Boat said “Course you’re not. Everybody’s broke now, everybody I know or want to know till this nightmare’s over.”
“Say it’s a dream, yes.”
“Child, I wish I could.” Boat heard himself and said “Mr. Mayfield.”
“Hutch, please—just Hutch.”
“All right, sir, next time I see your face. But is Wade failing fast?”
“I wrote you he had pneumonia again. He’s back home from that and barely holding his own. His throat has got patches of yeast infection the size of half dollars. Just this morning an apparently healthy tooth simply dropped from his jaw and he swallowed it. His hair’s lost color till it’s nearly transparent and breaks at the touch.”
Boat took that in, old news but still stunning. “His eyes all gone?”
“Afraid so, yes—his eyes and his mind. He drifts in and out. He’ll know you though. He asks about you several times a day.”
Boat said “Then tell him to hold on for me. I’m coming if God gives me strength to travel, and I love him good as ever—don’t fail to say that. Tell him Boat says Wade Mayfield deserves it—all the love in the world. I truly mean my words.”
“Will you call me collect the minute you’ve got your travel plans?”
“Guaranteed, sir. You’ll be the first to know.”
Hutch said “I don’t think we’ve got much time.”
“Course not,” Boat said. “Not one of us has.” But then he managed to laugh and whisper “I wish you could see my poor aunt now, here reading scripture to these wild cats—she thinks they’ll talk any minute, quote the Bible. They’re learning too; they’re calling my name! Don’t never wake her up again this late!”
“Please tell her I’m sorry.”
“Mr. Mayfield, everybody alive is as sorry as you and me and Wade, or they ought to be.”
Hutch said “I believe you.”
35
ALL that was toward the end of June. Then the days geared down for the coming swelter of July; and when its humid hand clamped down, Wade had very nearly vanished. Confined full-time in the chill clammy house, he now had no flesh left to lose. What coated the awful rack of his bones, that had once been the armature of such welcome beauty, was more like a thin glove leather than skin. He never left bed except in the arms of his father or Maitland; he slept through most days and all of each night in a frail fast dreaming that juddered in his eyelids; and when he woke, he swung from minutes of perfect clarity—recalling his whole life in close detail—to hours of serene but unreadable confusion and long paragraphs of speech in a language unknown since Babel.
For Hutch the single blessing of the time was that he, with help from Mait and Ann and occasional generous visits from the doctor, was able to fill Wade’s apparent needs. Hutch gave the medicines, replenished the intravenous nourishments, held urinals and bedpans, emptied and washed them, and fitted the oxygen tubes to Wade’s face when his breathing slackened to inaudible wisps. Hutch bathed Wade’s skin with the lightest touch each morning and every time Wade fouled himself—less often since there was so little of him and such slim waste to flush through his bore. Hutch sat at the bedside, long parts of each day and much of the night, to answer Wade’s deranged requests, his fears and outcries of weak delight, and to tend his remains with the deference due any agonized loved one.
Often Hutch would read aloud from old anthologies of verse—the Greek anthology (its epitaphs for a world of lost boys), the silver Roman poets of friendship and loosely worn love and the splendors Hutch could tap at will from Britain’s inexplicably long run of genius (Elizabethan, Jacobean, Metaphysical, Augustan, Romantic, Victorian, Modernist) on down through America’s Whitman, Dickinson, Robinson, Frost and Elizabeth Bishop. One afternoon, when he thought Wade was sleeping, Hutch read out—for his own lost sake—Bishop’s villanelle on the death of her longtime companion Lota Soares, a suicide.
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied—”
Hutch had got that far, barely whispering not to wake Wade; but at the word lied, Wade’s voice came alive and said the final lines from memory with all the remains of strength he had.
“—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”
It was a poem they’d never recited together, published after they’d stopped their bedtime poems; and Hutch was amazed that Wade had learned, on his own, a poem that meant as much to Hutch as any published in the past fifty years, since Eliot’s Quartets. But once Wade said the final line, he sank back into what seemed a deep trance, maybe something deeper; so Hutch couldn’t ask him how and where he’d found the poem and why he’d learned it. What’s the worst loss he’s known? Losing Wyatt, or his home and us, or his body and life here now by the inch? Lately Hutch had managed to invent quick snatches of prayer he could say with no embarrassment, though with next to no hope. So here by his son, he silently said again Take Wade this instant.
But Wade breathed on.
36
THEN on the Friday before the Fourth, in the midst of a suddenly cool afternoon, Hutch was in his own room for a rest when he heard a car stop near the house and slow footsteps toward the kitchen door. The steps were much too heavy for Ann, and no one else was expected to call. Some homicidal kid out to steal TVs. Let him on in, sure. For a minute the thought seemed serious—a young crazed killer would simplify things. Hutch got up, quickly brushed his hair and went toward the kitchen to meet whomever.
Straw was standing on the back porch, facing the hill and the natural terraces of pine and juniper and honeysuckle thicket that rose toward the crest and its unblocked view of more green miles. There’d been no word from Straw since the phone call, no sign he’d tapered off from his binge, no apparent interest in Wade.
So the sight of Straw was not really welcome. Hutch thought of hiding—all doors were locked; he could crawl to his own room and ride out the visit. He even got as far out of sight as the windowless hall and waited for the knock. But no knock came. Maybe five minutes passed and still no knock.
By then Hutch was thinking of Straw as more threatening than any housebreaker. What’s he after? He’ll somehow burn the place down—not remotely sane thoughts but they came nonetheless. Where is he this moment? Hutch went back then and opened the kitchen door.
No one in sight, though Straw’s car was still there. Hutch called out “Strawson—”
Nothing, no reply.
Hutch stepped out and walked around the whole house.
Nothing still.
Is he up in the woods? Hutch estimated that had to be it, but he couldn’t leave Wade long enough to check. He went back indoors and tried to proofread the typescript of his recent poems, with very slim luck. None was more recent than the one for Straw, written months ago; and they all felt feeble with repetition of his own trademarks and his disconnection for criminally long from the brutal present.
It was past four o’clock when Hutch finally heard a tap at th
e front door. By then he was more than ready to answer; and there was Straw, unshaven, gray-faced and looking years older than when Wade had visited Grainger in May. Hutch said “What’s wrong?”
Straw said nothing but stood facing Hutch, looking for a while as if he couldn’t speak.
Some kind of stroke? Hutch reached for Straw’s arm and drew him inward.
In the dim hallway Straw drew two long breaths, as if he’d run a hard race to get here. Then he bent at the waist and laid the palms of both hands on the floor—he was still that supple.
Hutch said “Your joints work at least—”
“Every goddamned thing on me works, and in spades.” Straw faced Hutch and grinned. “That’s the awful thing.”
Hutch could smell Straw’s breath—no trace of liquor. “You been on a nature hike?” When Straw looked baffled. Hutch said “My woods—you took a long walk.” His tone was edgy with the threat of impatience.
Straw ignored the swipe. “It’s all nature, Hutch, everything I do—all natural as humping. But yes, you could call this a nature trip.”
Hutch motioned to Wade’s open door and signed that they should lower their voices.
“Is Wade asleep?”
“Most of the time. He’ll want to see you though.” But aren’t you half drunk? Hutch stepped forward to where he’d smell the bourbon if Straw had had a drink today. No smell at all.
Straw said “I doubt Wade ought to see me.”
Neither one of them had heard himself use the word see. But Hutch said “You’re sober. What’s on your mind?” Whyever, it was plain that Straw was far off his stride.
Straw turned and led the way to the kitchen.
THEN only when they’d each drunk swallows of coffee, ten minutes later, did Straw speak again—nearly whispering now. “You remember Charlotte Armfield?”
“Afraid not, no.”
“The girl that owned the wolf—from Virginia, right after you got back from England. Recall her?—tall, stunning girl, eyes that could fell you at two hundred yards.”
Hutch said “Fell you.” But then he recalled the wolf at least, only a small cub yet already fitted with the gimlet eyes that were meant to see him through a lifetime of killing every morsel he ate. “I remember the wolf but not the owner. Weren’t you and I at that steakhouse in Roanoke, and didn’t the manager make one try to evict the wolf and then beat retreat when it stared him down?”
“You got it—Roanoke. And Charlotte was there. I spent a lot of nights beside her that summer. She asked me to save her from a fate worse than death—something to do with her awful father: all hands and assorted appendages. I let her give me the wolf and walked out like the virtuous gent I was in those days. You recall those days—”
Hutch remembered Straw bringing the wolf to the old Kendal place as a Christmas gift to Grainger. Hadn’t Grainger set him free in the woods in a matter of days? “Where’s Charlotte these days?”
Straw turned to the window.
“You seen her lately?”
“All of last night, just up the road.” Straw pointed west, the germ of a smile at the edge of his mouth.M
“She live in Durham?”
Straw said “Pittsburgh. She’s visiting her daughter, a Latin professor at Chapel Hill.”
“Charlotte called you up after—what, thirty years since you walked out on her?”
By then Straw had decided to tell it; he faced Hutch again and laid it out. “Charlotte called me at home yesterday morning. Emily was outside, digging up weeds; I was reading Nostromo—the final book on that reading list you gave me last fall—and I just tried to ignore the phone. It finally stopped but rang again at once; so I thought it might be you, needing help with Wade. I hadn’t heard Charlotte’s voice in—right, thirty years: more like thirty-five. Soon as she said my full name though, I knew her and saw her. Even on the phone, keen as ever, I could see her face and her whole long body; and I wanted to hold her. She said she’d found me through Information and was calling on a hunch—she’d be at her daughter’s in Chapel Hill for another two days, any chance we could talk? I told her I’d get to her somehow by dark.”
From Wade’s room there came a high yip like a dog’s.
Straw watched Hutch wait for a second call; but when none came, Hutch said “You’re referring to dark yesterday?”
Straw nodded. “And I kept the promise. I told Em and Grainger I was coming to you and Wade; I’d see them by bedtime. The minute I laid eyes on Charlotte though, and realized she was just baby-sitting her daughter’s parrot while the daughter left town, I suspected I wouldn’t head home for a while.”
A taste of rot was spreading in Hutch’s mouth, yet he felt compelled to know the whole story. “She looks that good still; she’s what—fifty-six?”
“Fifty-seven going on thirty-five. She looks like she’s slept inside clear amber every night since I saw her. She never was exactly beautiful—was she?—more like haunting, with those slate eyes that never shut and that amazing mouth. They’re strong as ever, and everything else that mattered about her is with her still.”
“So you spent the night?” It was not said harshly. With Wade down the hall as light as a locust—a locust in flames—Hutch hardly cared where Straw laid his head.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t, no. We went to bed, all right, naked as minnows. But those few hours were shocking as hell—I haven’t been used like that for years.”
“You look a little used—like a car wreck really.” The taste of rot was fading in Hutch.
“No complaint, God knows.”
Hutch managed to smile. “I trust you took precautions against the lover’s plague, for your sake and Emily’s if not for Charlotte’s.”
“I did, thanks for asking.”
Hutch said “So you went prepared?”
“As a matter of fact. Charlotte saw to that before she called me.” Grim as the details felt, spelled out, Straw’s excitement was undiminished. He actually seemed thrust back through time, some thirty-five years—that ready and rising, that eager to fling himself on his sword for an abstract cause: his right to feed his mind and body whatever it craved, and damn the torpedoes.
Hutch had always, and rightly, seen Straw as a sexual mystic. Since boyhood, Straw had always tried to use his body, at every chance, as an instrument of knowledge—the nearest implement any human possesses for truly exploring the limits of knowing his human companions and maybe the angels. Hutch himself had got many powerful signals from the same dark notion—moments and hours with beautiful others in whom he found real ease and reward, whole unexpected islands of knowledge surpassing speech and as unmatched as music—but long ago, for whatever reason, Hutch had agreed to a simpler life than Straw would settle for. So now, facing Straw on fire from his meeting, Hutch could only say “Where’ve you been between your thrilling night and this dull minute?”
Straw looked as if he’d been struck broadside.
“You said you didn’t spend the whole night with Charlotte.”
“Did I? I guess not—I left before dawn. But when I tried to aim the car home, it wouldn’t go.”
Hutch said “Where does Emily think you are?”
“She’s guessing as usual.” Vicious as it sounded, it wasn’t meant to be. Again Straw was speaking from the core of his hunger, a lifelong need that no one person had ever filled—never volunteered to fill. By his own lights, he’d mostly tried to treat others fairly. They were all adults, they’d watched him well before they’d joined him, then they’d chosen to know him and stay beside him. They could only accuse him of so much treason when he turned elsewhere. In fairness he’d always accepted that brand of betrayal from others with slim resentment.
Still Hutch knew what Straw was asking. “I’m guessing you want me to phone Emily for you.”
“That had crossed my mind, yes.”
“And tell her what?”
Straw said “You’re the poet—call up your muse.”
That rubbed Hutch wr
ong. He knew he had no earthly right to judge Straw for cheating. He’d lied for Straw many times in the past; and he’d perpetrated cheats of his own, though never adultery—but the thought of inventing excuses here for one more dingy pelvic cheat collided with the sterile but vehement concentration of his care for Wade. Hutch said “I’ll gladly pay for the call, but you do the talking.” He pointed to the wall phone three steps away.
For most of a minute. Straw was angry; but in real exhaustion he finally thought his way into Hutch’s mind, its scalding white light. Then Straw rose quietly and placed his call.
Hutch was nearly out of the room when he heard Straw say “Grainger?” He paused and looked back.
Straw said to Grainger “Old gentleman, you feeling all right this afternoon?” Apparently the answer was Yes. So the rest of the conversation consisted of asking who Grainger had seen today and whether Emily had fed him on time. Was Emily there with him by any chance? No? In that case Straw would see him by dark. His voice had the sound of saying goodbye; Straw said to Grainger “Say hey to Hutchins” and held the receiver out to Hutch.
Hutch shook his head No and thought I’ve never refused Grainger yet, and he’ll die any day. Make it up to him soon.
Straw gave the old man a few more words, hung up and quickly called another number.
Hutch stayed in place in the kitchen door, disgusted to think Straw had left his tawdry errand to Grainger. Emily would come down with Grainger’s early supper; the old man would tell her Straw was on his way home.
But the number answered and Straw said “Emily?” Then with few words from Em, Straw begged her pardon for his absence—no explanation, false or true—and said he’d see her well before bedtime.
The Promise of Rest Page 26
