My evening meal consisted of a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich on whole wheat bread with a handful of corn chips, which I’m almost certain could be considered a grain. I grant you peanut butter is nearly 100 percent fat, but it’s still a good source of protein. Further, there was bound to be a culture somewhere that classified a bread-and-butter pickle as a vegetable. For dessert, I treated myself to a handful of grapes. The latter I ate while I lay on my sofa and brooded about Cheney Phillips, whom I’d dated for two months. Longevity has never been my strong suit.
Cheney was adorable, but “cute” isn’t sufficient to sustain a relationship. I’m difficult. I know this. I was raised by a maiden aunt who thought to foster my independence by giving me a dollar every Saturday and Sunday morning, and turning me out on my own. I did learn to ride the bus from one end of town to the other and I could cheat my way into two movies for the price of one, but she wasn’t big on companionship, and because of that, being “close” makes me sweaty and short of breath.
I’d noticed that the longer Cheney and I dated, the more I was entertaining fantasies of Robert Dietz, a man I hadn’t heard from in two years. What that told me was that I preferred to bond with someone who was always out of town. Cheney was a cop. He liked action, a fast pace, and the company of others, where I prefer to be alone. For me, small talk is hard work and groups of any size wear me down.
Cheney was a man who started many projects and finished none. During the time we were together, his floors were perpetually covered with drop cloths and the air smelled of fresh paint though I never saw him lift a brush. The hardware had been removed from all the interior doors, which meant you had to stick your finger through a hole and pull when you passed from room to room. Behind his two-car garage he had a truck up on blocks. It was out of sight and the neighbors had no complaints, but the same crescent wrench had been rained on so often the rust formed a wrench-shaped pattern on the drive.
I like closure. It drives me nuts to see a cabinet door left ajar. I like to plan. I prepare in advance and leave nothing to chance, while Cheney fancies himself a free spirit, taking life on the wing. At the same time, I buy on impulse, and Cheney spends weeks doing market research. He likes thinking aloud whereas I get bored with debates about matters in which I have no vested interest. It wasn’t that his way was any better or worse than mine. We were simply different in areas we couldn’t negotiate. I finally leveled with him in a conversation so painful that it doesn’t bear repeating. I still don’t believe he was as wounded as he led me to believe. On some level, he must have been relieved, because he couldn’t have enjoyed the friction any more than I did. Now that we’d split, what I loved was the sudden quiet in my head, the sense of autonomy, the freedom from social obligations. Best was the pleasure of turning over in bed without bumping into someone else.
At 7:15 I roused myself from the sofa and tossed out the napkin I was using as a dinner plate. I rounded up my shoulder bag and jacket, locked my door, and walked the half block to Rosie’s. Her tavern is a homely mix of restaurant, pub, and neighborhood watering hole. I say “homely” because the rambling space is largely unadorned. The bar looks like every other bar you ever saw in your life-a brass foot rail along the front and liquor bottles against mirrored shelves behind. On the wall above the bar there’s a big stuffed marlin with a jockstrap hanging from its spike. This unsavory garment was tossed there by a sports rowdy in a game of chance that Rosie has since discouraged.
Crude booths line two walls, their plywood sections hammered together and stained a dark sticky hue. The remaining tables and chairs are of garage-sale quality, mismatched Formica and chrome with the occasional short leg. Happily, the lighting is bad, so many of the flaws don’t show. The air smells of beer, sautéed onions, and certain unidentified Hungarian spices. Absent now is the cigarette smoke, which Rosie’d banished the year before.
As this was still early in the week, the drinking population was sparse. Above the bar, the television set was tuned to Wheel of Fortune with the sound on mute. Instead of sitting in my usual booth at the back, I perched on a barstool and waited for Rosie to emerge from the kitchen. Her husband, William, poured me a glass of Chardonnay and set it down in front of me. Like his brother, Henry, he’s tall, but much more formal in his attire, favoring highly polished lace-up shoes while Henry prefers flip-flops.
William had removed his suit jacket and he’d made cuffs out of paper toweling, secured with rubber bands, to save the snow white sleeves of his dress shirt.
I said, “Hey, William. We haven’t chatted in ages. How’re you doing?”
“I’ve a bit of chest congestion, but I’m hoping to avoid a full-blown upper-respiratory infection,” he said. He took a packet from his pants pocket and popped a tablet in his mouth, saying, “Zinc lozenges.”
“Good deal.”
William was a bellwether of minor illnesses, which he took very seriously lest they carry him off. He wasn’t as bad as he’d once been, but he kept a keen eye out for anyone’s imminent demise. “I hear Gus is in a bad way,” he remarked.
“Bruised and battered, but aside from that, he’s fine.”
“Don’t be too sure,” he said. “A fall like that can lead to complications. A fellow might seem fine, but once he’s laid up in bed, pneumonia sets in. Blood clot’s another risk, not to mention a staph infection, which can take you out just like that.”
The snap of William’s fingers put an end to any misplaced optimism on my part. Gus was as good as buried as far as William was concerned. William stood at the ready when it came to death. In large part, Rosie had cured him of his hypochondria in that her culinary zeal generated sufficient indigestion to keep his imaginary ills at bay. He still leaned toward depression and found there was nothing quite like a funeral to provide a temporary emotional boost. Who could fault the man? At his age, he’d be hard-hearted indeed not to experience a little lift at the sight of a newly departed friend.
I said, “I’m more worried about what happens when Gus gets home. He’ll be out of commission for a couple of weeks.”
“If not longer.”
“Right. We were hoping Rosie knew of a family member who’d agree to look after him.”
“I wouldn’t count on relatives. The man is eighty-nine years old.”
“The same age as you, and you’ve got four living siblings, three of them in their nineties.”
“But we’re from hardier stock. Gus Vronsky smoked most of his life. Still does for all we know. Your best bet is a home health care service like the Visiting Nurses Association.”
“You think he has health insurance?”
“I doubt it. He probably didn’t imagine he’d live long enough to enjoy it, but he’ll be covered by Medicaid or Medicare.”
“I suppose so.”
Rosie came out of the kitchen through the swinging door, backside first. She had a dinner plate in each hand, one heaped with pan-fried pork steak and stuffed cabbage rolls, and the other with Hungarian beef stew over egg noodles. She delivered the entrees to the day drinkers at the far end of the bar. I was sure they’d been there since noon and she might well be comping their dinner in hopes of sobering them up before they staggered home.
She joined us at the bar and I filled her in briefly on the nature of our concerns about Gus. “Has a great-niece,” she said, promptly. “She hasn’t seen him in years so she’s very fond of him.”
“Really. That’s great. Does she live here in town?”
“New York.”
“That won’t do him any good. The doctor won’t release him unless he has someone to look after him.”
Rosie waved the notion aside. “Put in nursing home. Is what I did with my sister…”