Bravo, congrats, many thanks.
Now, grab you some Heavenly grub. Name your poison. A heightened version of the best meal you ever had? Sure, here you go: Paris, 1986, scallops but looking pretty as a dessert, gold leaf sprinkled over the top. An exact re-creation of that special birthday meal Mother whipped up when you turned ten? Steak, fried potatoes, angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries and afterward Mother let you have a sip of her wine out on the porch swing? Eat up, please enjoy. That had been back in the days when he’d sometimes go wading after school in Crow Creek. Having missed the bus, he’d walk home in wet trousers, only to catch all kind of heck from Mother upon arrival, including the belt. Which, in those days, was common. And nobody minded about the so-called violence of that.
Much.
Once a salamander from the creek hopped out of his pantcuff and sent Mother dashing into the bedroom wailing at the top of her lungs.
Wait.
This was no gray manse on a misty moor.
Where was he?
Where the hell was he?
The Colorado place? Which they’d always called, for some reason, “the château”? Some château. Last time they were up there, there’d been a big pile of tires behind it. Little Joel’d better get that goddamned tire pile gone or he’d be looking for a new position.
Well, this wasn’t the château.
And it wasn’t Key West and wasn’t Maui. The elegant Minton place? No, the Minton place had burned down on Halloween, tail end of Vietnam. Couzens Hall, second floor, his freshman-year dorm room, freshly painted? With the clanking radiator? Lying here in his quiet dorm, he couldn’t wait. He could do it, he could do all of it. The untainted semester lay ahead. He’d made a vow to attend every home game this fall. Had saved up, bought a special new sweater in maize and blue, school colors.
But no.
Hang on there.
Christ, where was he? How old was Julia? There’d be a clue in that. Three, four? Bangs cut straight across, cute as a bug? Recently they’d all pulled up together in front of the Sammons Center: him, Viv, Julia. Yes, right: he’d snapped at the Mexican kid there, No wheelchair, get away,ya no lo necesitamos.Julia had been driving. Driving the Mercedes.
So, she couldn’t be three, a kid wasn’t allowed to drive at—
Ah, God, it all came back: he was old, sick, had endured months of just the most horrendous degrading crap: scans, chemo, different chemo, more scans, blood work, ports, stitches from when he’d fallen in the bathroom, endless consultations after the stitches got infected, the first operation, then the second, and then he’d gone blind in the eye in front of the tumor, had fallen again (stitches in a different part of his face), and started throwing absolutely everything up and then came the news that—well, no more chemo. Had the tumor shrunk? No, not at all, and also? He might lose that eye. Thanks, thanks so much, you merciless quacks. The cancer was everywhere. In one shoulder, down the spine, in the liver, the bladder, you nameit. How about my shoes? he’d said. No, the nurse said wryly, your shoes are fine. He’d been short with her once too often. Chubby bimbo. Squat incompetent. He didn’t care if she was Ethiopian or Ugandan or whatnot. More power to her on that front. No: he cared that she was such a goddamned bitch to him all the time. In his prime he’d have gobbled her up and spit her out. Now he needed her. He reached over, touched her hand. As if they were equals. She wasn’t having it. Curled her lip like she smelled something off. Had they given up on him, then? No, no, they had not, she said, they were referring him to Sovereign and the great folks over there.
To which he’d said, Hospice? Good God, are you serious?
She was. Serious.
Serious as a heart attack.
And now he was diapered, he recalled grimly. Him. He was. K. J. Boone was. A team of changers swooped down on him four times a day in the sudden smell of asswipes and the sound of efficient under-the-breath coordination. “Got a little something on the, uh, inner leg, Janie.” The Russian guy lifting him up at the hip with one gloved hand while the Boston-sounding gal reached under him and—
The air-con came on now with a familiarwhumpand air began flowing out of it. He could picture the exact grating on the vents. Ack, this was the house on Owl Flight Terrace. In Dallas. Jesus Christ, he knew every inch of it. He was in the guest bedroom, second floor. Why was he in here? In the Slop Room? Why wasn’t he in his own goddamned room? Had he worked so hard all these years just to end up croaking in the Slop Room? He’d speak to someone about this. Or have Viv do it.
Who was “Viv” again?
Your wife, you dope, he answered himself.
She was here. Viv was. Right here. Julia too.
He was eighty-seven.
Eighty-seven goddamn years old.
All done.
He’d done it all.
It was finished.
—
