Bathing the Lion (6 page)

“Kaspar! Finally! Thank God. It’s Vanessa. Look, we’ve got to talk. I think Dean left me this morning.”

The little girl next to him began shaking her head. “Don’t listen to her.”

Frowning, Kaspar lowered the phone and asked exasperatedly, “Why not?”

“You’ve got other things to do.”

He made a sour face while lifting the phone back up to his ear. “Why don’t you come to the store, Vanessa? Dean’s sledding up on the hill all morning and I’m here alone. I talked to him before and he told me about you two.”

Vanessa gave a surprised
oh!
and then asked, “You talked to him? What did he say?”

“He said you two fought and things were dicey.”

“Anything more? Did he say anything else?”

“No, not really. Just he was sledding and wanted to think things over up there before he made any decisions. He always says sledding is his therapy.”

Josephine stared at Kaspar while he spoke. Her expression was disconcerting. He averted his eyes.

“I didn’t see this coming, Kaspar, not at all. We’ve been having some arguments, sure, but I had no idea he felt like this. Really, it’s the truth.”

Before he could stop himself, the normally tactful Kaspar blurted out, “You
can
be a handful at times, Vanessa.”

“I know, but still, he wants to
leave
?” She paused to breathe a few times. “Out of the blue he throws this bomb at me? We’re supposed to talk about it first. You’re supposed to talk things like this out before you make such big decisions. Right?”

“I don’t know, Vanessa. I’ve never been married. It obviously depends on the people involved. Dean’s a quiet guy. You never know what’s going on with some quiet people…”

She expected him to continue but he didn’t. She waited for him to say something more but he didn’t. His silence held. “Kaspar?”

Nothing.

“Kaspar, are you still there? Did you get cut off?” Hearing nothing, she grimaced, ended the call, and tried his number again. But it just rang and rang unanswered on the other end.

Sitting in her car in the mall parking lot, Vanessa put the useless phone on the seat next to her and closed her eyes. “
Now what?
” she asked the empty space around her. She decided to do as he had suggested—go to the store and meet him there. Even a short conversation with her lover might help her regain some perspective, some balance now that all the gravity had suddenly evaporated from her life.

*   *   *

At his feet, Kaspar’s cell phone burned brightly on a green throw rug under him. Speechless, he watched it crackle and hiss as the molten plastic bubbled and melted into a blob. Its parts twisted and fused together in the intense heat. One moment he’d been talking on that phone to Vanessa. The next, he was yelping against the fiery pain across his palm where he was holding it.

The little girl stood with a hand extended over the small blaze on the floor. He didn’t realize until later that it did not burn the rug. When he eventually lifted the charred melted mess off the floor to throw it away, there was no mark—no blackened spot, no heat-scorched carpet pile.

“You can’t be stupid today, Muba, not today. If you’re not going to be smart on your own, then I have to help you because you’ve got to be very clever and think straight. You can’t make any mistakes today.”

Kaspar put his hand on top of his head as if to keep it from blowing off. “What the hell are you talking about? Who is ‘Muba’? What do you
want
from me?” He was angry and beginning to be afraid.

He was forty-eight years old, thirty-one pounds overweight. Seven cashmere sports jackets hung in his closet at home. There were five different kinds of mustard in his refrigerator. He’d had two serious relationships in his life. Both women (smart and accomplished—real catches) had grown terminally frustrated with him and left in similar heartbroken huffs. He succeeded in small matters with almost no effort at all because of his great natural charm and the not-so-common ability to give something his full attention when it interested him.

But the few times in his life when the stakes had been high and he was put to the test, he’d always either chickened out or failed. It didn’t bother him though because more often than not, Kaspar Benn was genuinely satisfied with things easy for him to obtain—good food, women who said yes more than they said no, elegant clothes that made him look and feel both more prosperous and attractive than he was.

Somewhere in our life’s cast of characters most of us know a person like Kaspar. These people are fun to be around but not essential. If we don’t encounter them for months or even years it doesn’t matter. When they show up at a party, we think, oh good, I haven’t seen them for ages. Often it’s difficult to pinpoint when you last
did
see them or what you talked about. They are effusive in their greetings, entertaining; their many stories make you laugh and gasp—lots of flash and good fun. They’re sort of like Italian variety shows on TV. But just like those shows, you forget about them quickly. Accused by one of his girlfriends of being facile, Kaspar said, “I make no pretense.” She shot back, “No, you make no
effort
.”

The little girl Josephine now said to him, “You have to go see Edmonds. You have to find him right now.”

Kaspar didn’t know what she was talking about. “Edmonds? Who’s Edmonds?”

“William Edmonds. Find him and talk to him. He’ll help you. He sent me to get you.” She lifted her arm and looked at her yellow wristwatch. “You don’t have any time to waste. Everything happens today. Find him.”

*   *   *

Edmonds knew she would be there when he turned around but felt in no hurry to see her. Eating from a plastic cup filled with bland butterscotch pudding, he stared out the small window at his snow-covered backyard. He was hoping to see some birds but today there were none.

“Did you tell him?” he asked, with his back still turned to the girl.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He was confused.”

Edmonds sniffed the pudding. “I’ll bet.”

Josephine pulled her hair. “I did what you told me to do with his phone—I set it on fire.”

“Good—it always gets people’s attention.”

“But why make me do it? Why couldn’t I just tell him to come and talk to you?”

The gray-haired man put down the pudding. “People are like pigs lying in mud—nothing gets them to move except food or danger. I heard Kaspar Benn is a lazy guy. He needs encouragement.”

“But you could have just asked him to come.” Her voice was defiant, offended.

“True.” Edmonds turned now and looked at the girl. Her face was solemn and set—she was prepared to argue with him about this. “Thanks for your opinion. Now go away.”

She vanished.

*   *   *

Edmonds could not stop blaming himself for the death of his wife, although she’d died of liver cancer and there was nothing he could do about it but hold her hand while she wasted away. Eventually, when his remorse got so bad, he underwent analysis. His doctor said guilt was like a traffic light: A pedestrian comes to a red light. After looking both ways and seeing the coast is clear, he decides to ignore the warning and cross the street anyway.

Guilt is that traffic light. Stop—don’t do this because it’s dangerous/bad/selfish … Don’t smoke a cigarette. Don’t have an affair. You think you’re to blame for your wife’s death. Seeing the red light, you recognize its warning. Then you must decide whether you want to go anyway. If you cross the street and ignore the warning, you don’t think, oh no, what am I doing? Did I make the wrong decision by crossing? Should I go back and wait? Of course not—you move to the other side and keep walking. The analyst told Edmonds holding on to guilt is like carrying the red traffic light around with you, which is ridiculous.

So William Edmonds gradually learned to listen to his inner voices, consider what they said, and then make his decision. Now once he made up his mind on something he rarely looked back.

Today he’d needed the girl to convince Kaspar Benn to contact him. Mission accomplished. The fact the child didn’t approve of his method was unimportant.

*   *   *

“He’s no filet mignon; he’s not even
steak
. He’s chuck roast, maybe. London broil at best.”

This is how it began for Edmonds. It was the first thing he’d heard that morning after he sat down in the blue chair and looking out the window, asked himself, what the hell am I doing here? But he knew it was either get on the bus, or go home and kill himself. The choice was that stark and simple.

The big black and white bus sat parked at the curb with its motor running and gray exhaust fumes puffing out its pipes. The driver leaned against the side of the bus by the open door, smoking a cigarette and incuriously watching the crowd. A large group of old people stood on the sidewalk nearby, clearly waiting to board.

Earlier while walking down the street toward them, Edmonds smiled for the first time that morning when he noticed how dressed up all those oldies were. The women had high frozen hairdos that clearly indicated they’d just been to the hairdresser. Most of the men wore brand-new shoes with no creases or scuffs on them, and dark suits or perfectly pressed jackets. All of them appeared to be wearing neckties, despite the fact it was only six o’clock in the morning and their days of going to an office were long past.

Someone from the neighborhood had told Edmonds that once a month a bus parked at this spot, loaded up, and then rumbled off for a day’s outing arranged by the town or a local senior citizens’ club. It took pensioners to neighboring towns with museums or historical sites worth visiting. Sometimes they motored into the nearby national park, had a hike around, lunch, and then returned to this drop-off spot with some sun on their cheeks, tired legs, and the good feeling of knowing their cameras were full of new pictures and the day had meant something.

Approaching this crowd now, Edmonds was hit by thick waves of warring perfumes. He could imagine every single woman there spritzing on her favorite fragrance as she prepared to leave her house earlier this morning. Did the single women put on more perfume, hoping to catch the attention of the available bachelors who would be on the bus? Or was it the married gals who drenched themselves with scents so strong they almost physically stopped Edmonds when he was ten feet away? Were there many single people in this group? If so, were there more men or women? When you are sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five … are you still looking for a life partner or only a nice companion for the day?

The sight of all those dapper old people eager to be off on their day’s jaunt wearing their wide neckties and thick-as-lead perfumes, together with the thought of actually
having
a partner on a trip when you were seventy-five years old, almost cut Edmonds in half with grief and longing for his lost beloved wife. The impulse to go home and finish it, end his life, was very powerful. End this unrelenting suffering and just go to sleep forever.

He had a friend who was a cop. This guy said if done correctly, hanging yourself was the best and most painless way to die. After many beers, he even demonstrated how to do it, not noticing his pal Bill was paying very close attention.

Edmonds would be alone when he was seventy-five, he was certain of it; if he even lived
that
long. There was always the good chance he’d contract some monstrous disease like his poor wife had, which would brutally devour his insides
before
killing him.

Passing the door of the bus, he spontaneously veered hard left and climbed on. The driver saw this but said nothing. Why did Edmonds do it? Who knows? Self-preservation, or just
why the hell not
? Maybe even a blissful, utterly unexpected moment of sheer lunacy?

He was the first passenger to enter the vehicle. Walking down the narrow aisle he chose an empty seat in the middle of the bus, plopped down into it, and turned to look out the window. The cold stale air in there smelled of cigarette smoke and some kind of chemical industrial something—cleaner or the synthetic cloth on the seats?

People began appearing at the front of the aisle. Some of them glanced at him as they passed; others eased themselves slowly and carefully into seats. Many grunted and puffed while doing it, their hands and arms shaking as they performed the twists and turns their stiff old bodies needed to make so they could land in the proper place. Edmonds too had reached an age where he found it harder getting into and out of chairs, cars, bathtubs, and other places where his body had to bend at unfamiliar angles in order to fit. He often groaned unconsciously now when sitting down—either from gratitude or weariness. Yet one more real sign he was aging and the wear and tear of time was beginning to gnaw in earnest on his body.

“He’s no filet mignon; he’s not even
steak
. He’s chuck roast, maybe. London broil at best.”

A very thin woman in a pink dress was walking down the aisle, her man right behind, talking loudly to her back. When she reached the two empty seats directly in front of Edmonds she glanced at him, moved sideways into the row, and sat down by the window. Her husband followed and took the aisle seat. You could tell by the fluid way both of them moved that they were very used to this seating arrangement.

“I don’t know why you think so highly of him.”

“Ssh, not so loud; the whole bus can hear you.”

Her husband half-turned, glared at Edmonds as if he were to blame for something, and then turned back. “Okay, all right,” he lowered his voice a tad. “But really, tell me what it is about him you like so much?”

The woman took her time answering. “I like how dignified he is. I admire the way he hides his pain. It’s very … noble. Many people who lose their partners want you to know how hard it is for them being alone and what they’re going through every day. They want your pity. But not him.… You know how bad he’s hurting and what a loss it was for him. You can’t be so close to someone all those years and
not
suffer when they die. But he never shows it, never burdens you with his pain.”