The Leisure Seeker: A Novel (26 page)
“I know what’s wrong with me and I don’t need to go to any hospital to find out. I’m fine. Just help me up, get me back on that cart, and we will get out of Disneyland. You won’t have to bother with us ever again.”
He’s weighing his options now. He takes a breath, glances over at his partner, exchanges a look, then turns back to me. “We’ll have to have you sign a complete release, saying that you refused all medical assistance.”
“I don’t care. I’ll sign whatever you want. Just get us the hell out of here.”
“Fine,” says Jack LaLanne, brusquely. He’s disgusted.
Of course he’s disgusted. I won.
After the cab drops us off at the Leisure Seeker (a first if there ever was one), I take my very last two little blue pills, give John a Valium, and we both sleep for a long, long time. The discomfort nudges me every so often, so I drift in and out, dreaming of my children, of vacations we have taken together and of some that we haven’t. I dream of Kevin, the sadness always present in his eyes, the sadness to come. I dream of Cynthia, how she will be the strong one, bearing whatever happens, just like she always has. They will be fine, my dream self tells me. They know that their mother and father have always loved them, that whatever happens at the end of a life does not represent the entire life.
When I awaken, the discomfort is still there, but a bit more tolerable. The alarm clock in the van reads 8:07
P.M
. The place is stuffy and sick-sweet smelling. It doesn’t take me long to realize that our little fridge has conked out.
It’s dark in the van, so I decide to put on a light. I had the presence of mind when we went to bed to bring our battery-powered lantern. As I lean over to reach for it, I almost lose consciousness again. I sit and pant for a minute or so before I can reach the lamp. I wipe my forehead. I click it on and the
bulb winks, then slowly shudders as a brownish dim barely illuminates the room. The batteries are going, but it is the perfect light level for my eyes. I lie back down, still winded, but less so now. My body has taken a surprising amount of abuse this trip, more than even I thought it could take, certainly more than my doctors could have suspected.
It was all worth it. This trip, despite all that has happened, was well worth it. I’m sorry if I worried the children, but I have spent all of my adult life worrying about them, so I’m just going to call it even.
Beside me, John’s snoring is like the sound of ragged sheets being ripped. After every third or fourth snore, there is a long period where his breath seems to suspend itself. It is after one of these that he snorts so loudly that he wakes himself. John rouses and searches my face with his eyes. I don’t think he quite recognizes me at the moment.
“Is this home?” he asks, his voice grainy with sleep.
I nod my head.
I check and see that he must have wet himself a little, but it does not upset me, not tonight. I decide that while I still have the strength, I will clean him up, change his underwear. Every mother’s car accident rule. I unbuckle John’s pants and attempt to yank them out from under him. For once, he cooperates and lifts his bottom. I pull his pants down, shorts and all, but even with him cooperating, they don’t come off easily. I soon find out why. John has an erection like I haven’t seen on him in many years.
“Well, look at you!” I say. “You old dog.”
I’m still not sure he recognizes me, but he smiles at me, a smile I recognize.
I pull off his shoes, strip the pants off him, breathing through my mouth, trying not to look at his underpants for it would surely ruin what I’m feeling right now. I hide it all in a storage area near the foot of our bed. I take out his wallet and toss it onto the table. I turn off the lantern.
There is a catch in John’s breath as I touch my hand to his penis, and I realize that I had forgotten that sound he makes. It makes me smile and pulls me away from this ancient faltering body of mine. I look at his eyes, dreamy half closed, but locked into mine. I wonder if this could possibly work, I think to myself.
Why not? I think. Why not?
The twinge of desire I felt days before when John touched me as he helped me into the trailer, I feel it again, only more so. I feel it through the pain, through the bruises on my body, through my shrugging flesh, my vast life scribbled upon it. I feel it through my nausea, through my will to die.
“Ella,” John says to me as I continue to stroke him, the skin dryer now, his eyes clearer. “Ella.”
I can’t think of anything I would have wanted to hear more right now than my name. My husband looks at me, pulls himself up, moves toward me, over me.
This is something the body does not forget.
When the pain awakens me again, it is 1:17
A.M
. John is sleeping so hard from the other Valium I gave him, he is not even snoring. The rhythm of his breath seems almost random at this moment. The exhalations, when they come, are long and shallow, a
shhhhh,
as if he is lulling us to a place of quiet. There is something so sweetly familiar to all this, after a lifetime of making love to this man, that it almost stops me from getting up to do what I have to do.
I get up anyway.
The moon is high and full, and the interior of the Leisure Seeker is lit with an opalescent mist that highlights only the edges of things. As I stand, I grab the table to steady myself. I move carefully toward our little cardboard chest of drawers, my legs stiff, but not shaky. Surprising, considering the exercise they got tonight. From the chest, I gather a favorite terry-cloth nightgown for myself and a pair of clean underwear for John. I pull the gown over my head, settle the spongy, loose fabric over my hips and legs.
I just decide to leave John in his T-shirt, dingy as it is. I tug the underwear on over his legs, but don’t quite get them over his bottom. As if cooperating unconsciously, he turns on his side toward me and I’m able to scoot them up far enough for decency’s sake. I pull the covers over John to keep him warm, then I kiss his salty forehead, and say good night to my darling husband.
For the moment, I gently rest my pillow over his left ear. He does not rouse from his sleep. I locate my purse and pluck the keys from a side pocket. I turn on the lantern, but it’s even dimmer now, barely enough to guide me.
I open the side door of the van. Outside, the Best Destination RV Park is absolutely quiet. The night air is cool against my legs, against the dampness between them. I look up. Above, there are no stars, only clouds moving faster than I think I’ve ever seen them move, long silvery forms skating across blue-black sky, voided only by the colossal silhouette of the Mickey Mouse water tower. There is an acrid hint of marigold in the air.
Quietly, I click shut the door, close all the windows, and make my way to the driver’s seat. I squeeze my eyes closed as I turn on the ignition of the Leisure Seeker. The initial growl of the engine is the part that I fear will wake John, but it doesn’t. Before long, the idle steadies to a muted rumble. Hazy tendrils of exhaust enter the van.
I get up from the driver’s seat and carefully maneuver myself back into the living area of the van, where the lantern is now glowing brown, a kind of antilight. I’m comfortable in this dimness. I am not sleepy yet, but I already feel more like John, unable to discern dream from reality.
While I still can, I shuffle through my purse for my ID, then place it on the table. I do the same with John’s driver’s license, then I get up from the bench, and go lie down next to him.
I am ready for bed.
Before long, I start to get drowsy. I feel as I do after a long night of sleeplessness—that moment when one is conscious, actually conscious, of being tugged into slumber. You sense yourself entering the realm of sleep, watch yourself lie down there, settle comfortably into nothingness. The crevice of light narrows as the bedroom door is closed.
What’s different is that usually that moment of awareness is what awakens you again, pulls you back into consciousness, but not this time. I know now that we have found that place between dark and light, between waking and sleeping.
Our travels end here and, simply put, it’s a relief. At this point, I do have to say that I am sorry for what this might do to the children, how it might look, but I’ve explained it all in a letter that will be opened after all this. Lawyers, it seems, are actually good for something. Arrangements have been made, affairs put in order. Hell, maybe we’ll even get out of paying what I’m sure will be an outrageous Visa bill.
I know this all seems horrible and shocking and lurid, but I have to tell you, it really isn’t. Long ago, John and I made up our own rules, crafted from the most mundane of things: mortgages, jobs, children, quarrels, ailments, routine, time, fear, pain, love, home. We built a life together and will happily do what comes after together. I say if love is what bonds us during our lives, why can’t it still somehow bond us, keep us together after our deaths?
End on a high point, I say. This has been a great vacation. I really had a good time. Had we stayed home, it would have all gotten worse a lot sooner, believe you me. I would have
suffered much, much more. I’d have been subjected to all the indignities that modern medicine has to offer and nothing would have changed. Eventually, I would be sent home to die. Then after, despite his wishes, John would be put into a nursing home. For him, there would be a final decline of a year or two or three, each worse than the other.
But then, that’s the sad ending. One of us without the other. It’s what would happen if I didn’t end the story this way. It may be hard to believe, but this, right here? This is the happy ending, friend. What we all want, but never get.
This is not always what love means, but this is what it means for us today.
It is not your place to say.
Colossal gratitude and affection and respect to:
My wife, Rita Simmons, who helped me through the long quiet period, who gives me strength and knowledge, who still makes all this so much fun.
My sister, Susan Summerlee, for her love and support through all the tough stuff.
All my Detroit friends who read and helped and encouraged and listened to a lot of whining: Tim Teegarden, Keith McLenon, Jim Dudley, Brother Andrew Brown, Nick Marine (pompous chuckle), Donna McGuire, Buck(eye) Eric Weltner, Holly Sorscher, Jim Potter, Russ Taylor, Jeff Edwards, Dave Michalak, and Luis Resto.
Lynn Peril and Roz Lessing for helping to keep me sane. Dave Spala in T.C. for encouragement and never listening to me. Cindy, Bill, and Laura at C-E for good mom talk. DeAnn Ervin for always wanting to help. Tony Park for writerly foreign intrigue. John Roe for great photos despite the obvious
liability. Randy Samuels for the straight dope. Michael Lloyd, Barry Burdiak, and Mark Mueller for always caring for the materfamilias.
My truly wonderful and talented agent, Sally van Haitsma, and the memory of her father, Ken van Haitsma. My editor, Jennifer Pooley, whose unflagging enthusiasm, endless devotion to this book, and exclamation points were a much-needed salve to this writer’s spirit. My friend and teacher, Christopher Leland, a man who never stops helping his students.
Most of all, to the memory of my mother and father, Rose Mary and Norman Zadoorian. Their lives continue to be an inspiration to me.
Finally, to Route 66, the people and locales, real and imagined.
The road goes on forever.
MICHAEL ZADOORIAN
is the author of the critically acclaimed novel
Second Hand
. His short fiction has appeared in the
Literary Review
, the
North American Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Ararat, American Short Fiction,
and
Detroit Noir
. He lives with his wife in the Detroit area.
www.michaelzadoorian.com
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Second Hand
Jacket design by Richard Aquan
Jacket photograph by Bob Elsdale/Getty Images
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE LEISURE SEEKER
. Copyright © 2009 by Michael Zadoorian. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061984518
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