‘And your dad.’

‘Good call. MacDougall brings that up himself. He admits to me that he had been completely caught off guard by my dad’s joke but that hands down the most terrifying part of it was when he had had to shout “Mister Cookie, Mister Cookie” to try to get my dad to stop. Because there was a second there when my dad didn’t hear him. And didn’t stop. And for the first time in his life MacDougall was brought face to face with what was nameless in man. He tells me that he had never conducted the fantasy with a human being before but that in that split second of fear he compressed the entire what-if scenario down to one instant, to one eidetic flash, and in the unfolding of the flash he saw that if my dad actually were to attack him—if my dad had some primordial core in him, which wouldn’t respond to a name and couldn’t be caged in a name, some past-life kernel left over in him from his canicular preexistence—MacDougall knew what he was prepared to do. He saw in the fantasy’s flash, in all awfulness, what he was capable of.’

‘Obviously not planning to wring your dad’s neck. Twelve, thirteen years old.’

‘No, but he admits to me—he tells me this—that out of the corner of his eye he noticed a steak knife nearby, lying on the dinner table. And in that moment, he says, he was worried he’d have to stab my dad. Right in the throat, where the dog scars were. The thought sickened him, but he knew he’d do it. He’d carried this murderous memory around with him for years afterward, he said. Too ashamed to share it.’

‘Wherefore the face-darkening.’

‘Right.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Oh you just know he’s the kind of guy now, goes around poisoning neighbors’ dogs. There isn’t really even any question.’

‘You keep up with him?’

‘Lost touch in college. I looked for him on Facebook recently. I think he’s working admin at the old alma mater.’

‘What about your dad? You ever tell him about you and Dougall’s talk?’

‘No. No, I never did.’

‘Hey now. Now your face is darkening.’

‘I just remembered something, is all.’

‘Come on, man. Don’t hold out on me. Did Dougall poison your dad’s dog or something?’

‘No, nothing like that. I just never made the connection before now. Between this particular memory and MacDougall. I must have forgotten all about him by the time it happened. But talking about him tonight, it’s funny. How I didn’t see it.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘The thing is, after my mom died, Dad actually did end up getting a dog. A little mixed-breed beagle. He lived alone with it awhile, over a decade, and around sixty he retired. He’d been doing construction for forty-something years, and the work had taken its toll on his body: overweight, bad back, heart attack. He was pretty run-down. Big guy—’

‘“Barbican.”’