He came to a side street and looked up at the street sign, noticing for the first time that the street his grandmother’s house was on was called Blackbeard Lane. This brought to mind a distant and long forgotten memory that made him pause in his aimless tracks, of a morning long ago; it must have been a weekend morning, because his father was never around on weekdays, back when they lived in New York. He could not have been more than four or so, and he was complaining to his father, as they drove somewhere on some errand, that he did not like their last name, Flowers, because, evidently, some other child had taunted him on account of it. Other children, he had realized, had last names that were words in their own right, names with complicated sounds that meant nothing other than to indicate the family that shared it. But his last name, he was now abashedly aware, meant something besides his family, it meant flowers, and to his mind this had an embarrassingly girlish connotation. He had suggested, riding in the car alongside his father, that they change their name to something better.
“Better!” his father had bellowed, in exaggerated indignation. “You want a name that’s better? Well, I’ll tell you boy, there is no finer name than that of Flowers! There have been Flowers’ in this country since before it was a country! I’ll have you know that the very first Flowers, your great, great, a million times over great grandpappy, sailed with Blackbeard the Pirate!”
Victor wiped his brow, remembering. That had been his father’s way, and still was, for all he knew, of dealing with troubles, he made light of them masterfully, with his easy manner, and compelled you to take lightly whatever it was that distressed you. Only his mother, Victor thought, could withstand his father’s insistent levity, and she did so, he knew, with a consistency that was just as impressive to behold. Victor stood now on the corner of Blackbeard Lane and some other street, and wondered if and how his parents ever got along with one another.
He turned right, down the street that branched off of Blackbeard Lane, a long dead end called Shackleford Drive. One yard down on the left a shirtless old man wearing loose yellow shorts and a dingy fisherman’s cap on his head with a bandage over one eye was watering his front lawn with a hose. The man lifted his hand to Victor, and Victor lifted his in return, caught off-guard. He looked down to the dead end of the street and knew he would have to pass the old man again in order to get back home. He foresaw the ordeal with disproportionate dread. The simple gesture of friendliness seemed too strenuous to repeat; yet it could not be escaped. He might even be obliged to speak, if the old man spoke to him. Victor was suddenly seized with a longing so sudden and fierce that it nearly doubled him over and caused his heart to race, for the regimented anonymity of his high school, for the torpid misery of his life with his mother, for the clinical scrutiny of the treatment center, for all those suddenly inaccessible areas of his life where it was not expected or required of him to be civil. When he got to the dead end of Shackleford Drive and doubled back, the old man in the yellow shorts and the fisherman’s cap had gone inside, or had taken his hose to the backyard. Along with the sensation of relief, the thought of suicide came to Victor and coursed through his consciousness like a balm. The relief it brought him was in exact proportion to the sense of abandonment he felt. For the first time he realized he would not shrink from death, if his life continued on its pointless course inward. It was with this secret strength that he returned to the house where he was a stranger, yet family.
Close to the corner of the house, where the fence began, there was a gate. Victor lifted the latch and let himself into the backyard. A medium sized dog dashed out from the darkness under the back porch and gave voice to such aggressive barks that Victor felt his heart in his throat. Before he could get the gate back open the dog stopped short in front of him and began to sniff his feet, legs, and behind. Once he realized he was not going to be bitten, Victor offered his hand again to be sniffed, and at the same time squatted to come face to face with the dog. The smell of the animal was strong and rank, and that along with the matted state of the fur around her belly and tail suggested that if the dog had ever been bathed, it hadn’t been recently. And yet while the smell was unpleasant, it was not overpoweringly so. The dog’s breath was hot and meaty. “Phew,” whispered Victor, “You’re a smelly old mutt, aren’t you? But you’re nice,” the dog blinked and panted, as indifferent to Victor’s remarks as a queen to the mutterings of a peasant. But his attention seemed to please her, or at least interest her. She circled him, snuffling, paying particular attention to his hindquarters until finally Victor had to laugh and push her away. Though there was no one but the two of them around, it was embarrassing, to have one’s ass investigated by a dog in broad daylight. Still squatting, Victor reached to pat the dog’s head, which was warm and hard, then he ran his palm along the length of her body. Her coat was so invitingly warm with the stored heat of the sun that despite the heat of the day, Victor let his hand, then his whole forearm, rest against her. A lump, then a tickling sensation, arose in his throat. He let his arm drop. He had not had such prolonged physical contact with a living being in years.
He stood, but the dog, it seemed, was not prepared to relinquish intimacy. As soon as he rose she lay down on her side and presented her mottled pink and black, obscenely furless and nippled underside to Victor, and he regarded it for a moment with an intense, if fleeting distaste. The dog’s four paws motioned in the air like beckoning fingers and she whined encouragingly. Clearly, she expected him to rub her belly. This old dog cared for nothing but that he should make contact with that area of herself that she could not reach. Kneeling, Victor tentatively put his hand to her belly, which was surprisingly cool. He rubbed in circles until the flesh was as warm as that of his own hand, and the dog wriggled in ecstasy. Victor couldn’t help laughing. After a minute he stood, groaning, and the dog, after a few more moments, clambered to her feet and trotted away in the direction of the doghouse, her mission accomplished. Victor let himself out through the gate and stood for a while in the driveway, feeling better than he had in many years, though the feeling lasted only a moment.
Once he got inside the house, he found that his grandmother and Shelby were waiting for him in the kitchen. “Honey, it’s ten till,” his grandmother said, with an edge to her voice, “We’ve got to get going.”
Victor didn’t even know what hour it was ten till, but he realized he’d forgotten completely that he was there mainly to work at the seafood restaurant his grandmother owned. She was standing in the kitchen, having changed her clothes, and a large canvas purse hung by its strap from her shoulder. Victor looked down at himself in his T-shirt and jeans. “Do I need to change clothes?”
“Naw,” his grandmother said. “Wash your hands, though. You’ve been out in back playing with Lily, haven’t you? She’s a sweet old girl, ain’t she?” her smile was thin and quick, but real.
Lily, then, was the dog’s name. Victor washed his hands in the kitchen sink.
“Shelby!” the grandmother stepped out into the hallway and screeched down its length, “Let’s go!”
In a minute they were all congregated in the living room, where Uncle Buzz lay covered up to his chest on the sofa with his gaunt head against the armrest. He was watching a raucous talk show on the TV.
“William, call me when they nurse comes, I want to talk to her,” said the grandmother to Uncle Buzz, who looked at her as if she’d appeared out of nowhere. He nodded.
“Let’s go,” the grandmother marched out the front door and down the steps to the driveway. Shelby rolled her eyes and nudged Victor. “She freaks out if we’re not there by three sharp. But it doesn’t really matter. Right, Daddy?”
Now