Thursday afternoon, it was God I and his cousin Gerald. We were downtown. At one point we were stopped at a crosswalk, and it was taking forever for the light to change. God and I watched a blind woman on the other side of the street trying to cross and even though she had the green light, cars and trucks kept turning in front of her. She had stepped off the curb, but they wouldn’t let her across; it looked like she might have to wait out another cycle. I was wondering, and maybe God was, too, if she had been trying for a while already. Then Gerald said,

“And people really eat those things?”

Without looking away from the woman, I answered him: “Yep.” I assumed he saw some strange-looking food item at one of the vendors’ tables behind us. Sure, if they were selling it, people ate it. Our light changed, the woman stepped back onto her curb, and God and I stepped down together from ours. Gerald was still behind us, and I glanced back to him. Just as I did, he straightened up with this little dog in his hand, a Pomeranian, and casually pushed it into his huge mouth! And there was this woman, the dog’s owner, staring at him, hands stuck out frozen as if she were nervously preparing to catch a basketball. They faced each other. Gerald’s mouth was open and he chewed hard, smiling politely at her, and sucked in the smooth black rope of the leash like a noodle. Then he swallowed.

Gerald devoured a dog because of my inattention, and maybe God’s.