The Leisure Seeker Read Online Free Page A

quite some time. Smoking and talking. Talking and smoking. She just lights one off the other. I feel sorry for her at first, that she needs to do this with completestrangers, but after about twenty minutes, I was afraid that I was going to be out there all night. Poor thing, I know she just wanted to make a noise, have someone to pay attention to her, know she was there. She didn’t understand that it didn’t matter that I knew she was there. I would be gone tomorrow. You need to have it matter to people who count.
    “My first husband, he gave me gonorrhea for our fourth anniversary. He was a sonofabitch, that one. He about wore me out with his hijinks—”
    Right then, her husband comes out, and without a word, grabs her arm and starts pulling her back to their little place.
    “Ow! Donald! What are you doing?”
    He didn’t say a word, but she chattered and smoked all the way there. After the door shut, I could still hear her talking.
     
    Twilight slips in like a timid creature. Lights tick on around the trailer village. The air grows cooler. I grab one of John’s old jackets and throw it over my shoulders. In a storage bin, I find an old gray wool winter cap to put on my head, which is freezing, unaccustomed to being without its hat of hair. The cold and the musky smell of John’s jacket make me think of a night after we were first married in the winter of 1950. We were living on Twelfth Street just off West Grand Boulevard. It had rained all night as the temperature plummeted. At about midnight, it stopped, and John and I, for some reason, decided to take a walk.
    It was frigid, but so beautiful. Everything was coated witha thick layer of brilliant clear ice, as if the world were preserved under glass. We had to take tiny hesitant steps, so as not to slip. Above us, power lines crackled and tore from their poles; a streetlight globe, laden with ice, dropped and shattered in the street with a muffled pop . We walked and walked under a brittle black sky, jagged with stars, moon shining hard and bright on the crystal buildings that lined the boulevard. The world looked fragile, but we were young and invulnerable. We kept walking, at least a mile, toward the golden tower of the Fisher Building, not knowing why, knowing only that we needed to get there. We returned to our flat that night excited, our hair glistening with shiny flecks of ice, full of a deep thirst for each other. That was the night that Cindy was conceived.
    Right now, I hear the loudening trill of crickets and the sizzle of gravel as cars slowly pass. I can smell microwave popcorn coming from somewhere. There is no reason to, but I feel safe with all these people around us. John is awake now and I can hear him talking under his breath. He is telling someone off. I hear him whispering obscenities, threats to enemies, accusations. All our lives together, John was a passive, quiet man. But now, since he started to lose his mind, he says the things that he always wanted to say to people. He is forever reading his personal riot act to someone. It often happens this time of the day. When the sun sets, the anger rises in him.
    He appears at the doorway of the van. “Where are we?” he says loud, voice full of fight.
    “We’re in Illinois,” I say, ready for it.
    “Is that home?”
    “No. Home is Michigan.”
    “What are we doing here?” he barks.
    “We’re on vacation.”
    “We are?”
    “Yes. And we’re having a great time.”
    He crosses his arms. “No, I’m not. I want a cup of tea.”
    “I’ll make one in a little while. I’m resting.”
    He joins me at the table. It’s quiet for about a minute, then he speaks again. “How about a cup of tea?”
    “We’re going to wait a little while for a cup of tea.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’ll be up all night peeing.”
    “Goddamn it, I want a cup of tea!”
    Finally, I give him a look and talk to him in that same hushed, threatening voice he was using a minute ago. “Keep your voice