your house.”

“Yes?”

“So he went over to take a look, and he saw that it was too big to be a garbage bag, and the dog, it looked sick, it moved wrong. He took another step closer and he must have triggered a motion sensor because the porch light switched on. He says… ”

“What?”

“He’s not very reliable. He says it wasn’t a dog, he said it was like a dried-out mummy or something, and it had its teeth sunk into the neck of this big, fat, naked guy, and it was dragging the fat guy out into the street. When the light came on, though, it gave the fat guy’s neck a hard shake, then let go and turned on this kid, walking toward him on stumpy little feet. He says it made a kind of growling noise and lifted up its hand like it was going to slap the kid, and the kid screamed and ran off. When he got to Dundas, he turned around and saw the fat guy get dragged into an alley between two of the stores on Augusta.”

“I see,” Alan said.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Kurt said.

Natalie and Link rounded the corner, carrying slices of pizza from Pizzabilities, mounded high with eggplant and cauliflower and other toppings that were never intended for use in connection with pizza. They startled on seeing Alan and Kurt, then started to walk away.

“Wait,” Alan called. “Natalie, Link, wait.” He smiled apologetically at Kurt. “My neighbors,” he said.

Natalie and Link had stopped and turned around. Alan and Kurt walked to them.

“Natalie, Link, this is Kurt,” he said. They shook hands all around.

“I wanted to apologize,” Alan said. “I didn’t mean to put you between Krishna and me. It was very unfair.”

Natalie smiled warily. Link lit a cigarette with a great show of indifference. “It’s all right,” Natalie said.

“No, it’s not,” Alan said. “I was distraught, but that’s no excuse. We’re going to be neighbors for a long time, and there’s no sense in our not getting along.”

“Really, it’s okay,” Natalie said.

“Yeah, fine,” Link said.

 Prev. P 72/295 next