Revival (36 page)

The time passed. On July Fourth, I watched the fireworks from Portland Promenade with several thousand other people, all of us
ooh
-ing and
ahh
-ing as the peonies and chrysanthemums and diadems exploded overhead and were doubled in Casco Bay, where they swayed on the waves. In the days that followed, I went to the zoo in York, the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, and the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point. I toured the Portland Museum of Art, where three generations of Wyeths were on view, and took in a matinee performance of
The Buddy Holly Story
at Ogunquit Playhouse—the lead singer/actor was good, but no Gary Busey. I ate “lobstah” until I never wanted to see another one. I took long walks along the rocky shore. Twice a week I visited Books-A-Million in the Maine Mall and bought paperbacks which I read in my room until I was sleepy. I took my cell with me everywhere, waiting for Jacobs to call, and the call didn't come. On a couple of occasions I thought of calling
him
, and told myself I was out of my mind to even consider it. Why kick a sleeping dog?

The weather was picture-perfect, with low humidity, innocent skies, and temperatures in the low seventies, day after day. There were showers, usually at night. One evening I heard TV weatherman Joe Cupo call it “considerate rain.” He added that it was the most beautiful summer he'd seen in his thirty-five years of broadcasting.

The All-Star game was played in Minneapolis, the regular baseball season resumed, and as August approached, I began to hope that I might make it back to Colorado without ever seeing Charlie. It crossed my mind that he might have had a fourth stroke, this time a cataclysmic one, and I kept an eye on the obituary page in the
Portland Press Herald
. Not exactly hoping, but . . .

Fuck that, I was. I
was
hoping.

During the local news on July 25th, Joe Cupo regretfully informed me and the rest of his southern Maine viewing audience that all good things must end, and the heatwave currently baking the Midwest would be moving into New England over the weekend. Temperatures would be in the mid-nineties during the entire last week of July, and August didn't look much better, at least to start with. “Check those air-conditioning units, folks,” Cupo advised. “They don't call em the dog days for nothing.”

Jacobs called that evening. “Sunday,” he said. “I'll expect you no later than nine in the morning.”

I told him I'd be there.

 • • •

Joe Cupo was right about the heat
. It moved in Saturday afternoon, and when I got into my rental car at seven thirty on Sunday morning, the air was already thick. The roads were empty, and I made good time to Goat Mountain. On my way up to the main gate, I noticed that the spur leading to Skytop was open again, the stout wooden gate pulled back.

Sam the security guard was waiting for me, but no longer in uniform. He was sitting on the dropped tailgate of a Tacoma pickup, dressed in jeans and eating a bagel. He put it carefully on a napkin when I pulled up, and strolled over to my car.

“Hello there, Mr. Morton. You're early.”

“No traffic,” I said.

“Yeah, in summer this is the best time of day to travel. The Massholes'll be out in force later, headed for the beaches.” He looked at the sky, where blue was already fading to hazy white. “Let em bake and work on their skin cancer. I plan to be home, watching the Sox and soaking up the AC.”

“Shift over soon?”

“No more shifts here for any of us,” he said. “Once I call Mr. Jacobs and tell him you're on your way, that's it. Job over.”

“Well, enjoy the rest of the summer.” I stuck out my hand.

He shook it. “Any idea what he's up to? I can keep a secret; I'm bonded, you know.”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

He gave me a wink as if to say we both knew better, then waved me on. Before I went around the first curve, I watched in the rearview mirror as he grabbed his bagel, slammed the Tacoma's tailgate shut, and got in behind the wheel.

That's it. Job over
.

I wished I could say the same.

 • • •

Jacobs came slowly and carefully
down the porch steps to meet me. In his left hand was a cane. The twist of his mouth was more severe than ever. I saw a single car in the parking lot, and it was one I recognized: a trim little Subaru Outback. On the back deck was a sticker reading SAVE ONE LIFE, YOU'RE A HERO. SAVE A THOUSAND AND YOU'RE A NURSE. My heart sank.

“Jamie! Wonderful to see you!”
See
came out
she
. He offered the hand not holding the cane. It was obviously an effort, but I ignored it.

“If Astrid is here, she leaves, and leaves this minute,” I said. “If you think I'm bluffing, just try me.”

“Calm yourself, Jamie. Astrid is a hundred and thirty miles from here, continuing her recovery in her cozy little nest just north of Rockland. Her friend Jenny has kindly agreed to aid me while I complete my work.”

“I somehow doubt that kindness had much to do with it. Correct me if I'm wrong.”

“Come inside. It's hot out here already. You can move your car to the parking lot later.”

He was slow going up the steps even with the cane, and I had to steady him when he tottered. The arm I grasped was hardly more than a bone. By the time we got to the top, he was gasping.

“I need to rest a minute,” he said, and sank into one of the Shaker-style rockers that lined the porch.

I sat on the rail and regarded him.

“Where's Rudy? I thought
he
was your nurse.”

Jacobs favored me with his peculiar smile, now more one-sided than ever. “Shortly after my session with Miss Soderberg in the East Room, both Rudy and Norma tendered their resignations. You just can't get good help these days, Jamie. Present company excepted, of course.”

“So you hired Knowlton.”

“I did, and believe me, I traded up. She's forgotten more about nursing than Rudy Kelly ever knew. Give me a hand, would you?”

I helped him to his feet, and we went inside to where it was cool.

“There's juice and breakfast pastries in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want, and join me in the main parlor.”

I skipped the pastries but poured myself a small glass of OJ from a carafe in the huge refrigerator. When I put it back, I inventoried the supplies and saw enough for ten days or so. Two weeks if they were stretched. Was that how long we were going to be here, or would either Jenny Knowlton or myself be making a grocery run to Yarmouth, which was probably the closest town with a supermarket?

The guard service was finished. Jacobs had replaced the nurse—which didn't completely surprise me, given Jacobs's own increasingly iffy condition—but not the housekeeper, which meant (among other things) that Jenny must also have been cooking his meals and, perhaps, changing his bed. It was just the three of us, or so I thought then.

We turned out to be a quartet.

 • • •

The main parlor was all glass
on the north side, giving a view of Longmeadow and Skytop. I couldn't see the cabin, but I could glimpse that iron pole jutting up toward the hazy sky. Looking at it, things finally began to come together in my mind . . . but slowly, even then, and Jacobs held back the one vital piece that would have made the picture crystal clear. You might say I should have seen it anyway, all the pieces were there, but I was a guitar player, not a detective, and when it came to deductive reasoning, I was never the fastest greyhound on the track.

“Where is Jenny?” I asked. Jacobs had taken the sofa; I sat down opposite him in a wingback chair that tried to swallow me whole.

“Occupied.”

“With what?”

“None of your beeswax now, although it will be shortly.” He leaned forward with his hands clasped on the head of the cane, looking like a predatory bird. One that would soon be too old to fly. “You have questions. I understand that better than you think, Jamie—I know that inquisitiveness is a large part of what brought you here. You will have answers in time, but probably not today.”

“When?”

“Hard to tell, but soon. In the meantime, you will cook our meals and come if I ring.”

He showed me a white box—not so different in appearance from the one I'd used that day in the East Room, except this one had a button instead of a slide switch, and an embossed trade name: Notiflex. He pushed the button and chimes went off, echoing from all the large downstairs rooms.

“I won't need you to help me go to the toilet—that I can still do myself—but I'll need you standing by when I'm in the shower, I'm afraid. In case I slip. There's a prescription gel you'll rub into my back, hips, and thighs twice a day. Oh, and you'll have to bring many of my meals to my suite of rooms. Not because I'm lazy, or because I want to turn you into my personal butler, but because I tire easily and need to conserve my strength. I have one more thing to do. It's a large thing, a vitally important thing, and when the time comes, I must be strong enough to do it.”

“Happy to make and serve the meals, Charlie, but as far as the nursing part goes, I assumed Jenny Knowlton would be the one to—”

“She's occupied, as I told you, so you must take over her . . . why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was remembering the day I met you. I was only six, but it's a clear memory. I made a mountain in the dirt—”

“So you did. It's a clear memory for me, too.”

“—and I was playing with my soldiers. A shadow fell over me. I looked up and it was you. What I was thinking is that your shadow has been over me for my whole life. What I ought to do is drive away from here right now and get out from under it.”

“But you won't.”

“No. I won't. But I'll tell you something. I also remember the man you were—how you got right down on your knees with me and joined in the game. I remember your smile. When you smile now, all I see is a sneer. When you talk now, all I hear is orders: do this, do that, and I'll tell you why later. What became of you, Charlie?”

He struggled up from the sofa, and when I moved to help, he waved me away. “If you have to ask that, a smart boy grew up to be a stupid man. At least when I lost my wife and son, I didn't turn to drugs.”

“You had your secret electricity. That was
your
drug.”

“Thank you for that valuable insight, but since this discussion has no point, let's end it, shall we? Several of the rooms on the second floor are made up. I'm sure you'll find one to your taste. I'd like an egg salad sandwich for lunch, a glass of skim milk, and an oatmeal-­raisin cookie. The roughage is good for my bowels, I'm told.”

“Charlie—”

“No more,” he said, hobbling toward the elevator. “Soon you'll know everything. In the meantime, keep your bourgeois judgments to yourself. Lunch at noon. Bring it to the Cooper Suite.”

He left me there, for the time being too stunned to say a word.

 • • •

Three days went by
.

They were broiling hot outside, the horizon blurred by a constant haze of humidity. Inside, the resort was cool and comfortable. I made our meals, and although he joined me downstairs for dinner on the second night, he took all the rest in his suite. I heard the TV blaring loudly when I brought them, suggesting that his hearing had also gone downhill. He seemed especially fond of the Weather Channel. When I knocked, he always turned it off before telling me to come in.

Those days were my introduction to practical nursing. He was still able to undress and start the water for his morning shower himself—he had an invalid's shower-chair to sit on while he soaped and rinsed. I sat on his bed, waiting for him to call. When he did, I turned off the water, helped him out, and dried him off. His body was a wasted remnant of what it had been in his days as a Methodist minister, and his later ones as a carny agent. His hips stuck out like the bones of a plucked Thanksgiving turkey; every rib cast a shadow; his buttocks were little more than biscuits. Thanks to the stroke, everything slumped to the right when I helped him back to his bed.

I rubbed him down with Voltaren Gel for his aches and pains, then fetched his pills, which were in a plastic case with almost as many compartments as there are keys on a piano. By the time he'd gotten them all down, the Voltaren had had a chance to work, and he could dress himself—except for the sock on his right foot. That I had to put on myself, but I always waited until he'd hauled on his boxers. I had no interest in being eye-to-eye with his elderly schlong.

“All right,” he'd say when the sock was pulled up to his scrawny shin. “I'll do the rest myself. Thank you, Jamie.”

He always said thank you, and the TV always went on as soon as the door was closed.

Those were long, long days. The resort's pool had been drained, and it was far too hot to walk the grounds. There was a health club, though, and when I wasn't reading (there was a shitpoke excuse for a library, mostly stocked with Erle Stanley Gardner, Louis L'Amour, and old Reader's Digest Condensed Books), I exercised in solitary, air-conditioned splendor. I jogged miles on the treadmill, pedaled miles on the stationary bicycle, stepped on the StairMaster, curled hand weights.

The only station the TV in my quarters got was Channel 8 out of Poland Spring, and the reception was lousy, producing a picture too fuzzy to watch. The same was true of the wall-size job in the Sunset Lounge. I guessed there was a satellite dish somewhere, but only Charlie Jacobs was hooked up to it. I thought of asking if he would share, then didn't. He might have said yes, and I'd taken everything from him that I intended to. Charlie's gifts came with a pricetag.

All that exercise, and still I slept like shit. My old nightmare, gone for years, returned: dead family members sitting around the dining room table in the home place, and a moldy birthday cake that gave birth to huge insects.