So Long, Chester Wheeler(28)

He rubbed his eyes and looked around.

“What are we stopping here for?”

“To . . . sleep?”

“This costs money. They probably charge over fifty bucks for this place. You should’ve just stopped in a Walmart parking lot. They let you do that, and it’s free.”

“Ellie is paying for this trip, and I really don’t think she’d argue with a night in a basic RV park. If nothing else, it’ll be quieter.”

“Pure waste of money,” Chester said.

“Whatever. We’re here. I’m too tired to go any farther. You stay here and I’m going to go sign in.”

“Wait!” he shouted, before I could jump out.

“What?”

“I gotta pee like a racehorse.”

“I never understood that expression.”

“What’s to understand?”

“How does a racehorse pee any differently than anybody else?”

“He pees a lot more, because he’s a horse.”

“Got it,” I said. “How about I pull the curtains and bring you the bedpan?”

“You don’t have to pull the curtains. It’s dark out. So long as no lights are on inside the rig, no one’ll see.”

“Fine,” I said. “Knock yourself out.”

“But go out the side door. If you go out the cab door, the dome light’ll stay on for a couple minutes.”

I pulled the bedpan out from its storage in a hatch under one of the beds. I handed it to him and then quickly jumped out the side door and walked to the office. My legs felt rubbery from all the driving, and I could still feel the ghostly remnants of vibrations from the road.

I allowed my mind to touch briefly on the fact that, when I got back, the inside of the Winnebago would smell faintly of Chester’s urine—which I knew from experience was not a pleasant odor. But it was too cold to open any windows.

Maybe there was a vent with a fan. I vaguely remembered seeing one.

If not, it was just another in a list of indignities to which I’d be subjected throughout this trip. All I could do was hold my nose—figuratively and possibly literally as well—and wait for the experience to be over.



We were lying in the dark. Chester was in one of the individual beds in the main body of the rig. I was in the bedroom in back, in that slightly urine-smelling atmosphere. I had left the accordion door open, in case he fell or needed help. I would not make that mistake again.

I thought Chester was asleep, until he said the following.

“I know you hate me. But you’re doing this anyway.”

I waited, in case he actually wanted to extend the thought to some kind of thank-you, but nothing else happened.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “I dislike you. I find you disagreeable and unpleasant. There’s a difference.”

“No, you want to only dislike me. You want to think it’s only that. Because you want to think I’m the hateful one and you’re this perfect angel. But when I take a poke at your lifestyle, I feel the hate come up in you.”

“It’s not a ‘lifestyle.’ It’s just what I am. And I don’t have hate in me,” I added into the dark, hoping against hope that it was true.

“Bullshit,” he said. “Everybody has hate.”

“Maybe you’re just looking at the world through hate-colored glasses.”

“No. You’ve got it. When I poke at you, I feel it come up.”

“Then why do you keep poking at me?”

“I want you to see it for what it is. You think I’m a hateful man and you’re not. I want you to see that we’re not so different, you and me.”

“Don’t ever say that to me again,” I said, my voice rising. I could feel my loathing for him start to come up and out. Then I realized he was drawing it out of me on purpose, and I tried to let my feelings settle again. “I’m nothing like you.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” he said.

We lay in silence for quite a while, though I knew neither one of us was sleeping.

“Even if that’s true,” I said without warning—without even warning myself—“even if we do both hate. You hate me for what I am. I hate you for the things you say and do. Huge difference.”

“No difference.”

“Totally different. You could behave better if you wanted to. You don’t have to be a jerk.”

“You don’t have to be a queer. I told you, it’s a choice and I know it. You might be able to fool everybody else, but you can’t fool me.”

For a moment I wrestled with the feeling in my gut. The despising of him. Somehow that seemed like an easier word to swallow.

I thought about going outside to set up the tent. But it was cold out there, and I’d probably need light to do it properly. And besides, I had just as much right to be warm inside as Chester, if not more. I wasn’t about to let him chase me away.

“Stop talking and go to sleep now,” I said.

“You’re the one who brought it up the second time.”

“Seriously, Chester,” I said. My voice was a cold, hard warning. I could hear it. “Stop now.”

He may or may not have gone to sleep. But he definitely stopped talking to me.