Catch up on part one first . . .
“Life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on . . . and you have no idea what you’ll do until you’re there.”
—Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Where we left off . . .
I saw the pitbull approaching from twenty feet away. I was on my way home from Blick with Ryder, walking down one of the main East-West thoroughfares in Manhattan. It was hot and crowded, pedestrians shoulder to shoulder.
The dog ahead was pure muscle, torso the size of a barbecue barrel with a head the size of a basketball. It looked most like the XL American Bully, “a large, muscular breed known for its powerful build and blocky head,” weighing up to 140 pounds. They are banned in Germany, Ireland, Turkey, the U.A.E., and the UK, where they were responsible for more than fifty percent of the dog-related human deaths caused between 2021 and 2023.
I knew I needed to separate Ryder as much as possible on the crowded sidewalk. It wouldn’t be easy. I stopped walking and veered right, pressing him up against a glass storefront. Then, standing with my legs hip-width apart, facing the window, I pinned him there, hoping to keep him out of view. But dogs don’t need to see; they smell.
As they approached, the two women walking toward us were losing control of their pitbull; he must have weighed at least one hundred twenty pounds, so if they didn’t have superior grip strength, the leash would’ve been easy to slip.
My heart is pounding just recalling this next part.