“I wasn’t thinking anything, really.” I give my own head a shake to let Walter know I’m an earnest war veteran myself, though in fact I’m lost in a kind of fog about Vicki. Wondering if she’s expecting me to call and for us to make up, wondering for some reason if I’ll ever see her again.
Walter leans up hard on his knees, looking more grim than earnest. “What did you think when I said what I said two nights ago? When I originally told you? Pretty idiotic, huh?”
“It didn’t seem idiotic, Walter. Things happen. That’s all I thought.”
“I’m not putting babies in freezers, am I, Frank?”
“I didn’t think so.”
Walter’s face sinks solemner still, in the manner of a man considering new frontiers. He would like me to ask him a good telling question, something that will then let him tell me a lot of things I don’t want to know. But if I have agreed to listen, I have also agreed not to ask. This is the only badge of true friendship I’m sure of: not to be curious. Whatever Walter is up to may be as novel as teaching chickens to drive cars, but I don’t want the whole lowdown. It’s too late in the night. I’m ready for bed. And besides, I have no exact experience in these matters. I’m not sure what anyone — including trained experts — ought to say except, “All right now, son, let’s get you on over to the state hospital and let those boys give you a shot of something that’ll bring you back to the right side of things.”
“What do you worry about, Frank, if you don’t mind my asking?” Walter is still ghost-solemn.
“Really not that much, Walter. Sometimes at night my heart pounds. But it goes back to normal when I turn on the light.”
“You’re a man with rules, Frank. You don’t mind, do you, if I say that? You have ethics about a lot of important things.”
“I don’t mind, Walter, but I don’t think I have any ethics at all, really. I just do as little harm as I can. Anything else seems too hard.” I smile at Walter in a bland way.
“Do you think I’ve done harm, Frank? Do you think you’re better than I am?”
“I think it doesn’t matter, Walter, to tell you the truth. We’re all the same.”
“That’s evading me, Frank, because I admire codes, myself. In everything.” Walter sits back, folds his arms, and looks at me appraisingly. It’s possible Walter and I will end up in a fistfight before this is over. Though I would run out the door to avoid it. In fact, I feel a nice snugged wooziness rising in me from the gin. And I would be happy to take this right up to bed.
“Good, Walter.” I stare fervently at Block Island, trying to find X’s and my first landfall from all those years ago. Sandy Point. I scan the bookshelves behind Walter’s head as if I expected to see those very words on a friendly spine.
“But let me ask you, Frank, what do you do when something worries you and you can’t make it stop. You try and try and it won’t.” Walter’s eyes become exhilarated, as if he’d just willed into being something that was furious and snapping and threatening to swirl him away.
“Well, I take a hot bath sometimes. Or a midnight walk. Or I read a catalog. Get drunk. Sometimes, I guess, I get in bed and think dirty thoughts about women. That always makes me feel better. Or I’ll listen to the short-wave. Or watch Johnny Carson. I don’t usually get in such a bad state, Walter.” I smile to let him know I’m at least half-serious. “Maybe I should more often.”
Upstairs, I hear Bosobolo walk down his hall to his bathroom, hear his door close and his toilet flush. It’s a nice homey sound — as always — his last office before turning in. A long, satisfying leak. I envy him more than anyone could know.
“You know what I think, Frank?”
“What, Walter.”
“You don’t seem to be somebody who knows he’s going to die, that’s what.” Walter suddenly ducks his head, like a man someone has menaced and who has barely gotten out of the way.
“I guess you’re right.” I smile a smile of failed tolerance. Though Walter’s words deliver a cold blue impact on me — the first clump of loamy dirt thrumping off the pine box, mourners climbing back into their Buicks, doors slamming in unison. Who the hell wants to think about that now? It’s one A.M. on a day of resurrection and renewal the world over. I want to talk about dying now as much as I want to play a tune out my behind.
“Maybe you just need a good laugh, Walter. I try to laugh every day. What did the brassiere say to the hat?”
“I don’t know. What did it say, Frank?” Walter is not much amused, but then I am not much amused by Walter.
“‘You go on ahead, I’ll give these two a lift.’” I stare at him. He smirks but doesn’t laugh. “If you don’t think that’s hilarious, Walter, you should. It’s really funny.” In fact I have a hard time suppressing a big guffaw myself, though we’re at basement-level seriousness now. No jokes.
“Maybe you think I need a hobby or something. Right?” Walter’s still smirking, though not in a friendly way.
“You just need to see things from another angle, Walter. That’s all. You aren’t giving yourself much of a break.” Maybe a hundred dollar whore would be a good new angle. Or an evening course in astronomy. I was thirty-seven before I knew that more than one star could be the North Star; it was a huge surprise and still has the aura of a genuine wonder for me.
“You know what’s true, Frank?”
“What, Walter.”
“What’s true, Frank, is that when we get to be adults we all of a sudden become the thing viewed, not the viewer anymore. Do you know what I mean?”
“I guess so.” And I do know what he means, and with a marksman’s clarity. Divorce has plenty of these little encounter-group lessons to teach. Only I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to trade epiphanies with Walter. We don’t even go in for that stuff at the Divorced Men’s Club. “Walter, I’m pretty beat, I’ve had a long day.”
“And I’ll tell you something else, Frank, even though you didn’t ask me. I’m not going to be cynical enough to ignore that fact. I’m not going to find a hobby or be a goddamn jokemaster. Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren’t smart.”
“Maybe so. I wasn’t suggesting you take up fly-tying.”
“Frank, I don’t know what the hell I’ve gotten myself into, and there’s no use acting like I’m smart. I wouldn’t be in this if I was. I just feel on display in this mess, and I’m scared to death.” Walter shakes his head in contrite bafflement. “I’m sorry about all this, Frank. I wanted to keep improving myself, by myself.”
“It’s all right, Walter. I’m not sure, though, if you can improve yourself much. Why don’t I fix us both a drink.” Unexpectedly, though, my heart suddenly goes out to Walter the self-improver, trying to go it alone. Walter is the real New-Ager, and in truth, he and I are not much different. I’ve made discoveries he’ll make when he calms down, though the days when I could stay up all night, riled up about some point d’honneur or a new novel or bracing up a boon pal through some rough seas are long gone. I am too old for all that without even being very old. A next day — any new day — means too much to me. I am too much anticipator, my eye on the future of things. The best I can offer is a nightcap, and a room for the night where Walter can sleep with the light on.
“Frank, I’ll have a drink. That’s white of you. Then I’ll get the hell out of here.”
“Why don’t you just bed down here tonight. You can claim the couch, or there’s an extra bed in the kids’ room. That’d be fine.” I pour us both a glass of gin, and hand one to Walter. I’ve stashed away some roly-poly Baltimore Colts glasses I bought from a Balfour catalog when I was in college, in the days when Unitas and Raymond Berry were the big stars. And now seems to me the perfect time to crack them out. Sports are always a good distraction from life at its dreariest.