Iowa

During the spring holiday of my final year in high-school, I traveled to Windsor with my mother and sister. My aunt Sylvia was in the hospital. She had cancer, she had been ill for five or six months and it looked as though she may not live much longer. I had only seen her once during her illness, at Christmas. She had lost all her hair as well as a lot of weight. Her wig made her look different and all I could think of when I looked at her was of the color grey.

At Christmas time, Aunt Sylvia had already accepted her fate. She spoke openly of her funeral and seemed to enjoy shocking people.

             "What are you looking at, Marco?" She had caught me staring at her wig.

             "Um, er, nothing, ..." I stammered.

She smiled at me as warmly as she could and told me it was okay. When my mother, sister and I arrived at the Windsor train station that spring we were met by my father. My father had been away from home for the last month, as a visiting researcher at Iowa State University, in Ames. When his sister had been admitted to the hospital, he had flown in from Ames to be with her.

"I'm very sad," he said to me as we walked from the train to the car, "because my sister is dying." This statement doubly shocked me. Firstly, because it was the first time I had ever been told that someone I knew (let alone my aunt) was about to die. I was also shocked because it was my father who said this.

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

We stayed where we always stayed in Windsor, with my father's parents. During normal visits to my grandparents, their house bustled with relatives, there was food everywhere, and the mood was festive. On this visit, however, the atmosphere was sombre at best. My parents, aunts and uncles sat around the kitchen table, trying to come to some understanding of Sylvia's condition. There was discussion of the quality of my aunt's care, her comfort, and the type of hospital room she had. My sister and I were happy to avoid this discussion. We contented ourselves to sit around the TV and flick between the channels of our grandparents’ very expensive television set.

             Sylvia's husband, Bennie, was constantly at her side, and was reported to be exhausted. Her two sons, Bernie and Robbie, hadn't been to school in days. Sylvia's eldest child, her daughter Terrie, had come home from university. I visited Aunt Sylvia only once at her hospital room. She had a private room on one of the top floors of the Windsor Hospital. When I arrived with my parents and sister, the first person I saw was uncle Bennie. Bennie was native Italian, like my aunt. He was dark skinned and a little plump. I believe he was one of the easiest?going people I have ever known. He always seemed to be happy to meet people, and when he saw us, he greeted us warmly, even though it was obvious he was distracted. He shook hands with my father, and kissed my mother and sister. "How's it going Marc?" he said to me with a wink. Uncle Bennie never called me 'Marco', but always 'Marc'. I liked it.

             My uncle directed us into a waiting room where some other family members were gathered. My father brought me over to my cousin Bernie, and started a conversation about our schoolwork. Even though Bernie was only five months older than me, our age difference always seemed more like a generation to me. He was taller, bigger, and his hair receded more than mine. Being an outsider, I never had any friends, nor knew anyone around Windsor, and Bernie was often put in charge of me. I often felt as though he was babysitting me.

             Bernie is about as soft?spoken and mild mannered as his father, but on that day, he said even less than usual. I had no idea what to say to him. Someone suggested that Bernie, my sister and I go out for refreshment. It seemed to be more of a directive than an offering, and so the next thing I knew, I was sitting in a booth of a nearby Burger King, drinking a soft drink with my sister and cousin.

             Not knowing what to say, I made small talk: the weather, schoolwork, sports. Nothing risky. I wanted to ask him about his feelings, but I couldn't figure out a good opening line. "So your mother is about to kick the bucket. How do you feel?" No, that wouldn't do. Naturally, I did the only thing I could think of. I avoided the subject of his mother, and death, altogether.

             When we got back to the hospital, I was finally admitted to my aunt's room. She was lying on a bed with an I.V. tube sticking out of one arm. The bed was a small single one and it was tilted up so that my aunt could see her visitors without straining her neck. Her body was shriveled up in the center of the bed and seemed tiny in comparison with it. Her skin had turned pale green, and the only part of her that seemed alive were her eyes.

             I was part of a procession of visitors and so I waited my turn. The procedure of visiting my aunt seemed well established. The visitor would approach my aunt and take her hand. Next, he or she would bend over and kiss my aunt on the cheek, then straighten himself or herself to listen to my aunt's message. After the message, they would kiss her again, and then pull away, the women with tears in their eyes, and the men looking sombre.

             As I stood waiting my turn, two thoughts were going through my head. My aunt was so weak and frail that any movement at all would be difficult for her. It was plain to me that this would be her deathbed. What would happen, I thought (I don't know why I thought this, even at the time I knew it made no sense) if an old friend of my aunt's, someone she hadn't seen in many years (and didn't know of her illness) suddenly stopped in town in the hopes of meeting up with Aunt Sylvia and organizing a ski trip with her? Obviously, Sylvia would have had to decline. I guess what I was really thinking about, was how sad it would have been for the mythical friend, to go looking for an old friend, not knowing that her friend would never be able to ski with her.

             The other thought that went through my head was how was I going to bring myself to kiss my aunt.

             When my turn finally came to visit my aunt, I could not bring myself to kiss her. My body simply would not bend over. Completely filled with guilt for letting down a dying woman, I took Sylvia's hand and stared into her dark eyes. I have no idea what she said to me. I was trying to figure out how to redeem myself. I was trying to convince my waist to bend when I told it to. When she finished speaking, I felt my body lower itself, and gently, I touched my cheek to hers. As I lifted up again, I turned my head into hers, and gently touched my lips to her cheek, but only for an instant. When I stood up, I looked into her eyes once more, relieved it was over.

             My sister and I were on our spring holiday, and so we had a total of nine days off. We waited in Windsor for a day or two, but my Aunt's condition didn't change. Her youngest son, Robbie, was due to have a birthday in a week, and it was all she seemed to be able to talk about. My father had been away from Ames for nearly a week, and there didn't seem much for him to do in Windsor. He decided to return to Ames for a few days. I was sitting, watching TV at my grandparents' house when my parents asked me to come over and speak with them. They explained that my father was going back to Iowa for a few days, and would I like to go with him?

             I considered my options. Either I could go to the American mid?west, stay with my father in a small room and be forced to study in his office all day as he worked in his laboratory, or I could stay in Windsor and watch my aunt die. I sensed that the real motive behind my parent’s request was to give my father a distraction while he was away. So I went to Iowa.

             My mother and sister drove us to the Windsor?Detroit tunnel where they dropped us off. We took the tunnel bus, and then we planned on taking a limo to the airport as soon as we got through customs. However, getting through customs proved to be a little difficult. Apparently, the customs officer was not very thrilled that my father was intending to enter his country and go to a university as a visiting researcher.

             "How long are you going to be in the United States?"

             "Two months." My father didn't bother explaining about his sister.

             "And you are a visiting researcher at Iowa State University?"

             "That's right."

             The customs officer paused for a second and rubbed his nose. There was a man behind us waiting.

             "Where do you live, sir?"

             "In Sherbrooke, Quebec."

             "And what do you do in Sherbrooke?" he asked quickly.

             "I'm a university professor."

             "And this is?" the officer was referring to me.

             "My son. He's coming to visit for a few days."

             This seemed to help, but the customs man was still not finished with us. The person behind us seemed a bit restless. The officer noticed him, put his hand up to my father to ask him to wait for an instant, and addressed the man behind us.

             "And where are you going, sir?"

             The man behind us was a large man, and he had a large beer belly. He wore a cowboy hat and a lightly colored suit. His collar was undone, and he had no tie.

             "Vegas."

             The customs officer waived him through. After a few moments, the officer took a deep breath through his teeth, and returned to my father.

             "And you will be in the United States for two months?"

             "Yes."

             "Do you have a return ticket?"

             My father produced our tickets. The officer took them, scrutinized them, and then returned them to my father. He considered for a second, and then he said in a voice that was barely audible "Okay, that's fine." He was already looking past us, out the window.

             We flew United Airlines from Detroit to DeMoines, changing planes in Chicago. Despite fearing for my boredom on this trip, I was excited about going to Iowa. I had never been west of Windsor (except for my birth place of Vancouver, but I hadn't been there since I was three) and was curious about the change of scenery, and what the mid-west was like.

             The airport in DeMoines was smaller than I expected. I had also expected someone to meet us there, as this had been my experience every time I had previously been to an airport, but my father explained that we were on our own. There was a 'kit?car' demonstration at the airport, so the lobby was full of cars that looked to be a cross between a formula?one racer and a model?T. I was fascinated. I inspected each one, and wanted to talk about them with my father, but he was more interested in finding transportation to Ames, which was about fifty miles to the north of DeMoines.

             Eventually, we ended up on a mini?bus driven by a man who used only one hand, at the top of the steering wheel. I had received my driver's license three months before, and had thus been instructed on the importance of using two hands on the steering wheel. Naturally, I ignored this advice, and had also come into the habit of using one hand on the wheel, but it was always at the bottom, never at the top. I was intrigued by this difference in approach. Didn't his arm get tired?

             My school's spring break was not actually in the springtime, but in the first week in March. Sherbrooke usually had cold, snowy winters that ended sometime in the later part of April. In the beginning of March, winter in Sherbrooke was still in high gear and the outdoor temperature could be anywhere within twenty degrees of zero, usually colder. By the beginning of March, there was often about four feet of snow on the ground, so the spring break was better served as 'ski?week'. However, when we got to Iowa, they were experiencing one of the warmest heat waves on record. The temperature was about twenty degrees, and every day got warmer. The Iowa State University was located on a spacious campus. There was not a flake of snow in sight. The buildings were generously separated by lush green slopes and large oak trees. For someone who was accustomed to bleak winter weather, I was overjoyed. The room my father had acquired for us was located in the student union building, at the edge of the campus. It was much nicer than I had hoped for. It had two large beds, a TV and our own bathroom. There weren’t many students on the same floor, so I was greatly relieved that I could fit into this new surrounding fairly inconspicuously.

             On our first full day at Iowa State, my father took me to his lab. We walked across the campus along a path next to a few large buildings. Eventually we came up to a complex of three or four buildings that we had to walk through, and my father instructed me on the best hallways to take. Once past this maze, the physics building was just beyond a parking lot. My father's lab had grey cement walls, and an assortment of large structures in the center. These towering pillars of electronics had all sorts of knobs and wires going all over the place. There were a few tables with some metal and glass containers on top, separating off other equipment. My father directed my attention to a tower with an open front and pointed towards a holder.

             I take it my father was a bit nervous about showing his son where he worked, for as he was demonstrating to me how he placed his samples in the holder, the sample, a crystal in the shape of a thin plate, snapped in two.

             "Damm," he said. "I broke it."

             I tried not to seem shocked.

             "It's okay," he assured me (although I think he was really assuring himself), "I have another one."

             I didn't really understand any of the things my father was showing me, although I found that I was interested. I had only taken two years of high?school physics, and we hadn't really got past hockey pucks hitting one another. My father seemed so proud of what he was doing that I could not help being interested. I hoped that some day I too might be a scientist with a laboratory, and watching my father was inspiring.

             After about half an hour, Howard Shanks, my father's friend, and sponsor at Iowa State, poked his head into the lab. "Cosmo, I ... ," he glanced sideways at us and saw me. I knew Mr. Shanks from a few years before when our families had both lived in Stuttgart, Germany. "Marco!" he interrupted himself. He came over and shook my hand. I was a bit surprised that he showed so much interest in me. Mr. Shanks was a tall man with a powerful handshake. He moved energetically, and he had a loud, crisp voice. His head seemed to get wider as you looked from his chin to his forehead, and his eyes were fierce. My father explained that I was visiting for a few days. "Of course," he said. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

             My father said that he had broken a crystal, and Mr. Shanks assured him that they had tons of them. The conversation became a bit technical for a while, but eventually Mr. Shanks asked about my aunt Sylvia. My father became a bit sombre.

             "I'm afraid she is not very well," he said.

             It was near the end of the day, and Mr. Shanks was on his way home, so he excused himself.

             To my surprise, I found that I began to enjoy my stay at Iowa State. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed spending time with my father. He bought me some 'Iowa State Cyclone' paraphernalia, and I felt very grown up walking about the Iowa State campus amidst the real students. The weather, which continued to set new heat records, was amazing.

             After I had been there for a few days, the Shanks’ had my father and me over for dinner. I was a bit nervous about this meeting; I wanted to make a good impression. When I knew the Shanks’ before, I was a mere boy of fourteen. Now, I was much more mature, as I was approaching my seventeenth birthday. I wanted to make sure they realized how much bigger and wiser I was.

             The Shanks lived in a residential neighborhood in a two-story house. The living room and dining room were connected to each other; the furniture was comfortable and well used. Their daughter, Kim, wandered in and out of the living room, eyeing me suspiciously. There had been a large number of American families living close together in Stuttgart when we were there. For some reason, I was the only boy, and the oldest. All the other children were girls. I suppose that I too must have been eyeing Kim suspiciously.

             The dinner went by rather uneventfully, except that I ate too much. However I was able to get away with it, as it seems that teen?aged boys are allowed to eat too much. After dinner, Mr. Shanks accompanied my father and me to a local mall, where there was a men's shop. My father wanted to buy me a suit so that I would have something to wear to my aunt's funeral. The salesman was fast with his tape measure, and he knew my dimensions moments after I walked into his store. A combination of grey trousers and a navy jacket was chosen for me. He recommended a tie with red in it, and made sure that I had a proper shirt, belt and socks to go along with my new clothes.

             "I'm sorry to have met you under these circumstances," he said to my father as we left the store.

             As Mr. Shanks dropped us off after buying my suit, he asked us if we would like to go to an Iowa State Basketball game the night before I was to go back to Windsor.

             "Basketball?" I said. I looked over at Mr. Shanks and when I realized that I had not misheard, I eagerly said yes, hoping that my father would not veto. He didn't. The arena where the Cyclones played could seat over twenty?thousand. Our seats were fairly high up, but I could see the court, players and the ball clearly. The Oklahoma Sooners were visiting. As the players warmed up, I watched them dribble, pass, shoot, and do lay?ups. It seemed that hardly any shots missed going through the hoop.

             As I looked down at the court, I noticed a row of desks on the sideline opposite the player's benches. These desks were staffed by important looking men and women in suits and fancy dresses. I asked Mr. Shanks who they were.

             "Those are NCAA statisticians," he said. "They keep track of fouls, time played per player, points, shots, rebounds, everything short of how many dribbles each player takes."

             Wow! NCAA officials. This really was the big time. As the game neared, the Iowa State cheerleaders showed up and tried to get the crowd to make noise. The men were dressed in white pants and sweaters, the women in short skirts, and similar sweaters. During the game they would jump out onto the court during play stoppage and do flips, jumps and build pyramids. It was quite a sight for the eyes.

             I could not have asked for a more exciting game. When the double?overtime started, Mr. Shanks leaned over to me and said "Gee, Marco, I'm sorry we couldn't find a more thrilling game for you!" Iowa State ended up losing by a single point in double overtime. Despite the home team loss, the atmosphere in the arena was electric. Everyone was buzzing up and down the halls talking about the last second jump?shots, and overtime heroics. When I got back to our room in the student union, I flipped on the TV in time to hear the sports?caster say "And Iowa State lost a heart breaker tonight". They certainly had.

             The next day was the day that my father and I went back to Windsor. This made me feel strange. Strange because I was leaving a place that I expected not to enjoy, but it turned out I had a very good time. I also felt strange because I was feeling guilty about enjoying myself. Here I was, in a place that was hot enough to feel like the tropics, running around to basketball games, dinner parties, buying new clothes, and all the while my aunt was lying on her deathbed. How selfish of me. Taking off and running around like a kid. (Okay, so I was a kid.) What about her family? Bennie, and the kids? I'm sure they weren't enjoying themselves. What about her poor, long lost friend that had shown up hoping to find company for a great ski?trip? How could I have been so thoughtless?

             I decided that I would wear my new suit on the plane back to Detroit. It was my first suit, and I was eager to try it out. I dressed in our room as I waited for my father who was running some last minute errands. I took a shower, shaved (what few whiskers I had) and neatly combed my hair. I buttoned my new shirt first, being careful to get the buttons in the right holes. Next, I put on my pants, belt and shoes and socks. I did up the top button on my shirt and when I could breathe again, I reached for my tie and put it around my neck.

             That was when I realized that I had no idea of how to do up a tie. My father was due back soon, and I suppose that I could have waited for him, but I wanted to be ready when he came back. I decided that my only chance, and it was a long shot, was to turn on the TV. It was mid?afternoon, and there were soaps on all the channels. I could just picture a scene where a man was dressing in front of a bureau while talking to a woman (his wife, girlfriend, lover, or all of the above) lying in a nightgown on the bed. If I could find such a scene, then perhaps I could copy what the guy on television was doing with his tie.

             To my surprise, I found exactly what I was looking for after about five minutes of channel flipping. I intently watched the screen, trying to memorize what I saw: flip, loop, tuck, pull. When the man on the TV was dressed, I went directly over to the mirror and tried to recreate what I had just seen. After a bit of experimenting, I came up with a decent looking knot. It wasn't a Windsor knot, it was crooked, and the thin end of the tie hung below the thick end, but it was a knot nonetheless. I was proud of it.

             About halfway between DeMoines and Chicago, I understood that I was much more accustomed to jeans and t?shirts than I was to collars and ties. I was uncomfortable, and the trip seemed to take forever. When we got to Detroit, there was no one waiting for us at the airport, but by this time I was accustomed to that, and I took it in stride. After getting our bags, my father and I walked over to where the limousines were waiting. We walked up to a driver who was negotiating with a man and a woman.

             We stood patiently next to the threesome. It seemed that the woman was going to the Renaissance Center, and the man somewhere else. When the driver noticed us, he turned to my father and asked where he was going.

             "The Renaissance Center."

             The driver seemed happy with that. He then turned and looked in my direction and said "And where are you going, sir?"

             I turned around to see who he was talking to, but I saw nobody. I looked back at the driver. "Me?" I said tentatively. He nodded yes.

             Obviously, I'm going to the same place as my father. It seemed simple to me. "Um, I'm going to the Renaissance Center."

             The driver loaded our bags as well as the woman's into the trunk of his limo. My father sat in front, and I sat in back with the woman. She was quite a bit older than I was, in her late twenties, or perhaps even her thirties. She wore an overcoat, and heels. She had mid?neck length curly auburn hair, and it had been gelled. The limo pulled out of the Detroit Airport and rode smoothly on the Michigan expressways. It was late at night, perhaps an hour or so before midnight. The freeway was slicked with fresh rain, and the city lights reflected brightly off the pavement.

             "So where are you coming from?"

             The woman had asked a question. I looked over at her, and saw that she was speaking to me. Why was she speaking to me? I was just a kid.

             "Ah, ..., DeMoines, Iowa," I mumbled.

             "Hmmm." She was smiling slightly with the corners of her mouth and staring me up and down. She inched a little closer to me and I could smell her perfume. "What were you doing in Iowa?"

             Holy Toledo! This woman was coming on to me. Didn't she realize that my father was sitting in the front seat, listening to everything that we said? "I was visiting my father." And by the way, that guy in the front seat, the one who looks a little like me - that would be him.

             "Hmmm." She was still interested. I looked out the window, away from her. Of all the times to have a beautiful, older woman, come on to me, why did it have to be when my father was three feet away? It had been a weird airport experience. And where are you going sir? What were you doing in Iowa? What was this? Didn't these people realize I was just a kid following my father around? 

Then I remembered the suit.

             Ah.

             It was than that it occurred to me that my more usual jeans, t-shirt and converse running shoes may have some limitations that most teen-aged boys would not accept at face value.

             My mother and my Aunt Maria, my father's other sister, picked us up at the Windsor side of the Detroit?Windsor tunnel. They both raved about how good I looked all dressed up, and based on my recent experience, I believed them. Aunt Sylvia's condition had not changed. She still lay in her hospital bed all day. She was conscious, and she could talk. It was decided that my mother, sister and I would return to Sherbrooke. When I got back home, the first thing I did was to call my best friend, Steve.

             "Where have you been all week?" he asked, a bit irritably. "I've been phoning you every day."

             "Well," I replied. "I went to Iowa."

             "Iowa?" Steve asked, surprised.

             "Yeah, Iowa."

             "What, in Heaven's name, were you doing in Iowa?"

             I considered the best way to explain this. "Well, my aunt is sick, and I, er, had to buy a suit, and then, um, well, never mind. I'll tell you later," I finally concluded. Phone conversations with Steve were always minutely short, and generally consisted of little more than: Hi. Hi. Are you coming over? Yeah. Okay, bye. Bye. Explaining my spring break would require more than one sentence. It couldn't be done on the phone.

             "Can you get the car?"

             "Just a sec," mumbling, crackling, and squeaking. "Okay, I can get it."

             "Great. I'll see you in a minute."

             "Okay, bye."

             "Bye."

             The next day in the evening, I was sitting in my room doing some homework. My mother came to the door. "Marco," she said. She had tears in her eyes, and her voice was barely more than a whisper. I went into the hall-way, and stood in front of her. "Aunt Sylvia died this afternoon." 

             A few weeks later, Steve called me.

             "Carlone," he said. "Are you busy tomorrow night?"

             "I don't think so."

             "Great. Bromont is having a midnight?madness ski night. You can ski 'till midnight, and it's half price. I've got the car." 

So I went skiing with Steve. We skied under the stars, and I felt the thrill of going fast at each turn. It was a sky trip that I will never forget.