“What time is it?” asked Nick.
“It’s after two,” Ralph said, and Angus asked, “Can it be that late?” and Gregory said, “I don’t see how,” but Frank insisted, “It is after two,” and Angus argued, “But we just ate,” to which Ralph replied, “We ate hours ago.” I interrupted, “Quiet in the huddle. Pay attention. Has anyone got anything to drink? The quarterback needs a drink.”
After that our huddle did fall quiet. You could feel, I thought, that everyone was a little depressed.
I told the team, “I’ll fake a handoff to Angus. Angus, go short up the weak side and cut left at the third reindeer. Nick, go wide down the line along Intellectual History. Topper, go for the long toss up the middle over Maxwell, then fake like you’re going to high-step over Virgil, but cut across Barry instead.”
We lined up. Facing us on defense were drunks. The dog, my constant companion, trotted up and — when Mongo bent over to hike the tasseled blue pillow — sniffed between Mongo’s legs. I tugged Gunner out of the way, stuck my hands where the dog’s face had been — it felt warm between Mongo’s legs — and called:
“Hike.”
It’s hard to say what happened after that. Mongo shoved the pillow into my hands and I faked the handoff to Angus. Angus ran off and vanished directly into Eighteenth Century Novels while Topper bolted down the rug. Nick fell down and Gregory crunched Bob, and you could hear an audible crack like vertebrae snapping when Bob collapsed in a heap. I noticed Lester standing by the sidelines with an ice chunk in one hand and my whiskey in the other, so I zigzagged over and exclaimed, “Lester, the ankle got better by itself! Isn’t that remarkable? I won’t be needing the ice! Thanks anyway.” I ran in place while Mongo blocked for me and Lester held out the whiskey. I grabbed this from Lester, drank, then handed back the empty glass and returned to the game refreshed. Right away I could see that there were too many things happening at once. Nick had picked himself up and made a beeline down the stacks, then gotten involved in an argument with several twins. Topper had made good progress down the carpet and was darting back and forth, back and forth, leaping over Virgil, leaping over Barry, trying to get in the open. Frank and Joe butted heads and Frank toppled backward. Gunner sniffed Bob. Topper plowed into a coffee table and there was a disturbing crash. The chandeliers blinked; visibility was a problem. I was standing beneath the water stain, and I looked up at this, and suddenly — just as I was getting positioned to lob the pillow to Topper standing tall on the broken table, excitedly waving his arms — suddenly there was Father, up in the lights, looking incredibly huge and damp on our decomposing ceiling, puffing his cigarette and staring straight down at me.
Father’s mouth opened. Leaking black water poured from the ceiling as he commanded:
“Run.”
I tucked that pillow under my arm, stepped left to avoid being tackled by Clay, spun to the right for no reason at all, and tore off down the carpet. Far in the distance were the African masks, and I suppose I was aiming to race down and snag one off the wall, put it on, and wear it as a helmet. From every side, men charged after me. “Kill the man with the ball!” a voice shouted, and I knew that I was doomed. I could hear — and feel, through our rotting floorboards — my brothers’ dozens of thundering, running, stomping shoes. It seemed to me as I fled my brothers that it would be good if we could, at some point, get together, stop trying to kill each other, and find Father’s ashes — take care of that urn, so that these inconvenient, late-night visitations might not take place, and people would not have to get hurt.
The shoes stampeded toward me down the antique carpet. Gales forced snow through our open windows. I dashed between two chairs, then veered off course to avoid a triplet. Gunner was right behind me and he cornered violently and I heard his claws tearing the rug. We were running away from the African masks. My eye was swollen and I could not see well. “Lead the way, Gunner,” I called to the Doberman, and sure enough the dog sprinted out ahead of me and bounded over a low table that seemed to rise out of nowhere. I jumped with all my might and sailed over and landed on the icy floor without breaking a single ashtray, vase, or empty glass. This gave me hope and made me feel that I was not an old man. Youthful feelings did not last because I can never allow myself to feel good for very long. The dog skittered through slushy ice piled high beneath the windows. I glanced out a window and was relieved to see that the bad weather had reduced visibility, and that the fires in our meadow were little more than faraway lights, glowing, almost fading, set beautifully against the night.
Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.
And already I was having trouble breathing. I clutched the sofa pillow. Men pursuing me were not far behind. The Doberman regarded me with mournful eyes. I whispered to him, “Everything is going to be all right, Gunner.”
“Kill Doug! Kill the Corn King! Carve out his heart!” a voice called. I turned and watched Clay vault over the coffee table. Behind Clay came Gregory. After Gregory came Arthur, Rex, Pierce, Kevin, Vaughan, and — at the rear of this line, though not far behind and moving forward quickly, taking long strides and towering over other men — Zachary. Another group of ten approached from the north, cutting off escape in this direction. Stragglers grabbed knives from our dinner table and made serpentine runs around card tables and chairs. “Go this way! Go that way!” men yelled. Windows rattled and the rotting curtains sailed upward on drafts of air. Siegfried, Porter, Raymond, and Tom jogged in a group across the rug. Siegfried was sweating and red in the face beneath lights that dangled like clock weights over all our heads; and the water streamed down in a river from Father’s mouth; and somewhere in the near distance another article of glass or china crashed to the floor. I said, “Gunner, we need to hide,” and the dog wagged his tail then dashed immediately off through the snow and ice.
The dog led me into a shadowy region between rows of shelves that held boxes. The boxes were unmarked, identical, gray, taped shut. Water dripped loudly around us, and some was collected in pools on the uneven floor. We splashed through. Gunner sniffed at boxes stacked on the lower shelves. His nose led him down the aisle of boxes. Together we stalked along. The narrow and damp passageway became darker and darker, and it seemed — though of course this could not have been the case; there were no stairs here — that the dog and I were descending into another realm of the library, going down through some old, forgotten tunnel that took us below and away from the lively center of things. In fact, no place in the red library is terribly distant from any other. Nor are there tunnels. This was a sensory illusion and it meant that I was about to undergo a panic attack. The noises of running men came from all around, a crashing riot that caused the dog to whimper and me to sweat. I could feel the floor vibrate as my brothers’ feet sped by on the other side of the boxes. From behind us and from up ahead came mysterious, threatening sounds, little scuffs and bumps — as if men were sneaking up to bushwhack us, or searching out dark alcoves, hidden places for a person to lean back, stand very still, and wait before jumping out. I was sure I could hear breathing. This may have been water, dripping. Dust covered dry stretches of floor and I saw that the dog and I were leaving paw- and footprints, a wet trail. I knelt and used the blue pillow to sweep the floor and erase tracks. The dust floated up. Ours were not the only prints visible on the floor. Someone wearing large shoes, size twelve or, possibly, thirteen, had passed this way. Falling water got louder as we walked along; and the air felt still and close; and the whole tunnel sensation grew acute. I felt entombed. Shelf after shelf of unlabeled boxes walled our passageway; and of course Gunner halted, from time to time, to sniff one. I whispered to him, “Gunner, we don’t have time for that now,” and remarkably, this dog seemed to understand. He abandoned the boxes and trotted ahead, claws clicking against the floor. Could the claws be heard at a distance? It did appear, from the economy and gentleness of the dog’s movements, that, in spite of claws, Gunner was trying his best to avoid making noise. Brothers hunting in packs yelled to one another, and I was glad under the circumstances to have an animal helper. I whispered, “Go find the African masks,” and Gunner stared at me blankly.