Milton said to Fielding, “You might as well hand over that cash right now, Brother, because I can feel the vibrations around people and my feelings say that was Patrick.”
Milton then said to me, “Doug, you want in on this?” and Fielding said, “Doug can’t be in on this, Milton. We’ve got three wagers on three men. What is Doug going to do, bet on Herbert and Patrick?”
“Oh, yes. You’re right.”
Fielding suggested, “Doug can hold the pot. Is that all right with you, Doug?”
“Sure.”
“Everyone give Doug twenty dollars.”
In this way I came into a modest short-term loan. I tucked the money into my billfold for safekeeping. By then we had made it, our little group, to the oak table and dinner, and so it was time for us to go separate directions in search of assigned seats. What I mean is that Milton, Pierce, and Fielding all went one way, while I headed another through the crowd.
This then was that part of the evening when we all came together as a family at last around one table.
As always before dinner, Jeremiah was directing traffic and losing his patience when people neglected to sit, or refused to sit, where the seating chart required.
The chart is color-coded on construction paper, three feet by four feet unrolled, eraser-streaked, specific. Hiram goes at the table’s head. This is a particular that never varies — Hiram’s inked in — because who would dare steal this man’s place? According to the chart, Hiram sits with his back to the rose window, in a wooden chair that resembles — what else — a throne. Hiram, eating dinner, looks tiny in his oversize chair; all that is visible of him is the crown of his head and speckled hands reaching up from below the table’s edge to grasp cutlery. Fortunately, Donovan’s place is on Hiram’s left. Donovan carves the old man’s vegetables into squares and manually helps Hiram lift fork to mouth. This is moving and dispiriting to watch. The table’s corner, directly to the left of Donovan, is where Lester belongs. Lester and Donovan look alike and celebrate the same birthday, though Donovan is the older of the two by several years. Lester keeps Donovan company while Donovan slices food for Hiram. These men are old pals. Around the corner from them, at the first setting along the oak table’s protracted straightaway, is their brother Porter. Following Porter on the seating chart are Chuck, Henry, Drake, Eric, and Phil. All these names are written in lemon yellow pencil. After that it’s downhill for many chairs. Frank, Noah, Jim, Vaughan, Dennis, Tom, and a few others occupy a blue-designated “quiet zone” in which nobody talks except to request salt or the potatoes. The quiet zone was founded long ago, by Jim, who at some point decided that our dinner hour had become so clamorous he couldn’t stand it. It goes without saying that they get a lot of grief, these quiet eaters, from across the table. First on Hiram’s right comes Richard. Hiram likes Richard and Richard is fond of Hiram; both are sufferers in the body, and maybe that’s the reason; Richard, as I think I have mentioned, has that neurological problem. Who cares to watch his head bob wildly as he raises his glass to drink? Seamus is often asleep and probably that is why Jeremiah seats him next to the jiggling man. Seamus and Hiram reminisce about long-ago football glories whenever Seamus is not dozing in his chair. Around this right-hand corner, then, comes a gang of buddies all in a line. Ralph, Nick, Allan, Jacob, Aaron, and Raymond sit together, have sat together, in the same seats, for as long as anyone remembers. They’re polite as a rule, though they raise their voices when the talk turns to money. After this group come rowdies who drink far too much red wine and make loud trouble for the quiet zone opposite. Everyone agrees Topper, Temple, Denzil, Fish, and Mongo should be relocated, but for reasons of his own Jeremiah won’t approve. Dining next to Mongo is Simon, who hates every minute. Jonathan’s chair is beside Simon’s. Next the chart shows, in bold red crayon, a three-man “medical” block consisting of Anton, Irving, and our physician, Barry. Anton is chronically depressed, and Irv takes clozapine to inhibit visual and auditory hallucinations of marauding hordes of men storming across an open meadow to personally attack and crush him. Barry runs frequent blood tests on both men; he likes to keep an eye on their diets, and that is the principal reason these three sit next to the left-handed vegetarians — Foster, Andrew, Eli, Milton, Pierce, Fielding — one after another marked off in green pencil down the table. Straight across from the vegetarians is a seat that remains empty. This is George’s. If George ever shows up for dinner, he’ll have his old place, no question. Twins come after George, one set only, Michael and Abraham. Jeremiah objects to overlarge cliques — they create dead spots and really bring a table down — and he already graciously allows Jim’s quiet zone. Certain young fathers — Clay, Seth, Vidal, Gustavus, Joe — follow the twins. These men are discouraged from reading pornography at mealtime, but as a rule Joe pilfers something lewd and beautiful from the glass cabinet, spreads this on the oak table. This offends Winston and Charles. Fights break out. The fights are rarely physical. Winston and Charles are always calmed from across the table by their brothers Lawrence and Peter. After Winston and Charles comes Vincent, and after Vincent comes Paul, then Russel, then Spencer, then Sergio. Sergio is a good talker; he keeps the ball rolling. Across on the right-hand side of the table, it’s Christopher, Stephen, Siegfried — these three truly enjoy one another’s company — followed down the line by two more young fathers, Brice and Dutch, and next to Dutch, written in bright, bright orange — I’ve never figured out the logic behind this — yours truly. It’s a dismal state of affairs all around. On my right I’m joined by Jack in his safari costume. It gets worse. To Jack’s immediate right, two seats down from me, we find the last twins, Scott and Samuel, and after these comes Kevin. What this means is that there is no one to chat with and dinner is a chore, and there is no point looking across the table for company, because here’s who’s there: Rex, Mr. Gruff; Bertram, Mr. Nosebleeds; Walter, Mr. Wattled Boar. Next of course comes unhappy Virgil, who dislikes Walter as much as I do. Max at least makes interesting conversation. He sits far away at the end of the table, but he and I can sometimes manage a dialogue if we shout over the heads of Kevin and Angus and the others crowded near the corner. It’s always a hardship when Max can’t make it for dinner. On those occasions Zachary gets plenty of extra elbow room at his place beside Maxwell’s chair. In fact there is no good seat for Zachary. He picks on everyone and no one is safe. Bob can at least check Zachary’s reaching around to steal leftovers from Albert’s plate. It’s a lucky thing for Albert that he is adapted to his condition, that he experiences his blindness more as a trial than a deprivation. The sightless man is quite unlike Hiram, who lives with a body that will hardly cooperate with the simplest desires for comfort and mobility. It is true that there is dignity in the freedom to act in a material way upon one’s world. Hiram’s predictable violence is, in part, his expression of former volition. I think we all understand this.
Far down the table, down the long ranks of men facing each other, past the quiet zone and the vocal womanizers and the left-handed vegetarians, down between Bob and Albert at the foot of the oak table, far from Hiram and with an unobstructed view of glowing candelabra and steaming food trays, of silver spoons and our flushed faces beneath the radiant purple window that seems to float up in darkness behind Hiram’s wooden throne — down here, viewing all this and more from the foot of our extraordinarily lengthy table, from its other head, is our Benedict.
Some nights Benedict will bring a bit of “work” from his entomology laboratory, a living specimen, or, if we’re blessed, several, sealed in a dish. Brothers gather around to hear Benedict describe the pellucid egg sac depending from the thorax of a black beetle that displays horns and an armored casing harder and more resilient than our very own bone-china demitasse cups. If we’re really lucky, Benedict will arrange his beetles on the table and they’ll sprint from place setting to place setting. Occasionally bets are taken, favorite beetles named, finish lines drawn with mayonnaise. You wouldn’t think a bug race could be so exciting. Frequently a beetle will detour, climb into someone’s soup, and kick around awhile before drowning. This can be a tension breaker on nights when we brothers are not getting along. It’s always some twin who shouts, “Benedict, take your roaches off the table! They’re covered with germs!”