The Budweiser Clydesdales arrived in three oversized semis displaying their name and logo. An audience boxed in the truck on all sides as police halted traffic to the east and west. When the doors slid open the beautiful animals were standing motionless in the dark interior. They looked exactly like the shiny graphic on the outside; vibrant coats, flawless gradients, interlocking networks of leather, glossy highlights in the eye.

Professionals in denim shirts escorted the horses down ramps. A cherry red beer wagon, complete with dalmatian, was waiting to be crowned at the end of the block. The clydesdales were 2,400 pounds each and their bellies were smooth and heaving. They were as well bred and well educated as Budweiser's top executives, and they upheld this breeding with a dignified marching style that would have made both parent species and company proud. All six had remarkably clean and silky leg hair, like a doll's hair. I wanted to elect one of the horses to public office. I also wanted to lay my ear against one of their bellies and listen to the warm cavity inside.

Some people held up cellphones as high as they could to document the horses, some ducked and dodged between competing camera angles. The inner circle tightened until the crowd was barely an arm's length away from the animals. A small boy was hoisted into a tree and then handed a camera by someone. I think the same thing happened when Jesus visited a town. The clydesdales were unfazed. They shuffled courteously in place.

People who have seen Lamborghinis, i-pods, Lamborghinis with i-pods in them, space-shuttle launches, robot dogs, F-14s and IMax movies about F-14s with 5.1 digital surround sound are still gathering to take pictures of some brown horses doing nothing in the street. They want to test if the horse will retain its majestic status on a cellphone wallpaper. They want to be reminded of a physical power, of strength beyond processor speed, of the beasts behind the logos rotting in their fridges.

It occurred to me that so much as gum bubble popping and these horses could spook onto their heels and kill people. Sudden leather snapping, deafening whinnies, anvil snouts breaking jaws and cracking sunglasses and plowing through rows of dads and crushing human torsos like bud cans, people trying to escape into The Gap as meaty clubs bat children from shoulders and trample strollers and slip and slip on blood and horse drool, moms with their tibia bones poking out screaming murder on the sidewalk of Barnes & Noble.

There are still animals in the world.