So Long, Chester Wheeler(62)

“Amen.”

“I may go through a Starbucks drive-through, though.”

“Oh, you think so?”

I didn’t get what he was driving at.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Explain yourself, Chester. I’m too tired for riddles.”

“You know those little sticks they make you drive under to check your clearance?”

I suddenly knew what he was driving at.

“Oh. We’re too tall.”

“They’re generally about seven feet tall. We’re over twelve feet.”

“Fine. I’ll park and go in. You want something?”

“Yeah, get me a black coffee. No. Get me one of those fancy coffee things with foamy milk, but the kind that taste like chocolate. What do you call those again?”

“A café mocha?”

“That’s the one. Get me a giant one of those.”

“You only live once,” I said.

I was remembering Sue’s advice, and I figured he was, too.

“And I have to hurry,” he added.



I took the turnoff for the I-15, to get us going farther north.

He noticed immediately.

“This is not the way we came,” he said.

“No, it’s not. I didn’t think you were paying close attention.”

“I notice everything,” he said.

“Good to know.”

“Why are we going back a different way?”

“Because Phoenix is out of our way. It’s too far south. Shortest way home is to cross the country on the diagonal, starting right about now.”

“Does this take us through Las Vegas?”

He didn’t notice everything, I noted. He’d been giving himself too much credit. Because the sign for the I-15 had very clearly said I-15 NORTH, LAS VEGAS.

“It absolutely does.”

“I always wanted to see Vegas.”

“By day is not ideal, but anyway, we’re going right through.”

“I don’t really care,” he said. “I just want to be able to say I’ve seen it.” He looked out the window for a few beats. Then he added, “I’m not sure who I’d be saying it to, though.”

More silence. For some reason I expected it to last.

“I was going to see the whole country,” he said. “Every damn thing worth seeing. I even got a rebuilt engine put in this thing.”

“I know. Marshall told me.”

“Oh. Marshall. Right. I forgot you met Marshall. I kept coming in and looking over his shoulder. I wanted to watch my new engine go in. And I was coughing up a storm, and finally he said to me, ‘Damn, Chester. You’d better get that looked at before you cough up a lung all over my yard.’ And that was the beginning of the end. I never got to see a damn thing.”

“You got to see some things on the ride to Arizona. And then to Venice Beach.”

“Yeah, but I slept all the way through New Mexico, and I used to live in Arizona anyway. Don’t let me sleep through Vegas, okay? Wake me up if you have to. I might just close my eyes for a few minutes.”

He powered his seat back a foot or so and sighed. Closed his eyes.

I drove all the way through Victorville and Barstow, and was coming up on the Mojave National Preserve, and he hadn’t said a word. I just figured he was asleep.

Then, without even opening his eyes, he said, “I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

He might have left his eyes closed on purpose. Maybe for the same reason he’d told me to lie back down the night before so he didn’t feel like I was looking at him while he spoke.

“Much as I appreciate the sentiment, Chester, you’re going to have to narrow it down tighter than that.”

“Taking shots at you about being gay.”

“You were tired after the whole Phoenix thing,” I said.

“Not just the last time, though. I mean all the times.”

I felt more than a little stunned. I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Oh. Well. That means a lot, Chester. Thank you.”

I did not say “coming from you” or “considering the source.” I only thought it.

Seriously, though. It was a moment.



When I saw the towering hotels of the Las Vegas Strip, I leaned over and shook his arm.

He came up sputtering, as always.

“What? What’re you doing, Lewis? I wanted to sleep.”

“You said to wake you up for Vegas.”

“Oh, Vegas,” he said. And his tone utterly changed. He sat up and looked around for a moment, his eyes wide. “Look, there’s the hotel that’s shaped like a pyramid. And there’s the New York–New York one with the Statue of Liberty and everything. And the Eiffel Tower one. Damn, Lewis. I really wanted to come here. This is my kind of town.”

Funny, but he said it just as it hit me that Vegas was not my kind of town. Then again, it was Chester Wheeler and yours truly. Where exactly was I expecting all that commonality to be hiding?

“Pull off the highway, Lewis. I want you to do something for me.”

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but I took the next exit.

“What do you want me to do?”