Onward Toward What We're Going Toward (27 page)

Lijy went up to him. “Let me rub your back.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“I owe it to you. For what you did.”

“We can't. I mean—I want to, but we can't.”

Lijy ignored him and went right for his shoulders. Chic closed his eyes. His knees went slack.

“Don't think about me, Chic . . . ”

“I'm not thinking about you.”

“Concentrate on the touching. You want to be touched. It's what everyone wants.”

The back rub stirred up something that had been dormant for a long time. Chic felt himself start to pulse and get a little lightheaded. The blood halted in his veins, reversed course, and made its way to his groin.

“I'm sorry that I put you in this position, Chic. I was desperate. I had no idea what I was going to do, and then it dawned on me. You. You were the answer.”

She was right. He was the answer. Him. Chic Waldbeeser. He had always thought of himself as the answer and it was about time that someone else thought of him that way too. Surely Diane didn't.

“And it worked. Or, it's beginning to work. So, thank you, Chic. I know I've tried to tell you this a couple of times, but really, thank you. We will always have this. You and me. This . . . whatever you want to call it.”

“Bond.”

“Right.”

Just then, Chic noticed his brother watching them through the French doors. He was holding a stringer of bullhead catfish, which were dripping on the patio. His eyes were full of fierceness like there was a boxing match going on in his brain.

“What the hell? Lijy! What the . . . ”

“It's not what it looks like,” Chic said.

Buddy darted across the living room. “I'll tell you what it looks like . . . ”

“Buddy, I'm helping him,” Lijy said.

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 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 minivan. 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.