He, Jason, and Joshua set the table(s). Jeremiah ran a tight operation. “Don’t forget to fill the water pitchers. Get more ice from Clayton. Where are the pepper grinders? Those place mats, turn them around so the lion’s head design is in the upper left corner. We’ll put pork chops here, here, here, here, here, and here. Peas can go here, here, and over here. Casserole here and here and there and here. Don’t forget the steam trays. Give me that butter dish. There are fingerprints on it.”
Then he began dealing out those engraved silver cards. A few watchers loitered nearby, restless, sipping drinks, checking to see where Jeremiah would station them, and once in a while saying to him, as he penciled in names on his color-coded Plan, “Do you think you could squeeze me in near the window for a change?” or “Can I not be next to Mongo?”
“I’ll see what I can do for you,” Jeremiah answered, and carried on with his business as if no one had said anything at all to him.
For my part I also like sitting near a window. You have the advantage of a breeze if things get too stuffy. The great drawback, as if this needs pointing out, is the view to the meadow and those men and women leaning together for warmth. Once or twice in the past I have chanced to look out and have seen, beyond the garden wall, a face, or so I thought, visible by firelight. But immediately the face disappeared, and whatever had seemed to me, in that instant, familiar — this disappeared as well, and I could not have told you who it was I thought I had seen, or what I had found so compelling. Probably everyone has had this kind of disconcerting experience. You spot someone in the distance, someone from the past. Someone who was once important to you. It can be shocking — recognition’s unanticipated rush of confusion and expectancy. The truth is that you do not, quite often, know the person. Perhaps you’ve already hollered a loud “Hello!” and instantly you feel absurd and guilty because the person is looking at you with a cautious but hopeful expression. The person, it turns out, is a stranger. So, precisely what is it that was recognized? The contour of a nose? In other words, how does the profile or posture of a stranger hold the power to summon strong and painful excitement in us? This question, applied to my current situation, might be: What is it about a view from a partly opened window that is so seductive and so frightening; and why do I therefore come to my place at the dinner table with such longing and dread? It goes without saying that my appetite for food is compromised by the terror of looking out the window.
Overhead, dim chandeliers flickered off and on at the ends of their twenty golden ropes. The long, snaking line of men to the bar was growing less long. Hiram’s walker clacked across floorboards. Clacked again. It seemed to me that the walker should have worn rubber pads, to muffle sound and increase traction. Perhaps the walker had had pads once and they’d fallen off. It sounded as if Hiram was gouging the floor with a trowel. Each step brought scuffing and digging. I didn’t want to say anything to Hiram about this. The soprano was singing and the dog was barking and people were trying their best under difficult circumstances to have a good time and avoid depression; and this floor has been a pitted, scraped wreck for as long as anyone can remember. Why fuss?
Hiram paused on his walker and glared in my direction. His injured hand was swollen and large. He inhaled a shallow breath. He was having trouble and his mouth was working. He said, “Doug, do you think you might grace us tonight with the costumed dance of our ancestors?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“I think I speak for all of us when I say that your performance is something we look forward to enjoying on nights like tonight.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Hiram. I think it’s valuable for us, as a family, to have our annual reminder of who we are and where we come from, in a cultural sense. The Corn King is as much a part of our collective history as are, well, these animals that Father shot”—waving my arm at a cheetah and a couple of denuded wildebeests, all hung in a row on the water-stained wall.
Hiram nodded and said, “I couldn’t agree more, Doug. I always look forward to the winter night when you take off your clothes and put on the mask made of wood and hair.”
“Yes.”
“I especially like the chase through the library. What a thrill.”
“It’s always exciting for me, too, Hiram.”
He said, “The late-night cries of strong young men take me back to my own youth. In those days we had pain and lots of it. Where did you get those flowers?”
“William.”
“You should trim their stalks and put them in a vase before they turn brown and die.”
“I was looking for a vase, actually.”
“There’s one somewhere. You’ll find it,” he said as he gripped the walker with his good hand; he heaved himself up, scooted the walker forward on the floor, took another labored step (onto the edge of the carpet with its knotted fringe that caught and became tangled as the walker’s legs scraped past) in the direction of the oak table. He said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. I could eat a side of beef if I had my original teeth. Remember always to care for your teeth, Doug.”
“I will.”
“Do you floss? Flossing is more important than brushing, I can tell you. Too much vigorous brushing as a young man was my downfall. You scrub away the gums and before you know it the roots of your teeth are exposed to the elements and it murders you to chew, and then one after another you lose your teeth like you lose everything in life.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Your teeth are your greatest possession. You probably think your greatest possession is your Johnson. But it’s not your johnson, it’s your teeth, especially your two front teeth.”
“Hmn.”
“These right here,” he said, opening his mouth wide to insert fingers. He touched the teeth in question, the upper incisors; he pointed these out, and when he did, when he touched these dentures, they moved. They were loose in his mouth, insecurely fastened and slipping off the gum. The effect was grotesque: Hiram’s teeth hanging at an angle, wobbling in his mouth, licked by Hiram’s tongue and about to fall out, as he commanded, “Stow those flowers in a vase before the petals fall off.”