Into the Wild Kids

Into the Wild Kids

Since I moved to Los Angeles, I’ve seen variations of them all over from Melrose Ave to the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. Modern-day nomads, living day to day, moving from one place to another to another, walking, hitchhiking, by whatever means available with nothing more than a backpack and the clothes on their back. Some of them have signs stating they’re trying to get to a certain destination, asking for a ride and or money to get there. This generation’s hippie kids or Into the Wild Christopher Candless wannabes.

They were two guys, early twenties, dirty and dreaded hair that could possibly be blond on better days. Normally I’d smile, say hi and keep going but it was their two dogs that caused me to stop. One looked like a cattle dog mix and the other some kind of hound pit combo. The hound mix looked exhausted. I asked permission to pet them and the guys obliged. I struck up a conversation with them. Their goal was to make it to all 50 states before they picked a place to live. They were currently hitchhiking their way to Mount Shasta, more than 500 miles from LA. As they spoke, I noticed one had a mouth full of rotting teeth while the other had a perfect smile. Both smelled like tired adventurers. They seemed like stoners but sharp, streetwise like they would have to be to survive off strangers.

The one with the nice smile owned the hound mix and I couldn’t help but notice she was either coming out of or going into heat. I steered our conversation towards her. The gist of their story, the guy got her from a rescue a few years back. She was vaccinated but not spayed at the time of adoption. Because the guy and his friend were on the move, he was unwilling to stay long enough for the dog to have surgery and recover. The rescue released the dog anyway. Don’t get me started.

I refrained from asking the dozens of questions swirling in my head and did my best to withhold my contempt. The guy confessed to her having a litter of puppies and again I refrained from asking the obvious. I told him I could get her spayed for free if he was willing but he wasn’t. He wasn’t against getting her spayed but they didn’t have the time; they were leaving the area that night. He made it sound as if they had something waiting for them in Mount Shasta and it was going to take a few weeks to get there as it was. Short of me driving him, his buddy and two dogs there myself, there was nothing I could do. I warned him about the dangers of pyometra in unspayed females and urged him to look into resources for her when he got there. He said he would and that was how I left it.

I went into the supermarket and returned to them with four bottles of water. In return, they gave me a flower made from a strip of Sunday palm. They said it was nice talking with me and I wished all of them safe passage on their travels. I understood “the calling,” the desire to see more of the world than what’s in front of you. I moved to Los Angeles on a whim. A whim that actually landed me in Arizona first because plans fell apart. I still remember the day the calling hit. It was a 24-hour road trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio. I stood in the middle of an empty interstate while my friend peed in some bushes. I looked out at the open road leading West and thought about the sights and adventures that lay in that direction. A few years later I was driving across country.

I would have applauded these two guys for their sense of adventure and freedom if it wasn’t for their stupidity and selfishness to force two dogs into their journey.