Desmond and I are on the rooftop because, if you’re a city
dog living in a pet-friendly building striving for urban chic, that’s where you
go to the bathroom: on a patch of Astroturf eight stories high, with views of
the Space Needle, and, if it’s a clear day, the Cascades. It’s after 6 PM, the
only views the lights illuminating the insides of offices and living rooms. I
haven’t noticed just how bright it is until suddenly, an overhead light is
extinguished. I look above me; the towering construction crane just turned out
its lights. Across the alley (and across the street, and down the block; this
is a “developing neighborhood,” after all) a new apartment building is being
constructed, floor-by-floor. The crane across the alley towers above us each
day, its giant arm rotating, casting shadows on the rooftop. Now it is dark,
and a figure emerges from his box in the sky: the crane operator. For a moment
I lose sight of him, but I know he’s there, out in the open space, just the
narrow steel skeleton around him. I suck in my breath as I watch him begin to
descend down, down the impossibly narrow stairs. Beside me, Desmond, unfazed,
squats and pees.
