Travel Writing

by Peter Ferry

  Decarre smiled wearily. He looked as if he’d like to go somewhere and take a nap. “So as I said, you didn’t really have anything at all, did you?” he said.

  “Well, I had all this knowledge, you see, and if no one else was going to do anything with it, clearly it was up to me,” I said.

  “All right, let’s talk about you, then. Where did that leave you?” he asked, carefully minding his tenses.

  “Me? Well, I guess at that point I realized I had to kill the doctor.” We looked right into each other’s eyes then, for a long time. It was a staring match. I won. Finally his eyes flickered, and just for the briefest moment, they located my backpack on the floor beside me.

  Finally he asked, “What do you think would have happened to you had you done so?”

  “Okay,” I said, “I think I see a pattern to your questions. Let me see how close I am. ‘The patient shows a tendency to act or react in the extreme suggesting possible bipolar dysfunction. At the same time he is unrealistic about the consequences of his actions or reactions and seems to be out of touch with reality. To the extent that he feels an inflated sense of moral importance and responsibility, he is somewhat delusional.’ How’s that? How did I do?”

  He smiled at me with those sad eyes of his. “I’m not prepared to make a diagnosis at this time.”

  I smiled at him. “Actually, I was keenly aware of the possible consequences of my actions. I knew I might get caught. I knew I might spend my life in prison. I knew that there was even a chance my actions would create sympathy for the doctor, overshadow his own sins, maybe even turn him into some kind of martyr. Trouble was, I was even more keenly aware of the consequences of my inaction; he’d continue to practice, he’d probably continue to hurt people, and he might very well kill someone else. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison, of course, but neither did I want to lie awake in bed at night the rest of my life. I didn’t want to become one of those sheepish little men you see in the post office or the hardware store who can’t look you in the eye. I decided I would have to take the chance. I mean, there are only a few times in life you have to step forward, and this seemed like one of them.”

  “Was saving the woman another?” He hadn’t spoken of her directly before. “Is this compensation?”

  “It might have been. I’ve thought about that, but it doesn’t really change things. What mattered was that the doctor be stopped, so I got a gun. Actually, I got two guns because I went back and forth on whether I would shoot him from a distance or at close range. I got a rifle and a pistol. I found a shooting range. I began to develop my skills as a marksman. I became quite good, actually.

  “Then I developed a plan.” I described my plan in what might have been excruciating detail for Decarre. How I’d located his house on a wooded North Shore ravine near Lake Michigan. How I’d found a perfect place to conceal myself in his neighbor’s bushes and yew trees. How I’d been stymied for some time about how to get there and get away because there’s no street parking in the neighborhood and the area is heavily patrolled, but how I’d hit on the solution one night waiting for the train when a pack of bikers went by, and I realized that they did not arouse suspicion, they were anonymous and they were quick to disappear into the night on a bike path that ran below ground level and under cross streets most of the way to Evanston. I told him how I’d become a biker, ridden the route a dozen times, timed it, sat in the bushes, watched Decarre and his family, measured their routines and schedules, pulled an imaginary trigger, left an imaginary rifle in the bushes a la Lee Harvey Oswald, ridden away, a minute and a half to the bike trail, twenty-two to Evanston. I said all of this confidentially, as if Decarre were in on the plan, as if he were a coconspirator. By this point in the process his discomfort was evident, and I found myself relishing it.

  I continued. “Then one night the gun was real. It was the middle of October. The nights were chilly, the leaves had turned and were starting to fall, and when they had fallen, my cover would be gone. I was running out of time. I knew I had to act. This was the night. I waited and waited. Finally the doctor came out onto this porch, this conservatory they have, all glass, at 9:17. He had a phone in one hand talking on it, a glass of red wine in the other; he sat down on the couch with his back to the window. He sat down and he stayed there. Very cooperative. I fixed his head in my sights. I imagined firing the gun, the glass shattering, the doctor disappearing from view except for a pink spray, a splatter of blood and brain on the wall opposite. I drew a bead on him, and I held it. I held it a long time, but I couldn’t shoot him. I just couldn’t do it. Finally I put the gun down, took it apart, put it back in the tennis-racket cover I’d brought it in. I just sat there a long time having a talk with myself. It was a soul-searching talk. It was epiphanic. I said to myself, ‘Who are you kidding? You’re no killer. You can’t shoot this guy. You’re never going to shoot this guy. You’re no killer. You’re no cop. You’re no private eye. This is all silly.’ On my bike ride home, I asked myself the question, ‘If you are not those things, then just who are you? Well,’ I said to myself, ‘I’m a teacher, for one thing. A pretty good teacher, and I’m a writer, and I’m a storyteller.’ And then it came to me. That was the answer. I would tell our story. I would tell our story: my story, your story, Lisa Kim’s story, the whole thing.” Then I picked up my backpack and held it on my lap.

  “And that’s what I’ve done. I’ve told it. I’ve written it. It has taken me a long time to do. I actually took a sabbatical to work on it. I spent most of it in a little house in Mexico. I lost one lover and found another. Lots of things changed. My whole life changed, but I did it. I wrote it. Then I sent it out blindly to twenty-five literary agents and one of them, Lorin Rees up in Boston, read it and liked it, and he took it around, and you know what? He found a publisher for it. Tina Pohlman at Harcourt bought it, believe it or not, and you know what else? It was released today. It went on sale this morning all over the country. I stopped in the Lake Forest Book Store on my way here, and there’s a whole stack of them sitting right there. Same at Borders. Same at Barnes and Noble. And there’s a good chance it’s going to be reviewed in the Tribune this week if you care to look for it.”

  Then I unzipped my backpack, took out the book, and put it on the coffee table between us. “And here it is.” I turned it 180 degrees so he could read the title. “Travel Writing. It’s kind of a metaphor. There’s a disclaimer, you know the kind, but you’ll recognize yourself. Everyone else will recognize you, too.” I let him look at it a moment longer; then I flipped open the cover with my index finger. “See, I inscribed it: ‘For Lisa.’ And see, here it is again in the dedication: ‘For Lisa.’”

  He stared unblinking at the book, then said almost as if to himself, “None of this really happened.”

  “Sure it did,” I said. “Most of it did. I changed the order of things; rearranged some things, but you and I both know most of these things really happened.”

  “Not this conversation,” he said.

  “Well—”

  “How can this conversation be in your book if it’s taking place right now?”

  “Listen—”

  “It never happened, and it never will happen.”

  “You’re right that it hasn’t happened, but not that it never will. In some form it’s going to happen, and probably in this office.”

  “But you can’t get away with this,” he said a bit plaintively. “It’s all fabrication.”

  “No, no. It’s not. I am going to tell you what I finally have to say. You may hear two minutes of it and throw me out on my ear, or you may hear it all and jab me with a syringe, or you may just read it, but I am going to say this stuff to you one way or another.”

  “It’s slander. That’s what it is.”

  “How much of it you hear and when you hear it I can’t control, but it doesn’t really matter if you hear it. I mean, the book’s in the stores. Whether you hear it or not, you’re fucked.”

  “Th
is is clear-cut libel,” he said a little dazed.

  “This whole chapter is just for the reader, anyway,” I said. “It’s a literary device. It’s just for the sake of the story. It’s Hercule Poirot calling everyone together in the drawing room, you know, or Inspector Morse explaining everything to Sergeant Lewis over a pint of real ale. It’s completely unnecessary and—”

  “It never happened,” he repeated.

  “Of course it didn’t. That’s what we’re both saying, isn’t it? This part of it never happened. No one is pretending that it did.”

  “No one’s going to believe you, anyway,” he said.

  “Someone already did. The publisher.”

  “I’ll sue your publisher into bankruptcy,” he said, but without much conviction.

  “Will you?”

  “And I’ll sue you for every penny you’re worth.”

  I said, “I think you have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think you have any choice. After all, what if you don’t? It will be pretty much an admission of guilt, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’ll sue you,” he said a bit pathetically. “I’ll sue you.”

  “I hope so. You see, apparently we don’t have a very strong criminal case, but in a civil court, where the burden of proof is ‘preponderance of evidence’ and ‘reasonable doubt’ doesn’t apply, we’d win hands down. Then maybe criminal charges can be preferred; who knows what new evidence will come to the fore in a civil case?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like this, for instance.” I took an envelope from my backpack and held it for him to see. “You know what this is? It’s Tanya Kim’s sealed, signed, and notarized affidavit.”

  “Tanya Kim?”

  “That’s right, Tanya Kim. Unfortunately, it can’t be unsealed except in the event of her death or disability; then it’s to be turned over to the state’s attorney. But that’s for now. She can change her mind; young people often do. She might decide to release this information after she hears the results of the civil case. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

  “Do you have any idea how much a lawsuit costs? How are you going to pay for all of this?”

  “We intend to sell a few books,” I said. “But not this one. This one is complimentary. It’s for you.” I smiled at him. I zipped my backpack, gathered my jacket, and then stopped in the doorway. “I almost forgot. I believe this was intended for you, too.” Then I took Lisa’s letter from my hip pocket where I had carried it right between my wallet and me since the day I’d been given it. Time and friction had worn it as smooth and thin as fine silk or polished cotton. I put it on the coffee table beside the book.

  “So what happened?” asks Nick.

  “What do you mean, ‘what happened?’”

  “To the guy. The doctor.”

  “I told you what happened,” I say.

  “But afterward. Since then. Did he threaten you? Did he run away to Brazil or jump off a bridge or what?” asks the girl whose hair is purple this day.

  “There is no ‘since then.’ I’ve told you all I know.”

  “Wait a minute. This is only a story, isn’t it?” asks the dog-faced boy.

  “It’s not only a story,” I say, “but it is a story.”

  “I mean, you’re just making it up, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not just making it up, but I am making it up,” I say.

  “What exactly does that mean?” says the dog-faced boy. “Your coyness is driving me nuts. I want to know what part of this was true. Was there a girl in a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she drunk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she crash her car?”

  “She did, and I might have been able to stop her, and I was the first one there, and she did change my life, and I did take a sabbatical to write her story.”

  “You can’t just leave it there,” says the girl whose hair is purple. “You gotta make the doctor do something.”

  “No I don’t, but I imagine he’ll do something.”

  “Like off himself? Put a bullet through his head?”

  “I hope not,” I say.

  “Do you? Are you sure?” asks Nick. “Don’t you want him to die? Don’t you want to cause him to die? And how, then, are you different than the doctor wanting Lisa Kim to die?”

  “You know, Nick,” I say, “you have an uncanny way of hitting the nail on the head. I do feel responsible for what happens. That’s the trouble with this whole moral-indignation business. Sooner or later you’ve got to pay the piper. Sooner or later you have to decide if you’re really moral or just indignant. It’s a lot easier to just be indignant, and I found out that that was most of it for me, but not quite all of it. I also found out that if you’re going to call someone else on his morality, you’d better be pretty comfortable with your own.”

  “And are you?” asks Nick.

  “Not comfortable enough,” I say. “I’ve got some work to do.”

  “But you went ahead anyway,” says Nick.

  “Yes, I went ahead anyway.”

  “But where’s it go? What’s happening in the story right now?” asks the dog-faced boy.

  “Well,” I say, “I’m sitting here talking to you.”

  “This is part of the story?”

  “It can be.”

  “You mean we’re in the story?”

  “If you want to be,” I say.

  “I want to be,” says the purple-haired girl.

  “Not me,” says someone else.

  “Cool!” says the dog-faced boy.

  “Wait a minute,” says Nick. “Does this mean that that moment and this moment are the same? That the two moments have come together? Like, is the narration now in present tense?”

  “Not necessarily,” I say.

  “Then there’s more to tell,” says Nick.

  “Only if I choose to tell it,” I say.

  “What do you mean, if you choose to?”

  “That’s selection,” I say, “and selection is what art is, if you want to call this art. Hemingway said that what you leave out is more important than what you put in.”

  “So what else are you going to put in?” asks the purple-haired girl.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I think I’ve said enough.”

  “What about Lisa Kim? Are you really done with her?”

  “I am.”

  “And is there really a Lydia?” the purple-haired girl goes on.

  “No.”

  “Is there a Carolyn?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you seeing Carolyn?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going to happen there?” asks Nick.

  “Don’t know. Let’s just say we’ve passed the critical trial period, and we’re on an upward trajectory.”

  “What does that mean?” asks the dog-faced boy.

  “They’re in love, you dope,” says the purple-haired girl.

  Epilogue

  …

  Travel Writing

  Dateline: Doolin, County Clare, Ireland

  by Pete Ferry

  CAROLYN WILL SAY it best: “I don’t much care where we go, but when we get there, I want to unpack my things and put them in drawers. I want to stay put.” We will have both done the grand tour, bought Eurail-passes, seen seven cities in six days, lugged backpacks, and stood in lines at Internet cafés wondering if there are any Parisians left in Paris. We will have seen London, we will have seen France. Now it will be time to sit somewhere in our underpants with a glass of something and a good book. Besides, it will be our honeymoon.

  We will choose Rose Cottage in the village of Doolin in the County of Clare in the West of Ireland. We will find it in the Self Catering Guide put out by the Irish Tourist Board.

  The great advantage of renting a house is that almost immediately you begin to live there in a way you never do in a hotel room; you buy flowers because you know you’re going to outlast
them; you concern yourself with toilet paper and bathtub rings; you rearrange the furniture; you stock the fridge.

  You become, however briefly, a member of a nontransient community and, as is always the case when you live in a place, your ultimate impression is much different than your initial one.

  That will be good in the case of Rose Cottage. Actually our very first impression will be quite positive. When we’ll turn into the yard just off the high road to the Cliffs of Moher, we’ll be a little thrilled. A hundred-year-old house on a working farm, Rose Cottage will have a high, peaked roof of thatching, three-foot-thick whitewashed walls, bright blue shutters, and window boxes of colorful impatiens.

  But the thick walls and small windows will make the common room dark, the beds will sag, the kitchen will be somewhere between utilitarian and drab, and the only view of the rolling green land, blue sea, and Aran Islands to the west will be from the bathroom because a large metal barn completely lacking in the kind of charm Americans go to Europe for will block all other windows.

  The place will have been thrown wide open all lights ablaze, radio blaring, and peat burning in the fireplace. We will poke about trying not to be disappointed. “Bedrooms are cute,” we’ll say. “It’s got a shower.”

  Suddenly Breda Logan will dash in out of the drizzle wiping her hands on her apron. “Raining,” she’ll say. “Now here’s this and here’s that. Blankets in the cupboard, and I’ve brought you a load of peat for the fire. More behind the barn if you need it. No time to chat you up right now. Cakes in me oven. Back soon.” It will be the last we’ll see of her until the very hour of our departure two weeks later.

  “Before you go, could you show us where Doolin is?”

  “Well, just there,” she’ll say with a broad wave of her arm as we cross the yard toward the pasture.

  “Where?”

  “Just there,” she’ll say, a tiny bit frustrated, but all we’ll see will be a scattering of farmhouses along a road far below us, nothing that resembles a village much less a town, certainly not the traditional music capital of all Ireland.