So Long, Chester Wheeler(71)

I knew as I said it that I could probably work a job and complete the certification course at the same time, but I forcefully put it out of my head, because I didn’t want to know it.

“I actually have a temporary job you could do. But I’m not sure if you’ll want it.”

“Don’t tell me you have more difficult relatives hiding in the woodwork.”

“No, I’m fresh out of those. But I need someone to clean out my dad’s house. And I’ll pay well.”

“There are people who do that.”

“Yeah, there are. But the problem is, they work on a sort of commission. They sell everything that’s worth anything and take their pay out of that. Nothing in my dad’s house is worth selling. It mostly has to be hauled to the dump.”

I lay there without talking for a moment, seeing if I could wrap my head around the concept, not to mention the task. It was hard to imagine that a man’s entire life could be garbage.

“What about things that are just . . . you know . . . useful? Flatware. Plates. A coffee maker or a blender. His TV. Why take all that to the dump?”

“You can donate stuff like that to a thrift store.”

“And what about sentimental things? Mementos?”

She let out one of those braying laughs again.

“Seriously? My dad? Sentimental? He doesn’t even have pictures on his walls. So does this mean you’ll do it? You’re talking like you’ll do it.”

I opened my mouth to say “Let me think about it.” But then I remembered Anna blowing her stack with me in an Italian restaurant because I couldn’t make a simple decision.

“Yeah, I suppose I’ll do it,” I said.

I thought it was interesting how she had managed to successfully draw the conversation away from the community college money. I also thought it was good that she had. Because I needed more time to decide how I felt about that.



By 10:00 a.m. I was over at Chester’s house, opening the door with my key.

When I stepped inside it was dim, and slightly odorous, which of course I had known. But somehow in the process of all those days on the road I’d managed to put it out of my mind, and it struck my senses as something almost new.

I decided the best plan would be to walk around and make a plan.

There would be furniture and large appliances, and beds, and other things too big to carry. I’d have to get a hand truck. I’d have to ask Ellie where to leave those heavy items pending pickup. I’d need a couple of boxes of big, strong garbage bags for the smaller items. Maybe a recycling bin for paper and plastic.

And the items of some limited value, the ones I’d be donating to a thrift store—I’d have to think where to gather those in the short run. Maybe it would be best to put them directly into my car?

I walked around and opened cupboards and closet doors, feeling my mood sink lower and lower with every area I examined.

Finally I collapsed in the living room in all that horrible shag carpeting. I sat cross-legged for a long time and just let myself be overwhelmed—just tried to accept the fact that I was emotionally unable to begin.

I think I can at least point a finger in the general direction of what had me so down.

I was dismantling a man’s entire life. Going through everything that had ever meant anything to him, and deeming it all unworthy of keeping. In most cases, unworthy of keeping by anybody.

I could already picture the late Chester looking over my shoulder as I worked. Saying, “No, no, not that. Don’t throw that away, Lewis. I love that.” And then, when I did anyway, he would think what? And, to really stretch a point, feel what?

I tried to shake such thoughts away again, as they were only going to tank my ability to do the work.

My phone rang in my pocket.

I picked up the call, assuming it was Ellie. If I had looked, I’d have seen by the caller ID that it was not Ellie, but I was lost in thought, and I didn’t look. I just assumed.

An unfamiliar male voice said, “Lewis?”

“Yes.”

“Brian Kennedy.”

I said nothing at all. My mind had been a hundred miles away, and I was having trouble bringing it home again. And I didn’t know anybody by that name. It was hard to think of a reply more tactful than “Who?”

Since I didn’t speak, he kept going.

“Anna’s friend. Well, not friend, really. I just met her one time at an office party. She works with my mom. Don’t ask me why I went to a party with my mom. I just now realized how that must sound. Such a party boy, right? It’s a long story why I was there.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being close to your mom,” I said.

My mom lived in Kansas with her third husband, and we were not close. I would have liked more of a relationship with her, but I’d been forced to accept, at some much earlier point in my life, that it was simply not in the cards for us.

Of course, I didn’t say all that, except in the privacy of my own head.

Meanwhile I was feeling vaguely resentful toward Anna for giving the guy my number without permission.

“Anna’s told me a lot about you,” he said.

I was just opening my mouth to explain that I was staunchly anti–blind date when he said more.

“And . . . listen. I get it. I know fix-ups are awful. Just the absolute worst.”