My Brother Louis Measures Worms (9 page)

It was a baby bonnet and a pair of pink booties and the card said,
For my namesake.
It was signed
Cousin Marcella.

When confronted with this evidence, Aunt Rhoda admitted that she had, in fact, mentioned Mother's mistake to Cousin Marcella Potter.

“I wrote to her for some information about the family background, and then I just said,
P.S. Did you know that Grace named a baby after you, by accident?
I
think
I said, by accident.” She looked at the booties. “Obviously she got it all wrong.”

I wondered whether I would have to write Cousin Marcella a thank-you letter, and what I would say in it. We weren't supposed to just say,
Thank you for the present.
We were supposed to say something
about
the present, and I didn't know what to say about the pink booties.

“Nothing,” my father said. “You're off the hook. This woman thinks you're a new baby. And anyway,” he added, “she sent the booties to her namesake, but she hasn't got one, because I had your birth certificate changed.”

I was very relieved to hear this, because it felt peculiar to be somebody else, even secretly. As far as I was concerned, Marcella
was
somebody else (maybe somebody who could recite all fifty states, and do long division without a mistake and tap dance) but even so, like Louis, I was satisfied to be me. I was sorry, though, that I had pleaded for the Beetle Eater instead of something equally expensive and more desirable, like my own telephone.

I assumed that the Beetle Eater would end up in the attic, along with the bonnet and the booties and the dog picture, but Louis and his friend Albert plugged it in one night after beetle season was over; and in the still, clear night air, it caused a sensation in the neighborhood. Two people called the newspaper to report a strange orange light and a weird unearthly sound in our backyard, and the next day there was an article on the front page:

outer space alien?

visits local family

For two or three days there was a steady stream of cars driving past our house, and a parade of kids perfectly willing to pay a dime to see the outer space alien perform . . . and Louis and I made $4.60 before the orange light burned out and the noise died down and the first snow fell on the Beetle Eater.

Vergil, the Laid-back Dog

M
ost of Mother's
relatives had animals of one kind or another, and most of the animals, according to my father, were as strange as the people they belonged to.

“I don't know,” he often said, “whether they actively seek out screwy dogs and cats, or whether the dogs and cats just turn screwy after a while.” He included our cat Leroy in this overall opinion, although by then Leroy was gone. He/she had produced four kittens and immediately took off for greener pastures, abandoning both us and the kittens, which my father said was completely unnatural behavior, and proved his point.

Actually there were any number of perfectly ordinary pets in the family—faithful nondescript dogs, companionable cats—but, just as good news is less dramatic than bad news and therefore less publicized, these humdrum animals were never the ones my father heard about, and the ones he
did
hear about left him forever cool to the idea of having one of his own.

Mother knew this; but, as she later said, having a dog was one thing, and having a dog come to visit for a few days was something else. So when her cousin Lloyd Otway deposited his dog Vergil on our doorstep, Mother didn't think twice about offering to keep Vergil while Lloyd went off to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to acquire a wife.

My father said he could understand that Lloyd might find the pickings slim and overfamiliar right here at home, “—but why take off for Milwaukee?”

“Because that's where Pauline lives,” Mother said. “Pauline Swavel. That's where she went back to after she and Lloyd met and fell in love. Oh Fred, you remember Pauline!”

Obviously he didn't; but in view of the romantic circumstances involving Lloyd and Pauline Swavel, I did; and I remembered too, that my father had been out of town that day.

“That's right, he was,” Mother said. “He was in Columbus. You were in Columbus that day, at your state convention. I know I told you about it, but you probably didn't hear me, or else you didn't listen.”

“That
day
?!?” My father stared at her. “Lloyd and this Pauline met and fell in love in one day?”

“Yes,” Mother said—and this was, indeed, the case: a one-day, whirlwind, love-at-first-sight affair, attended by the usual monkey puzzle of mistakes and coincidences.

Pauline Swavel, while driving through town on her way from West Virginia, was run into by Aunt Mildred, who had been distracted by the unexpected appearance in her car of Lloyd's dog Vergil.

“All of a sudden, there he was,” she said. “Don't know where he came from. Just sat up in the backseat and yawned and stretched and groaned—scared me to death, and I hit the gas instead of the brake.”

Vergil, equally alarmed, began to leap up and down in the car and to scramble from back to front, howling and barking. This behavior was so unnatural for Vergil—who had, at various times, slept through a fire, a burglary, and an explosion at the fertilizer plant—that Aunt Mildred lost all control, careened through a traffic light and bounced off a milk truck and into Pauline, who had pulled over to study her road map.

Pauline had taken a wrong turn somwhere north of Parkersburg and was not completely lost but, now, involved in a traffic accident as well—with a car that seemed to her, at first glance, to be driven by a dog.

At this point Lloyd appeared. He had been delivering lawn fertilizer to Aunt Mildred, missed Vergil, and knew immediately what had happened, since it was Vergil's habit to climb into whatever car was handy and open and go to sleep.

Lloyd set out at once to find and follow Aunt Mildred—never an easy task, but a little easier this time because of all the commotion at the scene of the accident.

He arrived; relieved Vergil; assessed the damage, which was minor; ignored Aunt Mildred (or so she said); and, on the spot, fell in love with Pauline. That Pauline should, at the very same moment, fall in love with Lloyd seemed insane to Aunt Mildred and my mother; unlikely to Louis—“Unless it was a movie,” he said—and gloriously romantic to me.

“But Lloyd,” Mother said when he arrived at our house later that day, arm and arm with Pauline, to tell us the news, “isn't this awfully sudden?”

“Like a lightning bolt,” Lloyd said.

“And, Pauline,” Mother went on, “of course we think the world and all of Lloyd . . . but you don't even know him!”

“I feel I do,” Pauline said, “after just these few hours, I've never felt so comfortable with a person, nor found anyone so easy to talk to. I figure that whatever I don't know about Lloyd, or what he doesn't know about me, will give us conversation for years. Do you believe in fate, Mrs. Lawson?”

“No, I don't,” Mother said, “not when it's mixed up with Mildred and a bird dog.”

“Neither do I,” Pauline said, “or never did till now. But just think about it . . . Why did I get lost and end up here? Why did Lloyd's dog get into someone else's car? Why did your sister run into me instead of someone else?”

Now, explaining it all to my father, Mother agreed that these were not mysterious events: Vergil was famous for getting into anybody's car, Aunt Mildred was famous for colliding with anybody's car and . . . “I know all about getting lost,” Mother said, “but even I know there are only two main roads north from Parkersburg, and if you miss the other one you'll end up here. But after all, they're both grown-up people—Lloyd's thirty-three years old, it's time he got married—and it wasn't as if they're going to get married this very minute. Besides, I thought it would all fizzle out. Of course, it didn't”—she smiled happily—“and now Lloyd's gone off to Milwaukee to marry Pauline.”

My father eyed Vergil. “I think if I were Lloyd,” he said, “I'd take that dog along with me for good luck, since he was in on the beginning of this romance.”

“Well, so was Mildred,” Mother said, “but she can't just go off to Milwaukee either—and you don't fool me a bit. You just don't want Vergil underfoot.”

Unfortunately, becase of his large and rangy size, Vergil was automatically underfoot, and he usually chose to sprawl, full-length, in awkward places: at the top of the stairs or at the bottom of the stairs, under the dining room table, under my father's car and, from time to time, on very warm days, in the bathtub.

The first time this happened Louis tried to make Vergil more comfortable by turning on the water; but Vergil scrambled out of the bathtub (moving faster than we had ever seen him move before) and tore all around the upstairs, barking and howling and shaking himself and spraying water everywhere.

“I think he was asleep,” Louis said, “and is surprised him.”

I thought so too, because Vergil was asleep most of the time . . . but when Louis tried it again, Vergil was awake and the same thing happened.

“He doesn't like the water,” Mother said. “He just likes to feel the cool porcelain tub.”

“So do I,” my father said, “but I don't want to take turns with a big hairy dog. Isn't Lloyd back yet? He must be married by now.”

“Yes,” Mother said, “but they're on their honeymoon. Surely you don't begrudge them a honeymoon?”

“That depends on where they went,” my father said. “They could have a very nice honeymoon between Milwaukee and here—two or three days in Chicago, maybe.”

“Yes,” Mother said, “they could. Listen, is that the telephone?”

“Well, hurry up and answer it. May be it's Lloyd.”

It wasn't Lloyd. Actually, it wasn't even the telephone—Mother just made that up because she didn't want to explain that Lloyd and Pauline had gone in the opposite direction—to San Francisco—and were going to stop along the way wherever Pauline had relatives who wanted to welcome Lloyd into the family. We found out later that all these relatives lived in places like Middle Mine, Wyoming, and Clash, Nebraska, and were probably overjoyed to see anybody at all.

Of course, after two or three weeks, Mother had to admit that they weren't in Chicago and, as far as she knew, never had been. “They probably aren't even to San Francisco yet,” she said. “You know how southerners are— sometimes newlywed couples visit around for months.”

“But Pauline isn't a southerner, she's from Milwaukee!”

“I was just giving you an example,” Mother said. “It wouldn't have to be southerners. Amish people do the same thing.”

“Is Pauline Amish?”

“She didn't say.”

My father thought that over briefly and then shook his head. “You don't have any idea where they are, do you.”

“No . . . but I do know that Lloyd is lucky, to marry into such a close and loving family.”

“Lloyd is lucky,” my father said, “because he was able to unload this dog on us while he tours the entire western half of the country. Oh, well,” he sighed. “I'm going to take a bath—he isn't in the bathtub, is he?”

“No,” Mother said, “but be careful when you come downstairs. He's asleep on the top step.”

Three or four minutes later Louis and I heard the unmistakable
thump, thump, bang, thump, bang
of something or somebody falling downstairs, and went to see who or what it was.

My father heard the noise too, assumed that Mother had tripped over Vergil and came stumbling out of the bathroom with his pants half off, calling for us to get help. Mother, in the back bedroom, heard both the thumps and the cries for help, came running from that end of house and fell over my father, who was trapped by his pants.

Meanwhile, Vergil lay at the foot of the stairs in his customary position: full-length and flat on his back—and ominously still. We thought he might be dead, and Louis got down on the floor to listen to his heart . . . which led Mother to conclude that it was Louis who had fallen
over
Vergil and then down the stairs along
with
Vergil.

“What else would I think?” she said. “Everybody on the floor in a heap.” She felt responsible, though, and made my father pull on his pants and take Vergil to the animal hospital, where, as it turned out, he was well known.

“He isn't moving,” Mother said. “He fell down the stairs.”

“Does it all the time,” the doctor told us. “This is the laziest dog in the world. He'd
rather
fall down stairs than stand up. Fell off a shed roof once. Fell out of Lloyd's truck that was loaded with fertilizer bags.”

“But he isn't moving,” Mother said.

“That's because he's asleep.”

My father said this was the last straw—that he hadn't wanted a dog at all, and he especially didn't want a dog who was too lazy to stand up—but Mother was relieved.

“I'd hate to have Lloyd come back,” she said, “and have to tell him that his dog died of injuries.”

“At this rate,” my father said, “his dog will die of old age before he shows up.”

Vergil didn't die, but Lloyd and Pauline never did show up, either. Their car broke down in a place called Faltrey, Arkansas . . .
and we couldn't find anyone to fix it,
Lloyd wrote.
They had a garage, had a gas station, had parts and equipment, had no mechanic. The mechanic couldn't stand Arkansas, they said, and he got on his motorcycle and left. So I fixed our car and two or three other people's cars . . . and to make a long story short, they just wouldn't let us leave. And now you couldn't pay us to leave, because we love it here in Faltrey, especially Pauline. But don't worry, because we'll be back to get Vergil, the first chance we get.

“‘
Yours truly, Lloyd
,'” Mother finished reading. “Well, what do you know about that!”

“I know it's a long way to Arkansas,” my father said, looking at Vergil.

After that we got a few postcards from Lloyd and a few letters from Pauline, who sent us a picture of the garage and a picture of their house and, eventually, a picture of their baby. All the cards and letters said they would be back for Vergil . . .
as soon as Lloyd's work lets up a little
or
as soon as we get the tomatoes in the garden
or
as soon as the baby's old enough to travel.

My mother believed all these assurances (or said she did), and she would never admit that Vergil was anything but a temporary house guest. If anyone mentioned “your dog,” she would always say, “Oh, this is Lloyd's dog. We're just keeping him for Lloyd.”

In a way, my father wouldn't admit it either, because he never referred to Vergil as “our dog” or “my dog” or anything except “that dog”; but when Lloyd and Pauline finally did come back they had a sizeable family—Lloyd, Jr., was in the second grade, and the twin girls were two and a half years old—and their car was full of infant seats and baby beds and toys. My mother said the last thing they needed was Vergil. “Where would you put him?” she said.

Lloyd agreed. “I guess I just forgot how big he is. We'd better bring the truck next time.”

Mother didn't mention this to my father, and in fact, Lloyd and Pauline had been gone for three days before he realized that Vergil didn't go with them, although Vergil was in plain sight, asleep, the whole time.

“You're just used to him,” Mother said, “and you would miss him a lot.”

“How could I possibly miss him if I haven't even noticed him for three days?”

“There!” she said. “How could any dog be less trouble!”

She was right, of course. Vergil didn't bark, or bite people, or dig up gardens, or upset trash cans, and by then we were all used to stepping over him or around him. By then, too, he was too old to climb into the bathtub; but sometimes, on very hot days, my father would lift him in—to get him out of the way, he said—and then get mad because Vergil wouldn't climb back out.

Despite Vergil's lack of interest in us, Louis and I were very fond of him. We thought of him as our dog, played with him during those brief and very occasional moments when he was awake, and whenever we had to write a paper for school about
My Best Friend,
or
My Favorite Pet,
we wrote about Vergil.