Four Feet Tall and Rising

by Shorty Rossi

  People think ’cause you’re on TV you must be rich. They don’t understand reality TV pay. Life was better, hell yeah, much better, don’t get me wrong, but my personal expenses went way, way up. My life had to change. I had to move off the boat and into an apartment with more security features, an extra bedroom for the dogs. It wasn’t a luxury situation by any means. My furniture was still IKEA. My neighbors weren’t celebrities, but there was a bit more privacy.

  Privacy was getting harder and harder to come by, and for a Little Person, that’s saying something. There has never been a day when I could move through the world anonymously. I have always been looked at, stared at, noticed. For so many years, I just ignored it. I didn’t like to complain about it like other Little People would. If my friends would ask, “Why is everyone staring at you?” I’d just point out the obvious. “ ’cause I’m a fucking midget with a pit bull, why do you think? ”

  Once Pit Boss started airing, I was stared at for a completely different reason. I was recognized as a TV personality, and whatever limited anonymity I had left was completely gone. That was fine. That was the life I chose. I knew that to be an advocate for the dogs, I had to step in front of the cameras and give the people a show. I knew that by doing this, the sacrifice was privacy. This time, I knew when people were staring at me, it was ’cause of Pit Boss, and not ’cause I was a fucking midget with a pit bull.

  But I hadn’t really thought it through. I was grateful for the fans, excited to be reaching so many people, but I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to shop at Walmart or Target anymore. I couldn’t go to my usual grocery store, Trader Joe’s, or if I needed toiletries, I couldn’t just swing by the CVS. An errand that used to take me ten or fifteen minutes would turn into a forty-five-minute ordeal with photographs and autographs and people stopping me to talk about their dogs.

  Then there were the death threats, the critics, and the crazies. There were people angry that I promoted a “killer” breed. They blasted me with e-mails, letters, and phone calls, calling me every name in the book, telling me to never set foot in their city with my dogs ’cause they’d slaughter us all. I was actually attacked by a hysterical drunk woman who slapped me across the face three times, screaming that Hercules was a killer and that he shouldn’t be allowed into restaurants. There were breeders that said my stance against breeding pit bulls was gonna “wipe out the breed.” They considered me an enemy, not an advocate. There were people running rescue organizations that were mad at me ’cause I couldn’t personally help them place a dog or give them money or show up at their events. They’d cuss me out and yell, “I’ll never watch your show again.” There were people who thought I was a fraud. People posting nasty things about me online. People flooding my inbox with requests to help a pit bull in Maine, when I lived in California. Sending me the same e-mail over and over and over again. For as much love as we got from fans, we got an equal amount of craziness and hatred.

  What was hardest of all was stopping my weekly visits to the projects. There were old enemies, and even some old friends, who were jealous of the success of the show. I’d seen guys who’d made good come back to the projects and get jumped or robbed. I didn’t want to end up like Jerry. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t get caught hanging out with guys who were still selling drugs or robbing people. If a bust went down and I was standing there, it would destroy my reputation and the show. There were kids out there watching my show, kids who were being inspired to help animals, kids who were writing in and donating their allowances to save pit bulls. I couldn’t do nothing to lose their trust. I had to pay closer attention to my circle of friends. I had to stop clubbing and partying in public, where every single person is carrying a cell phone with a camera built in. The show was a monster. That was a good thing. It just meant my life had to change.

  It also meant the business had to change. For years, Shortywood had been funding the rescue operations, but now the whole operation had flipped on its head. I was adamant that we were not gonna live off the popularity of my dogs. The whole point of rescuing pit bulls was to help the dogs, not use them. Still, we needed some way to raise income to keep up with the new demands. Pit Boss had brought us a platform, a way to reach people, but we couldn’t rely on donations. We weren’t even a nonprofit. We were a glorified transport system!

  I don’t remember who came up with the idea, but the solution seemed to be opening an online store, Shorty’s Store, where we could sell stuff and use the profits to help cover our rescue operation expenses and fund four charities, three of which we’d been working with for years: Furbaby, Karma Rescue, and the Linda Blair Worldheart Foundation. The Watts Youth Foundation was basically defunct now. It had fizzled out during my travels, though now that I was back in Los Angeles, I’d grab some kids from the projects and take them to Universal or the beach. That was on my own dime. With my recent rental in Mexico, I’d also started volunteering at the Door of Faith Orphanage in Baja. I wanted to include them in our charitable giving. Kids and dogs, both were okay by me. So the decision was made. We’d open an online store. We’d sell things like a Hercules bobble head, dog collars, T-shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, key rings. Where we were gonna get this stuff or store this stuff was a completely different issue. The office was already packed with people, dogs, and costumes, so the only option was my apartment. The dogs would share my bedroom with me and I’d turn the extra room into storage for the store.

  I hadn’t anticipated endorsement deals. The first offer came from a company that wanted me to promote their substitute nicotine chewing gum. I told the guy, “You realize I smoke, right?” He said, “Yes, but you could encourage people to stop smoking.” I am many things, but a hypocrite is not one. I wasn’t gonna take money from a company, lecture people about smoking, and then turn around and have a cigar. Even if those checks would support the dogs, the answer was no.

  Then I got a personal invitation from Diesel cigar maker A. J. Fernandez to visit his cigar factory in Nicaragua. He wanted me to come down and check out the factory, the farms, and the tobacco-processing facilities. If all went well, I’d put my name on a cigar. Ten percent of the proceeds would go to Shorty’s Charities and I’d get to smoke a bunch of cigars. No-brainer. I was on the plane.

  I got to the factory and there were probably a good five hundred people there rolling cigars. The management team, A.J., Alex, and Kris, gave me the grand tour, explaining how the business was run, how cigars are rolled, what kind of tobacco is used, how the wrapper came from Pennsylvania, but the filler was grown in Nicaragua. They sat me down at a workstation and showed me how to roll a cigar. I was given the royal treatment.

  The whole time, I could tell that every eye in that factory was on me. One thousand eyeballs staring right at me. It was weird. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Yes, I was used to people peeking out of the corners of their eyes to watch me, but not full out staring, and not five hundred people at the same time. Finally, one of the managers came over to talk to one of the owners. He asked, “Everyone wants to know. They have a question. Please forgive us for being rude, but why are you, the owners, kissing this peasant’s ass?”

  Whoa.

  In most Central American countries, a Little Person is always the peasant. They’re poor. They’re a circus act. They’re marginalized. They’re a pariah. They certainly aren’t on TV, and they’re not doctors or lawyers or teachers or even factory workers. They have no status at all. They are non-people. For me to have an entourage, for the owners of their company to treat me as someone important, seemed ludicrous to them. The owners explained to the manager, “Mr. Rossi is an American businessman. He owns a business and he is on a TV show.” The manager went back to give this new information to the workers, but they were completely baffled. They just couldn’t understand it. How could a Little Person own a business? Why would a Little Person be on TV?

  I had never experienced outright prejudice in such a blatant, in-my-face kind of way. I didn’t blame the work
ers. They’d never seen anyone like me. It made me understand how far we’ve come, as Little People, to redefine what is possible. The discrimination that my father faced in Texas. The stares that Nonnie, Mom, and me had ignored our whole lives. That was nothing. There were Little People in Nicaragua who were peasants, PEASANTS, ’cause they’d been born small.

  Even further back, during World War II, Hitler massacred all the Little People. Only one family survived. A family of seven musical entertainers and only ’cause the Führer himself had a fetish for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Too bad his fetish didn’t stop them from being tortured and put through medical testing. In the Middle Ages, my people were court jesters, if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky, they were … well, peasants.

  Me, I’d grown up knowing I could be anything I wanted to be. It may have taken me twenty goddamn years to get my shit together, but eventually, I’d ended up the businessman I’d always said I’d be. I never let my size determine the size of my life. I was never afraid to become bigger and better, to push myself to jump off a building or start my own company. If you’re standing in the way, I’m gonna knock you over, no matter how big you are, so I can get to where I’m trying to go. Move, excuse me! Move! If that’s how you look at life, no matter how big or small you are, then you are gonna succeed. You don’t let nothing stop you.

  Those factory workers were blown away, and on my next visit, everything was different. The managers put American satellite TV in the work breakrooms to show the workers Pit Boss episodes. Pit Boss posters were all over the walls, and as soon as I walked in, a girl came up to me and said in Spanish, “I just finished rolling one of your own cigars. It’s an honor for you to smoke this one.”

  Minds had changed in Nicaragua.

  Meanwhile, what was supposed to be a three-month program of classes to rectify my DUI dragged on and on, as I had to keep taking leave to shoot episodes, to rescue a dog, or to travel for personal appearances. It didn’t help that I got kicked out of class twice for running my big mouth. The first teacher and I couldn’t get along. She was of the mentality that anyone in her class was going to hell for drinking. She made us raise our hands if we’d had a drink in the last twenty-four hours. I raised my hand. She looked at me. “What are you gonna do about your problem?” I yelled, “Problem? I had a glass of wine. I deal with goddamn Little People all day!” … You may leave the class.

  Her next session, I got tossed out ’cause she put on an Intervention video about a girl who was cutting herself. Even after being in prison, and seeing all that horrifying stuff, blood made me squeamish. Homies used to tease me about it, but I’d rather be freaked by blood than numb. I yelled out in the middle of class, “Why are we watching this suicidal blood shit when we’re a bunch of drunks?” … You may leave the class, part two.

  Fortunately, for my third class, I had a new teacher. He’d been a former addict, a gang member, and he’d done time, so I could relate. He recognized me from Pit Boss, so like anyone else who’d ever watched the show, he knew my backstory, knew I’d done time at Folsom. We reminisced about the CDC, shot the shit about our numbers, the Level 4’s, and things only guys from prison would understand. His name was Robert and he was a good guy, clean and sober, determined to stay out of jail.

  What struck me most about his class was all the people in those seats. There were old people, young people, three-time offenders, and first-timers. Every ethnicity, every gender, every race, size, color, and type. So many people. The size and scope of the problem seemed enormous, and the secrecy and the shame surrounding it only made matters worse. Instead of fessing up and admitting, “Yeah, I blew it. I won’t ever do that again,” people kind of retreated into themselves, ashamed and feeling even worse about their lives. Which just seemed like a recipe for more of the same. Robert’s honesty about his own criminal past helped get people talking. Hearing their stories was … well, sobering.

  When I finished my last class, Robert pulled me aside and said, “You’re smarter than this, Shorty. I know I won’t see you again.” He was right. I had a lot to lose, and I wasn’t gonna lose it over a drink. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but I took it as another lesson of my life. Was I an alcoholic? Maybe. If I was, I was a high-functioning one. Would I have another drink? Definitely. Would I drive after that drink? Definitely not.

  There were bigger battles I needed to fight, and just like I wouldn’t allow my father, my childhood, the projects, my arrest, prison, financial struggles, or Ray struggling with crack or losing Jerry or being fired from jobs or having back pain to get in my way, I wasn’t gonna allow this DUI to sidetrack me from my larger mission. To this day, I have no regrets about any of my mistakes. I wouldn’t change a thing, which must seem crazy to most people, but is true for me. It’s not that I don’t regret some of my actions. I do. But if I hadn’t run away, if I hadn’t gotten in trouble, if I hadn’t been arrested, I’d definitely be dead. Being in prison made me the man I am today. Most men don’t come through those years and improve their lives, but I did. It made a difference to me. I was reformed. I’m a better, bigger man ’cause of those years. I knew that the DUI was another part of forging me into a stronger, more determined warrior.

  The problem with me was still when I heard the word “no” I wouldn’t listen. If someone said, “You shouldn’t do that” then that was exactly what I was gonna do. It made me arrogant and cocky, but it also made me the Pit Boss. It made me Shorty Rossi. It was exactly that combination of arrogance and cockiness and sometimes idiocy that caused people to tune in to Pit Boss. By having Hercules and Geisha and Bebi and the rest of my pits on the show, we were changing people’s minds about the breed. By traveling from city to city with Hercules by my side, working as my service animal, we were changing airline, airport, restaurant, and hotel policies. Celebrity allowed me to bend the rules, setting a new precedent for other disabled people who might consider adopting a pit bull, for other Little People who had faced discrimination or assumptions, for the dogs themselves. But there was still tons of work to be done, and I sure as hell couldn’t do it behind bars ’cause I’d been stupid enough to drink and drive.

  I had to be strong. I had to be a warrior. There was a wolf in the woods, and he was hungry. He was being blamed for terrorizing not just the city, but the entire world. In France and in the UK, they were banning “bully” breeds in their entirety. President Bush signed legislation forbidding military personnel and their families from having pit bulls as pets on any military base, national or international. Someone had to stand up, like St. Francis did for the wolf. Someone had to do something. It was me. I was the one who had to do something.

  I had to convince Animal Planet to let me go global. We needed to march on Denver, then shoot in Mexico, protest the pit bull bans in France, draw attention to the bully breed ban in the American military by traveling to Afghanistan or Iraq with the USO. I’d heard from soldiers that in Afghanistan they were hawking pirated copies of Pit Boss with Arabic subtitles. We had guys that were putting their lives on the line for our country. Guys that had lost a leg or an eye, and they had to give away their dogs? There were stories to share from every far-flung corner of the universe. I had to get out there and tell them.

  Animal Planet had a different idea.

  9

  Welcome Home

  started to receive a flood of mail from fans wanting to know more about my personal life. The show was focused primarily on the business and the dogs, but I had talked about Dad on the show a lot. People wanted to see this man. Letters came in saying, “We know you’re an ex-con, we know you had a rough childhood, we know you can be a fucking ass, we know you love pit bulls, but we want you to go home.” And by “go home” they meant they wanted Pit Boss to film a reunion episode with my family, specifically with my father.

  Animal Planet and Intuitive knew about the letters and encouraged me to think about a visit, but I wasn’t talking to my dad at all. My sister Janet still held hatred for him. I told he
r, “Come on, Janet, give it up and just let it go. We can’t change nothing about our past, nothing about who he is, nothing about their marriage. We just have to accept who he is.” That was my position. There was no outright hatred on my part, but there was no energy to make things better either, and I certainly had no interest in shooting a reunion episode! I was convinced that would be a fiasco!

  Now, a good son is supposed to honor his parents, but it’s hard to do that when you don’t have a relationship. I hadn’t seen my parents in well over two years. I had tried to connect with Mom a few times. I’d e-mailed her a bunch of questions, and I got back a response that largely ignored my e-mail and just said, “Glad you’re doing good. Dad just did this and Dad just did that …” Clearly, he was still standing behind her telling her what to write. It got to the point that when I’d call, Dad would stand over her and monitor the call ’cause Mom had the tendency to blab, like mothers do. I’d hear him whisper in the background. “Don’t tell him I fell in the kitchen. I’ll feel like a dumbass.” Shit, I ran into things all the time. I didn’t care if he fell. Why couldn’t we just talk like normal people? So e-mailing and calling didn’t work. Visits didn’t either. Dad would offer to buy me a ticket to come out on the condition that I had to spend a week with them. I didn’t have a week to give up to being locked up in the middle of nowhere. I was running two businesses and shooting a TV show. Dad had no sense of my reality at all. I just gave up trying to connect.