Onward Toward What We're Going Toward (48 page)

“All right,” Chic said when the two of them had walked back to the picnic table. “Grab a cup. Let me give my toast.”

“Do you really think this is necessary?” Russ asked.

“We listened to Buddy. Now it's my turn.”

Russ and Ginger each grabbed a Styrofoam cup.

“This is the first poem I ever wrote. I think it's appropriate.”

“We're celebrating. No depressing poems,” Russ said.

“What do you call what Buddy did? That was depressing as hell. Anyway, I won't read this poem.” Chic flipped ahead a couple of pages. “Yes, this is a good one. And not depressing. I wrote it the afternoon after Diane's funeral. In the parking lot of the Knights of Columbus hall. You remember, Russ. We were talking. Here goes:
A life should be/ a voice that knows when to/ shut its big fat mouth.”

Russ held up his cup. “Here, here.”

“Put down your cup. I'll get to the toast. A few more poems, first.” Chic stepped up onto one of the picnic table benches. He then read three more poems and downed his Styrofoam cup of champagne. He picked up the bottle and read two more poems. He took a pull off the bottle. He wound up reading the entire
chapbook, taking a big sip of champagne each time he finished a poem.

“I think it's time to stop,” Russ finally said. He grabbed Chic's sleeve to help him down from the bench.

“Be a man, Russ. That's what you need to do. That's my advice to you.”

“Very good. Thank you for the advice.”

“Be a man.”

“I got it.” He tried to take the champagne bottle away from him, but Chic wouldn't let him. He took another swig.

“Ghosts. Connection. Change. What-the-hell-ever. All of it. Bullshit. Arizona—bullshit. You know what family is?” Chic grabbed his groin. “That's it. Plain and simple.”

“We're worried about you,” Ginger said. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. I'm great. I'm the best I've ever been. Here, you know what. Both of you. Start your family. It's your wedding night. Start your family.” Chic grabbed his groin again. “Make a family.”

“Let's take you home,” Russ said.

“I don't want to go home.”

“I think it's time to go home.”

“Who wants to go to Florida?”

“No one is going to Florida.”

“We should get in that goddamn big truck of yours and drive. Go to Florida. It's your honeymoon. Start your family, Russ. Start it. You have to. It's where you're going. Why are you standing there looking at me? Don't look at me like that.”

“You're drunk.”

“One more poem.”

“We've heard enough.”

“One more drink, then.” Chic tried to take another sip, but Russ snatched the bottle away.

 

When Chic woke up the next morning, Mary was gone, and Morris Potterbaum was sitting at the end of his bed using a pocketknife to cut wedges from a Granny Smith apple. He told Chic he understood a man needed to “release steam,” and he also understood that a man might want to release that steam with another man's wife, but he preferred—or actually “demanded”—Chic release his steam someplace other than their room, say the broom closet or a car in the parking lot.

“I'm sorry,” Chic said. “It won't happen again.”

“I hope not.” Morris fed himself a slice of apple.

“You don't have to hope. It won't.”

“Now that that is behind us, you owe me ten bucks, or I tell the new guy you're boning his wife.”

“I'm not boning his wife.”

“Aren't you planning a trip to, ah, Florida?”

“You're blackmailing me?”

“Yes. That's right.”

Chic slid out of bed and put on his slippers. “I can't believe you're blackmailing me.”

Morris shrugged. “There's a cost to all of this.”

Chic got the money from his wallet and handed it to Morris.

“I'll see you in the cafeteria,” Morris said.

Although his day had certainly started out poorly, Chic wasn't going to let Morris Potterbaum blow a storm cloud over the rest of it. He was going to Florida. To
Florida
. This was
goddamn it
. Finally. He was going to set himself, his life, everything,
on the right path. He'd show his brother, show Lijy, Russ, Ginger, everyone, he'd show them all. He and . . . Mary . . . he and Mary were going to turn things around.

After a shower and a shave, he put on a pair of polyester slacks, a button-up shirt, and the alligator loafers Mary had given him. He had wanted to put on his poet clothes, but they were packed away in storage. He'd have to stop by the storage facility before he left because in Florida, he was going to be a full-fledged poet. He opened his notebook to the poem he was working on.
Around the corner is the end
. He sat on his bed and put the pen in his mouth and began to chew on it. He said, “Around the corner is the end.” He smelled bacon from the cafeteria.

At a quarter to nine, fifteen minutes before breakfast ended, Chic waltzed into the cafeteria, strutting a little bit. The alligator loafers were too big, and with each step, his heel slipped and made a sound like someone walking in scuba flippers. Carol Bowen-Smith was drinking coffee at a table with a few nurses. At a table by the salad bar, Morris was spooning a grapefruit while reading a pamphlet about bone strength. In a far back corner, Green sat by himself, a bowl of soggy cereal set in front of him. Chic cut through the tables toward him.

“Hello, Mr. Geneseo. Good day.”

Green wiped some milk drool from his chin. He wrote something on his Post-it Note pad.

“I enjoyed your introduction. It sounds like you've had a very eventful life. I'm sorry about your first wife—whatever her name was. I lost my wife, too. Thirteen years ago.”

“Sit down Waldbeeser,” Morris said from behind. “Leave the guy alone.”

Chic turned to Morris. “I'm only making friends.”

“The hell you are. You're messing with the poor guy. Leave him alone. Come sit with me.”

“I don't think I'm in the mood to sit with you.” Chic turned back to Green, who handed him a Post-It Note.

“The new guy would like to communicate.” Chic read the note. “It says, ‘spiff.' That's very interesting, Mr. Geneseo. Did you misspell a word?”

Green wrote,
I 'm calling you a spiff
.

“He's calling me a spiff. And what is a spiff?”

You
.

“Very funny, Mr. Geneseo. A real card you are. And why, may I ask, would you be calling me a spiff?”

Carol Bowen-Smith came over. “That's enough, Mr. Waldbeeser,” she said sternly. Just then, Green pushed his whole bowl of cereal right onto the floor and all over Chic's shoes.

“Jesus Christ!”

Green, of course, recognized the shoes. He'd recognized them as soon as Chic had come slop-footing into the cafeteria. He'd bought them a few months before Jane's diagnosis. They'd spent the afternoon playing blackjack and eating shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate San Francisco Casino. Jane spotted the shoes in a shop window and talked him into buying them.

“You like my shoes,” Chic said. “They were a gift.”

Green wrote
SPIFF
on a Post-it Note again.

“This again. Unfortunately, I don't have time for name calling.”

“Mr. Waldbeeser, you'll need to clean up this mess,” Carol Bowen-Smith said.

“I didn't make it.”

“You instigated it.”

“Do we instigate our messes? Or do messes just happen? This mess, I think, just happened.”

“Very philosophical, Waldbeeser,” Morris said.

Before Chic could turn around, Green wheeled over his foot.

“Jesus, watch out where you're going.” Chic reached down and grabbed his left foot, and the loafer fell off into the puddle of milk. Green picked it up, and Chic grabbed it, but Green wouldn't let go. The two of them played tug-of-war until, finally, Chic pried it away.

“Boys,” Carol Bowen-Smith said. “Control yourselves.”

“What's your goddamn problem?” Chic asked.

Green turned his wheelchair around and headed toward the cafeteria door.

“Did everyone see that?”

“You weren't being very nice to him,” Carol said.

“He dumped his bowl of cereal on my shoes. Then he ran over my feet. You saw him.”

“Did you cause the mess, or did the mess just happen?” Morris said.

He'd made a terrible, terrible mistake. He'd trusted her. Actually, it was worse—he'd married her. He'd let his guard down. He should have known better, but he was desperate and lonely. God, was he lonely. He used to sit in the trailer in his boxers watching television in the dark. He ate Rice Krispies for dinner. He'd go get gas in the car, even if the car didn't need gas, just to do something. She'd totally taken advantage of him. He'd fallen for her, and now she was leaving him for what? Chic something . . . whatever his last name was. He lived at a nursing home. At least she could be leaving him for some guy who drove a convertible. There must be something wrong with him, some kind of health condition. She was leaving him for a guy with a health condition, a sick guy. What a goddamn joke. He'd been blinded by his loneliness. Now, he was in the middle of Illinois, sitting in a wheelchair in a godforsaken nursing home. He had to get out of here. He had to get in touch with Tim Lee. Tim would get on a plane and be here in a day or two and get him back to Vegas. He couldn't believe she'd given him his shoes. She was a snake. He should rip out every single one of her teeth with pliers. He should cut out her tongue so she couldn't lie to anyone ever again.

Morris Potterbaum came into the common room and sat down on the couch with a sigh. He picked up the television remote control. “You mind?” He motioned to the television.

Green glared at him.

“Look, don't worry about Waldbeeser. The guy is full of himself.” He clicked on the television. “He thinks he's a poet.”

Green wrote
Can I trust you?
on a Post-it Note and showed it to Morris.

Morris shrugged. “Sure, yeah.”

Green shook the note for emphasis.

“You can trust me.”

“This isn't about going to the bathroom or anything? There are nurses for that.”

“Oh, that kind of help.” Morris glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else was around. “I think you should know something.”

“You have twenty bucks?”

“Give me twenty bucks. I think you'll want to hear this.”

Green didn't have twenty bucks. He had a ten and four ones.

Morris counted the money. “This is fine. Look, I don't want to be the one to tell you this. Come a little closer. I don't want to talk too loud.”