The Feast of Love Read Online Free Page B

through that door and down the hallway. It wasn’t very well lit. Bare bulbs screwed into the ceiling showered raw light downward so that the place looked like an aging army barracks. I don’t know what I was expecting. The floors were cement, so they could clean them easily of waste matter, and our shoes, our running shoes, were squeaking over that surface.
    You can’t imagine the noise. They were all barking and howling and yapping, these dogs of every size, pure dog-desperation, mutt-mania, an army of refugee dogs, and we marched down that hallway between the cages, being roared at, like these dogs were screaming Save us save us, and I held on to Kathryn, and then we walked back, with me still holding on, and then we walked down the hallway a third time, and Kathryn said, “You can let go of me now,” so I did. I let go of her.
    We kept walking back and forth. We weren’t about to get a dog. No. That wasn’t ever the idea, despite what I had said. We were just there, walking up and down that aisle at the Humane Society, for Kathryn’s benefit, and after about the fifth time it felt as if we were on inspection, in the dog barracks. Not all the dogs quieted down, but some of them did, and when they did, we began to peer at them, which we really hadn’t done before when they were making a racket and they were just generic dogs.
    It’s when you start looking at dogs that you begin to notice their faces. Is that the word? Faces? Muzzles? And after all in a Humane Society they’re mostly mutts, so you don’t have anything like a breed to distract you, except for Dalmatians, because people are always buying Dalmatians, thinking that they’re cute, and then they get rid of them because they can’t stand how difficult and dumb they are. You do notice all the Dalmatians in the Humane Society.
    Kathryn was still a bit scared, but by this time she was noticing their expressions. I didn’t prompt her. I didn’t say anything. And soon she said, I’ll bet that one likes a party. And I’d bet that one’s a bully. That one’s kind of stupid but has a good sense of humor. And that one, he’s a recluse. That one’s a pack animal. That one there, she’s stubborn and independent. That one likes to ride in cars. That one thinks all day about food.
    She had her index finger pointed at them. And then she started to name them.
    You’re Otis.
    You’re Sophie.
    You’re Lester.
    You’re Duffy.
    You’re Gordon.
    You’re Daisy.
    You’re Waverly.
    And you, you handsome fellow, she said, pointing down at a dog on the other side of the bars, you, you’re Bradley.
    There was a dog there, I admit it, that looked a lot like me, like my brother or cousin, these sort of eyes I have, and its voice was just like mine, a rumble, phlegmy, you know, but strong and commanding like my voice is. Brownish fur like mine, and friendly, like me, but prone to harmless manias, also like me, you could just tell.
    And the thing was, as Kathryn was doing this, as she was naming the dogs, going up and down the aisles, something quite amazing happened. One by one, the dogs stopped barking. They just quit. At first I didn’t think it was happening, I thought it had to do with my hearing, you know, what do they call it, tinnitus, but it wasn’t that. The dogs were really going quiet. Kathryn would point at them, one at a time, at one dog, and give it a name — you’re Inez — and the dog would look at her, and after a moment or two it — Inez the dog — would clam up. And before very long, it grew really quiet in there, maybe a yip or two now and then, but otherwise no sound. As if, all that time, all they had wanted was a name. It was spooky.
    “I think we had better leave now,” Kathryn said. I took her hand and we went back out to the car.
    But before we got to the car the red-haired receptionist in the jumpsuit said, “What happened? What the hell did you do in there?” and she went rushing back toward the kennels, and the dogs started