The Dominant Animal

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Table of Contents

A Note About the Author

Copyright Page

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To Ruby

THE FIRST WHIFFS OF SPRING

I took a bus past the old dairy with the big metal cow out front. The cow had long, thick eyelashes and pink-painted lips like a human woman’s. On the cow’s head was a pillowy, blue-spotted bonnet topped with a large, floppy bow.

Hey, I called to the bus driver. Everyone else had gotten off earlier, at the hospital.

Hey, I said. Why do you think they want that cow to look like a human woman? No ideas? I said.

You can’t be drinking that in here, he said without looking up.

I pinched my own lips in a pucker and sucked air into my mouth. Then I let out the long, suggestive whistle I’d recently learned.

Where I was going—it was something to do with a family. It may have been my family. When I arrived, there was a large frosted cake, boxes of wine, and a pyramid of sparkling plastic flutes.

I swallowed some flutes of wine and from a metal platter lifted a single cube of orange cheese that someone had taken the time to stab with a little pick.

I walked the perimeter of the room and leaned on a wall beneath a large, unrecognizable flag. On the dance floor, several people were creeping around in the dark. A hectic pattern of lighted dots fell all over them.

In the bathroom, someone had painted bright, childish flowers along the bottom of the wall, giving the impression that the flowers were growing from the linoleum floor. The hand soap had left a bright pink puddle on the sink. Its cherry smell made me wish for something pink to drink. It mingled with a septic odor that emanated from the old lidless toilets.

I was wearing a dress, a purse, shoes. Earrings. Some bracelets. A large, elaborate brooch. Barrettes and clips. Rings. A belt upon which I’d set my hopes of pulling everything together.

People sang. Several individuals, working together, lit a large quantity of candles.

Then, the swaddled body landed in my arms—somebody’s new, red baby—another stranger brought into the world. Here was the cause of our celebration.