The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [90]
“Will you do me a favor, Honora?” he asked.
“I won’t go to Sarah’s tea if that’s what you want,” she said. “I’ve told you I have a music lesson.”
“It isn’t that,” Leander said. “It’s something else. When I die I want Prospero’s speech said over my grave.”
“What speech is that?” Honora asked.
“Our revels now are ended,” Leander said, rising from has chair. “These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air.” He declaimed, and his declamatory style was modeled partly on the Shakespearians of his youth, partly on the bombast and singsong of prize-ring announcements and partly on the style of the vanished horsecar and trolley-car conductors who had made an incantation of the place names along their routes. His voice soared and he illustrated the poetry with some very literal gestures. “… and, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.” He dropped his hands. His voice fell. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” Then he said good-by and went.
Early the next morning Leander saw that there would be no sanctuary or peace for him in the farm that day. The stir of a large ladies’ party—magnified by the sale of Italian pottery—was inescapable. He decided to visit his friend Grimes, who was living in an old people’s home in West Chillum. It was a trip he had planned to make for years. He walked into St. Botolphs after breakfast and caught the bus to West Chillum there. It was on the other side of Chillum that the bus driver told him they had reached the Twilight Home and Leander got off. The place from the road looked to him like one of the New England academies. There was a granite wall, set with sharp pieces of stone to keep vagrants from resting. The drive was shaded with elms, and the buildings it served were made of red brick along architectural lines that, whatever had been intended when they were built, now seemed very gloomy. Along the driveway Leander saw old men hoeing the gutters. He entered the central building and went to an office, where a woman asked what he wanted.
“I want to see Mr. Grimes.”
“Visitors aren’t allowed on weekdays,” the woman said.
“I’ve just come all the way from St. Botolphs,” Leander said.
“He’s in the north dormitory,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone I said you could go in. Go up those stairs.”
Leander walked down the hall and up some broad wooden stairs. The dormitory was a large room with a double row of iron beds down each side of a center aisle. Old men were lying on fewer than half the beds. Leander recognized his old friend and went over to the bed where he was lying.
“Grimes,” he said.
“Who is it?” The old man opened his eyes.
“Leander. Leander Wapshot.”
“Oh Leander,” Grimes cried and the tears streamed down his cheeks. “Leander, old sport. You’re the first friend to come and see me since Christmas.” He embraced Leander. “You don’t know what it’s like for me to see a friendly face. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Well, I thought I’d pay you a little call,” Leander said. “I meant to come a long time ago. Somebody told me you had a pool table out here so I thought I’d come out and play you a little pool.”
“We have a pool table,” Grimes said. “Come on, come on, I’ll show you the pool table.” He seized Leander’s arm and led him out of the dormitory. “We’ve got all kinds of recreation,” he said excitedly. “At Christmas they sent us a lot of gramophone records. We have gardens. We get plenty of fresh air and exercise. We work in the gardens. Don’t you want to see the gardens?”
“Anything you say, Grimes,” Leander said unwillingly. He did not want to see the gardens or much more of the Twilight Home. If he could sit quietly for an hour somewhere and talk with Grimes he would feel repaid for the trip.
“We grow all our own vegetables,” Grimes said. “We have fresh vegetables right out of the garden. I