by Robert WEXELBLATT

Five years ago, Fred Nielsen drove his Hon­da in­to town and bought Doc Fitz’s prac­tice from his wid­ow Sylvia. The Doc had been gone just over a week. Nielsen took over the lease on the of­fice, pur­chased all the equip­ment along with what the bro­kers call Good­will, which pret­ty much means that Nielsen paid Sylvia some­thing ex­tra for keep­ing all Doc’s pa­tients. That was gen­er­ous rather than nec­es­sary. We’re a one-den­tist town; it’s thir­ty-six miles one-way to the next near­est. Ger­tie Hart­sel, Fitz’s long-time hy­gien­ist, might have been part of the deal, too. The change was seam­less; peo­ple were relieved.

Nielsen was a good den­tist, bet­ter than Doc Fitz. But, once peo­ple got over see­ing him as a gift horse, they got cu­ri­ous to check out his mouth; some were sus­pi­cious. For one thing, we’re a three- church town and he didn’t join any of them. To be un-churched is near­ly to be half a cit­i­zen, cut off from the town’s so­cial life. Then there was the tim­ing; a new den­tist show­ing up so short­ly af­ter the old one’s death didn’t feel like luck. Most of all, though, there was Nielsen him­self. He was around forty, good-look­ing, with an Ivy League de­gree. He drove in­to town in a Hon­da Ac­cord with two suit­cas­es, no wife and no kids, reg­is­tered at the Billing­sons’ B and B, and the next day made straight for Sylvia Fitzpatrick’s house and wrapped up their deal just af­ter lunch. Nielsen rent­ed the Fol­soms’ two-bed­room ranch house on the edge of town, right be­fore the wheat fields be­gin. When her moth­er brought Deb­bie Holst in for a fill­ing the next week, Deb­bie told Nielsen that their mutt had a lit­ter and he bought one of pup­pies. Peo­ple around here think it’s a com­pli­ment to say of some­body that they keep to them­selves, but we don’t re­al­ly like it. This is the sort of a town where every­body knows every­body else’s busi­ness; for most of us, the new den­tist kept too much to him­self. We didn’t know his re­li­gion, his peo­ple; we didn’t even know why he was here. He had ar­rived like any god­send — out of the blue and un­ex­plained. We knew the new dentist’s pro­fes­sion but we didn’t know his business. 

My own busi­ness is run­ning the town’s phar­ma­cy but my vo­ca­tion is fly-fish­ing and I’m bet­ter at the lat­ter than the for­mer. I’d see Fred Nielsen reg­u­lar­ly when he came in to pick up den­tal sup­plies, but al­so things for him­self, tooth­paste, floss, ra­zor blades, af­ter-shave, band aids, as­pirin and such. I’d try to get him talk­ing, fig­ur­ing he might be more forth­com­ing with a fel­low health pro­fes­sion­al, but he wasn’t. He was po­lite enough. He smiled and al­ways of­fered a pleas­ant greet­ing, a cour­te­ous farewell; but he seemed shut in, closed down. It made me sad to look at him, sad the way the women who tried un­suc­cess­ful­ly to fix him up felt, on­ly less an­gry. I guess it was more my own sad­ness than his that gave me the idea of get­ting him up to Verdi­gre Creek.

He ad­mit­ted he’d done a lit­tle fish­ing back east when he was a kid, drop­ping a line with a worm on the end of it. Once, he said, the un­cle of a friend took a bunch of boys out on­to the ocean when the blue­fish were run­ning. He hadn’t liked it. He said he’d got­ten sick, didn’t catch any­thing, and didn’t care for the beer-swill­ing, boast­ful un­cle either.

I ex­plained that fly-fish­ing is to what he’d done back East as skilled oral surgery is to yank­ing mo­lars with a pair of pli­ers, as Maker’s Mark is to Bud Light, as a Zen mas­ter is to a tel­e­van­ge­list. I ob­served that no one got sea­sick fish­ing in a trout stream and that I had an ex­tra pair of waders, an ex­tra Orvis pole, and about fifty dry flies. I said that any day on the Verdi­gre was a good one, whether you caught any­thing or not, even if it rained. He didn’t jump at my in­vi­ta­tion but I didn’t let it drop and I sup­pose even­tu­al­ly he was bored enough to give in.

I got him to come to din­ner on a Tues­day. While Doris set the ta­ble and af­ter I got us both a beer, I took him out back and showed him how to throw a line, what to do with his wrist, how to aim and let the fly set­tle. He caught on quick­ly, which pleased me, and then had three help­ings of my wife’s pot roast, which de­light­ed her. A pot roast is a thing a sin­gle man won’t make for him­self, Doris lat­er ex­plained smug­ly. I made him take the Orvis home so he could prac­tice and told him to be ready to be picked up at four-thir­ty sharp Sat­ur­day morning.

It was a fine spring morn­ing, about per­fect. The air was brisk and bright, the wa­ter cold from melt­ing snow.

We each caught two fish, which I told him was good. I helped him re­lease his catch, ex­tract­ing the fly care­ful­ly, for which he was grate­ful. “Busman’s hol­i­day,” I joked. “I guess you spend enough time in mouths.” 

“I read some­where that trout are smart,” he said.

“They are.”

I asked him im­per­ti­nent ques­tions while we ate the sand­wich­es Doris packed for us. “So, how’d you come to pick Ne­bras­ka?” “Plan­ning any trips? “Things go south back east?” He eas­i­ly par­ried my thrusts so my lead­ing ques­tions led nowhere.

It was on the dri­ve back that I got the sto­ry — his sto­ry, at least a sto­ry. I sup­pose he might have made the tale up to stop me from fish­ing for one, but I think he told me the truth be­cause my eyes were on the road rather than his face. It’s not im­pos­si­ble that he told me a ridicu­lous whop­per he was sure I’d be­lieve, and then, through me, so would the whole town. Well, if the sto­ry he told me had been more plau­si­ble and more to his cred­it, I might be­lieve that. But, as it’s nei­ther, I’m nine­ty per­cent sure what he told me is the truth if, that is, the truth is what he him­self believes.

… I had a good prac­tice, a good life. Ce­cil­ia and I met as un­der­grads at Cor­nell and mar­ried when I fin­ished den­tal school at Penn. We found this house we loved in Har­ri­son. That’s in Westch­ester Coun­ty, about twen­ty miles north of Man­hat­tan. It was more than we could af­ford. I was just get­ting start­ed and we re­al­ly need­ed two salaries. Ce­cil­ia agreed with me that we should put off hav­ing kids. Any­way, she liked her job. She man­aged fund-rais­ing for a non-prof­it that sup­port­ed in­di­gent new moth­ers. It meant a lot of work at home and com­mut­ing twice a week in­to the city but she was ded­i­cat­ed to it and, in an in­di­rect way, she was look­ing af­ter a lot of children.

One of the old Cor­nell gang was my best friend, Char­lie Stein­berg. Af­ter floun­der­ing for a cou­ple years, he went in­to the fam­i­ly busi­ness, in­vest­ment bank­ing and stock­broking. Char­lie had a big place near­by in Rye and was mar­ried to a won­der­ful woman, Ju­lia. They’d met in Italy when Char­lie hadn’t yet set­tled down, a cou­ple of Amer­i­can tourists who hit it off in a trat­to­ria. They had two lit­tle girls. We so­cial­ized with them some — din­ners, a cou­ple of Ju­ly fourth cook­outs, a par­ty next to Charlie’s pool. We even took a two-week va­ca­tion to­geth­er on Cape Cod, all six of us. Ce­cil­ia had the best time; she re­al­ly bloomed, play­ing with the girls, chat­ting with Ju­lia, jok­ing with Charlie.

Then Ju­lia got sick. It was the kind of can­cer that gal­lops. She was gone in three months. Char­lie was dev­as­tat­ed, de­pressed, help­less. Ce­cil­ia threw her­self in­to help­ing. She took him food. She drove the girls places. She cleaned his house, made the beds, stocked the gro­ceries. When­ev­er she didn’t have to go to the city she was in Rye. She even stayed overnight sev­er­al times. The girls had grown at­tached, she said; she couldn’t let them down. They’d get bet­ter soon, but for the time be­ing they were needy.

How did I feel? First sym­pa­thet­ic, then ne­glect­ed and ashamed, then re­sent­ful, even­tu­al­ly en­vi­ous, and fi­nal­ly jeal­ous — re­al green-eyed mon­ster jeal­ous. I was sure Char­lie was screw­ing Ce­cil­ia, but I didn’t con­front ei­ther of them. It was prob­a­bly cow­ardice but at the time I told my­self I wouldn’t be­lieve any de­nials and a pair of con­fes­sions would make every­thing even worse.

So, I de­cid­ed to bal­ance the scales. My new hy­gien­ist Lib­by had been look­ing at me with big eyes since I hired her. She rubbed up against me. She wor­ried that I wasn’t eat­ing healthy. She was pret­ty and will­ing, and she was twenty-four. 

One af­ter­noon at the Ra­ma­da, I got car­ried away and told Lib­by about Char­lie and Ce­cil­ia. She could hard­ly be in­dig­nant, so she tried to sound sym­pa­thet­ic. But I could see she was ex­ul­tant. From that day on, Lib­by was sure I was go­ing to di­vorce Ce­cil­ia and mar­ry her. She just want­ed to know when.

And I might have done it, too. But one night I came home to find Ce­cil­ia burst­ing, dy­ing to tell me the good news. The news was that Char­lie was en­gaged. It was one of those Face­book things: high school cou­ple dates, dances at the prom, go off in­to their lives un­til one’s di­vorced and the other’s wid­owed and they re­con­nect just vir­tu­al­ly then car­nal­ly. Kismet. A sec­ond act. Ce­cil­ia was over the moon about it.

I got it all wrong. I had them all wrong but most­ly I was wrong. Lib­by was press­ing me to meet her par­ents and broth­ers and to find a lawyer. Ce­cil­ia said it was time we had a child but I could hard­ly look at her. I couldn’t bring my­self to vis­it Char­lie ei­ther. I was shocked, em­bar­rassed, stymied. I was in a jail I’d built for my­self. The foun­da­tion may have been false but the cell was re­al. The whole mess was too ir­repara­ble, too re­veal­ing, too stu­pid. I couldn’t face it. 

So, I took off. Just lit out. I kept a few thou­sand and put every­thing else in our joint ac­count, took my name off it, and left Ce­cil­ia the deed to the house. I signed over my IRA and left with some clothes and my diplomas.

Why your town? Be­cause I knew Doc Fitz. We met at one of those va­ca­tions mas­querad­ing as pro­fes­sion­al con­fer­ences. This one was on im­plants, the lat­est thing, screws in bones. It was in Mi­a­mi, sun and fun. Doc Fitz and I hit it off and so did the wives. Ce­cil­ia said it was like be­ing adopted.

I was so sad when I sent my Christ­mas card and Sylvia wrote back that Fitz had just died. 

Small town. No den­tist. I fig­ured it was worth a shot. I phoned Sylvia and made her an of­fer the day be­fore I left. 

For months I was scared, ter­ri­fied that Ce­cil­ia or Lib­by — or, in my worst night­mares, both of them — would hire de­tec­tives and track me down. I didn’t want that. Couldn’t face them. Can’t even face you. What did I want? I want­ed to kill what­ev­er the in­stinct is for intimacy.

Nielsen walks his dog to his of­fice every morn­ing. Kids love the big gen­tle mutt. The new den­tist is good with chil­dren. These days peo­ple call him Doc Nielsen; he isn’t so new anymore.

I’ve nev­er asked about what he told me, not even when I take him for an out­ing to flog a trout stream. If there re­al­ly was a Ce­cil­ia, a Lib­by, a Char­lie with two lit­tle girls and a sec­ond wife, then, so far as I know, they haven’t come af­ter him.

We all get things wrong, take wrong turns, hold tight to a mis­judg­ment. The trou­ble comes when we per­sist in the wrong­ness, cleave to a fixed idea. Peo­ple too cer­tain of their facts are like those too sure of their own virtue. They’re the ones who steam right in­to the ice­berg, the kind who dri­ve straight off the cliff.

Filed under Fiction on February 28th, 2025

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