I always give Andrew whatever silver comes from my pockets. You can see their fires out there, late at night.
“Is it cold in here or is it me?” whispered Virgil.
“There is definitely a draft,” I told him. His body, squeezed close beside mine on our tasseled and embroidered love seat, felt damply warm; his cheeks and white forehead wore that pasty sheen that accompanies Virgil’s recurrent nighttime fevers. “Do you want my sweater?”
“No.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Once Hiram gets the fire going I’ll be fine.”
“Sure?”
“Positive.”
“Let me know.”
“Kind of you. Thanks.”
We turned our gazes then to take in the scene around Maxwell. The fallen man was laid out on his back and surrounded by feet. Maxwell wasn’t moving. His clothes were a mess. At his head knelt Barry. Other men peered from behind Barry, and behind these were more looking down with eyes fixed on Max’s face and the doctor’s hands. Barry seemed to be reaching inside Maxwell’s mouth. Yes, Barry did have a hand in Maxwell’s mouth, fishing around there. Then he removed the hand. He took a vast inspiration of breath. Barry pinched Maxwell’s nose shut between fingers and thumb, lowered his own mouth to Maxwell’s, and blew a series of puffs.
“This is serious,” someone said. And it was as if the saying of this made everything true — our dear brother’s life in danger and all of us lollygagging ineptly on the furniture (all except Barry hunkered low over Maxwell’s head, blowing, blowing). It was like that time when Vincent was five and fell off the roof and only Raymond and Nick were around playing in the yard, and they were too young to grasp the severity, so Vince dragged himself bleeding across the gravel and up the steps into the front hall where he passed out in a lagoon of his little boy’s blood. No one particularly knew what to do then, either. Thank God for Barry. Fortunately, Maxwell was not bleeding. There did appear to be a twig of something green and leafy sticking out from the breast pocket of Maxwell’s blazer.
And quietly came the sound of Virgil’s voice, the humid feeling of his breath tickling my ear, as he brought his face close to mine and complained vehemently, “Fuck. It’s Chuck’s dogs.”
It was the truth. Here dogs came, whipping through the library’s tall eastern doorway, claws viciously scraping hardwood, one fleet Doberman and one shedding English sheepdog, Gunner and Rolfe, off the leash as usual and tearing obnoxiously for Maxwell’s body as if it were a toy for them to pounce on and lick.
“Whoa!” cried Henry.
“Careful!” hollered Arthur.
“Dogs!” yelled James.
“Look out!” warned Simon.
Then both dogs were atop him. Paws flailing Max. Walking on Max’s stomach. Tongues out.
“Grab its leg!”
“Get your hand around the mouth!”
“The other way!”
“Pull them off his head!”
Then the sound of Foster, piercing and distinct: “Leave them alone! They know! They’re trying to help! They want to revive him! It’s what dogs do!” shouted the animal telepathist.
“Screw that,” someone said as, from the direction of the door, the voice of the dogs’ owner, Chuck, a prosecutor for the county and just now following the dogs into the room, commanded, with authority:
“Sit.”
Obediently dogs climbed down from man and came to rest on either side of inert Max. There they stood, two intent and furry guardians watching over his form. Discreetly the dogs peered up at faces glaring down at them and at Maxwell’s face and hair lacquered in dog spit. The botanist’s shirt and my Italian silk tie were gummy with wetness from these dogs’ panting and drooling. Barry’d been knocked back by their lunges and now grumbled a complaint while righting himself. Gunner in his studded collar bared teeth and growled.
Luckily, this animal’s master approached bearing leashes and a pocket stuffed with treats. In that imperturbable, crooning voice dog owners adopt when addressing misbehaving pets, Chuck called, “Easy there, Gunner boy, easy. Gunner, good boy, good dog, easy Gunner-gun, good dog.”
The Doberman became sullen. Chuck produced the snacks. He tossed these through the air toward his dogs’ mouths. Sheepdog and Doberman swung heads to make ace catches without any movement away from Max’s side.
That sheepdog is a sweetheart, but everyone fears the other, thanks to its breed.
Of course all this incited reproaches from Barry, who declared, “I’m trying to revive your brother. Why don’t you control these animals. Especially that one,” glowering at the Doberman.
Chuck rose to the dog’s defense. “Gunner never hurt anyone. These are the sweetest creatures on God’s earth. Leave Gunner alone.”
“Here, boy,” Chuck said to his Gunner, dispensing another treat into the mouth of the black-and-cinnamon purebred. Gunner’s eyes shone maniacally. He was all pent up. As were we all in that long moment while the sun went down outside and lamp-thrown shadows lengthened across the darkening walls of the enormous red room.
Dogs chewed. Barry felt around for intimations of Maxwell’s vital signs. Siegfried, Christopher, and Milton stood awaiting doctor’s orders to assist if need be. Rolfe, the woolly sheepdog, sniffed, affably, Maxwell’s clothing. No one seemed to notice Rolfe sniffing the mysterious green branch coming out of Max’s breast pocket. A stick! Rolfe gathered leafy stick into sopping mouth and off he trotted with it. Gunner eyed this. Nearby, someone sneezed. A reaction to dogs? It is impossible to keep track of who is allergic to what around here. All of us get skin rashes, and someone is always sneezing, and someone else always has a cough or the flu, and someone else is forever about to throw up. How much can you truly know about other people’s afflictions?
“Would someone please bring me my bag?” Barry asked in his usual authoritarian manner — as if speaking to an orderly.
The bag was over by the fireplace. Hiram was closest to it. Christopher fetched it.
“Oh, God, please don’t let him give Max a shot,” whispered overwrought Virgil, who buried his head in his hands and absolutely would not look when Christopher brought the bag to Barry, who opened it up and extracted latex surgical gloves, cotton, various utensils. Gunner, being a dog, could not resist investigating with his nose. “Get the dog away,” said Barry, hoisting a small vial containing what turned out to be an opiate antagonist administered to counteract respiratory depression induced by narcotic overdose. How did a general practitioner happen to stock a bottle of something like this in his doctor’s kit? The answer is simple and pitiful. Over the years, Barry has had to bring many of us — including Virgil here — down from bad trips.
Max’s face was ashen. His brothers in a ring peered down at his staring eyes. “Why’s his tongue green?” asked Siegfried, still clutching porcelain fragments. Fielding with his eight-millimeter circled the scene, trying different angles. Finally Chuck dragged Gunner away by the collar and leashed him to an art nouveau armchair; this space vacated by the dog allowed Fielding a clear alley to shoot through. “Uh, can someone move that coffee table a tad to the left? My left. Back a little. Watch the edge of the carpet. Perfect. Don’t anybody move, okay?” Fielding cautioned his brothers. Meanwhile Chuck humored his animal. “Sorry, buddy, I have to tie you up,” Chuck said. The Doberman, restrained, started barking. The dog’s loud noise caused Virgil to look up surprised. At that moment Barry did the things doctors do with vial and syringe, the flourish of bottle and needle as the liquid is drawn into the hypodermic payload.
“Oh, no,” whispered Virgil.
“Try not to let it bother you,” I said to him.