See the wild.
See the wild, painted dogs. Around them, the ice cream shops and Pine Bluff Elementary.
See, we drive for hours to see them; something wild, their bodies painted in loops and snarls of black and red, barely dogs, as we know them—and the ice that must be in their veins! To scour a parking lot and come up with cream. We pack the shops for calendars and binocs and pine candy. On the bluff of the elementary school, I will be your good-time adventure guide.
See the wild painted dogs of North Charleston. The weak ones die, but the drive of those pregnant mother hounds snuffling the ditch-line for hours—to see them is to see ourselves. Something wild, their bodies bearing the scars of night fights and bad love and still they get up after a hard rain to find a pothole to drink. On Main Street, with the ocean in their ears, artists are painting portraits of them, sanctified in loops of gold and snarling yellow teeth and black markings around their fierce red eyes, bared to the world like little cutesy wounds. Their beauty is our export and you, our daily bread, so take it all in: barely dogs, as you should not pet them or, heavens, feed them from your hand—still, we know them, and we give them names like Blacky and Prince and go on and on about the ice that must be in their veins and their tenacity, to scour an oil-spotted parking lot and—come up here with the long lens, this one has a coat the color of canned peaches, howling nobility in a half-husky scream. We’ll pack a lunch and have you back at the shops by one to talk fortunes and this year’s calendar, and we won’t bore you with binaries like: domestic and wild, and whatever the hell “feral” means. Eco-idiots and softhearted scientists with pine candy where their pricks should be made that word. Never mind it here, on the bluff of the elementary school, where I will be your good-time adventure guide.
Come see the wild painted dogs of scenic, safely suburban North Charleston, where Mother Nature can let it all hang out. The weekly drama of who lives and who dries up is the romance we’re all so hot to see; see it for yourselves, and we’ll swear to a tasteful remove, never interfering in the balance of this biome by the hotel’s crystal pool. You’ll go home inspired by the drive of those pregnant mother hounds who, like our own mothers, don’t take “no” or “down girl!” for an answer. Aspiring photographers, kids with crayons, neo-cowboy pickers, and angsty tattoo stickers snuffle the ditch-line for a piece of something real in the hours just after dawn, when the dogs are active and the heat is down. To see them is to see ourselves, and see what we call wild, their dog-ish bodies a little beat up and showing some rib, bearing the scars of night fights and bad love and still-water parasites. Like them in Africa and African-themed zoos, they get up after a hard rain to find a pot of honey and a shallow hole to drink from. How did they get here—that hardly matters now, but most believe that they, like us, arrived in response to opportunity, or that they were, perhaps, shipwrecked by European hero-types. You wouldn’t ask what I’m doing here; why pressure them? —Lord knows they’re going fast, so just enjoy Main Street: the spectacle of something hard and, yet fluffy padding around—I mean, go on and make a memory. With sterile oceans in between their ears, our artists are slashing out hand-sized paintings and portraits of Wild You with the Wild Dogs in the background, or, if you like, we’ll do it the other way around. See yourself sanctified in loops of gold and snarling yellow teeth and black markings around fierce red eyes, bared to the world like little cutesy wounds. It’s true, their beauty is our export, and you, our summer guest, so let dailiness be forgotten, let your heart rest, let’s forget what even a canid is and discover these animals: what can barely be called “dogs,” like the ones you and I keep at home—see, these are outside; say: Wild. For preservation’s sake, we should not pet them, and for the share-holder’s sake, we’ll keep them uncut; ask yourself: would you castrate a lion or vaccinate a poison frog? Great God, how these wild dogs remind one of the first proto-Golden who retrieved the idea of companionship from heaven and brought it back to hand. Even still, isolated by mythos, we feel we know them and give them names like Blacky the Prince and Raggedy Baby and go on loving them from a shrewd remove, shouting and brochure-ing about that ice in their veins and the raw tenacity that gets their hip-displaced asses up each morning to scour an oily, liver-spotted Parker’s lot and—come up here with your can of artisanal peaches; take in the howling virility of a wild dog’s nobility, what these half-dead, husk-eyed hippies would deem a needy puppy’s scream. We’ll pack a lunch and have you back at the shops by one to chalk murals and tell our own good fortunes and fill next year’s calendar with tour dates. Drown the ramblings of Eco-idiots and deny the soft, faux-hearted scientists the satisfaction of muzzling the last bits of Wildness that we have in Greater Charleston while you suck pine candy and forget the feral Maltese and fantasize about just how close you were to the real deal and the very rebel-yell and swinging prick of Nature—feel the power of that word—and tell your friends to find me; better yet, drop a pin on the bluff of the elementary school, where I will be your good-time adventure guide.
