Richard Ford - The Sportswriter

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.” (Who in a modern world wouldn’t?)

“Well, and you’d be right. He got in his car and drove east. He said he felt like somebody’d just said, ‘Here, Nick, here’s your whole life being handed to you again. See if you can’t do better this time.’ And he’s reported dead right now out in Idaho or Wyoming, or one of those states. Insurance paid. Who knows where his family is? His kids? And he works right beside me on the Turnpike, happy as a man can be. I’d never tell it, of course. And I’m a lot luckier than he is. We both just had new lives served to us, and a conviction to do something with them.” Wade looks at me seriously, rubs his palms delicately on the chrome door handle beside him. He wants me to know that he’s discovered something important late in life, something worth knowing when very few people ever discover any thing by just living. He’d like to pass some wisdom along from the for-what-it’s-worth department, though I can’t help wondering what his friend’s wife would think if she ever came through Exit 9 at just the right moment. It could happen. “Do you want to get married again, Frank?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a good answer,” Wade says. “I didn’t think I did. Living alone didn’t seem so bad after being married for twenty-nine years. What do you think?”

“It has its plusses, Wade. Did you meet Lynette up here?”

“I met her at a rock concert, and don’t ask me what I was doing there because I couldn’t tell you. This was in Atlantic City, three years ago. I’m not a joiner, and if you’re not a joiner you can end up in some pretty strange places proving to yourself how independent you are.”

“I usually end up staying home reading. Though I get in my car sometimes and drive all day, too. It sounds like what you’re talking about.”

“That’s not so good, doesn’t sound to me like.”

“It isn’t always, no.”

“Well, anyway. Here was ole Lynette. She’s about your age, Frank. Been widowed, divorced, and came to this concert with a Spanish guy who was about twenty-five. And he had just up and disappeared on her. I won’t tell you all the gory details. But we ended up out at the Howard Johnson’s on the freeway drinking coffee and talking the truth to each other till four in the morning. It turns out we both had a yearning to do something useful and positive with what time we had left to us, and neither one of us was much of a perfectionist, by which I mean we both knew we weren’t exactly perfect for each other.” Wade folds his arms and looks stern.

“How long before you got married, Wade? Not that long, I’ll bet.” I direct a sly grin at Wade because a big sly grin needs to come on his face at the thought of that starry night on the smoggy Atlantic City Expressway, and I’m glad to help him out. It must’ve seemed to them that they had beached together on a blasted, deserted shingle, and were damned lucky to be there. It is not a bad story, and worth a hundred grins.

“Not that long, Frank,” Wade says proudly, cracking the very grin needed to get into the spirit of that old charmed time again. “Her divorce was settled, and we didn’t see any use waiting. She’s a Catholic, after all. A divorce was bad enough. And she didn’t want us to be living together, which would’ve been fine with me. Only in a month I was married, and had this house! Boy!” Wade smiles and shakes his head at the remarkable singularity of unplanned life.

“You struck it rich, I’d say.”

“Well, Lynette and I are opposites of a sort. She’s pretty definite about things. And I’m a lot less definite, nowadays anyway. She takes being a Catholic pretty seriously — more so since her son got killed. And I kinda let her have her way there. I joined just for her sake, but we don’t hold mass here, Frank. I’d say we were just alike in the one thing that counts — we’re not rich people, and I’m not sure we really love each other or need to, but we want to be a good force in a small world and give a good accounting in the time that’s left.” Wade looks at me on the steps as if I were going to judge him, and he was hoping I’d come down and give him a big crack on the shoulders like a linebacker. I’m sure he has told me all this — a subject we might’ve gotten into in greater depth at the Red Lobster, and where I might’ve done more of the talking — because he wants to give me a fair sense of what the family is here, just in case I was weighing joining up. And it’s true that the Arcenaults are a world apart from what I expected. Only better. Wade couldn’t recommend himself or his tidy life to me in sweeter, more agreeable terms. What better prospects than to hitch up here. Forge a commitment in Sherri-Lyn Woods (odd weekends and holidays). I might eventually make friends with Cade, write him a subtle letter of recommendation to a good junior college; get him interested in marketing techniques instead of police work and guns. I might buy my own Whaler and dock it behind the house. It could be a damn good ordinary life, that’s for sure.

Though for some reason I am nervous and embarrassed. My hands are still cold and stiff, and I stuff them inside my pants pockets and stare at Wade blank as a tomb door. That I withhold at just this moment is a major failing in my character.

“Frank,” Wade says, sharp-eyed and studious now. “I want to hear from you on this. Do you think it’s too little to do with your life? Just collect tolls, raise a family, work on an old car like this, go out on the ocean with your son and fish for fluke? Maybe love your wife?”

I cannot answer fast enough, all reluctance aside. “No,” I almost shout. “Not a bit. I think it’s goddamn great, Wade, and you’re a damn lucky son of a bitch to get it.” (I’m shocked to hear myself call Wade a son of a bitch.)

“There’s more romance, I’d guess, in what you do, though, Frank. I don’t see a lot of the world where I stand, though I’ve already seen plenty of it.”

“Our lives are probably a lot more alike than you’d think, Wade. If you don’t mind my saying so, yours might even be better.”

“There are a lot of things went into an old car like this, if you get my meaning.” Wade smiles proudly now, happy for my vote of approval. “Little touches I can’t put into words. I’ll come down here at four in the morning sometimes and tinker till daylight. And I have it to look forward to when I drive home. And I’ll tell you this, son. Any day I come up upstairs, I’m happy as a lark, and my devils are in their dungeon.”

“That’s great, Wade.”

“And it’s every bit of it completely knowable, son. Wires and bolts. I could show you everything, though I can’t tell you. You could sure do it yourself.” He looks at me and shakes his head in amazement. Wade is not a full-disclosure kind of man, no matter how it might seem. And in this case, I know exactly what he’s discovered, know the worth and pleasure it can be to anyone. Though for some strange reason, as I look down at Wade looking up at me, what I think of is Wade alone, walking down a long empty hospital corridor, holding a single suitcase, stopping at a numberless door and peeking in on a neat, empty room where the bed is turned down and harsh sunlight comes through a window, and things inside are clean as they can be. Tests are what he’s here for. Many, many of them. And once he’s walked in the room he will never be the same. This is the beginning of the end, and frankly it scares me witless and gives me a terrible shudder. I would like to hug him now, tell him to stay out of hospitals, meet the reaper at home. But I can’t. He would get the wrong idea and everything between us would be ruined just when it’s started so well.