Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet Page A

advantage.
    â€œI know what you’re thinking,” I said. In a session I would never say this, of course, but we were old familiars, after all, and I felt myself homing in. “Maybe Reagan wouldn’t have won at all. Maybe you’d still be president now. If you’d hit it. Who knows? Maybe the hostages woulda come home in time. Maybe you’d be more successful in other areas, too. If you know what I mean.”
    The pause lasted a while.
    Then:
    â€œWell, Bob,” drawled Carter. “Now, you may just be right. But the thing is, I didn’t miss. I wasn’t trying to hit that poor critter at all.”

    And just like that, the rabbit faded. Slowly but surely I knew the dark form of the old Mullins cat, strung up and skinned. Only had two and a half legs to begin with, limped around everywhere; that was why we hated it. Pitiful. Thing made you want to weep.
    We trapped it in a corner, Al Jr., Travis, me, and J. C. Whose idea had it been to club it to death in the first place?
    Not his.
    â€œListen. It was all of us that did it, Robert,” came Carter’s voice faintly. The wine made my head heavy; it wanted to loll. “Sure, you did the . . . you know, first hit—but the guys were egging you on. I hope you understand you don’t have to bear the burden alone. There was a mob mentality. I mean, the hardness of those times took a toll on us kids. I don’t believe it was your fault alone. I really don’t. I know we were just children. But I want you to know that I am deeply sorry we did not all step forward to take responsibility. I think how you were punished, and I feel for you. I will always be profoundly repentant for what we boys did.”
    Carter was playing hard at deflection. He’d brought out the big guns.
    â€œWhat you may want to do at this point is visualize
the rabbit,” I said. My mind was wandering. Al Jr. had said we would end its suffering, put it out of its misery. Strength is the principle, now as it was then. Don’t cave, I told myself. Do not fall prey to Carter’s feebleness. For a while he had governed the nation, but weakness toppled him in the end. The rolling gait of the cat came to mind, how quickly it could get where it was going on its less than three legs. Old Mullins had pulled it around on a plywood cart with a string, but it didn’t need the cart. Even when it had been broadsided by the bat, it had struggled to get up again.
    In quiet times, when memory floated, I imagined that little cat had been brave.
    Quiet times brought on sentimentality.
    I looked at Carter, the smudged glass globe against my fingers. Behind my hand the near-empty bottle was a column of light. Carter himself stretched sideways and ballooned as though in a funhouse mirror . . . it came to me in a wash of smells and color, that scene in the alley.
    He hadn’t hit it. Not once.
    There he was beside me, thin and bulgy-eyed. He shook his head, tried to stop the whole deal. Because it was my idea, I was up to bat first. He had put up
his hands to grab the bat from me, fell back when I pushed against his chest and stumbled away as I raised the implement.
    Down it went. Down it went.
    He had never joined in.
    â€œYou need to visualize the rabbit,” I said, shoring up my supports. My words were not slurring. I’ve always held my liquor. “Fix it firmly in your mind. The rabbit is what defeats us in the end, no matter what we do.” I saw a leaden pinpoint shrinking inward; I saw dry motes of dust, the gray hours. Then my eyes glanced across Carter. In passing it came to me how sad he looked. My eloquence was moving him. Possibly, just possibly, he would be able to let go.
    Back then I was advising clients to use punching bags for aggression, often with images taped to them. It was an innovative therapy and independently pioneered. But Carter was fairly sophisticated, and I felt instinctively it would be better to keep the