on a bright and sunshiny day, admiring the beautiful neo-Gothic architecture. Completing my last lap, I spied the elderly African-American lady sitting on a bench mumbling. Because I don’t like to wheel by anybody since they might make a comment about my wheelchair or ask me “What d’ya know?” (I never know what to say to that), I stayed out of sight as far as I could and pretended not to notice she was there—by looking up at the sky or at the church or out at the traffic or down at the sidewalk. As soon as I got past her, I took a half lap and snuck up behind her through the Oratory’s garden path that let me get near to her while lingering behind a large flowering bush. Loneliness will lead one to do such things, plus, admittedly, my writerly tendencies goaded me to see what she looked like and hear what she was saying. Sadly, she was pretty rough looking. She was elderly, overweight, dressed in dirty old pink sweatpants, a light blue sweatshirt and—even though it was rather warm—she was wearing a wrinkled and ratty straw hat. But the really interesting thing about her was that she was having a conversation with herself about her Thanksgiving plans, though in reality it was the middle of April. Apparently she was having a large gathering with her friends, cousins, and other family members (such as King Henry VIII, Napoleon, Voltaire, King Louis XVI, Justin Bieber, her uncle Frank, her aunt Martha) and they would be exchanging many delicious dishes of turkey, ham, Jell-O salad, and pecan stuffing—but also presents of microwaves, pencil sharpeners, books, hats, gloves, and cheese graters. While she was doing this, it seemed that she was acting out the exchanging of the foods and presents with her hands as if she were actually in the middle of the event or that she was trying to sort them out in her brain. In this whole discussion about the Thanksgiving preparations, she seemed quite serious and very content, as if she really had to figure out these details because the event was coming up fast, although it was, again, the middle of April. I wheeled home somewhat less exuberantly than I had wheeled out into Wausau earlier in the day. The scene had been comical in its way, but I was haunted a bit by it as well. Her loneliness compounded and echoed my own. Concerning my fantasy of a Bedford-Falls-like quietness and friendliness, I, unfortunately, found out fast that Wausau was not the friendly and safe town of my imaginings (no singing Bert the cop or smiling Ernie the taxi man, no hee-hawing Sam Wainwright, no sweet Mary Hatch perched on the drugstore soda fountain counter, and certainly no comically angelic Clarence Odbody etc.). Some sources had told me that Page 32
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