“Eh. Unless we got a new sun in the past week, I already saw this one,” he says grouchily.
Ernie says nothing for the next few minutes, so I let him enjoy the silence.
Finally I ask, “What are you thinking?”
“Trying to think if I can convince one of the grandkids to send us a fart machine,” he says. “I think Clarisse would enjoy that one at lunch.”
I shake my head. “Leave the poor woman alone.”
Ernie smiles. “So, when are you leaving?”
“Leaving?” I ask. “I still have an hour with you!”
“No. I mean, for good.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Not for a long time.” He signals for me to help him up, and I draw his walker close so he can use it to heave himself up. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re eager to get rid of me.”
“I just hate to see someone like you, with your whole future ahead of you, putting everything on hold to spend time with an old geezer like me. Don’t you kids go to university anymore?”
“Some of us do.”
“Will you?” he asks.
“Probably next year.”
“Didn’t you say you graduated? Why not this year?”
“I’m not ready,” I say. “I’m not sure what I want to be.”
“That’s nonsense. Nobody becomes what they want to be,” he says dismissively. “You just go out there, try not to face-plant, and hope nobody notices.”
What if you already face-planted?I want to ask him. What if you’re still on home base and you’ve already ruined the entire game? Then what?
“You’d make a fine nurse,” he says. “But I wouldn’t pursue anything that involves using words too often. Your performance on that crossword was abysmal.”
I hold open the door and wait as he shuffles into the building. “I was only supposed to be writing what you told me to!”
“That’s not how crosswords work,” Ernie says, and I roll my eyes.
“Just don’t wait too long,” he says as we turn down the hall back to his unit, “to start trying to be what you want to be—or whatever nonsense you said.
“Eighty years flies by,” he continues. “Except when you have hemorrhoids. Then it’s like watching the goddamned concrete dry.”
I giggle. “I hope I never find out.”
“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Not even my brother, Gareth Richard Solomon IV, the unlucky son of a bitch.”
We go on to discuss the fact that All Saints is taking Ernie and some other residents to a movie on Saturday afternoon, so I have that day off.
The rest of the night, while I’m volunteering at the club, and the next day at Camp MORE my mind keeps replaying Ernie’s words.Just don’t wait too long.
Eighty years flies by.
And some people don’t even get eighty years. Some don’t get fifty. Or eighteen.
But what if you’ve fucked up colossally and the universe isn’t done punishing you? What if there is something fundamentally wrong, something inside you that chases people away and hurts those who stay? Is there any point in trying to do anything but burrow and wait until the world forgets who you are? Untilyouforget who you are?
I’m so distracted mulling this over in my mind that I’m powerless to do anything by the time things have gone spectacularly wrong.
