This Dog for Hire

addition to les and mar.
    I jumped up without bothering to shut off the VCR and went right for the photo albums, taking all of three of them back to the desk. I opened the first.
    The first album contained pictures of Cliff and Louie on a trip to Rome and Israel; from the looks of the other people occasionally in the photos, it was a gay tour.
    The second album was a book of slides of Clifford’s work. I took the loupe out of the middle drawer, took out one of the plastic pages, and my eye to the lens, held it up to the light to see what was there. On this page, there were photos of up and rising son. Also the basenji sculpture, shot in various stages.
    There were some shots of Cliff, in goggles and knee pads, painting, what looked like Saran wrap around his watch, but it wasn’t possible to be sure without projecting the slide.
    The third album was the one I wanted to look at first, family pictures, the ones Bertram Kleinman had been shown, and yes, there was Clifford as a happy little boy, on a tricycle, with a litter of beagle puppies, holding hands with an older boy. A boy who was a little taller than he was and quite a bit stockier, even then. A boy holding a basketball against his hip. A boy whose head had been torn off.
    I paged through the album slowly, studying Clifford’s family, his mother and father, looking young and proud with their two sons, one, the younger, with blond curls, the other, the older boy, headless, and on and on, even until adulthood. Near the end of the book, I found Lester and Morton. In fact, I found the picture from which the painting in question had been made. In the photo, the boys stood close together, grinning falsely, clearly having been told to smile for the camera. Normal boys, like normal basenjis, not wanting to do as they were told. Not wanting to have their stupid picture taken when they could be playing war or climbing a tree instead. The painting, as I remember, was another story, a story of lewdness and fear, a story of incest and abuse, a story that said. Do your sons play that way? and Blood will tell.
    Peter’s wife, Linda, whom I had spoken to yesterday, was a short, square-looking woman with a round, flattish face, her hair neatly coiffed and sprayed, the hem of her unstylish dress landing primly beneath her knees, her children at her left, the ankles and feet of her husband to her right.
    Bertram Kleinman’s voice was coming from the television speakers.
    Bert: “You said that to him?”
    Cliff, crying: “Yes.”
    Bert: “You were able to get angry at him?”
    Cliff: “Yes.”
    Bert: “This is marvelous, Clifford, a real breakthrough for you. This is what we’ve been working for.”
    Cliff: “But it didn’t do any good. He just doesn't get it. The way he doesn’t get that I’m an artist, just because I’m his kid brother. I mean, even when I told him I had signed a gallery contract for my first show, well, my first group show, but still, he didn’t get it. He didn’t even congratulate' me, Dr. Kleinman.”
    “What did he do?”
    “He hung up on me. He said ‘Shit,’ and hung up. Do you see what I mean? What good did it do?"
    Bert: “Clifford, we’re not talking about changing Peter. Or erasing the past. We don’t have the power to do either of those things. What we’re talking about is you, we’re talking about your ability to express what you feel. And toward that end, this has been a really positive step for you.”
    “I guess. I guess you’re right.”
    So that was the Cliff and Bert Show.
    I shut off the set and walked out of the little red room into the huge, hollow, empty studio in the front of the loft.
    The light coming into the windows was front streetlamps, now, and when I walked over to the windows and looked out, f could see that it was raining.
    It was raining inside, too. All around me, overhead, in every room, in the closets full of expensive clothes, in the kitchen hung with polished copper-bottomed pots, it was raining sadness. I had seen him now, heard him, felt him, listened as the secret of childhood abuse had bubbled up in therapy, but nothing I or anyone else could do would bring him back to paint in his studio, to wear his expensive clothes, to cook in those copper-bottomed pots, to walk his dog, to love his handsome boyfriend.
    All I could do was make it as likely as possible that the person who killed him would be punished. I still had much to do.

32
    Dashiell Was Ready

    IT WAS AFTER seven and I was starving,