I explained to Lillian how in the winter, when a fat horse isn’t being exercised much, it doesn’t need much grain. Too much grain and it builds up too much glucose. In turn this can cause an overgrowth of bacteria that can cause laminitis in its hooves and make it painful for a horse to stand. Cut back the grain, almost to nothing, I told her. Oh dear, Lillian said. He’s been getting two big scoops of it a day, on top of his flakes of hay. He won’t like being cut back. I nodded. I knew how hard it was to cut back on an animal’s feed. I always fed the dogs too much myself. Yes, but he’ll only get worse if you don’t, I said. In the meantime, Lillian said, what about drugs? Can’t you give me something for his pain? I want lots of drugs. When I was in the ICU, I told them I’m as old as the hinges of hell and I feel like shit and I want all the drugs you can throw at me, and so they did. I love drugs, Lillian said. I walked out to the back of my truck. I handed Lillian some Banamine pills and bute paste. Lovely, she said, taking them in her leather-gloved hands. We were standing on a nice spot of her property. A number of snow-covered hills could be seen from where we were. The sun was shining, and the snow looked like ice, slick and glistening. The King Charles dog was looking up at us while Lillian and I talked. He had soft brown eyes, and his little tail wagged gracefully, as if the words we said were words directed toward him. I bent down and petted him, and he smelled my pants at the knee, and smiled up at me. Then the springer spaniel took off, jumping over the snow-covered stone wall, and Lillian called to him, telling him to come back. I don’t need him running out into the road and getting run over, though at least you’d be here to patch him together again. What’s he after anyway? Lately he’s been going batty at night. He runs back and forth in the field and barks at the sky for hours. Do you think he sees things we can’t? Lillian asked. I told Lillian I didn’t know. What about drugs? Do you have something I can give him that will make him stop? she asked. Try exercising him more in the day. He’ll be too tired at night, I said. No drugs? Lillian said sadly. No drugs, I said. Besides, he might really be seeing something in the sky. You don’t want him doped up. He could save your life, I said. I didn’t want to tell her about the spacecraft I’d seen in the sky at our house. I didn’t want her to think her veterinarian was as batty as her springer spaniel.
WHAT I SAID: He might be a tracker. He might be able to solve a crime, he might be useful around here, don’t you think? I said. Lillian looked right at me. Maybe so, she said, but I don’t think it takes any genius to figure out who’s committing all the crimes around here. It doesn’t? I said. No, look at that John Bennett’s driveway and you can tell he’s up to no good. He’s got six Saabs sitting there. I heard his bear dog ripped the throat of the sheepdog next door. He hunts bear? I said. Bear, coon, coyote, buck, duck, hell, anything that moves, she said. Grouse? I said. Oh yeah, he’s a louse all right, she said. What about Greg Springer? I said. Greg Springer? He’s a kind soul. Everyone makes fun of him keeping his cows in his basement, but I’ve gone down there in that very basement. That’s the nicest cleanest driest basement in the whole town. He’s got those cows right up cozy against the water heater. Those are the happiest cows around, Lillian said. No, that Greg Springer gets hell because of how he looks and how he dresses, but people shouldn’t be shoving their noses into other people’s business. It’s that John Bennett they should be pointing fingers at.
WHAT I DO INSTEAD OF DRIVING STRAIGHT HOME: Stop at John Bennett’s. Lillian’s right. He’s got six Saabs sitting in his driveway, but none of them has tires. There’s no smoke coming from the chimney and no one has shoveled the walk since the last snow. I start thinking John Bennett must have skipped town.
WHAT’S NOT IN THE SKY WHEN I DRIVE HOME: The spacecraft.
WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAY TO ME WHEN I GET HOME: Pop, a deer was killed in Brownsville. It was hit by a car while trying to cross the road. The police came and shot it because its leg was broken. Will they eat the deer?
WHAT I SAY: Yes, I hope so.
WHAT THE WIFE COOKS FOR DINNER: Beef soup made with okra and corn, and biscuits. The children poked their fingers into the middle of the biscuits, and then poured honey into the holes they had made.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Easy on the honey, we need it for other things.
WHAT WE SAY: Like what?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I don’t know, just other things. And another thing, stop leaving your shoes in the living room, stop leaving the bathrooms for me to clean, stop leaving the dishes for me to do, and stop leaving the dinners for me to cook.
WHAT I SAY TO THE WIFE: Leave the room. We don’t want to hear it.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I don’t know. I stopped listening to her. I watched the children filling their biscuit pools with the golden honey.
WHAT WE HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR NOW: Peanut butter jars and mayonnaise jars where the bottoms are concave, saving the manufacturer money so he doesn’t have to use as much food to fill up the jar, but can charge the same price as the old jars where the bottoms were flatter.
WHAT MY CHILDREN DO: Run to the pantry and pull out jars we have recently bought. Look how they’re cheating us, the children say, holding up the bottoms of the jars to me. How can they cheat us like this? the children say. The children shake their heads. We are all sad, for a moment, about the injustices in our world.
WHAT MY DOCTOR DOES: Catches me at home. I pick up the phone, thinking it’s a call from a client. Before I know it’s him, I think it’s my father on the phone, just from the sound of his voice. I think my father is calling me, and I’m happy to talk to him, and I forget the impossibility of the situation, the fact being my father is dead, has been dead for a number of years. Died of lung cancer in a senior home called Sunrise, but I was always forgetting the name and calling it Sunset. The doctor has a gentle reminder for me. That is what he calls it, a gentle reminder. I’m past due for coming in to have my levels checked. He is looking forward to seeing me. He hopes that my family and I are well. Well? I want to say. I think of Sam, his eyes unopened in the yellow pastel room. I think of my wife, slipping into bed next to Sam, who still sleeps with a wizened chicken heart by his ear. I think what I hate to think about, that Sam may never wake up. I think about Sarah and Mia, interrupting their dinner to run to the pantry to find plastic jars and hold up their bottoms so I can see how we’re being robbed on a daily basis. Yes, we’re all fine, I say. I tell him I’ll be holding off on being retested. I tell him I don’t see the point in doing it again so soon. It’s sometimes good to know these things, he says. I tell him I know what he’s trying to say, but sometimes, I tell him, it’s also good not to know these things. He tells me it’s my choice. Why is he telling me that when I already know it’s my choice? Thank you, I say. You’re welcome, he says, and I know by the tone of his voice that I’ve disappointed him.
CALL: No call. I drive to John Bennett’s house. I sit parked, looking at it, waiting for signs of life, maybe his dog bouncing and barking, trying to look out a ground-floor window at who has parked on the side of the road, but there is no dog, and still no smoke coming from the chimney top.