Bern wasn’t sure what this combination said about his West Side neighborhood. One day, he popped into the shop for an extension cord. He meandered up the aisles past Spanish combs and plastic flowers, old water pumps, shower nozzles, hat stands, paintings of bullfights on velvet, and bins of used yarmulkes. The narrow pathways smelled of foot powder and sweetened toilet water until he reached the animals. In a back corner, an oppressive odor of fur and pine-scented air freshener hung like invisible webbing. In a cage, four black terriers wrestled one another among shreds of the New York Times. Kittens slept nearby in a tall-sided box, unperturbed by the canary calls showering down on them. Bern noticed a saleswoman, a dark-haired beauty wearing a plastic nametag: “Marietta.” He smelled the mint flavoring of the gum in her mouth. Behind her, frantic scrabbling. In a large cage, a big brown bird with gold talons and chest feathers the color of wheat rattled the enclosing wire with stringy wings and his beak.
What do You think about The Empire Of The Dead (2014)?
