Just Bill

by Barry Knister

  She leans forward and drops the stool between the next two bushes. As she sits, a horn sounds. “Hiyee—”

  Dog and mistress turn as a golf cart trundles toward them from the middle of the fairway. “You’re up early!” the woman calls. It’s the Telecoms. Between them, Wolfi and Stanzi sit on their platform looking alert. In dog terms it is annoying, seeing the pleasure the dachshunds take in being the essence of spunky, sharp-nosed privilege. The cart rolls to a stop on the shallow rise leading up to the houses.

  “He threw a club.”

  “I didn’t throw it, I dropped it. It broke, plain and simple.”

  “You don’t break a club dropping it. He threw the club, Lydia, don’t listen to him. We’re on the last hole, the back nine. He shanks it, he takes a big divot on his approach shot. Bingo! into the lake—”

  Dressed in coordinated pink-and-green outfits, the Telecoms smile and laugh as they argue. They are full of stories and chatter from the card parties, tournaments and golf banquets that make up their days. It doesn’t matter whether others answer or register interest. For them, other people serve mostly as silent partners, like pets.

  The cart is turning, getting ready to roll back down the fairway. “Tommy Bolt had to teach Arnold Palmer how to throw clubs—” Telecom demonstrates. “Palmer threw them backward, over his shoulder. He got tired walking back to pick them up. Bolt showed him how to throw his clubs in front, like a real professional.”

  His missus barks a laugh as the cart lumbers off. Turning back, Emma sees Madame has already resumed her weeding. She smiles as she digs. “Very jovial, weren’t they? Renters, I suppose. For some reason, they thought they knew me.”

  The following day, lots of activity figures at the Vinyls’. Mornings are mostly quiet, with bran muffins and fruit on the lanai after the walk. Then the newspaper. Wednesdays and Saturdays the mister plays golf, but today no paper, no golf. And the walk was short, only halfway to the clubhouse. When they got back, the missus put her husband to work. He helped change sheets in the front bedrooms, vacuumed furniture. “You’re the retiree!” he shouted, smiling down as he used the crevice tool.

  Bill knows family is coming—the missus keeps talking about grandchildren—but he doesn’t know who. There is a son and a daughter. They have both been to the lake, but only the daughter has come here.

  No, this time it’s the son. Before he comes through the entrance, Bill recognizes the voice, deeper than the mister’s. Last summer, he came to the lake with his little boy, Ronald. The mister and missus made much of him. There was singing, and lights on something the missus carried in. Then clapping and eating.

  This time, following Ronald holding his father’s hand comes a woman Bill doesn’t know. She is carrying the new pack member. The missus bends and kisses Ronald, then straightens. Looking down, she folds back the blanket and makes the sound from last night. Jeremy, she says, over and over.

  As this is happening, the girl enters. She, too, came to the lake last summer. Her name is Ruby. Older and taller than the boy, she is again staring down at a thing held in both hands. She did this last summer at the lake, pushing buttons, making bell sounds. It’s a toy called a Game Boy. The mister now stoops and takes her in his arms. The girl smiles, looking over his hug at the hand working the buttons.

  The boy pulls free and comes forward. Bill wants to run, but doesn’t. He remembers Ronald from last summer. The mister introduced them, moving the boy’s hand along Bill’s flank—”Nice doggy. See? He won’t hurt you. That’s it, be gentle. No, not the ears, they don’t like that—” Then the mister set the boy on Bill’s back—just for a moment, balancing him there, making a joke, the boy laughing.

  Does Ron remember? Yes. He is doing it right, running his small hand along the rib cage. At eye level, Bill looks into the boy’s face. He is taller, with light-colored hair. Smelling soap and child, he realizes the hair is the same color as Randy, the golden retriever. Randy died. Emma says he lost his hind leg to an alligator.

  The boy hugs the dog’s neck, but doesn’t pull his ears. Good. It’s hard to keep still with grandchildren. They are pack members, but do things they shouldn’t—touch, pinch, hit. But anything smelling of packchild is heaven. Now the boy lets go and runs for the back of the house. “Swimming!” he shouts. “Swimming!”

  Vinyl stands with a sigh. “We’re up, Bill. Time to go to work. Come on.”

  Go to work. Bill trots after. Luger complains of too little work, of the need for a job. You have one, Bill thinks. To do whatever he wants, to make him glad you came out of the bushes on the gravel road. Ahead, man and boy turn into the big bedroom. The dog stops before the glass and looks at the pool. They’re putting on different shorts. Once in the water, the two will throw balls, hit each other with long plastic noodles. Or swim to the bottom and come up with coins the mister will let the boy keep.

  He turns to look back at the missus. She is holding the new pack member, swaying as she did last night with the doll. He remembers Ruby less well than her brother. At the lake, she went swimming only a few times. She played on the porch with her father, working jigsaw puzzles on the floor. At night after dinner when her brother watched videos, she drew on sheets of colored paper, getting up to show her father, leaning into him each time she gave him a drawing. Or, she made bracelets and necklaces, stringing beads on string. Bill doesn’t remember, but she put one around his neck. She smiled, looking up at her father the way Bill looks at the mister, watching his face, loving his presence.

  The new woman is smiling, too, still talking with the missus about the trip. The son has his arm around her, father and mother talking and talking about the new marriage, the new baby. Not smiling, leaning against her father, Ruby keeps working the Game Boy.

  —We saw it.

  —All three of us.

  —It happened early. Before the first golfers.

  —He ran in front of the thing they use—

  —Not the mower, the other thing—

  Although they have distinct personalities, the three Yorkshire terriers tend to communicate as one. —The worker almost drove into the sand thing, Lola says in her squeaky dog voice. —Another worker came out. He had something to eat.

  —From the grill.

  —That’s how they grabbed him.

  —Luger says the woman made no sense.

  —Kept saying pots.

  The Yorkies live at the Colonel’s, in the third house from Madame’s. They are telling Emma what happened this morning with Hotspur. The still-grieving Glenda Gilmore let the dog out instead of walking him. He was spotted running on the course. When the greens keeper chased him, Hotspur circled and maneuvered, evading capture. The greens keeper almost tipped over his cart.

  —So Luger told you, Emma says.

  —Last night. Lola is on her hind legs, paws on the pool cage. —He said the man died playing Frisbee.

  The three Yorkies stand inside the pool cage. Very tiny (at birth, Yorkshire terriers are weighed with a gram scale), they are both laughable and smart. On the far side of his pool, dressed in shorts and an olive-drab tee shirt with Airborne on the front, the Colonel sits at a glass table. He glances over, then back to the Naples Daily News. The dogs are never out of his sight now. Not after what happened last winter to Bama, a male named for the Colonel’s favorite football team. Before Bama died in the unheated pool, the dogs were allowed to putter around outside the cage. Not anymore.

  —Luger says the wife was nervous-making a long time, Lola says.

  —Crying, waving her arms.

  —Our missus calls her something.

  —Gold digger.

  —And tart.

  —Running on the course is bad.

  —Not done.

  —Against the rules.

  Madame is calling. Emma turns away and trots along the path. She doesn’t know it, but her own mistress never talks behind Glenda Gilmore’s back. Madame doesn’t gossip at all, really. When a neighbor comes with stories about this man�
�s drunken singing on karaoke night, or that woman’s decision to have a rose tattooed on her ankle (someone in her sixties who should know better), Madame just smiles and nods. But once the neighbor is gone, she looks down at Emma and says, “Someone ought to send her to obedience class, don’t you think?”

  As she nears the house, a pair of white golf carts trundle by. Lush and moist with the arrival of rainy season, the vivid grass seems to consciously mark the carts’ progress with a darker shade of green. The smell of living things, the fresh morning air not yet replaced by midday heat fill Emma with a sense of well-being. She reaches the house and glances again at the fairway. The swampy rough on the far side looks like real jungle. In winter it turns brown, but is now full of water. It serves to irrigate the golf course. Channels and pipes link it to other reservoirs, and sometimes alligators make their way onto the property. Outside the precinct of Madame’s comfortable home, it is best to be wary. When Randy lost his leg, a worker claimed a gator did it. Men came and took it away.

  As she almost always remembers to do, her mistress has used the wooden gardening stool to prop open the cage’s screen door. Emma is big for a miniature poodle, but she hops delicately over it. Voices come from inside. Ken, and the daughter-in-law. Madame loves visits from her son, but it is better when he comes alone. Before her stroke, she also went to the son’s house, arranging twice a year for her cleaning lady to see to Emma. Once back home, she always vowed not to go again. Such a sweet boy, she’d say, dropping into her favorite chair and pulling off her shoes. I hate seeing him led around like a pony. One positive side to growing old, she’d say, looking down at Emma and kneading her bunion, is being able to leave without explaining yourself.

  The doorwall is open and Emma enters. They are all seated in the big living room, voices echoing under the vaulted ceiling. Large, gilt-framed pictures hang on the walls. They come from a house in Chicago Emma never saw. Standing in the room’s corners are tall Chinese urns filled with brightly colored silk flowers.

  She stands a moment and studies the daughter-in-law. The woman is staring down at the floor. On every visit she does this, clucking her tongue, pointing and speaking with too much animation. Madame believes that when she dies, the first thing her daughter-in-law will do is call a contractor and have the floor planks shipped to her own house in Palm Beach. They are real Florida cypress, taken up in a house scheduled for demolition and sold at auction. This is not gossip, Madame said, still kneading her bunion. This is simple deduction. She wants this floor.

  “Emma! Hello there!”

  “Hi, Emma.” Ken is seated next to his mother on one of the couches, his wife opposite in a wingback chair.

  “Well, now, I think we may have put on a pound or two there, old girl. Am I right, Lydia?”

  “Do you think so? I hadn’t noticed. I do spoil her.”

  “But so cute. Look at that face, it’s like she understands every word.”

  “I think we’d all be surprised to know just how much they understand. And some of us would be very embarrassed.”

  The daughter-in-law’s laugh bounces around the vaulted ceiling. None of them hear it, but Emma detects a tinkling in the crystal chandelier in the dining room. She doesn’t really want to, but Ken is a pack member, so she now steps to the couch and stands before him. He reaches down and scratches the top of her head. It’s not where she wants scratching, but she stays to be polite.

  “We want to take you to dinner,” the daughter-in-law says. “You always go to so much trouble when we visit. It isn’t right.”

  “Don’t be silly, I like doing it. Emma and I are grateful when you come.”

  “Oh, I know, and it’s always terrific, but you put yourself out so. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Nonsense. I have everything planned.”

  “Are you eating at the club these days, or alone here?’

  “I’m afraid the club menu isn’t much just now. We like it here, don’t we?”

  Knowing she’s been spoken to, Emma closes her eyes as the son scratches.

  “Isn’t it lonely? Don’t you want company?”

  “We worry, Mom. We’re over there on the other side of the state, wondering how you’re doing. In this big house all alone. Cooking, driving in all this traffic.”

  “Have there been any more tickets? We really do worry, you know.”

  “The traffic’s much better now. When the snowbirds leave, it’s like the old days around here.”

  Madame almost never lies, but there have been more tickets. Two. One for turning from the wrong lane on Fifth Avenue, one for running a red light on Third. Emma was in the car both times, the officer leaning in, tipping his hat and asking to see the license. Not knowing who he was, Emma barked. Then Madame drove away, the stiff yellow card on her lap.

  “I think I’ll freshen up.” The daughter-in-law stands.

  The son stops scratching and stands as well. “Me too. You’d think I’d driven all the way from Tallahassee or Pensacola, I’m that tired.”

  “We’re all getting older, aren’t we?” The daughter-in-law stretches her arms and smiles. “I just can’t get over this floor.”

  Go on! Get it! Do it!”

  Ronald stands with feet poised, his back to the cage. Dripping and glossy, Bill prances and dodges before him, watching the ball. The boy makes as if to throw, and again. Each time, the dog stays where he is. He understands now to hold out for the actual toss, the real one. And he has learned that if he waits but then finally barks, the boy throws. So now he barks, eyes locked—and the boy throws.

  The dog spins and takes off over the deck. At pool’s edge he launches himself, fully extended, landing as Labs should land with his head above water and legs already in motion. The mister is at the deep end clapping, cheering him on. It is the best thing about children coming, the mister playing this way. Bill reaches the ball, takes it, turns, and begins swimming for the shallow end. There are stairs, the way out. Retrieving is just half the mission, he has to get the ball back, return and drop it at the boy’s feet. That way, the game will go on as long as the boy has interest, something Bill never lacks.

  Again, and again. The boy switches to the big ball, the one used with the net at the deep end. It’s too big to grab, but Bill noses and shoves it in front of him, trying to grab it, failing, trying, the thing bobbing. Sometimes he gets a paw on it, then it pops away—but he goes on trying.

  The boy’s father likes shooting baskets, but has gone in to be with his new wife and the baby. Now there are just the three of them. Bill does not know where the girl is. “OK, grandpa’s got something he has to do.” The mister is working his way to the ladder.

  “Aw, not yet, come on, just another—”

  “When grandma and me get back from church. Then it’s you, me and Bill, OK? That’s a promise.”

  So, it’s over. Bill understands less than Emma does of what is said by humans. He lived only with dogs his first year, in a kennel. A puppy mill it was called. The litters were quickly weaned, the mothers mated over and over until used up, then destroyed. He and his littermates had been a mistake, the result of a Lab bitch and a Great Dane mix left unattended by the breeder’s cousin.

  But Bill’s instincts are excellent, and he knew the play would be over soon. He reaches the stairs and splashes up. Paws firmly planted, he shakes himself, and again. The boy is slapping his wet back, and now the mister comes with the towel. Bill’s towel he calls it, always used before he is let inside.

  The boy runs through the open doorwall as the mister rubs. “How was that? Was that good? You bet it was. Old Bill, good dog. That boy’s nuts about you.”

  He understands only good, his name, boy. But he knows the voice, its many ups and downs, loud or soft. Knows the smells of anger and fatigue, eyes that make him look away, or say to stay right here with me. They look that way now. The mister stops with the towel and cups Bill’s muzzle in his hands. Vinyl doesn’t much like it, but sometimes at such moments Bill has to lick hi
s face. He chances it now, because water is his medium and it makes him think at such moments—it is a thought—how good it is to have been dying in the woods but to make a choice, to come out of scrub undergrowth and follow this man into all that has come since.

  “Attaboy. You hold down the fort. We’ll take the kids for a walk later.” Vinyl stands and Bill walks at his side, into the cool house.

  THEY ARE GOING somewhere, just the missus and mister. They are in the bedroom putting on different clothes. The missus smells like flowers, talking before the mirror. The mister, too, smells the way he does in the morning, like lemons.

  They are done. He follows them from the bedroom, glancing back through the house to the deck. The pool lies motionless. In the last half hour, the water has changed color, and this troubles him. He turns away and follows the couple to the garage entrance. The mister looks down. “Not this time. Sit.” Bill sits. “You hold down the fort, back in an hour.”

  They go down the step and the door closes. From the other side comes the rumble of the garage door. He looks back through the dark house as the car backs out. Again comes the rolling sound, then nothing. He walks slowly toward the glass doorwall, past furniture he mustn’t scratch, couches not to be jumped on.

  He stops before the glass. The bigger ball floats, and the long things they hit each other with. But the water is gray-green, the grass beyond so dark. He whines. It rains almost every day now. Not like rain at the lake. Even alone in the woods, having escaped the kennel and sick from parasites, Bill had not been afraid. There, rain was just a pattering through trees. The ground beneath stayed dry.

  But here. When it rains here, everything disappears beyond the pool cage—the golf course, the jungle rough. Even so, that isn’t what now causes him to whine and raise his paws, to salivate looking out. Not now, Bill thinks. Not now. It’s bad when the mister is here, but without him—