The Power of the Dog

by Thomas Savage

One reason he hated booze, he was afraid of it, afraid of what he might tell.

Johnny thought he had never seen a lovelier sight than his wife lying in the bed, nursing the child; he waited on her, sat beside her and read to her from Byron, enchanted by the wonder and beauty of birth. How everybody congratulated him, and how straight he sat at the wheel of the Ford motorcar, grinning and handing out cigars. Once having caught sight of his own face in a mirror, he continued to stare at himself, thinking. He thought how it was that whenever she looked up from whatever it was she was doing, she always smiled. He wondered if anybody had ever noticed that before.

And watching, Peter knew with a knowledge as tempered as a sly old man’s that he must oppose them on his own terms, not theirs. And he knew it was not only they for whom he harbored this novel, cold, impersonal hatred, but for all those normal, rich, envied and secure ones who might dare insult his private image of the Gordons.

“Oh,” Johnny said, “he’ll get to places I never got to,” and his heart grew big with pride, his mind swept over the enchanting landscape of his son’s future. “You wait and see.” “You’re a good man, too,” Rose reminded him. “Good? A man once called me kind, not good. I don’t fool myself. That’s my virtue. If you notice, it’s almost always what a man wants is to have his son better than he is. Rose, I’ve noticed that. And then, I never had much confidence. But every man lacks something.” And thus do we excuse our failures, by admitting them.

“I would tell you, Peter, never to mind what people say. People can never know the heart of another.”

“Well, then. To be kind is to try to remove obstacles in the way of those who love or need you.”

He paused and looked at her. “Am I talking too much?” “I love your talk.” “I wouldn’t want to get in the habit of talking too much, don’t you know” and then he saw the reflection of her quick smile in the windshield; staring straight ahead, he reached out and took her hand, overcome by a shocking tenderness. For a moment he was struck dumb at a habit of hers he saw now for the first time, how whenever she looked up from whatever she was doing, even unwrapping a sandwich in the front seat of a car, she always looked up smiling. He wondered if anybody had ever noticed it before.

How does one man, how does one man get the power to make the rest see in themselves what he sees in them? Where does he get the authority? But from somewhere he does get it.

For some miles, the Governor was silent, considering the remarkable failure of people to enjoy each other, or even to communicate. He’d found it hard going—but to admit it, even to his lady, was to expose his own belief, that most people gathered only out of boredom, or for gain.

At her age, she couldn’t accept Phil’s silence, his dislike, as simply another curious aspect of life. Doubtless in many families some didn’t speak to others. But you had to live to know it, get old enough not to expect much, old enough to accept the unpleasant, to add things up and see the balance.

In a way, he and Phil had a kind of bond—a bond of hatred, maybe, but Peter felt that one kind of bond could be just as useful as another.

But still the glasses remained in plain sight up there on the bookcase, for to hide them was to suspect someone of a crime incomprehensible to George, and rather than entertain the painful thought, it was easier to buy new glasses.

Take what I’ve got. You’ve been good. Phil, at that moment in that place that smelled of years felt in his throat what he’d felt once before and dear God knows never expected nor wanted to feel again, for the loss of it breaks your heart.