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Gerald Stoodley couldn't get the botulism party out of his head. All of those distant relatives of his, dead and gone. Sure, he inherited nine thousand dollars from it, and his life changed. But night-times he'd find himself wondering about it, how it happened. He started to make up what he called scenarios.

"None of it, Henry," he said to me, "bothered me in any way. Totally detached, I was."

But there he found himself at 2 A.M., he couldn't sleep, and he ran through it in his head like a movie, scene after scene, imagined it all from scratch, saw how easy it was for everything to slip away.

First he saw the dog, the little fox terrier. In one scenario, the dog was asleep in the apartment, all by himself. There was a radiator under the window, and that was where the little dog slept all day, on a raggy blue blanket. There was an empty bowl sitting there for Kibble. Now and then, the little dog got up and growled at nothing. It tugged and pulled away at the edge of the blanket with its teeth. Then a pigeon flew by and landed on the outside, up on the windowsill, and the fox terrier jumped up and barked and the pigeon flew away.

"It flew away like the passing of a spirit," said Gerald Stoodley.

He had another scenario which showed the same room, but this time there was no dog. The blue blanket was there, and so was the radiator, but the pigeon perched up on the windowsill for a long time. Coo-coo-coo it went, and that was the only sound you could hear because the apartment was empty. It was the middle of the afternoon, a lot of light came in from the window.

Next thing that happened, in both scenarios, there were footsteps on the stairs and the front door opened. Then either the fox terrier jumped up from the blanket and ran to the door, or the fox terrier came in on a leash from the outside. Either way, the scene was set and Gerald liked it better when he pictured it the first way, the dog all alone in the house for such a long time.

Then the six people who lived there came inside, all of them together. They were dressed up in their soccer uniforms, they were a team. 'Halifax Falcons', was what it said on the front of the shirts, and there were numbers, all different, on the back. They all laughed and clumped straight into the kitchen, took off their soccer shoes, pushed them into a pile.

"Spent the rest of their lives in just their socks," Gerald said.

First through the door was Otto Bond and then in came Johnny Drake. Otto Bond put a carton of beer on the floor. Then he filled up the refrigerator with the beer bottles, one by one. Johnny Drake had one open already, it looked like he didn't care if it was warm. Then in came the others. Terry Snook, Shawn Blagdon, Barry Rose, and Justin Peach. Gerald rhymed off the names like that. He knew them all from the lawyer's papers, from the inheritance, from the stories in the newspapers.

"Otto Bond was stocky, he had his hair cut short and he was the quickest soccer player you ever seen. They won the men's championship that night. All Halifax." said Gerald.

That was the truth all right. He'd read it in the Daily News, read what the police found when they came in, later on.

It was Otto Bond who owned the dog and you could tell he liked it. He went over and got out some Kibble from the cupboard, put it into the bowl and shook it, so it made a sound. The dog came over and snuffed at it, but you could tell that he'd had a awful lot of Kibble before.

"Oh, eat the food, doggy-oh," sang Otto Bond.

Then the boys got hungry and the dog was up on the couch curled up in one lap or another. There were no girls there at all. That meant the six of them concentrated on laughing and hooting and joking, just being themselves. Six, seven o'clock came around and by then they were all in the living-room. There was a couch, a TV, and a bean-bag chair. Three of them sat on the floor on a rag-rug from home. There was a picture wove into that rug, the S.S. Caribou, the ship full of passengers that the Germans sank with a torpedo back in 1942. Down it went, the Caribou ship, down to the bottom off Port-aux-Basques. Hundreds drowned. Trouble was, Gerald saw in his scenario, the rag-rug was so old and so twisted out of shape, the ship was bent here and there, and it looked like an old wreck.

"It was an omen too, the rug, like the pigeon," I said.

"That's right," said Gerald Stoodley. Now he had that old carpet at home.

About once a month, Otto Bond took the S.S. Caribou rug outside, shook off all the crumbs. Then it was nice to sit on, and three of the boys sat there that night.

"What'd they all look like?" I said.

"They all looked a bit like Priscilla Yarn's old skipper, but younger," said Gerald.

It was through the connection to Priscilla Yarn that Gerald came by the money. Therefore they must have all looked like Priscilla, he figured.

Then it was that Justin Peach came up with the idea that caused them all to die.

"Let's order in," he said, "Pizza."

That's how simple it was. They could have decided to go out, could have had anything they wanted served up. Instead they ordered in, and it was Otto Bond who said, "Hold the cod-liver oil." The girl down at Greco's Pizza laughed at that. She always did. Loveta, her name was. No one knew, but Loveta had a nice little thing going on with Otto Bond. She hadn't even told her mother yet, not one soul knew, but she had a plan to make an announcement when the timing was right.

"Might come over later," she whispered to Otto Bond, but then it turned out her mother phoned up, got her on the pizza line before it was time to quit.

"Come sit with the baby, Honey, soon as you close up. They needs me at the Legion."

What could Loveta do? After all, the baby was hers, she couldn't say no. Seemed half the money she made went to Pampers, Huggies'll be next. Loveta missed the party.

After it all happened, she consoled herself, she said "Oh my lucky stars!" and she cuddled up with her little one, "Oh you was almost an orphan, my little darling. Wouldn't that have been a fine state of affairs?" Years later, she still thought about Otto Bond now and then, in her mind she knew he was the best of all the boyfriends she ever had. Not a loser like some she wouldn't name out loud, not even to her closest friends.

Then Justin Peach did it again.

"Order a couple empty blank pizza crusts," he said, "we got that sauce of mine."

So when the pizzas came, there were those three empty crusts that Justin Peach fixed up. He went out of sight from the living-room and it took him a long long time. He banged around, you could hear the pots and pans. When he came back he looked so proud, no one knew they were looking at their last supper.

"Jeez, Justin Peach, what you got on there?" they all said.

Gerald could see him plain as day. Justin Peach stood there with the pizza and held it up, slanted, so they could see it. Steam rose up it was so hot.

"You're gonna love this," he said, "Got my own tomato sauce boiled up, sat in the fridge a bit, seasoned it up.Tongues and cheeks. Side order, chips and gravy."

Now that sounded good. After the soccer and the beer, they had plenty of room for the Justin Peach Special. That's what they called it, and they ate it all down but for a piece or two.

"That's what did it, what killed them," Gerald said, "It was the sauce."

The little dog went around about five or six hours later, sniffed at a couple of slices that were left over. Turned his nose up at that and walked away, ate a bit of Kibble, walked around and looked at the boys, every one of them dead to the world.

Gerald said he was detached but he knew how the dog felt. "Lucky loved 'em, every one," he said. He'd named the dog 'Lucky" himself, later on.

"I think we might've been buddies with that Otto Bond, we ever had the chance. None of them knew a damn thing about botulism."

He said it like it was a shame. Fact was, none of us knew a damn thing either. Now all of a sudden, Gerald's the leading world expert on all the poisons you can get, cooked into food. He told us how he saw it in his scenario, saw it as clear as day.

Johnny Drake was the first to go because he had most of the beer. He had a head start on the rest of them, he felt weak on his legs. He'd never felt his lips go numb like that, and never before saw double. Now he saw two of the little dogs, he lay down, tried to orient his eyeballs, lay back part-way in the bean-bag chair, part-way on the floor, and he breathed real shallow for a couple hours. Could have laid a feather on his lips, but he never woke up. Last thing he saw, according to Gerald, was a loon on the water. "It opened up its mouth, voiceless," said Gerald Stoodley. Then the botulism that was hidden in the sauce caught up to Terry Snook. He was out on the wharf with his sister when she ran home for lunch, left him there. He heard a low sound, like it was a make-and-break, a choke off and on. Shawn Blagdon? He went out for a walk, out when the tide was low and when he looked back there was nothing behind him but water. Couldn't swim a bit, gave up easy. Barry Rose walked up Iron Skull, he liked to do that, it took all day, and when he got to the top the wind died real mysterious. Couldn't see half-way to English Harbour.

Gerald was too upset at Justin Peach to figure out just what went on, what it was that Justin Peach saw when he died.

"That fool Justin Peach," said Gerald, "he cooked up that sauce, way back when, mixed it in a pan like it was just beans for dinner. Never thought of the pressure cooker. Didn't know a damn thing about fixing up preserves. Once, maybe twice, he put up jam."

Gerald Stoodley would have given back the nine thousand dollars just to have those boys alive, have them wake up, but they never did. Of course the last one to go on that night was the soccer star himself, Otto Bond. He lay back and his blond hair, what there was of it, cut real short, was bent up against the arm of the couch from the weight of his head. He felt his mouth go dry. He saw Loveta from the pizza place. Then he saw the winning goal go in again, curled off his foot up high, smack up under the crossbar. Then he felt the little dog jump on his lap and that was the last thing he knew, and the little dog was still there when the police came, broke down the door, and by that time Otto Bond was cold. He felt like he was made out of porcelain, when they touched him.

Gerald didn't have to make up any scenarios after that. It was all in the newspapers in Halifax. Public knowledge, how the boys from the soccer team died overnight. The terrier had his picture in the paper, "ONLY SURVIVOR" it said underneath in capital letters, and off he went to the SPCA. He was still there six months later when in came Gerald Stoodley, re-named him 'Lucky', brought him home to stay. That's how long it took, six months no less, for the lawyers from Halifax to track down Gerald. They gave him all the money the boys had, what there was of it. It didn't amount to much, especially after the lawyers, but Gerald was the closest living relative they had left on the earth, so he was the one to get it.

Still he couldn't get to sleep at night. The nine thousand dollars, the dog named 'Lucky', the rag rug, he had them all, but take one look at him, you'd see his face got worn, arms and legs got all sagged out like he was a hundred. Total insomnia, is what he said to me.

"Snap out of it, Gerald Stoodley," I said, "Gerald Stoodley smarten up, you got your whole life to think of."

It must have been that advice of mine that did it, because the next day he came back and he smiled and looked a lot better.

"What happened to you?" I said.

"Had another scenario, fell asleep," he said.

Then he told me what he saw. First off, he realized that what happened was that Otto Bond didn't die after all. Sure, he was taken to the morgue in the same ambulance as Terry Snook. Gerald saw it, the ambulance had a red cross on its side, no siren what's the rush, it pulled in real slow, under a stone arch by the hospital and it stopped and the back doors opened up. Then a couple of men took out the stretchers. They had on white uniforms. You couldn't see the boys at all, they was all covered up like ghosts in a sheet. Then the men in the uniforms wheeled the carts down a long hall, turned into a room. My, but it was cold in there. They lifted Terry Snook and they lifted Otto Bond and they placed them just as they were on a metal table. One metal table for each. All six of them, all the friends, were there in a row. Then the men left and turned off the light and it got colder and colder in the pitch black dark.

If it hadn't been for the night cleaner, whose name was Moses Sealy, Otto Bond would have died again for sure, froze to death. As it was, it took a couple of hours until Moses came in. He turned on the overhead light so he could see around, swept up the floor with a broom. He had on a big pair of green rubber gloves, so he didn't have to touch anything, and he didn't seem at all worried by the boys being there. Then Moses Sealy finished up, flicked off the light, started to go out the door and then for some reason he turned back, turned the light on again. Hey that sheet's moving, Moses thought to himself, and then the prickles ran up and down his spine. He looked again and sure enough there was a motion of breathing there. You could scarcely see it. He walked over, slipped off one of his gloves, pulled the white sheet down off Otto Bond's head. This boy's not so cold. Feel him. He took off his other glove, went to the wall phone, called 911, and he sat right down beside Otto Bond till they got there.

After two weeks on the respirator in Intensive Care, after they heated him up real slow and careful, Otto Bond walked out as good as new. Except he had weak legs. First thing though, he went down to Greco's Pizza. Loveta fainted when she saw him, and the general manager picked her off the floor, told her to go home with Otto Bond. Then the two of them walked over to where Loveta lived, got the baby into the stroller, met Loveta's mother for the first time. "Pleased to meet you, Otto Bond," is what she said. Her mother liked him right off, you could see it, the way she acted the whole time when he was there. Later she said to Loveta "Oh my, I do likes him, Loveta, he seems like a fine boy."

Gerald told me it was then that he fell asleep, by a miracle. He figured it was about 2 A.M. that it happened. When he woke up, he felt rested, he had the little dog, Lucky, curled up halfway down his feet.