A. Rich - The Hand That Feeds You

He looked at my plate. “Those better not be the last of the plantains.”

“Would you like one?” I indicated the empty seat across from me.

He slid into the booth and, without glancing at the menu, ordered exactly what I had. He speared a slice of plantain off my plate. “I lived on these when I worked in Puerto Rico.”

“When was that?”

“I represented a horse in Vieques. A farmer near one of the Navy’s test-bombing ranges noticed his prize horse had stopped breeding. We won a judgment for the farmer and the stud.”

I raised my coffee cup in a salute.

“Have you scheduled the temperament test yet?” he asked.

“Next Friday on Staten Island.”

“Excellent. I wish you good luck.”

When his food came, I wanted to change the subject so that he didn’t think I’d invited him to sit down with me in order to take advantage of his legal counsel. “The closest I’ve been to Vieques was looking at it across the water from St. Thomas.”

“I love the islands. What were you there for?”

“I always took diving vacations there so I could bring back a couple of patty-cakes.” When I saw the question in his face, I said, “They’re island strays that survive on cornmeal cakes they find in the garbage. I work with a nonprofit that places island dogs in mainland homes.”

“What was the diving like there?”

“The reefs are suffering. Every time a cruise ship dumps two thousand tourists wearing sunscreen into the ocean, the coral bleaches and dies. I feel lucky to have seen the reefs before they’re gone. Did you dive off Vieques?”

“A little.”

“Isn’t it amazing? Swimming through those canyons of coral. The colors. Have you ever dived at night when the soft corals come out? It’s like swimming through a rose garden with only a flashlight. And the fish. Have you ever been followed by those schools of blue Tang? The way they all turn at once and become iridescent.”

He put his fork down though he had not finished his plantains. I felt I had somehow stepped wrong. “Let me take you to breakfast,” he said, and reached inside his zippered pocket for some cash.

I thanked him and he told me he had to file some court papers downtown.

“On a bike?”

“That way the guards think I’m a messenger and I don’t have to go upstairs and schmooze.”

I watched him through the window as he unlocked his bike and rode off toward the Williamsburg Bridge.

I finished his plantains, thanked the server, and walked home. Even before I checked to see if I had received a reply to my last Lovefraud posting, I went on Google and looked up Laurence McKenzie. I scrolled past his professional achievements until I came to an article that made me feel awful. Five years ago, I learned, he and his wife were diving off Vieques when his wife went missing. She got separated from the rest of the diving group during an ascent through unusually strong currents. They found her a few minutes later, floating facedown and unconscious with a partially inflated BCD and an empty tank.

She could not be resuscitated.

The odds of being struck by lightning in the United States are one in six hundred thousand. You are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be killed by a dog of any breed. And four times more likely to be killed by a cow than any dog.

I stood outside what looked like a horse show ring on Staten Island. I was waiting for the handler to bring out Cloud for the first part of her temperament test when I saw Billie walking across the parking lot. I called her a couple of times to ask about my dogs.

She waved to me.

“Are you part of this?” I asked.

“I couldn’t let these pups be tested without being here to root for them.”

Something in me recoiled from her breezy greeting. Was she one of those people who fed on other people’s dramas?

Having only seen her in the sensory-overloading shelter, I hadn’t realized how attractive and athletic she was. She wore pegged jeans and toffee-colored ankle boots. Despite the first chill of fall, her linen jacket was open over a tight-fitting T-shirt that I recognized from a rescue organization; it said SHOW ME YOUR PITS. I had one just like it, but never had the nerve to wear it.

“I can’t believe you came,” I said.

“I’ve watched a lot of these. I wish they had temperament tests for men.”

She led me behind a small outcropping where we could watch without being seen. She said our presence would distract Cloud.

“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered, as a female handler entered the ring with Cloud on a short lead. “You’ll see.”

Cloud and her handler faced the four judges, three of whom were middle-aged women, and the fourth, a man who looked to be in his thirties. Cloud looked so happy to be outside, I feared the fresh air and sunlight would distract her!

Billie explained that the first part of the test would measure the dog’s reaction to strangers. First we watched the “neutral” stranger approach Cloud, stop, and tell the handler to have a nice day. Cloud did not react. The “friendly” stranger approached happily and briskly, sweet-talked Cloud, and patted her head. Cloud wagged her tail and licked the stranger’s hand. The third stranger careened, swinging his arms and speaking in a loud, agitated voice.

Billie leaned over. “They are going to judge her on provoked aggression, strong avoidance, or panic.”

“If I were Cloud, I’d exhibit all three.”

“After what you’ve been through, so would I.”

But Cloud aced it. She didn’t take the bait.

As the handler walked Cloud slowly around the ring, they passed small stations that looked like duck blinds. From behind each one came a variety of provocations: the jarring noise of coins being shaken in a metal box, the sudden opening of a large umbrella. Cloud startled and hid behind the handler.

“The umbrella test cashiers more dogs than any other. The response they’re looking for is curiosity, then continuing past,” Billie said.

“But she’s always been afraid of umbrellas. Will they take that into consideration?”

“It’s not a deal-breaker if she passes everything else. And hiding is better than showing aggression.”

After Cloud passed the gunshot test — a blank was fired near her — the judges gave her the thumbs-up. Vicki Hearne, the late philosopher and dog trainer, had written about “what the illusion of viciousness is obscuring.” Cloud was a huge dog with big jowls and, covered in blood, had appeared to be a vicious dog, but it was an illusion, and what it obscured was fear.

I had been told that I would not be allowed to visit Cloud after the test, so I gathered my purse and coat, and as I turned to say good-bye to Billie, I saw the same handler walk George into the ring.

I looked at Billie and she was smiling. “Surprise.”

“Who gave you permission to have George tested?”

“I just don’t think he’s a killer.”

“This wasn’t your call.”

In the ring, the handler put George into a sit-stay. He then aced every test that Cloud did — the normal, friendly, and crazy strangers, shaken coins, even the umbrella test. Nothing distracted him from obeying the handler. I remembered how eager he was to please. With that recollection, came another: that Bennett had pushed a woman out a window. What might he have done to this dog? George now looked ribby, the way he did when I first saw him — you are supposed to be able to feel a dog’s ribs, not see them. It was part of what prompted me to foster him. It is such a pleasure simply to feed a hungry dog.

But the gunshot test terrified him.

He rushed behind the handler and tried to keep going, but the handler pulled hard on the leash and brought him back to her side.