So Long, Chester Wheeler(39)

Chester jumped me immediately, verbally speaking.

“What’d she say?”

But I knew if I told him, it would evolve into a whole big thing, with more questions, and more answers, and more walks up and down that concrete path in the desert heat.

So all I said was “Tell you after I’ve gotten some sleep.”

Then I told him briefly about our dinner plans and tucked myself into what had to pass for a bed. Because the air conditioner didn’t work well in the actual bedroom.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it.



Chester woke me at what I would later learn was 6:00 in the afternoon.

“Hey, nimrod,” he called over from the couch bed on his side.

“What? Why are you waking me up, Chester?”

“Because you’re about to sleep through dinner.”

“Oh.”

I sat up and blinked too much.

My head felt fuzzy and tightly packed, as if someone had stuffed it with cotton batting in my sleep. I was still tired.

I glanced at my watch and learned about the whole 6:00 thing.

“I could’ve slept another half hour.”

“I figured you’d want to take a shower.”

“For an hour?”

“You still need to tell me what she said.”

“Oh,” I said. I rubbed my eyes and tried to shift my brain into gear. “Right. It won’t take half an hour, though. She said she fell in love. And that people fall in love. Especially when they’re not happy in their marriage.”

“Then ask her what she had to be so damned unhappy about.”

“That seems pointless.”

“What do you mean, ‘That seems pointless’? And why do you get to judge? Just ask her.”

“Fine. I’ll ask her over dinner.”

“No, now.”

“No, over dinner, Chester. You can’t order me around like that. This whole thing is miles outside my job description, and you’re supposed to just be grateful I’m doing any of it.”

Chester 2.0 did not hold. He expressed no gratitude.

I got up and stretched and tried to get myself into the shower, but he wouldn’t let it go.

“Why did you say it seems pointless to ask that?”

“Because it seems pretty obvious to me what she was saying.”

“So? Enlighten me. What was she saying?”

I stopped. Walked back away from the direction of the tiny bathroom. Sat down across from Chester. He was still sitting on the couch on the street side, still leaning on the pillows I had stuffed behind his back. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and leveled him with a serious gaze. Looked right into his face. He averted his eyes.

“Let me just clear something up here,” I said. “Do you honestly not get it that you’re a mean, thoughtless, difficult person?”

“Everybody’s mean and difficult.”

“Ah. So that’s the disconnect.”

“The what?”

“You think everybody’s just as awful as you are.”

“Well, they are.”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“Wait,” he said.

I was halfway between sitting and standing, but I stopped. And I waited.

“So you’re saying I’m the reason she was unhappy.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And you won’t even ask her what she meant by it?”

“No, I’ll ask her. Over dinner. I’m only saying . . . don’t be surprised if it’s what I just said.”

I straightened up and headed for the shower again.

“Wait,” Chester said.

I lost at least a good-sized chunk of my temper.

“Stop telling me to wait!” I shouted at him. “The world doesn’t revolve around you trying to understand your former marriage, Chester. Now I want to take a shower.”

“I was just going to tell you that you forgot to turn on the water heater.”

“Oh,” I said, and deflated like a balloon. “That.”

“Yeah, that.”

“How long does it take to heat up?”

“More time than you’ve got.”

“Fine. Then I’ll take a cold shower.”

I took a cold shower. It was an unpleasant experience. But at least when I was done, I could honestly say I felt awake.



Just before I stepped out of the Winnie and left him for the evening, Chester dropped the following bombshell.

“I need the bedpan.”

“Oh,” I said. I realized, as I said it, that I’d been saying that two-letter word a lot.

Then I just stood there on the steps, with the side door open, wishing he didn’t need the bedpan.

“Fine. I’ll get you the bedpan.”

“But then you need to come back and empty it for me. I don’t want to just sit here with it. You need to empty it and open windows and turn on the fan.”

I sighed out what felt like all the air I’d ever breathed into my lungs since I was born.

“Are you just doing this to sabotage my dinner? Because I get to go in the house and you don’t?”

“No, I really do need it.”