When the Screeching Stops

Thunder rumbles like a starved stomach. It's 7PM and 89 degrees on this day in May. I want to walk Penny before the storm floods the streets and blacks the sky. I take a plastic bag and an umbrella. Quick twenty minute walk, a little loop, I tell Scott before clicking Penny's leash and leaving. The white curly haired dog on the left comes bounding toward us, barking at the edge of his property. Penny pulls to meet him, but I yank her to the middle of the street. When we return to the overgrown grass on the side of the road, a small squirrel darts by my dog. Penny rushes the frantic little thing, snatches it up with her teeth and crushes it until the screeching stops. I yell at my dog to drop it, but then scramble away in fear the tail of the deceased will graze the backs of my bare legs. After a few fretful seconds of scolding, she lays her limp victim down in the center of the suburban street. I jerk her away and stare at the stilled body. When I look up, two men and a woman stand in their driveway staring at me and my dog. They have witnessed the entire event. I can see it in their opened mouthed expressions. I apologize for the horror, but then I don't really know what to do. "It's okay." The woman says and I take this as an indication for retreat.  "Big storm coming in." I say to the strangers as I pass by. The woman smiles faintly and agrees. I would have transported the animal with a stick back to the side of the road, but Penny would have grabbed the stick and then grabbed the squirrel and I would have screamed like a fool. So instead, we leave it behind and walk toward the school yard. Once on the other side of the softball game, where thirteen year old girls in purple uniforms hang on a fence chanting rhymes to distract the yellow team's pitcher, Penny poops. I pick it up with my plastic newspaper bag. As I tie the knot, I notice the older of the two men walking up the road toward the scene of Penny's crime. I can't tell, but I think he has a shovel.