The Complete Collection. William Wharton

The killing of the dogs is too much. Joe begins telling us stories about the things he’s seen as a policeman. He says we should quit if we really feel like it but we might as well get our feet wet here as anywhere else. We’re probably going to be cannon fodder for the war and we’d better get used to it now. He says this seeing dogs die and learning to live with it might actually save our lives later on. In twenty years on the force he’s seen all kinds of shit and life is no bag of cherries.

      Joe is medium height and thick, not fat, and he looks strong. He has a full head of graying hair cut short. He looks so much like a man that even the other policemen look like boys beside him. He has a deep voice and a deep laugh; he laughs a lot. We listen to his stories about all the rot going on in just our township and we know he isn’t lying. It’s the first time Birdy and I really begin to learn something of what a mean shitty world it is. What makes it all worse is Joe laughing at some of his worst stories and expecting us to laugh with him. We don’t have the guts to quit either. I think we can’t face up to having Joe laugh at us.

      Well, it turns out that all the smell from the incinerator doesn’t go up. A regular war starts between Upper Merion Township and Haverford Township. Joe is called before the commissioner and bawled out. The commissioner’s getting mixed reviews about the whole dogcatching operation anyway. Gardeners, mothers of small children are sending nice letters, but dog lovers are up in arms. They’re threatening to get the ASPCA after us. It looks like Birdy and I won’t have to quit after all. The dogcatching operation is suspended for three days. Birdy’s glad because he has a lot of work to do with his birds. He’s catching dogs so he can build that dream aviary of his; the same reason he was digging for buried treasure in the rain.

      I go over to his place and help him out some. He has more crazy canaries than you’d believe. Birdy gets all excited showing me some of the experiments he’s carrying out with weights on the birds’ legs and pulling flight feathers from the wings to see how little a bird needs to carry a heavy weight. He’s also built some beautiful models. He wants me to help when he turns one of these into a working model big enough for him to fly. He wants me to help with the launching. I say I’ll do it when we get some time off from dogcatching. I’ve got an idea for an underwater diving bell myself and I’m going to need help when I try it out. We agree to do both those things when the dogcatching thing folds.

      The next Monday we’re back on the wagon again. Joe tells us he’s found another place to get rid of the dogs. Birdy wants us 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 open place 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 to pretend we’re men and trying not to vomit all over the place. The stink, the flies, and now grinding up the dogs; we’re earning our dollar an hour. Joe motions us to help him put the dogs in; he steps back and rubs his hands together.

      We grab hold of the dogs. The best way is to lower them in by the tail. The sound of the grinding is grisly. We get it done somehow. Birdy and I are glad to climb into the front seat of the wagon while Joe talks with some of the men standing around. We’re never going to make it as men in this world. The seats are plastic and hot. Birdy says if we can get used to this we can get used to anything. That’s after I tell him we’ll get used to it.

      We’re just about getting our stomachs settled when Joe comes over and invites us into the shed to watch how it’s all done. He sees our faces and starts laughing. He slides into the wagon; we climb out onto the back, and take off.

      While we’re cleaning the wagon that afternoon, I ask Joe what they do with all the meat they grind up in the grinder. Joe says they make dog food with it.

      The days pass; Birdie and I try everything. I sit for hours with treat food in the dish. So long as I stay near it, Alfonso hovers in the back of his cage raising the front edges of his wings and opening his beak in a threatening growl. As soon as I go away he comes over and eats. It’s hard to believe he’s the same species as Birdie. Birdie becomes more and more fascinated by him as he remains hostile to us. She lands on top of his cage to watch him and queeps, peeps, trills; everything she can come up with. The only answer is a sudden lunge when he thinks she’s not paying attention.

      I decide that maybe if I try starving him for a day, then offer him food, he’ll be more cooperative. No; he just acts