Black Ribbon

gray, and the light-colored stubble on his cheeks was blond, not silver. With a start, I realized that he couldn’t be much older than I was. I wondered whether I was seeing the aging effect of poverty or perhaps the impact of a long illness. I felt the impulse to approach him. On my way into Rangeley, I’d thought about getting a present for Steve, salmon flies or, better yet, j material for fly-tying or, best of all, if I could afford it, the J kind of beautifully carved duck decoy meant to attract aesthetically-minded human collectors rather than feathered prey. If anyone in Rangeley made or sold those decoys, Everett would certainly know.
    I was on the verge of stepping toward him to ask when Eva Spitteler, who wore a boldly lettered Waggin’ Tail T-shirt, suddenly stomped up to me to demand whether something unspecified wasn’t a violation of the health code. Before I could ask what she meant, she announced that Rangeley probably didn’t have a health code, anyway. “Jesus,” she hollered, “the original Podunk, U.S.A. Wouldn’t you’ve thought Max could do better than this shithole?”
    I prayed that the flat waters of Haley’s Pond would miraculously rise in rage and gather themselves into a tidal wave that | would wash Eva Spitteler from their shores. Alternatively, the mallards could be struck by a sudden Hitchcockian frenzy and leap out of the pond and onto Eva and peck her to death, Miracles failing to materialize, however, I wished that the ducks would at least quack raucously enough to drown out Eva’s horrible voice. Max couldn't have done better than this, I wanted to say, because Rangeley is as good as it gets; there is no better. All I actually uttered was an inadequate mumble to the effect that I’d always liked Rangeley.
    Instead of licking her ice-cream cone, Eva took an aggressive bite that left big tooth marks. The ice cream was peppermint stick, I think, or maybe strawberry or the same cherry that Rowdy had just enjoyed; at any rate, it was something pink with reddish striations. Her bite mark resembled an illustration of what a shark’s teeth can do to human flesh.
    If I’d been the brave and loyal person that my dogs imagine me to be, I’d have jumped onto one of the picnic tables and belted out an oratorically elaborate, rhetorically embellished tribute to the Town of Rangeley. Failing that, I’d have gone from bench to bench, picnic table to picnic table, to apologize for Eva Spitteler’s rudeness and to explain that she wasn’t really a dog person at all, but an embarrassment to every one of us, as unwelcome in our midst as she was in theirs. But I’m a coward. Also, I’m slow-witted.
    Rowdy, however, is brave and quick. As I was trying to think of a way to make an immediate escape, he glanced from Eva to me. His rib cage began to contract, the telltale smile appeared on his face, and in a heroic act of self-sacrifice, he swiftly deposited the Fido Special on Eva’s sandal-shod feet.
     

 
    DOG OBEDIENCE drill team belongs to the happy class of cultural entities that demarcate the boundaries of the serious by deliberately crossing far, far beyond them. To apply ordinary standards of decorum, restraint, or simple good taste to these usefully ludicrous activities and objects is thus to strip them of their essential function. As the plots of grand opera mock the despair of high tragedy, as the confectionary bride and groom atop a wedding cake deride the solemnity of marriage, as Halloween costumes laugh at death itself, so does marching around with dogs to the strains of John Phillip Sousa ridicule the partnership between us and our animals and thereby define the holiness of the bond.
    Now that I’ve stifled the hoots of Cambridge with that richly Cantabrigian rationalization, let me explain that at Waggin’ Tail, drill team took place in the middle of the big field behind the main lodge, in fact, between the lodge and obedience tent, and was taught by a jolly-looking, round-faced woman named Janet, who started the activity promptly at three-thirty by lining us up according to the sizes of our dogs. Stepping back now and then to see how we looked, Janet efficiently arranged us in a long, straight line of thirty-five or so dog-handier pairs, with the toy breeds in the center, a Great Dane bitch at one end, a Newfoundland the other, large breeds next to them, then medium, then small. So meticulous was Janet in assuring that dog height steadily ascended from the center