“Fucking right it’s money. They’re betraying us, they’re stealing our intelligence and our time, they’re degrading the necessary tasks we perform. I don’t know how to stop it, but I do believe there are more of us than them, and that we have things worth fighting for, even if the struggle has to be done in secret.”

Alfonzo hung his head.

“When we murmur low together, when we listen and plan and dream and even just complain together, pockets open, things expand, new possibilities emerge. Just by being together we change the atmosphere. They’re trying to make us isolated and alone, but I for one am not going to give in. I just think”—Mitchell searched the ceiling for inspiration—“you need to commit.”

“To what?”

“This is your chance. This so-called failure is your opportunity to become some other voice. To speak about the real. We need you writing about stuff that animals care about. You’re our great woolly hope.”

“Stop!” Alfonzo said, and Mitchell began to laugh like a maniac. He was excited but also drunk. The collie had refilled their glasses a third time without being asked.

Long shadows cut across the beach and spilled into the bar. The edge of the sun was disappearing somewhere down below the sea as “Free Bird” came on the stereo. One of those absurd moments when the cheesy radio feels just right.

“So, what should I do? Turn my dissertation into a book?”

“Who wants that? Do you want that?”

Alfonzo shrugged.

“That project was good practice, but…”

“So, you think I should make something new? Like how about a working animal’s history?”

“Yawn.”

“You mock, but that’s what’s in my brain.”

“I don’t know, Al. I think you’re at a hinge. Something new is coming, and you just need to ready yourself.”

Alfonzo felt compelled to make a joke. “How about I quit Records and get into headlines? I’ve always loved them.”

“Do you really have what it takes?”

“Sure, I am willing to devote myself to becoming the best at puns—I’ll remake myself into a regular punisher, if you will.”

“But you’d be under a lot of pressure. You’d have to handle a wide variety of stories.”

“Try me. Give me a subject.”

“Bear mental health crisis.”

“Easy. ‘Bipolar De-fur-al,’ ‘Trans-fur-ance,’ something something.”

“You’re not convincing me.”

“Give me another.”

“Okay, the paper needs a snappy headline about a literacy program aimed at snakes.”

“Umm, ‘Reading Rainboa’?”

“That’s bad, but also kind of good.”

“This is just me warming up. Stop insulting my puns or alpaca my things and go.”

“Weren’t you considering suicide before? Maybe we should revisit that. Remember the whole jokey thing the Post did on that bird Yvonne who got lost out in Jamaica Bay?”

“On the plastic raft? What a saga.”

“Poor Yvonne, jerk chicken of the sea.”