The house cleaner comes so I take Kobe for a walk. It is not lost on me how fortunate I am and how untrained my dog is. Kobe does well on the walk. Well for him. Pulls when a smell excites him. Stops and lies down when he sees another dog. But on this December afternoon he’s mostly walking at my side with a couple pee breaks mixed in.
We have about 10 minutes left on our hour long walk when a young man walks up to me on the sidewalk. He is bright looking. He says to me “I eat dogs”. I keep walking. He repeats, “I eat dogs”. His tone isn’t a joking one, more mocking. I say “ok”. He’s not satisfied. I ask him why he would say such a thing. I actually said “why the fuck would you say that?” and he said “because you are white”. “What?, I say. “That’s what white people think, that Chinese eat dogs”. There is a little bit back and forth after that, I was trying to express “what the fuck?” and he was trying to express that “You are white, so I think these things about Chinese”. Before he turns to leave he asks “How much for your dog?”. He then adds  “I am also cheap labor, did you know that”? He doesn’t look like a laborer, I’m thinking, he is pretty well dressed and his English is decent. Then he’s off and I continue walking Kobe.
30 seconds later he’s back. I hear a voice “hey, sir. hey sir”. I turn around to see him running up to me. He’s close. He says “you know what? You know what? I’m a n(word). I’m a n(word)”. I mumble “whatever” and turn back up the street as he turns and jogs away.
He doesn’t reappear. In the final minutes of the walk I replay all the clever things I could have said to him. None of it really matters as Kobe leans forward to pee like Beagles do.

This made the whole dog walk thing an oddity. When I get home I’m at a loss to explain the young man. He didn’t seem mentally ill, although who is to say. He didn’t seem angry although there was some there. More like resentment. I don’t know where he got that impression of white people although I understand prejudices exists.