72

 

       WES

 

    How ya doing?  Huh?  You want to play, huh?  Urrrr.  Urrrrr.  Here, you hungry?  I brought this for you.  Don't let them see it.  How ya doing?

    He paces back and forth, beside himself.

    More attention than you get in a year, huh?  Here, can you catch this?

    He watches it coming at him, watches it falling at his paws and then pounces on it.  For some reason that seems sad to me.  I show him my empty hands, but he still looks expectantly.  I let him sniff them over and poke at me with his snout.

    Out here all by yourself.  Must be lonely, huh?  Yeah, I bet.

    He takes my fingers in his mouth and rolls his teeth across them, playing.  A bit too hard, but I don't draw away or raise my voice.

    They never taught you how to play nice did they?  No.

    He frets a little, his front paws dancing in the slight ditch that has formed there already.

    What?  What is it?  Yeah, you can get up, yeah, come on!  I slap my thighs.

    Wiggling with joy, he bounds up against me, nearly knocking me over.  His tongue lashes out at my face.

    Calm down, I tell him.  Behave yourself, there now, easy, easy, easy.  I can't help but laugh.

    She is right behind me.  I can hear her coming up, her bare feet in the grass, but I don't look around.

    You back here with this dog again?

    I smile into his old brown eyes.  Uh huh.

    Every time we're here you end up back with him.

    We're buddies.  Aren't we?  I still don't look at her.  His eyes watch me questioningly, as if I've said something in a tone he cannot react to.  Uh huh, I answer for him.

    Not bad so far.

    In fact, rather nice.

    My goodness!

    I laugh, but I'm serious.  I've always been embarrassed at these things with all their bickering and snide remarks.  I've never really understood the attraction.  There are times that all the psychoanalyzing  in the world doesn't quite come up with an explanation.  They come like moths drawn to a flame that will burn them and leave them to make their way home as best they can to lick their wounds for another go at it.  And what's more, they never seem as though they get anything, that they ever have any hope of flying in and wooshing back out unscathed.  That, I suppose, would constitute a victory, I don't know.  But this one hasn't been like that.  It's strange.  I feel very uncomfortable not being able to be uncomfortable.

    It's true, I tell her.  It's all very harmonious, very nice.

    Yeah, I thought so.  So why are you back here?

    I told you; we're old buddies.

    Oh, I thought you were hiding.

    No, you can't neglect an old friend just because you don't need him at a particular moment.

    I'll remember that, she laughs.

    See that you do.  You remember the last time we were here?

    July.

    No, no.  The time before that.  The picnic in the spring.

    April.

    Yeah.  Remember what I said about the dog's eyes?  I've changed my mind.  I thought before that we made them hide whatever they thought from us to protect themselves, to retain something of themselves.  But I don't think so now.  I think that whatever we see there or think we see there, we invent ourselves.  We see need and hunger and fear and whatever else there because we need to see them; that's what we want to see and what we expect to see.  It gives us what we need.  Do you see what I mean?  I thought of them hiding themselves, of putting up a front, just so I could bear the guilt of making them do that.  Do you see that?  I look at her for the first time.

    Daddy said they think he might be going blind.  Cataracts.  He doesn't bark anymore when someone comes.

    Then again, perhaps I'm inventing this too.  Maybe I just need to believe this.  Did you hear anything I said?  I ask her.

    I was listening.  But it doesn't account for what they really feel.  If you're inventing everything you see in his eyes then what do you do about his real emotions?  There's a hole in your logic.

    Maybe there are none.  Maybe animals are just mirrors, reflecting back what they think we deserve.  If we do something for which we feel guilt of remorse, we think we see reproach.  If we want to feel needed, we think we see need.

    You don't really believe that.

    No, I guess I don't.

    Anyway, isn't everything like that.  Don't we perceive what we want or expect in everything?

    I laugh.  You've been around me too long.

    She laughs.  That's what Daddy was just telling me.

    Oh yeah?  You two talking about me behind my back?

    Where else?  Your back was out here with the dog; it was very easy to talk behind it.  Seriously, we weren't talking about you.  I just said something that he thought sounded like you.

    I won't ask what that was.

    Good.  I don't remember.

    That's convenient.  I smile to let her know that this is all just bantering, that it isn't getting seriously sarcastic.

    The dog paces.  I watch him absently, almost as if I'm watching myself watch him.  After a minute, I snap out of it and look at her again.  She is watching me and in spite of myself I imagine--just for a second--what it is to be her watching me, watching myself watching him pacing.  So, I say.  So, what brings you out here to the kennel?

    They're ready to break out the housewarming gifts, and I want you to get ours.  Janice said the rest of them went together and bought him one of those really nice grills, one of those kettle kind.  She says my mother even put money toward it.

    That's odd; it's her house too.

    I don't know, maybe she sees it the way we do; it's his day.

    Maybe; I still think it's odd.

    Makes me mad; they were all going together on a gift and nobody bothered to let me know.  I'd have liked to have been in on it.  She could have done that.  It wouldn't have hurt her to do that.

    Oh, well.  What can you do?

    The yard is in the shadow of the house.  Almost the entire picnic is covered in the long, misshapen dark spot in the grass.  We both stand there watching them for a few minutes.  Her mother's mouth is going a mile a minute, and her aunt's head is nodding.  Jim eats another piece of cake.  The children play in the grass, the bigger one running and the little one trying to keep up but falling every few steps.  He continues to get up.  Eric is carrying a large box toward the table, bringing it from the shed where it's evidently been hidden.  He struggles a little, balancing the big thing on his hip.  It's wrapped in red paper and a gaudy array of gold and orange ribbon.

    You don't know how it felt to have her tell me what they all did.  I felt so          so

    I'm sorry.  At least you thought to get him something.  What are we giving him?  I smile, trying to cheer her up.

    A bottle.  That really good cognac that Annette gave you for Christmas.  I hid it in with our jackets, in the closet in the kitchen.

    Oooo, I raise my eyebrows to show my surprise and approval.  Very nice!  I hope he appreciates it.

    Yeah.

    Listen, don't let it get to you.  That stuff probably cost more than the grill.

    That's not the point.

    I know.  Sorry.

    We just stand there for a little while longer, watching.  I rattle the change in my pocket in tune with the regular thump and scrape of the dog's chain.  He pants as he paces.  She looks so wistful.

    I don't suppose you've told them yet.

    No.  There hasn't been a good time.

    Uh huh.  Well, I'll go get the bottle.  I start toward the house.  She follows.

    It's wrapped in blue and gold paper.  On the shelf right above our stuff.

    I nod, cutting away from the tables without looking at her again.  I think of what I will say if someone--her father maybe--calls to me, asking where I'm going just when the big box has reached the table, when the festivities are getting lively.  Something about the bathroom, maybe.  I needn't have worried; I make it to the door and inside without anyone noticing.  Once inside, I peek out the window, but no one is looking this way; they are too busy laughing and watching Art rattling the box, a look of exaggerated bewilderment on his face.

    I turn back to the room and feel myself jerk and tighten inside; the old man is sitting there, his back to me.  I don't know why I didn't notice thathe wasn't out there when I went past his chair.  It is, for some reason, embarrassing that I didn't.  I feel strangely guilty and apologetic.  My first urge is to apologize to him for a wrong that he has no way of knowing about and I cannot define.  It's silly.

    I begin to breathe again, the deep exhalation my first indication that I'd been holding my breath.  Ideas of what to say flash in my mind; I should say something, not simply appear there suddenly, maybe frightening him.  He evidently hasn't heard the door close, and I hate the idea of interrupting his daydreams by simply stepping in front of him out of a room he must certainly think he has to himself.  I should at least clear my throat.

    Then I realize that he's sleeping, leaning slightly to one side, elbow on the arm of the chair.  the other hand is draped over the transistor radio that lays face down on the table.  My concern about being too quiet is quickly replaced with a desire to be silent.  I already feel I've violated something.  I don't want to make it any worse.

    Making as little noise as possible, I sidle past his chair and tiptoe across the kitchen, still rehearsing brief and concise explanations in the event that he should awake suddenly.  The very act of tiptoeing requires explanation.  I push chairs in under the table as I go; something less to trip over on my way out.  I don't look at him, believing, correctly or not, that it in some way lessens the chances of his waking.

    The closet door opens without a squeak.  The box is there, where she said it would be.  Royal and gold.  As I pull it down, there's a shower of neatly folded brown grocery bags.  They make a frantic rush and flutter around my head like flushed game birds.  I don't turn around.  I stand there, motionless, staring into the dark closet as if not looking around and not breathing will make me invisible and he'll doze off again.

    I know my smile must be sheepish.  I squat down and begin to gather the bags with my free hand, still clutching the box.  He doesn't say anything.  I glance up, ready with a few words.  But I don't use them. 

    I can feel the smile leave my face like water through a sieve.  I rise.  I can't look away from his face.  I pull out the nearest chair and feel myself slumping into it.  The box makes a solid thud as I let it down on the table.  I just sit there, one hand still gripping the top of the box, the bags still tucked under my arm.  His eyes are not closed, the lids not quite meeting.  His mouth, too, is open a little, a bit of spittle at the corner.  The hand on the radio looks so much more relaxed than I've ever seen it, the alignment of the fingers almost normal .  He looks as if he should snore.

    A heavy sigh escapes me; the sound surprises me a little.  What now?  I close my eyes and run my hand over my face.  What do I do now?

    Nothing has changed when I open my eyes.  Over his shoulder, out the window, I can see her father, a brand new chef's hat cock-eyed on his head.  He is holding the burnt umber kettle up, a wide grin on his face, and I realize the room that I'd thought of as possessed of a silence so complete has really been full with the laughter and muffled voices of the picnic all along.