The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted (12 page)

I arrived the next day much later than I’d intended; there’d been a bad accident on the turnpike that had stopped traffic, then slowed it for miles. I pulled up to the house and saw Michael on the front porch, in the rocker. I stepped out of the car, and he watched me walk over to him. His hair was cut wildly unevenly; shocks of it stuck up here and there amid areas that had been shaved close to his head. “Hey,” I said.

“Come for the gipper, huh?” He lit a cigarette.

I sat on the steps beside him and stared out into the woods. This view. This land. This house.

“I’m not going,” he said.

I turned to face him, and he leaned in closer to me. “Do you blame me?”

“Michael,” I said.

He held out his pack of Camels. “Cigarette?”

I had never smoked. “No, thanks,” I told him. “I’ll wait for you to finish. But then I have to take you to the hospital. I’m sorry I got here late; we’ll have to leave right away, I’m afraid.”

He squinted up at the sky, a cloudless blue.

“I have to pee,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I cut through the house to get to the privy, and saw Michael’s calendar on his desk. He’d written things on there, but it was not his usual penmanship, and things were grossly misspelled:
Simfhoany with M.!
he’d written on one of the days. I put my hand over my mouth and looked at other entries, all misspelled and some completely unintelligible.

Then I moved to the window and looked out at the back of Michael’s head, those tufts of hair. He moved the rocker gently back and forth. He was wearing untied sneakers, a 90

t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d pair of gray corduroy pants, and a pink dress shirt, the sleeves unbuttoned. There was a plastic bottle beside him with what looked like sediment from apple juice coating the bottom. I wondered if he’d eaten. I wondered if he could answer accurately if I asked him. I wouldn’t ask him.

I’d just make him something and offer it to him, and then we’d have to go.

When I went back into the house, I opened the refrigerator. A terrible stench came from there—it seemed as though every single thing in it was rancid. I closed it quickly and moved over to the shelves, looking for crackers. There were some wheat crackers, and I brought the box outside. I held it out to Michael, and he said, “What’s this?” in a way that made me wonder if he was asking literally. “I thought maybe you might want to eat something,” I said. “Got some crackers here. Are you hungry?”

He pooched his lips out, as though he were considering, then said, “When was the last time
you
were flossed?”

I half laughed. “What—?”

He reached out and grabbed my crotch.

“Michael.”
I pushed his hand away.

He turned from me and stared straight ahead. He lit another cigarette, though one already burned in the ash-tray. “You know, you’ve got one going,” I told him.

A car came down the road, pulled into the driveway, and a man stepped out, slammed the door, and looked up with a big smile on his face. It quickly disappeared.

“Michael?”

Michael stood, and I saw that his pants were barely hanging on. He’d lost so much weight. He hiked them up, then stood there with his hands on his hips. “I know you.”

The man nodded. “I was your summer helper a few years ago.”

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“Don.”

“Well, it’s Bradley, actually.”

“Bradley,” Michael said. “I remember.”

I introduced myself. I was trying to think of a way to tell the man what was happening here. But then Michael said, “I’ve been sick. Had a little brain surgery.”

Bradley nodded vigorously.

Michael put his arm around me. “This is a friend who’s come up to visit.” He stumbled and sat back down heavily in the rocker. “Christ.”

“Well,” Bradley said, “I won’t keep you, then.”

Michael rocked in his chair. “No.”

“I just was out here in the area and remembered you, and thought I’d stop by.”

Michael rocked and rocked.

“It was a nice summer,” Bradley said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who knew so much about so many things. I still miter corners the exact way you showed me.

I still play the Mozart tape you gave me, play it most every morning while I shave.”

Michael stopped rocking and stared sadly ahead.

“So anyway. Just wanted to stop by. . . . I’ll come back another day, I know this isn’t a good time.”

“Another day,” Michael said. “Yes.”

“Okay, then, take care, Michael.” Bradley got back in his car and drove off. I had seen a wedding ring on his finger, and I imagined the conversation he’d have with his spouse later on. “Jesus, can you imagine? I didn’t know
what
to do.”

A great tenderness arose in me, and I embraced Michael from behind, put my arm loosely around his neck and kissed the top of his head. “Yup,” he said.

“We have to go, sweetheart.”

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“Where?” he whispered.

“I have to take you to the hospital. Sam was going to do it, but he can’t.”

“Hernia repair,” Michael said.

“Yes.” I closed my eyes. “Yes, that’s right.”

Michael stood and started for the house. “Be right back,” he said. I waited on the porch for a while, wondering where Sally the pig had gone. Michael’s friends who lived in the area had done a lot to help, and one of the things they’d done was to find homes for the animals. Not a single one was left, not even a dog. The grass grew high in the pens; the gates were all open. The potter down the road had told me they’d left the oldest cocker with him for a while, Lilly was her name, but he hadn’t been able to care for her—forgot to feed her, to let her in and out. “I bring her by to visit,” the woman had said. “Lately, though, he doesn’t really seem to care.”

From inside, I heard a crash, and I ran into the house.

Michael was by the refrigerator, loading things into a box.

A bottle had broken, and the contents were spreading out over the floor. I grabbed some of the newspaper he used for paper towels and began mopping up what looked like it might have been salad dressing. Michael continued packing the reeking contents of the refrigerator. I sat back on my heels. “Michael.”

“Yeah.” A cigarette dangled from his mouth, the ash long.

“What are you doing?”

“No point in everything going to waste.”

“It’s rotten.”

He ignored me, continued packing. I stood and put my hand on his arm. “Michael, it’s
rotten.
”

He kept on putting things into the box: limp vegetables,
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greenish bacon. His hands were shaking. “Let me,” I said, gently. “I’ll do it for you. Wait for me outside in the rocker, okay?” He shuffled away, and I continued mopping up the floor. I was hoping that he’d forget about this—that when I was done cleaning up, we could just get in the car and go.

I felt terrible that I was doing such a bad job at the relatively simple task I’d been assigned. I gave the floor one last swipe, put the food back into the refrigerator, and went outside. No sign of Michael. I came back in, climbed the ladder to the loft, and saw him lying on his bed, smoking.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.” He didn’t move except to tap ashes off his cigarette and onto the covers of the un-made bed.

I stepped closer. “Might not want to do that.”

He took in another drag, exhaled upward.

“Michael?”

He looked over at me.

“Do you want me to pack anything?”

“For what?”

“To bring to the hospital?”

He lay his cigarette down on the bed and pulled the half-full pack from his pocket to shake out another one.

I leaned over and grabbed the cigarette he’d put down.

It had burned a small black hole into the spread.

Michael flicked his lighter and tried to light the other cigarette. I took it and the lighter from him. He stared at me as though he were contemplating what he might do next. But then he just shut his eyes and turned onto his side.

He was a big man. I couldn’t haul him out of there.

And I couldn’t leave him. I sat on the bed beside him.

“Michael, will you please come with me? Please.”

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t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d He sat up but raised a finger,
wait.
He turned toward the open window. Outside, you could hear the whistle of a cardinal. The leaves shifting in the wind made for kaleido-scopic patterns of light and shade against the side of Michael’s face. Then I heard the thrilling buzz of a hummingbird. It appeared at the feeder in its tiny, jewel-like splendor, drank, then flew quickly away. Just when I was going to say again that we had to go, Michael stood up.

He went down the ladder first, and I followed. He stopped at a mirror he had stationed on a wall above the kitchen sink and regarded himself. He licked one hand and smoothed down his hair, then went over to the refrigerator, opened it, and stood there, blankly staring.

“Please leave that,” I said.

He reached in and pulled out a softened and lopsided orange, then faced me. He rubbed his hands gently over the fruit, kissed it, and began peeling it.

“You can bring it in the car, okay?” I pulled the keys from my purse.

He leaned against the open door of the refrigerator and continued peeling. Then he split the orange almost in half and began licking at the center in a way so specific it made me blush. He moved his face in closer to the orange, closed his eyes, and worked his mouth slowly, rhythmically. And then he fell down.

I rushed forward and asked him if he was all right; it was a hard fall. He looked up at me, one eye closed. “Ow.”

He blinked, rose slowly, refusing my assistance, then stood tall to say, “Well, anyway. Et
cet
era.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

I smiled.

“I
could
offer you a banana,” he said.

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Now I laughed. “I’m fine.”

He closed the refrigerator door and looked at it as though it were a relative he was awfully fond of. “Let’s go,” he said.

He took nothing with him but his beat-up wallet. He did not lock his door. He did not look back, not before he got in the car, not after. I pulled slowly away, then, after the house was no longer in view, picked up speed.

We didn’t talk much on the way to the hospital. I was thinking of what I’d tell Dennis about this day, what about it belonged to him and what about it belonged to me and what about it belonged to Michael, and I decided it all belonged to Michael.

At the last tollbooth before we got off the turnpike, I reached in my cup holder for two quarters to pay the fifty-cent charge. Michael said, “You know, I’ve always found that one quarter works just as well.” I tried it; I put in one quarter, and the gate lifted.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I’ve always meant to tell you that. I have no idea why it took me so long.”

I said nothing. To acknowledge all that was in that remark would be to put a fist through the dam. I drove the short distance to the hospital and pulled into a parking place near the entrance. I cut the engine and touched Michael’s arm, gently called his name. He started—appar-ently he’d fallen asleep—and looked out the window. “Big place,” he said. Then he said, “Okay. I’ll be wanting to go in alone.” He sighed, and pointed at me. “You,” he said.

I pointed back at him. “You.”

On the way home, a light rain fell. It wasn’t enough to require using the wipers. But some drops gathered along the side of windshield, and when I came to a stop sign I 96

t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d noticed how they captured light and refracted it, how a whole spectrum of possibility was contained within a single drop of water.

I visited Michael a few more times, but he was often sleeping, and then he became difficult or impossible to understand. He died the night after some friends had taken him outside briefly on a gurney to see the few flowers that grew on the grounds, and to watch for birds, which never came.

the day i ate nothing

i even remotely wanted

Those Weight Watchers meetings are murder. There’s always a bunch of brownnosers who get little presents and applause for the pounds they lost. Sometimes a little whoop, too, there’s this one woman at my meetings who whoops for people. And the leader always makes this announcement at the end of the meeting about how many pounds were lost this week by our whole group. I sit in the back staring at my lap because week after week I mostly lose nothing. Well, one time I lost three pounds. I’d had the flu, and the whole time I was embracing the toilet, a part of me was saying,
“Yes!”
Next meeting, two and a half pounds had come right back on, saying, “Hey there, Bub-bles, did you miss me?”