This Dog for Hire

at Gilmore’s face. The judges, they eat it up. They think it’s rapport. Think the dogs actually like him. Act like he’s fucking Jim Moses or somebody who can really bond with a dog. But get this, he also spits the pieces of liver as he runs, see, so it’ll distract the other dogs, get them to break their gait trying to grab the treats. Going in the ring with him is a handler’s nightmare.”
    “Is that legal ?”
    “Legal, schmegal. Boy, are you naive. You like minis?”
    “Love ’em,” I said. It felt weird to say something true.
    “Willy Boy here’s got the best head I’ve seen in the breed. You know they’re a head breed?”
    I nodded. “Who doesn’t?”
    He referred, of course, to shape, not content. A dog with the IQ of cement could still win Best in Show.
    I looked beyond Speed to Willy Boy’s crate and saw his blue ribbon proudly displayed. Apparently someone else agreed that Willy had a beautiful head, a funny thing to say about a bull terrier, if you think about it.
    I took Speed’s card: “Larry ‘Speed’ Benton. Professional Handler, when you care enough to get the very best.” Original!
    I needed to get out of the intense crowding of the benching area for a while, so I went back upstairs, high up, bought a soda and a hot dog, and went back
    to the cheap seats to observe from above, where at least there was some air. It was canned, but still it was air.
    Looking down at the rings below, I watched the tail end of the judging, the bichon frises in ring one, the rotties in ring five, the giant schnauzers in ring six. The dignity of the Giants could be seen even from above, but from high up, the rottweilers moving looked like black pillowcases full of bricks being mysteriously thrust forward. The bichons were circling, too, just about ready for the final pick. L closed my eyes and waited for the screams.
    I nearly jumped a foot when a hand touched my shoulder.
    “Kaminsky! Is it you?”
    “Hey, Pressman. Nice jacket. Is it new? How the fuck you been?”
    “What’s it your fucking business?” he answered.
    We both started laughing, and he slid into the seat next to mine.
    “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”
    “Um, the coast, mostly.”
    “Yeah. Someone told me you were in California for a while,” he said.
    “Did you say something?” I asked, after killing some time concentrating on the rottweiler judging.
    “I asked if you’d been on the coast.” He was talking slowly and too loud now, as if he were talking to one of the inmates at the old folks home.
    “I guess so.”
    “You guess so? You guess L.A. or S.F.?”
    “NYC.”
    “NYC?”
    “Yeah. The East Coast.”
    “You mean you weren’t in California?”
    “Nah. I can’t seem to tear myself away from the theater.”
    “Not to mention the museums.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “What?”
    “Mention the museums.”
    “How true. Well, glad you’re back, so to speak.” “Me, too. Glad to be back. As it were.”
    “So, tell me, is it true? What I heard?”
    “Was it something negative?” I asked, unscrunching myself from the orange plastic seat. “Then it was probably true. More than likely true, I’d say. Well, definitely true.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled him into my face. “What did you hear?”
    “That you’re divorced.”
    I let go of his shirt and slouched back down into the seat. “Oh, that,” I said, brushing away an imaginary insect with the back of my hand. “Who isn’t?”
    “Not me,” he said. He was sitting next to me. making the kind of direct eye contact only the most confident dogs make, only his eyes were green, not blue or brown.
    I wanted to say something, to comment or respond in either a cheeky or compassionate way, but the thought came to me that I may have completely forgotten how to speak in English, and that if i dared open my mouth, I might find myself speaking in Chinese.
    Chip didn’t speak either.
    Anyway, the screaming from the bichon ring was so loud we would have had trouble hearing each other if either of us had spoken.
    I could smell his musky aftershave, or was that
    just him? I had the urge to sniff him, the way Dashiell would have, but I decided to hold off. At least for the time being.
    “So, what are you up to? Still training?” he asked, reaching for my soda and taking a sip.
    “I wouldn’t want to lose my hand,” I said, putting my arms on top of the back of the seat in front of me, resting my chin on the back of the top hand, and looking down at