When the scales tip toward lost, he spends all night emptying his drawers, his garage, lugging a bulging sack through the streets.

Every so often he sleeps under the overpass, to see what it’s like.

Animals come for the food he scatters on his grass. They skulk at night, their backs arched in contempt. Their lamp-green eyes wink from his trees. He learns their language. His deep-freeze fills with shrink-wrapped meat in a spectrum of pink.

The bones he cleans into gleaming white abstractions. He puts them in mailboxes and planters, on downspouts and stoops.

The police come to his home and take him away. The crime is understood to be either: (a) possession of bomb-building supplies; (b) possession of marijuana and/or hallucinogenic drugs; (c) growing marijuana plants in a windowless basement room; (d) possession of child pornography; or (e) child molestation.

A few days later, he returns in a taxi. He stands for hours in his yard, arms folded like he’s cold.

The shriek of his saw reaches out to every house in the neighborhood. It comes in whether windows are open or shut. It interrupts the interior sounds of television and radio, washing machine and dishwasher—interrupts even the thoughts of the occupants. It disturbs the electricity of their brains in such a way, to such a degree, that they are unable to determine whether or not the sound is coming from outside their heads.

SHH

My surgeon’s two big purebreds, Buck and Geoff, led incredible lives. They ate top-shelf meat, delivered daily and ground by hand by the housekeeper. To simulate the stomach contents of small prey animals like rabbits and squirrels, the housekeeper included scant plant matter, some fruit. When my surgeon and his wife traveled, they picked resorts that catered to canine luxury: spa treatments, fine dining, elite sports.

My surgeon gave considerable sums—enough, by the sound of it, to support several sizable families—to animal rights groups. His wife was very particular about their leather. She rescued wrecked racehorses—doomed for glue—to keep as pets.

And when moles mangled his neighbor’s matchless lawn, my surgeon slapped the neighbor on the back and said, Live and let live, Al—what’s so bad about a few lumps in the grass?

But then my surgeon discovered an invasion of mice in the climate-controlled garage where he kept his classic car collection. These were very special, very expensive cars, regularly loaned for films and magazines. The mice devoured the hoses of several engines. They soiled the seats and left dribbles and droppings along dashboards. In the glovebox of his prized Porsche, a mother mouse birthed a litter of pups.

The exterminator recommended glue traps. I didn’t think it through, my surgeon said. He shook his head sadly. The next morning he found them—cruelly stuck, alive, crying.

What did you do? I said. I was flat on my back below him, gowned and shaved.

Well, he said, I got my bag. I got my scalpel. I thought I could slice them off of there. They’d have clumps of glue on their feet, but they’d be free, he said.