I was coming home in the taxi when I called you and you were already home and getting ready for bed and so I hung up and asked the cab driver where he was from originally and he said, “Egypt” and so we spoke of pyramids, and the Old Testament, and Islam, and Israel and Palestine and terrorism and when we’d exhausted all that we spoke of dogs.  He said his pit bull was having a bad allergic reaction to something in the Autumn air, or ground.  His skin was all inflamed and the dog took to licking its paws to try and stop the itch.  The dog’s paws were now a bloody mess and he’d scratched his belly raw in great spasms of back leg sharp claw digging.  They had to put the  dog’s head in a huge plastic cone.

“Space Dog,”  I said

“Yes, like a space dog, exactly.”

It was nice to agree on something and we whisked through the Brooklyn night home to where I pet the dogs and checked their paws just to be on the safe side.