HanktheDog Blog

We dogs aren't really much into Deconstructionism, unless you're talking about pulling apart the occasional cushion or leather shoe. But news of the coyote invasions of New York City have put me in a postmodern frame of mind.

Maybe you've read how, about a month ago, a coyote was seen wandering Central Park in New York City. Evidently, the 35-pound Hal - as they decided to name him - was viewed as such a threat by the urban hominids that they sent dozens of police officers as well as a helicopter to give chase. And terrified little Hal did indeed give them a run for their tax dollar. "Hal proved," reported the press, "quite adept at avoiding capture, jumping into the water, leaping over an 8-foot fence, ducking under a bridge and scampering through the grounds of a skating rink."

It made me a bit proud of my canine brethren, but then I got to thinking, "Why bother?" And why bother to report the strange story across the whole human world? I think maybe humans are fascinated by the story partly because coyotes put them in mind of the old Road Runner cartoons, where a coyote's chase of the speedy little bird proves as fruitless as it is relentless. "Poor little Road Runner" is a torment to old Wile E. Coyote, a kind of Tantalus of the tarmac. Traps and trains, rockets and widgets, bullet and mallets: nothing ever works for Wile E., as Road Runner endlessly evades.

Alas, the humans of New York City were not using some absurd, animated Acme flying machine to catch poor Hal, and so they succeeded. Hal couldn't defy gravity or disappear into painted tunnels. He was run down and tranquilized. Then he died. The humans blamed heartworms and rat poisoning, but you've got to wonder how an animal so feeble was able to leap so high.

Here's my impression when I start pulling the story apart (in the much same way I used to unhinge books from their bindings when I was a pup): I think people were so intrigued partly because of the "Super City vs. Wild Animal" angle and partly because, as I said before, it reminded them of a cartoon from their childhoods. And I think the RoadRunner cartoon was so popular because it dealt with an existential dilemma facing humanity.

The RoadRunner is a metaphorical represention of his fellow bipeds, the humans, who seem to defy all the laws of nature. With their technologies, they travel their roads at blazing speeds, they fly off cliffs without ever falling, they seem utterly unconcerned by their fellow beasts, who just can't lay a finger on them. Again and again, they defeat and bewilder the wild things that would consume them. Road-Runner Humanity is the unconcerned trickster, sticking out his tongue at Nature.

And yet...the humans are also Wile E., with all his frustrated chasing and striving and craving, with all his weird machinations that blow up in his face again and again, with all his superfluous and yet somehow endearing cunning. Yes, Wile E. is not just Nature red in tooth and claw but also High-Tech Humanity itself.

Oh, I know it may not make sense except in some pre-logical, dream-like way, but I'm sure that humans are both Wile E. and and Road Runner, a species ceaselessly and often hilariously divided against itself. Thus, in one of the hugest metropolises of the world, humans absurdly give chase to their own wild selves, tranquilizing and restraining that wildness.

But humans should never forget they they are the trickster Coyote as well as the infallible Road Runner. The Coyote is a dark, clever skulker that needs to live in the shadows of civilization, in the secret hearts of dogs and hominids alike. Humans shouldn't work too hard to subdue that wildness or they may destroy an essential part of themselves, leaving behind a poor poisoned corpse riddled and tortured by Heartworms.