A Philosophical Thing

We had not been back since the funeral. Mum held the screen door open as we drove up the drive, my Japanese car cutting through the silence like a pioneer into the west and nothing but grass and sky in every direction. A week on the ranch.

'You look lovely dear,' mum said to Holly, the two embracing.

'I look like I spent the last three days in a car,' said Holly, who had not done her hair in the motel that morning and was dressed in jeans and t-shirt, 'but you look like a movie star.'

Mum brushed the compliment away with a wave of her hand and walked us up to our room. 'You should have flown,' she said.

'I've got time mum,' I said, kissing her on the cheek as we walked, 'I like to drive.'

'Well it's silly,' she said, 'we would have paid.'

I said 'it never looks as far on the map.'

She stopped with her hand on the door handle. 'It's coming tomorrow,' she said, 'I think it's best if you just avoid the subject.'

'He's going through with it then?'

She nodded her head wearily, doubtless she had done her fair share of arguing when they were alone together, 'I think he just...' she stopped, her lips pressed shut.

'Where is he?' I asked.

'Outside with the puppy.'

'I'll dump my stuff and go say hi.'

'I'll take a shower,' said Holly.

'I'm glad you're back,' said mum, 'it does us all good to be together.'

I found dad fighting with the puppy over the ownership of a tennis ball. 'Look at this bloody dog,' he shouted as I approached, 'doesn't even know how to play fetch.'

'Happy birthday dad,' I said. The puppy yapped and bit onto the ball so resolutely that my father lifted it bodily from the ground.

'Had to put this stupid cone around its neck,' he said, 'got itself bit on the leg by something last week and keeps worrying at it. It's because it keeps rooting about in the dirt.'

I hugged the puppy to me and twisted the ball out of its mouth. 'It needs a name,' I said.

'Throw the ball,' said dad. I did. The puppy bounded off in roughly the right direction.

'Everybody keeps asking why I didn't buy a pedigree,' he said. 'Pedigree's just another word for inbred. They don't get it. Americans care about breeding because they don't have any. This is a mongrel nation.'

'I think it's lost the ball.' I said, watching the puppy dash back and forth across the lawn.

'How was the drive?' he asked, turning his back on the dog and heading up to the house.

'Fine,' I said, 'long.'

'What do you think of Montgomery? That's a noble name for a dog.'

The puppy cannoned into my legs, the saliva sodden tennis ball gripped between its teeth.

'He doesn't seem like a Montgomery.'

'It's coming tomorrow,' he said, 'first thing.'

My mouth went dry, I did not say anything.

'Remind me later to show you the gun I've bought.'

Holly straightened her hair and wore a skirt for dinner. 'You're making an effort,' I said, shamed into putting a shirt on.

'I don't want to give them any excuses.'

'Excuses for what?'

'Disapproving of me.'

'Nobody disapproves of you.'

'Your father does.'

We came down together like arrivals at a ball. Across acres of space in a house built for entertaining mum and dad sat in the corner by a wood fire. Dad was mixing gin and tonics. 'What do you think of Nelson,' he said as he handed us two tall glasses dripping with condensation.

'What about him?' asked Holly.

'As a name for the dog.'

'Doesn't seem like a Nelson to me,' she said.

'It's done its business in the hall,' said Mum.

Dad said, 'it's young.'

'And the maids gone home.'

Dad put his drink down and stalked off.

'Stupid bloody yappy dog,' said mum, and then put her hand over her mouth like she had blasphemed.

We ate coronation chicken with a green salad. My father snapped breadsticks and stirred them round in the sauce. 'We'll have to get you a job,' he said, 'at the company.'

'I've got a job,' I replied, looking from my mother to Holly to my mother again, neither of them would catch my eye.

'Not a proper job,' said dad. 'I'm talking about a career.'

'Who cares about a career,' I said, 'it pays the bills.'

'Only just dear,' said my mother.

'Well it does me for now,' I said. I could see thoughts of marriage and grandchildren were floating about in her brain. I looked at Holly but it was impossible to tell what thoughts floated about in hers, she was directing all her attention at the chicken and away from the conversation.

'You should try it at the company,' said Dad, 'you might get a taste for it.'

'Maybe,' I said.

After dinner I slipped away to be by myself. Holly found me sitting on the end of the bed in the second spare room turning a small painted china astray over and over in my hands.

'This used to be John's room didn't it?' she said.

'When he stayed here.'

'I remember.'

I reached out for her hand and pulled her down next to me.

'None of you ever mention him,' she said.

'It's awkward.'

'It's been a year.'

The following morning, while I was carefully measuring just the right amount of milk into a bowl of cornflakes, a truck pulled up in the driveway, the air breaks exhaling loudly. My father rushed through the kitchen and out the door. 'Come on,' he shouted, 'it's here.' I followed at a slow walk.

A man descended from the passenger side and put on a cowboy hat, smoothing the brim between thumb and forefinger. My father shook him vigorously by the hand and introduced me, 'Mister Ellis this is my son Warren.'

Mister Ellis nodded in my direction and said nothing. 'Come on,' said my father, 'I'll show you where I'm going to put it.'

My father led Mister Ellis to the stables while I followed a few feet behind. 'We knocked a couple of the stalls through,' he explained, 'to make one big one.'

Mister Ellis gave the enlarged stable a cursory glance and shook the wooden door with both hands. 'If she wants out,' he said, 'this won't stop her.'

'Should we chain her up?' asked my father.

Mister Ellis gave him a disgusted look. 'Nope,' he said.

'Then what do we do?' asked dad.

'Make sure she don't want out.'

Holly and mum had gathered around the truck by the time we got back. Mister Ellis told us that 'she might be jittery after the drive, so just you all stand back.' Then with the help of the driver he opened up the back of the truck and led the elephant out. It was about ten feet tall, a grey pickup truck sized mass of muscle, of skin and hair, of breath and sweat. It had no tusks and small ears, from behind heavy black lashes two eyes barely larger than the eyes of a man looked more asleep than jittery. Mister Ellis held it demurely by the trunk, the way he might have held the hand of a blind woman he was helping across the road, and led it towards the stables.

As soon as the elephant stepped onto the lawn the puppy ran out of the open kitchen door and began yapping furiously at it, dashing forwards and backwards just out of the elephant's reach, showing its teeth and summoning a vicious growl from somewhere in its tiny body. It was like a hornet defending its nest, and for a moment looked so certain of its own ability to drive away the larger beast that I was almost convinced myself. The elephant pulled its trunk out of Mister Ellis' hand and stepped twice sideways away from the dog.

'Get that damn dog out of here,' he shouted.

My father and I both made a run for it, but we were nervous of getting within range of the elephant and the puppy was too fast for us. Finally it strayed near Mister Ellis who, with a sharp kick, sent it yelping away towards me and I managed to scoop it up in both arms.

Holly followed me back inside, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

'It's horrible,' she said.

I put the dog down and hugged her. 'I know,' I said. The puppy scratched and yapped at the kitchen door. Holly pushed me away and said she was going upstairs. I let her go and tried my best to calm the dog.

I found Holly later laying on the bed reading one of her magazines. She scowled when I asked how she was.

'Do you want anything,' I asked, 'breakfast?'

'No.'

'Would you like to go and see it?'

'No.'

I went as if to kiss her on the forehead but something in her eyes told me not to, so I stopped halfway, bent awkwardly over the bed. I left, and taking care to avoid my parents, went down to the stables.

Mister Ellis was standing outside smoking with the truck driver.

'Is everything alright?' I asked. He grunted.

'I was...' I said, 'my girlfriend's pretty upset and I was hoping that maybe you could say something to make her feel better.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know, I mean, are you okay with this?'

'Elephant's gotta die,' he said with a shrug, 'sick.'

'So this is humane really?'

'Truck her across two states to be shot for fun, humane my eye.'

'Oh,' I said, and stood there awkwardly for a moment. 'What's her name?'

'What do you care,' he drawled with the cigarette still in his mouth.

'I see,' I said, and walked away.

'I'll need to see the gun,' he shouted after me, 'before I can allow it.'

'Talk to my father,' I shouted, and then stopped, turned, and said 'I'll tell him.'

'Josephine,' shouted Mister Ellis, 'her name's Josephine.'

The others filtered in before lunch. Uncle Vaughn with his new wife and great aunt Phillis in her wheelchair. A dozen or so company men I only half recognized. They all had names like Kenwood or Red, and were all accompanied by wives in summer dresses and hats like they were going to the races. Soon there was a big enough crowd to get lost in and I went upstairs to sit with Holly for a bit. I took the puppy and we played with it together on the bed, which cheered her up, or at least took her mind off everything else.

'Are you going to take the job?' she asked.

'I don't know,' I replied, 'I'm being shown off like a new toy to all these company people and I don't want to disappoint dad but whenever they talk about the business and my mind just wanders. It was much simpler when John was alive.'

'Because all that pressure was on him not you.'

'Because he liked all that stuff, I just don't care.'

She kissed me and I asked if she was up to playing the good girlfriend over lunch.

'Do I need to dress up.'

'Only if you want to fit in,' I said.

'Do I want to fit in?'

'I don't want you to.'

Lunch was a buffet salad outside on the lawn, the food was good, and so was the weather, nothing else was. Dad held court, regaling his entourage with tales of a safari holiday three years ago and great hunters from the past he had been reading about. He could have bored for his country, whichever country that was these days. Mister Ellis sat through it all stony faced and silent. From across the lawn the occasional elephant noise issued from the stables.

One day son, I thought to myself, all of this will be yours. I didn't want it. I liked my Lower East side apartment life. I liked my toy job at the gallery. I liked my art-set friends and knowing all the best restaurants. I liked the easy family loans that were quietly forgotten. I held Holly's hand as dad started talking about the elephant again. 'Of course it is not sport,' he said, 'it's not supposed to be. This is not a physical test but a mental exercise. A man periodically needs to demonstrate to himself his superiority in the world, in order to relearn how he achieves that superiority, which is through the use of tools. In this case a three fifty-seven H&H magnum. It's a philosophical thing.'

'But isn't it cruel,' said one of the wives.

'Not at all,' said my father, 'the elephant would have to be killed anyway, it's dying, right Ellis.'

Mister Ellis nodded once. 'He doesn't like it,' I whispered to Holly, hoping that knowing someone else was on her side would make her feel better, 'he said she should have been put to sleep at the zoo.'

After lunch my father organized a tour round the ranch, which I excused myself from on the grounds I had seen it before. I offered to help mum organize dinner but she refused. Instead I played with the puppy again whilst Holly and some of the wives sat on the porch and talked. After a while Holly left them and joined me.

'They're talking about you,' she said.

'Really, what are they saying?'

'How big and important you'll be when you inherit everything.'

'They think the wrong brother died.'

'They never said that.'

'But they think it.'

Holly crouched down and tried to stroke the over excited puppy but it just wriggled away from her and yapped. She wanted something to love, the puppy just wanted something to play with.

'I think I'd like to see it,' she said. 'Will you take me.'

I shut the puppy back in the house and walked her down. Mister Ellis was sitting on the ground outside the stables, he pushed his hat back as we approached.

'Can we go in?' I asked.

'She's your el...' he started, and then said, 'go right ahead. You can stroke her if you like but don't pat her.'

'Thanks,' said Holly.

We walked in and I leaned on the stable door looking at the elephant. She looked at us us. Holly extended her hand towards her and the elephant extended her trunk, the two girls rubbed each other affectionately.

'I always wanted an elephant,' said Holly, 'when I was little.'

'So did I,' said Mister Ellis, standing in the doorway, 'and now I have four.'

The elephant brightened up to see him, and extended her trunk to sniff his face and hands.

'Is she in much pain?' asked Holly.

'Vet reckons she must be in some,' he said, 'but you were never one to make a fuss were you girl.'

Holly said 'I think it's horrible what's happening.'

Mister Ellis looked at me, and then said 'well I ain't exactly over the moon about it, but this man's father paid a lot of money and that helps the zoo and helps the animals that are living. That's how I try and look at it.'

I looked at him and mouthed thank you. He gave me the smallest, curtest, nod.

Then my father walked in at the head of the crowd. 'And here,' he said, 'is the beast.'

I watched Holly's face frost over into a mask. I took her by the shoulders and steered her quickly out through the crowd.

'Warren,' called my father, 'come over here.'

I started to say something but Holly was already running across the lawn without me.

'Come here,' my father said again. He was standing inside the stable with the elephant, posing for photographs. I walked through the crowd and stood beside him. Me, dad, and the condemned Josephine preserved for posterity.

Silently, I seethed.

The party went back to the house for camparis and sodas, gins and tonics, rums and cokes, bloody marys, whiskey sours. I slipped into the kitchen and poured my cocktail down the sink, and then walked out the back and directly, perpendicularly, away from the house to the quiet spot where we had buried my brother. A little rectangle of bowling green lawn and fresh flowers. I knew mum replaced them every morning. I sat down with my back against the fresh white stone.

I thought about taking the job with the company, there had been no question with my brother, John had always taken after dad and was always going to follow in his footsteps. Was I really so different, or was I just not used to the idea. I was being offered a chance to pay my way for once, what would I be if I refused. I thought about that a bit, and I thought about John, and what he might have done about the elephant thing, but mostly I just felt sorry for myself. I made sure to be back in time for dinner.

My father barbecued on the front lawn dressed in an apron with a picture on the front of a lobster holding barbecue tongs in its pincers. Holly was already there, in a dress now, laughing along with the other wives. The sight of her sent a droplet of ice-water down my spine, I liked to think of her as completely different from those women, nothing but dyed hair and coffee morning gossip. I looked for something, a sign that she was just playing a part, that it was still us and them, clearly demarcated, but there was nothing. She laughed and waved. I waved back.

'There are you are,' my father shouted, abandoning the barbecue to the other men and taking me to one side. 'I want you with me tomorrow,' he said quietly. 'We're going to have a champagne breakfast first thing and then I'm going to shoot the elephant. I'd like you by my side. Be a part of it. You know.'

I didn't know. I didn't know at all.

He said 'maybe you'd like to load the gun.'

I said 'no. Dad. I don't want to do that.'

He looked sad. 'This means a lot to me you know.'

'Why,' I hissed. 'What the hell does it mean?'

'Because it's something real,' he said, 'once you get past all that sentimental bullshit it's not an evil thing, ending a life, but it's a real thing. A real, important, thing to do. Not like all the other crap.'

'What other crap?'

'Everything, the company, the business,' he lowered his voice even further, 'all these bloody sycophants.'

'Dad,' I said, 'the business is huge and you run it, you. If you mess up thousands of people loose their jobs. Isn't that real?'

'No.'

At that point Holly came over holding the puppy. 'What are you two whispering about?' she said with a beam that showed her bright white American teeth.

'How about Winston,' said Dad, ruffling the puppy's head.

'How about Captain Yap,' said Holly, 'that seems more like him.' I felt my shoulders drop, she was still my girl.

'You'd better put him inside,' said Dad, 'or he'll try and climb on the barbecue.'

We carried the puppy into the kitchen. Holly said 'I want you to stop it.'

'Stop what?' I said, and then worked it out for myself. 'How can I stop it?'

'I don't care,' she said, taking the box of cornflakes from the cupboard, 'just stop it or I'm going home tomorrow.'

'What are you doing with that?' I asked. She poured herself a bowl of cereal.

'I don't feel like eating meat.'

I went back outside and rejoined the barbecue. I fixed a smile on my face and played the number one son and heir, the empire in good hands, the king in waiting. I joked with the guys and I charmed the ladies. I hugged my father and kissed my mother. I talked business. I took advice. I drank beer. I ate meat.

At the very end, when only a few of us were left and dad had broken open the better scotch, he brought out the gun and laid it flat on the table. Explaining yet again why it was necessary for a man to own such a ridiculous weapon. For the first time in hours I noticed the sounds of Josephine from the stable and all of a sudden I had to get out of there. I stood upright scraping my chair across the deck, still holding my drink, and mumbled something about going to the toilet.

'Take this back in for me,' said Dad, handing me the gun. I looked at it for a moment, not really understanding what he wanted, then downed half a tumbler of scotch, took the gun from him, and walked back to the house.

In the kitchen, I put the gun on the table and poured myself a drink of water, still wheezing from the shock of the whiskey. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it and immediately knew it was dead.

The puppy, excited by the smell of the barbecue but locked on its own in the kitchen, had climbed onto the sideboard and tried to eat from the open box of cornflakes. But the buster-collar had stuck inside the box, and it had asphyxiated on the plastic bag. Its two hind legs stuck out the end.

I laid it on the table and stroked it, wondering if perhaps I should attempt CPR, but the limp form felt so small and brittle that I dared not in case I snapped its tiny ribcage. I half remembered stories of animals being brought back from recent death just by stroking, so I stroked it, but it did not cough and start breathing, it stayed resolutely dead.

I looked at the gun on the table beside it.

I took a box of ammunition from the gun case, and slipped out the back way, around out of sight of the front lawn, and down to the stable. Mister Ellis was just walking out, he stopped when he saw the gun and very slowly put his hat on his head.

'What you doing?' he asked.

I realized how drunk I was and rested the gun on the ground, holding it by the barrel, so as not to threaten him with it, to try to take it out of the equation. But you can never take a gun entirely out of the equation, not really.

'I'm going to shoot Josephine,' I said.

He looked at me a long time, and asked why.

'Because I won't enjoy it,' I said, 'and she should not be shot for fun.'

Again he looked at me, an age he stood there, without a word, weighing me up. Finally he said 'one shot, between the eyes, any hurt you visit on her I will revisit tenfold on you.' And without waiting for a response he turned and walked away, back to his truck.

I went in to the stable.

Josephine was standing right up at the door, her trunk hanging over it. She looked at me sleepily, and extended her trunk. I held out my hand, and allowed myself to be sniffed. She was friendly, harmless, she was no more a beast than the puppy was. She was not in pain. I looked and looked, but there was not a hint of it in her. She was just tired. Like me.

I would not have done it. I could not have done it. But that I heard my father call my name.

I stepped back and raised the gun. I'm not fond of guns but I know what I'm doing. A blind man could not miss at that range. I sighted it carefully, exactly between the eyes.

My father called my name again.

The recoil nearly knocked me down.