The Thanatos Syndrome

his place between door and shotgun, not out of time like the others, but passing time like a good hunter waiting, hunkered down, blowing a few soft feeding calls through his fingers.
    Only Vergil is uneasy, shooting glances at me. I know that what worries him is not what the others have done but whether I know what I am doing. He takes to pacing. I motion him over.
    â€œVergil, why don’t you go check on Claude and Ricky. But come right back. I might need you.”
    â€œGood idea!” he exclaims, as pleased to find me sensible as he is to leave.
    To share his new confidence, he leans closer, almost whispering, yet not really whispering. Somehow he knows that overhearing is not a problem now. “Am I correct in assuming that you expect them to regress to a primitive primate sort of behavior as a result of the sodium 24?”
    â€œNot primate. Pongid. Primate includes humans.”
    â€œRight. I had that in Psych 101. Did you know I was a psych minor?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo the reason you’re doing this is not punishment or revenge but rather because, though they have not themselves received the sodium 24 earlier and are therefore entirely responsible for these abuses”—he pats the pocket holding the photos—“the only way you could be sure of convincing the sheriff of their guilt is to dose them up and regress them to pongid behavior, for which they are not responsible but which will impress the sheriff?”
    â€œYou got it, Vergil,” I say gratefully. “The only thing is, we don’t know if it will work. Otherwise the sheriff is not going to be impressed by this peaceable scene. The photos are probably inadmissible.”
    â€œThat’s ironical, isn’t it?” muses Vergil, glancing around at our little group.
    â€œYes, it is, Vergil. But we don’t have much time. Do you think you could check on Claude and be back here in five minutes?”
    â€œNo problem,” says Vergil, and he’s gone.
    â€œHow’s Coach doing?” I ask Mrs. Cheney, who is sitting between me and Coach. Though she has removed the towel from Coach’s head, she has her arm around his neck, her hand against his ear, pulling him close.
    â€œFine, darling!” says Mrs. Cheney, pressing her knee against mine. “You boys can both come by me!” Mrs. Cheney has suddenly begun to talk in a New Orleans ninth-ward accent.
    I lean out to take a look at Coach. He has stopped bleeding and seems in a good humor, smiling and pooching his lips in and out.
    â€œHow are you, Coach?”
    He too leans out in an accommodating manner and seems on the point of replying, but instead takes an interest in the leather buttons on the front of Mrs. Cheney’s dress and begins plucking at them.
    â€œMrs. Brunette, how is Mr. Brunette?”
    Mrs. Brunette says something not quite audible but pleasant and affirming. She is busy brushing Mr. Brunette’s hair against the grain and examining his scalp. Mr. Brunette, head bowed in Mrs. Brunette’s lap, is going through Mrs. Brunette’s purse, a satchel-size shoulder bag, which he has opened. He removes articles and lines them up on the game table.
    A glance toward Van Dorn, who is nodding approvingly.
    â€œVan, what were the casualties at Sharpsburg?” I ask him.
    â€œFederals 14,756; Confederates 13,609,” he says instantly and without surprise.
    There are two things to observe here. One: though we have both read the same book, Foote’s The Civil War, he can recall the numbers like a printout and I cannot; two: he does so without minding or even noticing the shifting context.
    â€œWhat is the square root of 7,471?” I am curious to know how far he’ll go into decimals.
    â€œSnickers,” says Van Dorn.
    â€œSnickers?”
    â€œSnickers.” He makes the motion of peeling and eating something.
    â€œHe’s talking about a Snickers bar,” says the uncle companionably from the door. “He evermore loves Snickers. You can get me one too.”
    I get them both a Snickers bar from the vending machine in the pantry. “Eight six point four nine,” says Van Dorn, and begins peeling his from the top.
    Mr. Brunette has removed, among other things, a good-size hand mirror from Mrs. Brunette’s shoulder bag.
    I hold it up to him. He sees himself, looks behind the mirror, reaches behind it, grabs air.
    Van Dorn makes a noise in his throat. He has