by Peter Ferry
Old Heart
Peter Ferry
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Unbridled Books
Copyright © 2015 by Peter Ferry
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form
without permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ferry, Peter.
Old heart / by Peter Ferry.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-1-60953-117-1
I. Title.
PS3606E777O43 2015
813’.6--dc23
2015003685
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Book Design by SH • CV
First Printing
Part One
Frenchman’s Lake, July 6, 2007
Dad’s gone,” Brooks said into the telephone.
“What do you mean? He’s dead?” said Christine.
“No, no. He’s just gone. He’s not here.”
“Oh, my God, you scared me. ’Course he’s not there. He told us he was going fishing with Mike and Irma, remember?” And there was at least the tone of remonstrance in that last word, as
“Yeah, except I stopped in True Value on my way over here, and there was Mike McIntyre, so I said, ‘Hey, how was the fishing?’ and he didn’t know anything about it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, could we have misunderstood?”
“No,” said Brooks as if saying, ‘I hadn’t had that much to drink.’ “Besides, his big suitcase is gone and half his clothes including winter ones and all his pills and toilet stuff. Cleaned out. And his keys were on the kitchen counter. He never leaves those keys.”
“What in the world?”
“I’m telling you, I think the old fucker pulled a fast one on us. I think he’s taken off.”
“How could this have happened? This is your fault. Damn you, Brooks! If you hadn’t pushed him so hard …”
“Christine,” Brooks said very slowly, “he’s had a stroke.”
“You don’t know that. You do not know that!”
“Like hell I don’t.”
“Roger Daugherty gave him a clean bill of health.”
“Right. You really think Dad went to see him?”
“Why would he lie, Brooks? He’s never lied about anything.”
“That’s just the point. He’s never done any of this weird stuff before. They’re behavior changes. Go on line; look it up. Google TIAs. He may have had a bunch of them.”
“Okay, okay,” said Christine. “Maybe you’re right, but Jesus, it’s all beside the point. The point is he’s not there. He’s gone somewhere. So what do we do now?”
“We find him. We go get him. We bring him back.”
That’s what they said then. That’s what they told me later. That’s how the great chase began.
Lake County, July 5, 2007
Tom Johnson looked at the broken front seat of the big taxi through the open door.
“Goddamn this piece of … crap,” said the big driver. Tom read his name from the license on the dashboard: Daniel Pecora. “Pardon my French, sir.”
“No problem.”
“Sometimes the elderly don’t like cursing.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” said Tom.
“So what are we going to do now? I guess I could have them dispatch another cab for you, but it might take a while.”
“Why not?” Tom was about to say; he’d allowed for plenty of time. But there was something a little pathetic in the tone of the other man’s voice that gave him pause. “Well,” he said, “can you drive it?”
“This? Well, I don’t know. Let’s see.” He got in and eased the car forward, then turned into the street. He sped up a bit, then braked. He did it again. He backed up to where Tom was standing. “I don’t think the seat’s like, loose, you know, unanchored. It’s just broke.”
“Then let’s go to the airport.”
“Well, I’m game if you are, sir.”
“I’m game, Daniel.” Tom got in the back, closed the door, caught a last glimpse of the lake as they turned onto the road, and looked at the town one final time as they passed through it. I’m game all right. He imagined Brooks and Christine trying to piece things together after the accident. Where was he going? Why Paris? What in the world was he thinking? Then his cell phone rang and he asked Daniel to turn the radio off for a moment. “Morning, Christine. Yes, lovely party, dear. Best ever. Best pig ever, too. Thank you for everything. It was a perfect day. Me? Halfway to Devil’s Lake already. No reception up there, so don’t worry. I’ll be home on Friday. Call you then. Okay, sweetie. Me, too. Me, too. I will be.”
Tom turned the phone off. He pushed the back with his thumbs until it slid away, picked the SIM card out with his fingernail, replaced the back, rolled the window down, and flipped the phone out like a tiny Frisbee. He watched it skip once on the shoulder and disappear down the bank. Then he saw that Daniel Pecora was watching in the rearview mirror and had a surprised look on his face. Tom smiled.
“None of my darn business,” said Daniel.
“Our little secret,” said Tom. It was already the third one they had shared.
He had spent the three hours prior to the arrival of the taxi crossing every t and dotting every i, packing and repacking his suitcase, writing the letter, reading it, rereading it, addressing it, putting the stamp on it, going over and over his lists until each item had several check marks beside it, making sure that nothing could go wrong. And then the very first thing had gone wrong. Daniel Pecora was gigantic, a man so wide that Tom didn’t ask him to carry his bags as he had planned to but lugged them into the garage by himself. “Back her up,” he told the cabbie. “Back her right in here four or five feet.” This so the neighbors would not see him leaving with luggage. “Pop the trunk,” he said.
“Can’t,” said Daniel, hoisting himself with great effort out of the seat and the car. “Thing’s broke. Gotta use the key.” It was while getting back in that the big man broke the seat, and it was in examining it that Daniel unintentionally tilted it back and Tom saw what lay beneath it: a rodent’s nest of crumbs, crusts, peels, shredded food packages, bottle caps, and cans.
It wasn’t anything, really, until Daniel Pecora said, “You weren’t supposed to see that,” and then it became a dark, awful fat-man secret.
“That’s all right,” said Tom. “If it makes any difference, I’m wearing diapers.”
“Diapers?”
“You know, Daniel, Depends.”
So now they were floating down the interstate, for the old Chevy rode like a boat with its bad shock absorbers and loose steering, as if on small waves and wandering from lane to lane, Daniel perched on the wobbly, shifting seat, Tom steadying it with both hands from behind.
“I’ll get you there, sir!” said the fat man.
“Good man, Daniel.”
“Some drivers don’t like the elderly. Not me.” And then, in the spirit of the momentary confidentiality that had blossomed between them, “How old are you, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m eighty-five, Daniel.”
“Eighty-five? Well, I never would have guessed that, but now I know you’ll understand what I’m going to say: I like old people. Know why? They got something different about ’em, like me, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, I do,” said Tom. What he didn’t say was “You’re fat and I’m old,” but it was true, and somehow that was enough for them to like each other and joke a bit at least for this hour.
Tom took out the letter, unfolded it, and read it one last time.
Dearest Brooks and Christine,
By now you’ve discovered that I am gone. Please rest easy. I am healthy and happy and doing exactly what I want to do. I know it is not what you want me to do, but that’s just the point. This is my life, whatever is left of it, and I want to live it on my terms. You were simply never going to leave me alone. It was Hanover Place or nothing, and you were right, of course. You were doing what you had to do, and now I am doing what I have to do, because, you see, I do not want to live in Hanover Place or any place like it. I just don’t. I’d rather be dead, and this is better.
What is this? Well, I’m off to see the world, but if you try to follow me, the trail will end in Paris. Let me save you a lot of time and trouble. I have covered my tracks very well. I am not using credit cards. I am not purchasing tickets beyond Paris in my name. I have closed out all life insurance policies, bank accounts, mutual funds, and annuities and converted everything to cash, which I am carrying in the form of foreign bank drafts. All records of these are secured by legal confidentiality. My pension payments will be forwarded directly to me, and all related information is legally confidential. The same goes for health insurance payments and reimbursements, all of which automatically come out of and go into a confidential foreign bank account. I have left no forwarding address. I have taken everything I want and need and given away most of the rest to your kids, including my pickup, the pontoon boat, my tools, and your mother’s pearls. What’s left, do with all of it as you wish. Save nothing for me. I am not coming back.
Being your dad and Tony’s has been the greatest honor and achievement of my life; nothing else comes close. I shall think of you every day and always with absolute love; please do the same of me.
I love you both.
Dad
Tom sealed the letter, looked up, saw that Daniel was again watching him, and smiled.
“So,” said Daniel, “sounds like you had yourself quite a little party.” He said this somewhat wistfully, like someone who hadn’t been invited.
“Yes,” said Tom, “quite a little party.”
Frenchman’s Lake, July 4, 2007
Tom really hadn’t thrown the Fourth of July party himself for several years; his family and friends had. We’d brought the tub of iced pop, the keg of beer, the corn and cakes and pies, and the great bowls of potato salad, pasta salad, slaw, and baked beans. We’d even dug out the fire pit and roasted the pig all day long, slowly turning it and turning it so that people could come and watch, could inhale the rich, fatty smells, could feel the water running in their mouths. Tom just officiated. He was the high priest of Independence Day. All day long he sat in one of the two Adirondack chairs at the top of the broad lawn that rolled down to Frenchman’s Lake, looking craggy and magisterial while subalterns attended to him, delivered things—cups of tea, glasses of beer, plates of food. People came to greet him or thank him, to sit in the other chair for a moment or two and chat with him. One of those people was my mother, his daughter, Christine, who brought him a slice of watermelon. “Lovely,” he said. “Can I have a little salt?”
“Not supposed to use salt. Which reminds me, did you take your meds?”
“’Course. Took ’em first thing. Always do.” But in fact he hadn’t taken them, and later, after he’d softly closed his bathroom door and was standing in front of the mirror looking at his pill organizer, he discovered that he hadn’t taken them the day before, either, or the day before that. So he took them all right then, took three days’ worth, a whole handful, not so much because he thought he needed to or was concerned about his health as to prevent Christine from finding them still in their little compartments. But that was later because right then he did not want Christine to know he’d forgotten or to see how hard it was for him to get up from the Adirondack chair.
For the year since my Uncle Tony’s death, he had wondered if the day would come when he couldn’t get out of his chair at all (Tony sometimes used to grab Tom’s hand and pull him up), when he couldn’t move himself far enough forward or push himself all the way up into a standing position. It occurred to him now that this was no longer a concern. Funny. He had worried about it. That someone might see him struggling and use it as evidence of one thing or proof of another. He had never even thought of that when he had bought the chairs in kits at the lumberyard ten years earlier and assembled them one breezy summer afternoon out on the lawn with Tony’s help and Brooks stopping by.
“Oh, my God!” Brooks had said. “It’s such a cliché!”
“What?”
“Adirondack chairs on a rolling lawn. It’s a bad book cover, Dad.” This from a guy who hadn’t had a real job in two years, whose dyed hair you could spot from two blocks and whose muffler you could hear from six. Remembering now, Tom once again marveled (is that the word when you are annoyed?) at his younger son’s almost total lack of self-awareness. “I think I’m in a greeting card. For God’s sake, Dad, promise me one thing. Promise you won’t paint them green.”
So he had painted them bright pink, a coat of oil-based primer one day and then two of shockingly pink pink over the next two days. Actually, Tony had painted them and with meticulous, timeless care, his tiny pointed tongue protruding in concentration, his stubby little fingers clutching at the brush as he knelt in the grass and talked to himself, sang, “Love, love me do, you know I love you” over and over again. Up on the porch, Tom watched and called out from time to time, “Atta boy, Tony. Spread that stuff on as smooth as silk.” A couple of days later they became the Ironic Chairs because Tony got the words “Adirondack” and “ironic” mixed up. When I was studying French in high school, I called them the “chaises ironique” and my sister, Carly, called Tom and Tony the “chers ironique,” and the legend was born.
Tom and Tony sat in those chairs for the next nine years, Tony’s short legs never quite reaching the ground, Tom’s long ones usually crossed, one foot dangling. They sat in them all summer, of course, and all fall, as early in the spring as they could, and even on selected winter days when the temperature moderated, the sun shone, and the wind died down. The neighborhood kids whom they let fish from the dock always waved and called them “the big man” and “the little man,” and one once said to Tony, “You’re almost little as me.”
“That’s ’cause I got Down syndrome,” Tony explained with something like the patience a parent shows a child. “It makes you little. ‘I’m little but I’m old,’” he then said, paraphrasing his father and quoting Harper Lee.
“How old are you?”
“Fifty-one. My birthday was on April sixteenth and we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. You ever go there?”
“No.”
“Gotta go. They got a Nazi submarine.”
Brooks could be facetious one moment and supercilious the next, and Tom was embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t always tell or perhaps trust the difference, which was to say he never really knew how much Brooks objected to the chairs, if at all. He wondered now, as he had so many times, if he’d have felt differently about his second son if they’d called him Bill or John. The name “Brooks” had been Julia’s choice, and Tom had always thought it pretentious. Or would Brooks even have been a different person? Would he have gambled less? (That was another thing Tom wouldn’t worry about after this day.) Brooks seemed always to be trying to fit his name or make it fit him. Not Tony. He’d been a Tony every day of his life. There was no other name for him. Nor Christine, for that matter, who had seemed to him as a girl beautiful and fragile in about equal proportions, like a piece of crystal. At fourteen she was a willow, thin as a girl wants to be thin, with fine features, mother-of-pearl skin, and hair that curled of its own accord. By twenty-four she had fretted herself plain; s
he had a horizontal crease across her forehead, her fine features had become a little sharp and her skin a little pallid, her hair no longer curled on its own, and she was now thin as a girl does not want to be thin. She was habitually harried. She still had a good heart and always meant well, but sometimes she lacked the time and patience to do well.
The day was hot and sunny. A perfect Fourth of July, as if he’d ordered it, and perhaps he had. It was, after all, his day; he thought for a moment that perhaps even God might recognize this, might owe him just one day. But no. God owes nobody anything. He knew that. Had always known it. Had lived by it since when? The war, perhaps; could any soldier believe otherwise? Was it then that he first fancied himself a “cheerful fatalist”? Had first made his constant companion the knowledge that any moment, this moment, might be his last? Life is short and hard, pass the beer nuts, please. But hadn’t people always known this? When had it changed? When had people begun to believe that they have a right to happiness? In Rousseau’s day? In the land of the free and the home of the brave? Maybe in his own lifetime. Maybe since the advent of penicillin or x-rays or social security or health insurance or malpractice suits or emotional distress. Tom had always known that one day Roger Daugherty would not say, “Fit as a fiddle” or “You’re in perfect health.” Roger, about whom Tom had been skeptical when he’d taken over the old man’s practice. Too young. Wet behind the ears. He’d decided to try him out on something easy: a physical exam, and Roger in that tiny examination room listening through the stethoscope, saying, “Do you smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm.”
And Tom later, putting his shirt back on, saying, “Tell me, Doctor, did you know that I smoke from something you heard in my chest or because you saw my cigarettes in my shirt pocket?”
Roger had hesitated. “Well, I saw the cigarettes.”
“I know I should quit, but it’s hard.”