How to Leave Hialeah

Animal Control

63 Animal Control Danny shifted the phone to his other ear and restated the question, this time using a tone the policeman would not object to. —I would just like to know, Sir, he said, What exactly I’m supposed to do, Sir, with Eddie’s ferret. He paced around the room, stepping over a box of Eddie’s things, which his mother and sister had packed up the day before while picking out the suit for Eddie to be buried in. The ferret, across the room and in its cage, clung to the wire mesh with its nails, awaiting the pronouncement of its fate. Its water dish was empty, and it balanced on its back legs, standing upright inside the plastic bowl. Danny thought it looked like the thing was getting 6 4 A n i m a l C o n t r o l its graying fur ready for a bath. The ferret was officially his problem : when Eddie’s mother had come for the suit, she said, in Spanish , that she would not be taking that rat. —It isn’t our concern, Mr. Cabrera. We told you that yesterday when you called? —But I don’t even like this ferret. It’s not my ferret. On behalf of the entire Miami-Dade County police force, the officer again apologized for Danny’s loss. —Listen, Danny said. Eddie was my roommate, not my friend, not my gay boyfriend or whatever, so you can forget that shit about my loss, unless you mean the extra $700 in rent I gotta come up with now. The police officer was quiet. The ferret began chewing on the cage, jerking the wires back and forth with its teeth—something it had done nonstop the night before, when Eddie never came home. —My point, Mr. Cabrera? the officer finally said, Is that the ferret is not the department’s concern. I can give you the number to an animal shelter if you want to surrender it? Otherwise, I’m going to have to ask you to stop calling us about this issue. Danny wrote down the number. He made the officer repeat it three times before hanging up. He needed to get rid of the ferret before their landlady could show the place to a new roommate. The landlady didn’t allow pets, so Danny’s dog still lived with his parents, but Eddie had gotten permission to keep the ferret by going over Danny’s head and talking to the landlady himself. She’d never even seen a ferret, and he’d managed to convince her that it was only a little more alive than a hamster. The landlady had called after seeing the news about the shooting on TV. Danny hadn’t been home, but the message she left on the machine was long enough to suggest she hadn’t noticed: It’s not my Eddie they are talking about, no? Because the shooting was at the Chili’s allí mismo. But neither of you have guns, so it has to be some other Eddie, no? Sorry to be una vieja metida, but I just had to call and make sure. Bueno, for the love of God, be careful out there. This Miami es una locura. Eddie did have a gun—he’d told Danny that—but Danny had never seen it. Eddie had felt compelled, for safety reasons, to tell A n i m a l C o n t r o l 65 Danny about the gun, emphasizing that it was registered and legal. —You’re not living with some thug, Eddie told him three months before, just after he’d moved in. —I don’t care if you are or not, Danny said back from his spot on the sofa. Just keep your shit in your room and your piss in the toilet. According to the police report, Eddie had fired one shot before being hit himself. The other guy did a better job, getting him right in the heart, and Eddie was dead before the ambulance got there. The other guy died a few hours later, at the hospital. Witnesses gave drastically different accounts, but most agreed that the fight had started over either a parking spot or a spot on the waitlist at Chili’s. Thursday nights were always busy at that Chili’s, and a lot of car clubs used the parking lot to show off their rides. Danny had only been to that...