Loveless is a place: A county animal control facility, a functioning Auschwitz for pets, on the edge of town.

They – the staff – do not want me here. I don’t know why I stay, except that maybe punishment of your own choosing is, in itself, a reward. These are hard people, with tough faces, knots of malnourished muscle on their calves and forearms, broken teeth, unreadable tattoos, hair bleached to the color of bone. Even the obese woman at the front desk is hard. What seems at first to be dough is layer upon layer of crust. I do not belong. I’m not paid minimum wage to shovel the shit of many unwanted animals into huge stinking trash barrels, minimum wage for the privilege of using that same shovel to move their still bodies into the furnace – over 7,000 euthanized pets a year in a county with a population of less than 180,000. I am a volunteer. I do not have to be here. I do not belong.

I have long suspected they view me as a cheerful idiot. In the beginning, maybe a high society do-gooder, but I have lasted longer than that, and I work hard. So, cheerful idiot. Nothing else explains my continued presence.

It is Monday. Monday is the day when decisions are made, and the incinerator is fired up. The kennels are bursting with weekend owner surrenders and found strays. According to county ordinance, enough time has passed, and it cannot be put off any longer.

I spend most of my time in the adoption kennels. If you must choose your seat in hell, the adoption kennels would be VIP. This morning, they are locked and I venture into the hellway next door to find someone with a key. I run into Terry, who has an armload of dead cats, stacked like blankets. She manages to fish the keys from her pocket and turn them over to me.

In the adoption kennels, I check in on the cats and then go to greet the dogs. I think many of them are convinced that they are mine, and are just waiting for the day when I can take them home. They wag and whine and bark for my attention. But my home is full, and I have long ago called in every favor from friends, friends of friends, relatives and many-times-removed cousins. Everyone here – Terry with the armload of dead cats; Dennis who maintains the incinerator; Layla, the kennel supervisor, whose unlucky job it is to make the next round of cuts – has a house full of pets.

Two kennel techs come in to help prep the adoption kennels for public viewing. Faith is a child-sized, nut-brown woman with a boy’s haircut and a jockey’s gait. Amanda is tall and pale with hollowed cheeks, and a mean scar that curves from the side of her nose to the crook of her mouth, which never smiles. Her face is a cruel story. I mean, she might have gotten the scar falling from a pony named Peaches, but I doubt it.

I lure the dogs into their outdoor runs, while Faith and Amanda close the guillotine doors and start hosing and shoveling the night’s smelly offerings. I open the first few outdoor runs and release the occupants into the exercise yard. The exercise yard is a square fenced area the size of a suburban living room. It’s covered with dirt that has been trampled to dust and turns quickly to mud in a light rain. There is a long, sun-bleached picnic table where the kennel techs gather to smoke, and tucked away into a corner is a statue of Saint Francis, who is missing his arms and appears to be shrugging.

Over the fence is the cement block wing which houses the doomed. Towering above that is the incinerator chimney, spewing ashes. It is a gray, cloudless Monday with a wind that throws the ashes downward, into the exercise yard. I am afraid to breathe. The two older dogs I have in the yard smell death in the air, and they stay close to my side, hugging my legs, nudging my hands with their noses. The puppies play on, unaware.

I am trying to coax the older dogs to play, stretch their legs. They won’t get another chance for while. There are twenty other kennels of dogs waiting to take their turn in the yard, and I can’t come every day. Suddenly, I hear a soft popping sound. Like popcorn. Pop. Pop. Pop. The sound comes from overhead. I look up and see paratroopers – some still falling like black arrows, and others hanging under white, air-filled sheets. There is a military base not far to the west of us, and they are floating toward a field that lies beyond a swath of boundary trees.

I run into the kennels, and motion for Faith and Amanda to come outside, to see. It is beautiful and miraculous, a vision that must be shared. They are busy and reluctant, but my excitement wins their interest.

As we run back into the yard, the sky is crowded with dark figures and cloud-like shutes. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. As more open up. I begin to jump, and wave my hands over my head. They join in, waving and jumping. We can’t tell if they see us. We climb onto the picnic table, which pitches and sways and threatens to throw us off, as we jump and wave and call to them. Hey! Hey! Hey! The dogs join in with barks and jumps of their own. I look over at Faith and Amanda, laughing and smiling, yelling and jumping and waving. We could be a group of girlfriends, picnicking in the park, playing with our dogs, sharing a moment that is delightful and unexpected. When that brief, happy thought is gone, I recall that we are not friends, that these dogs belong to no one, and just beyond the fence is a pile of cooling corpses, awaiting cremation. And I wave harder, jump higher, call louder, imagining that the paratroopers are flying in, raining down along with the ashes, coming to liberate our camp, and to set us all free.