The Complete Collection. William Wharton

When I come in, he turns on me. He wants to know where his dog is. He says if it’s dead, he’s going to kill me. He calls me an Italian Fascist. I push him out the door, across the porch, and down the steps. I’m hoping he’ll take a swing at me. I haven’t knocked down a grown man yet. He stands on the lawn and tells me he’s going to call the police. I tell him I’m working for the police. I tell him it’ll cost five dollars to get his dog back because it didn’t have a license, the dog is a criminal and so is he. If he doesn’t get down there right away tomorrow I’ll slit the damned dog’s throat myself. He calls me a Fascist again. I call him a shithead kike. I’m about ready to start chasing him down the street; I’m wishing I had my net. My mother tells me to come inside. I go in and she tells me to quit the dogcatcher job. I tell her I won’t; I’m just beginning to enjoy it.

      The next day we get twelve dogs. We’ve worked out our own system. We catch the dogs cowboy style, by more or less rounding them up. When we come on a pack we don’t drive up to them, we follow and maneuver them from street to street, till we get them at a dead end or a place where we can surround them.

      We’re watching to find out who the leader of the pack is. All those packs have one top dog. We watch for this when we’re rounding up the pack. He’s easy to spot because he runs at the head of the pack and the others look at him to see what to do. We concentrate on catching that pack leader, then the rest are easy. The way we do this is drop one of us, usually me, right in front of this dog. I stand there with the net down like a bullfighter’s cloak and growl at him. Usually he has to defend his honor and the pack so he’ll bristle up and growl back. Birdy, meanwhile, has dropped off behind him, perhaps twenty, thirty yards, and sneaks up through the back. By the time the dog’s discovered what’s happened it’s too late, and one or the other of us takes him. After that, the rest of the pack is easy. They stand still as we walk up to them or wag their tails trying to make friends. Most dogs are big cowards. We net them or pick them up. We figure we deserve the pack after catching the leader.

      We catch this whole twelve dogs between eleven and eleven-thirty in the morning of that second day. Twelve dogs is all the wagon will carry. It’s half an hour drive out to Doc Owens’s, so Joe Sagessa suggests we get some hoagies and beer, then sack out up behind the golf course. We do that and lie around telling jokes till about three, then drive over to Doc Owens’s with the dogs. Mr Kohler has already come and paid to get his mutt.

      That night, the cage is a filthy mess. Luckily there’s a hose for cleaning off the squad cars, so we use it to wash out all the dog shit, dog piss, vomit and dog hair. Joe gets us lockers in the squad room where we can keep our work clothes. We shower in the squad showers and keep an extra set of clothes there.

      It’s almost like we’re in the police ourselves. It’s terrific being able to handle those slick thirty-eights and forty-fives. Those cops keep them in perfect shape. Some of the belts and harnesses are beautiful to look at, with the ideal combination of sweat and oil, molded to fit the waist or the shoulder.

      There’re always card games going on. Joe introduces us around and they don’t seem to mind our being there. I begin to think I wouldn’t mind being a cop. A guy like Joe Sagessa is still young and ready to retire with a good pension. People might hate you but they holler when they need you and you get a lot of respect. There’s another idea I can write off.

      The next day we do the same thing. By ten o’clock in the morning, we have ten dogs including a huge German shepherd. This time we drive them out to Doc Owens’s first, come back to get our hoagies and beer, then lie around for two hours. That way we don’t have the dogs locked up all the time, barking, howling and crapping all over everything. In the afternoon we go out for a second load. We get eight more dogs. Joe’s having as much fun catching dogs as we are. He’s on regular salary, but that day Birdy and I split eighteen dollars in dog money plus the eight hours in salary. What a racket.

      Doc Owens is beginning to back out on the deal. He’s running out of places to put the dogs. His fancy clientele is up tight about having so many mangy mongrels hanging around. That first set of dogs is over the forty-eight hour mark, too, and nobody’s come to claim any of them except for Mr Kohler. Doc Owens makes us take them with us. Joe says he’ll drop them off out where he lives. That’s about twenty miles out Baltimore Pike and outside the township.

      The next day we get eleven dogs in the morning. When we arrive at Doc Owens’s he won’t let us unload. Joe is smiling like crazy. They’ve got mutts tied to stakes all over the back yard. It looks like a very low-class dog show. Doc Owens wants us to take those twelve dogs we got the second day before we unload any more. So, we go back to the police station in the municipal building and Joe explains the situation to Captain Lutz. Lutz phones down to Philadelphia and they agree to gas the dogs, but at a dollar a dog. There’s nothing else to do, so we drive all the way into town, deliver the dogs, feeling like real bastards, and drive back. By then, it’s too late to go out again so we wash and clean out the wagon. Birdy and I spend that night trying to think of another job.

      The next morning, we catch ten dogs in less than half an hour. The catching is getting to be the easy part. We go out to Doc Owens and he comes over with a worried look on his face. He blows up when he looks into the wagon and sees this really motley bunch of dogs, including a mean-looking Spitz. Joe jumps out of the car with two wires in his hand and a smile on his face.

      Joe’s system is simple but awful. He says it’s the best way and the dog doesn’t suffer at all. He electrocutes the dogs. The way he does it is to stand the dog in a wet spot on the cement floor in Doc Owens’s cellar. Then he shaves a spot of hair off the back of the dog’s neck and another spot just above the tail joint. He snaps alligator clips on to these spots. The alligator clips are attached to wires which join in an outlet plug.

      He hooks up one of the dogs this way, stands back, and pushes the plug into a 220-volt socket. The dog sort of jumps into the air, with its legs stiff and its eyes wide open, staring; then comes down on its feet, standing like a toy dog, its hair sticking out straight. After about a minute, Joe pulls the plug and the dog collapses into a heap.

      It’s a terrible thing to look at but can’t be any worse than being gassed. The trouble is you have it happening in front of your eyes. I’ve seen some cats smashed by cars but that wasn’t on purpose. This is awful.

      We’d reach in, choose one of the dogs, hook it up, the dog having no idea of what’s happening, and then ZAP, the end. Birdy and I hose the floor after each dog. We’re hearing rumors about the Nazis’ concentration camps; we’re running a concentration camp for dogs.

      We do all twelve dogs. After the first few, I’ve made up my mind to quit. Maybe somebody has to do it but I don’t want to be the one. Birdy is pale green in that dark cellar and we’re watching each other. I know we’re both torn between taking off and bursting out laughing or crying. I know Doc Owens and Joe are watching us.

      Doc Owens asks Joe what we’re going to do with the dead dogs. Joe says he’s made arrangements for that, too. Birdy and I carry the dead dogs out and put them in the back of the wagon. They seem one hell of a lot heavier dead than alive. We drag the heavy, bigger dogs out by the tails, then lift them together and push them through the door. It’s amazing the difference between dead things and live things.

      We jump on the back of the wagon and Joe drives us over to the next township. Birdy and I stand so we block the wire screen door. We don’t want anyone looking in and seeing all those dead dogs when we’re stopped at a red light.

      We drive to the big incinerator in Haverford Township. It’s one of those tall tower jobs that burns all the time. The smoke and smell are supposed to go straight up so nobody will smell it. We get the dogs out, two apiece, throw them over our shoulders and climb to the top on winding steps. The dogs are already getting cold and stiff. Up there is a manhole cover. Joe opens it and we can look straight down into the flames. We drop the dogs down that hole. It’s enough to turn a person religious.

      By the time we come up with the second set of dogs, it’s already smelly. We drop them in, put the cover back and Joe says, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ It’s about one-thirty in the afternoon now, so we get our hoagies and beer, and drive