I may as well introduce myself to the man at the next table in the crowded sandwich shop. He is facing my profile and sits two feet away. His sandwich crumbs mingle with my sandwich crumbs and make a mess of the wobbly table where I sit. The man could brush the hair out of my face without having to lean forward. I keep expecting a kiss on the cheek.
I face the window, because it’s a screen of moving images that are ever-changing, but monotonous enough to calm me. Stroller. Couple. Man with newspaper. Stroller. Woman on cell phone. Woman with child. Elderly man with cane. Jogger. I mentally pen the sidewalk’s travelers into a guestbook. We have all walked down this sidewalk many times, but never in this combination. Thanks for coming.
Suddenly a dog walker passes my window - at least seven different breeds of dogs are the charms on the twisted, jangling necklace of a leash he keeps them on. He’s lucky that it’s a beautiful day outside. He’s lucky the dogs are all around the same size.
The movie that is Broadway at 3:30 in the afternoon begins to loop. Another dog walker appears. Then another. They all have at least seven dogs. I’ve never seen so many labradors lift their legs at once. The dogs are being perfect New Yorkers, ignoring each other despite their proximity, shared experiences, and need for contact, until one cannot resist smelling another’s butt. Despite how forward the gesture seems, I’d venture to say he shyly smelled the other dog’s butt. I imagine this is the equivalent of a soft, shaky hello to a stranger on the street.
Such fine manners are contagious. Soon all the dogs want to smell each other’s butts. Platonically, romantically, practically. “Don’t I know you from somewhere? You smell like someone I used to know. Has anyone ever told you that you smell just like _________? Come here often? Where have you been all my life?”
One dog rejects another’s advances…or something. A fight breaks out. A golden retriever jumps up and nearly knocks over a stroller with a little boy in it. (The nanny had been busy rummaging in a diaper bag for something). Everyone stands transfixed by the canine social drama unfolding. All the men behind the counters of the shop run to my table to look out the window. The man next to me laughs. The tiff becomes an all-out dog brawl. All the dog walkers are forced into it, because all of the twenty-something dogs start squabbling and chasing each other.
The fights end as suddenly as they began, but a tangle of dogs is left. The leashes of one dog walker’s dogs are twisted into the leashes of another dog walker’s dogs. The third dog walker has been encircled by more than one pit bull mix and is squeezed tightly.
Everything is eventually sorted out. Two of the dog walkers round the corner to 104th Street. The other crosses to the other side of Broadway. I wipe my crumbs onto a napkin, scrape back my chair, brush past my dining companion I never knew, turn to him, and say goodbye.
