So Long, Chester Wheeler(30)

Silence. For several beats.

Then, “I guess . . . I’m . . . sorry?”

“Hmm,” I said. “Not the most convincing apology I’ve ever heard. Might even be the least convincing. But I’m willing to consider the source. Now let’s go get some breakfast before we head west again.”



We stopped at a little diner somewhere in suburban Indiana, and I took Chester’s wheelchair down from the bicycle rack on the Winnie’s roof ladder and set it up near the rig’s cabin door.

Then I almost dropped Chester getting him out.

I had made the mistake of getting behind him to take him down the two metal stairs. I should have gotten on the downhill side of him with my feet braced far behind me.

Also, he could have helped a little more. What possessed him to lean forward, I swear I didn’t know. There was a safety bar next to the stairs—a sort of beefy handrail. I was holding it, and so was he. His grip on it was all that kept him from flying forward and landing on his face on the tarmac parking lot of the Good Morning Coffee Shop. My grip on that rail, and my other arm around his waist, was all that kept him from swinging out with only one hand anchored and having his feet come out from under him.

“Holy crap!” he breathed when he felt what he had done.

I pulled as hard as I could to try to right him, but he didn’t right. His weight was too far forward. He was off balance and I was not strong enough to put him back onto it. I could feel the hand on the railing losing its grip. I could feel the arm around his waist begin to slip.

It would not be exaggerating the situation to say I experienced a miniature version of my life flashing before my eyes.

And then, just like that, two middle-aged men walked by, on their way out of the restaurant. They saw the situation immediately, and jumped right in, each bracing both of his hands against one of Chester’s giant shoulders.

I breathed like I had never breathed in my life.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice breathless. “I almost lost him.”

The three of us eased him down the last step, turned him around, and lowered him down into his chair.

“Thank you,” I wheezed in the general direction of my saviors. I was still deeply out of breath from exertion, or panic, or both. “Really. I can’t thank you enough.”

They just waved and walked to their car. As if it had been nothing. Because to them, I suppose, it had been nothing.

I walked around behind Chester’s wheelchair and grabbed the handles with shaking hands. My heart was still pounding as I began rolling him toward the door.

“That was a boneheaded play,” he grumbled.

“Me?” I shouted. And stopped pushing. “I’m not the one who leaned forward. Why did you lean forward?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I lost my balance. Next time get down on the steps below me.”

“Duh,” I said.

By then I was pulling him backward through the diner’s door, and there was a hostess right there waiting to seat us. We immediately stopped bickering and blaming each other.

I pushed Chester in the direction of the men’s room, but the hostess said, “Staying for breakfast, gentlemen? Restrooms’re for customers only.”

“Yes,” I said. “Staying for breakfast. Table for two. Two coffees and two menus. We’ll be right out.”

I wheeled Chester into the men’s room.

It was a single, yet it had a small individual stall inside that only made it that much harder to maneuver. We left his wheelchair right outside it.

I was still shaky and a little weak, but I managed to get him on his feet and into the stall, and then turn him around. I held him in the dreaded bear hug while he tended to the dropping of his trousers.

Needless to say, I did not look.

I lowered him onto the toilet and then ducked out, closing the stall door behind me.

Then I slipped out of the men’s room entirely and waited in the hall by the door, feeling the weight of the near disaster on my shoulders. I honestly think that was the first time it hit me that I was holding a man’s life in my hands. Granted, I had known he could die at any moment. But I figured if he did, he would die of cancer, not my own inept mistakes.

I was responsible for everything. I was the one who would have to call the police, or call an ambulance. Or call Ellie and break bad news. I was the one in charge.

In time I heard the toilet flush, and I went back through the outer door.

“You ready?” I asked.

“Ready.”

I went in with my eyes closed, and reached an arm out to him, and he grabbed on. I pulled him to his feet, then enveloped him in the aforementioned horrible hug.

“Damn,” he said.

“What?”

“My pants fell down where I can’t reach ’em.”

“What do we do, then?”

“First of all, you keep your eyes closed.”

“No problem there.”

“You have to reach down and get them.”

“How can I hold you up and reach down there at the same time?”

“Here,” he said. “There’s a bar. I’ll hold the bar. And wait—let me brace my other hand on the side of the stall. Now go fast, because I can’t hold myself up for long.”

“But I can’t see. How do I—”