I was already wishing I hadn’t been in such a hurry to show Moz our possible drummer. A trip to the anarchy of Times Square was exactly what my unruly dog pack didn’t need.
Here’s what I’ve learned about dogs:
They’re a lot like pretty girls. Having one or two around makes everything more fun, but when you get a whole bunch together, it turns into one big power struggle. Every time you add or subtract from the pack, everything gets rearranged. The top dog might wind up number two or fall all the way to the bottom. As I watched the Doberman brothers trying to stare down the mastiff, I was starting to wonder if being in a band was pretty much the same thing—more Nature Channel than MTV.
And really, all the jostling was a big waste of time, because Pearl was clearly the right girl to run things.
Don’t get me wrong, the Mosquito was my oldest and best friend. I would never have picked up a guitar if it hadn’t been for him, and he was the fawesomest musician I’d ever seen. But Moz wasn’t cut out to be in charge. Of anything. He’d never held on to even the crappiest job, because any kind of organized activity—waiting in line, filling out forms, showing up on time—made him all buzzy. There was no way he could keep five or six unruly musicians on their leashes and pull them all in the same direction.
As for me, I thought the little dogs had the right attitude. The schnauzer didn’t really care whether the mastiff or the Dobermans took charge: he just wanted to sniff some butt and get on with the walk.
He just wanted the struggle to be over.
Today, though, nobody was in control—certainly not me. The seven leashes in my hand didn’t mean squat. Each time we got to an intersection, I’d try to pull us toward Times Square, but the pack kept freaking out about every stray scent, surging off in random directions. I’d let them wander a bit until they got it out of their system, then pull them back toward the way I wanted us to go. We weren’t going to set any crosstown speed records, but at least there was plenty of time before we were supposed to meet Moz, who, like I just mentioned, was probably going to be late anyway.
The weird thing was how much the vacant lots scared them. Even the mastiff was slinking past open spaces, when normally she would have charged straight in for a run.
How weird was that? A creature the size of a horse who’d been cooped up in a Manhattan apartment all day, and all she wanted to do was cling to me, shivering like a wet poodle.
In this mood, the commotion of Times Square was going to turn my pack into a portable riot. It seemed like Moz and I might have to see my drummer some other day.
Then we passed the mouth of a dark alley, and things really got paranormal.
The bull terrier—who always has to pee on everything—took advantage of the anarchy to pull us all in. He trotted to the piss-stained wall, cocked his leg halfway, then suddenly froze, staring into the darkness. The yapping of the other dogs choked off, like seven muzzles had been strapped on all at once.
The alleyway was full of eyes.
Hundreds of tiny faces gazed up at us from the shadows. Behind me trucks rushed past, and I could feel the warmth of sunlight on my back, the reassuring pace and movement of the real world. But in the alley everything was frozen, time interrupted. The bulbous bodies of the rats were motionless, huddled against garbage bags, their teeth bared, heads poking out of holes and crannies. Nothing moved but a shimmer of whiskers as a thousand nostrils tested the air.
In the farthest corner, a lone cat was perched high on a leaking pile of garbage. It stared down at me, unimpressed by my small army of dogs, offended by my presence in the alley. I felt tiny under its arrogant gaze—like some street kid who’d stumbled into a five-star restaurant looking for a place to pee.
The cat blinked its red eyes, then yawned, its pink tongue curling.
This is totally unfool, I thought. If my Dobermans spotted that cat, they’d go after it, dragging me and the whole pack deep into the alley. I could imagine myself returning seven rat-bitten, half-rabid canines to the doormen and never seeing another dime of dog-walking money again.
“Come on, guys,” I murmured, gently pulling the fistful of leashes backward. “Nothing to see here.”
But they were paralyzed, transfixed by the galaxy of eyes.
The cat opened its mouth again, letting out a long, irritated mrrr-row…
And the Dobermans ran like scaredy-cats.
They both leaped straight up, twisting around in midair, and charged past me toward the sunlight. The others followed in a mob, wrapping their leashes around my legs and dragging me stumbling into the street.
It was all I could do to stay on my feet as the mastiff charged ahead, opening up into her full gallop. She pulled the rest of us straight out onto the road, where a yellow flash of taxi screeched past dead ahead of us. A squat little delivery van squealed around us, horn blaring, scaring the mastiff into a sharp left turn.
We were headed down the middle of the street now, a garbage truck thundering along in front of us, the delivery van behind. We were in traffic, as if I’d decided to take a dog-powered chariot out for a little spin.
Unfortunately, I’d sort of forgotten to bring the chariot, so I was stumbling and staggering, seven leashes still tangled around my legs. And if I fell down, I knew the mastiff would keep going, galloping along until my face had been rubbed off completely on the asphalt. Even if my face friction somehow brought the pack to a halt, the pursuing delivery van would squash us all flat.
It was still blaring its horn, because that was clearly helping, and the two guys on the back of the garbage truck were laughing, pointing their giant-gloved fingers at me. A pair of bike messengers shot past in polka-dotted Lycra, me and my dogs just another bunch of clowns at the rodeo.
The whole procession swerved around some street work ahead, and suddenly my feet were slipping across an expanse of loose sand. I spotted an abandoned pizza box and planted my sneakers on it. Then I was skidding, my free hand in the air, riding the box like it was a boogie board at the beach.
Just when it was getting fun, the garbage truck began to slow, pulling up in front of a big apartment building with long, turd-shaped garbage bags piled outside. The truck filled the whole street, leaving nowhere for the pack to go.
Our momentum stalled, and the pack’s energy wrapped itself into a tightly wound bundle of nipping and barking. By now the little dogs could hardly even stand, reduced as they were to a spaghetti mishmash of leashes and legs. Even the mastiff was tired out, her long, curving tongue lapping at the air.
One of the garbage guys swung himself down to work a big lever on the side of the truck, its huge maw opening in front of us with a metal screech. The other jumped off and shouted at me through the din.
“Hey, boss! You didn’t take those pooches into that alley back there, did you?” He pointed over my shoulder, but I knew which one he meant.
“Um, yeah?”
He shook his head. “Bad idea. Even we don’t go down there no more. Not worth it.”
I blinked, still trying to catch my breath. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you hear about the crisis? Way things are going, you got to be respectful. Let the rats have some of the city back, you know?” He laughed, patting the rumbling metal expanse with his gloved hand. “Especially if you don’t got a big truck to protect you. Bunch of pooches isn’t enough these days.”
He turned to the pile of bags behind him and kicked one viciously. Waiting for a second to make sure no tiny creatures scattered from it, he shouldered the bag and began to feed its length into the giant steel maw.