Eureka

by Jim Lehrer

  Over the next few weeks, Otis had similar dinners in Omaha, Boston, Hartford, and San Antonio with the other four executive vice president finalists, all of whom were already in the insurance industry. Then the more formal selection process began. Eventually, Pete and the others were viewed, interviewed, and assessed by a special committee of the board of directors and then individually by all twelve members of the board. A fairly solid consensus emerged for Clyde Oakley, a forty-three-year-old vice president of United Services Automobile Association, or USAA, as it was called, the high-quality multiline San Antonio company that began years ago as an auto insurance company for active-duty military officers. Oakley was a quick, trim, impressive Annapolis graduate who had served as a nuclear submarine officer for five years before leaving the navy and joining USAA.

  Only Otis dissented on Oakley. He insisted on Pete Wetmore.

  Why? Why, why, why? everyone asked. Wetmore was ranked fifth out of five by everyone else involved in the search. Why Wetmore? He had no insurance experience, no outgoing command personality, no nothing except a couple of Harvard degrees.

  Why Wetmore?

  Thinking about it now as the man who had almost drowned in the Chanute River, Otis began to wonder if maybe he’d wanted Pete Wetmore as his number two so he could treat him like shit.

  But before he could go any further toward a final answer, he had to deal with a woman who was here in his hospital room screaming at him.

  “YOU LYING SHITHEAD!”

  Sally’s face, breath, and smell were right down on him.

  Where have you been, Sally? Annabel came. So did Josh Garnett, offering to help me be born again.

  “Who the hell is Sharon?”

  Sally’s yell was loud and shrill.

  He could see her features, but even if he couldn’t have, he would have known for sure it was Sally. He knew her aura and, most particularly, her breath as well as he did everything else about this woman he had made a life with. Her breath had a unique natural sweetness that beat anything Colgate or Crest could create. Not even raw onions on a cheeseburger or a plate of spaghetti covered with a garlic-saturated tomato sauce could cause him to turn away from her open mouth.

  Why had she waited so long after the accident to say anything to him?

  But her words didn’t make sense. Shithead? That was his new word. She hadn’t ever cussed like that. Had she caught the same thing Pete Wetmore did before he killed himself? Had she, too, come down with a case of the syndrome named after some Frenchman?

  Otis wanted to say: Sharon’s a young woman—a kid, a child—I came across on the bank of Farnsworth Creek who wouldn’t run away with me. She wouldn’t be my sunflower from the Sunflower State. She said she was a nurse, and I thought she was the nurse taking care of me here. That’s all there is to it. She touched my left big toe, and it caused me to have an erection. A real Sunflower erection, you might say. That’s all. Well, maybe not quite all. Thinking about her also brought on a wet dream in a motel the other night somewhere this side of the Chanute River Bridge. But that’s it. I promise. She’s a sunflower from the Sunflower State to me, but I’m only an ugly bald-headed old sunflower man to her. An ugly bald-headed dirty old sunflower man, to be even more specific—probably.

  These words—all of them—were forming in his mouth. They felt close to coming out as complete sentences and thoughts. Maybe his full power of speech was on the verge of returning?

  But he decided not to test it. Not yet—not now.

  Sally spoke again. “You told me there wasn’t a woman involved in your silliness, your running away like an idiot on that silly goddamn scooter with that silly goddamn football helmet and silly goddamn BB gun. You lied, you goddamn shithead, Otis.”

  What’s happened to your sweet mouth, Sally?

  Otis thought that maybe he wasn’t hearing correctly. Maybe she was saying these things in her normal, civilized, unprofane way, and he was hearing her wrong. Could there be another syndrome discovered and named by another Frenchman that affected the people on the receiving end? Could there be a disease that caused people to hear cusswords that weren’t really spoken? Somebody uttered a completely innocent word such as “sweetheart,” and the listener heard “shithead”?

  The other possibility was that he didn’t know Sally as well as he thought he did. Maybe she talked this way to everyone but him. What was it Pete Wetmore had said about his use of “fucking”? That he had never talked that way to Otis. Or maybe Sally had always been prepared to talk this way but had never been angry enough to do so until now, until this, until Sharon.

  Otis felt something. A touch, a hand. The hand was down on his most sensitive private parts.

  “Is this what Sharon did for you, Otis?”

  Otis shook his head.

  “No need to shout, Otis,” Sally said.

  Call me Buck!

  Sally put her mouth to his. “Kiss me, you lying shithead,” she said softly, quietly, soothingly, invitingly. “Shithead” had never been uttered so lovingly, so fetchingly.

  He kissed her back as hard as he could.

  “You’re going to be fine, Otis,” she said.

  You’re going to be fine, Otis?

  Well, yes and no. Fine, yes, in that he may be headed toward living again. Fine, no, in that he may also be headed toward living again the old way in Eureka, Kansas, as Otis Halstead. He couldn’t do that.

  Buck couldn’t do that!

  Otis considered whether he might find and buy another toy fire engine, order another Daisy air rifle, and replace his drowned scooter with a Pacemaker or with some other Cushman model. He decided he definitely would not get another Kansas City Chiefs helmet. No, this time he would get a New York Giants or Jets helmet.

  Sing, Otis, sing!

  That’s it! I’ll sing instead of talking. Eureka!

  He opened his mouth and sang with his Johnny Mercer twang and tone:

  “We meet and the angels sing

  The angels sing the sweetest song I’ve ever heard.

  You speak and the angels sing

  Or am I reading music into every word?”

  Sally raised her head off his chest and exclaimed, “My God, Otis!”

  Otis smiled.

  “You’re talking—singing!”

  Otis just kept smiling.

  “I didn’t know you could sing!”

  Otis hummed.

  Sally said, “You sound just like somebody famous! Is it Tennessee Ernie Ford?”

  Otis shook his head vehemently.

  “Steve Lawrence?”

  Otis shook his head even more.

  “I know, I know. Hoagy Carmichael.”

  Otis moved his head but not so vehemently. She was getting close. Hoagy Carmichael, the man from Indiana, and Johnny Mercer, the man from Savannah, had been friends and collaborators.

  “Got it, Otis. Johnny Mercer. It’s Johnny Mercer—the happy guy.”

  Otis nodded vehemently.

  “You’re a wonderful Johnny Mercer,” Sally said. “It’s a miracle.”

  Otis smiled.

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Sally, still clearly surprised, shocked, unbelieving. “Why have you never sung like Johnny Mercer before?”

  Otis did nothing.

  “Why have I not acted anymore? You could ask me that, too, if you wanted to,” Sally said.

  Then Otis sang:

  “Do you hear that whistle down the line

  I figure that it’s engine number forty-nine

  She’s the only one that’ll sound that way

  On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

  See the old smoke risin’ ’round the bend

  I reckon that she knows she’s gonna meet a friend,

  Folks around these parts get the time of day

  From the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

  Here she comes … woo-oo-woo-oo-woo-oo-woo-woo,

  Hey, Jim, you better get the rig,

  Woo-oo-woo-oo-woo-woo,
>
  She’s got a list of passengers that’s pretty big,

  And they’ll all want lifts to Brown’s Hotel

  ’Cause lots of them been travelin’ for quite a spell,

  All the way from Phil-a-del-phi-ay

  On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

  Sally thrust her head down on his chest and sobbed. “Oh, Otis, I love you, I love you. You’re back, you’re back. You came back, Little Otis.”

  Little Otis?

  Who? Back?

  Never!

  With her face away from his chest, Sally said, “Do you recognize this, Otis?” She shook her shoulders, cleared her throat, and said dramatically, “‘You picked up the javelin real careful like it was awful heavy. But you threw it, clear, clear, up into the sky. And it never came down again. Then it started to rain. And I couldn’t find Little Sheba. I almost went crazy looking for her, and there were so many people, I didn’t even know where to look. And you were waiting to take me home. And we walked and walked through the slush and the mud, and people were hurrying all around us and … and …

  “‘But this part is sad. All of a sudden I saw Little Sheba. She was lying in the middle of the field … dead. It make me cry, Doc. No one paid any attention … I cried and cried. It make me feel so bad, Doc. That sweet little puppy … her curly white fur all smeared with mud, and no one to stop and take care of her …

  “‘You kept saying, “We can’t stay here, honey, we gotta go on. We gotta go on.” Now, isn’t that strange?

  “‘I don’t think Little Sheba’s ever coming back, Doc. I’m not going to call her anymore …

  “‘I’ll fix your eggs.’”

  Otis recognized it, all right. It was the most famous scene from William Inge’s play Come Back, Little Sheba, Shirley Booth had played the part in the movie—the character’s name was Lola—and spoken those words to Burt Lancaster, who had played Doc.

  He wanted to tell Sally that she was as good a Shirley Booth—and prettier, even—as he was a Johnny Mercer.

  In a sudden burst of new emotion, Sally started sobbing again. She said through her tears, “I’m sorry, Otis. I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me. Please, please, forgive me.”

  Otis had no idea what she was talking about. Forgive you for not being Shirley Booth? That didn’t make sense. Forgive you for reciting that Inge scene? No way it could be that, Forgive you for what?

  She must be talking about something else. But what? What had she done to apologize to him for? Maybe she was sorry she waited until after Annabel and Josh Garnett to really come talk to him after the accident.

  I forgive you, Sally!

  He wanted to tell her that, and that she was as good as Shirley Booth.

  But Otis wasn’t sure he was going to speak any more words. Or show any more real progress. He had, under the cover of darkness, begun to move around a bit. Nobody knew about it. And maybe that’s the way it would be, at least for a while.

  Until Buck figured out exactly what he was going to do next—besides sing.

  NE OF HIS first singing triumphs, appropriately enough, got him some chocolate fudge.

  Through the careful use of frowns, smiles, nods, and head shakes, he had been able to order one of his favorite meals: a cheeseburger with fried onions and a Dr Pepper to drink.

  The attendant asked if there was anything else he would like, a special treat of some kind.

  Otis replied with a musical outburst that sent the message that he wanted something sweet.

  After several minutes, a Butterfinger was brought to Otis and placed in his right hand. He didn’t take hold of it. One after another at varying intervals, he also didn’t grab a Milky Way or a Baby Ruth or a Reese’s peanut butter cup or a Heath bar or a peanut cluster or a Tootsie Roll or a Hershey’s Kiss or a chocolate-covered mint patty or a chewy caramel square or a lemon drop or a peppermint stick.

  Then a two-inch square of chocolate fudge was placed in his right hand. He folded his hands around the candy and brought it to his mouth.

  “Eureka! As we say here in Eureka,” said somebody male in the room. Otis’s vision was clearing up. He could have looked, but he didn’t want to. It was probably Tonganoxie. It was the kind of thing he’d say.

  Otis quickly accepted and ate two pieces of fudge despite his modest disappointment with the quality and taste. It was commercially made, smooth and milky, but not as grainy soft as Otis’s grandmother’s or Church Key’s.

  Church Key Something Blue. It had been a while since Otis had thought about that idiot—that shithead. For a few minutes Otis considered the possibility of Church Key’s having been part of a dream or part of a hallucination that had been brought on by the near-drowning in the Chanute River. But the timing didn’t add up. Otis was sure he’d had the experience with that idiot, that shithead, before the Cushman crashed through the bridge. Yes, that was right. Church Key was real. Otis considered how many other idiots—morons, lunatics, numbskulls, and shitheads—there could be out there making fudge or stealing money from people on motor scooters or doing other crazy or bad things. Do former professional football players all go a bit nuts and mean once their playing days are over?

  What about singers and songwriters? Did Johnny Mercer stay cool and sane and with it until he died in 1976? What a year to die! Our bicentennial year. Otis remembered the obituary in the Eureka Times, “Johnny Mercer, the songwriter and singer from Georgia they called Our Huckleberry Friend from his song ‘Moon River,’ died yesterday of a brain tumor in Bel Air, California, at the age of 67.”

  Poor Johnny, poor Johnny, how could you die? Poor Johnny, poor Johnny, oh.

  After chewing and swallowing a third piece of fudge, poor Otis sang:

  “Gather ’round me everybody

  Gather ’round me

  While I preach some.

  Feel a sermon comin’ on me

  The topic will be sin

  And that’s what I’m a-gin.

  If you wanna hear my story

  Then settle back and just sit tight

  While I start reviewin’

  The attitude of doin’ right.

  You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive

  Eliminate the negative,

  Latch on to the affirmative

  Don’t mess with Mister In-between.

  You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum

  Bring gloom down to the minimum

  Have faith or pandemonium

  Li’ble to walk upon the scene.”

  Otis stopped, accepted another piece of fudge, and ate it.

  “I recognize that song from something,” said a female in the room. It wasn’t Sally or the non-Sharon nurse. It must be another nurse or female doctor or rehab assistant. Or somebody just passing by. Again Otis chose not to appear to care. All in good time. His good time.

  “I think it was in that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil movie down in Georgia,” said another woman, who also did not sound familiar.

  Johnny was from Savannah! That’s why it was in the movie! You idiot!

  Otis picked up the song:

  “To illustrate my last remark:

  Jonah in the whale,

  Noah in the ark.

  What did they do

  Just when everything looked so dark?

  Man, they said we’d better

  Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive,

  Eliminate the negative,

  Latch on to the affirmative

  Don’t mess with Mister In-between.”

  Otis stopped singing and listened to the applause of the people in the room he had chosen not to see.

  THERE WAS AN outburst from “That Old Black Magic.” It came in response to a male nursing attendant who, as someone did every morning, was giving Otis a bath in the hospital bed. Otis had graduated from tubes that took away his various wastes to a bedpan, although, unbeknownst to anyone, he was able to go to the bathroom on his own as well as wash himself.

  His minders and do
ctors would find out, all in his good time.

  The attendant, who Otis believed was named Bud, said as he put a hot washcloth on Otis’s back, “Now, how does that feel this morning, Mr. Halstead?”

  Otis sang:

  “That old black magic has me in its spell.

  That old black magic that you weave so well.

  Those icy fingers up and down my spine …”

  Within seconds, several other people were in the room listening to Otis. He didn’t look at them, but he knew they were there. They stayed to applaud when he finished with the lines:

  “The same old tingle that I feel inside

  And then that elevator starts its ride

  And down and down I go,

  ’Round and ’round I go

  Like a leaf that’s caught in the tide.”

  Bud was a black man, but that had nothing to do with Otis’s choosing the song. He hoped Bud understood and was not offended and did not think Otis was a racist. Otis remembered a race-sensitivity class he and the other executives at KCF&C had attended a while ago. The instructor had said all white people should assume that all black people they met thought all white people were racists. It struck Otis as a stupid way of thinking, but it stuck with him. He couldn’t get the assumption out of his mind every time he met or talked to a black person, even one named Bud who was bathing him in a hospital bed.

  Later, a female nutritionist said to him that for supper, he might try something else for dessert besides chocolate fudge. Otis had already imagined serious meetings by Drs. Severy and Tonganoxie and others to contemplate why Otis Halstead seemed obsessed with chocolate fudge. Was there a serious fudge event in his childhood? Maybe an uncle he hated had choked to death on chocolate fudge?

  Otis’s response to the nutritionist was four lines of the Mercer tune “Hooray for Spinach,” from a movie called Naughty but Nice.

  “Hooray for spinach!

  Hooray for milk! They put the roses in your cheek soft as silk,

  They helped complete you till I could meet you, baby!”

  Within minutes, Otis had a plate of spinach before him. He frowned until it was taken away. Then they brought him a small bowl of mashed spinach, which he also frowned away.