Boat only continued stroking Wade’s hair.
In ten more seconds Wade spoke again, the same cold voice. “We’ll cut if we have to.”
Boat brought two knuckles around and rapped lightly on the crest of Wade’s forehead. Then Boat looked to Hutch and Straw; he shook his head sadly and mouthed four clear words—Out of his mind. But what he said was “Wish I was traveling toward green trees and water.”
And Wade’s head moved to sign Come on, though he said no more.
So Hutch turned to Boat. “Please come on with us.” It was not an idle offer. He’d sensed at once that Boatie would be the perfect help.
And Wade moaned confirmation of the offer.
Boat couldn’t bear to turn Wade down, and he said it to Hutch. “Don’t both of you break my heart. This friend Wade here means as much to me as the rest of the friends and miserable boys I’ve helped up and down this town for a long mean time. Wade’s got his own people though—you fine gents and his mother’s live, right? A lot of my boys don’t have blood relations, and a lot that have got whole housefuls of kin get turned down by them as hateful as rats—but I see you’re strong enough to take what’s happening.”
Hutch said “I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
Wade turned to his father. “I doubt I’ll be all that much trouble.”
It nearly downed Hutch; he literally swayed as in a wind.
But Boat leaned to Wade’s ear with a secret, though he said it plainly. “You going to live till the man says ‘Quit.’ That may not be for long years to come if you got loving care around you, steady like you need. You been here alone; that’ll kill a big horse.”
Wade’s eyes were still shut; and his voice was thin again but cheerful. “I may not make it to Maryland.”
The three strong men considered that.
Then Straw said “No, Wade, your godfather’s driving every mile. You’ll make it. I promise. I never failed yet.”
Wade said “You never saw me this far gone either.”
Straw had to say “Right.”
“Then promise me we’ll make it again.” Wade was in earnest.
Straw said “Wade Mayfield, you’re golden with me.”
Wade said “Is that safe? What does golden mean?”
Straw said again “Golden. You wait and see.” He had no clear idea what he meant, but in his mouth it felt like the nearest thing to usable truth.
11
BY noon Boat had bathed Wade, diapered him and dressed him in what seemed like too many clothes for a mild spring day. Then he laid Wade back on the bed to rest while he packed everything they’d need or could use in the way of clothes and medical equipment. He’d helped Hutch reach Wade’s doctor by phone to learn any vital details and procedures—the main advice was simply to continue all medicines till Wade was back in the hands of another AIDS specialist; and when Hutch thanked the brusque man and said goodbye, the doctor suddenly lowered his voice and said “You must have had a fine son.” Then he was gone.
So while Hutch and Straw made several trips down to load the car, Boat sat on the floor by Wade’s bed, near his wavering eyes, and worked in silence—as he’d worked so often, near so many young men—to call death closer.
Though he’d been raised in Georgia by his mother’s mother in an African Methodist Episcopal church and had sung in the choir till the day he boarded the train north to Harlem, these hard recent years Boat had been forced to go his lone spiritual way. Now in the room where Wade Mayfield and Wyatt Bondurant had known good hours for actual years, a room that Wade was leaving soon and surely forever, Boat called up the face he always pictured for death itself—a thin dark woman, very much like his mother who’d vanished long since on a bus toward Chicago—and he said a silent respectful prayer as that tall woman answered his call and stood in his mind at the foot of Wade’s bed here, eight feet from Boat. Keep this child from messing his pants on the road. Let him get back far as his home and his mother, and let him see her face someway. Put him on whatever bed he slept in when he was a child and let him breathe easy till you’re ready for him. Then come on into his clean safe room and lead him while he’s picturing Wyatt in the days when they didn’t know they’d killed each other like this and deserted a child.
WHEN the packed car was ready and they’d got Wade up onto his feet. Boat stood on Wade’s left with the boy’s arm around him. Then he told Straw to stand on the right. Once they got their balance and Hutch was standing with two hands free. Boat said to Wade “You got everything?”
Wade signified Yes.
“You sure you got all your papers and things—your picture albums?”
Wade said “Oh yes, I’m well stocked with pictures. I plan to meet Jesus in northern Virginia and get my eyes healed.”
Boat said “You hold your tongue about Jesus. Be sweet to him, baby. He got us in this fix we’re in.”
Wade said “I don’t believe that a minute and neither do you.”
Boat said “All right. I was racing my lip.” Then he was satisfied they could head down. He asked Hutch please to bring the satchel of soap and lotion and natural sponges he’d use on the five men he still had to see today; then he said “Let’s boogie on down the road.”
They’d gone three steps when Wade said “No—”
Each of the able-bodied men had privately thought that Wade might balk at the fence. Now they faced one another in blank disappointment.
Wade tried to think—not a good day for thinking. So he said again “No.”
Hutch thought Wyatt’s got him and is hauling him back. It seemed more credible than what his eyes saw—a splendid man, crushed and all but gone.
But finally Wade could recall what he wanted. “Hutch, please step in the bedroom and bring that frame that’s over the bed.”
Hutch couldn’t recall a picture there, but he quickly obeyed and took the silver frame off the dark wall. Only in the window light of the main room could he catch a glimpse of what he held—a landscape he himself had drawn near his mother’s home in Goshen, Virginia when he was a boy and visiting there with Alice Matthews, his dead mother’s friend: in the summer of 1944. Now was no time to think of meanings or omens in the clean-lined picture of a spine of mountains cloaked in dense evergreens. Why this of all things? Not thinking of blindness, Hutch showed it to Wade. “This what you want?”
Wade’s right hand came out and sized up the frame. Then he nodded Yes hard and took the next step to pass through the door into the dimlit hall. In those last inches Wade told himself This vanishes now. Never again. It felt worse than all his life till here, worse than the prospect of oncoming death.
Nobody spoke as Hutch double-locked the door, called the elevator, and they all rode down in its weird light to cross the lobby into strong April sun—the morning of Passover, though they didn’t know it, the night when God killed the firstborn son in every Egyptian overlord’s house not marked with the blood of a slaughtered lamb.
In the light Wade looked even more devastated, gaunt as a flail. Not having seen himself for weeks, still he understood that and rigged a taut smile on his face, a try at pleasantness that looked like famine. So if you’d watched him every inch of the way toward the loaded car, you’d have seen no outward sign of the pain that went on tearing him like a tattered doll—leaving the site of most of the good he’d tasted in his past grown life or would ever taste: the walls that held the memory of Wyatt Bondurant’s beauty, his sudden ambushes of a stunning kindness, through long nights of juncture and mutual joy.
Hutch silently tried to tell himself that the source of all the strange elation he’d felt these past two days was finally shown to him as he led his son, his only child, toward the only home they’d had or would ever have.
As Hutch and Straw worked to lay Wade out on the pallet they’d made on the long backseat, the passersby barely slowed their headlong pace through the day, though some of them veered a little aside from a face and body as near gone as whoever this ghost was.
TWO
HOME
APRIL-JULY 1993
April 23, 1993
Dear Strawson,
This will be just a quick line from campus to keep you posted. I’d have phoned before now, hut with Wade in the house—even when he’s asleep—I somehow can’t discuss him with anyone. He’s so wholly dependent that I won’t risk beginning to think that he’s, above all, somebody to manage—even if I say it to my oldest closest friend, which (despite your doubts) God knows you are.
I’ve told you that your presence on the trip north and through those first days with Wade at home was much more than a practical help, but the truth bears repeating. More even than I could, or Ann in her visits, you let Wade know that he s still very much alive and a pleasure to know. Your ease and good humor and steady attention set the pitch for us all; and I won’t forget, if and when the time comes, that you’ve promised to come back and stay when we need you and until we’re done. Meanwhile, by the way, the hospital bed you ordered is here and makes a real difference. Wade raises and lowers himself with ease and sleeps through the night almost upright—it helps keep his lungs clear and maybe his mind, which is much less likely to streak off into meanness or nonsense or self-punishment than it was at first.
Also in the past three weeks, he’s recovered more strength than I expected. I’m trying to tell myself it’s the outcome of being at home with reliable care, regular company and sensible food, though he still barely eats any more than the liquid protein you found and sometimes a small dish of frozen yogurt. That seems to stay with him when nothing else will. Even so, he can’t stand any flavor stronger than vanilla—it’s odors apparently that trigger his nausea.
In any case I’m also trying to remind myself that whatever strength Wade regains is bound to be brief. The graduate student that I found to sit with him, when I teach or run chores, is also a big help. His name is Hart Salter. He’s a good-looking, huge—not fat but muscular—twenty-six-year-old medievalist; and he knows more dirty jokes than Chaucer. He already seems to have known Wade forever, and they actually manage to laugh a good deal. Hart’s marriage has apparently been rocky lately, so I think he actually gets a real benefit from cheering a fellow creature up—Wade that is; the wife seems to he one of those black holes for love, incapable of the simplest trust. If only Hart weren’t due to leave us soon—he’s finished all his course work and prelims and will need to travel to London this summer to start his research, but for two more weeks he’ll still be available. Once he’s gone, I’ll be in the lurch if I can’t find an honest substitute soon. That’s when I may need to call you back.
Which reminds me that I’ve told a few of my colleagues the truth and have got only genuine concern from them and offers of help. Not that I expected otherwise. Life in an English Department can often feel like a bad day at the beehive; but the few times I’ve ever let it be known that I needed help of the human variety from my colleagues, they’ve laid it out with generous tolerance, unstintingly.
The woman doctor you said you trusted when we took Wade to Duke—Dr. Margaret Ives—she’s become his main doctor and has even been out to the house for a visit. Entirely out of the blue last evening, she phoned from the hospital and asked if we’d give her that drink we’d offered. I put it to Wade, who was napping on the sofa while I watched TV (the Court channel, to which I’m addicted). Wade said “Bring her on”; so out she came and stayed past nine—Wade awake the whole time, participating more than he has till now in the talk and laughter.
Just being with people and practicing words has likewise helped to clear his mind, though his vision has definitely not improved except for brief spells when he’ll suddenly be facing the window and say “There’s an eagle surely” (he was right, a male golden eagle; the first I’ve seen in all my years out here and, according to my bird book, way off course). Or he’ll suddenly ask “Where’s Mother’s portrait?” (I’d stashed the picture he drew of his mother in grade school; it had hung in the kitchen till Ann went her way). Ten seconds later he won’t be able to find me in the room.
Anyhow Dr. Ives’s visit was the first house call I’ve heard of from a doctor since steam was invented; and though we all pretended it was social, I knew that she was watching Wade closely and with more sympathy than may turn out to be good for her peace of mind and soul. It turned out she’s an avid reader of poetry and has known my work since high school in Utah. We didn’t talk too much about that; I didn’t want Wade to feel he was her alibi for knowing me—I don’t think I was that, by the way. I long since gave up feeling like anyone a sane modern reader could want to meet.
As for Wade’s health, she’s sticking to what she told us that day you were with us in the Infectious Diseases clinic—the same medications he was taking in New York, as much exercise outdoors as he can take, and as many meetings with people he likes as we can arrange and he has strength for. She puts special emphasis on the inhalations to prevent further bouts of parasitic pneumonia, so we’re loyal with those.
Last night, when she was close to leaving, Dr. Ives turned to Wade in my presence and said “If you want us to, we can try to treat this blindness. We might even stop it before it goes further.” She understands that he still has a certain amount of sight which goes and comes unpredictably, and she went on to say she could give him a fairly high-powered drug that would likely clear out the parasites and keep his eyes from failing any worse. The drug however is given through a permanent tube implanted in a hole in the chest.
I was ready to take her offer on the spot, but I left it to Wade; and once he’d thought for twenty seconds, he said “Thanks, I’ve known about that for some time. I decided against it.”
She seemed a little rebuffed but hardly showed it. When she left she did say again that she’d be at Wade’s disposal for whatever she could do; and he said again “Thanks, I’ll try not to crowd you.” When she still looked puzzled, he said “I’m letting it come on now.” Neither she nor I had to ask what he meant. And then Wade confirmed it. He said “All I want is enough morphine when the howling starts.” She said “We keep it on hand, all hours. You let me know when you feel the need.” He gave a short wail on the spot, then laughed and said “Not yet.” And she left us smiling. Remind me to ask for all-female doctors when my time comes, if I don’t pitch over cold-dead in class or at my home desk like a lucky man.
Ann has stopped by at least once a day; she phones Wade frequently, which he seems not to mind. I pretty much leave them alone when she’s here; but when Ann and I wind up in a room, we give our best imitations of civility. I’ll have to say I’ve genuinely enjoyed the food she cooks and brings every few days and the laundry she does almost every day for Wade. The other night, when Wade had us both in his room, he cranked up the head of his bed and said “Am I right in thinking that you two will stay here under this roof when I’m bad off and see me out?” Ann and I said Yes and faced each other. I could see she meant it. I’m not sure I did; but time will tell, I guess.
I’ve got to run. Today’s the final day of classes before exams, and I’m risking a good deal by going through with my long tradition of having the writing class out to the house for a final discussion and a rough-and-ready supper. Last week I told the students that my son was now with me and was seriously ill—no more details. Wade knows they’re coming and that he can either ignore them completely and rest in his room or be entirely welcome if he feels up to joining the students at any point. Two of them really mean to be writers and may not be deluded in their hopes. If they see Wade at all, I can hope they’ll see him and his situation as life anyhow, the Great Subject.
> I don’t doubt Wade can handle what comes. Christ knows he’s handling himself and me with a grace and strength I’ve never had to summon. He feels like the purpose of my life till now, even though he’s ending in this blocked alley. I mean that very seriously. Slim or nil though his chances are, I feel fairly sure that whatever Wade and I have throughout these weeks will outlast us both. It’ll be our good-will effort to get something right in a family that’s never engineered a right thing yet—an open-eyed, willingly paired walk on to the grave in dignity if nothing better. So I’m working to give Wade all I’ve got while he can still use it—and the all includes whatever I’ve held back from him in the past. If he wants it, that is. I’m sure you won’t grudge him your role in the story, if he probes that far. We almost certainly owe it to him.
None of which means that every hour of this doesn’t blast on through my head like a cold jackhammer that’s somehow silenced but pounds on still. The sight of this boy alone in deep water, far past my reach or anyone’s apparently—well, you’ve seen him and know the worst.
I’ll phone you this weekend. Wade will likely call you too—he says that’s his plan. But I wanted you to have this much in writing first. Drive down to see us as soon as you’ve got the planting in hand—let me know if the business account is too low. I trust Grainger’s upright and running the world still. Wade mentioned yesterday that he meant to see Grainger soon somehow. I can’t be sure such a plan is realistic, and I certainly can’t ask you to bring Grainger down here—even if his body could stand the trip, he very well might not recognize Wade when he got here, changed as Wade is. But we’ll talk it over soon, you and I. Love to Emily and thanks for her care, love to yourself and unpayable thanks.
Ever,
Hutch
That same night, after Hutch was asleep, Wade managed to reach the operator and ask her to place a call to Grainger. On the third ring, the old man answered. “All right.”
The Promise of Rest Page 9
