No Relation

by Terry Fallis

  You know how on TV, when the cop is helping someone into the back of the police car, they always put one hand on top of their prisoner’s head so they don’t bump it getting into the back seat. Well, the cop escorting me clearly had never watched police shows on television. My head hurt all the way to the station.

  The desk sergeant sat across the table from Hat and me in a little interview room. I looked for the two-way mirror, but there wasn’t one. He started with Hat.

  “Okay, let’s try to make this quick so we can all get the hell out of here. Name?”

  “Yes, sir. My name is Mahatma Gandhi.”

  The cop rolled his eyes and smacked his pen onto the table.

  “Yeah, sure it is, smart ass, and I’m Ernest Hemingway.”

  “On the contrary, sir. In fact, that would be my friend here,”

  Hat said, proudly placing his arm around my shoulder.

  “No relation,” I added.

  The situation deteriorated from there.

  Eventually, after we’d presented multiple pieces of identification and told the sergeant that we were getting out of Dodge on a morning flight, he relented. Twenty minutes later, Hat and I were both in our hotel rooms. It was 2:30 in the morning.

  I don’t really have words to describe how I felt four hours later when Hat and I settled into another back seat, this time of a taxi. A police cruiser was parked across from the hotel’s entrance, as we’d been told. They were really quite eager to see us off the island. I gave a friendly wave and the police officer nodded. When our cab pulled out and headed toward the airport, the cruiser fell in behind us. When we took the airport exit, the police officer stayed on the highway and gave us a tip of his hat. Apparently we’d convinced him that we were in fact leaving town, a condition of our release with no charges pending.

  Thanks to his temper, Hat was no stranger to fisticuffs and the odd barroom brawl. And this barroom brawl had certainly been odd. But this was really my first experience as a ruffian, a hoodlum, an undesirable. As I thought about it in the back seat of the cab, inexplicably, I felt a certain pride, mixed in with the humiliation of being run out of a city for the first time. I looked over at Hat. Unperturbed, he was humming a happy tune as we pulled up to the terminal.

  CHAPTER 12

  In the Miami airport, Hat hugged me before his connecting flight for New York started boarding.

  “I truly hope this trip will liberate you,” he said. “But it may take some time. Do not hang unrealistic expectations around your neck. Give it time to work, and it will.”

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Hat. This was very, um, special for me. I’m grateful.”

  He beamed.

  “I cannot remember when I’ve enjoyed a weekend more,” Hat said. “I even liked our time at the police station. It makes a big difference when you’re there with a friend.”

  I waved and turned to go.

  “Oh, Hem, you know if you keep that itinerary I made, you can use it as a placemat back in Manhattan,” he said as he joined the line for boarding, smiling and waving.

  I had an hour before my flight to Boise. I found her in my contacts and hit the Call button.

  “Dr. Madelaine Scott,” she answered.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Dr. Scott, I was just hoping to leave you a message,” I stammered. “It’s Hem. I didn’t expect to find you at your office on a Saturday.”

  “Hello, Hem. I was just getting through some paperwork that had been piling up. Where are you now?”

  “Miami. I’ve been in Key West for the last couple of days and I’m just catching a flight to Boise for the final stop in this strange little tour.”

  “And has this strange little tour of yours had any effect on your ability to write?”

  “No, and I’m bummed out about it,” I replied. “I was convinced it would work. It just made so much sense to me. I really thought I’d be burning out my laptop keyboard by now.”

  “Hem, you’ve been blocked for many weeks. You can’t expect it all to be resolved within hours of touring the man’s house,” she cautioned. “Even if you’ve made the right diagnosis in the first place, it will take some time.”

  “That’s just what Hat told me five minutes ago.”

  “I’m heartened that your friend with anger management issues and a butterscotch fixation has drawn the same clinical conclusion as I have.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you employ sarcasm, Dr. Scott.”

  “It’s Saturday. I’m allowed just a pinch on weekends.”

  “And what do you mean ‘even if you made the right diagnosis in the first place’?” I asked.

  “Hem, when we last met you were clearly convinced that Ernest Hemingway was causing you the difficulty with your novel. While I want to be supportive, you’ll recall that I’ve said from the beginning that you should be open to other possible causes.”

  “So you still don’t buy the ‘exorcise Ernest’ theory.”

  “What I buy isn’t nearly as important as what you buy.”

  “I’d better go, they’re calling my flight,” I said.

  “Let’s pick this up when you’re back. I suspect your travels may in fact help us get to where we need to be, but perhaps not in the way you had hoped.”

  The drive from Boise to Ketchum was not too onerous, though neither was it particularly picturesque. I rejected the five-hour route along scenic mountain roads in favour of the two-and-a-half-hour highway drive. Ketchum is not far from Sun Valley, the famous ski resort. In Hemingway’s day, the skiing was underdeveloped. It was the fishing and hunting in Idaho’s Silver Creek Valley that was the real draw for the famous writer. Hemingway moved from Cuba to Ketchum with his fourth wife, Mary, in 1959 after the revolution led by Fidel Castro. Two years later, Ernest Hemingway was dead.

  After Toronto, Paris, Pamplona, and Key West, the last leg of my tour was depressing in almost every respect. It was a cloudy, dreary, and rainy day. The sky closed in on me as I drove. The weather was enough to dampen the spirits of even the most jubilant of optimists. But I was laid low by more than meteorology. Upon touchdown in Boise and throughout the drive to Ketchum, I simply could not stop thinking about Hemingway’s final days, not to mention his final act. By the time he moved to Ketchum, he was no longer the writer he once was, and he knew it. He had concluded that his writing had irretrievably declined to well below the standards he’d always set for himself. This realization was a devastating blow he just couldn’t sustain. He even tried electroshock therapy in the hopes of restoring his gift. But it was futile. In his final months, he acted strangely, pushing away friends and descending into depression and paranoia. He claimed “the feds” were out to get him, tailing him everywhere, and even bugging his phones. He’d always been a drinker. But in his final decline, he drank even more, with predictable effect. Then, in the early morning of July 1, 1961, he arose before Mary, pulled his favourite shotgun from the rack, shoved in two shells, and ended his life.

  My mind tried not to recreate the scene that Mary, alerted by what she described as a muffled thump, must have confronted when she stepped into the front vestibule of their home and found him. While he was clearly not in his right mind, it was an unspeakable act to leave for his wife to discover. He had been self-centred his entire life and remained so even in death.

  It was evening when I rolled in to Ketchum. I pulled into a Best Western, spent fifteen minutes corroborating my identity at the front desk, and finally escaped to my room. I ordered a cheese omelette from room service and tried to shed the abject melancholy that weighed me down like a dentist’s lead X-ray blanket. I grabbed my cellphone.

  “Hem, is that you?” Marie asked.

  “You’re there! I so needed to hear your voice.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m just discouraged and a little lonely, I guess,” I said. “I mean, I’m in the town where Hemingway ended his life. It’s just so depressing. I almost expected the
highway sign to read ‘Welcome to Ketchum, the beautiful hamlet where Ernest Hemingway shot himself.’ ”

  “Maybe we should have bumped it from the tour,” Marie said.

  “No, I think it’s an important stop. I visited Paris, where he was in his prime. It makes sense that I also see Ketchum, where he was in decline, at his most vulnerable, even pathetic.”

  “It does sound sad,” she replied. “How was Key West?”

  “It was fun, well, parts of it. I had a great time, other than being seasick for four hours, getting my ass kicked in my first bar fight, and earning a police escort to the airport, and not in a good way.”

  “Ouch! Sounds like a novel in the making,” she said. “Why don’t you try to write something now that you’re on your own? It might make you feel a bit better.”

  “I didn’t even bring my laptop in from the car. The words just aren’t there. It’s not working. It still feels like I’ll never write another sentence ever again.”

  “Don’t write off the trip yet,” she said. “Oops, sorry, poor choice of words. It still might work if you give it some time.”

  “I hope you’re right, but it doesn’t really feel like the floodgates are going to open up any time soon.”

  “Hem, we never knew for certain that this would work. It’s always been a crapshoot. We were all just hoping it would.”

  “And I’m truly grateful. I had such a wonderful time in Paris. Spending a day or so with Hat and getting to know him a bit more was kind of fun. He’s a good guy. But Paris was, um, special. It was just so nice, so comfortable. It felt so natural, like we’ve known each other for years, not weeks.”

  “For me, too,” she replied.

  Silence reigned for a few seconds.

  “Anyway, I assume you passed your pastry course at the top of your class?”

  “I did fine. It was quite gruelling, particularly with so little sleep, thank you very much. But I picked up a few great tips and my croissants are better now than they’ve ever been. So I’m happy, for a lot of reasons.”

  “Despite being in Ketchum, Idaho, site of one of the world’s most famous suicides, and being eager to get home, I’m happy, too, even if I’ll never write again.”

  “Hem, you’ll be writing again soon. I know it. I can feel it.”

  I often order a cheese omelette when I’m staying in hotels. I’ve never been a big fan of room service, but I figure it’s tough to mess up a cheese omelette. It’s a safe bet. After my Idaho stay, I’ve revised my room service standard operating procedure by adding what I call the Ketchum Corollary. It’s tough to mess up a cheese omelette, but not impossible. I’ve since switched to the club sandwich as my room service standby.

  Sarah texted me around 10:00 p.m. All it said was: “When do you land tomorrow?”

  I texted back the flight time but heard nothing more from her.

  The next morning, I drove out to the Hemingway home. The rain had only just stopped coming down but the low dark cloud cover hung heavy and close and claustrophobic. When she died in 1986, Mary Hemingway had bequeathed their home to the Nature Conservancy in Idaho. The endowment she left was not sufficient to pay for the upkeep, so the house is not open to the public, even though it remains the top tourist destination in Ketchum. I have no idea what other attractions might round out the top five, but the Hemingway home has always been number one.

  It was not much to look at. Homes built from concrete blocks with a faux wood exterior are certainly durable, but seldom do they grace the cover of Architectural Digest. It looked in reasonably good condition, but was clearly empty. It had initially served as the offices of the Nature Conservancy before the organization outgrew the premises. Since then, the home has been maintained, but never occupied.

  I got out of the car. The place was deserted. I just stood there for a time taking in the front entrance. The vestibule, where he spent his final minutes alive, was just beyond the door. I had no desire to move closer. The Hemingway who had lived and died there was a pale reflection of his earlier self – depleted, deluded, and suddenly older than his years. It all seemed so sad. Although it was a warm morning in July, a chill passed through me. I walked around to the back of the house. While the views of the surrounding landscape were quite scenic, the house was no more attractive from the other side. In the sun, in shadows, summer or winter, concrete is concrete. I sat down on the ground in the lee of the home and tried to take stock. There had been no exorcism. I’d lived in Hemingway’s world for the past ten days in four different countries yet my writer’s block seemed no closer to being cured. I began to question my initial diagnosis.

  Sitting behind the house, I hadn’t heard the state trooper’s car approach. I must have been very deep in thought, as I don’t recall hearing the trooper’s door slam either.

  “You are not supposed to be here, sir,” she said. “This is private property.”

  I jumped when I heard her voice, which caused her to put one hand on her holster.

  I put my hands up in anticipation.

  “Um, sorry, Officer, you just startled me,” I stammered. “I didn’t know this was not allowed. I was about to leave anyway.”

  I pulled myself to my feet and faced her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Well, um, I just wanted to visit his home. I’m on a kind of Hemingway pilgrimage, and this was my last stop. Fitting, I guess, as this was, um, his last stop.”

  “Have you touched anything or taken anything from the grounds?” she asked.

  “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

  “We have a lot of trouble with Hemingway fanatics trying to chip off chunks of concrete from the house or peeling off weather stripping as souvenirs. You’d be surprised what they do.”

  “Well, I can assure you, I’ve just been sitting and thinking. I have no interest in taking any part of this place with me. It all seems so depressing, what happened here. In fact, I’m eager to leave.”

  “Well, now that I’ve found you here, I’m sorry to say that there are procedures to follow, information to gather, and a report to file. Had you stayed in the car out in the driveway, I could probably have cut you some slack. But your fate was sealed when you opened your door, stepped out, and walked onto the property. It’s what we call around here trespassing.”

  “Trespassing? You’re kidding. Really?” I said, my voice rising to a higher register. “You know I meant no harm. I’ve touched nothing. Couldn’t we just both forget that this ever happened and I’ll be on my way?”

  “Sir, I take my job very seriously. You did not really just advocate dereliction of duty, did you? Is that what I just heard?” she asked with an edge, and taking one step closer.

  Uh oh. I backpedalled, literally and figuratively.

  “Absolutely not. I’m all in favour of paperwork. When can we start?”

  We both walked back around to the front of the house where her cruiser was parked just behind my rental car. She reached into her front seat and pulled out a steel clipboard and then leaned against the police car’s front fender. I stood next to my car and knew exactly what was coming next.

  “Okay, sir, let’s begin with your name, and I’m going to need to see some identification.”

  And we were off.

  I made it back to the hotel just in time to check out. After she’d accepted who I was and why I was in Ketchum, the officer turned out to be very nice about the whole thing.

  My flight landed at LaGuardia at 9:10 that night. The Arrivals area was not too busy for a summer Sunday night. But Departures would surely have been swamped with tourists heading home after a Manhattan weekend. I grabbed my bag and headed out of the sliding glass doors.

  They were both standing there together gabbing away like best friends at a sleepover. Sarah and Marie. My plan had been just to grab a cab and head home. I was not expecting a welcoming party. Marie saw me first, beamed, and thrust her hands in the air in a gesture that seemed to say, “Ladies and gent
lemen, Earnest Hemmingway is in the house!” though I’m not skilled at simultaneous translation.

  She threw her arms around me and squeezed tight, rubbing my back as if comforting a whimpering child. I gave Sarah a surprised and somewhat awkward look, but she just gave a conspiratorial wink.

  “It’s okay, Hem, Marie filled me in on your Paris hookup,” Sarah said. “I’m not surprised.”

  Sarah had a rental car and drove us downtown. Knowing that Sarah wanted to talk family dysfunctions, Marie thought it better if we dropped her off at her place. She had early baking to do anyway. When she got out of the car, she kissed me in a way that told me what happened in Paris might also happen in Manhattan. I was feeling better already.

  I dumped my bag in the bedroom while Sarah fetched a couple of beers from the fridge.

  “I need your couch tonight but I’ll be gone when you get up,” Sarah shouted from the kitchen. “I’m on the first flight back to O’Hare tomorrow morning.”

  I joined her on the couch in the living room and took a long pull on my beer.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Okay. I do want to hear all about your trip, particularly how you and the cake queen came to be an item. By the way, I really like her. But first we gotta talk about Dad.”

  “The floor is yours and I’m all aquiver in anticipation.” I sighed.

  “Things have gone from bad to worse. Something is going down, and I can’t figure out what it is. Dad and Henderson are spending almost every waking hour together behind closed doors. A few other suits come and go throughout the day. Dad won’t return my calls. Then Henderson will disappear for a day. It happened a couple of weeks ago. About ten days before we were going to introduce a new four-pack, the first of its kind in the marketplace, I see Henderson coming out of the Starbucks and getting into an airport limo. When I got into the office, I asked his admin assistant where Henderson was. She told me he’d called in sick that day. Then, the day before our four-pack was to be launched, MaxWorldCorp brings out a five-pack, just like that. So we look like we’re following, not leading the market. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. We looked stupid. It’s all very strange.”