I Won't Be Laying Down Newspapers

"Berkeley is the kind of place where people will come up to you on the sidewalk when you're having a cigarette and ask you to stop, and feel good about themselves for doing it," John said. I knew he was right. In fact I sometimes find myself wanting to do just that when I'm on the sidewalk behind someone who is smoking. But I don't do it, because it's their body right? and besides they might be homicidal and they have a cigarette to burn me with... but I digress.

On Thursday Stacey and I had just stepped outside to take Kaia for a walk, when she darted around the corner into the entry way of the coffee shop. She pranced out of the coffee shop's doorway with a pigeon in her mouth. Fuck.

I bent over and tried to pry the dog's jaws apart from around the pigeon. Stacey tapped the top of Kaia's snout, as if to say excuse me--- that's gross please drop the pigeon. I began to wonder if the dog would pee at all... if this hideous walk would ever achieve its purpose. If I was doomed to an evening of watching the dog dismember the sympathetic little creature still breathing in its mouth. Stacey was disgusted. So was I. It was disgusting. "You're gross Kaia."

"Drop it Kaia! Drop it!"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bleached blonde head peering over at us from the opposite side of a car. The head waslevel with the roof of the car, as though they were kneeling. In my peripheral vision, I saw the head moving around the perimeter of the car. "That is an arctic dog." The head said. It's a fucking husky I thought to myself. "She is a wild dog." She lives in an apartment in San Francisco, and eats chicharrones and turkey jerky--- shut the fuck up. I thought. I felt like a parent being coached in parenting by a fucking albino dwarf. Motherfucker! The woman was slightly taller than Kaia, her bleached blonde locks spiked as high as they would go, she was owning every inch of her 3 foot frame.

I stared at her incredulously. Where had she come from? "You're a good dog." She said, making eye contact with Kaia. "Calm down. You're stressing out the dog," she instructed. I kept staring. Staring at her was much less disturbing than watching Kaia's pigeon stuffed jaw.

The little sprite was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans. She bent her knee up on the curb as though she were a mechanic about to tell us the bad news about our car. It was unfair. I had never spoken with an albino dwarf before. I was speechless.

"This is an arctic dog. It hunts. You have to let him eat it."

"But it's alive. It's still breathing." Stacey said as though the sprite were Kaia's conscience.

"There are thousands of pigeons in San Francisco. What's the loss? Relax. Look how stressed out the dog is--- the hair on her back is straight up... If you relax the dog will relax. You should just get some newspaper and lie it down on the floor." I detected an accent, Russian---was it?

It was annoying. It was like giving your kid a timeout for biting someone and having their teacher tell you that biting was a normal developmental stage. That you should just get out your checkbook and pay off the victim's parents and let your kid enjoy their victory. I stared at her incredulously. Where were the fucking cameras? It was a stand off. The woman was looking Kaia in the eyes and smiling.

"You're right. Thank you," Stacey said.

"Of course I'm right," the dwarf said. "It was a good thing I came out here just now. You're a good girl, yes you are. You see that she's relaxing already."

And then she disappeared from whence she'd come. What had started out as a familiar walk for Kaia to do her business before picking up dinner was no longer so simple.

"What are we going to do?" Stacey asked.

"Well we can't let her bring that inside lets take her to the park."

The dog trotted happily to the park and we walked sullenly behind her, a sort of grim funeral procession--- Kaia sniffed around the perimeter of the spot where she usually peed, making awkward circles in the grass, the pigeon firmly gripped in her teeth. Then she squatted and peed, the bird secured tightly between her jaws. She eyed us suspiciously while she peed. She seemed to understand that we weren't pleased with her catch. Their was a victorious glint in her eye, when she finished peeing. She was determined to eat the pigeon, and she was confident there was nothing we could do to prevent it.

I felt somewhat defeated, but accepted the fact that she had the upperhand, because she had peed, and I was confident she would also poop, so that when her feeding frenzy had subsided we would be able to lock her up in her crate and get some fucking dinner.

Kaia was bending forward, letting the pigeons limp body roll out of her mouth, and getting ready for the slaughter.

"Give me the leash." I said.

"It's still alive."

"I know, I'm going to try and get it away from her when she sets it down," it was sort of like the opposite of fishing. I had to wait for Kaia to drop the bait before pulling like hell.

I started to pull, and Stacey shrieked. "You're not helping." I said. Kaia gripped the pigeon again, and we had to start our morbid little game again.

Kaia paced a few more yards, she bent forward and set the bird down holding it's wing with one of her paws.

The dog was glaring at us. But her little munchkin attorney was nowhere to be seen and there was no way we were going to watch her dismember the pigeon at the park or at home. Fuck her. I was not laying down newspapers in the apt so that she could eat her kill in our house. For fuck's sake--- who does that?

Kaia set the bird down again, this time she tore off a mouthful of feathers and began to chew I pulled hard and fast. Kaia jumped up in the air lunging for the bird's carcass. I pulled the dog back further and away from the bird. I was kind of afraid I'd back into the dwarf but she had long since disappeared, thank God.