Onward Toward What We're Going Toward (31 page)

One afternoon in October, Buddy was standing at the cash register talking to Russ, who was sitting on the counter, when the bell above the store's door rang, announcing a customer. Buddy looked up to see a man wearing aviator sunglasses, a beige raincoat, and a jet-black Halloween wig.

“Can I help you?” Buddy asked.

The man waved him off and picked up a shopping basket and darted down an aisle. In front of the cereals, he spent several minutes studying the ingredients on a box of granola. Buddy could tell that he wasn't actually reading the ingredients but looking over the box at him and Russ.

“Daddy, why's he looking at us like that?” Russ whispered.

The man put down the granola and disappeared down another aisle.

“Can I help you find something?” Buddy asked.

The man crept around the aisle. “I'd like to schedule a massage.”

Buddy noticed the man was strangely puffy, as if, under his raincoat, he was wearing a few sweatshirts to make himself appear larger than he actually was. The man pushed his sunglasses up on his nose.

Buddy was suspicious. “Have you ever had a massage before?” “No. I mean yes. Once. A long time ago.”

“My wife practices Ayurveda massage.”

“I know. I mean, okay.”

Russ reached out to touch the wig, but the man took a giant step backward. “The boy. Your son? He has a . . . how do I say it . . . an aura.”

“Aura?”

“I'd like to come in on Friday. The last appointment of the day. What would that be—five o'clock?”

Buddy ran his finger down the page of the schedule book. He glanced up at the man and forced a smile. “I don't know about Friday. Let me check with my wife.” He gave Russ a glance, and motioned with his head toward the beaded curtain. He grabbed Russ's hand, and they both went into the back. The man pushed his sunglasses up on his nose.

Lijy sat on the massage table, a magazine open on her lap.

Buddy lowered his voice. “There's a guy out here. I think it's . . . it might be Chic.”

“Chic?”

“He's in disguise.”

“Why would Chic be in disguise?”

It was a good question. He hadn't considered this. “Well, it's probably not Chic, but it's someone . . . someone odd. He wants a massage.”

“I'll take care of this.” She handed Buddy the magazine.

“Wait a second. Before you go out there.” Buddy leaned in to whisper. “He said Russ has an aura.”

“Aura?”

Buddy nodded.

Lijy knew then that it was Ellis. She wasn't going to stand for this. She had finally gotten things moving in the right direction. She had her health food store; Buddy was coming around; she wasn't waking up and finding his side of the bed cold and empty; and just that afternoon, she had eavesdropped on Buddy and Russ having a father-and-son conversation about the benefits of a daily multivitamin. She needed to give Ellis the narrow eye and shoo him back to his life. But when she pushed through the curtain, he was nowhere to be found. On the counter, he'd left an empty shopping basket, and next to the basket was a small, rectangular box, the kind with a pad of jewelry foam and a necklace inside. She picked it up. She shook it. She looked over her shoulder. Behind the beaded curtain, Buddy was telling Russ that the world was full of strange people. She could see that he was kneeling down in front of him.

She opened the box, and inside was a wallet-size photograph of Ellis McMillion wearing a softball uniform. In cursive letters across the front of his jersey was the town name, LEXINGTON. He wore a mustache and had a wooden bat over his shoulder. On the back of the picture, he'd written,
Phase one is almost over
.

Green remained sprawled on the floor, his head turned so that he could stare at the front door. He waited to hear her key in the lock, watch her walk in the door. When she did, he was going to let her have it. Lay into her. He might even cuss. He was going to get loud, which meant he'd write in capital letters. He was fuming. She was going to regret that she set him off. She was messing with fire. He was going to rise up. Rise up! And he was going to rage. Rage! She wouldn't ever—EVER!—leave him on the floor again. Ever!

He'd been on the floor all afternoon. Outside, he heard a lawn mower. He listened to the hum of the motor for a half hour or so, before it stopped. He heard cars, occasionally, pass the house. He kept thinking one of them was going to be Mary, but none were. The shadows grew longer and the sun took on that late afternoon, soft, hazy glow. At six o'clock, the driveway was still empty. Green practiced what he was going to say when she came in the door.
And where the hell have you been. Where? Who have you been with?
He then realized that what he was rehearsing in his head was pointless, since he couldn't talk. How was he going to get mad at her by writing notes? Jesus Christ. He couldn't even get angry anymore. He began to feel sorry for himself. What if she came home with the guy, some dealer from the Pair-a-Dice or whatever, some guy making her promises about how he was going to make everything better? Ha. She had just about as perfect a guy she was going to get with him. Didn't she see that? What if she and the guy opened the front door and found him on the floor? “My husband can't feel the left side of his body.” Hardy-har-har. “He can't talk.” Hardy-har-har. She was mistaken if she thought some dealer or whatever from the Pair-a-Dice was going to whisk her away and make everything better. Nothing was going to be better.
Better only lasts a short time—like two months, in this case, in his case, with her. He could not believe that she had left him on the living room floor. Just left him. Where the hell was she? He crawled over to his suit jacket and fished the Post-it Note pad out of the inside breast pocket. He wasn't going to stand for this. He wasn't going to let himself be treated this way. He wasn't going to be made a fool. HE WAS NOT GOING TO BE MADE TO LOOK LIKE A FOOL. The living room was starting to get dark. He heard laughter—Mary and her new man.
Quit laughing at me
. He looked around. It was quiet.

He was still on the floor when the minivan pulled into the driveway. He was ready. He'd prepared various notes anticipating an argument. He heard her key in the lock. She burst through the door.

“Oh, Jesus, Green. What are you doing? You're still on the floor.”

He reached out to her and shook the note in his hand.

She took it. Read it. The note said,
Quit laughing at me.

“No one is laughing at you.”

He held out another note.
What's his name?

“There's no one else, Green.”

He still had five or six notes, but he pointed to the one she was holding.

“There's no one else. How many times do I need to tell you that?”

He pointed, and emphasizing his anger, grunted.

“I'm not lying to you.”

“Wuh hiz aim?”

“Green Geneseo.”

“Let me help you back into your chair.”

He slapped her hand away.

“Green, you have to get back in your chair.”

He shook his head no.

“Don't be this way.”

He turned toward his wheelchair; it was across the room, about six or seven feet away, just out of arm's length. Despite the distance, he reached for it; he had visions of wheeling himself away from her, going into the other room, leaving her behind like she left him behind. He wanted her to know that he didn't need her. He wiggled his fingers, reaching, reaching, but of course, he couldn't reach the chair and collapsed on the floor.

Mary grabbed him under the arms, and he let her. She helped him into the wheelchair. Sweat had beaded on his upper lip, and he wiped it away. He was so mad he tasted metal. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He continued to narrow his eyes until they were completely shut. He saw darkness and popping flashes of anger. He knew she was looking down at him. He hoped she was feeling guilty for leaving him while she did whatever she did with her new boyfriend. Hardy-har-har. “He's in a wheelchair. He can't talk. And here I am, driving around in your convertible.” Hardy-har-har. “I love the way the wind feels whipping against my face. I feel so free. So alive.” Hardy-har-har. He opened his eyes. She wasn't standing in front of him like he thought she would be, like he secretly hoped she would be. He heard her in the kitchen. She was getting a glass from the cabinet. She turned on the tap.

Chic found the first doll at a Salvation Army in Peoria. It was ratty as hell, with a missing eye and crayon scribbles on its bald head. He called the counter lady over and asked her if women liked to receive dolls as gifts.

“Does it make them want to be mothers?” he asked. “Is that
why you give little girls dolls?”

The woman stared at him.

“Well,” he said, “I thought it prepared them to be mothers.”

“You give little girls dolls so they have something to play with.”

“Yeah, well, sure, but it also prepares them to be mothers, right?”

When he arrived home, Chic put the doll in a brown paper bag and left it at the bottom of the stairs. He sat down on the couch to wait for the news to come on, then Johnny Carson. Diane would be down soon for some soda and peanut butter toast, maybe a couple of raw hot dogs. Chic looked at the bag at the bottom of the stairs. The doll was a fantastic idea, a stroke of brilliance, if he didn't say so himself. This was going to get them headed in the right direction. They'd been spinning their wheels for too long. Heck, they hadn't had sex in he didn't know how long.

Sometime after midnight, while half dozing on the couch, Chic heard Diane's footfalls across the ceiling. She came down the stairs quietly. Seeing the bag, she stopped. Chic pretended to be asleep, but kept his eyes open slightly. He watched as she picked up the bag and tested its weight. Then she peered inside and took out the doll. Chic had done his best to clean it up—scrubbing the crayon markings from the head and gluing a button to replace the missing left eye. She took the doll with her back upstairs.

Many more dolls followed over the next few months. Chic scoured estate sales and trade papers to find them. He hung a notice on the bulletin board at Stafford's—WANTED: YOUR OLD DOLLS. In order to make room for the dolls, he moved the furniture in Lomax's room down to the basement, vacuumed the carpet, and reassembled the crib. He carried a rocking chair up from the basement and placed it next to the crib. He hung shelves on the walls and a mobile in the corner.

At night, when the house was quiet and Chic was downstairs
watching the
Tonight Show
, Diane would sneak down the hall to admire the doll collection. They lined up on the shelves, stone-faced, staring out over the nursery. She remembered Lomax waking her up in the middle of the night when he was a baby. He wanted her. He cried for her. She went to the dolls and took one off the shelf, then another, and another, and held them close to her, hugging them. She sat down on the rocking chair. She used to hold Lomax in this chair, daydreaming about what he'd be like when he got older. It had been ten years. A whole decade had blurred by in a snap, and she had wasted it in bed, lying there and listening to the radio. She didn't want to feel like this anymore. She needed to move on. She needed to get out of this house; she needed to pull herself together.

Chic heard his wife in Lomax's old room. He set his can of beer down on the coffee table and crept up the stairs. The door was cracked just enough so that he could see her sitting in the rocking chair, holding three dolls tightly against her chest. Her eyes were closed, and she was rocking back and forth. He wanted to put an end to the depressing cloud that hung over the house like a swarm of gnats. He wanted to take her right there in Lomax's old room. Right there. On the floor in front of the rocking chair. He wanted to take her, like he had taken her in Florida. He ducked his head in and cleared his throat.