“I wouldn’t mind a hit of whatever he’s on,” whispered Virgil as the whirling botanist sheered back onto the Persian rug and into a crowd of twins. I couldn’t help feeling, at that moment, a modest thrill. The twins invariably bunch together in a pack during social functions, refusing to mix with the rest of us, preferring to assert their own little club; and it’s obnoxious. Suddenly, in rushed Max, a berserker in their midst, scattering three out of four identical twosomes. It was like something choreographed, Max dervishing armed and dangerous between Lawrence and Peter, on his left, and Scott and Samuel, to his right; and these two pairs at once deftly sidestepping—a shuffle of debonair panic followed by Max pirouetting to make straight for Winston and Charles tumbling backward onto chairs, raising hands to shield their matching terrorized faces crying, “Leave us alone! Leave us alone!”

That was when I noticed Max was wearing one of my favorite Italian ties. Isn’t that the way in families. Someone’s always rifling your closet.

“My tie!” I called across the room. The tie whipped and fluttered, as if blown in a wind.

But there was no actual breeze in here, only fear and turmoil, as guys of all ages got hastily up from their seats and retreated to form disorderly ranks before bookshelves and the recessed window casements between the shelves—a ring of brothers gazing in at Max with the same pitying, blankly frightened expressions worn by the taxidermized wildebeests and elk that loomed so dolefully overhead.

The library was about filled at this point. Only the last stragglers ranged up or down the lengthy hallways and stairwells that led to and from this or that distant household wing. One by one we arrived. We were all present except George. Near the end of the line was Milton. I saw him coming through the library’s main doorway.

Or not coming through. This entrance was clogged deep with Clinton, Rod, Bennet, Christopher, Leon, and many, many others, all intent on the spectacle at room’s center: our brother stalking aimlessly, dangerously after nothing, pottery in his trembling hands.

Whispering Virgil told me, “I don’t think he heard you. Look at him. This is very distressing. He needs help.”

Maybe the thing to do would be for someone young and agile to storm out there and risk his body and just be a gladiator and tackle Max. Rush high, spear low, drive him hard to the carpet. Wham.

Quietly I said to Virgil, “Where’s Zachary when you need him?”

“Fuck Zachary.”

“Yeah, no shit. Fuck that guy.”

“You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

What did Virgil mean, exactly? And why was I agreeing with him? And what, by the way, was that low, whirring, humming sound coming from over by the fireplace?

The truth is, I like Zack a lot. Of course there were those times when we were kids, when he used stature and strength to gain advantage over smaller brothers. I’m thinking of the famous sickening instance when Zachary—who reached an imposing six feet seven and weighed in at two hundred and sixty virtually fat-free pounds before his seventeenth birthday, and who continued to grow, vertically and in girth, even after that—decided it’d be a gas to kneel on Virgil’s chest, vigorously scour Virgil’s naked stomach with a hairbrush, and yell out, in his ecstatic, hormone-enriched voice, “Red belly! Red belly!”