Free October Light by John Gardner

with a terrible shock how utterly alone he was: who among his medical friends could get him marijuana—not a piddling joint, a paltry pipeload, but a mountain of it, a load like the load they had in that boat, that could bring him back WHAMMO his youth? Some people might in their frosty superiority—spouting Boethius or Augustine or Carlyle—make light of his anguish. Some people might shrug off his insight as senility. But a man lives only once! He comes wriggling, howling with pain and terror into the chilly, indifferent world, and all too soon he goes trembling-like-a-leaf and howling, bawling, out. No trace of him remains, and no heaven snatches (let us face these things) the failing electrical impulses of his brain. Scoff ye who will! Dr. Alkahest thought, I’m a pitiful, miserable crippled old man without a friend in the world except my cleaning woman—who, God knows, hates my ass. Who scorns me and worse. Who ignores me! Now happiness is planted — behold!—within my reach! and, the very same instant, it’s kicked out of sight like a football! Laugh! Laugh on, ye stony distancers! Someday you too will be ridiculous and full of woe! Half my certain inalienable rights were shot away when I was nine years old. No wonder if I cling with all my might to what little remains!
    â€œYou could at least have noticed what fishingboat it was,” he whimpered.
    â€œMaybe somebody else did,” the officer said. “I’ll ask around.”
    But nobody had.
    Dr. Alkahest closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and made a vow. Life was precious, never to be repeated, despite all the wide-eyed memories of the transmigrationists. He would do what he must; it was decided. The man unwilling to fight for what he wanted did not deserve what he wanted. He smiled, eyes still closed. His jaw was firm now; a change had come over him. He could not but lament the impending calamities; nonetheless, his sleep was sound.
    Meanwhile, at its pier in San Francisco, a vague shape in the tea-brown fog, the Indomitable sits waiting, moving a little like something alive, with the gentle lappings of the water supporting its bulk. Old Captain Fist appears on deck, holding his overcoated belly with one hand, leaning with the other on his cane. He is still very sick and walks with the greatest care, as a kindness to his stomach. After a moment the girl, Jane, appears beside him, wearing jeans, a man’s workshirt, and an oil-grimed baseball cap, red, white, and blue. She stands balanced and wary as a cat. “All clear?” she asks softly.
    From the dock above, Mr. Goodman answers, “All clear.”
    Captain Fist makes his way carefully, carefully to the side and stretches up a trembling hand. Mr. Goodman reaches down, takes the Captain’s hand and gently pulls, almost lifts, him to the dock. Jane climbs after him lightly.
    â€œWait here,” Captain Fist says, without troubling to glance at Mr. Goodman. His old eyes stare like two bullet holes into the city.
    Mr. Goodman waits. The Captain and the handsome young woman in the patriotic cap move away toward the lights.

“The cause of Liberty is a cause of too much dignity, to be sullied by turbulence and tumult.” John Dickinson, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” 1768
    2
    The Old Woman Finds Trash to Her Liking; and a Chamberpot Sets Off a War
    It was a little past midnight when the old woman was roused from her reading by the squawk of a chicken and the thunderous rumble of her niece’s car pulling up into the driveway. She couldn’t believe so much time had passed, or that the novel, mere froth that it was, had so held her attention. She was always fast asleep by eleven at the latest, except, on occasion, when friends came to visit and Estelle played piano or Ruth recited poems; and even allowing for the way he’d upset her and, come to that, nearly killed her, that brother of hers—he was insane,