So Long, Chester Wheeler(19)

“I never said I wasn’t nice.”

“Oh, sorry. My mistake. I must’ve confused you with everybody else on the planet.”



I cooked bacon for breakfast. His breakfast, not mine. Not bacon and eggs. Not bacon and toast. Just bacon.

Ellie had made it clear when I’d spoken to her that morning that he could eat any damn thing he wanted. Anything that made him happy. His long-range health didn’t enter into the picture, because he didn’t have a long range.

Then she’d asked me again to think about staying on, but she’d quickly hung up before I could tell her I already had thought about it and the answer was still no.

“Did Ellie say when she’s coming back?” he asked me with his mouth full of half-chewed bacon.

“Five or six days if I insist. But she’s really hoping I’ll stay on and she won’t have to come back at all.”

“You should do that,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously. “Which part of ‘that’ should I do?”

“You should stay.”

I dropped my palm hard onto the table and it made him jump.

“Okay, Chester,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to be nice.”

“No ulterior motive at all.”

“Well . . . ,” he said. Then nothing further.

He sipped at his coffee, his eyes scanning the ceiling almost nervously.

“Come on, Chester,” I said. “It’s coming out sooner or later. Go ahead and spit it out now.”

“I guess I was just hoping you’d do me a favor.”

“I knew it,” I shouted, with more slapping of the table. “I knew there was a reason you were being nice to me. Why me? Why didn’t you ask Agostina? She was here for months. I’ve only been here for a couple of days.”

“Agostina didn’t drive.”

“Oh, I see. You need to go somewhere. Well. That doesn’t sound so bad. Where do you want me to drive you?”

“Arizona,” he said.

I honestly thought he was kidding. It sounded like Chester’s brand of basic sophomoric humor. I laughed, and got up to pour myself a second cup of coffee. I figured in a minute he’d tell me where he really wanted to go. Niagara Falls, or the home of an old friend on the other side of town. Williamsville, maybe, or Cheektowaga.

“So does that mean no?” he asked after a time.

I sat back down with my coffee, sipped, and watched him start on the last slice of bacon.

“I’m still waiting to hear where you want to go.”

“What, are you deaf?” he asked, skating right back into regular Chester territory. “Am I talking to myself? I just told you. Arizona.”

“That wasn’t a joke?”

“No. Why would I joke about a thing like that?”

“You want me to drive you to Arizona.”

“Seriously, Lewis, are you having hearing problems?”

“Nobody drives from Buffalo to Arizona.”

“I’d bet money somebody’s done it.”

“It’s probably over two thousand miles.”

“So? People drive over two thousand miles.”

“This person doesn’t. If I were going to take you to Arizona, which I’m not about to do, we’d go by plane.”

“We can’t go by plane,” he said, very matter-of-factly. As if the comment were self-explanatory.

“Why can’t we?”

“Because . . .” He seemed to stall for a beat. “. . . you can’t fly when you have lung cancer.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not driving to Arizona.”

“Should’ve known,” he said. “Should’ve known better than to expect anything good out of you.”

He had finished with his breakfast by this time, so I moved the day along.

“We should take care of your shower.”

“Whatever,” he said. He seemed to be imitating a petulant teenager. Saying the fewest, least helpful words possible.

“I’ll go get it set up.”

I hadn’t yet helped Chester take a shower in the forty-eight hours or so he’d been in my care, but I had instructions on how to do it. Ellie had left a waterproof lawn chair in the shower stall. I was to wheel him into the bathroom and loosely cover him with a giant bath sheet. He could wiggle out of his clothes underneath it. Then I had to help him up, keeping the towel still mostly wrapped around him, and move him into the shower chair. I was to turn on the water but then turn it off at the little switch on the head of the shower hose. I would hand the hose to Chester, who could move the towel and turn on the water after I had gone.

I wheeled him into the bathroom, set up the water properly, and left him for a moment while I fetched an extra-large towel from the hall closet.

“I just think it sucks,” he called down the hall to me.

“You just think what sucks?”

“I’m a dying man.”

I arrived back in the doorway with the towel and stood looking down at him. He looked up into my eyes with an expression I can only describe as hateful.

“Of course it sucks that you’re dying,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”