Hide and Seek

the delivery boy, and one of the cops came very close to losing his

hand. Because behind the door there were twenty-three dogs. And all

of them were starving.

They sealed the house up again and called in troops. The next day half

the town was out there, me and Rafferty included. It was quite as how

Six policemen and Jack Gardener, the sad old drunk who was our dog

warden, and six or seven guys in white lab jackets from the ASPCA in

Machias dumping whole sackfuls of dog food into the house through a

punched-in hole in the front kitchen window, then settling back,

waiting, while the snapping sounds and the growling and howling and

eating sounds wore away at everybody's nerves.

Then when it was quiet again they moved in with nets and stun-pistols.

And I had my first look inside the place.

I couldn't see how they'd lived there. Once the house had been

somebody's pride. I remember being told it was a hundred years old or

more. There were hand-hewn beams in the ceiling, and the wood on the

doors and moldings where it wasn't stained and smeared with god knows

what was still good high-quality cedar and oak. But the rest was

incredible. Filthy. Foul. Floors caked with dog shit, reeking of

urine. Old newspapers stacked everywhere, almost reaching the ceiling

in some places, damp and yellow. A couch and an overstuffed chair torn

to shreds, pieces of them scattered everywhere. The refrigerator door

hung open, empty. Cabinets and doors were chewed and clawed to

splinters.

A few of us kids stood at the front door, making twisted faces at the

stink. We watched them as they brought out the dogs one by one and

locked them into the ASPCA van. Many had to be carried out, they were

so weak. And all. of them were pretty docile after the feeding. I

wondered if they'd dropped some drugs in there too. I remember a lot

of them looked sort of bewildered, dazed. They were pathetically

thin.

I stopped looking when they found the bodies.

There were four of them. One was just a puppy. One was a Doberman.

The other two had been medium-sized mutts.

Obviously the other dogs had eaten them.