Little Boy Blue by Kim Kavin Read Free Book Online Page B

machine-gun ammo. I didn’t want to seem like a CIA interrogator, but I also wanted desperately to know how Blue had ended up in his predicament down South.
    “I’m having a hard time understanding how a dog like Blue finds himself headed for a gas chamber,” I told Armstrong, with my own omelet now getting cold, too. “I mean, look at him just sitting there politely, not even begging for a bite of food. If somebody had told me where he’d come from, I would have thought something was wrong with him. But this is a great puppy. This is not a problem dog. It’s keeping me awake at night. I’ve never even heard of anything like this, and I’ve loved dogs all my life.”
    Armstrong reacted like a Gold Glove catcher, anticipating my pitch before I’d even finished my windup.
    “It’s because it’s not legal up here,” she said, the words from my last sentence still dangling between us in the air. She’d obviously answered questions like mine a thousand times. “We don’t have dogs being thrown in gas chambers in the Northeast, so people don’t know it’s happening. People can’t even imagine that it could even possibly be happening, it sounds so crazy. But down in the South, those gas chambers are still used in a lot of places. The dogs are killed on a regular schedule, at 8:00 A.M. and 4:30 P.M. We get a list every morning of the dogs who are scheduled to die that day, we get lots and lots of pictures, and we get as many of them out as we can.”
    She paused a moment and sighed, thinking about the puppies and dogs she’s had to leave behind.
    “It destroys us knowing that the ones we can’t get out are just as great as Blue,” she said. “They almost always aren’t going to make it.”
    I nodded my head as if I understood, but she could see in my eyes that I didn’t. It’s kind of like being told there’s a mass murder taking place in Africa as a single, dominant tribe gains control of the freshwater supply. Cognitively, I could comprehend the words that I was hearing. Intellectually, I could understand it was a situation worthy of the world’s rapt attention. But emotionally, it was tough to relate. The last time I’d heard about gas chambers was a couple of decades ago in a high-school history textbook, in the chapter about Adolf Hitler. Gas chambers seemed about as contemporary to what I knew of modern American society as, well, bobby socks and zoot suits.
    “Would you like to see exactly what I’m talking about?” Armstrong asked.
    It was evident to me that she continually agonizes over whatever it is that she has seen, so I took a few moments to consider the question. I looked down at what was left of my omelet, broke off a small piece to give to Blue, and swallowed hard before answering, “Yes, I think I would.”
    Now, I’m not what most people would describe as a bleeding heart. I vote for Republicans as often as Democrats, and I care as much about budget deficits and tax burdens as I do about the environment and helping the mentally ill. Nor do I fit the description of an animal activist. I’m an everyday person who loves dogs and is willing to consider other animal-welfare causes when they’re brought to my attention. For instance, I am a lover of all foods who hosts summer barbecues full of slow-roasted short ribs and pulled-pork sliders, but every recipe that I make features meat that I have purchased only after seeing the animals themselves being treated humanely on the farm where they were raised. After reading a few books 1 about the nature of the U.S. meat supply, I wasn’t ready to go vegetarian, but I was ready to vote with my pocketbook to put factory farms and their particular brand of animal cruelty out of business. I thus drive about an hour once each year to the small, family-owned Plaid Piper Farm in Sussex County, New Jersey, where I purchase all of my beef, pork, and chicken from a farmer who treats his animals with respect instead of like commodities. I keep my