Onward Toward What We're Going Toward (35 page)

When Chic got home, he read his poem to Diane, who told him it was very nice. He wasn't sure if she was listening to him. The radio was on. He started to read it again. “Shhhhh,” she said. “I heard it the first time. It's nice, Chic. I'm listening to the radio.” He told her he'd leave the chapbook for her so that she could read it later. A couple of days later, he found the chapbook in a pile of newspapers for him to carry out to the trash. He was livid.
He wanted to march upstairs and tell her that she was not—
not ever
—to throw away his chapbook. Never. Never. Never. He opened up the book, just to make sure his poem was still safe. Next to the poem, Diane had written a note.
Chic, you're not a terrible father, and your hole is not as large as you think. You need to quit feeling sorry for yourself. Remember, we're bowling tonight at 8 p. m.

Over the next several months, as fall became winter and 1971 became 1972, Chic read every single book of poetry at the Middleville Public Library (and ordered the ones Lucy recommended from the library in Peoria). Without a doubt, his favorite poems were Basho's haikus. He also liked poems by the Beats. He hated Shakespeare's sonnets—too much structure. A poem, Chic had decided, should be sharp and refreshing like a pull of beer from a cold can. He liked ones that hit him over the head and dropped him to his knees, ones that yelled in his face. Whenever he read a good poem, he felt the need to laugh. Sometimes when he was reading in bed and Diane was sleeping, he'd start laughing. The laughing would wake her up, and she would ask him what was so funny. He laughed sometimes at Stafford's while thinking about certain poems, or at work, or at the bowling alley. People would ask him what was so funny, and he'd say, “Everything. What you're doing right now. That's funny, if you think about it.” He was so grateful to Lucy Snell. Whenever he went to the library, he grabbed her hand and thanked her. She blushed and told him she was glad that she could share such a wonderful thing with him. He told her about his chapbook. It was going to be called
Onward Toward What We're Going Toward
, which was a line from one of Bascom's letters that had always stuck with him. Lucy told him that she couldn't wait to read it, but that the title was a bit morbid. Chic told her it was intended to be funny. “We are all going toward the same thing,” he said. “We're all marching into the same battle, behind the same bugle player. Off the same cliff.” He also told her he was going to revise the poem she had published. It was going to be the first one in his chapbook:

Some of the other poems were:

And:

When Chic finished his chapbook there were twenty-seven poems in it. He dedicated it to Lomax. He typed up eight copies and took six to Stafford's, where he fashioned a stand out of a clothes hanger and propped it next to the magazines at the checkout. The cashier, a high school girl with a ponytail and braces, watched him.

“Want one?” Chic asked.

“What is it?” she asked, taking a copy from the makeshift stand.

“What I like to call haikuetry—haiku and poetry.”

“Isn't haiku poetry?”

“Well, I don't always follow the haiku pattern.”

“Wouldn't that just be poetry?” The cashier then read the last poem out loud:

“Who's Chic Waldbeeser?”

“Me.”

“Are you leaving town or something?”

“No.”

“Then where are you going?”

“I'm going toward what we're all going toward.”

“But I don't know where you're going.” She flipped through the chapbook, counting the syllables in the poems. “Aren't haikus five-seven-five?”

“I said I don't always follow the pattern.” Chic snatched the book back. “Haiku is what's happening in this place at this time. And frankly, that can't always be contained to some stupid pattern. Do you know Lucy Snell?”

The cashier stared at him.

“The librarian. Up at the library.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“She published one of these. She and her boyfriend and her boyfriend's sister all have read it. And they liked it. Do you know who I am?”

“Chic Waldbeeser. You just told me your name.”

“I'm a poet. Look at me. Look how I'm dressed.”

“You're wearing a beret.”

“Take this. Read it,” Chic said. “Give me a dollar.”

“Why?”

“For the chapbook.”

“I don't really want it.”

“Forget it. Don't give me a dollar. Just keep it. You should read more poetry. It's good for you.
Onward Toward What We're Going Toward
.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means . . . how old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

He placed his hand on hers, but she quickly pulled it away.

“Are you getting fresh with me?”

“Right now, at this moment, things are happening that you don't have any control over. There are cells in your body dividing and dying and being born. Right now. That's happening. Sometimes, in the morning, my urine is a very dark yellow. Do you think that's bad? I think that's bad. Maybe that means I'm going to die. At some point, I am going to die, and so are you, and that's scary as hell, but that's the easy part. You will do things that you're not proud of. Embarrassing things. Hurtful things. People will not like you. If you're lucky, someone will love you. You will disappoint that person. The same person who loves you may someday hate you and there's not a thing you can do about it. But you'll try. And you'll keep trying. All of this you probably already know. But, here's the hard part, this is the part that the poems are about, you won't be able to stop any of it. None of it. It has momentum, this life. Onward toward what we're going toward.”

 

After the previous day's debacle in the back of the van, Chic was surprised when Mary called and asked him to go to lunch. Since she had given him a second chance, he had to impress her, had to show her he was “legitimate,” the kind of guy a girl would want to be with. And what kind of guys did women want to be with? Well of course they wanted to be with guys who took them to nice places, places where there was a basket of breath mints on the bathroom sink counter. Chic knew of only one place where there was a basket of breath mints on the bathroom sink counter. Jim's Steakhouse was a Peoria institution, an old-school restaurant that served slabs of beef and refused to bring ketchup, A1, or barbeque sauce to the table. With its thick carpet and wood-paneled walls, the place looked like a set piece from a gangster movie. The bar area was dimly lit, even in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and the bartender wore a bowtie. Oh, and not only was Jim's the finest, most expensive (and most talked about) restaurant in Peoria, it also (and this was really why Chic wanted to take Mary there) boasted the world's largest antler chandelier.

Chic thought he should wear a suit, but his suit was in storage. He settled instead for his corduroy blazer and beret, his old poet uniform, and polished the alligator-skin loafers Mary had given him and stuffed the toes with wadded-up newspaper. She picked him up a little before one, and on the ride over, Chic yakked on and on about the antler chandelier, saying it was about twelve feet in diameter and looked like “a primitive spaceship.” Most of what he said was made up, as he didn't really know much about antler
chandeliers. Mary didn't seem interested, smiling and nodding and saying, “Uh-huh,” and “Yeah,” and “No kidding.”

“Are you paying attention?” Chic asked her.

“Yeah, of course.” The voices in her head were droning on endlessly. Run. Stay. Chic. Green. Run. Chic. Stay. Green.

“Have you seen one?”

“Seen what?”

“An antler chandelier.”

“Oh, ah . . . maybe, those are those lights made out of deer horns?”

“Antlers, actually. And you're going to love this one, as it's the biggest one in the world. By the way, sorry about yesterday. It wasn't good, I know. There I said it. I had to say it. I feel better now.”

He's apologizing, the loud voice said. He likes you. Go. Get on with your life. Pull a U-turn on this Peoria fiasco and go to Florida with this guy.

“What I was trying to tell you yesterday, and the reason I was having such a hard time was that . . . what I was trying to say was . . . I mean what I want to say . . . ”

Jesus Christ, just come out with it already, the loud voice said. What did this guy do? It can't be much. He's a milquetoast for crying out load. Did he wash some darks with whites? Forget to put the toilet seat down? Mary looked at Chic and gave him her best forced sympathetic smile.

“My brother thinks I slept with his wife,” Chic finally said. “I didn't though. I just said I did. I'm not that kind of guy. I don't cheat on people. Unless masturbation is cheating, which, I don't know, I think my wife thought it was, but anyway it kind of sounds stupid saying it out loud—I know. I was trying to help him. Now that sounds really stupid.”

“Is this the restaurant?”

“Yeah. That's it.” Across the street, valets wearing yellow polo shirts shuffled on the curb, waiting on customers. “Park in the garage, over there,” Chic added. “So, as I was saying, I lied to my
brother, and the kid—their son, his name is Russ. I've told you about Russ.”

“Right. Russ. Russ and . . . ”

“Ginger.”

“Right.”

“He thinks I'm his father.”

She didn't remember him talking about Russ. Maybe he had, at some point. She gave him that fake smile again. “Russ,” she said, “he lives in Arizona.”

“No that's my brother. Russ lives here.”

“Right. Russ is your brother's son. Teddy and Lily's son.”

“Buddy and Lijy.”

“Okay. Do you have money for parking?”

“I have money.” Chic fished out his wallet. “As I was saying, I wish I wouldn't have done it, looking back on it. I did it for my brother. He needed me to do it, or I thought he did. Now, I don't know. My wife, she never really understood. She held a grudge. Not really an outward grudge, but it was there. I could feel it between us. But we just kept . . . she locked herself in the bathroom the morning I told her. She did that a lot actually. Anyway then, our son died. I told you this.”

“You did. A few times.” She gave him that smile again.

“And we stayed together through it. We were married for thirty-five years. Something to be proud of, I guess. Anyway, my brother, who I did all of this for, he and Lijy moved away about ten years ago.”

“Arizona.”

“Right. They've been married almost fifty years, if you can believe that. Fifty goddamn years. To the same person. I'd go crazy. Or, actually, that's not true. It's sorta admirable really, if you think about it. Do you ever think about that, being with someone for a long time like that?”

“Sure. Who doesn't?”

“I like to think I had something to do with them staying together.
I don't talk to him much. Every once in a while Lijy calls me. I think she's just making sure I don't tell the truth to Russ. He still doesn't know. Which . . . anyway, I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone. But here I am telling you. It feels good, actually. I've never told anyone this, except Diane.”

Whoa, wait a second, the whisper voice said, red flag: what kind of guy keeps a secret like this for so many years?

The maître'd showed them to a table in the middle of the restaurant directly under the antler chandelier, as had been Chic's request when he made the reservation. While Chic spread a napkin in his lap, he craned his neck to look up at the giant chandelier. It did look like the underside of a primitive spaceship. He liked to think it was a spaceship, like he was in a spaceship, like he was headed somewhere new, a new frontier. He liked Mary. He did. She was nice, the way she was smiling at him in the van. She was really listening. He was making a connection with her. He really was.

Mary looked up at the chandelier, too. “It just looks like a bunch of bones to me.”

“Technically, its hair,” Chic said. “Antlers are hair. Not bones. Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe horns are hair and antlers are bone.” He picked up the menu but set it down immediately. “I know what I'm having. A rib eye steak and a baked potato. Don't tell me you're one of those salad girls.”