The Dogs of Littlefield by Suzanne Berne Page B

not behaved like good citizens in the past, pointing in particular to several occasions when the community gardens had been ravaged. “The latest offense”—her voice was getting raspy—“is a large hole that was dug in a gardener’s pumpkin patch.”
    She caught sight of Mr. Dibler’s stern, knobby face; he was looking at his watch.
    â€œBut I’ll tell you what I really mind,” she said, and paused to breathe into the microphone. Her heart was thumping. What did she really mind? Aphids. Tina’s unwashed wineglass. The mothball smell of Sybil’s raccoon coat. Those unopened packages of her husband’s shirts and the thought of moving someplace smaller one of these days.
    George’s great pale, slavering dog appeared before her: that dog, sitting in the front seat of George’s car behind the steering wheel.
    â€œWhat I really mind”—she grasped the microphone stand with a trembling hand—“is the way dogs are being allowed to run things. A lot of very high and mighty people around here would tell you that dogs have as much right to the park as we do.” She turned to glare at where she imagined George to be sitting. “But let me ask you, do dogs pay taxes?”
    Someone began to shout from the audience. Other people shouted back. She touched the knot of her scarf. Her feet ached in her Cuban heels and she really was very hot. She had said what needed to be said. Nothing more could be expected of her. She must sit down, and yet her chair was so far away. A roaring reached her as the combined voices of the audience swelled fiercely and incoherently, and out of nowhere that dog came leaping, white and enormous, its great red jaws opening wider and wider so that she could see all the way into its black gullet, where there was nothing left for her in the world.
    The alderman with Brezhnevian eyebrows banged on his desk with his coffee mug, banging so hard the mug broke and flew into pieces. George had appeared beside her and now offered his arm.
    â€œAllow me,” he said, his breath wreathing her ear, smelling of olives. She clutched gratefully at his arm with both hands and let herself be conducted back to her seat.
    Sybil was waving as if hailing a taxi. The black woman in the turban had moved over to give Mrs. Beale her seat on the aisle; George said something friendly to the woman as he helped Mrs. Beale sit down.
    â€œAre you sick?” Steven Karpinski bellowed from the other side of Sybil. “You look like you ate a mouse.”
    â€œNo, no,” she said gruffly. “I am quite all right. Thank you,” she tried to say to George, but he had already moved away and was heading back down the aisle.
    The hearing ended with the chief alderman declaring that they would consider both proposals, for a dog park and for a dog ban, at their next meeting. Everyone gathered their coats. At the front of the room the tall, actorish alderman was speaking to Alicia Rabb, his hand on his chest as if reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
    â€œWell, I hope we’ll all survive until then,” said Mrs. Beale aloud.
    â€œDo you think we will?” The woman in the turban gave a gap-toothed smile.
    â€œI suppose.” Mrs. Beale felt dizzy again. “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes. And yet it was true that when she opened them she found that she was still in her metal folding chair and everything was very much as it had been.

9.

    D r. Watkins was making progress in getting to know the inhabitants of Littlefield, as she had written to Dr. Awolowo. In addition to her observations of the Downing family, she had met quite a few residents at hearings at the town hall, which she attended weekly, including hearings on the school budget and most recently a hearing on what was now referred to as “the situation” at the park. As a result of attending so many hearings, she had been invited to join a Save the Park task