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Two Masters Trixie, old, and Fluffy, young, from stealing each other's chow during their feeding time. To play it safe, I'm inside the screen door of the back porch—ready to pounce if they leave off their portions to snatch each other's. And they know that I'm near and mean business, for I've intercepted them before, just enough of a surprise, to scare them back to their stations—they respect me because I'm human, I guess. I mean, they respect me, I guess. A couple of months ago, Trixie, older but smaller than Fluffy, tried to swipe his food. But Fluffy, showing he's grown up, took a bite out of his neck —that taught Trixie a lesson. Even so, you can't be too careful, even after justice is done. Now I guess I protect the older one from the young, his weakness, which is new, from the other's strength, also new though he's younger. So time is moving —for me, too: I'll be ten next week. Before I know it I'll be eleven, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty. Then a hundred if I'm lucky. Or not. It's up to me, I guess, and God, or maybe just God or maybe just me. I guess I'll never know until I'm dead, when it will be too late —we don't go to church enough to signify. All I know is what my Father orders me to do now, and every evening. I even salute him—smartly, he says, just like they did it in the goddamned Army. Then he fills the two bowls and sets them down. He can't get out of the way fast enough to suit me. When he's safely in the house and out of my hair, then I watch the dogs wolf their food, like I drink when I'm thirsty and Father tells me to slow the hell down. When dinner's over the two dogs are friends again. It's when they need to fill themselves that things get dangerous, as though they fear they'll never get enough. They lose their minds, such as those are, and behave like people. That's when I step in and drive them apart, like Moses with the Red Sea, sort of—at least like Charlton Heston in the movie. You can't trust Hollywood, but I know dogs —we're gods to them because we have the food and keep them hungry and satisfied and loving us, if that's love. Father thinks so.
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