The Thanatos Syndrome

you think, Tom?”
    â€œThen why not drink this?” I offer him the Styrofoam mug.
    Van Dorn is embarrassed for me. He ventures a swift glance at the others. Vergil is embarrassed too, won’t meet his eyes.
    â€œTom, that is molar sodium 24.”
    â€œI know.”
    Now he’s stuffing his pipe from the leather pouch. “Tom, may I be frank?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAre you quite all right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou seem—ah—not quite yourself. Mr. Bon, is our good friend here all right?” Pausing in his pipe-stuffing, he eyes Vergil shrewdly.
    â€œHe’s fine,” says Vergil, not looking up. He’s not sure I am all right.
    â€œThen it must be some kind of joke. Because he knows as well as I do—better!—that that’s molar sodium 24. And he certainly knows what it would do to you.”
    â€œI wasn’t intending to drink it,” I say.
    â€œI see.” Van Dorn takes time to light his pipe. “Why don’t I stop this stupid smoking.” He appears to collect himself. “I see. Then who is going to drink it?”
    â€œYou.”
    â€œMe,” says Van Dorn gravely, exchanging a glance with Vergil. “Anybody else?” No one replies. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes toward Vergil.
    â€œCoach next, after you,” I tell him.
    Coach, who has been cracking his knuckles in his lap, looks up.
    â€œThen Mr. and Mrs. Brunette. Then Mrs. Cheney.”
    â€œI see,” says Van Dorn, nodding. “And you’re not going to tell us what the scam is.” He’s nodding now.
    â€œI would like for all of you to drink a cup of this.”
    Van Dorn becomes patient. “We hear you, Tom. And I suppose it is a joke of sorts. In any case, we are not going to drink it.”
    â€œI think it would be better if you drank it, Van.”
    â€œOh my,” says Van Dorn in a soft voice. “Well, that seems to leave us at an impasse, doesn’t it, Tom?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œHe doesn’t think so, Mr. Bon,” says Van Dorn in the same patient voice, the voice I might use with a young paranoid schizophrenic.
    But Vergil doesn’t answer or look up.
    I notice Coach, who is observing his knuckles. Looking at his head, which is covered by a thick growth of close-cropped blond hair, is like looking into the pile of a rug. At the proper angle one can see the scalp. His neck is as wide as his head, the sternocleidomastoid muscle so enlarged that it flares out the surprisingly fleshy lobe of his ear.
    Mr. Brunette crosses his legs, not with ankle over knee but knee over knee, crossing leg dangling almost to the floor. His suit is not at all a preacher’s suit, I notice, but the new Italian drape style, of charcoal silk, loose in the hips, tight in the cuffs. But he wears the sort of short thin socks with clocks fashionable years ago and loafers with leather tassels.
    â€œOkay, gang!” says Van Dorn briskly, and would have clapped his hands, I think, if he wasn’t holding his pipe. “I don’t know about y’all but I got a school to run. If there’s nothing else, Doctor?”—with a slight formal bow to me, eyes fond but distant.
    The others are on their feet instantly, following Van Dorn to the door.
    â€œOnly these.” I spread the photos on the plywood table between the sofas.
    Van Dorn and the others are looking down at the glossies on their way out, heads politely aslant to see them better, as one might look at the photos of a guest fresh from a trip to Disney World.
    I too have the first good look at them.
    There are six photographs.
    There are details which I missed in my earlier, cursory glance. In the photograph of Mrs. Cheney on all fours, Coach at her from the rear, Mrs. Cheney’s head is partially hidden between the bare legs of a young person who is supine and whose head and chest are not in the picture. It is not clear whether the young person is a boy or a girl.
    In the photograph of Mr. Brunette kneeling at a youth, the youth has both hands on Mr. Brunette’s carefully barbered head, as if he were steering it, and is gazing down at him with an expression which is both agreeable and incurious. Mr. Brunette’s bare shoulders are surprisingly frail, the skin untanned.
    In the photograph of Van Dorn dandling the child, the child is shown to have been penetrated but only by Van Dorn’s glans and certainly not