Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost

by Winton, Tom

  Whizzing by it now, I was suddenly mugged by a memory I definitely didn’t need. What I’d done back then was not an isolated incident. I did it three or four times a week. A driver from another shift had rigged the cab’s ignition switch. It was set so that when the key was turned and held while driving, the off duty light on the roof would light up without turning the meter on. And I’d done it many times. It was the exact same thing the young man sitting in front of Ernest and me had tried to do on this ride. But back then I’d told myself there were plenty of other drivers who’d done it a lot more often than I had. I was like an alcoholic who always rationalizes when he sees another worse off than himself. I kept telling myself that at least I’d kept a handle on my larcenous habit.

  Sitting quietly in the back of the cab with Ernest, I tried putting the advice he’d just given me to work. I tried to keep my imagination and fears from getting the best of me. It didn’t work. And when we crossed the 59th Street Bridge, the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel’s classic song about the structure started playing inside my head. When they reached the part about “feeling groovy,” I could only sneer at myself and shake my head in disgust.

  Fortunately it was only a matter of minutes before we pulled in front of the Algonquin Hotel. The driver shut off the meter, turned to me, hiked his glasses up his nose a bit, and said, “Okay, that’s $28.40.”

  I put two folded twenties into the small till at the bottom of his protective glass shield then tilted it his way.

  “Keep the change, pal.”

  “Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate that.”

  “Aaaahhh,” I said, waving him off with a small ironic smile on my face, “just think of it as a godsend.”

  And right then Ernest swung open the driver’s side back door and stepped out onto 49th Street. I just sat still and watched the driver’s reaction. His eyes popped out so far I thought they’d knock his glasses off his nose. Frantically he jerked his head and buggy eyes back and forth from me to the door and back again. Then the door slammed closed.

  “What the hell?” the driver said in a near shriek.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you just see the door open and close?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’re you some kind of magician?”

  Leaning toward him now and looking from side to side as if I were about to let him in on a big secret, I said, “No. I’m no magician. But I do know a thing or two. And one of them is that there are forces out there you don’t want to be messing with. You don’t want to be pissing them off.”

  “Whaddaya mean? What forces? Who are you talking about?”

  “Just remember, thou shalt not steal. I’d start using that flag on your meter a little more if I were you.” Widening my own eyes now, I gave him a big toothy grin and said, “See ya!”

  I hauled myself out of the cab and joined Ernest on the sidewalk. The guy still hadn’t pulled away. I turned to look at him one last time. He was nose to his window, and he was staring at me all goo-goo eyed as if I were one of the disciples. Ernest roared and patted me on the back as we stepped toward the hotel’s front door. A doorman decked out in a dark, gold-trimmed uniform, hat and all like an airline pilot’s, nodded and opened the door as I approached. Nodding back, I took my time so Ernest could whisk himself in first.

  The Algonquin’s lobby was nearly deserted. Subtly lit, the spacious room was elegant with all its dark wood pillars and trim. There were leather sofas, a few scattered palm trees, and a terrific old grandfather clock. All of it helped give the place a cozy, relaxed ambience. With Ernest alongside me, I marched up to a front desk that was as wide as some I’d seen in airports. A bespectacled, middle-aged lady waited there with a smile.

  “Hi, I have a reservation.”

  “What is your name, sir?” she asked, laying her manicured fingers on a computer keyboard.

  “Ernest, oh, excuse me; I mean Jack Phelan.”

  Looking over her horn-rimmed glasses now as if she were about to ask me if I was sure I knew who I was, she began to type. Feeling like a fugitive, a flimflam man, and a jerk all squeezed into one, the best I could do was offer her a weak smile. She accepted it and lowered he eyes to the screen. Ernest got a kick out of the whole deal and gave me a playful jab in the ribs. Without turning toward him, I snuck him a little elbow-shove on the chest.

  Other than that, our stay was uneventful. We each had two drinks at the Algonquin’s “Blue Bar” where some of Al Hirschfeld’s art adorned the wooden walls. The bartender told me that Mister Hirschfeld had once been a regular patron at the bar. After he left to serve some other customers, Ernest told me that Mister Hirschfeld had once done a caricature of him for a magazine cover. He also said that Hirschfeld had passed away at the age of 99 a few years back and that he had seen him “upstairs” twice.

  We didn’t stay very long at the bar, and that was a good thing because when I got the bill for my two Corona’s and Hem’s two Daiquiris, I had to hand over every penny of our remaining sixty dollars to cover them and the tip. Reluctantly letting the bills slip from my fingers, I thought how nice it must be to live above the clouds where money is not needed. I also thought how, even though it sounded like my kind of place, I was still not in a hurry to get up there. The next day would be my fourth with Ernest, and I desperately hoped that when it ended I would return to Blanche. I wanted the opportunity to love her again. I wanted to be with her for many more years before being judged. I wanted; I wanted; I wanted, but that didn’t matter. In our mortal lives we may be able to do some things that seemingly alter our destinies, but in the long run when it’s all over, we take whatever comes at us.

  Ernest and I hit the hay early that night. Check that. I should say I went to bed early. Because Ernest no longer required sleep, I didn’t have a clue what he did. For all I knew he might have spent the entire night watching old reruns of Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven.

  But when Ernest killed the lights, there were two things that I did know for sure. One was what he’d told me after we had dinner in the room. He said that if we did have one more day together, we would not be spending it in New York. The other thing that I knew, he didn’t tell me. I observed it in our room. I’d had to repeat things to Ernest. I could tell his mind was somewhere else. He was jumpy as well. He kept getting up for fresh glasses of water he didn’t drink, looking out the window, and constantly taking his eyes off the TV when he was in the bed alongside mine. He would stare at the curtains across the room, and I’d notice the lines in his weather-beaten forehead deepening. He was as nervous as I’d been in Flushing and during the cab ride back. The second thing that I knew was that wherever it was we were supposed to be going made Ernest very, very anxious.

  When I finally lay on my side and tried to sleep, I wasn’t exactly the picture of contentment either. An unruly crowd of uncertain thoughts kept merry-go-rounding in and out of my head.

  Is Ernest’s work with me going to be finished tonight? Will there be a tomorrow? Has he been ordered back to the hereafter but doesn’t have the heart to tell me? Maybe that’s it! He’s not worried about where we’re going; he’s upset that we’re not going. When is it going to happen? Any minute now? Am I going to make it back to the mortal world and be with Blanche again? God, I hope so. But what if that doesn’t happen? Am I going to ascend to eternal happiness or spend all of eternity in hell’s scorching flames? I can’t even imagine how hot it must be down there. Doesn’t your skin eventually melt off your bones? Oh shit, this is crazy. I can’t keep . . . .

  Eventually, I fell off.

  Chapter 14

  In the darkness, as if it were bashful, dawn’s first faint, gray light revealed a small hint of the horizon. The dim glow seemed to be lifting the very edge of night’s long, black skirt as it peeked from beneath it. I’d just opened my eyes and ears. The first sounds I heard were shallow water rushing over rocks and a choir of a thousand chirping crickets. After that I smelled something. It was the rich aroma of logs bur
ning in a nearby fireplace. As I lay there on my side, the pale glow on the horizon afforded just enough light to reveal two huge silhouettes on either side of it. They were mountains, twins, and early morning as it was, they appeared to be black. It was cool outside, but I was cocooned in a sleeping bag. Beneath my hip there was a hard wooden floor, and I was peering beneath the bottom of a deck’s railing. When I raised my head to have a better look around, I heard Ernest’s voice.

  “Morning, Jack.”

  I turned my head up and around, and there he was sitting upright on a long wooden bench. After trying to focus on him a little better in the darkness, I said, “Hey, Ernest, how are you doing?”

  “I’m okay, all things considered.”

  “Where are we?” I asked, sitting up.

  “Ketchum. Ketchum, Idaho. My last home. We’re on the second floor deck. Did you sleep well? It seemed like you did.”

  “Idaho, huh? Hmmm, somehow I’m not surprised,” I said, surveying the surroundings a little more. “Yeah, I had a little trouble falling off in New York last night. But after that, I slept alright.”

  I got up and sat on the bench beside him. Hunched over with my elbows on my knees, I turned to look at him. “Why are we out here? How come we didn’t sleep inside?”

  “I didn’t want to go inside until it got light out.”

  Being it was so early and I’d just woken up, my mind wasn’t yet running on all its cylinders. I missed his point completely. Not yet realizing the reason for his apprehension, I tried to be funny.

  “You didn’t want to go inside until it was light? What are you afraid of . . . ghosts or something?”

  “Yes,” he said, “As a matter of fact I am. But not the kind you’re talking about. What I’m not looking forward to are the reminders inside and the memories of my last morning here.”

  “Oh, shit, Ernest. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’m not awake yet. Forgive me, man.”

  “Aaaaaahhh, forget about it, Jack,” he waved me off. “I’ll be okay.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while after that. The silence probably didn’t last more than ten or twenty seconds but seemed longer. I felt like an A-1 shit.

  Finally Ernest said, “This coffee was sitting here when we arrived, with this extra cup. How about some?”

  “You bet,” I said.

  As he poured the steaming liquid into a cup, I looked at the tall metal flask he was tilting. I’d seen Ernest with it before in old black and white photographs inside books. I also remembered reading somewhere that for many years he’d taken it with him on many of his trips.

  After we both took a sip of the coffee, he said, “Well, Jacky my boy, today is going to be it. I don’t know when we’ll part ways, but it can happen any time. It could be in five minutes. It could be tonight after you go to sleep. Either way I just want to tell you that I’ve really enjoyed being with you. We’ve had a few laughs, haven’t we?”

  “We sure have. And I want to tell you it’s been an honor to meet you.”

  “Oh shit, Jack, don’t start getting all sappy on me now.”

  “Alright,” I said, raising my eyes from my coffee to the new pink light now splaying on the mountains, “but I just wanted you to know that. It has been an honor and a learning experience. Damned frightening at times and more fun than a barrel of monkeys at others.”

  “Well . . . if you do get to write that book He has in mind, do a good job. You’ve got the writer in you, Jack. I know that now.”

  “You do, do you?” I said, looking him square in those brown eyes of his. “How do you know? You haven’t seen me write a single syllable.”

  “See that magenta light,” he said, pointing to the top edge of the sun now shining on the horizon. “The Man responsible for that and all the other beauty on this planet has allowed me access to some of your thoughts.”

  Straightening up on the wooden bench now, I spun around.

  “You mean you’ve been reading my mind all this time? Ever since we met in front of your House in Key West?”

  “Come on now, pay attention to the details. Always observe the details. You know what they say about them.” Lifting his white eyebrows now and speaking more slowly, he went on, “What I said was, He has allowed me access to some of your thoughts. And a few of the times when I got inside your head, I saw some very creative and insightful thoughts.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Ernest, but this gets freakier and freakier.”

  He said nothing. He just looked at me as if he knew exactly what I was going to say next.

  “You’re in there again, aren’t you?”

  “Go ahead, Mister Phelan,” he said teasingly. “What did you want to say?”

  “Oh, so it’s Mister Phelan now?”

  We both just looked at each other now. It was as if we were wrestling with our eyes to see who would give up first. But that didn’t happen. Neither of us surrendered. Instead, at the exact same instant, we both let out a long, loud breath. “Pfffffffff,” we sounded like air rushing out of two overinflated balloons. Then we let loose. We cracked up the way two close friends on the same humorous wavelength sometimes do. With his belly bouncing with each laugh, Ernest gave me a little whack in the back of the head.

  “Hey! How do you know it doesn’t still hurt back there,” I snapped, and we laughed even harder.

  When finally we calmed down, we were gasping for air and panting like two marathon dropouts. I wiped the tears from my eyes and managed to say, “Okay, okay, give me a for instance. Give me one example of what I’ve been thinking. Tell me something. C’mon, let’s hear it.”

  With his belly still wobbling he said, “Alright, I’ll give you just one. Let me calm down here; this is serious stuff. Okay, are you ready?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready. Go ahead.”

  He raised his eyes to the small roof over the porch and kept them there a moment before shifting them back toward me. “Okay, I think I’ve got it right. Here goes.”

  At first I thought he was setting me up. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he might go for an encore and try to make me laugh again. But he didn’t. When Ernest spoke, the tone of his dead-serious voice put me to mind of the one time I heard him speak before we had met. A few years earlier, I’d heard an old scratchy recording of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. As he spoke now, he used the same low, measured tone he did back then. His diction was actually reverent when he repeated the very first thought I’d had that morning. The illustrious literary giant looked out toward the new sun. With his craggy face and white beard tinted pink from the light, he put me to mind of Mount Rushmore in the early morning. But just as quickly as that vision had come, it disappeared when he spoke.

  Slowly he said, “In the darkness, as if it were bashful, dawn’s first faint gray light revealed a small hint of the horizon. The dim glow seemed to be lifting the very edge of night’s long, black skirt as it peeked from beneath it.”

  Ernest then turned his head back toward me, and a small smile rose on his face as he quietly nodded his head. As if I were his protégé and as if he were damned proud of me, he then said, “Put thoughts like that on paper, Jack, and you’ll have something. That is excellent stuff. A tad overdressed for me, but it’s your style. And it’s a very, very good one.”

  “You really do like it don’t you?”

  “Yes . . . . I do. And if you get to write His book, if you get that chance, always dig deep for your words like you did for those. Your sentences can’t always be that flowery; only at certain times should they be. But don’t worry, Jack, you’ve got good instincts. And they’ll guide you.”

  Without realizing it, I turned my cup in my hands and watched the coffee slosh just as I’d seen Ernest do a few times.

  “Thanks, Ernest,” I said. “Thanks for your confidence.” Then, looking at him again, I asked, “Do you think He’s going to let me stay? Do you think He’ll overlook the things I’ve done in my past life?”

  “That I don’t know
. I don’t know all the sins or infractions you’ve committed. We can never be sure about what He might do. But the way I see it, He must have known about your past before sending me down here.”

  “I sure hope you’re right.”

  “I think I am. I also think He could have found out about your writing capabilities on His own. But He’s got a big heart. Sure, He respects my opinion, and the feedback I give Him carries some weight, but I know, like I told you before, sending me here was a gift of sorts. Three days ago was the fiftieth anniversary of . . . of what I did to myself in the vestibule of this very house.”

  Ernest fell silent again. He was painfully ruminating over that most desperate of all solutions he chose that July morning so long ago. I said nothing. I looked out at the swirling, rushing river before us. Then I focused my eyes beyond it to the mountain peaks and said, “Are you ready to go inside?”

  He cleared his throat then took his time getting his battered old body up from the bench. Then in an uncharacteristically uncertain tone he said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 15

  The side of the deck we were on sat on a small hill. Ernest and I climbed over the railing then crab-walked down the steep slope. Reaching the bottom he said, “We’ve got to go in the back door. That’s what Mary used as the main entrance after I died. She no longer would use the front entrance. She didn’t want to walk through the foyer where I pulled both triggers that last morning.”

  Knowing there was nothing to say, I only nodded. With but a single long shadow following us on the damp grass, we made our way to a door alongside a pile of seasoned firewood. Ernest held onto the knob for a moment before turning it. He stroked the door with his eyes from the bottom to the top then held his gaze there. He took a deep breath and slowly released it. Then he said, “Okay, here we go.”