"What do you care where he goes?" Sarah asked. "At least it gives you some time to yourself."
That was it. The young folks wanted some time to themselves. It was only natural. Well, Jane would have the house to herself, with no old man underfoot for the next few months, while he was at Edna's. Edna was his own flesh and blood; she would mix him a cocktail before dinner and serve him steaks, not baby food. She would kid with him about what a Casanova he was before her ma domesticated him, and light his cigars instead of hiding the box and doling them out one by one. She would call him George instead of Papa, but it would only be an act, just to make her old father feel good because she didn't expect him to live much longer. For all the time it would be understood that he was at John and Edna's house for a visit, that the place he lived was with Will and Jane. The truth was that neither of the girls would miss him if he didn't wind up at either place.
But what a way to waste a whole golden day he had to himself, with neither daughter nor daughter-in-law to boss or kid him around. He had looked forward to this day as a day of adventure, a day when anything could happen, and now he was starting it off on the wrong foot, wallowing in self-pity. What he needed was a good stiff drink. Yes, at ten o'clock in the morning!
When the conductor took his ticket, the old man demanded, "Where in hell is the porter?"
It was a long train and she was hitting ninety now, and though you would not realize it in the sound-insulated, air-conditioned coaches, you did when the porter had to use his full weight to push the door open against the wind, when you heard the clackety-clack of the wheels on the rails, a fountain of noise rising up between cars, when the wheelchair swayed precariously as it was pushed across the iron treads over the couplings.
The other coaches were filled with bored passengers in various stages of somnolence, people to whom the trip was merely a means of getting somewhere else. The club car was different; this was the gathering-place of those to whom the trip was an end in itself. It was filled with the smell of ginger ale, good whiskey and the perfume emanating from two young women at one of the small tables, periodically inspecting their makeup and hairdos in little mirrors, waiting for some nice young men to arrive.
Regretfully, the old man realized that he was not a candidate for the honor. But a few drinks would dull the twinges in his crippled legs and make him feel years younger. The white-coated waiter moved a chair, pulled the wheelchair up next to another small table and placed a paper napkin meticulously on it. The old man decided to start with a bottle of beer. Plenty of time to work up to the stronger stuff, and this way the minimum of pocket money his daughter-in-law had provided would last longer, perhaps until some free spender started buying drinks.
As it turned out, he caught his benefactor before the girls did. It was a young man of perhaps thirty-five, a dead ringer for Marshal Wyatt Earp. He went directly to the old man's table, as if he had picked him out. As a matter of fact, he had.
"May I sit here?" he asked.