neighborhood. For the dogs—and for her too—this was bliss. Hominids had to keep busy, make a buck, put two sticks together, order and structure and
complain
, but canids could know contentment—and so could she if she could only penetrate deep enough.
Two shoes had arrived now. Loafers, buffed to brilliance and decorated with matching tassels of stripped hide. They’d come to rest on a trampled mound of fresh earth no more than twenty-four inches from her nose. She tried to ignore them, but there was a bright smear of mud or excrement gleaming on the toe of the left one; it
was
excrement, dog—the merest sniff told her that—and she was intrigued despite herself, though she refused to lift her eyes. And then a man’s voice was speaking from somewhere high above the shoes, so high up and resonant with authority it might have been the voice of the alpha dog of all alpha dogs—God Himself.
The tone of the voice, but not the sense of it, appealed to the dogs, and the bulldog, who was present and accounted for because Snout was in heat, hence the den, ambled over to gaze up at the trousered legs in lovesick awe. “You know,” the voice was saying, “you’ve really got the neighborhood in an uproar, and I’m sure you have your reasons, and I know these dogs aren’t yours—” The voice faltered. “But Ben Ober—you know Ben Ober? Over on C Street?—well, he’s claiming you’re killing rabbits or something. Or you were. Last Saturday. Out on his lawn?” Another pause. “Remember, it was raining?”
A month back—two weeks ago, even—she would have felt obligated to explain herself, would have soothed and mollified and dredged up a battery of behavioral terms—proximate causation, copulation solicitation, naturalistic fallacy—to cow him, but today, under the pale sun, in the company of the pack, she just couldn’t seem to muster the energy. She might have grunted—or maybe that was only the sound of her stomach rumbling. She couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.
The cuffs of the man’s trousers were stiffly pressed into jutting cotton prows, perfectly aligned. The bulldog began to lick at first one,then the other. There was the faintest creak of tendon and patella, and two knees presented themselves, and then a fist, pressed to the earth for balance. She saw a crisp white strip of shirt cuff, the gold flash of watch and wedding band.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t mean to stick my nose in where it’s not wanted, and I’m sure you have your reasons for, for”—the knuckles retrenched to balance the movement of his upper body, a swing of the arm perhaps, or a jerk of the head—“all this. I’d just say live and let live, but I can’t. And you know why not?”
She didn’t answer, though she was on the verge—there was something about his voice that was magnetic, as if it could adhere to her and pull her to her feet again—but the bulldog distracted her. He’d gone up on his hind legs with a look of unfocused joy and begun humping the near leg of the man who belonged to the loafers, and her flash of epiphany deafened her to what he was saying. The bulldog had revealed his name to her: from now on she would know him as Humper.
“Because you upset my wife. You were out in our yard and I, she—Oh, Christ,” he said, “I’m going about this all wrong. Look, let me introduce myself—I’m Julian Fox. We live on B Street, 2236? We never got to meet your husband and you when you moved in, I mean, the development’s got so big—and impersonal, I guess—we never got the chance. But if you ever want to stop by, maybe for tea, a drink—the two of you, I mean—that would be, well, that would be great.”
A DRINK ON B STREET
S HE WAS UPRIGHT and smiling, though her posture was terrible and she carried her own smell with her into the sterile sanctum of the house. He caught it immediately, unmistakably, and so did Cara, judging from the look on her face as she took the girl’s
complain
, but canids could know contentment—and so could she if she could only penetrate deep enough.
Two shoes had arrived now. Loafers, buffed to brilliance and decorated with matching tassels of stripped hide. They’d come to rest on a trampled mound of fresh earth no more than twenty-four inches from her nose. She tried to ignore them, but there was a bright smear of mud or excrement gleaming on the toe of the left one; it
was
excrement, dog—the merest sniff told her that—and she was intrigued despite herself, though she refused to lift her eyes. And then a man’s voice was speaking from somewhere high above the shoes, so high up and resonant with authority it might have been the voice of the alpha dog of all alpha dogs—God Himself.
The tone of the voice, but not the sense of it, appealed to the dogs, and the bulldog, who was present and accounted for because Snout was in heat, hence the den, ambled over to gaze up at the trousered legs in lovesick awe. “You know,” the voice was saying, “you’ve really got the neighborhood in an uproar, and I’m sure you have your reasons, and I know these dogs aren’t yours—” The voice faltered. “But Ben Ober—you know Ben Ober? Over on C Street?—well, he’s claiming you’re killing rabbits or something. Or you were. Last Saturday. Out on his lawn?” Another pause. “Remember, it was raining?”
A month back—two weeks ago, even—she would have felt obligated to explain herself, would have soothed and mollified and dredged up a battery of behavioral terms—proximate causation, copulation solicitation, naturalistic fallacy—to cow him, but today, under the pale sun, in the company of the pack, she just couldn’t seem to muster the energy. She might have grunted—or maybe that was only the sound of her stomach rumbling. She couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.
The cuffs of the man’s trousers were stiffly pressed into jutting cotton prows, perfectly aligned. The bulldog began to lick at first one,then the other. There was the faintest creak of tendon and patella, and two knees presented themselves, and then a fist, pressed to the earth for balance. She saw a crisp white strip of shirt cuff, the gold flash of watch and wedding band.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t mean to stick my nose in where it’s not wanted, and I’m sure you have your reasons for, for”—the knuckles retrenched to balance the movement of his upper body, a swing of the arm perhaps, or a jerk of the head—“all this. I’d just say live and let live, but I can’t. And you know why not?”
She didn’t answer, though she was on the verge—there was something about his voice that was magnetic, as if it could adhere to her and pull her to her feet again—but the bulldog distracted her. He’d gone up on his hind legs with a look of unfocused joy and begun humping the near leg of the man who belonged to the loafers, and her flash of epiphany deafened her to what he was saying. The bulldog had revealed his name to her: from now on she would know him as Humper.
“Because you upset my wife. You were out in our yard and I, she—Oh, Christ,” he said, “I’m going about this all wrong. Look, let me introduce myself—I’m Julian Fox. We live on B Street, 2236? We never got to meet your husband and you when you moved in, I mean, the development’s got so big—and impersonal, I guess—we never got the chance. But if you ever want to stop by, maybe for tea, a drink—the two of you, I mean—that would be, well, that would be great.”
A DRINK ON B STREET
S HE WAS UPRIGHT and smiling, though her posture was terrible and she carried her own smell with her into the sterile sanctum of the house. He caught it immediately, unmistakably, and so did Cara, judging from the look on her face as she took the girl’s
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