Roberto Leni: Dogs are the Beloved of their Masters

Whenever we took a Sunday stroll around the Plaza, my father would comment that dogs always look like their owners. He would make eyes at us children holding on to his hands and would sometimes even point at the first victim that approached us--a muscular athletic looking man with dark, thick and frowning eye brows, carrying a pit-bull on a leather leash. My father would start laughing and my mother would look away, trying to get us interested in the colors of leaves, or a beautifully shaped sugar-cotton cloud in the sky.

There was never enough money to pay for a cotton candy for each of the four of us kids, but the thought of one came to mind immediately, and we all asked for it in unison. The others, the older brothers and sisters, would never even ask for a cotton candy even if they did want one, themselves. I guess this is because they knew there was only enough for two at most and we, the little ones, would have to share.

At the end though, the older sisters and brothers managed to grab a piece and so did my father, who got us to look away from the candy while he pointed to a tall and skinny old woman with a long nose and white hair up in a puffy bun, carrying a poodle fresh out of the hair saloon as white as a cloud, on a pink color leash.

We also had a dog. It was a big dog, or as big as a common street dog gets. He showered only when it rained. "Negro" was his name and he loved to bathe when we all had a chance to go to the beach. He was a hard working dog. He kept us safe, entertained our games, helped my mother when it came time to round the chickens, and accompanied my father in his long night walks when money was short.

Negro mistrusted men in uniforms. He was well trained and would only bark at the smell of fear. Negro was a smart dog and saw the potential for violence in military men. A breed of dogs themselves, these dogs were only held back by the leash in the hands of men in suits.

Negro met a tragic death in September 1973. He was shot eleven times in the head when he run full-force barking at a group of military men in the back of a truck, patrolling to keep order in the streets after a state of siege was declared. The entire family wept, we mourned Negro's death in silence and shared stories about his mischief. We never acquired another dog, as the world is not a safe place for them.

I have not always agreed with my father. I've seen many exceptions to the rule of owners and their dogs. Even so, one can't deny that owners and their dogs usually have the same hair color, shape of body, stamina, and swing in their walk. Nonetheless, I strongly concur with his point that dogs are the beloved of their masters, and will always mimic the masters' repression.

Writer Roberto Leni-Olivares’s family was exiled from their native Chile in 1976. His fiction, rich in contrasting images from his former country and his current one, explores issues of language, inter-culturalism, oppression and possibility. Leni-Olivares received his BA in Humanities and his MA in Writing & Consciousness at New College of California in San Francisco.