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Just before Doc died I looked down at his gray face and actually felt sorry for him, but then he licked my hand and ended anything warm and tender, which was fine with me. It’s easier to hate than it is to like. 

I’m not against dogs as a general rule; I just hate dogs’ tongues. They remind me of New York in the summer: hot and wet and hard to wash off. It was different when I was a kid. I loved it when my cousin's Labrador got a case of the "slurps," as my mother used to call it. He would start licking my hand with his big, sloppy tongue, work his way up my arm to my face and then knock me over trying to get at my ear. It was silly and gross and I loved it. Perfect for a ten year old.

Then I became an adult and a senior loan officer at a bank and stopped watching cartoons or finding dogs fun. I learned that dogs lick humans for the salt on our skin. I’ve run into some dogs that won’t stop licking you even if you fight them. Now, I don’t love it at all. 

And Doc knew this, and not only did he know it, he would lick me when I didn’t want to be licked the most. He would lick my leg when I was shaving in the morning, my face when I fell asleep on the couch, my feet when I was reading. I’d yell and push him away but he’d always come back, sneaking up on me until I threw a book or a shoe at him. I didn’t trust him after a couple of attacks and would spin around every few minutes to make sure he wasn’t coming at me again. But he’d be sitting in his corner, paying no attention to me, panting softly, maybe chewing on an old ball, calm and dignified. That was Doc. 

The day Doc died, I knew he was in bad shape. When I arrived home from work, he didn’t demand to be taken out immediately like he had every other day for the last ten months. Wondering what was wrong and feeling a little sorry for him, I bent down to scratch his ears, and he licked my hand. I cussed at him. He put his head back on his little pillow, farted and died. I washed my hand in the kitchen sink.

"You won’t be able to bury him until the ground thaws," the veterinarian said over the phone. "And it’s against the law to throw him out in the trash."

 "I wasn’t going to throw him out in the trash," I said.

 "I don’t think your father would’ve wanted that."

 "I wasn’t going..." I started. "I can’t store him until spring."

 "You can have the body cremated. That doesn’t cost much."

 "Are you sure my father would approve of that?"

 "There’s a place up on 98th Street that stays open until eight."

 "How am I suppose to get a dead dog all the way up there from the Village?"

 "In a bag or an old suitcase, I don’t know. But they close at eight."

When my mom died seven years ago, she left me my father in their apartment four blocks away from mine. When my father died ten months ago, he left me Doc and some vague request to take care of him, although those were not his last words to me. His last words to me were, "Shut up, Stuart."

That’s very unfair to my father. It was my fault. I was talking about something irrelevant, or knowing me, telling a sarcastic story, for the life of me I can’t remember exactly what, but he was dying and I should have been more respectful. We didn’t have a bad relationship, probably better than most; it just ended wrong. He slipped away right after that and I never had a chance to say anything or have him say anything else. That didn’t really bother me because I know the context in which the words were said, but if I could change it I would. The problem is, I remember it out of context, him saying that last sentence to me and then dying.

Lately it seems that my life works like that, always out of context. But my dad did ask me to look after Doc, and so at age forty-two, I got my first dog.

My parents bought Doc fourteen years ago, just after I finished graduate school and was out of their hair, wallets and life - except for Sunday dinners. He was a wild puppy, constantly racing around their apartment in Greenwich Village, his cord-like tail whipping their legs. But my parents never complained about Doc. They didn’t listen to me about how the dog needed a young family to play with, someone who could run with him. They raised a boy, they could certainly handle a dog. They found Doc at the pound and no one could guess his heritage. He had some Springer Spaniel in him - mostly in the ears, the big belly of a Lab, the attitude of a cat and the manners of a drunk. Over the years Doc slowed down and eventually his chest and belly dropped low over his legs, which made it hard to fit him into the old, flower-print Samsonite I’d saved from my parents’ apartment.

With Doc packed away I stood at the door looking at the apartment and started making plans for my life without Doc. As soon as I returned from the crematorium, I’d remove all traces of Doc: a mangy piece of carpet where he slept, some dry dog food, a rubber ball and some half-eaten cowhide bones. Take them out to the trash. Maybe get the place professionally cleaned. Instead of taking Doc out for a walk, I’d run after work. My life would be my own, nobody to take care of - just me.

 I left the apartment, and without realizing it, grabbed Doc’s leash. Snow fell lightly on the street, about the only kind of weather that makes New

 York looks good, and I think I walked with a spring in my step. Looking at the snow piling up on the sidewalk, I hoped that Doc’s final resting place wasn’t too far from the subway stop because I didn’t bring rubbers for my shoes. But the prospect of my new, free life stretched out before me and my good mood couldn’t be deterred. Then I saw the leash in my hand and almost stopped mid-step, as if I were playing a game of red light/green light. The stiff, leather leash, cracking with age, warned me that cremating Doc might not be enough to get rid of him. I looked up the street and images of Doc pissing against parked cars popped up in front of me. There had been too many walks.

 My father had lived for his walks with Doc - every morning and every night the same walk, stopping in the same places, seeing the same people. I had heard that dogs like routine because they know what they are supposed to do. Doc must have loved his walk because that’s the only place he ever went while he was with my parents, the entire world as he knew it. It made me kind of jealous that he could be so happy with so little. I sometimes saw people in the city like that, a truck driver or a secretary that had to be just barely getting by and yet so goddam happy. The type of people who whistled as they walked down the street. And then there was me, jealous of a dog’s happiness. Sometimes I’m so pitiful I can’t stand myself.

When I became Doc’s walker, which I would have been happy to refuse but he’d howled continuously, embarrassing me if we weren’t out by six, we settled into our own little route, some of which overlapped my father’s old route. For the first few weeks when Doc and I started on the new path he seemed very excited with the change, sniffing everything and pulling me along. I thought about altering the route each day but I didn’t want to put that much effort into entertaining a dog. Up to Bleeker, over to Sullivan, down to Houston and back over to Mercer. That day, though, it would be to Bleeker, up Avenue of the Americas to West 4th St. and on the IRT.

"Stuart, are you traveling? Who’s taking care of Doc?"

Joe Mittleman pounced on me from the door of his corner grocery store like a mother over a lost child. Joe was about 60, short and stocky like the bags of potatoes he sold, with a constant smile that squeezed itself into his heavy cheeks. He knew everything about everybody who shopped regularly at his store and eagerly pulled them through the front door if they walked within a half-a-block radius. He grabbed my hand with Doc’s leash in it and I was inside before I could argue. His wife, Evelyn, sat in the only place I had ever seen her, behind the counter next to the cash register. Like a lot of old couples, Joe and Evelyn Mittleman looked exactly alike: same height, same lumpy build, same round face, except no smile ever pressed itself into Evelyn’s cheeks.

"I’ll say it again," Joe said, brushing the snow off my shoulders. "You remind me of your father every time I see you come walking down the street, except tonight I had trouble because you’re not with Doc. Isn’t that the craziest thing, Evelyn? Where is that old dog, Stuart?"

"Doc died tonight, Joe," I said.

Joe kind of sagged, like some of the potatoes in the bag tumbled down. He looked down at the leash that he was now holding. "Ah, that’s too bad. Funny dog, that Doc. Funny. Only barked at pregnant ladies. One sniff and off he’d go. Only time I’ve seen you laugh, Stuart. Funny. What did you do with old Doc?"

I shook the suitcase off the floor to show Joe the weight. He stepped back. Evelyn raised herself off her stool for a better look.

"You’re not throwing him in the trash, are you, Stuart?" Joe asked.

"I’m taking him uptown to a place that takes care of dead animals," I said.

"I don’t think your dada would want you to throw Doc in the trash," Joe said. 

"I’ve got to get going before the place closes." I left the store before he could say anything else and started running down the street as well as I could with the suitcase banging against my leg.

"Do you want the leash?" Joe shouted at me but I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to listen to people talk about Doc or my dad or have to explain the suitcase or tell them that I wasn’t throwing Doc in the trash. I ran like a man on the way to an important meeting so that anybody who wanted to stop me would think twice about it, and then I’d be past them before they made a decision. Burying a dog was almost as hard as living with one.

At the corner of La Guardia and Bleeker I jumped over a mound of icy snow piled up on the curb. The suitcase swung away from me and then came back hard and took my legs out from under me. I fell and slid into the middle of the street. A taxi drove up next to me, slowing long enough to see that I wasn’t going to hail him and drove off. It was a good place to stop because Doc stopped on that corner on every single walk he ever had. It’s like he reached out from wherever he was and said, "No, it’s the last time we’re coming by here and we are going to stop."

Looking south from that intersection, just below Washington Square Park, was my dad’s favorite view in all of New York. The downtown high rises stood far off in the distance, bordered by old brownstones that lined both sides of the street. My dad once said that he could see all that was good about New York, both old and new, from that spot. He loved studying old brownstones, the intricacies of the brickwork, their age. He liked to imagine all the people who had lived in them. I wanted to tell him about the poor students and desperate families living there now, about the one toilet on the floor and the leaking showers in the apartments, but he didn’t want to hear that. For him brownstones represented a glorious past. He cared about New York, he’d tell me. A great city with a lot of problems, but it was all he knew and he would never turn his back on it, not even for the medicinal warmth of Florida or Arizona.

My dad would stand with Doc on that corner for a long time, staring up at the high rises as the night lowered down on them. When I walked with my dad the last couple of months of his life, when he was getting too weak to go by himself, I watched him find a little peace at that corner every night. Doc became so accustomed to the stop that when I became the walker he still sat down when we came to the intersection, and nothing could move his fat butt off the cement for at least a couple of minutes. I didn’t look at the office buildings because I worked in a high rise and hated them, but after a few weeks of taking Doc out and standing at this corner I began to notice this one brownstone.

It was the third one down on the east side of La Guardia, similar to the other brownstones except for its green fire escape landing. All the other landings were dirty brown or unpainted. The green paint on this one, though, was new and bright like freshly watered grass. I imagined some NYU undergrads had brought spring to their little apartment early, maybe on St. Patrick’s Day. I had planned to come by with Doc this St. Patrick’s Day to see who the owners were. Now I’ll never know. I never told anybody about the green fire escape landing because I didn’t know if I could explain its meaning to me, the wonderful touch it added to this ugly city. I never even told Karen, even though I always thought of her when I looked up at the green fire escape landing.

Karen and I dated for two years and nine months. I know that because she pointed it out the day she broke up with me last summer. She said the day held no special significance for her, she just figured it out as she was waiting for me to pick her up that night. I’m sure she would’ve calculated the exact number of days given enough time; that’s what kind of woman she was. Two years and nine months, she said, and she didn’t see anything changing. Ever.

"That’s what happens, Karen," I said, standing in her doorway, waiting to be invited into her apartment. "Good relationships mellow. Security becomes more important than good times."

"I’m more like you," she said. "I don’t look forward to things, like big storms or good movies. I don’t care about a new restaurant or anniversaries. And I don’t think I look forward to seeing you anymore."

I took that for an insult and we ended right there a few minutes later, our loud voices bringing neighbors out into the hall. Karen didn’t care about their attention and that’s when I knew she was serious.

I never mentioned the fire escape to Karen because by the time I started walking Doc and made my little discovery, we were close to the end, and intimate talk about the small things one notices, the talk that brings two people closer, never happened anymore.

Now I stood up, brushed myself off and picked up Doc, ready to give my dad’s dog a proper send-off.

I love the crush of people in the subway. I just hate the people that make up the crush. There’s all this energy and motion and direction, but then the guy in front of you coughs incessantly and his date chews her gum with her mouth open, or this unwashed man stands too close to you, looking at the suitcase between your feet once too often. I lifted the suitcase and cradled it with my arms, trying not to think about Doc.

The unwashed man forced a half smile. "That looks heavy."

I lifted my eyebrows as little as possible. He was taller than me, wore a big army jacket, dirty jeans and very white high top basketball shoes. 

The train squealed as it pulled into the station. The people leaving fought against the people getting on. I waited for this guy next to me to go ahead but he just stood right there, patiently allowing everyone else to board. I looked at him and he motioned for me to go first. Maybe I’d been living in New York too long. Maybe he was polite. Maybe I was an idiot.

As I passed, the man grabbed the suitcase with both his hands. I grabbed the handrail in the middle of the car with my right hand, holding onto the suitcase handle with my left. He didn’t try to jerk it away; more like he leaned away from me, testing my attachment to this bag. I pulled back. Then we looked right into each other’s eyes and I can’t say what he saw but I saw something rare and frightening - a man thinking. Along with every other non-thinking person on that train, I stood there waiting for his next move, which turned out to be one long step toward me with his left foot and then a vicious kick to my ribs with his right foot. The suitcase handle tore off and I fell backwards into the subway car. 

I crumpled to the floor of the train holding my side, paralyzed with pain. It felt like his foot had passed through my ribs and lung and had jammed up against my spine. Then I heard him slip and fall just outside the train. Sprawled on his stomach, he looked back at me for moment and quickly jumped to his feet, gathering the suitcase into his arms and running as fast as he could because I was right behind him.

I don’t know why I ran, but at the hissing sound of the doors closing, I got up and ran after him. Surprisingly, I caught him in a few seconds and found myself wondering if I should trip him or clothesline him before he reached the street. I measured my steps to time my trip then I looked ahead and saw that in his panic the man had turned the wrong way and now raced toward the entrance. The turnstiles wouldn’t turn for him and he would have to jump to escape, which he couldn’t do carrying Doc, the heavy-butted dog. The old, handle-less, flower-print Samsonite would be mine again. 

He shifted into a kind of loping run and moved the suitcase to the right side of his body. At the turnstiles, he threw the suitcase over and into the arms of a much bigger, much dirtier man. He jumped over the turnstiles and ran up the stairs to the left. I was left standing face to face with his tattooed partner, one tattoo for each cheek: on the left was a bowling pin, on the right the yin/yang symbol. He smiled but I didn’t see any teeth. He took the stairs to the right four at a time and disappeared.

"Stop him," I screamed at the commuters on the stairs. "He’s got my dog."

 When I reached the street the snow had stopped falling. My quarry walked with long strides half a block up to the right. I jogged after him, unsure of my plan of action. The tattooed man would open the suitcase soon, I told myself, and then I would reclaim my possession. He turned off the main street onto one of those small, one-lane Manhattan streets that could pass for an alley. Not wanting to lose him, I picked up my pace. I turned the corner and ran straight into his huge hand. He grabbed me around the neck and shoved me painfully up against the cold brick wall, leaving my feet dangling a few inches above the sidewalk. The suitcase sat at his feet.

He cocked his free hand back. "Do you want me to hurt you?" he asked in a surprisingly soft voice. The only light on the street was behind him, leaving his face shrouded in darkness. He shook me by my neck.

"It’s mine," was the only thing I could think of saying.

His grip tightened around my throat, cutting off most of my air. I struggled but it was useless and panic set in as I lost my breath. Without warning, he pulled me away from the wall and threw me into a puddle in the middle of the street. I raised my face out of the water, expecting the worst. The man buttoned his coat, turned the collar up and walked out of the alley and into the anonymous dark of Manhattan. The suitcase lay flat in the water a few feet away from me, zipped all the way shut except for about two inches near the top where the handle that I still held in my left hand used to be. I wiped the dirty water off my face.

I made it to the crematorium by eight and then took a taxi over to Karen’s on the way back, my need to share stronger than my fear of being unimportant. She was home and let me in. Karen listened politely to my story as it spilled out. I told her about my confusion over my response when Doc was stolen and my father’s last words and about other things I cared about, things that I hadn’t told myself in a long time. I told her about the green fire escape. I probably went on too long and analyzed too much, and when I finally slowed, she stood up and said she was happy that I was all right.

Feeling like an idiot, I walked to the door. Before I went out into the hall, I pulled the suitcase handle from my stiff fingers and gave it to her.

At the elevator I looked back and saw Karen staring at the suitcase handle. As she closed the door, I saw her drop the handle in the small plastic wastebasket near her desk. The dull thud followed me out to the street.

I came to a corner the tourist books call the windiest spot in the city, on Broadway by Astor Place. A blast of cold air blew my hat off. I lunged for it and nearly ran into two young women wearing NYU sweatshirts. They skillfully dodged me and continued down the street without missing a step or giving a backward glance.

My hat rolled and bounced down the empty street, in the opposite direction of my empty apartment. I turned and jogged after my hat, more to do something than to retrieve it. When I bent to grab it, the hat jumped on a gust of wind and rolled down the street. I ran after it. It scurried away from me like a puppy playing a game. My heart began beating harder with the strain of the chase, surprising me like an empty stomach does at the end of a busy day. I ran harder. The effort felt good. When my hat finally settled in the middle of the street, I ran past it. I did not want to lose this feeling of breathing so hard that my next breath mattered.

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