The Whiler

By Jim Wygant

This is the nearly life-long story of one man. It begins on a ferry ride to Victoria, B.C. During that brief sojourn he initiates careful contact, somewhat shy and ill-informed, with a young woman he believes is destined to become his soul-mate. He ultimately advances through a series of relationships, friends and lovers, eventually recalling them from the perspective of a thrice-married solitary old man with a dog. His view of who he is and who he might have been is sharpened by the pandemic of 2020. This mostly serious tale is spiced with a generous dose of humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Wygant
• Release date: Mar 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215381601

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Peter Imblie lived long enough to become an old man who had survived three marriages and had settled into the unrelenting discipline of resistance to a pandemic. Masked in public. Six feet apart. Decades before that viral disease landed on the world in 2020, back in the 1960s when Peter was a young man trying to define his entry into adulthood, he was living alone in a mid-west city. Later he would look back on those years as a period of innocence and naivete.  He had been told in his early twenties that he was at the start of what an acquaintance once praised as a very promising career in theatrical promotions, actually a non-paying part-time job he held for only a few months. At that early time in his adult life he’d had a romantic affair which he initially believed would follow him through the rest of his life. It did not.

He had hesitated to categorize it as an affair. He wondered if it was intense enough to deserve elevation to that supreme status. He could only judge based upon what he had read and what he had heard from a few male acquaintances who routinely exaggerated nearly everything. Maybe just a relationship. In truth, he had not had many of those, but relationship sounded less pretentious than affair. Nevertheless, he had been involved with a pretty young woman. He had experienced one clumsy episode of sex with her because they both had strong desires and he felt that sex was something he owed her. He was not sure what her own motivation had been, but he had finally decided she did not really love him and only wanted the pleasure of whatever affection he could provide. On that note he had ended the relationship.

One morning, a few months later but still about a half-year before President Kennedy was assassinated, Peter marched along in his fast, stiff-legged pace to a ferry terminal in Seattle. He still thought of that brief romantic episode. He reassured himself that it had indeed been an affair, a determination that allowed him to feel a little more mature. He was not sure why he even had that thought at that particular moment, except that he had been feeling lonely there in Seattle by himself with no current female interest to occupy his desires. He recalled his final words.

– It’s not good. We’ve got to stop here, before either of us gets hurt any more.

He had referred to a series of minor disagreements that mostly resulted from something not developing the way he had anticipated. On that final night in that Midwest city, while parked on a dark lane in a rented car, he said to the girl the words he thought would sound the smartest and the most reasonable.

She was silent, her head bowed toward the hands folded in her lap. God you’re beautiful, he thought. Just like an angel. Too good, too beautiful. Why do I have to do this to you? Why am I saying these things?

He picked his words carefully to sound respectful, but not dispassionate.

– We’re not what we thought we were. You know that.

His hand went gently to hers. The things I do for you, even now, he thought.

– We need a rest, both of us. We need to get away from each other for a little while and think about things.

She glanced up at him and then back at the three hands in her lap, one of his resting on top of both of hers. She closed her eyes. He squeezed her hand.

– Who knows? Maybe we can restore what we used to have. Maybe it’ll all come back. I don’t know. I don’t know. All I do know is that we can’t keep going on like this.

She lifted her head again. In the darkness he could make out two little highlights from her eyes. Probably doesn’t have her contacts in tonight, he thought.

– Why?

That single word escaped her lips like a dying breath.

– Don’t ask me why. I can feel it, but I can’t put it into words. Maybe I could have told you before, when we were closer. But I can’t now. Things have changed.

He felt one of her hands come out from under his and lightly stroke the back of his hand.

– Tell me, please. I want to hear you say it. I think you owe me that much.

You little cat, he thought. That’s the very reason, right there, in what you just said, as if you didn’t know. He took a deep breath before answering.

– No. It can’t be. We can’t be.

He had almost slipped and said I can’t.

He tried to cool her hot, silent eyes by revealing his plans to leave college and travel.

– I’m not going back to college. Two years was enough. I wasn’t learning anything except how to feed back the stuff they presented to me. I ended up feeling like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

He told her that he had always wanted to go to Spain and that it seemed even more the proper place now. A kind of retreat.

– I’ll be leaving in about ten days. I’ve already made most of the arrangements. You needn’t worry about our friends. They’ll simply think I’m an asshole who’s ditching you.

He believed that characterizing himself as a relationship villain would placate her, although she only looked at him with a puzzled expression.

He drove her to her apartment building in silence, then left her at the front door. No kiss. Only a pleading-for-understanding smile from him. What I don’t do for you, he thought, and remembered also that the rental car was going to cost him.

He remained in town for ten more days and then left, feeling disillusioned, used, and just a bit too intense. He got as far as Seattle. Of course it had all been a fiction about going to Spain, although he had even believed it himself for awhile, but never enough to actually buy a ticket to anyplace beyond Seattle.

I’m not going to let her drive me out of the country, Peter told himself. Not going to give her that kind of satisfaction. If I’m going to rip into myself I’ll do it honestly, nobody around. Besides, if she and others think I’m in Spain when I’m really in Seattle, it’s that much more of a joke on them, he told himself. Many years later, alone again and trying to distract himself from thoughts about the pandemic that had brought routine life in the world to a halt, he briefly struggled to recall that girl’s name, but could not.

So the young Peter went to Seattle, rented a small apartment with big spiders, bought a junker car, and got a job hanging posters and sweeping up for a fight promoter, similar to what he’d done for another gym owner in another town. He read magazines in Seattle – he had several subscriptions. And he had an FM radio that he kept tuned to a station that played mostly classical music. He liked classical music, especially Brahms’ symphonies – were there four or five, he couldn’t remember – and Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. One of the greatest pieces of music ever written, he told himself with a considerable measure of satisfaction in recognizing the worth of a work of art. He tried to remember the number of the Pastoral symphony but it escaped him.

Invariably there were times when he had read all the magazines, and the radio made him too aware of the apartment – the dirty green walls that seemed to slant toward each other near the ceiling, the fat black spiders and the skinny brown ones with the long legs, the blinds that were too short for the windows and had prudently been hung by someone about a foot below the top of each window so they would reach all the way to the window’s bottom, while leaving a gap at the top too high for any peepers, and the lock on the door that gave only if you jiggled the key a special way. He would go out, forcing himself to walk slowly with his hands in his pockets so he would not get back too soon. Sometimes he would smoke and nod hello to a neighbor, and he was sure they thought the better of him for it. He did not really like smoking and thought that some day he would give it up. Then he could only nod and walk with his hands in his pockets, which might, he considered, look acceptable after all, and anyway what difference did it make what the others thought.

As he approached the ticket office for the ferry to Victoria, a few months after what he now comfortably regarded as his affair, he realized that he had not brought any cigarettes with him. It was too late even to look for a place to buy some. He had decided several weeks earlier that he would use the first Saturday of good weather to take the ferry through Puget Sound up to Victoria, British Columbia, for the day. The weather was beautiful. His good intentions had tossed and turned him for the last hour in bed, and yet he had not been able to get up early enough to spare himself a hurried trip without breakfast to the ferry ticket office. Actually, according to his watch, he should have broken into a run for the last short distance, which was, of course, quite out of the question because of the appearance it might give. If I miss that damned boat, he told himself, I’ve spoiled the whole day. Then there would be nothing to prevent me going back to the apartment and lying in bed till two or three this afternoon, listening to that damned radio, and finishing the day by going out to get drunk. He generally was unable to socialize with strangers in a bar, beyond the usual small talk about weather and how busy the bar was or was not, so he usually got discouraged after a few drinks and left alone. On top of it all, he thought, if I don’t get on that boat I’ll be so agitated that I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight. As Peter approached the ticket window, he tried to subdue his anxiety.

Three men in uniforms with clip-boards under their arms – they could have been fire department inspectors, airline pilots or ship’s officers, depending on circumstances – were the only ones near the ticket windows when he arrived out of breath. The one with the most stripes on his arm glanced at Peter, at his own wristwatch and then back to the other two uniforms. They all tracked their gaze back to Peter. He ignored the men in uniform and pressed up to the ticket window.

– One please.

The ticket seller already held out a single ticket and waited while Peter fumbled with his wallet. With ticket in hand, Peter turned from the window and noticed a sign with a thick black arrow and thick black letters that advised, This Way to Ferry. The three officers were talking quietly among themselves. Peter was unsure if the ticket he had bought corresponded to what the sign indicated. He walked over to the uniformed men and smiled apologetically.

– Excuse me.

For some reason he found himself spontaneously speaking in a relatively convincing British accent, something he practiced occasionally on his own, alone.

– Could one of you gentlemen direct me to the Victoria ferry?

The two with the least stripes on their sleeves looked toward the one with the most stripes, who looked steadily at the still smiling Peter.

– Of course.

It was most stripes who spoke and also smiled.

– We were just now going aboard ourselves.

He beckoned Peter to join him as the other two uniforms fell in behind.

– I’m Captain Worthington.

– Oh, my pleasure Captain. I’m Peter Imblie, traveling correspondent for Punch. First time I’ve made this trip, you know, and I’m really looking forward to it.

The Captain was obviously impressed and began talking about himself, how many years he had been making the run, how he thought people needed to take an all-day excursion once in a while to get away from daily distractions and do a little thinking.

– I think that’s one of the main faults of modern society. People just don’t do enough thinking for themselves anymore. And with all the distractions they face, it’s no wonder.

Peter nodded his assent as they emerged into the full, fishy air of the pier. In front of them loomed the boat, as even the smallest of boats can loom when seen up close. Above them, pressed against the boat’s railings, several hundred passengers looked down at Peter and the three officers, who happened to be the only people on the pier. The boat was long and white and looked like a small-scale ocean liner with its neat pointed bow rather than the blunt double-ended functionality of Puget Sound’s inter-island ferries. Still, it carried cars in addition to walk-ons, and the large doors in the side began to swing closed as Peter watched.

It was a significantly different sight from the one other time Peter had seen the boat. It had been almost sunset, and from the park where Peter looked down upon Elliott Bay, that part of the Sound that was three-quarters surrounded by the city of Seattle, the expanse of water was crossed by harsh changing patterns formed by the slanting rays of the sun and a moderate wind that lacerated the blue-black surface. The image remained with him, the sleek ferry silently arriving in Seattle at a distance great enough to absorb any accompanying sound, gliding across the water as if pulled by some invisible force, headed away from the setting sun and toward the safe harbor of the city, as though trying to escape the impending darkness. Despite its actual small size, the ferry appeared large and impressive because of the distance; and because he could not make out any detail it appeared mysteriously empty and unpopulated. In that moment, while looking out across the bay at the ferry, he had thought of Spain again and of his loneliness and the desire to be going someplace where he could discover that everything and everyone were different from what he already knew. When he found out that the boat made regular runs to Victoria during the summer he was more determined than ever, even a little relieved, to plan a day crossing through the Sound. Canada was not Spain, but it was still a foreign country, his first to visit. And according to a brochure he had picked up, Victoria was like an amusement park version of London.

As he approached the gangway, Peter felt uneasy with so many passengers staring down at him, the last person to board. He noted that those already aboard were quiet, no laughing or waving or shouting, just a soft murmur. They seemed to be waiting, maybe hoping that the fragile morning would develop into some kind of day that they could talk about back home, although they probably would talk about it regardless. Peter’s party of four men reached the gangway and the Captain interrupted his monologue long enough to gesture Peter aboard before him. Peter bowed his head gracefully and proceeded.

The officers all departed up a ladder to the place from which they would pilot the boat, high enough to give them a view of most of what surrounded them. The two lesser stripes carried on a discreet conversation.

– That kid who got on with us. What was with the fake accent?

– Don’t know. Maybe he was trying to obscure the fact that he nearly missed our departure. He didn’t seem very bright.

– And Punch magazine. Come on.

– Yeah. Tells you something about what he thought of us. That he could get away with such a load of bullshit.

– Right!

The Captain interrupted with instructions related to their departure, and they all easily moved any further recollection of Peter Imblie to the far corners of their attention.

––––––––

With most of the passengers snug against the railings, their blood almost audibly pulsing, Peter had no difficulty making his way down the deck as far toward the bow of the boat as passengers were permitted. He noticed a spot at the railing next to a girl who appeared from the back to be young and attractive. Mumbling a general excuse-me he gently pressed in. The view, Peter immediately discerned, primarily consisted of the pier and ticket office he had just left – not much like the beginning of a real ocean cruise. The pier was deserted except for two dock workers, no excited friends or family, no loved ones, no sense of the start of an adventure.

Peter felt something hit him on the back of the head and