I took the exit.
II
I don't know what made me pull into Bowling Green. I knew it had something to do with the name itself. It was a name I'd heard of. In fact, I even knew there was another one: a Bowling Green, Kentucky. Maybe that was the one I'd heard of. I wasn't sure.
A college town: Burger King, Big Boy, Best Western, Ranch, McDonald's. I drove west along the exit road from 75, on Wooster, past the university, stopped at an unnamed store whose windows were covered with ads for Marlborough Country, Budweiser, Camel, Virginia Slims. I took six cans of Miller High Life from the cooler, paid the girl behind the counter, put them in the trunk of my car, got in and drove back along the route I'd just traveled into town.
I ate dinner at Chi-Chi's. I had the chimichangas and a beer, watched three blond college kids drink margaritas, enjoy a life I had never known.
"Where are you?"
"Bowling Green, Ohio. I'm in a Days Inn."
A hesitation. "You're okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm even sipping a cold beer."
"Wait a minute. I'll get one. I'll join you."
It was 9 P.M. I smiled, waited. Pictured her running to the fridge. Wondered if I'd been crazy leaving her behind.
She was back. A drink, a sigh. For my benefit. "That's better."
"Isn't this great?"
"About time you called. I've been waiting all evening to have a beer with you."
"What kind have you got?"
"Sleeman's.You?"
"Miller High Life." I studied the can. "The Champagne of Beers."
"Big shot."
"Jet-setter."
We listened to each other breathe, smile.
"Days Inn," she said.
"When I asked them how much it was at the Best Western down the road, they asked if I had AAA membership. I said I did. The price dropped ten percent."
"Very shrewd."
"They never even asked for proof."
"And now, there you are, drinking beer, in the privacy of your very own room."
"A king in his castle."
"You watching dirty movies on the porn station?"
"At a Days Inn? Fat chance. Even if they were here, I couldn't watch them by myself. You'd have to be here with me. I'd get too nuts. What're you doing?"
"Cleaning the house. When you're gone, I clean like a wild woman."
"So the house'll be beautiful when I get back."
"It was beautiful when you left."
"I mean more beautiful."
"That's better. Maybe I'll leave the dishes for you."
"They're mine. Let 'em pile up. I love the dishes."
"Thank God somebody loves them."
"Keep Adam away from them."
"Right."
"Be a shame if he did them."
"Did I hear you say 'fat chance' earlier?"
I took another sip of beer. I could feel her on the other end. Like I could reach out and touch her. Maybe, I thought, this is phone sex. Without the sex.
"How far are you from Dayton?"
"About two hours, I think. I'll be there before noon tomorrow." Another pause. "I'm right across from Bowling Green State University. It's enormous. I want to look at it a bit in the morning, before I go."
"I wish I were with you."
"You'd be bored."
"With you? Are you kidding? Have you forgotten my traveling bag, all those places, already?"
I was quiet. I hadn't forgotten. I could never forget.
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It had been four years earlier, in September—another trip four hundred miles or so. We were veterans of the Niagara Falls Romantic Getaway ("2-night package, Jacuzzi and fireplace suite, walking distance to the Falls"); Niagara was only ninety miles from home. In fact, my grandmother, Nanny, had gone there on her honeymoon with Bampi in 1904. They'd gone in a horse-drawn wagon, one week before her nineteenth birthday. Nanny was three months pregnant with my father.
But we wanted to crank it up a notch. And after Vegas, what was left?
Jeanne heard folks talking about the Pocono Mountains in the cafeteria at work. We had to look them up in our road atlas: northeastern Pennsylvania, eighty miles from Philadelphia, two hours out of New York City.
She got the number through Information, then phoned the Pennsylvania Visitors' Bureau. They flooded us with brochures. We found what we were looking for.
Mount Airy Lodge seemed to be as good as any. The Regency, The Golden Suite, The Villas, The Executive Suite, The Princess Suite, The Monarch Towers, and The Crystal Palace Suite. We booked the most expensive, the most elaborate.
"But we don't need all of that."
"We don't need any of it. This isn't about need."
She looked at me.
"We didn't need Elvis either."
I had her.
It was The Crystal Palace Suite: your own private swimming pool, right in your room. The absolutely essential heart-shaped double Jacuzzi bath. A Swedish sauna and custom-designed shower for two. Log-burning fireplace. The king-sized, round bed. Skylights. Stereo and fridge. And a completely private, outdoor garden courtyard.
Need? What were we talking about?
We took the Friday off work, left early, drove, pulled in late the same day. Friday night and Saturday night. Meals included. We drove home all day Sunday.
Dinners were at an assigned table opposite honeymooners who looked like children to us. The cuisine: upscale airplane food; the service brisk. Live entertainment, dancing: piano, bass, drums. "Memories." "You Are My Hero," "I Just Called to Say I Love You." "Your Momma Don't Sing and Your Daddy Don't Rock and Roll." The announcement of a thirty-eighth birthday, a fiftieth wedding anniversary. Breakfasts were equally curious; beside us: he spoke little English, she didn't care. Both mornings he ate like a man starved, her hands shook from their nightly bacchanalia.
There was no typical couple.
We used every part of our suite, every part of the lodge. We played billiards, took walks, drives, swam naked in our very own pool, sweated in our private sauna, lolled in the heart-shaped tub, ate smoked salmon, cheese, drank Caesars, white wine, red wine, slept when we wanted. And we made love. As often as possible. In every part of our multifaceted nest.
We'd been trying to get Jeanne pregnant ever since that blinding, sunny day in Las Vegas, when Elvis gave her away, but nothing had happened. And every now and then, when confiding in close friends, we'd hear variations on the same advice:
"You just need to get away. Relax."
"The Greek Isles. You need to go to the Greek Isles."
"Timing. It's all timing."
"It never happens when you want it to. It's always an accident."
"Don't think about it. Just do it."
The Poconos was three years after the wedding in Las Vegas. We were three years older. Time was running out.
Nothing had happened.
Nothing happened in the Poconos either.
III
Days Inn served the continental breakfast in the lobby: coffee, muffins. While I ate, I read USA Today a
nd The BG News ("A daily independent student press"). Newspapers were my business; they interested me.
They were my father's business too.
I drove along Wooster, just to have a look. Pretty homes, lovely verandas. BGSU seemed enormous—it stretched its way along into town until I came to Main Street—a real, honest-to-goodness Main Street.
The Cla-Zel Theater, billiards, pizza, Chamber of Commerce.
American Family Insurance, Kirk's Coin Laundry, H & R Block, Huntington Banks.
I pictured Adam going to Bowling Green State University, editing The BG News, eating with classmates at Mark's Pub. Maybe this was where he might have ended up if I hadn't entered his life, taken him north. Taken him away from his father.
I got back on I-75, headed south. My eye was drawn to my hand on the steering wheel, to the red garnet there.
The flat Ohio countryside continued. Near Findlay, two cement silos rose up on my left: "Pioneer Sugar."
Only talk shows or static on the radio.
NINE
I
Psychologists call it "Searching Behavior." For the living, it is one way that some deal with grief for the loss of a loved one. I'd read this somewhere, but couldn't remember where.
I think it's simpler than that. I think there are family ghosts. I think they are something real and powerful that we carry inside us, that without them we're empty, without direction. They steer us, advise us, converse with us daily.
They bring the past and the present together. Give us a future, a perspective. They humble us.
At Exit 161: the University of Findlay. Exit 145: Ohio Northern University. Exit 142: Bluffton College.
Adam could be studying at any of them. Findlay and Lima must have newspapers where I could work. Or the Dayton Daily News. It was possible.
Near Lima: Comfort Inn, Days Inn. "United States Plastic." Beside it: "Christ Is the Answer."
I crossed the Ottawa River, thought of Canada's capital. Like Dixie, my world and the past had come with me, clinging, recurring like distant speed bumps.
Ohio State University, Lima Campus, off to the east. A woman hanging wash on a line.
Flat. Cows. The sun came down in actual rays through the clouds: like a postcard.
I was thirsty. The juice machine back in the Bowling Green Days Inn lobby had been out of order.
Economy Inn, Hampton Inn, The Olive Garden—all visible from the highway.
Exit 111: the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum. The sign said, "75 South—Dayton." Again. There was no doubt where I was going.
At Piqua, Exit 83: "Paul Sherry RV's, Ohio's Largest Dealer, 350 + New Ones & Used." Red Carpet Inn. Edison Community College.
The giant Panasonic factory on my right, near Troy.
Dayton, eighteen miles.
I thought of Adam and the three blond students I'd seen at Chi-Chi's in Bowling Green, thought of them in residence at the bucolic campus there, of how different his life was compared to theirs.
Near Tipp City, south of Troy, the road flared to three lanes. The chain restaurants resurfaced: Red Lobster, Bob's Crab Shack, Outback, Bob Evans.
Then, DAYTON CORP LIMIT.
Bobby Swiss. Adam. Jeanne. Everybody was there with me. My father was there. Even Aidan, my stillborn son.
II
Nanny—my paternal grandmother—was born June 15, 1885. She died December 27, 1974. Her maiden name was Annie Sutton. She was baptized at St. Mary's Church, on Bathurst Street, in Toronto.
Because she lived at Maxwell with my parents, a lot of the trivia of her life fell into my father's hands when she passed away. And now it's fallen into mine. That's how I know her dates, her place of baptism. I've got her birth certificate and her death certificate.
I also came across three postcards from France.
July 28,1917
Dear Father
Just a card to let you know I am well and hope you and mother are in the best of health I received 2 letters from you dated June 24 and July 1 and am glad to hear you are well I will write a letter later on for I know you like to hear from me often so cheer up good days coming when we meet I remain your loving son HMS XXXXXXXXXX
September 13,1917
Dear Mother
Just a card to let you know I am always thinking of you and hope you and father are in the best of health as it don't leave me so bad for I am picking up again I remain your loving son somewhere in france do my bit XXXXXXXXXXXX
September 24,1917
Dear Father
Just a line to let you know I received your letter ok and glad to hear you and mother are well as it leaves me getting on well after the shell shock I got but my nerves are a little shaky yet but will come around alright the Dr. said I remain your son HMS XXXXX
Not exactly French postcards as I understood the term.
Since Dad's death, my cousin Jacquie was the oldest in the family, so I asked her. "Who are they from?"
"Uncle Mike. He was Nanny's brother. He was adopted. He was in the war. He was shell-shocked. He was never right afterward."
All news to me.
"I've got an old picture of Da and Jim, standing outside 222 Berkeley Street in 1918. The house is decorated with streamers and flags. There's a big sign across the top of the veranda that says 'Welcome Home.' It was all for Mike."
"Did Nanny have any other brothers or sisters?"
"No. She was an only child, so Da and her mother adopted Mike. That way they had a boy and a girl."
"Two of them are signed 'HMS.' What's that? His Majesty's Service, because he was a soldier?"
"His name was Henry. Henry Michael Sutton. But he was always Uncle Mike."
Henry Sutton. That was the name of the godfather on the baptismal certificate of Dad's that I'd come across—the one in that brown leather folder that he kept in the top drawer of his dresser. A person to go with the name. A new sprig of foliage on the tree.
"What happened to him? To Mike?"
"He married Agnes after the war. Marie Agnes. Aunt Aggie. They had two boys—Tommy and Jimmy Sutton. Tommy joined the Christian Brothers and became Brother Julian. He died just after World War Two. A urinary tract infection. He was only twenty-four. Jimmy joined the paratroopers. He moved out west. Edmonton, I think. He had a son who became an Anglican minister."
Tributaries, with small rills trickling off. I could hear them, bubbling, like streams down a mountainside.
"During the Depression, Mike couldn't get a job. He used to take a shovel and go line up somewhere downtown with the unemployed, waiting for work. He didn't have the carfare to get there. Nanny used to give him a ticket."
"What happened to him?"
"He died."
"When?"
"I don't know. Agnes died first. He married again."
"Where are they buried?"
"I don't know." A sigh. "I'm sorry, Leo. I haven't thought about them in years. I don't know what happened to any of them."
Da had wanted a son, so he had adopted Mike. My Uncle Jim, like Da, had wanted a son. In my mother's story, he would have even taken me. He had adopted two sons.
Ghosts are real. They don't need our belief. They exist because struggle and failure have value. They slow down time, let us move backward.
They had traveled here with me, through Ohio, to Dayton. In my 1960 Chev.
Dayton. Main Street.
There it was again. Everywhere.
It seemed as good a bet as any. I turned off.
Left: downtown. Over the river. Stop at the traffic lights at Monument Avenue.
Interstate Mortgage Company, Fifth Third Bank, National City Bank. I was in a financial district.
The Dayton Convention Center at Fifth and Main.
I pulled over in front of Otis Elevator to orient myself.
I turned back, went east along Fifth.
There it was: the red, white, and blue striped logo of the Greyhound Bus Station, from my dream.
At St. Clair—another name from Toronto, fro
m the past—I pulled into an Arby's parking lot, stayed in the car, pulled out my map of Dayton, saw where I was. Looking up through the windshield: Hauer Music Company. To the left, a building with the windows broken, slated for demolition. Slated into memory only. Like the Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas.
I reached into my shirt pocket, took out the address and phone number. I looked at it.
Arby's didn't appeal. Not enough hunger yet. Where I wanted to go was south through the city. Southeast, actually. A suburb called Kettering.
Past Miami Valley Hospital on Main, the road changed. Suddenly, for the first time in what seemed to be hundreds of miles, I saw hills, trees, and the landscape became small-town pretty. Oakwood: a bandstand—a gazebo—in a park at Shantz. The road wound upward. Somewhere Main had become Far Hills.
Arrow Wine and Spirits. Lincoln Park Medical Center.
Kettering City Schools Board of Education building.
I was close.
At Stroop Road, I pulled into the Town and Country Shopping Center. I was finally hungry. For lunch, I treated myself to New Orleans-style crabcakes and seafood chowder at the Peasant Stock Restaurant.
III
East along Stroop to Woodman, north to Dorothy Lane, then east again to Galewood. At the Midas Muffler on Dorothy, near the tail end of Woodlane Plaza, I pulled in, took the slip of paper from my pocket, read it: Bobby Swiss, 2926 Galewood Street, and the phone number.
It was 2 p.m.
Midas advertised Lube & Oil, Brakes, Pipes, Mufflers, Shocks & Struts. Nobody came out, nobody bothered me.
I drove across Dorothy Lane, up Galewood.
The address was a small, white, wooden bungalow on my right, with a door in the center. It probably had two bedrooms. I continued driving, mesmerized, till Ghent Avenue, turned left, another left at Acosta, then back along Galewood for another look. I did it again. And once more.
St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) Page 6
