EACH ONE REACH ONE FEBRUARY 10, 2017
U7 JUVENILE JUSTICE CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO
GRIMEY THE DOG
BY GREGORY G.
Character Profile:
Grimey….The Pitbull/Rotweiller mix, 2.5 / 18 years old human
Zombie….the Rotweiller, his Dad 6 /40 years old human
Greatest Wish:
To get released from the dog pound to his family, and have the most bones he can get, so he can help support his family.
Setting:
The Dog Pound. There are 20 cages in one unit. This is the unit where all the bad dogs go to, cause they did the most bad things. The cages are freezing at night.
GRIMEY’S MONOLOGUE
I wake up in the dog pound. It’s 7:30 a.m. I know because I smell the nasty dog food we are about to be given at 8:00 a.m. I start to do 100 doggy push-ups before we eat the nasty dog food. I’m in cage 16 and it’s the day where the dogs on the top tier eat first. I get let out first to get the first bowl with means I get more food in my bowl. All the other dogs get let out too and we eat our food and go right back to our cages.
I do another 100 doggy push-ups and take a thirty-minute nap before the dog trainers come to teach us. I am thinking about a lot of stuff about my life, and Why did I run from the Dog Cabin?
I want to go home to Valencia Gardens. Where all the houses look the same. They are grey or yellow. Where there’s every type of dog you can see. And all the Bad Dogs hang around on the corner representing their fire hydrant where they mark their territory. All the dogs know each other since they were pups. It’s a small community where everybody knows what’s going on because of DogGram. I want to go home so I can be with my family and go back to my favorite park and sell doggy treats to help support my family. Even though when I was free I was never really home, but I still took care of my family. Zombie, the Rotweiller, my Dad, did not like how I helped support the family. Because I could get caught by the dog catchers and sent to the Dog Pound. Zombie wanted me to go to dog training to get a certificate in Guard Watching so I could work in a warehouse. But now as I’m in here in my cage I wish I could go back and do what he said. But it’s too late.
The Dog Watchers let me know I have a visit. I get let out my cage. I walk down the steps. My Dad. I give him a paw and we sit in the dining area. I say “how have you been and how’s the family?”. He tells me “we’re doing good.” He asks me “how are you doing?”. I say “chillen”.
He tells me that my supervisor at the Pound asked him if he’d be OK with me going back to Dog Cabin, or going home. Then I say “what did you say?”. And he comes out with “I told him you should go back to Dog Cabin”.
I say “What the hell, Why?” I want to go home. I am tired of being locked up!” He says “you are not locked up at the Cabin, you are free, lightweight.”
Still it’s not home. So many emotions are going through my body. I am so angry I burst out yelling: “I don’t give a bark about where I am going. I don’t care anymore. You don’t have to visit me. I don’t care. You can leave and live your life. I am going back to my cage. You can leave.”
As I am walking away he says “you complaining over six months at Dog Cabin? I was there for 13 months”.
(I get to my cage. I have so much anger built up I start punching the walls and start doing doggy push-ups to release stress.
I finally start to calm down and read my book.
After I finish I start to think of how my life is going to be when I am done with Dog Cabin.)
To Be Continued
