Never Coming Back

“You wanna spend the night?” she asked me, even though she had friend-zoned me years before. Of course I wanted to spend the night, and she knew it, so I did. It was everything I ever imagined it would be. I have no idea if she felt the same way, but that night, she wanted me. She convinced herself that I was something special.

I had the Peace Corps to thank. Getting accepted to the Peace Corps was my golden ticket, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a lottery win. All I had to say was, “I’m going to the Peace Corps after graduation” and people lined up to do me favors. They all thought I meant to do good in a way far beyond the reach of ordinary jobs.

The first to crack was my environmental science professor. I hadn’t realized when I signed up for the course that it involved real science, statistics, and mathematical modeling. I majored in economics, but I needed the distribution credit. It only made sense to put it off as long as possible, and now I was in my last semester with environmental science between me and graduation like a big roadblock. I hadn’t passed in a piece of passing work all semester. The prof called me into his office.

“Listen, Bob,” he said. “Your record in this course is not promising.”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

The professor smiled a bit. Profs love it when you say that their courses are too much for you.

“Do you know what you’re getting into now? I hear you’ve joined the Peace Corps.”

“I think I have some idea, doc. I’m going someplace famous for its hard life, and I’m have to try to make it better, mostly using what I learned in econ.”

“Nicely expressed. Hopeful, yet humble. How about I give you a B so you can go out and do your best? I wouldn’t my course to stand in the way of your noble work.”

“Not noble, just…”

“A B it is. Don’t ever say anything bad about the environmental sciences department, OK?”

“No, sir! Thank so much! I’ll never forget you!”

“Of course you will, probably as soon as you escape the campus. I hope that some small fact you learned in my course helps you in your new environment.”

I couldn’t believe it. All I had to do was slap the right label on myself and people wanted to help me. In all four years of college, no professor had ever invited me to his office. The most they ever did was the occasional warning phone call. The tide was turning.

Everywhere I went, people talked about what they planned to do after graduation. They were going to Wall Street, or their parents’ business, or selling encyclopedias. I didn’t mean to brag or anything when I told my side. I was going to a desert country in Africa to try to make people’s lives better. Immediately, people bought me drinks, bought me food, did me favors. I hadn’t changed a bit, but now everybody thought I was made of better stuff. Everything flowed my way.

My mom called. “When are you coming home? We’d like to see you before you go.”

“I’ll be home pretty soon. Lots going on here, but I’m leaving from home. I’ll get there. Love you, Mom.”,

Things at school just kept picking up. The school newspaper did an article about altruism on campus, and the interviewed me, photo and all. The reporter asked me, “Do you think service is still important to our generation?”

“I think it’s important to every generation,” I answered. “I think we should all think about how to make other people’s lives better.”

When I passed people on campus they smiled at me, then turned to their friends and whispered. No one asked for my autograph, but they didn’t need to. They recognized me, and it felt great.

Girls approached me in bars, cafes, in the laundromat with offers I could not refuse. Naturally, I didn’t tell my girlfriend about these encounters. Besides, she ha dother things on her mind.

“How long will you be gone, exactly?”

“It’s a two-year commitment. If things go well, they might invite me to stay longer.”

“Would you stay longer? I can’t wait for you to get back.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back. I’m not going to meet anyone like you.” I didn’t mention that I wasn’t going to meet anyone like the girl in the laundromat either.

“I really love you,” she said. “Don’t forget just because you’re far away. Two years isn’t so long. People go to jail for longer.”

“Yeah, it’s just a matter of waiting. Two years is nothing. I’ll go out, do some good, and come back.”

“We can send email every day, chat every night.”

Every day for two years? “Sure, if I have internet. I’m going to be pretty remote.” I didn’t actually know how remote I’d be, but I didn’t want to create any great expectations. I figured on playing it by ear.

Still, I saw her as much as I could in between people inviting me for one thing and another. I remember the skinny guy dressed in a flannel shirt over a thermal shirt in the humid July weather who slipped me a plastic bag. “You won’t get this where you’re going,” he said. “Finest bud, loads of red hairs. I admire your attitude. It is better to give than to receive.” He slipped away before I could thank him.

I didn’t even smoke half before I ran out of time and left the rest with my girlfriend as a parting gift. I’m not sure that it was the parting gift she’d had in mind, but I didn’t have enough time to get her a better one. It’s not like I meant to give her an engagement ring. I had places to go, people waiting for my help.

I got to may parents’ place three days before departure. Of course I hardly saw them, running out every few minutes to buy something I thought might be useful, like water filters and comic books, or grabbing a beer with some old high school friend. The high school friends were just like the college folks, buying me a round, inviting me to sleep with them, and telling me that they always knew I’d be a guy to join the Peace Corps, an altruist, a do-gooder.

I’d just about killed off my time at home when Mom nabbed me. She wore her “no uncertain terms” face. “Go see your grandparents.”

“I will, I will.”

She handed me the car keys. “Now.” My presence didn’t seem to awe Mom the way it did my contemporaries.

If I hadn’t had to drive, I would have taken a couple of shots or smoked a j before going to see the grandparents. They were always good to me, gave me lots of presents, praised my little achievements. They never said “no,” and my grandmother had always overflowed with joy at the sight of me. My grandfather was a bit more reserved, expressing his affection by teasing me mercilessly.

Things had changed, though. First of all, I was now a college grad, and they still treated me like a little kid. I knew they couldn’t help it. At their age, my college profs probably seemed like kids. Worse than that, though, was how time had affected them. My grandmother would spend the afternoon repeating the same sentence, each time like she had never said it before. My grandfather struggled to contain his embarrassment at this behavior but always became impatient at a certain point. The tension filled every visit and made It hard to keep up a conversation. I figured I’d be a good kid and put in an hour. I could drive home whenever I felt like it.

I rang the bell of their apartment and a caretaker let me in. I slipped back in time, recognizing the same furniture in the same places as always. I walked past the ugly furniture upholstered in gold sateen, past the picture of my mom as a naked two-year-old, past the Japanese style desk with hidden compartments full of odds and ends from Mom’s childhood. The caretaker waved me into the den, where a small television offered vapid afternoon news from its perch atop the non-functional console television. My grandmother stared at it, mesmerized. My grandfather looked out the window.

“Hi,” I said, uncertain how loudly to speak. Neither of them moved. I spoke up. “Hi, it’s me, Freddy.”

My grandfather turned around. He needed a moment to figure out who I was, then a grin split his face. “Freddy! I almost didn’t know you for a minute, you look so good.”

“Always look good, Grampa, get it from you.”

“Bullshit! But funny bullshit! That’s good. Your mom said you’d be coming by. I heard you graduated. Nice.”

“Yeah, it is. I couldn’t handle much more schoolwork. I want to get out in the world.”

My grandmother unfastened herself from the TV. “I’ve got you in a beautiful frame,” she said. She struggled to her feet and crossed the room, taking a framed photo from the top of the broken console TV. She had my graduation photo jammed into a corner of the frame on top of my parents’ wedding photo.

“Nice, Grandma, I’m glad you have it.”

She sat down again in front of the TV, holding the pictures in her lap, staring at the program.

My grandfather and I looked at each other awkwardly. I didn’t know how to make the time pass or even entertain the old man. I did what came naturally, talking about myself and my great adventure, my plans to bring entrepreneurship to the edge of the desert.

My grandfather put up with this mostly in silence, occasionally injecting one of his well-worn zingers: “You can’t expect to get far with a face like that,” and “Never trust a man who says he’s trying to help you.” But when I finished, he pointed out something I’d forgotten.

“You know, I started a business once.” It all came back to me, how he had started a business in the most depressing moments of the Great Depression, risking everything on his idea of an electrical supply house. He knew everything, and I knew only what I learned from books. I finally shut up and let him tell me a few things, l like how I wouldn’t get anywhere without some capital behind me and that the people I wanted to help had gotten along just fine without me for thousands of years. For the first time, I realized how little I knew and how much I needed his advice. I couldn’t possibly learn what he had to tell me between now and my flight the next day. My grandmother told me again that she had me in a beautiful frame.

I overstayed my hour, but I had to leave. My grandfather was beginning to nod off between words, and I needed to spend some time with my mom before I left.

“Gotta go, Grampa. I’ll miss you.”

“No you won’t, but thanks for saying it. I’ll see you to the door.”

“Don’t get up, I can find my way out.”

“I want to get up. My ass is numb.” He struggled to his feet, wobbling in his slippers, then straightened. “Let’s go.”

I offered my arm, but he didn’t take it. “How long are you going for?” he asked.

“Two years. It’s a standard commitment.”

“It’s a good stretch. We probably won’t be here when you get back.”

“Where you going? Florida?”

My grandfather laughed. “Probably somewhere a lot hotter than Florida.” Then, in the sort of voice you have to use with exceptionally dim children, he said, “I won’t be here because I’m leaving this life. Your grandmother, too. You get to our age, two years is more than you’ve got left.”

I saw my altruistic volunteerism revealed as a monstrously selfish act. My grandparents had coddled me in every conceivable way, and now I was paying them back by letting them die alone. Our entire relationship had been a one-way street. I had never given them a thing.

“I won’t go. I’ll stay. I’ll visit more often. I’ll listen.”

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t waste your life waiting for us to die. We only go around once. It’s important in life to know when to be selfish. But maybe,” my grandfather smiled, but gave me a hard look, “it’s also important to know when you’re being selfish.”

I didn’t even have the decency to cry.