The Leisure Seeker (23 page)

John scoots up next to me, laughing. “You almost ran over that bear,” he manages to croak out between guffaws.

“Just about gave me a heart attack,” I say, starting to chuckle myself. I’m sure it was quite the sight.

Main Street U.S.A. is like an old town square. We scoot around for a while, looking at city hall, the movie theater, the penny arcade. We roll past a little café, half indoor and half out,
where a man is playing old ragtime piano. We zip in and sit awhile. When a waitress approaches we tell her that we just want to sit a little and listen to the music. She says we have to order something, so we both get Cokes. The man at the piano plays “I Don’t Know Why” and “California, Here I Come.” It makes me wish we could have brought the kids and all the grandkids here, but considering nobody even wanted
us
to go on this vacation, I guess that probably wouldn’t have happened.

We are outside “The Enchanted Tiki Room” when it happens. One minute I was in line, listening to the birds sing “In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room,” the next minute, I’m on the ground flanked by Disneyland paramedics and surrounded by onlookers. I have no idea what happened.

“Who are you?” I say to one of the young men, who’s just put an awful-smelling inhalant under my nose.

“How do you feel?” he says to me.

“I feel a little woozy, that’s all.” I don’t mention the screaming discomfort in my side where I must have fallen, or the fact that my entire body feels like a sack of potatoes that’s fallen off the truck and rolled seven blocks.

“We’re taking you to the hospital, ma’am,” he says to me, all muscles and confidence and conked blond hair. He must be a weight lifter. His head is connected directly to his shoulders. I look for his neck, but it’s nowhere to be found in his paramedic jumpsuit. He reminds me of Jack LaLanne, only bigger and stupider.

I have a gander at the other guy, an older black fellow on the heavy side. He says nothing. I turn back to Jack LaLanne.

“You’re not taking me to the fucking hospital,” I yell.

I hear a collective gasp around me. All these fine Disney citizens, indulging their morbid curiosity by rudely standing around watching the old cow passed out on her keister, are simply appalled by my language. I look up to see a gigantic Mickey Mouse. He ratchets his head around at the kids present, then holds his hands up over his giant mouse ears.

“We have to, ma’am. It’s Disneyland protocol.”

I pull my arm away from him. I try to sit up, but he holds me down. I don’t put up much of a fight because everything discomforts so bad.

“I don’t care what it is, I’m not going,” I say. “I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy. I’m not used to these contraptions of yours.” I don’t see John anywhere. “Where’s my husband?”

Jack LaLanne looks at me like,
she’s going to be trouble
. And he’s right. I’m not going to any hospital. I am done with hospitals.

“He’s over by our ambulance,” he finally says. “He seems disoriented. Does he have Alzheimer’s, ma’am?”

“He has a little dementia,” I say, one of my biggest fibs yet this trip. Saying John has a little dementia is like saying I have a little cancer.

I’m getting mad now, and I get even madder when I see someone come up with a stretcher. “I’m not getting on that goddamn thing!” I yell, not even knowing where I get the
strength to scream like that. All the people around us look alarmed, but not as much as Jack and his pal.

I know once they have me on that, all is lost. They will take me to the hospital, and this trip will not have its proper close. I don’t know where I pull it out from, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize that they are ones I can hold on to.

“If you put me on that, I will sue Disneyland for a million dollars.”

There’s nothing like a look of fear on the face of a heavily muscled man.

“I will do it, so help me God, you put me on that thing.” I cross my arms and try to keep from wincing. I narrow my eyes at him. “And it will be
your fault
.”

Jack waves off the stretcher for the moment. “Ma’am, there’s something wrong with you,” he says, voice straining. “We need to find out what it is.” I can see a hint of true concern reveal itself across his lantern jaw, but I don’t care. I will play this hand to the end.

“I know what’s wrong with me and I don’t need to go to any hospital to find out. I’m fine. Just help me up, get me back on that cart, and we will get out of Disneyland. You won’t have to bother with us ever again.”

He’s weighing his options now. He takes a breath, glances over at his partner, exchanges a look, then turns back to me. “We’ll have to have you sign a complete release, saying that you refused all medical assistance.”

“I don’t care. I’ll sign whatever you want. Just get us the hell out of here.”

“Fine,” says Jack LaLanne, brusquely. He’s disgusted.

Of course he’s disgusted. I won.

After the cab drops us off at the Leisure Seeker (a first if there ever was one), I take my very last two little blue pills, give John a Valium, and we both sleep for a long, long time. The discomfort nudges me every so often, so I drift in and out, dreaming of my children, of vacations we have taken together and of some that we haven’t. I dream of Kevin, the sadness always present in his eyes, the sadness to come. I dream of Cynthia, how she will be the strong one, bearing whatever happens, just like she always has. They will be fine, my dream self tells me. They know that their mother and father have always loved them, that whatever happens at the end of a life does not represent the entire life.

When I awaken, the discomfort is still there, but a bit more tolerable. The alarm clock in the van reads 8:07
P.M
. The place is stuffy and sick-sweet smelling. It doesn’t take me long to realize that our little fridge has conked out.

It’s dark in the van, so I decide to put on a light. I had the presence of mind when we went to bed to bring our battery-powered lantern. As I lean over to reach for it, I almost lose consciousness again. I sit and pant for a minute or so before I can reach the lamp. I wipe my forehead. I click it on and the
bulb winks, then slowly shudders as a brownish dim barely illuminates the room. The batteries are going, but it is the perfect light level for my eyes. I lie back down, still winded, but less so now. My body has taken a surprising amount of abuse this trip, more than even I thought it could take, certainly more than my doctors could have suspected.

It was all worth it. This trip, despite all that has happened, was well worth it. I’m sorry if I worried the children, but I have spent all of my adult life worrying about them, so I’m just going to call it even.

Beside me, John’s snoring is like the sound of ragged sheets being ripped. After every third or fourth snore, there is a long period where his breath seems to suspend itself. It is after one of these that he snorts so loudly that he wakes himself. John rouses and searches my face with his eyes. I don’t think he quite recognizes me at the moment.

“Is this home?” he asks, his voice grainy with sleep.

I nod my head.

I check and see that he must have wet himself a little, but it does not upset me, not tonight. I decide that while I still have the strength, I will clean him up, change his underwear. Every mother’s car accident rule. I unbuckle John’s pants and attempt to yank them out from under him. For once, he cooperates and lifts his bottom. I pull his pants down, shorts and all, but even with him cooperating, they don’t come off easily. I soon find out why. John has an erection like I haven’t seen on him in many years.

“Well, look at you!” I say. “You old dog.”

I’m still not sure he recognizes me, but he smiles at me, a smile I recognize.

I pull off his shoes, strip the pants off him, breathing through my mouth, trying not to look at his underpants for it would surely ruin what I’m feeling right now. I hide it all in a storage area near the foot of our bed. I take out his wallet and toss it onto the table. I turn off the lantern.

There is a catch in John’s breath as I touch my hand to his penis, and I realize that I had forgotten that sound he makes. It makes me smile and pulls me away from this ancient faltering body of mine. I look at his eyes, dreamy half closed, but locked into mine. I wonder if this could possibly work, I think to myself.

Why not? I think. Why not?

The twinge of desire I felt days before when John touched me as he helped me into the trailer, I feel it again, only more so. I feel it through the pain, through the bruises on my body, through my shrugging flesh, my vast life scribbled upon it. I feel it through my nausea, through my will to die.

“Ella,” John says to me as I continue to stroke him, the skin dryer now, his eyes clearer. “Ella.”

I can’t think of anything I would have wanted to hear more right now than my name. My husband looks at me, pulls himself up, moves toward me, over me.

This is something the body does not forget.

When the pain awakens me again, it is 1:17
A.M
. John is sleeping so hard from the other Valium I gave him, he is not even snoring. The rhythm of his breath seems almost random at this moment. The exhalations, when they come, are long and shallow, a
shhhhh,
as if he is lulling us to a place of quiet. There is something so sweetly familiar to all this, after a lifetime of making love to this man, that it almost stops me from getting up to do what I have to do.

I get up anyway.

The moon is high and full, and the interior of the Leisure Seeker is lit with an opalescent mist that highlights only the edges of things. As I stand, I grab the table to steady myself. I move carefully toward our little cardboard chest of drawers, my legs stiff, but not shaky. Surprising, considering the exercise they got tonight. From the chest, I gather a favorite terry-cloth nightgown for myself and a pair of clean underwear for John. I pull the gown over my head, settle the spongy, loose fabric over my hips and legs.

I just decide to leave John in his T-shirt, dingy as it is. I tug the underwear on over his legs, but don’t quite get them over his bottom. As if cooperating unconsciously, he turns on his side toward me and I’m able to scoot them up far enough for decency’s sake. I pull the covers over John to keep him warm, then I kiss his salty forehead, and say good night to my darling husband.

For the moment, I gently rest my pillow over his left ear. He does not rouse from his sleep. I locate my purse and pluck the keys from a side pocket. I turn on the lantern, but it’s even dimmer now, barely enough to guide me.

I open the side door of the van. Outside, the Best Destination RV Park is absolutely quiet. The night air is cool against my legs, against the dampness between them. I look up. Above, there are no stars, only clouds moving faster than I think I’ve ever seen them move, long silvery forms skating across blue-black sky, voided only by the colossal silhouette of the Mickey Mouse water tower. There is an acrid hint of marigold in the air.

Quietly, I click shut the door, close all the windows, and make my way to the driver’s seat. I squeeze my eyes closed as I turn on the ignition of the Leisure Seeker. The initial growl of the engine is the part that I fear will wake John, but it doesn’t. Before long, the idle steadies to a muted rumble. Hazy tendrils of exhaust enter the van.

I get up from the driver’s seat and carefully maneuver myself back into the living area of the van, where the lantern is now glowing brown, a kind of antilight. I’m comfortable in this dimness. I am not sleepy yet, but I already feel more like John, unable to discern dream from reality.

While I still can, I shuffle through my purse for my ID, then place it on the table. I do the same with John’s driver’s license, then I get up from the bench, and go lie down next to him.

I am ready for bed.

Before long, I start to get drowsy. I feel as I do after a long night of sleeplessness—that moment when one is conscious, actually conscious, of being tugged into slumber. You sense yourself entering the realm of sleep, watch yourself lie down there, settle comfortably into nothingness. The crevice of light narrows as the bedroom door is closed.

What’s different is that usually that moment of awareness is what awakens you again, pulls you back into consciousness, but not this time. I know now that we have found that place between dark and light, between waking and sleeping.

Our travels end here and, simply put, it’s a relief. At this point, I do have to say that I am sorry for what this might do to the children, how it might look, but I’ve explained it all in a letter that will be opened after all this. Lawyers, it seems, are actually good for something. Arrangements have been made, affairs put in order. Hell, maybe we’ll even get out of paying what I’m sure will be an outrageous Visa bill.

I know this all seems horrible and shocking and lurid, but I have to tell you, it really isn’t. Long ago, John and I made up our own rules, crafted from the most mundane of things: mortgages, jobs, children, quarrels, ailments, routine, time, fear, pain, love, home. We built a life together and will happily do what comes after together. I say if love is what bonds us during our lives, why can’t it still somehow bond us, keep us together after our deaths?

End on a high point, I say. This has been a great vacation. I really had a good time. Had we stayed home, it would have all gotten worse a lot sooner, believe you me. I would have
suffered much, much more. I’d have been subjected to all the indignities that modern medicine has to offer and nothing would have changed. Eventually, I would be sent home to die. Then after, despite his wishes, John would be put into a nursing home. For him, there would be a final decline of a year or two or three, each worse than the other.

But then, that’s the sad ending. One of us without the other. It’s what would happen if I didn’t end the story this way. It may be hard to believe, but this, right here? This is the happy ending, friend. What we all want, but never get.

This is not always what love means, but this is what it means for us today.