Dog Bites Man

by James Duffy

  Then there were the organized groups: Francis Xavier O'Noone and the St. Sebastianites brandishing SAVE THE MONKS signs; a small crew waving the red-and-black Albanian flag and holding aloft a banner identifying them as the Albanian Defense League (HOAGLAND: PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR OWN SIZE, one of their signs read, with presumed reference to Genc); and another band, wearing feathered bonnets and face paint, calling itself the Native American Protective League (REMEMBER WAMBLI—THE BRAVE EAGLE).

  The ALA supplied all who would take them with placards, the most modest of which said NEW YORKERS LOVE DOGS. Others were more provocative: ELDON HOAGLAND—MAN'S WORST FRIEND; EXTERMINATE THE PIT BULL (this under a photograph of Eldon); EUTHANIZE WAMBLI'S KILLER and SPAY HOAGLAND. Plus seemingly hundreds that simply said RESIGN! RESIGN!

  . . .

  The mayor had said that there would be business as usual, Wambli rally or no, but he did watch the proceedings, which were televised live on New York One. Gullighy was with him.

  Eldon was detached, even though the increasingly more boisterous carryings-on were directed at him. The detachment was not aloof, but instead reflected his belief that he was experiencing some sort of temporary hallucination that would come to an end. It just did not seem possible that the Incident could have stirred up so much passion.

  The roving cameras captured details that would not have been observable to a spectator in the crowd. When a camera panned on the delegation of uptown pit bull owners, there were the usual signs—PIT BULLS YES, HOAGLAND NO or its variant, PIT BULLS SÍ, EL DON NO. But there was one that read GEORGE HAYES DEMOCRATIC CLUB.

  "What the hell is that sign all about?" Eldon asked.

  Gullighy, his connector cells at work, immediately figured it out.

  "Some mischief making by Councilman Hayes."

  "But why is he advertising it?"

  "Here's my guess. He rounded up those street dudes, had them report to his East Harlem club, where they picked up those pit bull signs. And somebody grabbed the Hayes sign by mistake. George will be furious."

  "George furious? What about me? My technology zone plan is the best thing that could ever happen to his district. So why is he organizing against me?"

  "Do I need to draw a map, Eldon? If he and his buddies get rid of you—which, of course, they'll never do—Artie Payne becomes mayor, right? And George becomes power broker number one for him."

  "Good Lord. And where is our public advocate, by the way? Is he out there, do you suppose?"

  "Putter? Hell, no. He's staying as far away from this one as he can. And besides, it's a nice sunny day so he's probably up at Deepdale, getting in a round or two while the weather's still nice."

  As the cameras moved about, they picked up the diverse groups in the mob: the St. Sebastianites, now kneeling and saying the rosary, though it was unclear for whom or for what cause they were praying; the hip-hop boys; the Albanians; the Native Americans.

  "Where are the Chinese?" Eldon asked ruefully.

  "Probably at home eating dog stew," Gullighy wisecracked.

  . . .

  Randilynn Foote watched the goings-on from a window in the Governor's Rooms.

  "Raifeartaigh, this is great! Putting the blocks to Eldon. Look at 'em—ever see such a collection of shit stirrers in your life?"

  "No, Governor."

  "Look at that blonde with the sausages. 'Meat makes you impotent.' Hee! Hee! You think those sausages are meant to be limp dicks?"

  "I think so, Governor."

  "What will they think of next?"

  Foote's adopted Labrador, at her feet, began to whine.

  "Shut up, Albert. Look at all your brothers out there. Demonstrating for your rights!"

  The governor continued to laugh and shout delighted expletives as she viewed the maneuvers below.

  "Raifeartaigh, you think there's a real chance this will bring the mayor down? Will he have to resign? Is that possible?"

  "It's all crazy, Governor. Anything's possible."

  "That means Putter becomes mayor, doesn't it?"

  "I believe so."

  "Delicious thought. We could handle him. A whole lot better than Eldon."

  She turned to the third person present in the room, her young politics resident, Sheila Baine, who was sitting quietly at an adjacent window. Foote's predecessor had started the politics resident program (carefully avoiding the titillating word "intern") as a means of attracting bright postgraduate students into public service. Foote had continued the custom and picked Sheila from a group of fifty-five applicants, all with astounding résumés. Sheila had both undergraduate and law degrees from Yale and a master's from the Kennedy School at Harvard.

  "Opposites attract" must have been the guiding principle that led to her selection. The two women, the governor and her aide, could not have been less alike. Sheila, thin and attractive in a bookish, bespectacled way, was soft-spoken and perhaps even a bit shy. The closest thing to a swearword in her vocabulary was "darn" and it was used sparingly.

  As befitted her status, Sheila seldom spoke in the governor's meetings—she attended all but the most private and sensitive—unless called upon; but an observer could tell that she was absorbing everything she witnessed or heard. And when the governor did recognize her, as she occasionally did, her questions and observations were concise, intelligent and to the point—and free of cussing (though she often told her boyfriend that she was getting an additional master's degree in profanity and invective).

  "Sheila, just for fun will you check out what happens if Eldon resigns? Does that putz Putter automatically become mayor? I don't get involved, do I? See what you can find."

  . . .

  Below in the streets, Ralph Bernardo was trying to get the crowd's attention. He wanted to speak, and Daniel Storey, at his side, patently hoped to do the same. The barking and howling of the dogs and the crowd noise in general made the effort futile. Even with his bullhorn turned up to top volume, there was no way of causing the din to subside. So Bernardo did the next best thing and got the crowd to begin chanting, "Dog killer . . . resign. Dog killer. . . resign." The bedlam was extraordinary; had anyone had a rope, and had Eldon appeared, he might well have been lynched, strung up from one of the elms or beeches in the park.

  By contrast, Governor Foote, with Albert the Labrador on a leash, boldly walked out the front door of City Hall, and was greeted with cheers. The crowd parted and allowed her and Raifeartaigh and Sheila Baine to reach her car, which was then guided by police and demonstrators alike to a clear route uptown.

  Eldon observed her exit without comment, except for a constricted sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

  When the masses tired of their "Dog killer" chant, a sweating Bernardo and his cohorts began shouting "Arf! Arf! Arf!"—a cry that both the humans and the canines took up—a Dionysian cacophony that was frightening.

  "I suppose it's better than Sieg Heil," Eldon said, as he observed the frenzied mob on his television.

  By now it was four o'clock, the bewitching hour under the ALA's permit, and the police inspector in charge made his way to Bernardo and reminded him of this. Or did his best to do so, over the din.

  Bernardo responded by shouting, "To the bridge!" over and over through his bullhorn. He started a surge that was so powerful the police could not stop its flow. Until, that is, they reached the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge and faced what appeared to be an implacable shield of massed police in riot gear.

  At this point the ALAers and their recruits began releasing their dogs. In the face of this onslaught, the police shield collapsed. The NYPD's praetorian guard was prepared for human protesters, ready to knock heads and, if worse came to worst, confront the mob with a blast of tear gas. But dogs nipping at their heels and slithering among them threw them into confusion. Soon there were dogs, but not demonstrators, loose on the bridge; traffic came to a halt as drivers attempted to avoid killing the unleashed animals.

  Earlier, when Bernardo called for a march on the bri
dge, Amber Sweetwater, at his side, rang up a number on her cell phone. She was calling a fellow ALA foot soldier waiting with another group—and another pack of dogs—on the Brooklyn side. At her signal, these dogs were released amid the Manhattan-bound bridge traffic, unimpeded by police, who had not foreseen a two-front war.

  The ensuing chaos was wild. With the Brooklyn Bridge effectively shut down as the evening rush hour began, traffic backed up throughout downtown Manhattan and soon there was a snarl that spread to the East River Drive and the other spans to Brooklyn and Queens.

  The tie-up did not end there. Throughout Manhattan, mini-buses ferrying pilots and flight attendants from their hotels to La Guardia and Kennedy Airports were stalled. Countless early evening departures to other American cities and overnight flights to Europe were canceled for lack of crews—or for that matter, passengers, who were also caught in the gridlock. By midevening air traffic throughout the country and in much of Europe was in a tangle rivaling the land-bound one in New York, with incoming flights halted before taking off in Chicago or Los Angeles or diverted to Philadelphia or Boston. The Animal Liberation Army had effectively disrupted a good part of the Free World.

  Unable to travel by car to Gracie Mansion, Eldon was hustled out of City Hall and onto the uptown subway by a heavily augmented detail of police. By the time he got home, walking the last blocks from the 86th Street subway station, the blaring of car horns from helpless and angry motorists on the East River Drive was deafening, even inside the mansion with the windows closed. He longed for a drink or two—or more—with Leaky, but realized that would hardly be responsible behavior when besieged law enforcement officers were trying desperately to untie the biggest traffic jam in the history of New York City.

  By nine o'clock the worst was over, and traffic again began to flow. Eldon and Edna watched the untangling with relief on television, between telephoned progress reports from Danny Stephens—and a call from the president asking if the mayor wanted federal troops sent in. But there was a slight chill in the room as an elated Ralph Bernardo, being interviewed, vowed to stage a repeat protest a week hence. "We're going to demonstrate every Wednesday until our animal-hating mayor resigns."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Through the marvels of modern telecommunications, the newspapers were able to assemble their Thursday morning editions, though newsstand deliveries ran behind schedule. The Times's coverage began with a restrained lead:

  Every dog must have his day, and approximately 200 of them hadtheirs yesterday, causing a traffic jam the Police Department calledthe worst in New York's history.

  Only deep in the story was Eldon's future speculated about:

  While the purpose of the Animal Liberation Army rally was torouse support to force Mayor Eldon Hoagland to resign, it was notclear that this objective was advanced. Most political leaders contacted expressed anger at the ALA's disruptive tactics and offeredvirtually no support for the call for Hoagland's resignation. Manymore refused to comment or made themselves unavailable, including Artemis Payne, the public advocate, who would step into themayor's shoes if he left office.

  Governor Randilynn Foote, who witnessed the demonstrationfrom the Governor's Rooms at City Hall, offered only a terse "Nocomment" when she left the building in late afternoon, accompanied by her Labrador, Albert.

  The Times also ran an informative sidebar listing previous noteworthy events in City Hall Park, including the first reading of the Declaration of Independence to George Washington and his troops, the antislavery riots, protests by supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti and a more recent police demonstration, which had turned ugly.

  The Post-News's coverage was under the headline

  WAMBLI REMEMBEREDAND HOW!

  —————

  Mayor's Future in Doubt

  —————

  Resignation was right up front in The Post-News story:

  The entire metropolitan region was thrown into chaos yesterdayas more than 100,000 protestors in downtown Manhattan demanded the resignation of Mayor Eldon Hoagland for his conductin the brutal slaying of the puppy Wambli last August.

  The marchers, from an eclectic assortment of animal rights andcivic groups, including the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association andthe Catholic St. Sebastian Society, united in a persistent chorus,which at times verged on the ugly, of "Resign! Resign!" and later aridiculing "Arf! Arf! Arf!"

  Led by members of the Animal Liberation Army, many in thecrowd, bringing dogs along to honor the slain Wambli, let them looseon the Brooklyn Bridge as the rally came to an end.The resulting tie-up on the bridge, at the beginning of the rush hour, soon escalated toall the East River approaches to and from Manhattan. Police, driversand spectators agreed that it was the worst tie-up in memory or, asone onlooker put it,"since the invention of the automobile."

  The disruptions continued well into the evening and were severeenough that, according to the White House, the president calledMayor Hoagland to offer assistance by federal troops.

  It was unclear late last night what effect the rally and the immobilization of the city would have on the future of Mayor Hoagland.Could he ride out the crisis?

  Ralph Bernardo, head of the Animal Liberation Army, interviewed on television, expressed satisfaction at the day's unrulyevents and promised that his group would lead a demonstrationevery Wednesday until the mayor resigns.

  While politicians were reluctant to speculate on Hoagland's future, the man in the street was not.

  "We've got to get back to normalcy," said Ollie Gilpey, 46, anauto parts salesman from Bayside, Queens, "and we can't do it whilethis dog thing hangs over us. Hoagland should get out so we can getback to business."

  Mona Finca, 28, an executive assistant in Manhattan, agreed."It's awful about that dog. Hoagland is a creep who has no businessstaying in office after what happened."

  The other respondents in the newspaper's cross-section survey agreed, except for one elderly woman who commented noncommittally that the controversy was "the dizziest thing that has happened in New York since the Collyer brothers."

  The tabloid's editorial called on Hoagland to quit "in the interest of domestic tranquillity."

  . . .

  Following Governor Foote's orders, Sheila Baine had gone to the law books first thing in the morning after the rally. Both she and Governor Foote were working at the uptown executive office—it was thought politic to stay away from City Hall for the day.

  Baine's research in the City Charter confirmed that the public advocate was first in the line of succession. But she was amazed by something else that she found, both in the charter and the New York State Public Officers Law. She frankly could not believe what she read, so she checked and rechecked her discovery.

  Satisfied, she went next door to confer with the governor and Raifeartaigh.

  "What's the good word, sister?" the governor asked, feet propped on an open drawer of her desk and sipping a diet soda. Then she took a closer look at her political assistant.

  "Are you all right? You look like something the cat dragged in. Or maybe a dog." She guffawed at her own crack as Raifeartaigh winced.

  "Yes, yes, I'm okay. But I've found out something you have to know about."

  "Spit it out, baby."

  "Well, you were right that Artemis Payne would succeed Mayor Hoagland if he left office. He takes over whenever the mayor cannot act. But there is another applicable law that's pretty incredible."

  "Like what?"

  Baine nervously turned to the law books she had brought with her. "Section nine of the City Charter says, quote, The mayor may be removed from office by the governor upon charges and after service upon him of a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense. Pending the preparation and disposition of charges, the governor may suspend the mayor for a period not exceeding thirty days, close quote."

  "Hell and damnation!" the governor yelped.

  "Whew!" Raifeartaigh added.

  "That's not all, ma'am. Section thi
rty-three of the State Public Officers Law says that, quote, The chief executive officer of every city—I'm skipping here—may be removed by the governor after giving such officer a copy of the charges against him and an opportunity to be heard in his defense, close quote."

  "Let me see those," Foote demanded, reaching across her desk for the statute books Baine was holding.

  She put on her glasses, dangling from a string around her neck, and studied the two texts carefully.

  "I'll be damned. What the hell does 'charges' mean?"

  "There's absolutely no case law, Governor. 'Charges' is nowhere defined. The Charter says that the mayor—here, give me that book back—quote, shall be responsible for the effectiveness and integrity of city government, close quote. The way I figure it, 'charges' would have to allege some violation of that duty."

  "Effectiveness and integrity of city government—like the way those morons in the Police Department handled that riot yesterday? But what about the legislature? Wouldn't those rustics get into the act somehow?"

  "Not as far as I can see. The removal power derives from the State Constitution and is vested solely in the governor. You, that is. It's not at all like impeaching the president."

  "Raifeartaigh, would I dare to do such a thing?"

  "I've no doubt that you would, Governor. Whether it would be wise is a horse of a different color."

  "I won't make another dog joke. Well, dearie, you sure have given me something to chew on. However, with all due respect for your Yale Law Journal credentials, I want to check this one out with the attorney general. Do we know where he is today? Up in Albany?"

  "I doubt it. You know he's always in the city whenever he can be. He hates Albany."

  "If you'd grown up in Skaneateles you'd like to be here in the city, too. Raifeartaigh, get hold of that big oaf and get him in here. ASAP. And as for you, Sheila, you may have done for New York City what Mrs. O'Leary and her cow did for Chicago."