The St. Bernard

The cord for the small fan was draped over his chest and plugged in behind him. He had a TV at the foot of the bed. A small spider descended. To sit up would have meant disrupting the arrangement with the fan, so he accepted the presence of that creature, even if he was trying to fall asleep, and his face would be as open and as vulnerable as the prairie if that arachnid wanted to do a little dance on it. He used to go to bed with a St. Bernard. That dog would make the bed shake when he jumped on top of it. This little spider did not seem as interested in him as that giant dog had been. The spider was just trying to live its life. The TV show was in Spanish. There were no subtitles. The volume was low. It was low enough that the little fan almost drowned it out. The bedspread and the pillow were slightly damp. He was lying on his back with his hands on his stomach. A neighbor had burst into flames the other day. There was going to be a get-together that somebody was organizing, a woman he had never met, for paying respects and checking in with one another because a thing like this was shocking. It was simply a very disturbing thing. The woman had gone door to door inviting people on the street to this memorial for the man who lived in the corner house and seemed like a regular guy who was doing all the right things and deserved something better than this. He had plugged in the miniature fan and had it on the kitchen table when she knocked on the door. The sun was like a parent trying to get a little kid to like him and paying way too much attention than he should. All you wanted was for the sun to go away. He had not expected anyone to knock on the door, of course, and the answering of the door felt almost exotic to him. She was dressed all in white. She had in her hand a little bundle and she handed him one of the photocopies of the handwritten invitation. He felt a little bashful—of course, of course, that’s a good idea, yes I’ll be free, I’ll come, no honestly I hardly knew him. He struck me as a nice guy. I still can’t believe that happened. “It’s a more common thing in China.” “I’m sure there is much all of us can learn.” “I’m grateful, though, that he wasn’t standing next to somebody, or holding a cat. Or that he was driving. Can you imagine, if he was driving?” “Nothing about it is anything I can imagine.” “I’ll see you on Wednesday.” The only spontaneous combustion he really knew had happened in Bleak House, and he wondered if it would be inappropriate to bring that up. Should anyone have not read the novel, he would also not want to ruin that moment. Dickens went on at some length about the factual accuracy of this phenomenon in his preface, and so even Dickens was spoiling the plot twist in a way, self-conscious, although it was one of the greatest moments in English literature, frankly. No, leave Dickens at home, he thought, unless someone else mentions it, and then all bets are off and have at it. But his neighbors didn’t strike him as people who had read Bleak House. Certainly, they all were spooked. Was it going to happen again? It happening at all was crazy. But what if another one of them were to burst into flames? That would be when the group hysteria was likely to erupt. It was wise and it was civil for all of them to meet. Something like this they should have done a long time ago, if only someone had taken the time.