Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [73]
“You look great,” I said.
“What’s the matter with your foot?” He reached to turn down the stereo. “You’re limping.”
I looked at James. “I had an accident,” I said. When this did not seem to satisfy Irv, I added, “A dog bit me.”
“A dog bit you?”
I shrugged. “Believe it or not.”
“Let me see.” He pointed to my ankle. “Come by the light.”
“It’s nothing, Irv. It’s fine. What were you reading?”
“Nothing. Come, let me see.”
He took hold of my elbow and tried to steer me away from his chair, toward a neighboring floor lamp with a cracked glass shade. I pulled away from him and went over to see what he’d been looking at when we came in, because I always liked to tease him for favoring such light reading as Gas Permeable Structures in Polymer Design and Modal Analysis of Pre-tonal Italian Sacred Compositions of the 17th Century. When he really wanted to unwind he might pull down something by Frege or one of his cracked old George Gamows, and chew on the end of a stinky cigar. He’d left the book facedown, flaps outspread on the arm of his chair; a hardback in plain blue library binding, with the title stamped in white on the spine: The Bottomlands. I felt myself blush, and I looked up to see that Irv’s face had also turned bright red.
“You had to check it out of the library?” I said.
“I can’t find my copy. Come.” Irv pulled me over to the floor lamp. Under his regime the springhouse was invisibly but strictly divided into three parts. There was the reading room—the two wing-backed armchairs and pair of lamps, an electric space heater, and a wall lined with bookshelves filled with his metallurgical and music theory texts. In the central portion of the springhouse he had his laboratory—a stationary tub and a pair of workbenches, one cluttered, one spotless, upon which he carried out his mechanical and chemical activities, from toaster repair to the development of a substance that could stick to Teflon coating. On the far side of the room there was an army cot piled with blankets and a refrigerator replete with cans of Iron City Light, one of which—no more or less—he took, medicinally, every afternoon at five. It was an enviable setup; Irv had rediscovered, as surprisingly few men do, that the secret to perfect male happiness is a well-equipped clubhouse. We’d once tried to reckon the amount of hours he had spent out here since his retirement, and had arrived at a conservative estimate of twenty thousand. Irene, I think, would have doubled that figure.
“Here.” Irv pushed my book aside and patted the arm of his chair, generating a thick cloud of dust. “Put your foot up. James, have a seat.”
I took hold of his shoulder, to steady myself, and lifted my foot onto the chair. I hiked up the cuff of my jeans and carefully slid the sock down to the collar of my shoe. I hadn’t bothered to rebandage the wound and the sight of it made me wince. The four holes in my ankle were dark and puckered. The flesh all around the bite was pillowy and red, tinged here and there with daubs of yellow. I looked away. For some reason I felt ashamed.
“That looks nasty,” said James.
“Its infected,” said Irv, leaning down to examine the wound more closely He gave off an aroma of hair oil and leather wallet and sweat, mingled with the orange-peel-and-Listerine fragrance of his aftershave, Lucky Tiger, which he wore on special occasions. I stood over him, with my eyes closed, inhaling his familiar smell. I wondered if this was the last time I was ever going to smell it.
“When did the dog bite you?”
“Last night,” I said, although it seemed like it had to be much longer ago