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ONE
IT’S ONLY LIFE WE ALL GET THROUGH IT
Not all of us co the way, sos or eyes in accidents or altercations, while others skate through the years with nothing worse to worry about than an occasional bad-hair day
I still possessed both legs and both eyes, and evenin late January If I returned to bed sixteen hours later, having lost all ofelse, I would consider the day a triumph Even minus a few teeth, I’d call it a triumph
When I raised theshades in ray and swollen, windless and still, but pregnant with a proe
Overnight, according to the radio, an airliner had crashed in Ohio Hundreds perished The sole survivor, a ten-ht and unscathed in a battered seat that stood in a field of scorched and twisted debris
Throughout the ish waves exhausted theray and aith inky shadows, as if sinuous sea beasts of fantastical form swam just below the surface
During the night, I had twice awakened from a dream in which the tide flowed red and the sea throbbed with a terrible light
As nighto, I’m sure you’ve had worse The problem is that a few of my dreams have come true, and people have died
While I prepared breakfast for ht news that the jihadists who had the previous day seized an ocean liner in the Mediterranean were now beheading passengers
Years ago I stopped watching news prograe they ies undo me
Because he was an insomniac ent to bed at dawn, Hutch ate breakfast at noon He paid me well, and he was kind, so I cooked to his schedule without complaint
Hutch took hisrooht sliver of any pane remained exposed
He often enjoyed a fil over coffee until the credits rolled That day, rather than cable news, he watched Carole Lombard and John Barrymore in Twentieth Century
Eighty-eight years old, born in the era of silent films, when Lillian Gish and Rudolph Valentino were stars, and having later been a successful actor, Hutch thought less in words than in ies, and he dwelt in fantasy
Beside his plate stood a bottle of Purell sanitizing gel He lavished it on his hands not only before and after eating, but also at least twice during a meal
Like most Americans in the first decade of the new century, Hutch feared everything except what he ought to fear
When TV-news progra-addled, murderous, and otherwise crazed celebrities—which happened perhaps twice a year—they soap with a sensationalistic piece on that rare flesh-eating bacteria
Consequently, Hutch feared contracting the ravenous germ From time to time, like a dour character in a tale by Poe, he huddled in his laility of his flesh, about the insatiable appetite of his microscopic foe
He especially dreaded that his nose ht be eaten away
Long ago, his face had been fauised him, he still took pride in his appearance
I had seen a few of Lawrence Hutchison’s movies fro presence on screen
Because he had not appeared on ca than for his children’s books about a swashbuckling rabbit named Nibbles Unlike his creator, Nibbles was fearless
Fil investment opportunities with paranoid suspicion had left Hutch financially secure in his old age Nevertheless, he worried that an explosive rise in the price of oil or a total collapse in the price of oil would lead to a ide financial crisis that would leave him penniless
His house faced the boardwalk, the beach, the ocean Surf broke less than a minute’s stroll from his front door
Over the years, he had come to fear the sea He could not bear to sleep on the west side of the house, where hethe shore
Therefore, I was quartered in the ocean-facing uest room at the back
Within a day of arriving in Magic Beach, more than a month previous to the red-tide drea as his chauffeur on those infrequent occasions when he wanted to go out
My experience at the Pico Mundo Grill serveda flood frolands, fry bacon to the crispness of a cracker without parching it, andyet so fluffy they see off the plate, you will always find work
At four-thirty that afternoon in late January, when I stepped into the parlor with Boo,at the television, which he had muted
“Bad news, sir?”
His deep and rounded voice rolled an o”
“We don’t live on Mars”
“It’s war at the same rate as the earth”
“Were you planning to ?”
He indicat
ed the silenced anchorman on the TV “Thiscan be done about it Nothing”
“Well, sir, there’s always Jupiter or whatever planet lies beyond Mars”
He fixed ray-eyed stare that conveyed i district attorneys and courageous military officers
“So man, I think you may be from beyond Mars”
“Nowhere more exotic than Pico Mundo, California If you won’t need o out for a walk”
Hutch rose to his feet He was tall and lean He kept his chin lifted but craned his head forward as does a ht have been a habit that he developed in the years before he had his cataracts removed
“Go out?” He frowned as he approached “Dressed like that?”
I earing sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt
He was not troubled by arthritis and ree Yet heto fracture so
Not for the first ti tide pools
“You should put on a jacket You’ll get pneumonia”
“It’s not that chilly today,” I assured him
“You young people think you’re invulnerable”
“Not this young person, sir I’ve got every reason to be astonished that I’m not already permanently horizontal”
Indicating the words MYSTERY TRAIN on my sweatshirt, he asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know I found it in a thrift shop”
“I have never been in a thrift shop”
“You haven’t missed much”
“Do only very poor people shop there or is the criteria merely thriftiness?”
“They welcome all economic classes, sir”
“Then I should go one day soon Make an adventure of it”
“You won’t find a genie in a bottle,” I said, referring to his film The Antique Shop
“No doubt you’re too h life when you’ve nothing to believe in?”
“Oh, I have beliefs”