The War of the Roses

one of the bushes along the perimeter of the house, springing up to cuddle his master's leg. Oliver's coming in by car always confused Benny, since he had to run around to the rear and couldn't get into the garage. He would stand on his hind legs at the door, waiting for Oliver to open it, then lunge playfully, invariably muddying up Oliver's suit.

Benny still wasn't there. But still it wasn't time to panic. Often Benny would straggle home late at night or early in the morning. Sometimes Oliver would leave the back door ajar and Benny would push his way in and scratch at the door to Oliver's room. Still asleep, he would get up, open the door, and let the dog in.

Lying there in the large, canopied bed, alone, Oliver listened to the sounds of the house, a rhythm he knew as well as his own heartbeat. The absence of the children and Ann was tangible and he could sense the emptiness around him. Somehow their presence in the house gave him some sense of belonging, of cohesiveness. And the house itself, its very familiarity, offered some comfort. His womb, he thought, wondering if Barbara, too, felt this same sensation. He sensed her lurking in what was once their bed across the hall. 'Lurking' was the word that had come to mind. And he saw her curled in the embryo position, listening, as he was now, to the sounds of the house.

Unable to sleep, he got out of bed and searched the room for a vodka bottle. Finding one, he poured some into a tumbler, then opened the window and brought in a small carton of orange juice from the ledge. There wasn't much left and he emptied it into the glass and drank it hurriedly.

Then he went back to bed and quickly began to slip into drowsiness. Before he could get to sleep, he heard a scratching on the door.

Benny.

Without opening his eyes, he got up, opened the door, and heard Benny pad to his accustomed spot on the Art Deco rug. Oliver got back into bed, feeling better, relieved.

It began as an abstraction. First came the loss of time. Then a burst of colors exploded in his brain and he opened his eyes. The room had become a toy kaleidoscope, with the patterns constantly changing.

He sat up, startled, rubbed his eyes, but the patterns merely changed. They did not go away. The Hepplewhite secretaire grew bloated as he looked at it and the file cabinets seemed to be floating in midair. Reaching out, he tried to touch one. It seemed to evaporate.

But when he looked up at the canopy and saw it descending on him, as in the famous horror story, he heard a scream. It did not sound like his voice at all -a whiny cackle, like that of a rooster being strangled at sunrise. Jumping off the bed, he felt his knees buckle and he lay on the floor, panting, searching for some shred of reason.

My mind, a faint trickle of logic told him. My mind. He touched his head, which seemed larger, but soft, like a sponge. He sensed something moving near him, something luminous and large, glowing, like a large ball of white fire. It was alive and its breath stank. Something warm and moist covered his face. Sitting up, he watched the apparition. It was monstrous, hideous, moving. He hit it with his fist and heard a strange sound, amplified, bursting in his ears.

His eyes would not focus and he moved back, sliding along the floor, overturning bottles. Some of them crunched under his weight and he felt a stab of pain in his buttocks. He watched the apparition move, then he turned away in horror. He had never felt more terror, as if he had suddenly descended into a special kind of hell.

'Forgive me,' he cried, but he could not hear his voice. Crawling on his hands and knees, he groped his way over objects. Looking back, he saw the apparition following. Colors continued to explode in his mind. Every object in the room seemed distorted, out of sync. His body bumped against something cool and hard and some brief trace of logic returned. He was in the bathroom, climbing into the tub. Still the apparition pursued him.

Clutching a fiery, golden metallic object, he felt it give and he was suddenly in a cold rainstorm. He lay back, letting the water run over him. Colored drops invaded the space above him, crawling over him like insects. The rain reminded him of something, something long ago. He heard pounding on the windowpanes and the muffled drone of a croaking voice. 'Going once. Twice.'

'Sold,' the voice screamed. His body lurched, grew still. He was certain that it was his tears coming down as rain.

Logic returned in fits, like blips on a computer screen, first as random patterns, then as connections. The colors faded, disappeared. He could see a spear of sunlight through the water rushing above him and finally he was observing himself lying in the bathtub being sprinkled by a gush of water from the shower head.

Testing his reflexes before he made an effort to rise, he felt pain in his buttocks, and as he rose slowly his head spun and ached. Stepping cautiously out of the tub, he held on to the sink and turned off the water. There was blood on the bathroom tile and on his fingers where he had touched the cuts. His eyes focused clearly now, and in the mirror he saw his rump, a network of oozing red tributaries.

Patting himself dry, he sprayed disinfectant on the cuts, then walked into his room. It was a mess. The bedclothes lay in disarray on the floor, which was strewn with broken bottles. He picked his way carefully across the broken glass and got into his shoes. Standing in the center of the room, he tried to reconstruct what had happened. Oddly, he remembered the images he had seen. Nightmarish shapes and sounds. Then he heard Benny's pained whimper and saw him cowering in the corner, his big brown eyes laden with hurt. He looked mangy, off color. Moving closer, he appeared to be covered with a whitish sticky substance.

Grabbing him by the neck chain, Oliver moved him into the bathroom and drew the blind, throwing the room into semidarkness. Luminous paint. The revelation came at him with a rush. He remembered the orange juice.

'God damn it,' he shouted, feeling the rage overflow and tighten into a ball in his chest.

He dressed hurriedly, picked up the orange-juice carton, and, leashing Benny, took him downstairs. He did not even look at Barbara's closed door, deliberately trying to contain his rage. Soon, he told himself, promising that she would pay dearly. He drove Benny to the vet in Eve's Honda.

'What asshole did that?' the vet asked, looking at Benny.

'Somebody who didn't like him, I guess,' Oliver responded.

'It'll take all day to clean him up,' the vet said. 'I also want to check his skin.'

Oliver nodded, then thrust the orange-juice carton in front of him.