All Shots

egregious violations. And it doesn’t apply to self-reinforcing—” I broke off when the phone rang indoors. “The other phone,” I told Leah. “It might be Steve. Bye.”
    Feminism being the force that it is in Cambridge, I feel the need to explain that I did not habitually hang up on women on the off chance that the incoming call on another line was from a man. While Steve was in the wilds of northern Minnesota, he did, however, have priority. Cell phone coverage in the Boundary Waters was unreliable. I hate call-waiting and had disabled it on my cell, so he might have gotten a busy signal and dialed our regular number.
    “Rowdy, with me! This way, buddy.” Leaving Kimi in the yard with our third malamute, Sammy, the adult-sized baby of the family, I hustled Rowdy into the house with me. The answering machine had picked up. My own voice was asking the caller to leave a message. The tone sounded, and Betty Burley began to speak. I grabbed the phone. Betty, who is top dog in our local Alaskan malamute rescue group, is practically a member of my family, not only because we do rescue together but because Betty is a second manifestation of my own Kimi. Let me explain that all three of my malamutes are dark gray and white, as is Betty’s hair. Betty lacks the “full mask,” as it’s called, that distinguishes Kimi from Rowdy and Sammy, who have “open faces,” all white, in contrast to Kimi’s combination of black goggles around the eyes, a black cap, and a bar down the muzzle. But Betty’s oneness with Kimi is not a matter of appearance; rather, Betty and Kimi represent a rare instance of two bodies simultaneously inhabited by the same spirit. Identical twins are two separate individuals who have genetically identical bodies. With Betty and Kimi, it’s the reverse: inside, they’re the same individual; the difference between them is strictly corporeal. Strong and intelligent, they value their own opinions above everyone else’s and have exactly the same air of quiet authority. Also, they snatch food. My strongest evidence for their spiritual unity is the oneness of my response to them. For example, on a potentially embarrassing occasion when Betty was having lunch at my house and got up to fix herself a third sandwich, I broke into a sweat and almost into tears, exactly as if my greatest fear about Kimi were being realized, namely, that she’d figured out how to open the refrigerator door. It’s a miracle that I didn’t snap, “Leave it!” at Betty and escort her to Kimi’s wire crate.
    On this occasion, Betty was not in a position to steal food, of course. In fact, her call was about rescue. “There’s a message on my machine, and I need you to handle it,” she said. “It’s about a lost dog in Cambridge. Not one of ours. A Siberian.” Ours are, of course, Alaskan malamutes. In the dialect of dog fanciers, a Siberian husky is a Siberian rather than a husky. An Alaskan malamute, however, is not an Alaskan but a malamute. An Alaskan husky isn’t a purebred but is a mix bred for sled dog racing, whereas a cross between a Siberian and a malamute is known in malamute circles as a Siberian cross and in Siberian circles as a malamute cross, or sometimes as a malberian or a Sibermute. “A woman named Francie,” Betty said. Then she dictated a Cambridge number.
    One of the rules for dealing with tough dogs is that if the dog demands something, then he definitely does not get it. Even so, I complied with what I chose to interpret as Betty’s request. A woman answered. After I’d introduced myself, explained that I was from malamute rescue, and verified that I’d reached Francie, she asked whether it was my dog that had escaped from Mellie’s.
    “No, I’m from malamute rescue,” I said for the second time. “If you’ll give me the details about the dog, maybe I can help.”
    She spoke with the genteel vowels of the gown side of the town-gown divide. “It’s all terribly complicated.” She paused. “Because of Mellie.”
    Feeling impatient, I said, “Let’s start with what happened. A dog got loose. In Cambridge, I gather. When did this happen?”
    “Oh, not all that long ago, but Mellie is so conscientious, and she takes everything so literally. So concretely, really. I can’t imagine that she actually needs any sort of license or permit to do what she does, but she’s frightened of the police, all authority figures, actually, although she’s hardly going to be arrested for