ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter Five: The Superman Myth

Joshua and I are on our second walk of the day.

It’s been raining again, but now it’s only misting. In a small park, we take a seat on an iron bench under a bare dogwood tree. We’re not talking much. The deadline to sign the sixth Charles Street extension is today.

Over the last few days, we’ve gone back and forth on Charles Street. Arguments for. Arguments against. I don’t know what Joshua will decide. Whatever he decides is fine with me.

Ernie used to say: “I feel tremulous.” Now I know what that feels like. I feel this way almost all the time.

A chill wind blows. We head back in. Joshua goes upstairs. I stay downstairs. I try to read. I can’t. I try to write. I can’t. I’m too unsettled.

After two hours, I climb the bare oak steps to our quarters. Joshua’s sitting in the rocker under the skylight.

“Have you reached a decision?”

He lifts a hand, makes a dangling gesture. “I haven’t called Cindi. Let them dangle. They’ve dangled me for six months.”

This sounds like gamesmanship to me, but Joshua is extremely sensitive to criticism, to any hint of disrespect. Jesus, aren’t we all?

Now it’s almost midnight. I’m at my end of the room and Joshua’s at his end, watching TV. He turns it off. “Good movie,” he says.

“Which one?” I ask.

“Superman II.”

Ernie once said to me: “You think I’m Superman. I’m not.”

No one’s a Superman or a Superwoman. We all have our limits. Maybe Joshua has reached his limit with Charles Street.