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‘Although I’d have to mind the tailpipes when I got off,’ he said, and laughed. He went inside without putting the tarp back on the Harley. Gandalf was lying on the bed of blankets Robinson had made for him, nose on one of his front paws. His kibble was untouched.
‘Better eat up,’ Robinson said, giving Gandalf’s head a stroke. ‘You’ll feel better.’
The next morning there was a red stain on the blankets around Gandalf’s hindquarters, and although he tried, he couldn’t make it to his feet. After he gave up the second time, Robinson carried him outside, where Gandalf first lay on the grass, then managed to get up enough to squat. What came out of him was a gush of bloody stool. Gandalf crawled away from it as if ashamed, then lay down, looking at Robinson mournfully.
This time when Robinson picked him up, Gandalf cried out in pain. He bared his teeth but did not bite. Robinson carried him into the house and put him down on his blanket bed. He looked at his hands when he straightened up and saw they were coated with fur. When he dusted his palms together, the fur floated away like milkweed.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he told Gandalf. ‘Just a little upset stomach. Must have gotten one of those goddam chipmunks when I wasn’t looking. Stay there and rest up. I’m sure you’ll be feeling more like yourself by the time I get back.’
There was still half a tank of gas in the Silverado, more than enough for a sixty-mile roundtrip to Be
His last neighbor was sitting on the porch of Veronica in his rocker. He was extremely pale, and there were purple pouches under his eyes. When Robinson told him about Gandalf, Timlin nodded. ‘I was up most of the night, ru
No, he said, there was nothing he wanted in Be
The drive to Be
That was fine with Robinson; he only wanted to steal a battery. The Fat Bob he settled on was a year or two newer than his, but the battery looked the same. He fetched his toolbox from the bed of his pickup and checked the battery with his Impact (the tester had been a gift from his daughter two birthdays back), and got a green light. He removed the battery, went into the showroom, and found a selection of maps. Using the most detailed one to suss out the back roads, he made it back to the lake by three o’clock.
He saw a great many dead animals, including an extremely large moose lying beside the cement block steps of someone’s trailer home. On the trailer’s crabgrassy lawn, a hand-painted sign had been posted, only two words: HEAVEN SOON.
The porch of Veronica was deserted, but when Robinson knocked on the door, Timlin called for him to come in. He was sitting in the ostentatiously rustic living room, paler than ever. In one hand he held an oversize linen napkin. It was spotted with blood. On the coffee table in front of him were three items: a picture book titled The Beauty of Vermont, a hypodermic needle filled with yellow fluid, and a revolver.
‘I’m glad you came,’ Timlin said. ‘I didn’t want to leave without telling you goodbye.’
Robinson recognized the absurdity of the first response that came to mind – Let’s not be hasty – and stayed silent.
‘I’ve lost half a dozen teeth,’ Timlin said, ‘but that’s not the major problem. In the last twelve hours or so, I seem to have expelled most of my intestines. The eerie thing is how little it hurts. The hemorrhoids I was afflicted with in my fifties were worse. The pain will come – I’ve read enough to know that – but I don’t intend to stick around long enough to experience it in full flower. Did you get the battery you wanted?’
‘Yes,’ Robinson said, and sat down heavily. ‘Jesus, Howard, I’m so fucking sorry.’
‘Much appreciated. And you? How do you feel?’
‘Physically? Fine.’ Although this was no longer completely true. Several red patches that didn’t look like sunburn were blooming on his forearms, and there was another on his chest, above the right nipple. They itched. Also … his breakfast was staying down, but his stomach seemed far from happy with it.
Timlin leaned forward and tapped the hypo. ‘Demerol. I was going to inject myself, then look at pictures of Vermont until … until. But I’ve changed my mind. The gun will be fine, I think. You take the hypo.’
‘I’m not quite ready.’
‘Not for you, for the dog. He doesn’t deserve to suffer. It wasn’t dogs that built the bombs, after all.’
‘I think maybe he just ate a chipmunk,’ Robinson said feebly.
‘We both know that’s not it. Even if it was, the dead animals are so full of radiation it might as well have been a cobalt capsule. It’s a wonder he’s survived as long as he has. Be grateful for the time you’ve had with him. A little bit of grace. That’s what a good dog is, you know. A little bit of grace.’
Timlin studied him closely.
‘Don’t you cry on me. If you do, I will too, so man up. There’s one more six-pack of Bud in the fridge. I don’t know why I bothered to put it in there, but old habits die hard. Why don’t you bring us each one? Warm beer is better than no beer; I believe Woodrow Wilson said that. We’ll toast Gandalf. Also your new motorcycle battery. Meanwhile, I need to spend a pe
Robinson got the beer. When he came back Timlin was gone, and remained gone for almost five minutes. He came back slowly, holding onto things. He had removed his pants and cinched a bath sheet around his midsection. He sat down with a little cry of pain, but took the can of beer Robinson held out to him. They toasted Gandalf and drank. The Bud was warm, all right, but not that bad. It was, after all, the King of Beers.
Timlin picked up the gun. ‘Mine will be the classic Victorian suicide,’ he said, sounding pleased at the prospect. ‘Gun to temple. Free hand over the eyes. Goodbye, cruel world.’
‘I’m off to join the circus,’ Robinson said without thinking.
Timlin laughed heartily, lips peeling back to reveal his few remaining teeth. ‘It would be nice, but I doubt it. Did I ever tell you that I was hit by a truck when I was a boy? The kind our British cousins call a milk float?’
Robinson shook his head.
‘Nineteen fifty-seven, this was. I was fifteen, walking down a country road in Michigan, headed for Highway Twenty-two, where I hoped to hook a ride into Traverse City and attend a double-feature movie show. I was daydreaming about a girl in my homeroom – such long, lovely legs and such high breasts – and wandered away from the relative safety of the shoulder. The milk float came over the top of a hill – the driver was going much too fast – and hit me square on. If it had been fully loaded, I surely would have been killed, but because it was empty it was much lighter, thus allowing me to live to the age of seventy-five, and experience what it’s like to shit one’s bowels into a toilet that will no longer flush.’
There seemed to be no adequate response to this.
‘There was a flash of sun on the float’s windshield as it came over the top of the hill, and then … nothing. I believe I will experience roughly the same thing when the bullet goes into my brain and lays waste to all I’ve ever thought or experienced.’ He raised a professorly finger. ‘Only this time, nothing will not give way to something. Just a flash, like sun on the the windshield of a milk float, followed by nothing. I find the idea simultaneously awesome and terribly depressing.’