by Paul Auster
The gas tank was nearly empty; our stomachs were nearly empty; our bladders were full. About fifteen or twenty miles northwest of Brattleboro, we stopped for lunch at a crummy roadside restaurant called Dot’s. FOOD AND GAS, as the highway signs aptly put it, and that was the order in which we chose to fulfill our needs. Food and gas at Dot’s, and then more gas at the Chevron station across the road. Here, too, our casual decision to do things one way and not another turned out to have a significant effect on the story. If we had filled up the gas tank first, Lucy never would have been able to pull off her electrifying stunt, and no doubt we would have continued all the way to Burlington as planned. But because the tank was still empty when we sat down to eat, the opportunity was suddenly there, and the little one didn’t hesitate. It felt like a catastrophe at the time, but if our girl hadn’t done what she did, our boy never would have fallen into the nurturing arms of Dame Fortune, and leaving or not leaving the highway would have been a moot point.
Even now, I can’t quite comprehend how she did it. Certain contingencies worked in her favor, but even taking into account those stray bits of luck, there was something almost demonic about the daring and efficiency of her sabotage. Yes, the restaurant was set back from the road by about a hundred feet, which protected her from the eyes of passing motorists. Yes, all the parking places directly in front of the restaurant were full, which meant that we left our car off to the side, out of range of the two picture windows built into the façade of the sagging one-story building. And yes, there was the double bonus that Tom and I happened to sit down with our backs to those windows. But how in the world could she have thought quickly enough to translate the presence of an outdoor Coke machine (fortuitously positioned within ten feet of our parked car) into a weapon in her fight against the Burlington Solution? The three of us entered the restaurant together, and the first thing we did was head straight for the toilets. Then we sat down at a table and ordered our hamburgers and tuna salads and grilled cheese sandwiches. The moment the waitress was finished with us, Lucy made it known by pointing to her lap that she had more business to attend to in the bathroom. No problem, I said, and off she went, looking like any other American girl in her paisley shorts and hundred-and-fifty-dollar neon-blue sneakers. While she was gone, Tom and I talked about how pleasant it was to be out of the city, even sitting in a dark and mangy joint like Dot’s, surrounded by truckers and farmers in yellow and red baseball caps emblazoned with logos from companies that manufactured work tools and heavy machinery. Tom was still going at full verbal tilt, and I got so caught up in what he was saying that I lost track of Lucy. Little did we know at the time (the facts didn’t come out until later) that our girl had left the restaurant through a rear door and was frantically feeding coins and dollar bills into the Coke machine outside. She bought at least twenty cans of that gooey, sugar-laden concoction, and one by one she poured the entire contents of each can into the gas tank of my once healthy Oldsmobile Cutlass. How could she have known that sugar was a deadly poison to internal combustion engines? How could the brat have been so damn clever? Not only did she bring our journey to an abrupt and conclusive halt, but she managed to do it in record time. Five minutes would be my guess, seven at the most. However long it was, we were still waiting for our food when she returned to the table. She was suddenly full of smiles again, but how could I have guessed the cause of her happiness? If I had bothered to think about it at all, I would have assumed it was because she had taken a good shit.
When the meal was over and we climbed back into the car, the engine coughed forth one of the most peculiar noises in automotive history. I have sat here thinking about that noise for the past twenty minutes, but I still haven’t found the correct words to describe it, the one unforgettable phrase that would do it justice. Raucous chortling? Hiccupping pizzicati? A pandemonium of guffaws? I’m probably not up to the task – or else language is too feeble an instrument to capture what I heard, which resembled something that might have come from the mouth of a choking goose or a drunken chimpanzee. Eventually, the guffaws modulated into a single, drawn-out note, a loud, tuba-like eructation that could have passed for a human burp. Not exactly the belch of a satisfied beer drinker, but a sound that recalled the slow, agonizing rumble of indigestion, a basso discharge of air seeping from the throat of a man afflicted with terminal heartburn. Tom cut the engine and tried again, but the second turn of the key produced no more than a faint groan. The third resulted in silence. The symphony had come to an end, and my poisoned Olds was in cardiac arrest.
“I think we’re out of gas,” Tom said.
It was the only sensible conclusion to be drawn, but when I leaned to my left and looked at the fuel gauge, it showed that the tank was about one-eighth full. I pointed my finger at the red needle. “Not according to this,” I said.
Tom shrugged. “It must be broken. Lucky for us there’s a gas station across the road.”
As Tom presented his flawed diagnosis of the car’s condition, I turned around to glance at said gas station through the rear window – a tumbledown, two-pump garage that looked as if it hadn’t had a paint job since 1954. In doing so, my eyes came into contact with Lucy’s. She was sitting directly behind Tom, and because I had no idea that she was responsible for the mess we found ourselves in, I was somewhat puzzled by the serene, almost supernatural contentment I saw on her face. The engine had just poured out its cacophonous jungle medley, and under normal circumstances you would think those laughable sounds would have gotten a rise out of her: alarm, amusement, agitation, something. But Lucy had withdrawn deep into herself – floating weightlessly on a cloud of indifference, a pure spirit detached from her own body. I understand now that she was rejoicing over the success of her mission, giving silent thanks to the all-powerful one for helping her accomplish a miracle. Sitting with her in the car that afternoon, however, I was merely perplexed.
“Are you still with us, Lucy?” I asked.
She gave me a long, impassive stare, and then she nodded her head.
“Don’t be upset,” I continued. “We’ll have the car running again in no time.”
Needless to say, I was wrong. It would be tempting to give a blow-by-blow account of the comedy that ensued, but I don’t want to try the reader’s patience by discussing matters that are not, strictly speaking, relevant to the story. In the case of the car, the upshot is all that counts. I will therefore dispense with the jerrican of high-octane gas that Tom lugged back from the garage across the road (since it didn’t help) and omit any references to the tow truck that eventually hauled the Cutlass over to that same garage (what other choice did we have?). The only fact that bears mentioning is that neither one of the fellows who ran the garage (a father-and-son team known as Al Senior and Al Junior) could figure out what was wrong with the car. Junior and Senior were roughly the same ages as Tom and myself respectively, but whereas I was thin and Tom was stout, the bodies of the young Al and the old Al resembled ours in reverse: the son was lean, the father was fat.
After examining the engine for several minutes and finding nothing, Al Junior slammed the hood shut. “I’m going to have to take this baby apart,” he said.
“It’s that bad, huh?” I replied.
“I’m not saying it’s bad. But it’s not too good either. No sir, not too good at all.”
“How long will it take to fix it?”
“That depends. Maybe a day, maybe a week. First thing, I got to locate the problem. If it’s something simple, no sweat. If it’s not, we might have to order you some new parts from the dealer, and that could drag on for a while.”
It sounded like a fair and honest assessment, and given that I was thoroughly ignorant on the subject of cars, I didn’t see what else I could do but offer him the job – no matter how long it took. Tom, who was no mechanic either, seconded that course of action. All well and good, perhaps, but now that we were stranded on a back road in rural Vermont, what were we going to do with ourselves while the two Als
worked on resuscitating our ailing machine? One option was to rent a car and push on to Burlington, then spend the rest of the week with Pamela and pick up the Oldsmobile on our way back to New York. Or, more simply, rent rooms at a local inn and pretend that we were on vacation until the car was ready.
“I’ve had enough driving for today,” Tom said. “I vote for staying put. At least until tomorrow.”
I was inclined to agree with him. As for Lucy – the wordless, ever-watchful Lucy – one can well imagine how little she protested our decision.
Al Senior recommended a couple of spots in Newfane, a village we had driven through about ten miles back. I went into the office and called both numbers, but it turned out that neither inn had any rooms available. When I reported what had happened, the big man looked miffed. “Cruddy tourists,” he said. “It’s only the first week of June, and summer’s already in full swing.”
For the next half minute or so, we all stood around with our hands in our pockets, watching father and son think. At long last, Al Junior broke the silence. “What about Stanley, Dad?”
“Hmmm,” his father said. “I don’t know. What makes you think he’s back in business?”
“I heard he’s planning to open up this year,” the young man answered. “That’s what Mary Ellen told me. She bumped into Stanley at the post office last week.”
“Who’s Stanley?” I asked.
“Stanley Chowder,” Al Senior said, lifting his arm and pointing west. “He used to have an inn about three miles up that hill there.”
“Stanley Chowder,” I repeated. “That’s one hell of a funny name.”
“Yeah,” big Al said. “But Stanley doesn’t care. I think he kind of likes it.”
“I once knew a man named Elmer Doodlebaum,” I said, suddenly realizing that I enjoyed talking to the two Als. “How’d you like to be saddled with that moniker all your life?”
Al Senior grinned. “Not much, mister. Not much at all. But at least people would remember it. I’ve been Al Wilson since the day I was born, which is maybe half a step up from being called John Doe. There’s nothing to sink your teeth into with a name like that. Al Wilson. There must be a thousand Al Wilsons in Vermont alone.”
“I think I’ll give Stanley a try,” Al Junior said. “You never can tell. If he isn’t outside mowing that lawn of his, maybe he’ll pick up …”
As the slender son went into the office to make the call, his plump father leaned back against my car, pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket (which he put in his mouth but didn’t light), and then told us the sad story of the Chowder Inn.
“That’s what Stanley does now,” he said. “He mows his lawn. From early in the morning until late in the afternoon, he rides around on his red John Deere and mows his lawn. It starts when the snow melts in April, and it doesn’t stop until the snow starts falling again in November. Every day, rain or shine, he’s out there riding around his property, mowing the lawn for hours on end. When winter comes, he stays inside and watches television. And when he can’t stand watching television anymore, he gets into his car and drives down to Atlantic City. He checks into one of the casino hotels and plays blackjack for ten straight days. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, but Stanley doesn’t care. He has enough money to live on, and if he squanders a few bucks every now and then, so what?
“I’ve known him a long time – more than thirty years now, I think. He used to be a C.P.A. down in Springfield, Mass. Back around sixty-eight or sixty-nine, he and his wife Peg bought that big white house up on the hill, and after that they’d come for the weekends, for summer vacations, for the Christmas holidays, whenever they could. Their big dream was to turn the place into an inn and live there full-time after Stanley retired. So four years ago, Stanley quits his job as a C.P.A., he and Peg sell their house in Springfield, and they move up here to open the Chowder Inn. I’ll never forget how hard they worked that first spring, rushing to get things ready for the Memorial Day weekend. Everything goes as planned. They pretty up the place until it sparkles like a jewel. They hire a chef and two housemaids, and then, just when they’re about to book their first reservations, Peg has a stroke and dies. Right there in the kitchen in the middle of the day. One minute she’s alive, talking to Stanley and the chef, and the next minute she’s crumpled up on the floor, breathing her last. It happened so quick, she died before the ambulance ever left the hospital.
“That’s why Stanley mows his lawn. Some people think he’s gone a little crazy, but whenever I talk to him, he’s the same old Stanley I met thirty years ago, the same guy he’s always been. He’s grieving for his Peg, that’s all. Some men take to drink. Some men look for a new wife. Stanley mows his lawn. There’s no harm in that, is there?
“I haven’t seen him in a while, but if Mary Ellen got the story right – and I’ve never known her not to – then that’s good news. It means that Stanley’s getting better, that he wants to start living again. Al Junior’s been gone for a couple of minutes now. I could be wrong, but I’ll bet Stanley picked up the phone, and they’re working out the arrangements for getting you three up the hill. That would be something, wouldn’t it? If Stanley’s open for business, you’ll be the first paying customers in the history of the Chowder Inn. My oh my. That would really be something, wouldn’t it?”
DREAM DAYS AT THE HOTEL EXISTENCE
I want to talk about happiness and well being, about those rare, unexpected moments when the voice in your head goes silent and you feel at one with the world.
I want to talk about the early June weather, about harmony and blissful repose, about robins and yellow finches and bluebirds darting past the green leaves of trees.
I want to talk about the benefits of sleep, about the pleasures of food and alcohol, about what happens to your mind when you step into the light of the two o’clock sun and feel the warm embrace of air around your body.
I want to talk about Tom and Lucy, about Stanley Chowder and the four days we spent at the Chowder Inn, about the thoughts we thought and the dreams we dreamed on that hilltop in southern Vermont.
I want to remember the cerulean dusks, the languorous, rosy dawns, the bears yelping in the woods at night.
I want to remember it all. If all is too much to ask, then some of it. No, more than some of it. Almost all. Almost all, with blanks reserved for the missing parts.
The taciturn yet convivial Stanley Chowder, practiced mower of lawns, astute poker player and Ping-Pong dervish, aficionado of old American movies, Korean War veteran, father of a thirty-two-year-old daughter with the unlikely name of Honey – a fourth-grade public school teacher who lives in Brattleboro. Stanley is sixty-seven but fit for his age, with a full head of hair and clear blue eyes. Five-eightish, stockily built, a firm grip when he shakes my hand.
He drives down the hill to pick us up. After greeting Al Junior and Al Senior, he introduces himself to us and then pitches in as we transfer our bags from the trunk of my car to the back of his Volvo station wagon. I notice that he moves quickly, almost rushing as he walks between the two vehicles. There is a nimble, nervous proficiency to his gestures. Stanley is no dawdler. Idleness breeds thought, and thoughts can be dangerous, as anyone who lives alone will readily understand. After listening to Al Senior’s account of Peg’s demise, I see Stanley as a lost and tormented figure. Accommodating, generous to a fault, but uncomfortable in his own skin, a shattered man struggling to pick up the pieces.
We say good-bye to the Wilsons and thank them for their help. Al Junior promises to give me daily progress reports on the state of my car.
A steep dirt road flanked by woods on both sides; bumpy terrain; an occasional low-hanging branch sweeps across the windshield as we climb toward the top of the hill. Stanley apologizes in advance for any problems we might encounter at the inn. He’s been working alone for the past two weeks trying to get it into shape, but there’s still much to be done. He was planning to open for the Fourth of July, but after Al Junior called and told him abo
ut our predicament, he “wouldn’t have felt right” about not putting us up for a few days. No staff has been hired yet, but he will make the beds and see to it that we’re as comfortable as circumstances allow. He has already talked to his daughter in Brattleboro, and she has agreed to come to the inn every day and cook dinner for us. He assures us that she cooks well. Tom and I thank him for his kindness. Preoccupied with these multiple concerns, Stanley fails to notice that Lucy has yet to speak.
A three-story white house with sixteen rooms and a wraparound front porch. The sign at the edge of the driveway says The Chowder Inn, but a part of me already understands that we have come to the Hotel Existence. For the moment, I decide not to share this thought with Tom.
Before we are shown to our rooms, Tom calls Pamela from the ground-floor parlor to explain what happened to us. Stanley is upstairs making the beds. Lucy wanders off toward the sofa, and a moment later she is down on her knees petting Stanley’s dog, an aging black Lab named Spot. Without wanting to, I think of Harry and the inane words that have been stuck in my head for the past two weeks: X marks the spot. The spot has now been turned into a four-legged animal, and as I watch the dog lick Lucy’s face, I stand close to Tom on the off chance I’ll be called upon to say a few words to Pamela. I’m not, but as I listen to Tom’s end of the conversation, I’m surprised by his stepsister’s irritable response to the news that our arrival in Burlington will be delayed. As if the trouble with the car were our fault. As if unforeseen events didn’t occur all the time. But Pamela has just spent an hour and a half at the supermarket and is now in the kitchen “working her head off” to get dinner ready for us before we show up. As a sign of hospitality and welcome, she’s planned an elaborate, multicourse meal that includes everything from gazpacho to a home-baked pecan pie, and she’s put out, nay furious, when she learns that all her efforts have been in vain. Tom offers a dozen apologies, but Pamela nevertheless continues to scold him. Is this the new and improved Pamela I’ve heard so much about? If she can’t take a small disappointment in her stride, what kind of a stand-in mother will she be for Lucy? The last thing the girl needs is a neurotic bourgeois woman bearing down on her with impatient and impossible demands.
