And she told him about La Fontaine, a writer of fables who lived hundreds of years ago, before there ever was the Bronx and the wild dogs of Crotona Park. La Fontaine’s favourite hero was Sir Fox, a local robber baron who preyed upon as many barnyards as he could.
“And what would Sir Fox have made of the South Bronx, Miss Riley?”
“Mr. Johnson,” she said in that brogue of hers, “will you
call a girl by her proper name? I am Laurencia, for Christ’s sake, or Ms.
Laurencia, depending on your fancy. And Sir Fox would have thrived in this
barnyard of ours, even with the Crotona Dogs, who are robbers without his
etiquette and without his charm. He would have stopped their pillage, and
finally he would have pilfered from them.”