So Long, Chester Wheeler(57)

“Can I help you?”

“I know who you are,” he said.

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, but I do. You’re those people who come around in a moving van and rob people’s houses. The neighborhood watch folks warned us about you.”

I just stared at him for a moment, wondering. Wondering . . . so many things.

I turned my face to Chester, who only shrugged.

“That’s not him,” I said. “Right?”

“Oh hell no.”

I turned back to the small, odd man.

“This is not a moving van. It’s a Winnebago.”

“Then what are you doing on this street? You don’t live here.”

“We’re here to see Mike.”

“You’re here to rob Mike’s house?”

“No. We’re not here to rob Mike’s house. We’re not here to rob anybody. We just want to talk to him.”

“Oh, you’re cops.”

By that time I was getting irritated.

“No, we’re not cops. What kind of cops show up in a Winnebago?”

“Undercover cops. Cops who don’t want you to know they’re cops.”

“We’re not any kind of cops. It’s not illegal to park on a street even if you don’t live there. And it’s not unusual. We just came to see Mike.”

“Mike’s not home,” he said. Then he got a desperate look on his face, as if he’d just accidentally handed the keys to Mike’s house over to burglars. “But he’ll be home any minute now.”

He did that gesture. That “I’m watching you” thing. Two fingers out wide like a peace sign, pointing first to his own eyes, then in the general direction of mine.

He slithered away, looking once over his shoulder and repeating the watching gesture. Then he disappeared through a gate in the crazy fence. I hadn’t realized there was a gate there, because it was so much a part of the mural.

“I think I should go see if Mike’s home,” I said.

“That guy just said he wasn’t.”

“Right. I’m thinking that guy might be an unreliable narrator.”

“Jeez, Lewis. Half the time when you talk I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying he might’ve told us Mike wasn’t home because he thought we were cops.”

“But then he said he’ll be back any minute.”

“Because he thought we were burglars.”

“We can’t very well be both.”

“Don’t tell me. Tell him.”

I opened the driver’s door to step out.

“Wait,” Chester said.

This time it didn’t surprise me in the least. I’d finally gotten used to it. I just paused there, half in and half out, trying not to sigh.

“What will you say if he’s home?”

“Probably just that I brought somebody he used to know, and that you were hoping for a visit.”

I waited there in the silence for a fair amount of time. Possibly a full minute. Because technically he could still say, “Turn around.” I’d promised him that.

He said nothing, so I stepped out into the street with my phone in my hand, found the crazy hidden gate, and stepped through.

There were three houses behind it. All wood, all ancient and funky. A simple dirt path branched out in three directions. I checked the house number on my phone, then looked up again. The little man was watching me out his window.

I followed the path up onto Mike’s porch.

The house was weathered unpainted wood. The windows on the porch side were small and round, like portholes. Mobiles of driftwood and shells hung from the porch roof, and a wet suit hung on a hanger in the corner. It was not currently dripping wet, but there was a wet spot on the dry-rotted porch boards underneath it.

I looked for a doorbell before realizing I was standing next to an Asian gong, with a striker on a stick. I took hold of the striker and rang the gong, and it was much louder than I’d expected. It vibrated my eardrum in waves.

I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

Mike was not home.

I walked back to the RV. All the way through the gate the little man was still watching me.



“What time is it?” Chester asked.

He was still in the passenger seat because it would have been so hard to move him. We’d been waiting for close to an hour.

I pulled my phone out of my shirt pocket and tapped it awake.

“A little after four.”

“How long are we going to wait?”

“I don’t know. I would think at least till six or after. He probably works a regular day job.”

“He’s old enough to be retired.”

“Not everybody can afford to retire.”

“You should call my doctor’s office and see if they’ll give me more painkillers.”

“It’s too late. I’ll have to do it in the morning.”

“It’s not too late. It’s not even four.”

“Here in California it’s not even four. Back home in Buffalo it’s nearly seven.”

“Oh,” Chester said. “I forgot about that.”

“I’m not sure they’d talk to me anyway. I mean . . . they’d talk to me. But I’m not sure if they’d prescribe on my say-so. What I should do is call Ellie and have her call your doctor and ask.”