4 A Camper Built for Two
Banging on the camper’s door woke me up. I opened to a cheerful, grinning man. I must have been a sight standing in the doorway naked except for my boxers and a T-shirt. He said, “Hi. I’m Eddie. I just came by to make sure you were okay.”
He didn’t have much of a shadow. The sun was almost directly overhead. Apparently, I had slept until noon. I ran my fingers through what was left of my hair and shook my head in disgust.
“I’m fine. Just overslept. I guess 15 hours on the road took more out of me than I expected.”
“When you’re ready, come on over to the office, and we can take care of the paperwork.”
“Sure. Give me five minutes. And there has been a slight change of plans. I would like to stay tonight and leave early tomorrow morning.”
“No problem.” He turned to leave, stopped, and turned back. “I’m getting ready for breakfast myself. Burritos. You’re welcome to join me.”
“Sounds great. See you in five.”
##
Eddie Flores is a friendly guy. When you knock at his door, he yells, “It’s not locked. Com’on in.”
He invites a stranger to breakfast and cooks a mean burrito. He wears jeans, t-shirts, and ankle-high boots that he can slip in and out of easily.
We’re about the same height, but he’s easily twenty pounds heavier, and it’s all muscle.
He talked non-stop while he cooked our breakfast and continued while we ate. I asked about his right arm, which hung at his side while his left hand did all the work. He said it wasn’t completely useless, but he could only raise it about waist high. The damage had been caused by a couple of bullets in a firefight in Afghanistan. It was bad enough to get him a medical discharge and disability payments.
His parents had come here from Guatemala in the sixties. His father was a biologist and college professor. The parents were now retired and living on a ranch in Texas. Eddie was the youngest of seven kids. He had joined the Army right out of high school and eventually made it into The Special Forces.
Our conversation was interrupted by a call to Eddie’s Towing Service, Flores’s other business. The towing service provided a steady income without being too demanding except when somebody needed immediate assistance. Eddie handed me some papers to fill out and said he would get my credit card information later. Then he took off to rescue a stranded motorist.
##
I had no idea what Katherine was up to or when I would hear from her. My shoulder hurt like hell. It felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat instead of a slug no bigger than my thumb. Sitting around all afternoon with nothing to do was a frustrating prospect. I left the office and began exploring the park. It had a swimming pool that brought back memories of my youth.
Mom had never learned to swim. She didn’t like being in the water. But she was determined to make sure my sister and I knew how to swim. The thing that stood out for me now was how athletic my sister was. She swam the length of the pool effortlessly the first time she tried. I thrashed. I would have drowned if the instructor hadn’t pulled me to safety.
Later, we both passed the Red Cross Life Saving exam. We both qualified as lifeguards, but neither of us managed to get a job. I swam competitively in high school. She didn’t. I don’t think they even had a girls’ swim team.
I wasn’t fast. I could gut it out to finish longer races like the 200 free. The same thing in track. I ran the mile and two-mile. I won some races but only because the competition wasn’t very good.
That seemed to be the pattern of my life. I was good at everything or almost everything I tried. But I was never that good. I guess I took after my parents. Intelligent, hard-working people trying to do the right thing. That’s a good formula but it will never get you to the top. Mom grew up on a farm and moved to the city. She raised a family and taught school. Dad dropped out of high school. He found a job at the shipyard and stayed there the rest of his working life. He ended up in middle-management.
I took out my laptop to write my thoughts down. Somebody might be interested after I was dead. I managed a couple of pages before putting the computer away and stretching out on the couch for a nap.
##
Banging on the camper’s door woke me. Katherine was outside dressed in loose-fitting shorts and a blue cotton shirt over her undershirt. Slip-on loafers with no socks. “I finished sooner than expected, so I came over early.” She smiled sheepishly. “I hope that’s okay.”
I held the door open. “Come on in.”
“Did I wake you?”
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer than necessary.”
She stepped in and began looking around. There wasn’t much to see in what amounted to a walk-in closet. The cockpit with swivel chairs for the driver and a passenger was on my left. The cabin was on my right. A kitchen area with a sink, oven, microwave, and TV was next to the door. Most of the other side was taken up with a clever sofa that could seat four side-by-side or fold around into two seats that faced each other. A table attached to the base of the sofa could be positioned to serve as a work or eating space. A Murphy bed was stowed against the wall above the sofa. It took up most of the cabin when it was lowered into place, leaving only a small aisle for getting to the bathroom at the rear end. A wardrobe and a couple of dressers were attached to the wall between the kitchenette and the shower. The bathroom was next to the sofa and across from the shower.
“I didn’t plan on a roommate when I bought this thing,” I explained.
Katherine shrugged. “I don’t see why it won’t work.”
“It sleeps two, but there’s only one bed.”
Her face screwed into a problem-solving mode. “I’ll go back out and get a sleeping bag.”
I pointed to the suitcase she was carying. “Is that all you’re bringing?”
“I have another one in the car if you have room for it.”
“Most women need three or four suitcases for their dresses and all.”
“I assumed you wouldn’t have a lot of room.”
“Do you want me to get the other suitcase?”
“First rule, Mr. MacGregor: I take care of myself. I’ll bring the other suitcase aboard after we drop my car off at my cousin’s place.”
“Stop calling me ‘Mr.’,” I snapped. “Call me Don or Mac or even MacGregor, but I hate ‘Mr. MacGregor.’”
She extended her hand. “Kate.”
I winced when I reached out to shake. “What’s wrong?” She demanded.
“I had an accident and hurt my shoulder. No big deal.”
Her left hand began working up my arm, trying to locate the pain. “What kind of accident?”
“I was shot.”
“Accidentally?”
“He missed my head.”
“Let me see. Has it been treated?”
“The ambulance lady bandaged it and gave me some ampicillin.”
“How much?”
“Four packages. Eight pills.”
Her lips tightened into a line. “That’s not enough. Do you have a prescription for more?”
I shook my head.
“You need to see a doctor.” She sighed. “I can get you in first thing in the morning.” She took a step back. “Take your shirt off and let me have a look.”
The bandage was bloody. Kate probed my shoulder with her fingertips. “I don’t suppose the EMT flushed the wound.”
I shook my head.
“I want to get you to an emergency room now.”
“What about your cousin?”
“He can wait.”
She held out her hand as I pulled my shirt on. “Why don’t you give me the keys? It’ll be easier if I drive.”
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to the emergency room entrance of St. Elizabeth’s Senior Living Facility. The staff recognized Kate but seemed surprised to see her. As soon as she explained the situation, they led me to an exam room. A stout, gray-haired woman walked in and introduced herself as Dr. Gert Williams. She wanted my medical history before she began examining me. I gave her a brief summary and contact information for my doctor in Annapolis. The bit about my having a tumor on my brain and refusing treatment bothered her.
“I would be failing you as a patient if I simply bandaged your wound and gave you antibiotics. You need treatment for the glioblastoma. I have to be concerned about interactions between all the medications you will be taking.”
“I tried treatment. Chemo doesn’t work for me. Radiation sounds backward. You’re going to hit me with a lethal dose of X-rays that would cause cancer if I didn’t already have it. Surgery to remove a tumor is risky and debilitating. And it doesn’t cure anything. It temporarily cleans the site up.”
She smiled. “A good summary, but I would say that the surgery cleans the site up and buys time for the chemotherapy to kill the cancer.”
“I notice you didn’t say anything about curing the cancer. Can you cure it?”
“No. But we can give you a longer life with less suffering.”
“Chemo inflicts its own suffering. The combination of Chemo and radiation inevitably damages the brain taking away the patient’s ability to function.” I paused for a reaction. “I went over this with my oncologist before I told him to shove it. He gave me a ninety-day supply of some experimental drug and a prescription for pain pills. Then he told me to come back and see him in sixty to ninety days.”
“What did he give you?”
“Good question.”
I pulled a small package of prescriptions out of my wallet and handed it to the doctor. She read through the gobbeldygook and checked an on-line resource. “He has you on Chemotherapy,” she said. “The medication he gave you is designed to be administered in small, frequent doses that are easier on your system. We would take a similar approach. But we would do more than hand you marketing samples of an experimental drug and wish you good luck.”
“I like his approach.”
Dr. Williams was unhappy, but she relented when I threatened to leave and continue my journey alone without further treatment. She wouldn’t bandage my wound or prescribe more ampicillin until I signed a waiver absolving St. Elizabeth’s of all liability.
She gave Kate some instructions and suggestions for my care and wished us good luck.
##
Kate drove us back to Sam’s for an early dinner. A slender, balding man in a short-sleeved shirt greeted us at the door. He hugged my companion and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for coming to say good-bye.” He gave me a quick once-over and said in a joking voice, “So, this is your young man.”
Kate scowled. “Mac, this is Sam Reinhart, the owner of this diner. He has been like a father to me of the last few years,”
“Hi”
“Sam, this is Donald MacGregor, my new client. We are going to explore America and visit his cousin in Alaska.’
Sam got us seated and told the waitress that our dinner was on him. He returned a little later with a bottle of kosher red wine and three glasses. We sat and talked. He used to own restaurants in Philadelphia and Washington DC, but he sold them after his wife died. This diner was just a hobby. It kept him out of trouble.
Around nine, Kate got up and stepped over to kiss her former boss. “We’re going back to the RV. Mac needs to get to bed so he can rest, and I don’t want you staying up too late.”
Sam rose and hugged her. “Come back and see me.”
She frowned. “What did you tell me about the future?”
“Today is all we have.”
“So, no promises.” She hugged him. “Except, I will never forget you and all that you have done for me.”
A sad smile played across his face. He took my hand and pulled me up for a hug. “It was good to meet you. To sit and share with a gentleman like you. May Yahweh hold you in the palm of his hand always.”
With that, he went back to work, and we left for our mobile home.