Onward Toward What We're Going Toward

by Ryan Bartelmay

  Chic stopped straightening out his bills. Her snap, and the phrase, just like that, had triggered something. He felt like someone had smacked him in the knees with a baseball bat. He wanted to kneel down, but he had to get through this. It was going to pass. He was all right. He pressed two fingers against his jugular vein. Stop thinking about it. Move on. Stop. Don’t think. Stop thinking. Concentrate on your heart. Your heart beating. Be in the moment. Stop thinking.

  “Mr. Waldbeeser, are you all right?”

  He concentrated on his wristwatch. Tick. Tick. Tick. He took a deep breath and removed the fingers from his neck. He smiled at the woman. “I’m fine. How much do I owe you for this stuff?”

  The cashier gave him a concerned look.

  “Beautiful day out there.” Chic motioned toward the windows overlooking the parking lot; a misty rain was falling. He felt another rush coming on. He imagined a bulldozer pushing the thought out of his mind. He smiled at the cashier, whatever her name was. “You know, I don’t think I actually need this stuff. Thank you for your help.” He left the stack of TV dinners sitting on the counter and walked out of the store.

  Chic at Work

  1960s

  Chic didn’t like his job, but then again, he didn’t not like it. Sure, he daydreamed sometimes about something bigger and better, something with more responsibility, maybe an office where he could kick up his feet on his desk, but he was a cannery man, his father had been a cannery man, his grandfather had been a cannery man, and Chic knew that he would die a cannery man. This simple fact gave him a small bit of comfort. At least he knew what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

  Every morning, he went to the locker room where he put on his hard helmet and white lab coat and punched the clock before heading out to the production floor. Every day at noon, he took lunch with the other workers in the break room. He unpacked his sandwich. Sometimes someone sat across from him, and he smiled at the person and made small talk. That person, whoever it was, after engaging in pleasantries, usually started complaining at some point: about work, the government, family, etc. and would solicit Chic into complaining along with him. Chic would then chime in about whatever the other person wanted to complain about, such as the town’s decision not to line Main Street with American flags during the Fourth of July weekend. It was un-American. Unpatriotic. A travesty. Etc. There was companionship in complaining. So, Chic complained, until the other person finished up his sandwich, shut his lunchbox, and went back to work, leaving Chic looking around for someone else to complain along with.

  Sometimes the whole ordeal—work; lunch; small talk; complaining; the death of Lomax; his wife’s hatred of him, which he felt but kept locked away in the deep dark part of his consciousness; his brother’s thoughts about him, whatever they were; Lijy’s disappointment in him, which he couldn’t understand since he had done what she had wanted him to without getting so much as a thank you in return (actually, he had gotten a thank you, but not a real, honest-to-goodness thank you); every single thing in his life, actually—got to be so much, so heavy, that he couldn’t hold his head up anymore and he would push his half-eaten sandwich aside and put his forehead down on the lunch table and close his eyes. He knew the other workers were probably watching him. Some might even be nudging each other—What’s up with Waldbeeser? —but he couldn’t help it. He felt numb. He felt hollow. It was like he was a seashell and his insides had crawled out and left an empty body behind. If a penny was dropped inside of him, the noise would echo forever. He was nothing. Chic Waldbeeser was nothing. He was there but he wasn’t there.

  Then, he picked his head up off the table. He pinched his arm. He wiggled his toes. He blinked his eyes. See, he was there. He wasn’t hollow. He was something. He was a body. He was Chic Waldbeeser. He filled his lungs, drinking in the oxygen. Oh, that felt good. He took a deep breath and held it. He heard the hum of the other employees complaining. Someone deposited a dime in the soda machine. Someone crunched into a potato chip. Someone crumpled a paper bag. Someone laughed. He put two fingers to his neck and felt the consistent throbbing of his beating heart. He was alive. He was alive. He lifted his head. His co-workers were talking, eating, complaining. No one had even noticed he’d put his head on the table.

  Diane in Bed

  1960s

  One afternoon when Chic was at work, Diane sat up in bed and looked around the room. Clothes piled on the dresser; soda bottles cluttering the nightstand; empty cereal bowls stacked on the floor (a half-eaten hot dog beside them); a layer of dust covering the furniture; the tangle of sheets at the bottom of the mattress; the dog, Cody, lying on the floor, his drooping eyes looking back at her. She decided that she didn’t want to live this way any longer. She wiped away the crumbs from the front of her nightgown, noticing her thigh, the largeness of it, the ripple and jiggle of flesh. She didn’t remember it being this big. She tried to wrap both hands around it, attempting to measure its girth, but she couldn’t get both hands around it. Her thigh had to weigh fifty pounds; that was a hundred pounds for both legs. Add in the rest of her body, and she probably weighed three hundred pounds. She pulled up her nightgown. Fat rolls. How could she have let this happen? She picked up a soda bottle with a small amount left in the bottom and took a sip. It was warm and flat and syrupy. She picked the hot dog up off the floor, sniffed it, then took a bite. That morning, she’d heard a news segment on the radio about the first heart transplant. The surgery had lasted nine hours and had been performed by a South African, Christiaan Barnard. Diane had always taken it for granted that her heart would continue to beat. She didn’t think about it beating, or not beating. On the other hand, she always thought about thinking. If she thought about it, thinking had gotten her in this mess, or rather, her thinking in response to what had happened. If she didn’t think, she wouldn’t be feeling the way she did—simple as that. If she had a mind transplant, she’d have a different mind, like that person in South Africa had a different heart. She’d be better off that way. Sure, she’d still be thinking, but her thoughts would change, and that was the solution, according to Dr. Peale. But she knew better: thinking was thinking no matter what the thoughts. The question was whether it was the thinking or the thoughts that caused the problem. She wasn’t so self-absorbed to think that others had better thoughts. They all had it bad, everyone, the whole world. Everyone thinks, so it must be the thinking, not the thoughts. It was this thinking stuff that had to stop. That was the problem. She thought it curious that most people thought that the heart was the soul. The heart of the matter. The heart is a lonely hunter. But really, it was the mind. It’s the mind of the matter. The mind is a lonely hunter. It was thinking that made people who they were, not the heart. People felt in their minds, not their hearts. It wasn’t heartache; it was mindache. Thinking the way she was thinking made her ache. She needed to stop thinking. She sat as still as she could and closed her eyes. Stop thinking, she thought. But then, just like that, she had a thought; it came in from somewhere and then it was there, in her mind, and she was having it: thinking about thinking was thinking. This was like digging in sand. Maybe it was best if she distracted her thinking so that she wasn’t thinking about her thinking. She stood up, walked to the window, and pulled back the curtain. A few inches of muddy water covered the bottom of the half-dug hole for the swimming pool. She bent down and touched Cody on top of his head. “Come on, boy,” she said. “Lunch time.”

  In the kitchen, Diane opened the fridge and took out the milk. She found a TV dinner in the freezer. She got a box of macaroni and cheese from the cabinet and started a pot of water. An hour later, the dishes were in the sink and she was back upstairs in her bedroom. Again, she noticed the mess around her. Cody was on the bed and she shooed him off. He loped out of the bedroom. She tore the sheets off the bed and piled them next to the dresser, next to a pile of clothes that had been there for she didn’t know how long. She had to go to the hall to get clean sheets. However, that took effort, so she just curled
up on the bare mattress. Cody came back in and looked at her like he needed to go outside. The newscaster on the radio was talking about Christiaan Barnard’s heart transplant again. She felt her heart, then rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. The light was on. She should shut it off. Cody barked. Chic would take him outside when he got home. He would be home in a few hours. She’d hear him come in the front door. Dr. Peale would be starting soon. She wanted to hear his voice. She needed to put sheets on the bed, throw away the soda bottles, and straighten up the room. There were dishes to be done downstairs in the kitchen. She turned and reached for a bottle of soda on the nightstand. A single drop was left in it. She put the bottle to her lips and watched the drop roll toward her mouth. She waited, getting excited, already tasting the sugary goodness of the soda, wanting the taste, needing it. This drop was going to taste so good. The drop touched her lips; the liquid was warm and nearly tasteless. She licked her lips, but there was just a hint of sugar. She picked up another bottle and, holding it up, checked for liquid. Closing one eye, she peered through the bottle’s mouth. There wasn’t anything left. She tried another bottle. It was empty, too. She could go downstairs and get a fresh bottle, but she didn’t have the energy. She rested her head back down on the bare mattress. Cody stood next to the bed looking at her. She turned over so that her back was to him. She noticed the mess of the bedroom. Tomorrow she’d clean it up. She’d have the energy tomorrow. She closed her eyes and started to think about thinking again, about how thinking was the problem. She stopped herself. She wasn’t going to think about that. She wasn’t going to think at all. She rolled on her back and opened her eyes. She needed to turn off the light. Stop, she thought, stop. Stop. Stop. She was thinking again. Stop. Stop thinking.

  The Bathroom

  1960s

  Chic locked the bathroom door. Upstairs, he could hear Dr. Peale’s voice on the radio. Diane’s dry-skin lotion was in the medicine cabinet. He unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants and underwear, sat down on the toilet. He’d been watching I Dream of Jeannie, when he remembered his honeymoon, the night he and Diane went to dinner, then came back to the motel where he seduced her for the first time. He squirted lotion into his palm. That night had been perfect. He’d laid her down and kissed every part of her body—her feet, her inner thighs, her stomach, her breasts. She giggled. He could tell she was nervous. He pulled her nightgown over her head, revealing his wife . . . oh, his wife. He was rubbing his penis; the friction and the lotion combined to make squishy sounds. He climbed on her. They kissed. He rubbed—faster, faster. He felt himself getting close. She moaned. She was into it and into him; he was into it and into her; they were into each other, and it was the closest he’d ever felt to someone in his entire life. He felt connected to her. His head tingled, and he started to orgasm. “Ohhhhhh.” He shot the semen into the bowl—one squirt, two squirts. He whimpered as a wave washed over him and he forgot where he was for a moment. Then, he came back. He was in his bathroom. Upstairs he heard Dr. Peale on the radio: “Imagination is the true magic carpet.” He washed his hands and flushed the toilet. He zipped up his pants and buckled his belt. He looked at himself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Everything was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

  Mary Geneseo & Chic Waldbeeser

  June 23, 1998

  Mary had lost a hundred bucks playing pool, and she was pissed. Ever since they’d left the Brazen Bull, she’d been running her mouth about men and how they didn’t appreciate a good woman. Chic was doing his best to keep up with what she was saying, but she talked so fast that spittle sprayed out of her mouth like a garden sprinkler. “They want this and they don’t. They want to go here and then they don’t. This wheelchair is expensive, and this one isn’t. You can’t leave me. You have to stay with me. Let’s move to Peoria. What the hell is in Peoria? Nothing is in Peoria. Look around. Have you had the Chinese food? Gone to the mall? Jesus Christ. I don’t know. Do you know? You’re a guy. Give me some insight.”

  Chic didn’t say anything.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She lead-footed it and ripped through Creve Coeur past the car dealerships, strip mall plazas and beyond the city limits into a landscape of farmhouses, barns and cornfields. From the air, from a bird’s view or God’s view, there may have been some symmetry to this, but down on the highway, it was just a mishmash of farms and corn flowing into each other. The ditch along the road was overgrown with weeds, broken up by the occasional plastic garbage bag.

  Coming up on a slower car, Mary glued the minivan to the car’s bumper and honked and mumbled obscenities before jerking the minivan into the opposite lane and flooring it. Chic noticed that the car was driven by a man about his age, a woman of similar age seated next to him. Mary leaned over Chic and yelled out the passenger window, “Speed the hell up,” and shook her fist. “That’s the problem,” she said. “Right there. They’re the problem. They do everything so slowly. You know why? Because they don’t want to die. They think if they go slowly, they can ward off the inevitable. Well, you can’t.”

  Chic glanced in the side mirror and saw the car dropping back. Mary jerked the wheel, and the minivan shot into the correct lane, the tires biting into the gravel shoulder and kicking up dust. They came dangerously close to barreling into a sign announcing their entrance into Tazewell County. About a week after her arrival in Peoria, Mary had found herself out this way with Green, after he had picked her up one afternoon from the Pair-a-Dice. They were looking for a bar or something, but mostly playing grab-ass. Green kept grabbing her leg, and she kept swatting him away, playfully, hoping he’d drive them back to the bungalow so they could do what they both wanted to do. Then the DJ on the radio said, “Here’s an oldie, but a goodie,” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” came on the radio, the same song that Green had had the bartender play at the Bowl-a-Rama. (And this was the original version, not the Randy Travis cover.) Green looked at her, and she knew what his look meant. He turned off onto a gravel road and pulled up behind two silos. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the sun was high and hanging over the surrounding cornfields.

  Mary slowed down. She looked this way and that and over her shoulder and around like she was trying to find something familiar. She passed a pickup waiting to turn onto the highway. The driver kept a sharp eye on her; after she had passed, he pulled onto the highway going the opposite direction.

  “Are we lost?” Chic asked.

  “No, we’re not lost.”

  The minivan crossed a creek and passed a cemetery, then went up a hill. There was a farmhouse about a hundred yards up the highway. Mary pulled into the gravel drive. A dog chained to a tree in the front yard lunged and barked at the minivan. Mary put the car in reverse, backed out of the drive, and left the way she’d come, past the cemetery, across the creek. Chic wasn’t sure where they were. Wasn’t Russ’s farm out this way? Or maybe it was over that way? There was a water tower in the distance. He was sure that was Farmington. Maybe he should suggest they stop by Russ’s? They could all have a beer or something. He wanted to get her in the right mood so that he could bring up Florida. He’d been thinking about how to bring it up. Could he just say it? Come out with it. Blurt it out. She seemed a little flustered right now. The timing had to be right, and maybe this wasn’t the best time. Maybe she and her husband had gotten into a fight? Maybe that was reason enough to bring it up? He should tell her more about Diane. If this was going to be an honest relationship, he needed to start being honest with her.

  “My wife’s name was Diane. She was seventeen when we got married.”

  “You told me this.”

  “We had a son. Lomax.”

  “Chic . . . not now. I’m looking for something.”

  “He died.”

  She looked around—right, left, then at him. He was rubbing his thumb and index finger together nervously, like he was rolling something into a bal
l.

  “I said he died.”

  “What I’m looking for has got to be around here somewhere.”

  “I’m trying to tell you my son died.”

  “Yeah. I heard you. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He drowned.”

  The quiet voice in her head told her that this required a response. Make him feel like she cared. But she kept looking around instead, trying to spot the gravel pull-in.

  “My wife and I, we never . . . It was just one of those things that we just never . . . have you ever had anyone die?”

  She hadn’t stuck with any guy long enough to have had one die on her. Her father had died, although she hadn’t been around when it happened. He had been living in Bakersfield. It was ten years ago. His third wife, a woman Mary didn’t know, called one afternoon. They’d already had the funeral. Her father hated churches, so Mary found it odd that he’d had a church funeral, but then again, maybe he’d changed since she’d seen him last—she hadn’t been in the same room with him for seven or eight years. She’d talked to him on the phone only once in the past five years, Christmas or his birthday or something, and she could hear the television on in the background. For a long time, she told herself she was trying to find a man like him. Truth be told, her father hadn’t really been a good man. That afternoon she called him for what turned out to be the final time, the first thing he said to her was, “What are you calling for? You need money or something?”

  Up ahead was a gravel road that cut into a cornfield and led to two silos about fifty yards off the highway. Mary took her foot off the gas pedal. “Look,” she said. The sun was setting, a massive blazing ball sliding down below the horizon, casting a golden light on the silos, making them glow, making them seem so promising and new, two towers of hope, two rockets sitting in the middle of a cornfield about to blast off to a better place.