Just Bill

by Barry Knister

  She sits on a stool and orders vodka with a twist. In the week since Cliff died, a general numbness has taken over. Drinking helps. I keep it simple, he said the first time they drank. He took her to the Old Naples Pub, after the second day’s shoot on the beach. We sat outside, she thinks. Pillars wound with ivy and tiny lights. He ordered what she usually asked for, Dewar’s, but so as not to seem a follower she had a Stoli. It fits him, she remembers thinking, seated opposite and watching him drink. Nothing frou-frou in the drinks department for this nice old guy with the dog.

  The vodka is placed on a napkin. Glenda sips. Shivers. On the screen above liquor bottles, a batter digs in and waits. She dated a hockey player once, a Canadian from… Alberta? Calgary? The photo shoot was at Whistler, just before Christmas.

  “Hello, how are you?”

  Experience taught her long ago that no reaction is best. She watches the TV, remembering Whistler. Snowy mountains on the horizon, steam rising from the swimming pool. The batter is very young. Hispanic, Miguel-something. Cliff liked football and tennis. Look away at a baseball game, he said, sure enough you miss the play of the day. The batter takes the pitch and is called out. Head down, he walks toward the dugout.

  But the man is still next to her, and she now looks at him in the mirror. “Do I know you?”

  “I hope so. It was a while back, but memorable. At least for me.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It wasn’t here, it was in Miami. You’re name’s Glenda, you’re a model. You were there for work.”

  Glenda sips her drink.

  “It was at the Fontainbleau, a party.”

  “I used to do a lot of that.”

  “So you don’t remember? The boat? Key Biscayne?”

  “No, I remember.”

  “I’m glad. I sure do.”

  “But like you say, it was a while back. Things are different.”

  After a long moment, the man drinks what’s left in his glass and slips off the stool. Glenda watches the mirror as he walks away.

  It’s your call—

  That’s what Cliff’s sister said yesterday. About coming to Cleveland. I don’t really see the need, Glenda. You must have enough to handle, but come if you want. The man in the mirror now starts down to security check-in. She hopes he won’t be on her flight, and now thinks of Donna, the sister, in a photo taken on Cliff’s sixtieth birthday. He showed it to her on his laptop, the two of them arm-in-arm, brother and sister smiling. Glenda has never met her. They’ve spoken twice on the phone. The plan was for Donna and her husband to come next fall, to meet Cliff’s new missus, Donna called her. I’m older by two years, she said. I’ll tell you all the good stuff he wants kept secret.

  No, not a good day. But the mister never fails with dinner, always feeding Bill before the family eats. It isn’t necessary. The dog never bothers people at mealtimes the way dogs often do—dogs that sidle up to the table and make the rounds, being needy, pleading, sometimes even trained by foolish masters to sit and smile for tidbits.

  No. Bill always lies beneath the table where he belongs. Or, like tonight, he watches from the living room, sprawled on the cool tile as voices rise and fall. Perhaps this night he has some small sense of absence, of something missing. They are all there except the baby. She is back in the parents’ room, asleep in her cradle. But Ruby is silent. Other times at meals she talks a lot, telling her father every detail she can think of, anything to hear his voice and glow in the warmth of his gaze. Tonight, like Bill earlier, she is “in the doghouse” for not watching her brother. She is being very quiet.

  After dinner, weather permitting, Bill is allowed to go outside for an hour. Occasional lapses aside, everyone but the missus knows he’s a “good” dog.

  That is, one that doesn’t dig—not often—or bark, or make messes on other residents’ property. A vague understanding has developed among dog owners in this part of Donegal that their pets gather at this time, and that the socialization is good for them. It is known the dogs find each other—behind this lanai, under a certain cabbage palm. Club rules notwithstanding, as long as there are no complaints, what’s the harm?

  Tonight, they are lying on a grassy plot behind Madame’s. It feels protected, sheltered by a grouping of three dwarf date palms. But no Emma.

  —She was at the window yesterday, Chiffon says.

  —She’s in there right now, Luger tells her.

  Bill looks, seeing the poodle before the doorwall. She is plump and brown, her long ears hanging in a way that just now makes her narrow muzzle look more pointed. He feels a kinship with her. Meeting them on walks, he has seen how strange other poodles seem. White like Chiffon, they have been shorn and shaved to look like topiary. Not Emma. She is trimmed, but no shrub.

  Tonight, though, she looks—different. Behind her just now, the mistress passes, dressed in one of the long things his own missus wears in the morning. She moves slowly, not looking out. Madame, they call her. Emma adores her, the way Bill worships Vinyl. Whenever Madame passes her dog, she never fails to touch her curly, lamb-like back. But not tonight. This, perhaps, is why Emma, still looking out at them, seems different.

  —Where’s Hotspur? he asks.

  —Does he come out? Chiffon sneezes. —I can’t remember.

  —He has a territory, Luger says. Two houses. His border is two houses in either direction. Then he stops.

  —What is territory? Do I have territory?

  —You are a companion breed. Your work is to look a certain way, and be with your missus all the time.

  Bill turns to listen. The sound is coming from the end of the cul-de-sac.

  —I hear him.

  —Hotspur? Chiffon sneezes.

  —His mistress went somewhere, Luger says. —The woman who works the vacuum is there. I saw the car.

  THAT AFTERNOON, VINYL repaired the screen door. Back home, Bill shoves it open in the usual way. He finds the mister and his son watching TV. In the master bedroom, a small second set on the dresser has a DVD player. It is playing the movie about pigs, one of Ronald’s favorites. He is sprawled on his stomach on the bed, watching intently.

  Bill returns to the back of the house. The missus and her new daughter-in-law are still at the dining table. They are talking about the new house being built outside Philadelphia. It won’t be ready until September. While dad goes back and forth to England—his job has something to do with fiber optics—Ronald and Ruby will divide their time between their mother’s coop apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and the grandparents’ in Michigan, with the new stepmother and baby.

  Tired of lying on the kitchen’s hard tile floor, Bill goes back to the TV room. The mister isn’t there now, just the son.

  Always alert to sounds, Bill hears a rhythmic, scratchy noise. He looks in the children’s room. Empty. The sound is coming from the parents’ room. The door is ajar. He pushes with his paw—it’s dark. Ruby is on the bed, on her back. One hand is rocking the baby cradle next to her, the source of the sound. It’s one of Ruby’s jobs, to rock the baby this way until he stops crying or falls asleep. As Bill comes in she looks over.

  “Hello, dog. Thanks a lot.”

  Rocking the cradle, she looks again at the ceiling. Bill stands at the entry, waiting for more words. The mister always says more, his voice rising and falling. Even the missus. She has never liked him, but even she talks to Bill when no one’s around. Her voice is different at such times, softer, even friendly. But here and now there is something not right about it. The girl should be with the boy, or taking Bill for the nightly walk. He will be fine now. What happened before was wrong, and he knows it. He was dragged by the missus and scolded, put in the garage. The punishment happened close enough to the offense so that the two were connected in his mind. It registered and he understood—no more herding.

  “Cra—dle, cra—dle, cra—dle—”

  Staring up, Ruby keeps moving her arm. “Cra—dle, cra—dle—” She looks over and Bill steps closer. She is saying it for
him, and he waits for a command, for something more. “Crad—dle, Cra—dle—” She is saying it slowly, keeping time with the swing, still speaking and working it as she again raises both her legs, the way she did that morning, eyes on him, showing him again how she can balance with long legs like her dad’s, legs he told her that meant she would turn out to be a long drink of water.

  But without both hands flat on the bed, it doesn’t work long. The weight of her now topples away on the mattress. Bracing for balance, Ruby forgets the cradle and shoves down. It dips sharply and loses its load. The cradle rights itself, and swings freely. The baby is crying. Ruby rolls to her right and scrambles around the bed. Bill backs away and barks. It’s wrong what has happened, the baby smell meaning to be careful and watchful. He barks again as Ruby gathers up her baby brother. The door bangs open.

  “What the hell—”

  “It’s not me, Daddy, I didn’t do anything.”

  “What happened here?” She is holding and rocking it as the stepmother and missus come in. “I’m asking you a question, Ruby. What happened?”

  “I was just rocking him, I was on the bed—”

  “Do you know what might’ve happened if this floor wasn’t carpeted? What if you were on the lanai?

  “It’s all right—” The stepmother comes to Ruby and takes the baby. “That’s all right, isn’t it? That’s all right—”

  “I’m asking you a question.”

  “Bill.”

  “What about Bill?”

  “He did it with his paw. He put a paw on the swing. I tried to stop him, he snapped at me.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It happened so fast. I think he wanted the baby.”

  “My God—” The missus steps to the mother and looks down at the baby.

  “Come on, Bill—”

  Having just entered, the mister steps forward and takes the dog by the collar. Why? I barked to warn you, Bill thinks, being pulled. You came as you should, to help the new pack member, the whelp. I’ll go anywhere, he thinks, being dragged toward the garage entrance. Anywhere you want, always. What did I do?

  It’s not as though I don’t know what to do. I thought about it often enough, after Archie died. Check the pool-service schedule. The day they’re due, tie Archie’s bowling bag good and tight to my belt. With a knot I can’t change my mind about and untie. Carry it out here and jump. It’s fitting, don’t you think? This nice pool he loved so much, with his ball? Knowing there wouldn’t be all that unpleasantness about being found days later. Just the usual clucking over someone taking matters into her own hands. That way, they wouldn’t have lots of sordid details to work with. That would frustrate some of them.”

  Madame smiles to herself. They are on the lanai. Usually, she has her evening martini during the news, but tonight she is stretched out on a chaise, balancing the tall cocktail glass on her stomach. Emma lies at her side. Clear and full of color, the deservedly famous Naples sunset is under way. Puffy clouds roam and change color like a slow-motion kaleidoscope. Under the covered part of the lanai, a ceiling fan turns. It’s warm but not so humid this evening. Madame’s work in the flower beds outside the cage is now being rewarded. This payoff as she calls it happens every year with the start of rainy season. That’s when her ixora and gardenia bushes bloom continuously.

  Emma does not know the words—schedule, bowling, fitting, clucking—but she can tell Madame feels less depressed. After finding the roast, she didn’t speak all day. Now, with the martini, she is doing what reassures Emma most about her mistress—thinking out loud.

  “‘Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse.’ Think about jumping, yes. But do it? I’d never have the strength to move the moment to its crisis, plain and simple. And I have to tell you something—” Madame takes a sip. “I’m just the slightest bit curious. I know what it will be like, but there’s always something. Not enough, but something. The staff. Some other residents with most of their marbles. Their stories.” She laughs and takes another sip. “I’ll hear those stories over and over, needless to say. My friend Myrtle Stennis said she was the brain trust at her place. The same people asked her a dozen times a day what day it was. And the time. She died last October. We would have made a good team.”

  Yes, Madame feels better. It is evident in her laugh. The poodle relaxes and lies flat. “They say they’ll take good care of you. At first, his wife tried telling me assisted living accepted dogs your size. I told her I knew better. ‘Oh, well, then, Lydia, she’ll come live with us.’”

  Madame drinks her drink. She sighs and balances the glass. No longer in her nightgown, she is wearing a wrap skirt and one of Archie’s white dress shirts. She still has them laundered, wearing them with his cuff links, even though they’re frayed.

  “That’s really the most irritating thing. She thinks because I’m slipping I don’t know anything at all. Most of the friends I still have went to assisted living long ago. Where does she think I was headed when I got those tickets? No, Emma. You’re not the assisted-living type. You’re too much dog, that’s the problem. We have to hope my son has some backbone. If he doesn’t, I’d hate to do it, but wills can be changed.”

  It confuses him, being on the lead again. That never happens anymore, not even when Ruby walks him. He knows I obey, Bill thinks, walking on the mister’s left as always. Why put it on?

  It is night, streetlamps making the buzzing sound, haloed by bugs. He looks up at one as the missus talks. Again this afternoon he was put in the garage, hearing them on the other side of the door, talking, talking. At such times he wishes he were smarter. Emma would know, he thinks. Know what they want, what I have to do.

  All he wants on this night at the beginning of June, walking the still-warm pavement with the mister and missus, is to be the best dog. What else is there? What’s life but doing right and getting scratched for it, just the right way? Fed well, walked, waiting for the clap and then jumping into the pool, the lake?

  Nothing else. Herding the boy made Ronald cry, but how could you think I meant harm? Me? Your own dog? To even think of harming anyone with the pack scent? Or those who come to the house and shake hands, touch faces with their mouths. That is always tense, but he’s learned not to worry. It’s greeting behavior, like smelling anus or nose.

  “You’re really getting carried away.”

  Vinyl tries to put his arm around the missus. “No.” She has her own arms folded, marching the way she does when angry. He knows that much, she’s mad. At you, he thinks. Every now and then she looks down at him. What is it? Bill wonders. Trotting easily, healthy and comfortable in his now fully grown body, he is picking up all the tension in the missus’ walk, her stiffness. She has never stayed mad so long. She complains about shedding and the rare accident, the almost non-existent lapses when something demands digging. It’s the bad thing under the bed, he thinks, marching, needing now to pee but sensing that this walking, this marching serves some human demand in the mister and missus, to move as they argue. But the really bad part is not knowing. If you know, you can do something. Change, fix things, humble yourself with looks and sloped shoulders, slumping away and flopping down, so they see you feel awful. Like death.

  “They’ll be with us at the lake for weeks. Months. It’s just not right. You have to see that.”

  “One time.”

  “I just don’t understand you. ‘One time.’ You act like you know this can’t happen again. You know no such thing.”

  “I know the dog.

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Isn’t it, Bill? You wouldn’t hurt that baby. You messed up with a paw. We’ll make sure you aren’t around the cradle. Problem solved.”

  “Problem solved, just like that. Ruby said he snapped.”

  “Ruby was scared. She was responsible, just talking. Her dad comes in—”

  “Just talking.”

  “Stop repeating what I say, I don’t like it.”

  “You�
��re not supposed to like it.” The missus takes out a handkerchief and blows her nose. She has allergies that get worse in warm weather. She puts the handkerchief back in her shorts pocket. “There’s something in the paper all the time about this sort of thing. Every week. Terrible, terrible stories.”

  “Sensational crap. Rottweilers and pit bulls. Anyone lets those things near children ought to be horsewhipped.”

  “But not old Bill. As if you know anything about him.”

  “Honey—”

  “Don’t honey me, this is serious. You don’t know anything. You say he’s a Lab mix. That’s nice. What else? You don’t know what’s going on in that big dog’s head.”

  Yes, she’s still mad. Bill wants even more to stop and pee, wants now to defecate but keeps trotting at the mister’s side, yearning for the lamppost ahead but not yet, wanting to be good.

  “The little male dachshund. Wolfi. He bit a child at a birthday party.”

  “Jesus. ‘The little male dachshund.’ They’re all little.”

  “I’m not letting this go. This is serious.”

  Someone is calling. “Well, hello there—”

  The missus’ voice has changed. Chiffon’s owner steps into the light of the streetlamp. Trust Fund, Madame calls her. The mister and missus stop to wait for her. Having to pee and defecate, Bill sits. The woman is walking alone, shoes clacking the way he remembers. She is shiny in places on her arms and neck. As she nears, shiny things dance from her ears, the way Emma’s ears flap when she trots.

  “Isn’t it a beautiful night?”

  “Beautiful.” Nice to see you.”

  “Pretty soon, them skeeters will be out in full force. I thought I better take advantage.”