Animal Appetite

frigid, with no promise of snow. I wore my down parka and heavy fleece mittens. In his permanent double-layered coat, Rowdy pranced along with a smile on his face, enjoying a temperature reminiscent of the ten below that he relishes. In the manner of all real dog people everywhere, I talked nonsense to him about his mending paw and Leah’s chemistry course, and otherwise gave him a full explanation of why he’d had to stay home and miss his treats, his praise, and the pleasure of my company. In the manner of all male dogs everywhere, he concentrated on marking every hydrant, hedge, and utility pole we passed. The construction on Huron Avenue that had presumably caused our rat invasion had been a boon to Rowdy, producing as it had a sudden proliferation of traffic cones, big orange barrels, and stacks of black pipe that he’d welcomed as a kind of manna sent by God to relieve his starvation for fresh objects on which to leave his scent. Now, in December, the work had ended. “It’s very unfair that they took your orange barrels,” I was babbling in empathic outrage. “The Lord giveth, Rowdy, and the Lord taketh away.”
    “Bullshit!” The deep, hoarse voice cut through the rumble of a passing truck.
    “Bullshit yourself!” I muttered, thinking that if fools chose to eavesdrop on private, privileged, and sacred communions, they had only themselves to blame for what they overheard. Then I realized that the voice emanated from a half-block ahead of us and that in any case the white noise of the traffic had masked the words I’d meant for no one’s ears but Rowdy’s. Glancing ahead, I saw parked near the minimart at the corner of Huron and Concord a dark panel truck. As Rowdy and I approached, the lights from a streetlamp and the store let me read the gold letters inscribed on its rear doors:
     
    MUSIC HAUL
    PHARMONIOUS PIANO TRANSPORT
    KEYED TO YOUR RANGE
     
    Leaning sullenly against the open passenger door of the truck, Brat Andrews kicked the curb with one of her combat boots and repeated loudly, “Bullshit!”
    “Bronwyn!” The voice was a woman’s. “Who brought you up? Now, stop cursing and come and help! Gareth is not feeling well, and—”
    Brat, who stood in the gutter, replied, evidently to herself, “Gareth is psychotic! Gareth is out of his fucking mind! And so am I to have—” What made her break off was the sight of Rowdy, who, abruptly shifting to his ferocious guard-dog mode, pulled on his leash, wagged his way to Brat, sized her up, dropped to the pavement, and rolled onto his back in the hope of a tummy rub. Ignoring me, Brat bent over and scratched his white chest.
    “Holly Winter,” I reminded her. “Johann isn’t with you?” The question was perfunctory. Rowdy wouldn’t have missed the presence of a male Rottweiler.
    “I’m very protective of Johann,” Brat informed me. “I never expose him to noxious substances.” With a jerk of her thumb, she gestured beyond the door of the truck to three people clustered around a trash barrel at the corner of Concord Avenue. “Claudia, for example. Also, Oscar and Gareth. The Toxic Trio.”
    Oscar, who wore a dapper-looking overcoat and one of those fur hats you see on TV on the heads of Kremlin officials, stood a little apart from Claudia. Swathed in a bulky quilted coat, she hovered over Gareth, who, in turn, hovered over the barrel. With the deliberation of a connoisseur, he slowly fished through its contents. Tonight, he still wore the aqua backpack, but in place of the purple parka, he had on a long, formal-looking coat that I mistook for the jacket of a man’s evening suit. Claudia was chastising him in tones too low for me to hear. Oscar had his arms folded across his chest. I had the impression that he was trying to look bored.
    “He’s got the apron, too,” Brat informed me. She stretched her arms out to flex the muscles hidden under a heavy pea jacket.
    “What?”
    “On the coldest night of the year, my psychotic brother chose to dump his parka somewhere. What he’s wearing is the ceremonial regalia of a Freemason. Apron and all. One of Claudia’s neighbors saw him and called her, and when she got here, she called me from a pay phone, and I should’ve stayed the fuck where I was.” She thumped her hands together, presumably to keep them warm.
    “He’ll freeze to death,” I said.
    “He’ll go to a shelter, where they’ll keep him for the night and send him away in the morning with a parka that