“People?” he said in a voice that sounded blurry and unconcerned. He peered down into the vodka glass — intently, as if maybe looking to discover something interesting among the puddling ice bits. Perspiration made Seamus’s wide, round face glisten. He looked as if he might have come from a sauna. He sighed, “Did you hear the news about Russel?”
“What news?”
“I don’t have this from the horse’s mouth, but apparently there’s something wrong with Russel’s throwing arm.”
“Oh, no.”
“The arm and shoulder are so vulnerable to injury at Russel’s age.”
“How old is Russel?”
“Couldn’t tell you, exactly. We’re not getting any younger, any of us.”
“That’s a fact.”
“Do you ever feel old yourself, Doug?”
“How do you mean?”
“Old, old.”
“I occasionally have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, if that’s what you mean.”
“Because I was wondering if we could count on your help if the team needs it next Sunday afternoon at three against the Episcopal Ministers.”
“It’s been years since I’ve played, Seamus. I wouldn’t even know how anymore.”
“You were a top player once, Doug. You were a star. Father always said you were best.”
There followed, at this, an interval of silence between us, after which Seamus went on, “Anyway, no one cares anymore about that ridiculous blunder in that unimportant championship match. Fumbles are part of the game. It’s a shame when a team captain drops the ball in his own end zone just as the clock is running out, but that’s fate, what’s over is over, what’s done is done, there’s no going back and what’s the point in picking at a sore spot? Everyone agrees if you’d had better blocking, things would’ve turned out differently. You took some quality hits and there’s nothing more challenging than holding on to a wet ball, and the playing field was damp that day if I recall. At any rate it was a long time back and we’ve all put it out of our minds.” Seamus gazed sleepily off toward the drinks table. He rambled on, “Talent like yours never really goes away. It’s like riding a bicycle. Promise me you’ll consider it, Doug. With you calling the plays and throwing the long ball, we could have the upper hand against the Ministers.”
I told Seamus that I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to play ball, though I was flattered he’d asked and I’d think about it as long as it was understood I wasn’t making any commitments. “I barely find time in my schedule for the genealogical survey I’ve been working on. You’ll be interested to know, Seamus, that I’ve recently discovered a namesake of yours in a ship’s registry. Not, I might add, the first such ship’s registry I have encountered in my researches concerning our family. At any rate, there’s a Seamus in the registry for a voyage out of Portsmouth bound for the Ivory Coast and from there with its cargo, so called, to the New World. In the year 1811. Perhaps you’d like to stop by my study area later, and I’ll show you your name. It’s right there in the log. It’s clearly legible. How about that?”
Seamus said, “Doug, forget that family history crap and come out Sunday and tug on the old jersey. It’ll make you feel like a boy again, believe me. And, Doug, don’t worry about the rush. With Gregory at the line of scrimmage, no Episcopal Minister will lay a hand on you.”
“Gregory is an Episcopal minister.”
Again Seamus gazed down into his vodka glass and, seeing its emptiness, sighed. In a weary voice he told me, “Whatever else you might believe about Gregory, he’s loyal to family. He blocks for us.”
All this time while talking and listening to Seamus, I was also hoping to myself that this man would not succumb to one of his narcoleptic interludes. For this especially was the time, true night and the light in the red library dreary and thin. Seamus was, I felt, a bit heated up over certain issues, issues that could be considered highly charged, emotionally charged and capable of sending my brother into the narcoleptic’s reflexive, precipitous sleep. It doesn’t take much in the way of sorrow or distress to knock him out. There was, for instance, that troubling question of Russel’s arm in relation to next Sunday’s match. This was clearly a source of worry for our whole team. Seamus, in particular, seemed to feel a heavy burden of collective anxiety. Russel’s injury was a reminder, to Seamus and the rest of us, of the sadness and frustration that accompany aging. Then there was Seamus’s repressed rage and disappointment with me for letting the team down in the past, not to mention the extreme tension that must have been occasioned by what I took to be a narcissistic dilemma. I’m referring to Seamus’s recollection of father’s admiration for my throwing ability. This must’ve pained my brother — notice his attempt to recover self-esteem by proxy: that unconvincing affirmation of Gregory’s team spirit. Probably Seamus’s upbeat assessment of Gregory’s personality could be attributed to “first drink” enthusiasm for the night ahead and all the fun we would have together in the red library. This, then, would explain the disillusionment and depression triggered by the sheer fact of Seamus’s barren, empty cocktail glass, his searching recognition of its watery emptiness.
As I was saying, it doesn’t take much to deliver my brother into a deep, imperturbable sleep.
Seamus’s eyelids fluttered. Men abroad in the room’s lamplit distance were indistinct wandering figures. Some idled in the shadows as dialogues went on concerning business transactions or the unsightliness of someone’s clothes or what hour dinner might finally be served since it was getting late, approaching eight already and high time for another round. “What’re you having?” could be heard, answered with:
“Gin.”
“Sherry, please.”
“A glass of white.”
“Another bourbon and water on the rocks if it’s no trouble, Clayton, you can make that a tall one.”
The festivities were gearing up. With the usual exception of the twins, groups of talking brothers were nebulous and permeable; in other words, drinkers with their drinks came and went from small cluster to small cluster until there were no more separate clusters, only a dense, chattering, semicontinuous current of bodies around the room and past the bar. Gentlemanly footfalls rumbled. Someone had turned the music loud but our voices rose louder. Who can abide these unquiet hours before dinner is wheeled out and arranged in trays on the oak table beneath the rose window that faces down on dead topiary?
Under moonlight our old trees take scary shapes. It’s better, I think, to stay away from windows and not look down on those twisted silhouettes of animals and birds that seem to scream at you from leafless perches. Of course it’s only wind screaming as usual through branches that creak, snap off, drop to the ground. I have suggested taking the ax — or a chain saw? — to the entire, warped grove, but no one will hear of this. “We could burn off the stumps, roll the grass, string a net, and play lawn tennis,” I once proposed to a crowd seated around a low table spread with foreign-language periodicals. To which someone, it was Forrest if I recollect, looked up from Italian Vogue and replied, “In this wind?”
I looked back toward Seamus and saw that he was swaying in place, as if he were himself a kind of tall, old, bare tree, windblown and bending forward precariously with head down. His eyes were shut or almost shut; their lids fluttered. Backward Seamus leaned. His feet — in supple brown shoes — remained anchored. That glass was in his hand. It might’ve been wise to reach out and take this empty glass before Seamus let it drop, but Seamus’s arms were waving, and once this begins it is best to avoid disturbing him because reckless arm gestures mean he is fast asleep on his feet and may not respond nicely to touch. An episode like this can last a few minutes or several hours, during which time Seamus, for reasons no one understands, will attempt to pick his way across the room through open stacks to the bathroom.