Onward Toward What We're Going Toward (34 page)

“We don't allow intoxicated people in the library.”

Chic looked around for something to write on. He had to tell her how he was feeling. He had to tell someone. His feelings wanted out. On a table were little squares of paper.

“I said you can't be here,” she hissed at him. “You're drunk. I smell it.”

Chic picked up a square of paper and wrote:
My life is nothing but a large hole in the ground I can't get out of.
He handed the piece of paper to the girl. She read it. It had a rhythm, and although it didn't have the right number of syllables, it was pretty close to a haiku. “Are you a poet?” she asked.

Chic had never been asked that question before. In fact, he'd never given that question an iota of thought. Chic Waldbeeser, a poet? Was she saying that he'd just written a poem? Maybe this was it. Poetry. He'd be a poet, and poetry—words—would chisel him out of the icy sadness that surrounded him.

The girl, whose name was Lucy Snell, had a thing for poets; she, herself, was trying to be one, and her boyfriend was trying to be one, too. They spent their Friday nights at One World Coffee in Peoria, near the Bradley campus, reading poems and hawking the poetry journal the two of them edited. She led Chic to the
back of the library. It was quieter here, out of sight from the other patrons. The shelves reached the ceiling and were packed tight with books. She carefully picked out eight titles for him. “These two are good. And so is this one. Everyone needs to read Shakespeare's sonnets. Ginsberg's
Howl
is a must. You can only take eight out at a time,” she said. “You'll have to come back for more. Oh, here's a good one. Emily Dickinson. I love Emily Dickinson.”

Suddenly, not paying attention to titles or authors, Chic started grabbing books off the shelves and handing them to Lucy. The stack of books grew precariously tall in her hands, higher than her head, and she needed to peek around it to see him.

“You can only take out eight,” she said.

“I have nothing. Nothing,” he said, “and I need something. This might be it.”

Maybe it was his admission that he had nothing and Lucy Snell's belief that poetry was the injection of “something,” maybe it was because no one ever came into the Middleville Public Library looking for poetry, maybe it was the throw-me-a-rope look in his eyes; whatever it was, Lucy made an exception and let Chic check out forty-seven books of poetry. It took him four trips to carry them all to his car.

He slid into the driver's seat and picked up the first book, John Berryman's
77 Dream Songs
. He looked at the cover. He smelled the book. It smelled like it hadn't been opened in years. He liked the title, though. He could use a dream song. That's what he really needed right about now—dreams, some sleep. The beer had run its course. He reclined the seat and set the book aside. His eyes felt like they were being cranked shut. He'd get to the books in a little while. He closed his eyes. Everything went black.

One by one, people left the library. The sun set. The streetlights came on. Lucy Snell locked the front door and went through her closing routine. When she was done, she went outside, unlocked her ten-speed bicycle from the bike rack, and hopped on. She noticed a lone car in the far corner of the parking lot under a
streetlight. She rode up to the car and saw Chic asleep in the driver's seat. Leaves blew around the parking lot. It was starting to get chilly. She circled around and came up to the driver's side door and knocked on the window.

Chic startled awake and saw Lucy looking at him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He rolled down the window.

“I'm fine. I have all these . . . ” He motioned to the pile of books on the seat next to him. “My eyes got heavy, and I just closed them for a second. What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

“Oh, my gosh. My wife is going to be worried. We have bowling league tonight.”

“I liked those words you wrote.”

Chic cocked his head in confusion.

“In the library.”

“Oh yeah, right.” He took the scratch piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Lucy. “You can have it. It's yours.”

“If you put a line break here after ‘nothing' and another one after ‘ground,' it's a haiku, or close to one.”

“A haiku?” he said, accepting the piece of paper back from her.

“Take a look at that book there. Basho. He said haiku is what's happening in this place at this time.”

Chic thought about that. He felt like so much was happening in this place and at this time.

“I publish a poetry chapbook with local poets. Mostly, it's just me and my boyfriend's poems, but we're always on the lookout for other work. Maybe, you know, if you don't mind, we could publish your haiku.”

“This?” He held up the scrap of paper.

“Yeah. If you want us to.”

“Other people are going to read this?”

“Well, yeah. A few other people. My boyfriend and his sister. And me. Maybe a few students at Bradley.”

“Take it.” He held the poem out to her. “Do whatever you want with it.”

“Let me just . . . just a second.” She got a notebook from her backpack and copied down the poem.

“You really think that poem is good?”

“It's heartfelt. Confessional. I like that kind of stuff. Hey, I need a bio for the chapbook. What do you want me to say about you? So, after someone reads the poem, they'll know a little more about you. Like, you know, who you are.”

“A terrible father. Put that. Chic Waldbeeser was a terrible father.”

“Really.”

“I don't know. Who knows anymore?”

She put her notebook away. “Come back in a few weeks and I'll give you a copy of the chapbook.”

In the rearview mirror, Chic watched Lucy ride across the parking lot. He liked what she had said about haiku being what was happening in this place and at this time. He put his fingers to his neck and felt his pulse—the thudding of the blood in his veins. He tried to center himself. Concentrating on his pulse almost always helped him do this, but he couldn't relax. It felt like he was running at the bottom of the ocean. Fish were watching him. A shark swam by. Diane would be waiting for him at home to go to the bowling alley. He re-read his haiku:

Mary was in the minivan, staring at the house and the closed mini-blinds in the front window. She'd told Green she was going
to the Brazen Bull and that she'd be home by six, and then they'd go to dinner at Avanti's or some other shitty Peoria restaurant. The loud voice in her head told her to run. Get out of Peoria. Go to Florida with Chic. Just turn the key, back out of the driveway, and drive away. If she stayed with Green, she was going to be stuck here. She would be trapped playing pool at the Brazen Bull, watching
Pretty Woman
alone after Green went to bed, slinging drinks at the Pair-a-Dice, wiping Green's ass, giving him a washcloth shower, and taking out the garbage for the rest of her life. Jesus, she hated this town. Hated it.
Hated it.
Do you really hate it or do you just hate what has become of your life here, the whisper voice asked. Flagstaff was bad, the loud voice said, waitressing at Chi-Chi's, but Peoria is even worse. The Pair-a-Dice. A husband who had a stroke. This is Muckville. What would happen to Green if you ran? the whisper voice asked. Who the hell cares about him, the loud voice said. Take care of yourself. He needs you, the whisper voice said, and you need him. You actually like taking care of him. That's horseshit, the loud voice said. You do
not
like taking care of him. Go to Florida with whatever his name is. Chic, the whisper voice said. His name is Chic, at least learn his name. She saw Green peek through the mini-blind. Green needs you like no one else has ever needed you. And you need him. You've always wanted someone to need you. Bullshit, the loud voice said. You want someone to take care of you. You don't want to take care of someone. Never the caregiver, always the cared for. Don't listen to that voice, the whisper voice said. It's the part of your mind trying to convince you to do something you don't want to do. You have run away your entire life. You haven't loved anyone but yourself your entire life, the loud voice said. Why start now? You loved your father, the whisper voice said, and the loud voice made you run away from him. Remember. You were eighteen, the loud voice said. It was the right thing to do. He was dating that woman and he was choosing her over you. Now look at you, the whisper voice said. You're still thinking, all
these years later, if you did the right thing. What about all those men you ran from? You loved them but you were afraid. Don't be afraid. Just be with him. Be with Green. He needs you. She was right, or it was right, the whisper voice was right, she thought to herself. You're coming to your senses, the whisper voice said. Look at him peeking through the mini-blind, the loud voice said. He doesn't trust you. He thinks you're going to run. Trust is the most important part of a relationship, and he doesn't trust you. He said it himself. You saw it yourself. He's accusing you of having an affair. Because you are having an affair, the whisper voice said. You have to put an end to it. You can't be around Chic anymore. Tell him this afternoon. You met him for a reason, the loud voice said. Everything happens for a reason. Don't you believe that? I'm not leaving Green, she thought. He needs me. So does Chic, the loud voice said. Green peeked out the mini-blind again. She had to get going before he suspected something. He already suspects something, the loud voice said. Wave to him, the whisper voice said. She waved to him. Then, she started up the minivan and backed out of the driveway.

A poet! This changed things, and Chic began to change. First, he started dressing the part, wearing a brown corduroy blazer over a black turtleneck. He found a black beret at a hat store in Peoria. He wore argyle socks. He grew a little sliver of hair under his lip; a “French beard,” he called it. He also started carrying a notebook, in which he jotted down ideas or lines or simply words he wanted to use in his poems. He would sit on the couch in the living room with his legs crossed, wearing his blazer and beret, his notebook out and at the ready as he listened to Diane in the kitchen, doing the dishes or mopping the linoleum floor.

He began working on a book or, as Lucy Snell called it, a “chapbook.” He spent hours at the kitchen table taking his ideas from his notebook and typing them into what he called “haikuetry.” The poems were his feelings, his past, his life. He thought about the people who would read them. Diane. Lijy. (He actually didn't want to imagine her reading his poems. Then, again, he did want to imagine her reading them.) His brother. He wanted them all to be impressed. Poetry was his purpose, like Diane's father had said that night at dinner. Chic had thought being a brother was his purpose. Then, he thought fatherhood was. But now it was clear to him: poetry was his purpose.

One afternoon at the library, Lucy Snell gave him a copy of the chapbook with his published poem inside. He read the poem three times in front of her. Reading it made him feel whole, complete—accomplished. He was no longer a cannery worker. He was a poet. He asked Lucy who else had read the chapbook, and she told him that so far, only her, her boyfriend, Syd, his sister, Samantha, and him. And oh yeah, she almost forgot: Mr. Haze had taken a copy with him into the library's public restroom. Chic imagined Mr. Haze reading his poem. He had done terrible in his class in high school, but now he was a poet. That had to give Mr. Haze some satisfaction. How many of his students were poets?