Toby Olson - Tampico

We were crossing a space that had been a stone drive before, but now sod had been set in, and the lawn ran all the way from the meadow’s edge to the wall under the old solarium. Clusters of people were gathered to the sides of the awning, out in the sun, and I saw someone approaching the photographer, then pointing off at the lighthouse where the camera faced, the loose sleeve of a garment, a shirt or blouse, hanging down from an arm in the still air, and Carlos told me that was Kelly, the practical nurse who had moved in with him. He’d been a little sheepish in talking about their arrangement earlier, but then he’d shrugged his discomfort away through a sweet smile.

“Maybe it’s about time for me,” he’d said, and I’d nodded, wondering if there would be any time of that kind available for me too in the future.

“But what about the agoraphobia?” I asked, seeing his lover out in the air and free. “Did you cure it?”

“Hardly!” he laughed. “The building still has to be in sight, with no intervening obstructions. All return routes open. If you watch Kelly long enough, you’ll see the careful checking. But it’s much better than it was.”

We reached the awning then and stepped under it, and Carlos took my arm and guided me to one of the tables and introduced me to Larry, and I complimented him on the photographic arrangement. Then Carlos introduced me to his father, who looked nothing like him, though he too wore a white suit, and to his father’s wife, who was bending at the table’s other side, lifting cold shrimp onto her plate, delicately, with a pair of tongs. A little man stood beside her, but disengaged from her and looking off across the meadow toward the sea, where a structure at the edge was being dismantled. I knew it was Kelly’s house. I could see scaffolding rising up to the level of the chimney, the top of which was jagged where bricks had fallen away. The man wore a visor, and I saw the ragged hem of his baggy shorts at the table’s edge, knotty sinew pushing through at his thighs, and the splotches of dark scar tissue, serpentine, on his forearms. His T-shirt read TAMPICO.

“That’s Gino,” Larry said, and the man turned and looked at him, then at me, then touched his brim and smiled, his daughter glancing over at him affectionately, her hair falling in dramatic action across her rouged cheek. She was close to sixty and looked it, lines free of makeup at the corners of her eyes. She wore a long party dress, loose and flowing as a nightshirt, much like the lounging suit that Larry wore, though richer in its deep blue color than his more fashionable earth tone. I looked down and saw Larry’s woven sandals, then glanced up to his beaded skullcap, African I thought, new hair curling thinly at the edges.

“And that’s my grandfather, over there,” Carlos said, pointing with his chin, and I saw a man standing beside the two doctors, his empty wheelchair off to the side behind him, sunlight in its metal spokes. He stood erect, his shoulders back, hatless and unwavering in the sun. He had come to his sexuality again, and it was visible in the confidence of his posture, though when he shifted on his feet the frailness in his stiff legs was evident. Erica was there as well, and Frank stood beside her, though a little back from the small gathering.

There were others there, workmen and their wives, the contractor and architect, and a few I’d seen quite often in my days in Provincetown, a pharmacist and a locksmith, even the mailman I recognized without his uniform. Warren was there, his wife beside him, and I caught his eye and waved to him.

“And what about these others?” I said. “Your crew? What’s going to happen there?”

We had moved beyond the awning and into sun, and I saw Alma, the photographer, squatting down to rearrange things in his camera bag. Kelly was standing over him, and when I looked back to see the gathering at the tables and the others I was asking about, I caught sight of the old nun marching across the Manor’s lawn, then stepping into shadow under the still umbrella and reaching for a plate. Carolyn was there as well, her starched uniform like a cutout dress for a paper doll, brighter and more severe than the nun’s soft, dingy cotton. Larry had moved between them, a wraith in night clothing, and the three were talking, looking very much like maskers in some ancient miracle play.

We were standing at the meadow’s brink, and I looked out at Kelly’s ruined house, half dismantled in the time since I’d arrived. I could see a green, official truck, off to the left at the barricades, men in uniform carrying sawhorses and blinker lights. The barricades were coming down as well, and I saw a dark car, moving slowly through the meadow toward the Manor. I knew it was the man named Arthur, Kelly’s chauffeur, and that he was making the trip for the last time.

“It’s pretty simple,” Carlos said, “and not unexpected. Larry’s going back to Philadelphia and his AIDS hospice work. Frank and Erica will stay here for a while, getting used to each other, then maybe even staying on. I can’t be sure. As for my father and Ramona, they’ll stay too, at least for a while. John’s heading back beyond Tampico, in a week or so with Alma, to the village and Chepa. He says he’ll be there permanently and we can visit if we want. The only one to wonder about is Gino. He’s been talking about Chicago, but then he speaks of the West Coast, even New Mexico and Arizona. The only sure thing is that he won’t be here for long. Says he has some wandering to do.”

“And what about you?” I asked. “And Kelly.”

“We’re staying put,” he said, smiling up at me. “You can come over for dinner anytime.”

By the time the party was drawing to a close, the sun had dipped down in the sky behind the Manor, and the few remaining elements of Kelly’s house, a vacant doorway of studs, scattered clapboards, and a pile of chimney bricks, were silhouette figures at the escarpment’s crest, the flat sea visible beyond. Months of wind and shifting ground had loosened every nail and mortar line. They’d had no need for heavy equipment, and the dismantling had been easy and quiet and had gone unnoticed as the party progressed. Even the lighthouse was silent and inactive now, its beam dark under its black witch’s hat, all the tourists departed. And all the guests at the party, but for the principals, had departed too, and I turned from the meadow and saw the empty tables under the awning, a few remaining champagne glasses and soiled linen napkins on the white tablecloths. Then I saw Alma. He was adjusting his tripod, settling the legs down in the lawn, the large camera tilting above. It was taking him some time to get it right, pointed toward the edge of the Manor’s property, the lens aiming out into the meadow beyond. We were alone out there for a moment, and I caught that acknowledgment in his enigmatic smile once the camera was fixed in place and he looked up from his work to see me watching him. Then we were no longer alone.

They were pushing the narrow ambulance stretcher unsteadily through the grass newly grown above the sod, its spongy softness grabbing the wheels and causing all four of them to lean into the task. Carolyn and the nun flanked the temporary bed, and Kelly pushed at the foot, while Larry pulled at the handle near the man’s bald head. I saw what looked like a bowl of fruit resting on the prone figure’s chest. Then it moved, and I knew it was the yellow chihuahua, then saw her head and saw the sun shining transparently through her broad ears. The others were to the side and behind the conveyors, watching out for them, and I started across the lawn, then thought better of it and pulled up at the canopy’s edge. He’ll get there eventually, I thought, and he did, much quicker than I’d imagined, and I saw them turning the stretcher to face into the camera when they reached the meadow’s brink, then saw the nun cranking a handle to the side near the figure’s chest, until he had risen and was resting as if sleeping in a lounge chair, at the beach or at a resort in the mountains, his small, vibrant pet alertly curious on his soft lap.