The Kentucky Fried Chicken was a gift. Half a bucket of wings and drumsticks left in an open trash can by a teenager on his way home after a night of near misses. The dog fell upon it like a drunk on whiskey, without remorse or pause or reason, with no more than the sense of get this in me now. Be he also caught a whiff of melancholy left on the bucket from the teenager’s hands, and the smell told the dog to save some bones for a time when he was not so lucky.
Buster was already digging a hole in Pat and Clyde’s yard when he noticed a small golden flake on the grass. It was food, and he followed the promise of more across the lawn, through the back door, and over to Clyde, stiff and covered with flies, the remaining cereal a soggy wet pile of pink plaster across his shoulders. The rug underneath the kitchen table was soaked in blood. Buster left red paw prints as he walked around the body and sniffed at the slippers on the dead man’s feet.
The dog smelled fear in the sweat of Clyde’s last moment. It had curled in the arch of his foot as he listened to his wife answer their front door. The bell rang just as he pierced the roast with the carving fork, releasing two streams of juice, which ran down the sides of the meat until they were captured by the raised edge of the serving plate. He paused then, as he lifted the knife, waiting to hear and recognize the voices of his wife and whoever had come to their house. When he heard nothing, an uneasiness tightened at the base of his stomach. Their home contained his life, and he realized, suddenly, that he could not imagine something that could not be greeted by name, could not easily become a part of everything they had inside: their potholders in the shape of barnyard animals; the creak in the third stair; the way their bedroom door stuck in the summer heat. When the shot exploded, he felt it all at once and everywhere — in the walls, in his eyes, in his chest, in his arms, in the utensils he was holding, in the piece of meat he was carving, in the slippers that placed him on the floor, in the kitchen, before their evening meal.
Buster pulled off one of the slippers and sank his teeth into it. It was rank, worn, and sour-tasting, cutting the sweetness of the Captain Crunch. He worked on removing the stuffing of the inner sole and kept his eye on the dead man who used to shoo-shoo him away from garbage bags, from munching the daffodils that lined the walk, from humping strays behind the garage. Once, after catching the dog relieving himself in the middle of the driveway, Clyde had dragged him by the collar all the way down Bridge Street. Listen to me, pooch, Mr. Mitchell had said after Clyde had left, one hand smoothing where the collar had choked and the other hand vigorously scratching the dog’s behind. You shit wherever you feel like shitting.
On his way out of the yard Buster found the Sunday Globe that Little Mike Findleman had tossed. It held the same scent he’d picked up over the body — anger, fear, and disconnectedness — things that cried out to be buried. He dragged the paper over to the hole he’d already started and threw it in with the slipper and the leftover chicken. The earth had a way of settling things. The dog walked back and forth over the spot once it was filled, then lifted his leg to mark it. He shook some dirt out of his ear and used four paws to lake himself home.
The Mitchells had moved into the neighborhood five years before. They brought their dog with them. Three years later, a son arrived — not a newborn baby decked out in bonnets but a thin, dark boy of indiscriminate age. His name was Miguel, and it was unclear to the people living on Bridge Street whether he was adopted or a child from a previous marriage. He called the Mitchells his mother and father, enrolled in the public school for the district, and quietly became a part of their everyday lives.
In fact, Miguel was the true son of Mr. Mitchell, sired unknowingly on a business trip with a Venezuelan prostitute some seven years before. The mother had been killed in a bus accident along with fifty-three other travelers on a road outside Caracas, and the local police had contacted Mr. Mitchell from a faded company card she had left pressed in her Bible. After a paternity test, the boy arrived at Logan airport with a worn-out blanket and duffel bag full of chickens (his pets), which were quickly confiscated by customs officials. Mr. Mitchell drove down Route 128 in his station wagon, amazed and panicked at his sudden parenthood, trying to comfort the sobbing boy and wondering how Miguel had managed to keep the birds quiet on the plane.
When they pulled into the driveway, Mrs. Mitchell was waiting with a glass of warm milk sweetened with sugar. She was wearing dungarees. She took the boy in her arms and carried him immediately into the bathroom, where she sat him on the counter and washed his face, his hands, his knees, and his feet. Miguel sipped the milk while Mrs. Mitchell gently ran the washcloth between his toes. When she was finished, she tucked him into their guest bed and read him a stack of Curious George books in Spanish, which she had ordered from their local bookstore. She showed Miguel a picture of the little monkey in the hospital getting a shot from a nurse and the boy fell asleep, a finger hooked around the belt loop of her jeans. Mrs. Mitchell sat on the bed beside him quietly until he rolled over and let it go.
Mr. Mitchell had met his wife in Northern California. They pulled up beside each other at a gas station. He had just completed his business degree, and was driving a rented car up the coast to see the Olympic rain forest. She was in a pickup truck with Oregon plates. They both got out and started pumping. Mr. Mitchell finished first, and on his way back to his car after paying, he watched the muscles in her thick arm flexing as she replaced the hose. She glanced up, caught him looking, and smiled. She was not beautiful, but one of her teeth stuck out charmingly sideways. He started the car, turned out of the station, and glanced into his rearview mirror. He watched the pickup take the opposite road, and as it drove away he felt such a pulling that he turned around and followed it for 150 miles.
At the rest stop, he pretended that he was surprised to see her. Later he discovered that many people followed his wife, and that she was used to this, and that it did not seem strange to her. People she had never met came up and began to speak to her in supermarkets, in elevators, in the waiting rooms of doctors, at traffic lights, at concerts, at coffee shops and bistros. Even their dog, a stray she fed while camping in Tennessee, came scratching outside their door six weeks later. Mr. Mitchell was jealous and frightened by these strangers, and often used himself as a shield between them and his wife. What do they want from her? he often found himself thinking, but he also felt, What will they take from me?
His wife was a quiet woman, in the way that large rocks just beyond the shore are quiet; the waves rush against them and the seaweed hangs on and the birds gather round on top. Mr. Mitchell was amazed that she had married him. He spent the first few years doing what he could to please her and watched for signs that she was leaving.
Sometimes she got depressed and locked herself in the bathroom. It made him furious and desperate. When she came out, tender and pink from washing, she would put her arms around him and tell him that he was a good man. Mr. Mitchell was not sure of this, because sometimes he found himself hating her. The door was in front of him but the knob wouldn’t turn. He wanted her to know what it felt like to be powerless. He found himself taking risks.