Animal Control

The pit bull, a purebred named Donald, had eaten the small child. Not nipped at or bitten, but chewed and swallowed. Some of the child’s bones remained in the grassy area of the neighborhood park, and Donald was in the process of licking a femur clean when animal control came and stunned him into submission. There wasn’t a parent or babysitter in sight, and no dog owner either. Later, a traumatized veterinarian would put Donald to sleep, stomach still full of child, which the vet would consider trying to extract for burial purposes before realizing Donald’s digestive process, never mind his teeth, had most likely done a number so extreme that an empty casket would be preferable.

“In all my years of controlling animals, I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said the animal control guy, speaking to the paramedic at the scene. The stun gun-black, shaped like a television remote-still buzzed in his hand. The paramedic was actually a paramedic-in-training, a man in his twenties named Kenny. Seeing the eaten child had terrified Kenny, but though he would never say it aloud, he had just as much sympathy for the dog, dazed and motionless, now drooling. His paramedic prep classes hadn’t trained him for a situation like this. Kenny wasn’t even certain that being a paramedic was what he wanted as a career, but domestic pressure in the form of his pregnant girlfriend Mona had forced his hand for the time being.

Later, over a dinner of steamed vegetables and yogurt (Mona had changed her diet since the pregnancy, which changed Kenny’s diet also), Kenny recounted the story of the eaten child.

“Do you have to tell me this while I’m eating?” Mona said. She put her fork down. “And when I’m pregnant?”

What else could he talk about? Should he tell her about the pile of United Stuntmen’s Association monthly newsletters he had stacked in his locker at the hospital, the application he had filled out for the International Stunt School? His dream, which had made Mona laugh out loud when he told her during their third date. She had assumed what, that he was joking? Kenny never brought it up again, and the next thing he knew it was a couple months down the road and he didn’t use a condom. His Uncle Tootie was the town fire chief and had pulled administrative strings to get Kenny training as a paramedic. Two months of classes, and now Kenny was observing in the field, drawing a paycheck. Today had been his first day shadowing the response team, and the entire time, watching the head paramedic try to delicately remove the child’s flesh from the pit bull’s throat, Kenny could only think about how sweet it would feel to buy a Kawasaki KLX 450, the cream of the off-road motorcycling crop, and race it around the hilly dirt tracks on the edge of town.

Kenny’s grandfather, a man named Budd Hudgens, was a motorcyclist from Southern California who had once competed in the Motocross Grand Prix circuit in Europe. Budd had gained stuntman fame when he doubled for Steve McQueen for McQueen’s famous motorcycle jump in The Great Escape. Kenny found this out a few years earlier, discovering a shoebox of newspaper clippings in the back of his mother’s closet, and began saving money, trying to work up the nerve to head out to tiny Mukilteo, Washington for stunt school, a long way from the drab apartment kitchen he sat in now, at a square dining table the size of a board game.

“I’m sorry I ever brought the dog up,” Kenny said, once he and Mona had finished eating. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He put his dishes in the sink, came back to collect hers, but she waved him away.

Mona pushed her plate forward a few inches. Her back hurt and she felt weighed down. Rubbing her temples, she tried not to think of the future, ten years down the road. That had been the subject of her recent nightmares: it started with the image of her unpinning bed sheets from an outside clothesline, folding them into a basket. Wiry hair tied into a ponytail, Mona felt panic in her stomach as she picked up the laundry basket and turned toward the back porch. It was never clear what would be happening inside the house when she entered. And every time, just as she opened the screen door, a blinding light filled the dream, and suddenly she would be awake, short of breath, Kenny snoring beside her. Disgusted, she would pinch his nose until he swatted at her hand and fell back to sleep, quiet.

Still, there was a diminishing window of time. Kenny had dumbly accepted the pregnancy, so maybe he’d react the same way to an abortion. She was barely showing and still wearing her usual clothes. They hadn’t told people. The bones in her back made a cracking sound as Mona arched herself and stretched. She would sleep soon, and wake up to the same nightmare. Mona stood, walked into the adjoining living room, and turned on the television. A newsman reported from the park, detailing the grisly story of the dog and the child. Behind the reporter, the bloated animal was strapped to a stretcher by the animal control officer and lifted into the back of a green van. Mona looked away, but still heard the reporter wonder aloud about absent parents and duty and responsible pet ownership. Flicking the television off, Mona thought only of mercy.