“We have awesomely high standards,” I said.
The year after I gave Bobby the pillow, I presented him with a ceramic
sculpture of Elvis Presley. Elvis is depicted in one of his glitziest
white-silk-and-sequins Vegas stage ouffits while sitting on the toilet
where he died; his hands are clasped in prayer, his eyes are raised to
Heaven, and there’s a halo around his head.
In this yuletide competition, Bobby is at a disadvantage because he on
actually going into gift shops in search of the perfect sh. Because of
my XP, I am restricted to mail order, where one tra can find enough
catalogs of exquisitely tacky merchandise to fill all the shelves in
the Library of Congress.
Turning the pillow over in his hands, frowning at Orson, Bobby said,
“Neat trick.”
“No trick,” I said. “There were evidently a lot of different
experiments going on at Wyvern. One of them dealt with enhancing the
intelligence of both humans and animals.”
“Bogus.”
“Truth.”
“Insane.”
“Entirely.”
I instructed Orson to take the pillow back where he’d found it, then to
go to the bedroom, nudge open the sliding door, and return with one of
the black dress loafers that Bobby had bought when he’d discovered that
he had only thongs, sandals, and athletic shoes to wear to my mother’s
memorial service.
The kitchen was redolent with the aroma of pizza, and the dog gazed
longingly at the oven.
“You’ll get your share,” I assured him. “Now scoot.”
As Orson started out of the kitchen, Bobby said, “Wait.”
Orson regarded him expectantly.
“Not just a shoe. And not just a loafer. The loafer for my left
foot.
Chuffing as if to say that this complication was insignificant, Orson
proceeded on his errand.
Out over the Pacific, a blazing staircase of lightning connected the
heavens to the sea, as if signaling the descent of archangels.
The subsequent crash of thunder rattled the windows and reverberated in
the cottage walls.
Along this temperate coast, our storms are rarely accompanied by
pyrotechnics of this kind. Apparently we were scheduled for a major
hammering.
I put a can of red-pepper flakes on the table, then paper plates and
the insulated serving pads on which Sasha placed the pizzas.
“Mungojerrie,” said Bobby.
“It’s a name from a book of poems about cats.”
“Seems pretentious.”
“It’s cute,” Sasha disagreed.
“Fluffy,” Bobby said. “Now that’s a name for a cat.”
The wind rose, rattling a vent cap on the roof and whistling in the
eaves. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought that I heard, in the
distance, the loonlike cries of the troop.
Bobby reached down with one hand to reposition the shotgun, which was
on the floor beside his chair.
“Fluffy or Boots,” he said. “Those are solid cat names.”
With a knife and fork, Sasha cut a slice of pepperoni pizza into
bite-size pieces and set it aside to cool for Orson.
The dog returned from the bedroom with one loafer in his mouth. He
presented it to Bobby. It was for the left foot.
Bobby carried the shoe to the flip-top trash can and disposed of it.
“It’s not the tooth marks or the dog drool,” he assured Orson. “I
don’t plan ever to wear dress shoes again, anyway.”
I remembered the envelope from Thor’s Gun Shop that had been on my bed
when I’d found the Glock there the night before.
It had been slightly damp and stippled with curious indentations.
Saliva. Tooth marks. Orson was the person who had put my father’s
pistol where I would be sure to find it.
Bobby returned to the table and sat staring at the dog.
“So?” I asked.
“What?
“You know what. “I need to say it?”
“Yeah.
Bobby sighed. “I feel as if one honking huge niondo crashed through my
head and just about sucked my brain out in the backwash.”
“You’re a hit,” I told Orson.
Sasha had been fanning one hand over the dog’s share of pizza to ensure
that the cheese wouldn’t be hot enough to stick to the roof of his
mouth and burn him. Now she put the plate on the floor.
Orson banged his tail against table and chair legs as he set about