“You, brother, are appointed,” the figure calls. It has materialized before the homeless encampment on the youth baseball field. It raises two fingers high, then dips them toward the top of Larry’s head as if tipping a ball through the air. Though fifteen feet away on the sidewalk, Larry jerks back.

“You, brother, are anointed,” the man continues, in a deep and ringing voice, and the crown of Larry’s head feels suddenly damp and sticky under the thinning gray hair.

Sheila lunges to the end of her leash, barking at the guy. Larry has to jerk her back, and when he looks up again the figure is gone. Vanished into the not-so-thin air surrounding the tents and porta-potties and lawn chairs and trash.

This happens at 10:13 on a weekday morning, during Larry’s fourth canine outing of the day. A professional dogwalker, he has scant regular person-to-person contact with humans except for the owners who congregate in the dog park a few blocks from here. Most of his clients deal with him by text message, usually at the last minute: “Both out of town 2day – Sheila alone 6am can u walk?” Hence this encounter with the unfamiliar man is unsettling, to say the least.

Sheila, a small white terrier, is rattled as well, and as Larry tries to cross the wide street to her apartment building, she tangles her leash around his legs and knapsack, almost tripping him in front of a car. On the verge of being overweight, he’s not as nimble as he used to be.

What a lousy start to the day! Decent sunny weather in the city, a cool October, but his plantar fasciitis hurts worse than usual and his chronically strained left wrist aches after Sheila’s yank.

Riding the service elevator to the 16th floor, he lets Sheila back into her apartment, fills her water bowl that the scatterbrained owners left empty, wonders if she’s been fed and searches out some biscuits for her, switches on the radio so she’ll have the comfort of human voices, settles her on the sofa and rubs her ears awhile, notices that the place is cold and finds her dog blanket and a stuffed toy. What if he hadn’t been available? A lawyer and an architect—aren’t they smart enough to plan ahead? Some idiots don’t deserve to own pets. He’ll need to return at least once in the afternoon and they’ll probably pay him for a single walk, if they remember to pay at all.

Outside again, with a half hour before the next appointment, he hikes three blocks to a sidewalk table at his favorite pizza shop where they don’t mind him hanging out. Sipping tea from his thermos, still jangly, he tries to understand what that crazy man said. Did he utter anything besides those two words, appointed, anointed?

The man was shirtless, Larry remembers, and tall, and young, with a coffee complexion and long black hair in ringlets over his shoulders. Dirty old jeans. Bare feet, or was he wearing sandals like a pretend Jesus? Hah! Muscular chest, unusual for a homeless guy. Attractive in that sense. (Larry is gay by preference but, at 58, celibate for a decade now.)

With spread fingers Larry probes his scalp. No, nothing—of course nothing. He hasn’t been anointed in any way, just targeted by the passing delusion of a passing nut case. Larry scowls. He should avoid the grassy area next to the ballfield, convenient as it is for dogs, till the city gets its act together and clears the encampment. They’ve been threatening to do so for weeks, but it’s a peaceful place, and homeless advocates and protesters have made a fuss about the lack of affordable housing, while neighbors have decried the trash and the occasional panhandling. To Larry, all such political haggling is just that, haggling, and he sees little point in it. He bears no ill will toward homeless people, thinks most of them deserve a better life, but figures nothing will ever change for the better. People are people, after all. Which is why he left his previous career as a restaurant manager to work with animals.

For the rest of the day Larry finds other places to walk. To save his sore feet, not to mention the heart that needed bypass surgery a few years ago, he travels between gigs by hopping on and off buses with his monthly pass. The dogs are well behaved, though old Thor limps and Fern clearly has fleas. (Aren’t her owners treating her? What the fuck is wrong with them?)

It’s a long day, a dozen walks in all, with two more trips to Sheila’s place. Car traffic picks up during the evening rush hour, exhaust swirls, occasional frustrated motorists yell curses. Larry finishes what should be his last job of the day and starts toward the pizza shop for his usual dinner, a grilled chicken patty with side salad, no bun, but then speculates whether Sheila’s owners have returned to feed her. He could text them, but they have a habit of not answering till they need him again. Sighing, he trudges back to the apartment building for the fourth time, takes the service elevator even though he doesn’t have a dog with him, rings the bell, hears Sheila bark, knocks, finally opens the door with his key. Sheila jumps all over him. He fills her food bowl, mops up the water she’s spilled on the floor, watches while she inhales the food, decides she may need a post-prandial poop and retrieves her leash.

Since this morning, he’s avoided looking toward the encampment, but when he and Sheila come out of the building, the neighborhood is rumbling. What’s that loud drone?—ah, news copters overhead. Shouts carry across the wide street. Larry blinks twice: yes, that’s a line of cops, edging onto the grass. Are they ready to make arrests, chase people out?

Larry pictures the bare-chested man again, his fine torso, his portentous tone and strange pronouncements. Is he there still, is he part of this? Curiosity pulls Larry across the street as Sheila resists. The tents have sprouted homemade barricades—tables, boxes, piles of old tires—and, just behind that makeshift wall, a phalanx of people, young and old, black, white and brown, are holding signs aloft and yelling. It’s the homeless campers and a whole bunch of supporters. But the cops have face shields down and batons out. It has all the makings of a melee, which the news copters will be happy to capture.

Sheila is now shaking, over-agitated by the noise. No chance she’ll poop now, so Larry pulls her close, then lifts her in his arms.

He ought to retreat. Definitely ought to, Sheila tells him. The Jesus-man is nowhere to be seen—hidden in the crowd or departed. But now something more than curiosity draws Larry through the grass toward the demonstrators. He feels that he can’t bear to witness what’s coming next, yet his feet pull him closer. He reaches an upended table barricade, faces the crowd and the cops, and his anger at human foolishness boils over. Hugging the terrier close, he yells at the top of his voice.

“You insane people!” He wobbles a finger toward both sides. “STOP this! NOW!!! You’re scaring the only sensible being here!” He points to Sheila, shivering against his jacket.

For an instant heavy silence descends. The anointed has spoken! Only the frap-frap of a cruising copter can be heard.

The top of his head feels like it’s dripping oil. He thinks he can smell the impending violence, an odor like burnt bacon.

Then Sheila howls, a sound he’s never heard from her before. As screams ring out, she pees on his chest. A nightstick appears out of nowhere to smash his cheek. He falls on the grass with his heart rammed into his diaphragm.

It’s a struggle to breathe. Feet pound around him, shrieks beat his ears. Sheila tries to nuzzle inside his jacket.

Is she okay? Bleeding, woozy, he crawls toward the street, determined to deliver her to safety. Behind them, bedlam roars for the news cameras.

By the time he drops Sheila off and limps home, it has all played out. That night it’s a four-minute story on the TV news. As the disregarded prophet nurses his bandaged face, the walls of his small apartment smirk at him, and he longs for the Jesus-man to appear for him again.

– Sam Gridley

Author’s Note: Though the incidents described in “Appointed, Anointed” are entirely fictional, the protagonist is loosely based on some dogwalkers I know who are convinced that, indeed, “Some idiots don’t deserve to own pets.”