“I’d rather not, Doug. I don’t think I can bear to talk to everyone right now. Maybe later”—sighing.
“I understand.”
“Take the flowers? Please?” he said, and offered me these lilies. I accepted and told him, “They’re very beautiful. You’re kind to bring them. Thank you, William.”
“You’re welcome, Doug.” He retreated into the shadows. His retreating voice said, “You look good, Doug. Life is treating you well. Let’s chat sometime.”
Then he was gone behind European Folklore and Mythology, and I clutched the lilies he had brought for us.
In the library’s open spaces men tramped singly or with buddies toward the drinks table. Others already with drinks stood drinking. They were lucky to have these drinks. By now the press around the bar would be enormous, five guys deep at least. It would take an eternity to get served. Clayton and Rob would’ve poured the last Johnnie Walker Black and there’d be nothing remaining but Johnnie Walker Red, if that, or maybe Four Roses brand, one of the gallon discounts that are admissible late at night but which you never want in the beginning. That’s the way life goes around here. The blinking lights. The dry taste in the mouth. The body’s craving need for something cold and warm at the same time.
Out into the milling crowd I hurled myself, out in search of a suitable vase for William’s gift. The lilies with their long, thick stems, their lush, drooping blooms, required a large, heavy vessel — precisely what I could not locate.
“Does anyone know where I can find a vase that’ll hold these?” I asked a group loitering around the Native American stone-tool collection in its metal and glass display case. Dennis shrugged and Noah said, “Sorry.” Jim, who often does not speak, even when spoken to — he’s a contemplative Buddhist — suggested, “Try over by the African masks.”
Eventually one of us was going to crash down his glass or an ashtray too hard on that stone-tool display table and there would be a mess. I said, “You guys, be careful using that as a table because it isn’t designed to support weight.”
I did not mean to scold my brothers, but what can you do when people have no sense?
“Seen a vase, anyone?” I asked another bunch as I hurried past their leather sofa and chairs pulled up close in a circle.
“Not me,” Lewis said.
“Maybe on the mantel,” said Drake.
Then Lewis asked, “Have you checked the telephone table?”
“Which telephone table?” I asked him.
“The black one.”
“I’ll try there,” I said. Then advised, “Take off your shoes if you’re going to put your feet on the furniture because you’ll scuff the leather.”
On my way across the room I hurried past Barry on the floor. Violet hematomas colored the skin beneath Barry’s eyes. Nobody was tending to the doctor. Presumably this was because he was a doctor and could look after himself.
I made a mental note to look in on him after I got rid of the flowers and picked up a toddy from the bar, that is, if he was still not moving.
“Excuse me,” I said then as I elbowed past Richard, walking quickly toward me without looking where he was going. “Oh, I’m sorry, Doug. I didn’t see you,” Richard apologized, and I told him, “Open your eyes and pay attention before you hurt someone, okay?”
“Having a bad night, Doug?”
I considered. “No.” Then considered further. “Maybe.” After another moment’s thought, I said, “The noise in here is getting on my nerves.”
He nodded his head, as if in agreement, and I realized he wasn’t agreeing; his head always bobs up and down because he has no control over the muscles in his neck; it’s a neurological disorder, not unlike Tourette’s, though much milder and without the obsessive, repetitive vocalizing. Symptoms include subtle motor perseveration affecting the upper torso and, when Richard is greatly agitated, the limbs; and, though benign, this is disconcerting to watch.
Affably, irritatingly, metronomically, Richard’s head bobbed. “Don’t like the music, Doug?”
“The music is pleasant but it’s too loud. Why do those guys need to crank up the stereo like that? And Chuck’s dog is driving me nuts. Can’t he teach it to shut up? A person can’t think with that barking.”
“The dog is just excited and happy to be a dog. He’ll calm down eventually.”
“Let’s hope so for his sake,” I said, contemplating the needles and the vials hidden in my coat pocket. It would not be difficult to dispatch Gunner for the night, or, for that matter, longer.
Up, down went Richard’s head. The sight of this filled me with loathing. “Richard, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to find a vase and water for these lilies.” Already the flowers’ lengthy stems appeared to be wilting. But they weren’t wilting. They were bent, because I had gripped them tightly and crushed their stalks. I never was much good with plants. I tried cradling the crooked lilies, tenderly as if they were a child in my arms. I feared damaging the blooms. The blooms were heavy and sagged downward. What was the proper way to carry a spray of blooming lilies?
Upside down, as Parisians do! Held this way, with my arm at my side, the lilies cascaded almost to the floor. My walking style involves some rhythmic arm swinging; I had to exercise control in order not to kick the swaying petals with my shoes. I extended my right arm and held the flowers away, at an angle, thirty degrees or more from my side. My left hand I stowed in my sport coat’s outside pocket, along with the stethoscope coiled there; pliant tubing gave this hand something to keep busy with as I shuffled across the room. I had the creeping feeling, as I scouted around for a roomy vase, of a kind of theatrically extreme body consciousness — as if my affected, wary attentiveness to movement and positioning, vis-à-vis flowers, somehow invited my brothers’ stares. A bouquet invariably draws attention to its holder. Still, I felt edgy and ill at ease, when Seamus, who was eating a piece of cheese, called out, his mouth full, “Hey, Doug, you’re dragging those on the rug.”
“Fuck off, Seamus. Why don’t you help me find a vase instead of stuffing your face. What are you drinking?”
“Vodka.”
“Give me a sip.”
“Sorry, man. Get your own.”
“Come on, Seamus. A sip?”
“I had to stand in line for this, Doug.”
Why argue? I could see that Seamus’s tumbler was all but drained. He was down to broken ice. A full-strength libation, mixed to order by the excellent Clayton, was what the onset of night called for. And it was, in the deepest sense, night. Freezing drafts seeped in. Gales outside gained swiftness. Damn that garden gate. Seamus raised his vodka glass, and ice clinked down the glass toward his mouth as, cruelly, he drank.
“Go easy on that stuff,” I advised him, and he replied drolly, “That’s like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it, Doug?”
Here was a perfect instance of an untoward personal criticism offered in a somewhat inappropriate setting. Family affairs are always tiresome. There’s nothing new about that. Yet there was no reason for Seamus to manifest his discomfort by handing out unsolicited character assessments. What number drink was Seamus on? He could easily have tossed one back at the drinks table before carrying away this sweaty, empty vodka clutched in his hand. Or he might’ve thrown down several immediately. Though it is, I can assure you, a chore to get more than two glasses lined up on our folding-table bar. The jostling of the crowd. Voices hollering their multiple orders. I like to ask for my usual double, plus some not-too-sweet mixed drink, to nurse in private. What’s so wicked about that?
Seamus’s face as he swallowed his last taste of watery vodka had its familiar worried look, the thin gray lips pressed firmly together, eyes reddish and glancing nervously in the direction of our bar. He was getting anxious, I guessed, about the prospect of more to drink and how long it would take to get it. He was not paying attention to me in the least, when I asked him, “Do you think our garden wall is high enough to keep people from entering the grounds?”