Some Other Town (23 page)

Then we see it, the pontoon feet appear first, and we all know it is AirCare, the helicopter the university hospital deploys for all outlying emergencies. It is something brand new for the hospital and apparently a wise investment. Given the large drinking-age student population, our town is prone to emergencies, and since AirCare arrived, we have all frequently spotted it overhead. But this is the first time any of us has seen it actually land. Right here, right in front of our sanatorium.

We watch the helicopter hover, looking for a place to set down. The parking lot is full, and a patrolman is now directing the pilot to the grass alongside, to two large picnic tables waiting there. The helicopter turns and swings sideways and begins to drop for the tables.

“Look, look,” Mr. Bones says. He is excited. We are all excited, we had not counted on an emergency for the Personality's lunch. It does add, we think, to the visit.

Then as we watch, before the helicopter's pontoons even touch ground, a man and woman jump out of one side, each carrying leather satchels. They are quick, they bend low, heads below blades. Even in half crouch they run fast.

The patrolman runs as well to meet them. There is a great deal of wind now, it flops their trousers against their legs and whips the cap from the patrolman's head. He lets it go, and grabs the woman by the arm. Then together all three of them run to the sanatorium's side doors and disappear quickly inside.

We watch as the helicopter touches all the way down. Its blades continue to turn. It is an emergency all right, we all know. The pilot has kept the engine running.

And then everyone in the lunchroom starts to talk all at once, at all the tables around us. Everyone is asking what is it, do you know? What happened? AirCare normally flies just to the highway for crashes, it has never before landed at Elmwood. It must be something bad.

One of the vivisectionists leans across the aisle and says to the Personality he bets it's one of the convicts. “Probably slit his wrists,” he says. “You get some of that type out here.” Although it must be serious this time, usually the infirmary just patches them up. “The guy must have done a real good job,” the vivisectionist says.

The Personality takes in this news. But she still holds with the drug addicts we can see, although we do not know why she favors them so, not with a lunchroom here full of convicts. Still, she says
to our table when the vivisectionist turns away, “If it's anything I bet it's an addict.” Probably shot himself full of mayonnaise when the keepers weren't there watching. And then she tells us how she once read an article about it, how some addicts, when they can't get their hands on heroin, will shoot mayonnaise or peanut butter into their veins. “It gives them some kind of rush,” she says, although it cannot be good for them, is her guess. Often they die, but if they live almost always they end up in a nursing home. “No, it's a drug addict, definitely,” the Personality says, and nods her chin up at AirCare.

Frances stares at the window where the Personality points and says, “Well yes, that may be. But isn't it odd they haven't taken back off yet?”

We all look through the window at the helicopter. Frances is right, it has been some time since the man and woman with the satchels jumped out, maybe ten minutes, although we're not sure. But we can see the pilot looks bored. He is still in the helicopter, the blades are still turning, but he has picked up a newspaper and opened it. He must always keep something with him to read for long emergencies like this.

The Personality turns back from the window, she wants our attention. “They are a real problem, those drug addicts,” she says, tapping her plate for emphasis. If she had her way, they'd all be locked up in prisons. It is a mistake, she says, to have them running about a sanatorium like this, when people are trying to work. “It is a wonder,” she says, “Professor Steinem can get anything done here at all, with drug addicts all over the place.”

But then “Oh no,” Mr. Bones says. He has come out of Sally Ann's purse again and is jabbing his head and the whole length of her arm at the window. “Oh no, Sally Ann, oh no!”

We look back at the helicopter and we see the pilot has cut the engine. The blades slow their speed, they turn slower and slower, then make half another turn and stop. It is not a good sign, no, oh no.

“Well there you are,” Frances says. “Whoever, whatever he was, apparently he didn't make it.” And without waiting for the rest of us, Frances stands to leave. There does not seem to be any point now in staying. And she herself has deadlines.

We all stand up too. We push in our chairs, we start for the cafeteria door. No one is talking now. Even Lola does not have anything to offer, and it is quiet in the elevator on the way up to fourth. We do not stop for a view of any new floors.

It is all right, the Personality tells us. She does not much feel like a tour just now. She looks, we all notice, a little peaked.

One more thing I've just remembered about Ben. Ben and me and the matter of washcloths, an issue on which we initially disagreed.

That is to say, Ben Adams, when I met him, did not keep one single washcloth, he did not in the least believe in them. It was a sign, or so I thought then, of something to keep an eye on, an early warning of some covert feral state or general vagabond listing.

To be fair, it's been an issue with other men I have known, they did not use washcloths either. I do not fully know why this is. It could be there is something unmasculine, or maybe just anticlimactic, about standing in the full force of a hot,
sudsy shower—naked and hirsute, vigorously rubbing at armpit and chest, shaking back water into the light, enjoying it all immensely—and then stopping to dab with a small wet rag.

I do not have a feel for the gender implications of washcloths. I just know that when men are left to themselves, men who are single and live mostly alone, often in one-bedroom apartments, these men are unlikely to stock any washcloths. Which makes it difficult if you are to stay over some night and find in the morning you have nothing to bathe with but soap. You manage of course, you figure it out. But it is not the same, and it is not, I think, too much to ask of a man to keep a few washcloths. It's not like they take up room.

Ben Adams, of course, is not single, nor was I planning a sleepover and bath. This waking mornings together is a step I've not taken with boyfriends, or at least with the general majority. The prospect was always too unsettling, and then again far too settled. So it was not something I was inclined to try with Ben Adams, although the topic did one day come up. A topic related, as I was getting to, to washcloths.

That day, Ben and I were just back from a hike. I had come unprepared. I'd worn sandals, it had rained, and I stepped into his bath then to wash the mud from my feet. “Ben,” I called, searching the cabinet. “Ben, where are the washcloths?”

“Washcloths?” Ben called back. “You want washcloths?'” As though this were some new vocabulary word he needed to try out in a sentence.

I should mention Ben Adams is not a man who is intent on housekeeping details. He has, for instance, not bothered with the matter of sheets. I know this because I have seen the sleeping bag
that is draped the length of his bed. With a sleeping bag opened on top of a bed, you can just lie down and zip the bag up. You do not actually need sheets with a sleeping bag.

Still, there is no real substitute for a washcloth, I have found. It is not all that easy to shower while scrubbing, for instance, with a sock. And so, “Washcloths,” I walked out of the bathroom and said. “We need washcloths here, bud.”

“Right,” Ben replied. Then he shrugged and said he would look into it. By which I knew he would not.

It was that same night then, after we'd once again gone out to see stars, that Ben Adams proposed I just spend the night at his house. It was late, why drive home? He would make up the bed.

“No, Ben,” I said. Though when he kissed me and asked in a whisper was I sure, I could leave right at dawn if I wanted, and started again to slide his hand down my side, asking again was I sure, I knew that probably I wasn't. Still, “No Ben,” I said, and grasping for straws, reminded him he kept no washcloths.

I consider it fate then, and yet another sign, that two days later Kresge's dime store announced a big sale. We in this town are concerned for our Kresge's, the shelves of late have looked meager, and it could be the new Woolworth's that went up out of town is stealing little Kresge's thunder. So we were happy last fall to see Kresge's step up and mark down to Woolworth's level.

I myself stopped in for a browse and it was then that fate took its turn. Kresge's stocks everything and there at the back, next to a stack of thin bath towels, there gathered into bundles of bright pastels and bathed in a golden light, rose dozens and dozens of washcloths—not at the storewide twenty percent off but all on unbelievable half-off clearance. They were a store feature that
day, a sign perhaps of low regard. But a sign nevertheless, and undeterred by the half-off stigma, I gathered up several bundles of twelve and made my way back to the cash register.

Flushed and excited, I drove to Ben's farm to show him my lucky find. By another stroke of what could only be fate, Ben was not at the time at home. So I grabbed for the clothesline he keeps on his porch and started wildly to string. Ben has his own method for clothesline, it's true. But what we needed now was something more triumphant and much higher. So with the help of Ben's twelve-foot ladder, I stretched my new line from the house to the pines, then back again, next on to the flagpole and around the two oaks beyond. Then I clipped on the washcloths, all five nubbly dozen, cheery buttercup yellows, rosy pinks, baby blues. And when a breeze rolled in high, as I knew that it would, the cloths overhead flapped merrily, no, gleefully all around Ben's half-acre yard. It looked like a happy farmyard announcement. The grand opening for some large open-air stall, a used car lot in holiday mood. Or maybe like high mountain prayer flags. Yes, like great strings of terry-cloth prayer flags, bright and healing and free.

When Ben pulled up in his truck then, he did not say a word. He just stood in the grass, looking up.

“Washcloths,” I said. “We have washcloths here, bud.” And pointed out we were set now for years.

I would like to say that delighted with my wit and generosity, Ben laughed, head back, full-bellied and loud. And he did. But then he did something more. Still smiling but now looking close up as he does, he took me by both my shoulders. “Thank you, dear Margaret,” he said. “Thank you.”

By which I knew we had just then moved on from washcloths.

We follow the Personality off the elevator, relieved to be back on fourth floor. It's been a stressful hour for all of us, we are happy that lunch is over. And we are looking forward now more than any of us can say to returning Miss MaryBeth to Steinem. It is Steinem's turn with her now.

While the rest of us stand with the Personality and wait, Marcie hurries down the hall to find him. Then, “Here,” we say to the Personality. “Here, let us sit out in our solarium. It is a good place to wait and recover.” Let us all just sit here and suffer awhile until Dr. Steinem arrives. And would the Personality care for a coffee?

Marcie comes hurrying back down the hall much too soon. She finds us out in our deck chairs and, breathless, tells us Dr. Steinem is tied up on the phone with a grantor, an extremely major grant funder. He had only enough time to tell Marcie he could not be disturbed. And that he sends his apologies to Miss MaryBeth, it is fortunate she is in our good hands. He should, he added, just be a few minutes more.

I can feel our collective hearts sink. We are stuck with each other those few minutes more that Steinem has ways of extending. And what occurs to us of course, well what is our concern, is that now the Personality will get around to our readers.

She sits back in her chair, and with a peevish little shimmy, drops her coat from her shoulders. She looks off toward the solarium glass, breathes deeply, gathers herself. And then just as we feared, she sits up a little straighter and seems now to have something to share.

But first she smiles her
Magic Garden
smile. I have seen this sort of smile before. I imagine it is the one she gave Rufus just before running him over. No, I do not like the look of that smile. It is our lunch, I would guess, what we and the drug addicts have just put her through. She is holding the lunch hour against us. And she's determined to get even.

So now the Personality leans toward us. She smiles again, this time kindly. She just wants to be friends. And she turns to Celeste. “Well now, Celeste. It's Celeste, is that right? Professor Steinem tells me you are writing about fish.”

It is related to nothing we have said so far. But it is angling toward the topic of our readers, all right. It can't be the Personality is just trying for rapport, to show her interest in us.

And I am right of course because immediately then, before Celeste can answer the question, the Personality turns it back to herself, which is of course where her real interest lies. “Well yes, fish,” she muses. “You know, I once thought about having a fish on the show, a puppet, I mean, maybe a carp, but it just never seemed to work out.” The show's producers were split on what a fish had to offer, the show's writers couldn't think of good carp lines. So, the Personality says, she finds it interesting that Celeste, all on her own, could come up with a whole series on fish.

Celeste stands just then at the coffee cart, brewing a fresh cup of tea. She pretends to be busy straining the leaves. She pretends she's not heard this mention of fish, that she's not caught the reference to Joe Trout. But she is thinking about it, you can tell.

The Personality turns to the rest of us then and she gets at last to her point. She understands, she says, our new readers will be shipping soon. She would be interested, she says, in knowing more.