LAST CHAPTER
Marguerite Lawrence In a facility at the base of Boise’s foothills, her friend is dying. Cancer has wrapped itself around his organs and is having its way with him. She has camped out with Craig’s family and friends in his room for weeks now. They talk pain management, and how the morphine, fentanyl, Tramadol affect his eating, sleeping, half-sleeping, breathing. They also tell stories, mostly from college that usually start with, “I remember a time in Craig’s green panel wagon…” * When she’s alone with him, sometimes they have conversations about how she’s supposed to do this without him. He’s been a protector, confidant, friend for 53 years. He tells her, “One of us has to go first.” She cries and whispers close to his ear, “Well then, I guess it’s my turn to be here for you.” * There was a time when she was fresh out of college and he was almost 30 – a wedding in northern California and a wild weekend with college friends, and a posse of guys from Whittier. She lost her backpack but was fairly certain she left it in a surfer guy’s red VW Bug the night before. Craig drove her through a couple motel parking lots looking for a car matching her hazy recollection. Eventually, they found the VW, located the guy, got the pack. As she slumped in the passenger seat of Craig’s Cadillac, embarrassed and hungover, he pulled an apple out of his jacket and handed it across the seat. “I think you need food,” he said. * He’s being washed, dressed, helped in ways a proud man must truly find deplorable. Sometimes the caretakers refer to him with names like My man, Hun, or Craiger. It cracks her up, but at the same time, she cringes. Craig has always been quiet, dignified, independent, and alone but not lonely, and so she’s thinking he hates all the monikers. There’s only one nickname, given to him in the ‘70s, when he pitched for the Rural Raiders intramural softball team. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was in the theaters and because of Craig’s imposing stature and quiet stoicism on the mound and off, his teammates deemed him Chief in reference to the story’s character by that name. The title stuck, and all these years later, 120
