Russ started crying.
“He has an erection.”
“I don’t have an erection.”
Buddy swung the stringer of bullhead catfish, but Chic ducked underneath it. Water splattered on the wall and peppered the French doors. Russ’s crying grew louder.
“I’m going to kill you, Chic.” Buddy swung the stringer again, the fish whizzing above Chic’s head.
“Buddy, find your daddy place,” Lijy said firmly. “Rub your shankh.”
“Will someone shut that kid up,” Buddy yelled.
Lijy went to Russ and picked him up. “Control yourself, Buddy,” she said.
Buddy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened his eyes. “Were you going to have sex with my wife again?”
“Buddy Waldbeeser,” Lijy said.
“Let him answer.”
“I came here . . . I dropped off Bascom’s letters . . . and we started talking and I told her about the other day when you abandoned me.”
“I didn’t abandon you.”
“I ran out of gas and you left me there.”
“Buddy, is that true?”
Buddy looked up at the ceiling. It appeared as if he was about to cry. “You slept with my wife, Chic.”
Lijy went up to Buddy and touched his temple. “Rub your shankh, honey.”
“Don’t touch me. I don’t want to be touched.” He turned and stormed out of the room.
“Buddy!” Lijy gave Chic a look. “Here, hold Russ.”
“Do you really think . . . ?”
“Just hold him.” She handed him the baby and chased after Buddy. Chic heard the bedroom door open and close. He looked down at the baby. Russ tried to grab his cheek, his hair. Chic told him no, but Russ kept trying to touch him. Chic pulled his head back, to avoid being touched.
A few minutes later, Lijy came back into the living room, Buddy behind her. He’d changed clothes and was wearing a salmon-colored dhoti. He was barefoot.
“Buddy has something to say to you,” Lijy said. She took Russ from Chic.
“I’m sorry,” Buddy said. “I overreacted.”
“Now, why don’t you boys sit down, and I’ll make some tea.”
Chic sat down on the couch. Buddy sat next to him. Lijy handed Buddy the baby, who grabbed at his father’s cheek.
Buddy turned to Chic. “Orry-say, Hic-cay.”
Chic looked at his brother.
“This is your shankh.” Buddy touched Chic’s temple. “Close your eyes.” Chic did, as his brother rubbed his temple. The last time his brother had spoken to him in pig Latin had been the day their father was found behind the barn. Chic was in the kitchen, watching Tom McNeeley hug his mother. Chic wanted someone to hug him. He went upstairs. Buddy’s door was closed. He knocked, but Buddy didn’t answer. He called Buddy’s name. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. “Uddy-bay,” Chic said. “Lease-pay open-way he-tay oor-day.” It was their secret language, and Chic hoped that speaking it would tell his brother how much he needed him. He waited. “Uddy-bay?” Nothing. Chic then went to his own room across the hall and sat down on his bed. He had a view of Buddy’s closed door. He waited. Finally, Buddy opened the door, crossed the hall, and came into Chic’s bedroom. Chic wanted Buddy to sit down next to him on the bed. Instead, Buddy said, “I-way ink-thay om-may as-way aving-hay an-way affair-way.”
Chic grabbed Buddy’s hand to get him to stop rubbing his temples. “O-nay, Uddy-bay, I’m-way orry-say.”
“I know you are.”
Lijy was standing in front of them with a tray of mugs and bowls of yogurt. Buddy took a mug and handed it to Chic, then took one for himself.
“You ever had yogurt?” Buddy asked.
Chic picked up a bowl and sniffed it. He spooned a little taste. “Oh, Jesus . . . it’s sour.”
“You should read this book, Look Younger, Live Longer by Gayelord Hauser. Lijy got it for me. It’s all about how to age well.”
“Age well?”
“Age gracefully.”
“This stuff will help you age well?”
“That’s what Gayelord Hauser says.”
Lijy began to rub Buddy’s shoulders. “Tell Chic the good news.”
“We’re opening a store,” Buddy said. “After we save up some money.”
“A health food and massage store,” Lijy added. “It’s always been my dream.”
“We’re also going to sell wheat germ, blackstrap molasses, and powdered skim milk,” Buddy said. “And Lijy’s going to give massages.”
They smiled at each other, and Buddy laid his head on Lijy’s shoulder and she rubbed his hair and kissed his forehead. They were going to open a store and sell yogurt. Chic took a sip of his tea. He hated tea.
“Do you have any beer?”
“No,” Lijy said.
“Drink your tea and eat your yogurt,” Buddy said. “It’ll make you feel better.”
Chic tried some more yogurt. He didn’t think this stuff could help anyone age gracefully.
Mary & Green Geneseo
June 23, 1998
Mary wanted Green to have the motorized wheelchair, but he told her, actually wrote, that he wanted the manual wheelchair, the someone-stand-behind-him-and-push wheelchair. The motorized wheelchair was brand-spanking-new and more comfortable and heavy-duty, etc., but Green didn’t want brand-new and comfortable and he’d be goddamned if he was going wheel himself around in a motorized wheelchair while Mary pranced around Peoria with some guy who drove a Cadillac. No, he was going to make sure she had to push him so she wouldn’t be able to do whatever she did when she left him lying in the hospital bed. Anyone with a good heart, with one single caring bone in her body, even Mary—who Green was beginning to suspect had neither a good heart nor a caring bone—would stick around the house to push him to the bathroom or the kitchen or wherever he wanted to go. So he didn’t want the motorized, deluxe, comfortable, brand-spanking-new wheelchair, even if the hospital was willing to do a lease-to-own contract for zero percent interest for five years. He wasn’t stupid—he knew why Mary wanted him to have the motorized wheelchair.
Here was the thing, though: the manual wheelchair was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. Even with a pillow wedged behind him, Green’s left ass cheek went numb if he sat in the thing for too damn long. Anything that folded up and fit in the trunk of a car wasn’t meant to be lounged around in all day. Green wanted to tell someone about this. Complain about it. He looked around for Mary. She was in the bathroom, doing her hair, or maybe brushing her teeth. The water was on. She’d got him up an hour ago, and while he was still in bed, she’d brought in a bowl of warm (although it wasn’t warm enough) water and a washrag and had given him a quick bath, wiping off his face, armpits, arms, stomach, legs, and feet, even his penis. A nurse was bad enough, but now every single goddamn morning it was going to be like this. She had rolled deodorant under each arm, dressed him in a suit. It was all pretty much goddamn humiliating, but the worst part, the absolute goddamn worst part, was when she tried to pull him out of bed and into the wheelchair. She’d positioned the chair right next to the bed, but the thing kept moving. After a few minutes of pulling him up then putting him down, she finally found the wheel locks and managed to get his bag-of-sand body into the chair. She then picked out a tie, but had a hell of a time tying it (cussing under her breath) and ultimately tossed it on the bed and wheeled him out to the living room and opened the drapes to give him a view of the driveway and the Bradley students on their way to class. As soon as she opened the drapes, Green wanted to scream, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” He could have written a note, but he would have had to get the Post-it Note pad out of his pocket and the golf pencil and then take the time to write what he wanted to say. It was easier to sit there fuming, his head steaming, his mind whirling, his anger churning like a blender. He had to pick his battles, and he had his sights set on a bigger battle. So he stared at the place on the driveway where he had collapsed, behind the miniv
an. Right there. That’s where this all began. The downfall. The beginning of the end. The slow demise.
“You ready?” Mary yelled from the bathroom.
Was he ready? Could he physically answer that question? No. So if he couldn’t physically answer that question, why was she yelling it to him?
She came into the living room carrying a rectangular box wrapped in newspaper. “I got you something.” She set the box in his lap, and he looked up at her. He felt a rush of sentimentality flash through him, and his eyes welled with tears. She’d got him a present.
“For your big day.”
His left arm wasn’t a hundred percent. He couldn’t make a fist, couldn’t wiggle his fingers; it was like a paperweight, so he just set it on the box to steady it and used his right hand to tear into the newspaper wrapping.
“Here, let me help.” Mary took the box and got the paper off and removed the lid and moved the tissue paper so that Green could see inside. “They’re suede. I saw them at the mall and they reminded me of you.”
They were shoes, boots actually: taupe-colored chukka boots. Instead of laces, they had a zipper on the inside seam.
“Here, let me . . . ” Mary kneeled down in front of the wheelchair and wiggled the boots onto Green’s feet. Since the stroke, his body had shriveled into little more than skin stretched over bone. His knees poked through his maroon suit pants, and his cheeks sunk in, making it look like he was starving himself to death. She stood up and stepped back.
“I like them,” she said. “Very sharp.”
Green leaned over. The boots were narrow and pointy, like elf shoes. He tried to move his feet but could move only the right one; the left foot stayed planted where it was like it was cemented into place.
He wrote, Thank you.
“You’re welcome, Green. I knew you’d like them.” Mary got behind the wheelchair and pushed him onto the porch. It was a sunny morning, warm and humid, and there were birds singing in the trees and students passing on the sidewalk in front of the bungalow. Since there wasn’t a wheelchair ramp, Mary turned the chair around and carefully backed it down the steps. She then wheeled Green over to the minivan and, like last night, like this morning in the bedroom, had trouble with his weight while lifting him out of the chair to get him into the passenger seat. Green thought that people were snickering at the sight of him.
On the way to the Brazen Bull, Mary went over the ground rules. She’d set him up at a table with a drink and the newspaper. Other than Seth and Eight Ball, who arrived around eleven, most people usually didn’t show up at the bar until after lunch. It was only ten now, so they’d probably have to hang out for a while. When there was a crowd, she’d ask them—she’d make it covert—if they wanted to place a bet. If they did, she’d point to him sitting in the booth, the newspaper spread in front of him.
He wrote, Don’t tell anyone I can’t walk.
“Nobody will have a clue about that.”
Who’s going to help unload me?
“I can get you in the chair. I got you in it this morning. And I got you in the minivan.”
You can barely do it.
“I’ll get the bartender to help.”
Green didn’t like this. Sure, he may have said he wanted to do it, but that was in the hospital, that was when he thought that there might be another guy. Maybe he was wrong about the other guy, and if there wasn’t some other guy, then . . . then . . . he was dressed up in this ridiculous maroon suit, and Mary was going to unload him from the minivan like a piece of meat and strap him into a wheelchair and push him into the bar. Why would he want to subject himself to this?
I don’t want to do this.
They were exiting off the bridge onto Creve Coeur Avenue. At the bottom of the ramp was a stoplight.
She read the note and drove at the same time. “You said you wanted to book bets, Green.”
He looked out the window. They took a right onto Creve Coeur Avenue.
“You have to quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
He stared out the window: the strip mall parking lots, Kmart, Denny’s, the Illinois River running parallel to them, and, on the other side of the river, Peoria and its downtown skyline.
“So this is it? You’re giving up.”
Green rolled his head to look at her. At that moment, he wanted her to be Jane. Jane wouldn’t be talking to him like this. She’d be nurturing him. She’d have her hand on his leg.
They pulled into the parking lot of the Brazen Bull and found a spot close to the door. There were no other cars in the lot.
I’m sorry, Green wrote.
Mary put the minivan in reverse and backed out of the parking spot. “Yeah, well, Green, well . . . you know . . . if you think I’m going to sit around the house and feel sorry for you, you’re wrong. I’m not going to do that. I refuse, Green. I goddamn refuse to do that.”
Ten
Mary & Green Geneseo, continued
June 23, 1998
Mary unfolded the wheelchair next to the minivan and locked the wheels. Green watched her through the window. She hated it when he watched her, with that look on his face. She opened the passenger-side door and grabbed him under the arms. “On three, shift your weight.”The loud voice in her head was laughing at her. This is your future. You’re going to be stuck taking care of him for the rest of your life. You need to get out of here. Leave him. “One. Two. Three.” She pulled him out of the seat and got him standing in front of the wheelchair. He was like a puppet on strings. Though he was slim as a razor blade, he was taller than she was by about two heads and still heavy. She struggled. “You’re not helping me. Stand up,” she snapped. Gravity brought him forward, and she did everything she could to keep him standing while pulling the wheelchair into place behind him. This is what you have to look forward to, the loud voice said, every day for the rest of your life. She misjudged his weight, and he fell forward, his upper body buckling at the waist. She caught him, and he folded over her shoulder like a rag doll. She tried to lift him up in a fireman’s carry while at the same time positioning the chair, but his body shifted, causing his weight to overwhelm her, and they both collapsed to the grass, overturning the wheelchair, Green landing on top of her.
Mary wiggled out from under him. “This isn’t easy, you know. You have to work with me.”
Green put his hands over his face.
She grabbed him under his arms and dragged him across the front yard. One of his ankle boots slipped off. She pulled him up the porch stairs and propped him up against the front door. She then ran back to the minivan, retrieved the wheelchair, and picked up the ankle boot.
Green’s maroon suit was covered with grass stains, and a black sock was hanging off his left foot. Mary unlocked the front door of the house and dragged him inside, leaving him in the middle of the living room.
“I don’t understand you. You want to go to the Brazen Bull, then you don’t. What do you want to do? You can’t sit around and feel sorry for yourself all day.”
Mary went outside and got the wheelchair. When she came back inside, Green was lying on the hardwood floor, staring up at the ceiling. She turned on the window air conditioning.
“I’m done helping you. I’m not getting you in that chair.”
“Ma-eee. Eeeeppp.”
“You lie there and think about it.”
“Ma-eee.”
Mary went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. From where she was sitting, she had a view of Green’s feet, the black sock half off his left foot. The quiet voice told her to go back and help him. No, the loud voice said. If you go back, you’re sunk. Ruined. He’s a man who can no longer function as a man. He isn’t whole.
It was almost eleven in the morning. She knew that Chic would be at the Pair-a-Dice by now. She could be there in half an hour, then to the Brazen Bull by noon. Quit thinking that way, the quiet voice said.
She went out into the front room and kicked the golf pencil. It shot across the hardwood floor. Green rolled
his head and looked at her.
“I’m going out,” she said.
He looked away from her.
She didn’t say anything else. You’re doing the right thing, the loud voice said. He’ll be just fine without you.
Chic & Diane Waldbeeser
November 22, 1963
The afternoon that every radio and television program was interrupted to announce that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Chic was looking for his car keys. He usually put them on the kitchen counter next to the sugar jar, but they weren’t there. He was down on his hands and knees checking under the coffee table when, from the upstairs bedroom, Diane called out for him. “Chic. My God! Chic. Chic!” For a moment, he thought that maybe she’d turned a corner and had finally come out of her funk. Maybe she wanted to have sex? He started to get aroused.
She came to the top of the stairs. “Kennedy has been shot. I just heard it on the radio.”
Chic stood there looking at her. He scratched his head. “Yeah?”
“The president, Chic.”
Then it clicked. Right. The president. Kennedy. “That’s too bad. What a terrible thing. Hey, have you seen my car keys?”
Diane came downstairs and turned on the television. On the screen, Walter Cronkite took off his glasses. “President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m., central standard time, 2:00 p.m., eastern standard time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.”
“I’m going to the store. I can’t find my keys so I’m walking,” Chic said.
“The store? The president is dead.”
“Well . . . we still need food.”
Stafford’s was empty. At the checkout counter, Chic set down a stack of TV dinners and took out his wallet. The cashier, a woman he knew but whose name he couldn’t quite remember, asked, “Did you hear about the president?”
“I heard,” he said, taking some bills out of his wallet.
“It happened just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers to signify the suddenness of his death.
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