Birdy

Joe tells us he’s found another place to get rid of the dogs. Birdy wantsus to take the afternoons off and ride out to the Main Line where all the millionaires live and dump the dogs there. If we could do it, that’d be fun. We’d start all kinds of new breeds mixed in with French poodles and Pekineses.
    We catch a truckful by noon. The dogs are getting smarter; survival of the fittest is beginning to set in. We go out to Doc Owens’s. He’s ready to go through the roof after keeping all those dogs five days. He rants and raves at Joe. Joe smiles, shakes his head, and promises we’d take them all today. Joe’s enjoying Doc Owens’s being mad.
    For all the noise the dog lovers are making, there’s nothing being done about it. Just about all those dogs we caught are still there, ready to be killed. To tell the truth, most people are glad to get rid of their mutts.
    That afternoon at Doc Owens’s is like a combination of Sing Sing and a slaughterhouse. We’re piling up dead dogs three high. The smell of burning flesh and hair is sickening. The poor dogs begin to catch on to what’s happening and start trying to fight away from the alligator clips. One beast, half setter, part shepherd, part wolf, gets so mean we can’t get the clips on him and Doc Owens gives him a shot of strychnine. He goes out about the same as the ones with the electricity.
    Some dogs, though, still walk right up, smile at us and wag their tails, looking up at us expectantly, as if we’re going to put them on a leash and take them for a walk. Some walk; a walk right into nowhere. Birdy and I have to keep going outside for breaths of air and to hold ourselves together.
    When it’s done, we carry all the dogs into the truck. We pack them in tight and even throw a few onto the floor in front beside Joe. It’s three-thirty before we get them all in. Joe starts driving out into the country past Secane. Joe doesn’t tell anybody anything until he’s ready, so we don’t ask questions. I’m thinking he’s found another incinerator, or is going to pile them up in a dump.
    Slowly, as we get further out from any houses, we begin to pick up the most horrendous smell I’ve ever smelled. Nothing can describe it. We go onto a small dirt road and pull up into an openplace in front of a stable. There are spavined-looking horses tied around to the buildings. The whole place is swarming with big blue flies. Usually there are flies around horses, but not like this, and this smell is something else. It doesn’t smell like horses.
    But it’s horses all right. It’s horses being cut up. This is a slaughteryard for old plugs. I look over at Birdy and he’s absolutely green. Joe jumps out of the truck and seems to know everybody. Joe knows everybody, everywhere. I guess that’s part of being a cop; probably, too, he buys meat for his dogs out here.
    We get off the wagon and are immediately covered by flies. It’s a hot day and they’re drinking our sweat, then they start on our blood. They’re big flies with shiny blue-purple bodies and dark red heads. There’s no way to get away from the bastards; they fly into our noses, eyes, ears. Joe comes back and tells us to get up in the wagon again. He drives us around in back of long sheds. Inside we can see men standing in blood, hacking away at huge chunks of horse flesh.
    Behind the shed, there’s something that looks like a gigantic meat-grinding machine; it’s run by a gasoline motor. Joe jumps out, walks over and pulls a cord, the way you’d start a motorboat or a lawn mower, and it starts chugging, slow then fast, a one lunger. Blue smoke comes out in clouds. Joe switches it into gear and the grinder begins making a tremendous racket. Bits of ground flesh leak from small holes in the bottom.
    There’s a huge funnel-like hole at the top of the grinder, almost big enough to put a human body into it. Joe tells us to get the dogs out of the wagon. We drag them over and he starts dropping them into the funnel. Jesus, he’s still smiling! He’s holding the dogs away from himself, to keep the blood, shit, and slobber from getting on him, and dropping them in. He’s in his uniform shirt with his badge and regulation pants. His belt and pistol are around his waist and he’s not wearing his cap. He glistens in the sunlight, dropping the dogs into the machine. Thin lines of dog flesh, mixed in with hair, are coming out the bottom. Birdy and I are staggering back and forth with the dogs, trying