So Long, Chester Wheeler(60)

And then, the hardest question of all.

Why was I crossing the country helping somebody else find closure with his past when I barely understood my own?

It was not a fun evening inside my head.



Hours had passed. Literally hours.

The sun had dipped closer and closer to the ocean horizon, then disappeared completely. Lights came on in the streetlights along the boardwalk, and glowed in the shops behind me.

I checked my phone to be sure the ringer wasn’t turned off. I checked the “Recents” list. Nobody had been trying to call.

I started worrying that Chester didn’t know where I kept that new cell phone, or had somehow unlearned how to use it.

I started worrying that it was all going very badly and it was my fault for pushing him into it.

I decided to walk back and see if I could tell how things were going without getting intrusively close.

When I turned the corner onto Mike’s street, I could see inside the Winnebago perfectly. The curtains were up, just as I’d left them, and all the interior lights had been turned on. I could see the back of Mike’s head. He was sitting on the couch on the passenger side. Chester’s face was blocked from my view.

I was tired, so I sat with my back up against a light pole, faced away from the RV. I closed my eyes, which it might not have been safe to do in that neighborhood.

One of two things happened.

Here’s what I know for sure: I heard a car door slam, and I whipped my head around to see Mike walk out of the Winnebago and through the strange gate in the strange fence. Here’s what I’m not sure of: whether Mike stepped out of the vehicle mere seconds after I closed my eyes, or whether I’d fallen asleep without really feeling it.

My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw Chester on the caller ID.

I picked up.

“Hey, Chester,” I said.

“I need the bedpan. You need to hurry. Are you far away?”

“No, not far at all.”

“Good. Hurry. I told him to go. Because I needed to use the bedpan. But I didn’t tell him that was why. That would have been humiliating.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I trotted down the street and stepped inside.

“Oh good,” he said. “You’re here. You need to drive someplace.”

“I thought you—”

“Not here. It can’t be here.”

I started up the engine and tried to get us out of there.

The following minutes were deeply stressful for me. I’m guessing they were for Chester as well. But, in that moment, I had to concentrate on me.

The street was narrow, as I think I mentioned. More people were home from work, and there were cars parked on both sides. I had to make a thousand-point turn in that unwieldy boat, creeping at a mile or two an hour, half expecting to hear a crash on each round. Worrying that someone would need to drive through while I was blocking the street. Worried that Chester could only hold it for just so long.

Meanwhile his face was growing whiter and more strained.

When I finally cleared the cars and could pull out, I swung around the corner and stopped at a red curb. If parking enforcement came by, I’d throw myself on their mercy. I jumped up to get the curtains, but he stopped me.

“No time for that,” he said. “Just help me.”

I had to help him get his pants down and then help him lift up enough to get the pan under him. At first I tried to close my eyes.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t look away. It’ll only slow you down.”

As I lowered him down on the pan he said, “I know you’re not looking like that.”

“Is that it? Should I leave you?”

“Paper,” he said.

I flew into the bathroom and pulled the roll off the wall, possibly breaking the holder in the process. I pushed it into his waiting hand and then stepped out the side door, because opening the side door wouldn’t cause the dome light to come on.

I stood leaning on the Winnie, waiting, trying to get my breath again, as the Venice nightlife teemed by me.

I didn’t have to wait for long.

A minute or two later I heard him knock on the window.

I won’t go into great detail, but I emptied the pan inside the Winnebago’s bathroom and washed it with the outdoor shower hose.

Then I washed my hands for a long time, and we drove off into the night with both cab windows wide open.

“Thank you,” he said.

“No problem. It’s my job.”

“I couldn’t do it right there on his street. What if he’d come back to the window for something? Maybe to say one last thing he forgot.”

“I understand.”

“It’s humiliating. Not even being able to take care of my own toilet needs. I don’t even feel like a man anymore.”

“Well, you still are a man.”

“I don’t feel like one.”

“Maybe you need to ease up on your definition of the word.”

We drove in silence back to the I-10.

“Should we go back through downtown?” I asked him.

“How would I know?”

“Can’t possibly be all that traffic at this hour.”

“No idea. But I would like to get out of LA now. Before we stop and sleep.”