Chapter Three

Charlie scribbled another line of equations onto the chalk board , he'd pretty much filled up the solarium with three large chalk boards and was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't just relocate his work to the garage. He could fit far more boards in the garage than here. He just couldn't bring himself to leave the room, not yet. The sun was beating in through the windows. It was almost like working outside. His father had left over an hour ago saying he had to go pick up something. Charlie smiled to himself, hand and chalk hovering in the air; he liked the fact that his father was working again. It seemed to give him more energy and a slight bounce in his step that had been missing. As much as they thought Charlie was lost in his own world, his bubble as Don called it, he saw more than they thought he did, and lately he'd been more aware of everyone. He was stepping outside of his bubble and into the world with his head held high. He continued on with his equation. It had taken him too long to get around to finishing this and if he put it off any longer Larry was going to have a melt down.

"Hello? Charlie you still home?" Alan's voice had a way of finding either son in any room.

"Back here Dad "

Charlie finished another line of equations and turned to greet his father, instead he found his brother leaning heavily on Alan as he limped into the room and sat down on the couch under the window. Don looked awful, his face was a little pale and there was a piece missing from the bottom of his right pants leg, the ankle was heavily bandaged. Charlie frowned when he saw the second bandage on Don's hand.

"What happened to you?"

"Little incident at work buddy, nothing to worry about, I'm fine"

"Doesn't look like nothing and you sure as hell don't look fine"

Alan gently, but with a father's firmness pushed Don further down into the couch and helped him lift his legs up. He then placed a cushion under his ankle and before Don could protest Alan had his hand on his forehead.

"A little warm but I guess that's the shock wearing off"

Don batted his fathers hand away. Charlie was standing next to the couch, looking over Don with deep concern in his eyes.

"Seriously, what happened man?"

Alan and Don exchanged a look, Alan cleared his throat and as he left the room for the kitchen he said over his shoulder,

"Attacked by a dog"

"WHAT?" Charlie kneeled down next to Don and searched his brother's eyes, hoping he hadn't heard correctly.

"Buddy, honestly I'm fine. We entered a house, I was attacked by a dog, my ankle and hand are a little sore but apart from that I'm fine"

Charlie held Don's bandaged hand up for inspection; Don couldn't help but feel touched by his brothers concern.

"Are you sure you're ok? Dogs bite at least 2 of the population a year you know , that's more than 4.7 million people .And out of that there's 1 in 6 ,that's 800,000,that are serious and require medical attention "

"Charlie I'm fine, I'll be off my feet for a couple of days but apart from that I'm fine"

Don could see his brother was working himself up. There was no helping him now.

Charlie couldn't stop the numbers, the age old fear had awoken and its voice needed to be heard. He closed his eyes for a second but instantly Don's mauled body appeared in front of him.

"You do know that 304 people between 1979 and 1996 died from dog attacks"

He stood and went to the first blackboard, wiping off the equations he'd spent the morning writing up. He scribbled his statistics and numbers all across the dark slate. White numbers and statistics colliding across the board in a dusty frenzy.

Alan came back in the room and looked at Don, who only shook his head back at his father. Alan handed Don a glass of water and stood next to Charlie.

"Do we have to go through this every time a dog attacks a member of this family Charlie?"

Charlie looked at his father incredulously.

"You do know that the average number of deaths from dogs per year is 17? And on the rise, Dad it's becoming an epidemic "

"No Charlie, AIDS is an epidemic, Cancer is an epidemic, Dog bites are an unfortunate by-product of people insisting on owning animals. "

"Dad the CDC estimated that the medical costs for dog bites, per year is over $164.9 million. That's per year. "

Alan turned back to Don, who at this point in time was his easiest son to deal with.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Yeah, I'm good"

"Do you need anything?"

"Dad I'm fine, thanks, now go and meet Art"

Alan looked Don over once again, satisfied his son seemed comfortable he turned and left the room. Charlie was still busy writing equations all across the chalk board, Larry's work forgotten.

"Charlie "

Tap Tap Tap of the chalk.

"Buddy?"

Tap Tap Tap

"Charlie ?" Don swung his legs carefully off the couch, he limped over to Charlie and placed his left hand on Charlie's left shoulder, Charlie jumped at the touch and inadvertently knocked into Don's right hand.

"Argh "Don hissed through his teeth for the second time that day.

"Oh God, Oh I'm sorry bro, you ok?"

Don only nodded in response , Charlie was about to say more when it occurred to him that Don had said 'stay off my feet' , he most definitely was not staying off his feet at this moment in time.

"You need to sit down, you're not supposed to be standing, please sit down before you hurt yourself again"

"I didn't hurt myself the first time, or the second. That was the Dog, and you hurt me the third time"

Charlie grimaced.

"I didn't mean to Don" he said so quietly Don almost missed it.

"I know buddy, it hurts, ignore me ok?"

Charlie nodded and guided Don out of the solarium and into the living room and the comfortable couch. Once he had his brother laid out he went and retrieved Don's glass of water and a cushion. As he turned he saw his new equations, now replacing Larry's. Charlie frowned; he hadn't remembered writing so much. When had he covered the whole board with dog bite statistics? He remembered writing down the main ones but there were statistics here for the cost of health care for dog attack victims, the financial impact of insurance liability claims. Had he written all that?

Charlie sat down on the table in front of the board. He needed to get over this fear. He'd tried before .Amita's friend had a dog and Charlie had gone with her to try to cure his fear but hadn't managed to stay in the room for very long. He had been doing fine until the dog decided to jump up at him, he didn't care if the mutt was only trying to be friendly, he'd moved so quickly that by the time all four feet of the dog had made contact back to the floor, all two feet of Charles Eppes were safely standing outside on the sidewalk.

It all stemmed back to an incident in a park when he was five. His mother had taken him and Don for some fresh air, she was worried that Charlie wasn't mixing as well as he should with children of his own age, Don however seemed to have more friends than any other child she knew. Thanks to his baseball he had an outlet, but Charlie, Charlie's outlet was so insular.

They'd played at the park for an hour, Margaret watched Don encourage Charlie to climb on the jungle gym and slide down the slide. The joy Charlie exuded as his big brother threatened to knock him off the slide, only to step away at the last moment, brought tears to Margaret's eyes. Don had run over begging for his mother to buy him some ice cream from the vendor not ten feet away. Charlie had found some stones and was busy seeing which ones were the best to scratch equations into the mud with. Don was busy trying to see how high he could climb on a nearby tree. As Margaret paid for the ice cream she heard a scream and turned to see Don standing between his baby brother and a large German shepherd who had wondered over to see if what Charlie held in his hands had any nutritional value. Charlie had been so deep in concentration that he hadn't realised the dog was there until he'd turned his head to see what the warmth dribbling onto his shoulder was, he was faced with the dogs mouth, panting away as it tried to see over Charlie's shoulder, his screams had at first startled the animal and then sent it into a defensive stance. Don had leapt from the tree and taken position between the dog and his brother. As Margaret ran back the dog took a look at the two people protecting the crying child and decided it was best to leave to find someone else who was willing to play, and play fair. Not scream in his face.

Margaret had dropped the ice cream and scooped Charlie up and into her arms. He held onto her for dear life as she squeezed her love into his small body.

"Its ok baby, it's ok, it's all better now, mummy's here, shhhhh it's ok, time to go home yes?"

"Uh huh, go home now please "

Margaret turned to find Don standing over the ice cream, regarding it with a look of disgust.

"Donnie?"

"Mum, you dropped it. Can we get more?"

She grabbed Don's hand and led him back in the direction of the house.

"There's ice cream at home Donnie, you can have some there"