by Ashton Lee
I would never go AWOL, though. It would be easy to disappear in these jungles, but none of my toy soldiers ever did anything like that. They stuck it out because that’s the way they were wired. At the end of one of the many battles I staged, I would always count up my casualties and smile. “Good job, fellas!” I would say. “You’ve served your country well.”
So I have to be at least as brave as they always were, even though I’m beginning to wish I was made out of plastic. Then I wouldn’t bleed. I couldn’t die. Like some of my buddies have already. This is no game played by a child on top of a backyard table. It’s way bigger than I am, which leads me back to the notion of God. I don’t want the role I took on as a boy—it doesn’t feel good anymore. I’m not capable of handling it. So that in itself is a form of belief. I acknowledge my mortality as I see others dying around me. I know that doesn’t seem like much to go on, but it works for me. Anyone who tells you that they aren’t frightened to the bone when they play this game of war for real is lying through his teeth.
Now I find myself on my knees at times, and I flash back to my childhood in church. That was easy. This is not. I do the best I can to imagine something greater than myself, presiding over all of this, and it sees me through. I can feel myself changing in a way I never expected, though. You will see it in me when I come home to you. Maybe you can have some potted palms waiting for me, and the fronds will be green without the tops burned away. Will you do that for me? It will be nice to see something rooted and thriving like that without a care in the world as it grows. Just some water now and then, and lots of light all the time, of course.
Miss Voncille broke off, and for a moment it was difficult to tell if she had finished or if she couldn’t continue because of the emotional toll the words were taking on her. Then she said, “I think that’s all I’ll read of this tonight. But what I’m always left with is that Frank had come away with the idea that there were no easy answers to anything. In some of his other letters, he expressed the notion that it was more spiritual to stop insisting on certainty and to question things instead. Were answers in life possible—especially when things were so difficult and traumatic? I believe he still thought so—but only after people were sorely tested and then not found wanting. That was his notion of something greater than himself, and I have to tell you, it’s mine, too. Thank you for listening to me.”
The gathering applauded politely as Miss Voncille returned to her seat and took Locke’s hand. He leaned over, taking the time to rub her arm gently several times, and appeared to be whispering something soothing to her.
“And we thank you for sharing that with us,” Maura Beth said. “I almost felt like I was there with your Frank.”
For the first time, however, she understood clearly why Miss Voncille had fallen in love so deeply with Frank Gibbons. And why it had been so difficult to forget him and go on with her life. But go on, she had, teaching history to decades of Cherico’s schoolchildren and making a name for herself doing so; and Frank’s letters had obviously encouraged her not to give up and shown her how to endure the years of loneliness to come.
15
Charles Durden Sparks—Step Two
Cutty Sark had always been a friend to Councilman Sparks. He didn’t particularly like the taste, which had driven him to dilute it with soda. The hangovers the stuff had caused him over the years were off-the-charts nasty and head throbbing. But scotch and soda was such a glamorous drink. It was in lots of Hollywood scripts, A-list, B-list, and particularly the film noir genre, and he enjoyed the fantasy that he was one of those razor-sharp detectives or playboys who were always guzzling it while eyeing the sexy, buxom girls. It never failed to deliver the buzz he needed to feel he was on top of the world even when he wasn’t.
Tonight, he wasn’t. Having finished his note to Evie, he felt like he was staring up at the sky from the bottom of a deep well. How had he fallen so far in his own mind? Well, no matter. Three, maybe even four scotch and sodas would take him where he needed to go. So he went over to the wet bar and retrieved the bottle of Cutty he had been working on for a month or so. Only tonight he intended to finish it off.
“Do your thing,” he muttered to the bottle as he poured the first drink into one of the crystal tumblers Evie had bought for him. It was no accident that he chose not to include the soda. It would be scotch on the rocks this time.
He returned to his favorite armchair and took a big swig. “Just . . . do your thing,” he mumbled again.
Of course the liquor did not answer him as he swallowed more of it, making a lot of noise rattling the ice cubes. When he had drained the first drink, he poured another one and then started in on it. This time, he chugged. That buzz could not overtake him fast enough, but his nearly empty stomach would serve him well here.
“That’s . . . better,” he said out loud, hoisting the tumbler as if someone else were in the room with him making a toast.
But he was still not satisfied. He got up again, a little less steady than before, and poured out a good, stiff third round. He had to do Step Two up right. There must be no mistakes. He wanted no messes.
By the time the third one had begun circulating throughout his veins, he was nearly where he wanted to be. He was in control by losing control. He even laughed at the irony of it.
“I call the shots,” he said to the empty room where he always liked to retreat to brainstorm his political moves. “I . . . always have to call the shots.”
He was manifestly drunk. He knew it. He felt it. It had come faster because he wanted it. Once again, he liked where his beloved Cutty Sark had taken him. But he had one more step before he arrived at his destination. Step Three was in the pocket of his shirt. He reached up with the fingers of his free hand and palpated them through the fabric. They were still there, waiting for him. Waiting to do their mischief.
Just a few minutes longer to enjoy the buzz from the alcohol. Just a few blissful moments. Then he would proceed.
16
Pamela Linwood
Locke Linwood had just taken his place at the podium. Dressed in his three-piece gray suit with silver tie, his skin a healthy pink and his full head of white hair meticulously brushed in place, he looked as bright and shiny as tinsel on a Christmas tree. Only when Miss Voncille nodded his way, however, did he open the small brown journal he had brought with him for his inspirational presentation.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I am going to read a selection from my late wife’s diary that she kept from the day she was diagnosed with breast cancer to a few days before she left me. I never really knew just how strong Pamela was until she entrusted me with these writings and I finally worked up the courage to read them all. It took me a while to let her leaving really sink in. But once I began reading, I was sorry I hadn’t done so sooner. I think you’ll see why when I proudly share the following passages with you.”
I can’t pretend I’m happy that I’ve been told that not only do I have this aggressive cancer, but that it has also metastasized. That will only make it that much harder to treat and greatly reduce my chances for survival. But something began to happen to me when I took a deep breath and looked at this diagnosis as the elephant in the room. My mortality kicked in big-time. Did I actually think I was going to live forever? When I was very young, I thought so. Several of my girlfriends and I thought so every time we stayed up all night at slumber parties talking about boys and love and what we wanted to be when we grew up. I even think I continued to believe in immortality well into middle age. Could anything touch the privileged life I’ve led all these happy years with my dear Locke? Could saying good-bye to it really happen to me?
Well, something relentless has touched me now, and I have to face the strong possibility that I may have to leave my wonderful Locke behind. I have to prepare him for that eventuality with my ongoing attitude.
Do I have the right to fall apart? Yes.
Do I want to do that? No.
I’ve been considering that age-
old question: What comes next? We all think of it now and then, even if we never admit it. I’ve come up with three possibilities. The first is that I will simply go to sleep. There is nothing to fear in that. My good friend, Beverly Norris, is an atheist, and she insists that that is what will happen to all of us. She doesn’t say it out of anger or certainty, and when I asked her one time if she thought she could be wrong about it, she said quite calmly, “Of course.” I liked the fact that she spoke to me out of her own comfort zone. She wasn’t proselytizing or anything close to that. So, she didn’t end up turning me off of the possibility that quiet, peaceful sleep could be an end result.
The second possibility is that I will encounter something along the lines of the traditional religious teachings I have embraced more or less throughout the years. I have no quarrel with the Episcopal Church. I have taken communion all these years, and I know what that is supposed to prepare us for. There isn’t much more to say here, except that I have never rebelled against traditional teachings.
Because the third possibility is the one that really intrigues me. Suppose it’s not the first two. Instead, it’s something completely amazing, and at the same time, surprising beyond words. Not Heaven. Not Hell. Not Purgatory. Not Limbo. Suppose it’s something no one ever thought of because we are all bound by these finite bodies that wear out? And only until they completely wear out or we are thrown out of them under disastrous circumstances do we see the universe as it really is. Suddenly, we are on a different wavelength. The projector shows us something that’s never been advertised in the theaters. There was no trailer to intrigue us. Not everything is meant to be seen or heard or felt. Does that mean it does not exist?
So, I return to the premise that while I don’t have certainty in this life, there is likely some benefit to fighting until the end. Whatever else life is, it is most certainly not to be thrown away. I steadfastly refuse to say, “Why me?” I say instead, “I am worth fighting for, no matter what comes next.”
I will undergo this dreadful chemo and await the outcome. If it turns out I am unable to keep this journal any longer, I will tell Locke that I want him to read it when he feels up to it. That I want him to return to it whenever he misses me, which I know he will. Our life together has been like a long-run Broadway hit. It’s just that there are no understudies for us. Yes, we have Carla and Locke Jr. to show for it, but they have their own roles to play in their own lives. All we did was bring them to the auditions.
I do know that I feel better when I write down these ramblings of mine. Some would say I am talking to myself. Others would say I am talking to God. Whatever the case, I am not going to give up. I am going to fight and fight hard until the end. Because I believe life matters.
Locke closed the journal and nodded graciously. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the contribution of Pamela Alden Linwood to our little gathering here tonight. Her words are her presence, and I feel it strongly.”
“And I feel it, too,” Miss Voncille added, her voice as soft and soothing as anyone had ever heard. “I’ll always be eternally grateful to this remarkable woman for helping Locke let go by showing us how she was going to do it herself.”
The emotion clearly registered in Locke’s face as he made his way back to his seat to the applause of the group. “Thank you, one and all,” he managed as he and Miss Voncille hugged warmly.
“Oh, my,” Maura Beth said, returning to the podium and fanning her face quickly a few times as a beauty pageant contestant who had just won it all might have. “I do believe we’re getting our money’s worth tonight. These presentations are just what the doctor ordered. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m feeling better about our problems here in Cherico already. I knew there would be strength in numbers.”
17
Charles Durden Sparks—Step Three
The little round yellow Valium tablets Councilman Sparks had stolen from Evie’s medicine cabinet were burning a hole in his shirt pocket as he sat soaked in scotch, feeling sorry for himself. He put down his crystal tumbler on a nearby end table and retrieved them, one by one, until he had all five of them in the palm of his hand. As he had done before with the bottle of scotch, he began speaking to his wife’s drug of choice as if they were old friends.
“And now . . . you little high-dosage devils will do your job.”
Then he realized he had completely drained his last drink and had nothing to use as a chaser. So he rose, this time even more unsteady on his feet, made his way to the wet bar with his glass, and poured a small amount of soda into it. Just enough to swallow the pills.
He didn’t swallow them all together. Instead, he made an elaborate ritual of downing them one at a time. He placed each pill on the tip of his tongue and let it linger there for a few seconds. He decided to count to ten silently before bringing the soda into play. Wasn’t this a countdown?
When the last little devil had been sent to his stomach, he decided to pick up the note he had written to Evie and read it one last time. While he still could. But he didn’t start at the beginning. Instead, his eyes landed on certain phrases:
. . . and I was entrusted with the care and feeding of Cherico by my father and Layton Duddney . . . I have failed miserably in that . . . and perhaps you have forgiven me for not being able to provide us with children, but I haven’t been able to forget . . . you get more comfort from Bonjour Cheri . . . our poodle is a better companion to you . . . I like to pretend I’ve accomplished something, but all I’ve done is boss people around . . . I should have kept the Spurs ’R’ Us CEO on a shorter leash, too . . . We really needed those jobs . . . I really blew that, I guess . . . I know in my heart what I am . . . and I believe you and all of Cherico will be better off without me . . .
Oddly, as his faculties began to fade, one particular insight stuck out. Miss Voncille had been right about him all along. She had as much as told him that he was a different kind of bully, lording it over people intellectually and not wanting them to have even a brief second of the limelight in the classroom. She had finally taken him aside one afternoon after the bell had rung, and her harsh words were still branded on his brain as if she had spoken them to him yesterday.
“There are many other students sitting around you, Durden Sparks. You have no sense of fairness the way you fret and fume and squint at me. I simply can’t call on you every time your hand goes up, and you should know that by now. You’d better learn it right now—the universe doesn’t revolve around you!”
He had called her a bitch mentally, and then as soon as he was out in the hallway, he had actually uttered the word several times over with ferocity: “Bitch, bitch, bitch!”
A couple of students walking by had even turned their heads and wondered what in the world could be bothering the school’s most accomplished student so much that he would have such a public tantrum.
But Miss Voncille had nailed it. He wanted to shine every second, and he knew even then that he would be capable of doing anything to make sure that happened. What kind of legacy was that? Oh, sure, his name would be on that library Maura Beth and Nora Duddney had forced him to build, and he had taken full credit for it. But he still didn’t believe in libraries, even though he had recently told Maura Beth something along those lines. He had also told her that she was now a member of his team. But he was lying both times. He wanted to get rid of her, or conquer her, or subdue her, but he had been unable to do any of those things. She was her own woman, and he just didn’t know what to do with someone like that.
More importantly, she had rejected him—the first woman to do so in his life of conquests. How could she have failed to fall for his charms? She obviously took her idealism to heart. He had abandoned his a long time ago, if he had ever had any to begin with. Perhaps it was missing from his DNA.
He thought of Nora’s father, Layton Duddney, propped up in bed out at the nursing home, essentially waiting to die. But Layton was not forcing the issue. He was simply waiting patiently for the inevitable.
Step Three was now complete. Charles Durden Sparks put the note down on the end table next to his glass and closed his eyes.
18
James Hannigan
Everyone’s favorite grocer briskly stepped to the podium and scanned the library gathering with flushed, pudgy cheeks and a warm smile. His Cherico Market continued to be a mainstay of the town, and James Patrick Hannigan—Mr. Hannigan to his many customers—was the main reason for it. While other businesses were moving away or had failed outright—including one of the big, impersonal, national grocery chains out on the bypass—The Cherico Market was the place to shop, meet up with friends for a chat, and post notices and flyers on the cork bulletin board.
Yes, it was true that everyone had to buy groceries, but Mr. Hannigan went the extra mile and treated his customers as family, and he had helped Maura Beth immeasurably by making announcements over the PA system during her petition campaign to keep the library open. He had provided her with an enormous chunk of signatures that had kept Councilman Sparks and his machinations at bay.
“I believe I know every single one of you in the audience tonight,” Mr. Hannigan began. “I see y’all in the store at least once a week. Some of you, maybe more. Hey, you know what kinda diet you’re on better’n I do.”
Heads nodded as a wave of polite laughter erupted.
“I had thought I’d maybe start off tonight with a little anecdote about me trying to wrestle the communion chalice away from Father O’Beirne at St. Mary’s down in Natchez where I grew up,” he continued. “But I realized there wasn’t much to the story—I just loved the taste of that wine so much, I wanted more than what everybody else was getting. That little sip just wasn’t enough. Father was okay with it in the end, but my mother grounded me for two whole weeks and made me say about a thousand Hail Marys.”
