by Jon Katz
This night, as on most nights, she and Pearl had dinner together, eating side by side. Sometimes, she left some of her food for Pearl, who always took it away, although she never saw her eat any of it.
Then, it was time for the clearing of plates and bowls. And a walk. Again, Pearl seemed to know it was time. They went out, down the front walk, and out onto the street. Some of their friends were out. Donna with Bear, Harold with Bailey. “Hey, Joan. Hey there, Pearl,” Donna would always chirp. “Isn’t it a wonderful evening? Bear is so happy to see you. He loves you so much, more than the other neighbors!”
Sometimes Donna was a little bit too enthusiastic for Joan, but still, she was always courteous and happy to listen to the neighborhood gossip.
Then, the ball was thrown, and this was a game Pearl almost never seemed to get bored with, although Joan’s legs were getting a bit stiff with age, and the bending was difficult. Pearl dropped the ball and Joan rushed over to pick it up. It was getting chillier, and Pearl was tiring. Joan was anxious about her; Pearl could sense that. When they got home, Pearl would get her pain tablets, mixed in with some peanut butter or pudding.
Afterward, Joan and Pearl settled onto the sofa, next to each other. The wood stove was going, and the room filled with a warm glow.
Then it was time for telephone calls. First Anne, a friend, then check in with the kids, maybe talk to the grandkids.
“Mom, we’re worried about you, living all alone in that house,” Chip said almost every night. He felt bad about living in sunny California while she was in the chilly Midwest.
“Why don’t you move out here?” he would always offer.
Joan would have hated to move. She loved her routine, doing the same thing at the same time every day. A move would be disorienting, traumatic.
“I’m not alone,” she would always respond.
“I know, I know,” he said. “But she’s a dog.”
There was no response to that, and so they just moved on.
Joan always felt safe with Pearl. With her around, she would be watched over, taken care of, protected. If anybody came around, Pearl would notice, go investigate. Being in the house, up on a hill—the nearest neighbors separated by hardwood trees and shrubs, out of sight—could get lonely sometimes. But not with Pearl.
Whatever dangers and trials were out there in the world, they melted away here, the two of them together, in their own little corner of the world.
Chip had brought a PC on his last trip, installed it in a corner of the living room, left elaborate instructions on how to use it. But honestly, it made both of them uncomfortable. It produced new and strange noises that were disconcerting—bings, hums, clicks, and other sounds. Joan didn’t like seeing it in the corner of the room. She didn’t like the eerie light that flickered from the screen. It was strange and ugly and even smelled funny.
The dog got up and moved away whenever the screen lit up or beeped.
After the phone calls, it was time for a snack. Tea, scones, biscuits. The two ate delicately, nibbling at their food. This was reading time, and Joan especially enjoyed the quiet, as she did the familiarity. There was little noise, other than the shifting of human and dog against upholstery and pillows.
The computer was off. So was the TV. The phone never rang after nine P.M. There was no traffic in the street. The only sound in the house was the humming of the refrigerator and a mild buzzing from the digital table clock that was a gift last Christmas.
Joan and Pearl both nodded off, both breathing heavily, snoring slightly. Pearl snuggled against a down pillow, while Joan liked to lie against the afghan that was usually draped over the back of the sofa. The wind whispered softly against the large glass windows that Harry had put in the summer before he died.
Joan dreamed of Harry almost every night. All kinds of images of the man she had lived with streaked through her mind. Their walks, their rides in the car, their time at the ocean. Snuggling with him in bed on cold dark nights was one of the things she most missed.
At ten o’clock, Joan usually stirred, and then Pearl followed suit. The news was turned on, mostly for the weather. The rest of it was almost always bad, something dead, on fire, or angry.
Then, a final brief stroll just outside on the lawn, by the drive, a last chance for a dog to eliminate.
Finally, the walk upstairs to bed. Applying lotion to the human face, a heating pad for the sore canine joint, followed by some brushing for each. Then one lying down, pulling the covers up, turning off the light, and the other circling, pawing, plopping down in a ball, grateful for a warm, quiet spot next to a human that she loved. And then a pat, a kiss, a good night.
The night was usually uneventful, two good and quiet sleepers. Sometimes, one had to get up and use the bathroom, and sometimes, the other had to go by the back door and be let out briefly. Both of them had slightly unpredictable bladders. But most nights, they slept through until first light.
In the morning, it was Joan who stirred first, when the first rays of sunlight crept in through the blinds. Pearl never moved until Joan did, and Joan waited for the alarm clock to come on, blaring its staticky classical music. There was no digital alarm in the upstairs bedroom, just an old-fashioned radio clock.
The day began: showering, dressing, going downstairs, opening the back door so a dog could do her business, and then breakfast. Coffee. Blood-pressure pills. Toast. Kibble mixed with a piece of chicken sausage, some joint pills, and kidney medication.
The first and longest walk of the day, around the block, down to the park, to see the other people and the other dogs, to get off leash and run a bit, as much as aging legs allowed.
Then back to the house: some cleaning, tidying, bill paying. A ride to the doctor, then to the vet for a routine checkup.
Joan handled herself well at the vet, but it nearly undid Pearl, who was nervous for hours before going.
Finally, it was time to come home, to meet Sue, an old friend who had lost her dog a couple of years earlier and who was thrilled to get on the floor and scratch the belly of another one. Sue came over for lunch every other week, alternating with her bridge club. She always brought sandwiches and treats.
Soon, it would be time for the afternoon walk. The neighbors sometimes joked that it was never really clear who was walking whom, and this was true. It never was, not to Joan and Pearl either.
And when they got home, Pearl went out to check the mail, and Joan walked slowly to her food bowl to eat the rest of the kibble she had left that morning.
The Surrender Bay
EMMA DIDN’T NEED CNN TO TELL HER SOMETHING WAS UP. EVEN before the Great Recession officially struck, she shifted her hours at the Washequa Animal Shelter before her boss could think to ask her. Washequa had once been a booming auto town, centered for decades around a GM assembly plant, but it shut down in 2008, leaving the town shell-shocked and decimated. For several months, people had been pulling up to the “Surrender Your Animals” bay of the shelter more and more often, mostly at night, because even though it wasn’t their fault, they were often ashamed or heartbroken about what they had to do. The bay was created to give animal owners a safe and anonymous way to drop animals off at a shelter rather than abandon them.
One night alone, there were five dogs, six cats, a turtle, four rabbits, and a badger. The next night there were a dozen dogs and nine cats. After that, Emma decided to work nights so she could be there for the animals when they were dropped off. She didn’t like to leave any animal out in the Surrender Bay all night. They were upset enough without that. She liked to get them inside, fed, registered, and settled. It was hard for her to go home and sleep if she knew animals were sitting out there. She could only imagine what their owners felt.
She remembered one beagle was sitting in his crate, howling. A note was taped onto the front of the crate door: “My name is Darryl. My owners have lost their home and their jobs. They can’t really afford me anymore, and they hope you will find a great home for me and make sure
that I am loved and cared for. Thank you. Please keep me alive.”
Emma saw a lot of notes and messages like Darryl’s, and she saved them all. One little girl wrote a letter to her surrendered Lab, Duncan, every day for two months. Emma didn’t have the heart to tell her the dog had been put down.
There was a tinted glass window by the bay where Emma could look out and not be seen. Fathers came in the dead of night—Emma guessed they didn’t want their kids to see their dogs and cats leave—and hurriedly, almost furtively, put the animals into one of the dozen large crates that were left open by the staff. There was a donation box next to the crates, but most of the time people were so eager to get away, they didn’t put anything in it. Some probably couldn’t afford to. She saw a woman fall to her knees sobbing as she hugged her cat for the last time. There was an elderly couple surrendering their ancient dachshund, telling him softly they were moving to a facility that couldn’t take him, thanking him for his love and loyalty. A young girl in tears left her parrot in a cage, then rushed back to the car where her mom yelled for her to hurry up.
Every so often, the tortured families returned in the morning in a panic to get their animals back. “We just couldn’t do it,” said one mother, who came with her two children to get their mutt back when the shelter opened at six A.M. Emma was still there, about to tag the dog and put him in quarantine. The shelter rules said that once a dog was surrendered, people had to go through the whole adoption process—including a $60 fee and interview—before they could get the animal back, but Emma looked the other way once in a while.
“I don’t have a job, and I’m not sure where we’re going to be living,” said the woman. “But I guess it will have to be a place that takes dogs.” Her kids, both girls, were crying, hugging their dog for dear life. Emma stood in the bay and waved good-bye as their battered Taurus pulled away.
Two weeks after Emma started working nights, it was all over the news—the stock market was crashing, unemployment was soaring. There would be more animals coming into the Surrender Bay.
The shelter’s budget had been slashed and slashed, the staff reduced by a fourth, and even though Emma worked sixty hours a week, she was on the payroll as a part-timer—$13 an hour and no benefits. But she felt the animals needed her more than ever, and this was true. And she had something few people had—she loved her work, every minute of every day. In this job, Emma saw, you felt needed, for sure. It was pure. The animals needed you and were grateful for every scrap of food or cuddle that they got.
She didn’t keep dogs and cats of her own because she knew then there wouldn’t be room for emergencies, or for the animals she liked to give an occasional treat by getting them out of the shelter for a night. She did this especially with dogs and cats she knew were likely to be put down. Her own Last Suppers.
The shelter was a flat single-story building that had been donated to the town by a machine shop that had once occupied the space. It had a reception area, a surgery, a meeting place where people could spend time with the animals, a “containment” room for dangerous or sick dogs or cats, and various rooms that held between fifteen and thirty crates of various sizes. There was also a row of exercise pens in the rear of the facility. The place was swabbed and scrubbed twice daily, but it still had that shelter smell—a combination of blood, fur, vomit, and fecal waste mixed with disinfectant and alcohol—that had woven itself into the walls.
The shelter held 140 animals, and had been filled up for months. Now it was overflowing. Crates were stacked in the hallways and reception areas. So many animals were being abandoned that they couldn’t close the shelter, yet they didn’t really have the money to fund it either. So the staff simply did whatever it took. Some days, Emma and the other employees drove around in the shelter van to local pet stores—they often went to the wealthier Cleveland suburbs an hour to the north—to beg and borrow kibble and canned food. One pet-supply chain let them have damaged bags of food, or food that had been returned for one reason or another.
The staff had come to call the end of the week “Black Friday” because that was when sick, “dangerous,” or unadoptable animals were euthanized. Emma forced herself to look at the list of animals posted in the surgery every Friday morning. Sometimes there were twenty or thirty names on the list. The shelter did everything they could to find homes for the animals, but it was tough. And getting tougher. Many more animals were coming in than going out. Room had to be made for the new ones who were being surrendered every day.
Emma made it an article of faith to say good-bye to all of the animals, taking them out of their cages for a final pet if she could, and if there was time. She was determined that no animal leave the world without some human affection or a proper farewell. Some Fridays, she assisted the vets, holding the cats and dogs, closing their eyes while the needles went in, taking the bodies out and treating them with dignity. A cremation service collected them. Emma put a name tag on every animal before they were collected.
People were often shocked to learn the reality of life at the shelter. As Sandy, the director, told them, “We’re not a no-kill shelter. We can’t afford to be.” There was hardly any such thing as a “no-kill shelter.” There were shelters that did their own killing, and shelters that sent animals away to be killed, or didn’t accept any whom they might have to kill. These days, almost no publicly funded shelter could afford to care for animals for years at taxpayer expense.
Emma remembered one father she encountered when she still worked days and interacted with the customers. The man grabbed her by the shoulders and put his face close to hers. “Can you imagine what it feels like to be in this position?” he had said quietly, but with a kind of smoldering rage. “To be so low that you have to bring the family dog in here because you can’t afford vet bills and dog food? To face my kids when I go home and tell them I sent their dog away?”
Emma forced herself to look this man in the eye. “Look, Mr.,” she said, her voice shaking, “I’m sorry for you and for your dog. But this is not my fault. We’re both doing the best we can.”
The man looked at her for a second, then turned, got into his pickup, and drove away, leaving his confused German shepherd with Emma.
When Emma got discouraged, she thought of the many happy scenes. The children who left holding dogs and cats in their arms, the lucky animals who found a family. Saying good-bye to them was a different kind of farewell, and they carried her through the other times.
One early evening shortly after Emma’s shift began, she and her coworker Sam heard a roar coming off the highway that separated the mostly abandoned strip mall from the animal shelter. Emma looked out the rear window and saw a dozen big black motorcycles thundering down the road. At first, it didn’t occur to her that they would be coming to the shelter, but the bikes slowed down and rumbled toward the entrance, belching smoke as they approached.
Emma heard the barking start up—the animals hated the noise. Soon, there was a din of barking, howling, and yelping that seemed to rattle the shelter.
“Jeez,” said Sam. “The ground is shaking.” Emma saw that the lead driver had an animal crate fastened to the rear of his bike.
Emma, never one for confrontation, scurried back to one of the crate rooms, where she could busy herself feeding or socializing or medicating one of the dogs and the cats. Maybe tonight she would visit Brownie, the fat old golden whose elderly owners had had their home foreclosed. She needed to have her bandages changed—she’d had a cancerous growth removed—and Emma doubted the shelter would be able to keep her alive much longer.
She heard some noise in the reception area.
Sandy, the director, was on duty. She could talk to the bikers. Emma could see the black leather jackets, long hair sticking out from under the helmets, jeans and studded boots. No way was she going to talk to them.
She saw Sam go to the reception area to help Sandy out.
Emma let Brownie out of her crate and kissed the old dog on the nose, and then gentl
y lifted her up on the examining table. She carefully took her dressing off—she couldn’t be interrupted now—and took some liver treats out of her pocket. Emma bought them with her own money at the local PetSmart. The shelter couldn’t afford to buy treats.
Emma didn’t have the heart to ask Sandy, but she guessed, from her experience, that this Friday would be the day Brownie would be put down. Nobody in Washequa was going to adopt a dog with cancer, not a twelve-year-old. And the shelter couldn’t justify paying for more surgery for her. There were younger, healthier dogs to save, some who might find homes.
While Emma put a fresh bandage on and gave Brownie her antibiotics, Sam came in, looking flushed and angry.
“What happened?”
“That biker, a macho jerk, came with a large, brownish cat, and he said he wanted to leave the cat but he wanted to know for sure that she would find a home. When Sandy said she couldn’t promise that, he nearly put his fist through the wall and called her a bitch. He said she had to find a home for the cat or he would chew the place up.
“I told him to chill out, and two of his thugs came toward me until Macho Man stopped them, just held up his hand. Sandy threatened to call the police and told me to go get a carrier for the cat. I didn’t want to leave, but I saw she wanted me to get out of there.” Sam went into one of the storerooms to get a travel carrier.
Emma felt a surge of anger. But she remembered Sandy saying they had to think of the animals, not the people.
Sam, still visibly upset, hurried back into the reception area with a big plastic carrier.
A short while later, Emma heard the cycles roar off.
She ventured out into the hallway, but there was nobody there. She walked down the hall to the Surrender Bay area, where new animals to the shelter were kept in quarantine for two weeks. It was feeding time, and that was part of Emma’s job. She looked at her watch and saw it was time to give the new arrivals their antibiotics too. She went into the medicine cabinet for fresh syringes and the medicine vials.