. Stay tuned for Part 2.
Dog Bite Story, Part 2
(This part of the dog-bite story is usually told as part of the answer to the constant question of how Ray and I met. We were both single and in Jackson where I’d visit a couple months a year from my “home” in San Miguel, Mexico. Ray first asked me to lunch in December of 1979, but I stood him up: I was in the hospital with meningitis and the day I was discharged, weighing 96 pounds, I headed back to Mexico with a belated explanation to Ray. The next August he asked me out again, this time to go to the Blues Festival in the Delta. I had to decline and it would take another six months for us to get together, and here is why.)
Jennifer and I were back in Mississippi and I was trying to market a truckload of Mexican baskets (see entry “Dog-Bite, Part 1). I told the dog-bite story every chance I got – going to Tlamacazapa, the color tv in a thatch-roofed hut, etc. – and when I showed off the wound, my sister got alarmed and called a family friend who is a doctor. He in turn called the CDC in Atlanta and told my story. Ask her no questions, they said; give her rabies shots.
So to Ray I said, Sorry, can’t go, I’m having rabies shots. That’s a new one, no doubt he said or at least thought, but it was true. Back then they gave 21 shots in 14 days: one a day for the first week, then twice daily for a week. My doctor, Jim, had his office give me the first one or two, then they turned me over to the local emergency room where I’d go each day. The shots are given in subcutaneous fat, so, yes, they do give them in the stomach. The needle is tiny and the first few days were easy; there’s nothing to this, I thought. But the shots are cumulative, and the more I had, the worse they got. When I had shot #8, the 7th and 6th and all previous sites – upper arms, thighs, and tummy (I requested they skip the buttocks since I needed to sit and sleep) – would puff up with fever and pain. So by the 15th or so, the emergency personnel would see me coming and run for cover, none of them wanting to inflict so much pain.
One day I parked in a space nearest the E.R. door, reserved for the chaplain. A security guard fussed at me and I told him why I was there – rabies shots! – and asked him to wait a couple minutes and watch me. I entered the E.R. like a normal person, walking in an ordinary way, but post-shot out I came staggering and shifting my weight like a zombie, groaning and whimpering. Lady, he said, you can park here any time.
Doctor Jim was a bit younger than I am - still is - and is someone I’ve known since his medical school days. He’s a “church friend,” and a dignified and rather formal type, gentlemanly, maybe even uptight. Not long after the rabies treatments, I was walking up Capitol Street with a friend, just looking and strolling and minding my own business; it was early evening and the sidewalk was almost deserted. A car drove by and the driver rolled down his window and BARKED, woof, woof. For some reason, I knew it was directed to me, and being 30-something and thinking I was cute enough, certainly not a dog, it hurt my feelings. Why would somebody bark at me? The next time I ran into Doctor Jim, he asked if I’d heard him trying to get my attention on Capitol Street. Seems he couldn’t come up with my name quickly enough, so he just barked!
The previous year I’d gone to him after coming to MS from MX with a major headache. I was in the process of divorcing, but the papers weren’t finalized and I was sleeping on the fold-out couch in the house my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I shared. My sister was dating someone new, and we’d stayed up late getting acquainted and drinking lots and lots of beer. Next day I awoke with a killer headache. My ex, a medical student, pooh-poohed me: You drank too much, he diagnosed, and I couldn’t argue. But I also couldn’t move, think, or do anything else due to the horrendous headache. I went to Mother’s house to complain and take a nap. She examined me and said, You’ve got meningitis. And I did.
Dr. Jim was on the case. He took my medical history and asked: have you had “an episode” with a pig? Odd question. But yes, I’d come back to the States straight from a tour of Oaxacan beach towns (see entry titled “Memorial”) where, for a couple nights, I’d slept in a “hammock hotel” at Zipolite Beach. And under my hammock, which I rented for 50 cents a night, there slept a big fat pig. Jim was excited. There is a “pig virus” that causes meningitis, and mine might be a case for the medical journals. So he sent me to an office run by Mississippi’s agriculture university where they tested blood for diseases of this type. Are you the pig lady? they asked, and I’d huff and sneer. Turns out the pig had nothing to do with my headache, but it became one more story.
Later on Jim asked me to notify his office whenever I was coming back from Mexico so he could schedule his vacation. Woof, woof.
Jennifer and I were back in Mississippi and I was trying to market a truckload of Mexican baskets (see entry “Dog-Bite, Part 1). I told the dog-bite story every chance I got – going to Tlamacazapa, the color tv in a thatch-roofed hut, etc. – and when I showed off the wound, my sister got alarmed and called a family friend who is a doctor. He in turn called the CDC in Atlanta and told my story. Ask her no questions, they said; give her rabies shots.
So to Ray I said, Sorry, can’t go, I’m having rabies shots. That’s a new one, no doubt he said or at least thought, but it was true. Back then they gave 21 shots in 14 days: one a day for the first week, then twice daily for a week. My doctor, Jim, had his office give me the first one or two, then they turned me over to the local emergency room where I’d go each day. The shots are given in subcutaneous fat, so, yes, they do give them in the stomach. The needle is tiny and the first few days were easy; there’s nothing to this, I thought. But the shots are cumulative, and the more I had, the worse they got. When I had shot #8, the 7th and 6th and all previous sites – upper arms, thighs, and tummy (I requested they skip the buttocks since I needed to sit and sleep) – would puff up with fever and pain. So by the 15th or so, the emergency personnel would see me coming and run for cover, none of them wanting to inflict so much pain.
One day I parked in a space nearest the E.R. door, reserved for the chaplain. A security guard fussed at me and I told him why I was there – rabies shots! – and asked him to wait a couple minutes and watch me. I entered the E.R. like a normal person, walking in an ordinary way, but post-shot out I came staggering and shifting my weight like a zombie, groaning and whimpering. Lady, he said, you can park here any time.
Doctor Jim was a bit younger than I am - still is - and is someone I’ve known since his medical school days. He’s a “church friend,” and a dignified and rather formal type, gentlemanly, maybe even uptight. Not long after the rabies treatments, I was walking up Capitol Street with a friend, just looking and strolling and minding my own business; it was early evening and the sidewalk was almost deserted. A car drove by and the driver rolled down his window and BARKED, woof, woof. For some reason, I knew it was directed to me, and being 30-something and thinking I was cute enough, certainly not a dog, it hurt my feelings. Why would somebody bark at me? The next time I ran into Doctor Jim, he asked if I’d heard him trying to get my attention on Capitol Street. Seems he couldn’t come up with my name quickly enough, so he just barked!
The previous year I’d gone to him after coming to MS from MX with a major headache. I was in the process of divorcing, but the papers weren’t finalized and I was sleeping on the fold-out couch in the house my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I shared. My sister was dating someone new, and we’d stayed up late getting acquainted and drinking lots and lots of beer. Next day I awoke with a killer headache. My ex, a medical student, pooh-poohed me: You drank too much, he diagnosed, and I couldn’t argue. But I also couldn’t move, think, or do anything else due to the horrendous headache. I went to Mother’s house to complain and take a nap. She examined me and said, You’ve got meningitis. And I did.
Dr. Jim was on the case. He took my medical history and asked: have you had “an episode” with a pig? Odd question. But yes, I’d come back to the States straight from a tour of Oaxacan beach towns (see entry titled “Memorial”) where, for a couple nights, I’d slept in a “hammock hotel” at Zipolite Beach. And under my hammock, which I rented for 50 cents a night, there slept a big fat pig. Jim was excited. There is a “pig virus” that causes meningitis, and mine might be a case for the medical journals. So he sent me to an office run by Mississippi’s agriculture university where they tested blood for diseases of this type. Are you the pig lady? they asked, and I’d huff and sneer. Turns out the pig had nothing to do with my headache, but it became one more story.
Later on Jim asked me to notify his office whenever I was coming back from Mexico so he could schedule his vacation. Woof, woof.
