Hector stood there at their feet, his entire body wagging at the sight of me. I saw his dark brown eyes, the wrinkle of his nose, the poise of his ears.
He looked right at me and barked his silly, low, breathy ‘I’m a much bigger dog’ bark.
I broke the mesmerizing stare of his eyes and looked around. No one seemed to notice him, a black pug alone on the city streets. No one held him. No leash seemed connected to his…
He was close enough for me to see that there was no collar around his neck.
He barked at me again, and I knew it was him, knew it in my secret, wounded heart.
Here!
I stepped forward, and one foot actually lifted and set itself onto the pavement.
Another bark, and I saw him, finally, prancing on the far corner, weaving in and out of the legs that surrounded him, his gleeful little barks rising above the sound of traffic.
Two things happened simultaneously.
A city bus passed me on the street, so close that I could actually feel the heat of its metal skin through my suit.
A hand grabbed my shoulder, clamped down hard, and yanked me back onto the sidewalk before my other foot had the chance to lift itself.
The light hadn’t changed, and the traffic still hurtled by. The bus passed before me, and I inhaled its hot diesel breath as it went by.
Before I turned to see who had grabbed me, I looked across the street, through the traffic, and I saw him still there. But he wasn’t excited any more, wasn’t barking at me.
He spared one disappointed look back at me before turning and padding his way into the forest of legs and feet… disappearing.
“Whoa, buddy,” said a large young man dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, his hand still pressing down on my shoulder as if I might dart back out into the street. “Wherever it is you’re so hot to get to, you might want to wait.”
Thanking him, I crossed the street when the light finally did change, under the man’s careful watch, and spent a few minutes searching down a block or two before giving up.
I missed the meeting.
* * *
The last time I saw Hector, he was crossing the field alone…
I sat on the deck again that night, as I did most nights in the weeks that followed his death. Nursing a beer or three, staring off into the distance, to the grey, lifeless spot where his lifeless body had lain, or into the still barren cornfield. Always hoping to see him, just to see him…
And as the sun slid down the arch of the sky, I did see him, standing there across the road, on the very margins of the field. His eyes caught mine, and he playfully lowered his front half, darted his head back and forth. I heard his funny bark carry across the suddenly still air, and my heart ached with what I had to do, with what I couldn’t do.
Draining the beer, I walked across the yard to the road. I saw him so clearly, perhaps the clearest I’d seen him since he’d died. His eyes sparkled and his dark coat caught the fiery colors of the sun settling over the field.
I came to the edge of the road, stopped on my side of the street.
He cocked his head at me, barked again.
And I noticed, with mounting rue, that his bark still sounded distant, even though I stood no more than six feet from him now.
But I knew why…
I knelt there, at my side of the road, and looked at him for a second, sketched his face into the depths of my brain.
I did not move near him.
I did not cross the road.
I thought about what that guy had told me after he’d yanked me out of the way of a speeding bus.
Wherever it is you’re so hot to get to, you might want to wait.
“I can’t,” I finally said to him. “I love you, but I just can’t.”
He cocked his head back and forth at me, at my words, but his eyes lowered, turned away.
“It’s not my time yet, Hector. I know you want me to come… I know you want me there. And I want to be there. Just… not yet.”
My legs ached to move, to go to him. My arms yearned to reach out and touch him, to hold him.
But I couldn’t. I know what he wanted. I know he wanted me to cross the road, the river, to come to him… to be there… now.
Come here…
Here!
Maybe he didn’t truly know what that meant for me, but I knew… and I wasn’t ready.
“Maybe… just maybe… you could come to me… come here.” I patted the gravel in front of me with my palms. “Here… here, Hector. Come to daddy, good boy.”
He didn’t tilt his head or move in any way, and that answered my question.
He couldn’t come to me… couldn’t come here anymore.
I lowered my head and let the tears fall.
When I looked up again, he was right in front of me, inches from my face. I saw every whisker in his muzzle, the gleam of his eye, each hair in his coat.
Surprised, I didn’t react.
But he stretched his neck, brought his face to mine, and licked my cheek.
I closed my eyes, feeling my heart break all over again.
I could smell his clean dog smell, his breath, feel his saliva on my cheek.
When I finally thought to bring my arms up, to hug him to me, he was gone. I opened my eyes, and he was back on his side of the road, watching me.
My arms still hung in the air between us, urging him to come back, to be held.
Come here, boy. Once last time…
But I knew he wouldn’t… knew he couldn’t.
Instead, his lips drew back in a smile, baring black gums and white puppy teeth.
And then he was off, dashing away into the field without a look back, fading into the night like the ghost he was.
* * *
It’s been more than a year since I saw him last…
Yes, I miss him… but things have gotten… better, I guess.
I know he’s gone on without me, gone ahead, gone away…
I’m not ready to go to him yet. He knows that now, but he’ll wait for me there.
Of that I’m sure. I don’t have faith left in many things, perhaps nothing.
But that… I have faith in that.
And maybe… just maybe, that’s enough
I know he’ll be there when it’s my time to cross, whenever that is.
And I know that he’ll be there if I ever change my mind, if I ever do decide that I’ve had enough.
He’ll be there whenever I come, waiting for me in the cornfield across the road or down by the river on the far bank, waiting for me to come to him, to join him.
I’ll hold him then, take his kisses and return my own, stroke his dark coat and tell him that I love him. We’ll run there, play fetch, stretch out on the soft, cool grass and sleep, his back pressed to mine.
And his here and my there will, finally, again, both be here… right here.
It doesn’t take his place; it doesn’t help the loss… nothing can or will.
But it is a balm…
Sometimes at night, when the air is cool and the wind is soft, and I watch that patch of road where he once lay as dark and quiet as a pool of water, it is a balm…
Dedicated to Hector Taff
Nov. 2007 to April 2009
He was—and is—a good boy.
THE TONTINE
The wooden box gleamed on the sideboard, the sputtering candlelight captured in the depths of its lustrous, hand-polished amber finish. Like the man who regarded it, the box was a thing of its time: beautiful, strong in its way, delicate in its way. Like him, it was also completely out of place anywhere outside of this small, grandly appointed room.
It was a thing of its time, and its time had passed long ago.
Like his.
He brought his glass over to the armchair, placed it atop the narrow table at the chair’s left, sat carefully. Another taper, thin and sputtering, cast fitful red jewels across the top of the table’s small surface.
No electric lights now, not for this
. Fire, the light of the older world—his world—would illuminate what he did now, what he did here, just as it had when he and the others had made the agreement, had caused this box to be made.
Not that he required any light. His need for light had died centuries ago, gone in a single moment. But this small light, this artificial light would suffice as a reminder of the larger light, the real light, the killing light that he could tolerate no longer.
So, he kept the room dark, deliciously so, lit only by a few of these candles and a small fire that had burned down in the massive stone fireplace dominating the room. Shadows and the ghosts of shadows hung in the corners, draped like cobwebs in the rafters.
Ghosts, he laughed bitterly to himself.
Ghosts.
He felt like one himself. But these days, ghosts—like him, like the box—were a thing of the past. Not even the shadowy corners of this new world could hide them anymore… or him.
Soon, not even this room would serve to hide him.
Even in the gloom, it was possible to see the room was elegantly, sumptuously appointed. Large bookcases filled one entire wall, their shelves lined with leather bound volumes set shoulder to shoulder like the dusty veterans of some antique war. Overstuffed leather furniture huddled near the fireplace, tapestries hanging on either side. Dark, gleaming wood paneling and wainscoting and blood red velvet paper covered the walls.
The small chamber, once one of many, was a refuge for him, a quiet island amidst the gleaming metal and electricity, skyscrapers and airplanes, apathy and unbelief that existed outside in this brave new world. This place was a page torn from an older book, a better book.
He lifted his glass, regarded the thick, red fluid that filled its cut crystals. Its smell came to him, thinner than he would have liked, colder than he would have liked, and he sighed. Touching its rim to his lips, he closed his eyes, downed the drink, replaced the glass. It rang like a tiny bell as it touched the table.
As he shifted his attention back to the box, the door drew open, admitting a thin shaft of the electric light he hated so much. His back to the door, he didn’t turn to see who it was or what he wanted.
“How can I be of service, sir?” came the voice of the shadow that stood backlit in the door.
“I asked not to be disturbed, Mr. Gerund, tonight of all nights.”
He heard the slightest of sniffs, crisp and haughty, from the shadow.
“But you rang, sir.”
“No. I am sorry; I did not. Please leave.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Again the sniff, and the door closed softly.
Alone again, just him and this box, this tontine, and the ghosts, yes, the rarest of ghosts that clung to him these days. They were all he had left.
The wolf had been the first to go; the prince, the last… at least, not counting him.
Poor Larry, he mused, stroking the box with one sharp-nailed finger. So brutal, so senseless.
Of course, when he died, all of his kind died with him. It was their way. All of them, wherever they were. In the boardrooms of Wall Street or the sunny parks of San Diego or the fens of Bratislava. Day or night, asleep in their beds or curled around their mates in snug, dank dens below the earth.
All dead, all gone, because of some ridiculous college kid with a silver bullet.
He’d heard about Larry’s death. He had not been there, but he could imagine it vividly; the extravagant splashes of blood from his death throes. The claw marks on the walls, the concrete. The cries that would have rent the air and caused people for miles around to shudder, draw their shades, pull their children closer.
Ahh, that had been the art of his kind; the violence, the anger, the rage. He was sure that, even in death—no… especially in death—Larry had expressed its absolute quintessence, the secret beauty that lies in all violent death. The instinctual gulping of blood and rending of flesh that stripped the attacker to his basic senses and the attacked to his basic constituents.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all helped along by teeth and claws.
In his mind, he could see Larry’s human form lying in a Rorschach test of his own blood, his body no longer ridiculously muscled and furred. Just a limp, nude human, smooth and pale as a baby, curled in the pool of its birth.
All because of a small, silver cylinder.
He shook his head ruefully at the utter deadliness of something so small to something so full of life.
It was the same for him and his kind, too, though. Two pieces of crossed wood, a splash of the right kind of water, the tiniest ray of sunlight, and he’d be gone, as well: a wisp of vapor, a heap of clothing, and a pile of ashes.
For a moment, just a moment (but, ah, weren’t they coming ever more frequently these days?), he longed for that release, the calm it would bring to his mind… maybe even whatever was left of his soul.
He wondered what that release had done for Victor’s tortured soul, locked in his hideous, piecemeal body. So tormented, so torn between wanting to be one of them and wanting to punish them for being what he could never be.
When that spark of life had finally fled his scarred, twisted form, perhaps in the second before his borrowed heart stopped beating, did Victor find peace?
Or was it just the fear, the exquisite fear?
That’s what had brought them all together, made them compatriots of a sort.
That bond of fear is what had brought about the tontine.
Not just the fear they engendered, but the fear that they carried within them.
Fear of something worse, some fate worse than the curses they suffered under.
If the world held fates such as theirs, certainly it held even worse in abeyance.
The thought had, at one time or another, appalled each of them.
So, they came together, warily at first, surreptitiously to be sure.
The bat, the wolf, the monster, and the mummy.
Laughable, really, he mused to himself, sitting now in this sanctuary, drinking from a crystal goblet. Like a cheap Hollywood movie. All they were missing was Abbott and Costello.
But they had gathered, nonetheless.
Here, in this drawing room in London, before it became their club.
The thin, ascetic Count, with dark, crafty eyes and a feral strength.
The hulking monster, his coat collar drawn up and hat pulled down to cover his puckered, discolored face.
The furtive wolf, nervous, cagey, whose sweat stank of the moon and blood.
And the prince, thousands of years older than even the Count, his wrappings holding together a body that was little more than articulated dust.
Each of them wanting life more than anything, whether it was gobbling it up or possessing some spark of it.
Each of them thrived on fear, made a living, as it were, on fear. Each had become so identified with fear that they were the very stuff of it, howling in every mortal dream, lurking in every shadow, imagined in every dark place.
Funny, then, that fear should bring them together.
Victoria still reigned in England when they bought this bottle, this box.
When they made this tontine.
Like soldiers in a war only they still fought in, they had gripped this bottle, held it tight, sworn the oath.
“The last of us alive, whatever that means to ones such as us, shall drink of this bottle and remember the others, remember the fear, for in the end, that is all we have, all we bring, all we share.”
They toasted this epitaph with a glass drawn from the bottle’s twin. The Count remembered how the wine had stained the prince’s chalky cheeks, his gauze-wrapped neck a deep scarlet, like a spreading blush.
The monster’s lip had curled into a deep, disagreeable snarl at the taste of the wine, and he eyed it suspiciously.
Larry, too, hadn’t much cared for the wine. He was more of a beer drinker.
Only the Count could truly appreciate it, one of the few things that he could stomach. Because, like blood, the wi
ne was a living thing, and its energy filled the glass. It wasn’t the taste he enjoyed; it was the buzz, the crackle of its life as he drained it.
Now, with Larry killed, with Victor reduced to individual pieces kept “alive” in vats of fluid in a secret government lab, with the prince sent back to the Land of the Dead, he was the last one, the last… alive.
Funny, now, here at the end, it was him, the only one left: the only one of the four who might even want to drink to the health of his comrades.
There were others, to be sure, who had taken their places—others who stalked the fringe of mankind’s senses in these bright and shiny new days and doled out what amounted to fear. But he ignored them. They were less elemental than he and his tontine partners—more created by man than born from him.
There was an inbred butcher who wore the stitched together face of his victims and carried a chainsaw. There were two others who wore masks and lurched in the darkness wielding a variety of sharp implements. There was even one who arose from dreams, with claws for hands.
Laughable. To have to hide behind masks…
But even those of his kind who existed now were shades without nuance or dimension: hollow shells of desire and hunger, relegated to romance novels and movies filled with smoldering looks and teen angst. His kind had become mannequins of a sort: androgynous, beautiful, with dark eyes and hollow cheeks, lithe forms and red, red lips, and only the finest tailored clothing.
They had become, in effect, the very things they had symbolized, and that was a lessening from which they could not recover. There was little behind this façade now, little to instill the delicious fear that he was accustomed to bringing with him.
They, both those of his kind and those others of this new age, had reduced fear to a smaller thing, a simpler thing.
Fear of pain… fear of blood… fear of death.
That was it: the basic fear of life being snuffed out.
A primal fear, perhaps man’s first.
The fear he’d brought was the fear beyond death—the fear of being lost… of being undead.
These… poseurs were unable to generate this. They could bring about only the fear of pain, of spattered blood, of rent flesh, of a slow, slow fading, and then…
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