Amazingly, for without pressure from its owner, Gunner did fall silent. I must presume under the circumstances that the dearness of life, the value of it, its perceived worth—though neither value nor worth describe, fittingly, the crushing weight, for friends and relations at least, that a life has when threatened with its own ending—I must, under these grim circumstances (the doctor’s frustration with the patient’s condition; the dog’s shutting up; the young husbands’ soberly putting away their antiquated smut), presume that this so-called, by me, dearness of life can, in fact, be read in the demeanor and the attitude, the conscious or unconscious deportment of the average onlooker waiting a seeming eternity for the good or the bad news—even if the onlooker is, alas, a dog. I say this because of the way we all took, from Gunner’s sudden cessation of baying, our own cues to make like Max and stop breathing (if such were possible!—all hundred of us, not counting George, gathered around and taking in, holding in, simultaneously, those brisk little audible inhalations that indicate distress, curiosity, skepticism, hope)—to make like Max and stop breathing, and to consider, sympathetically (Didn’t we all feel a bit giddy and faint-headed ourselves, sitting or standing or kneeling there deliberately without oxygen?), how Max, if he had any feeling, must’ve felt in that moment while his lungs strained to get going—how lonely and how cold—and, also, how much we really did love him, would love his memory if he passed away from us. Even black-haired, towering Zachary, whose emotional life is too often characterized by violent, jocular aggression toward the weak and humble, seemed subdued, genuinely concerned over Maxwell’s welfare, or, at any rate, sensitive to the mood of concern suffusing the room. Zachary knew better than to give anybody an arm burn now. Back at a distance he stood, fists in pockets, head bent forward. (What size could Zachary’s shoes be? Do they make a fifteen? I’d like to know.) And Hiram, over by the fireplace, seemed to have forgotten, for the time being, the fire he had earlier undertaken to engineer. Blankly he peered over his walker. His wrist was swollen hugely but he was paying no mind. At his side his helper, Donovan, clutched, in delicate pink hands, a wad of incompletely crumpled Sunday newspaper. Donovan remained extremely still, because to move at all would mean possibly rustling that paper, a rudeness for sure in light of the suspense we all felt as Barry leaned over to massage Maxwell’s chest.

Fielding’s camera whined. The married guys watched it all from over by the porno cabinet; they, like Zachary, had their hands stuffed deep in their pockets, and one (Clay) showed, beneath worsted trousers, a boner.

It is true that we have all seen one another undressed at one time or another, and the range of our sizes is, I can report, exactly as you might suspect. What can be said about a hundred penises of all ages? Clay had a pocketed hand wrapped around his. Gently, absently, through the pocket’s cozy inner lining, Clay kept himself hard.