The Thanatos Syndrome

low—no grand epiphanies, thank you—I turn on the tube. Leroy’s stereo-V is a pull-down screen big as a movie. There’s Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and supertolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that. I always preferred Frank Burns, the stuffy, unpopular doc, a sincere bigot.
    But if Ellen likes them—
    But Ellen turns them off.
    There we lie in the Florida barrens in a bubble of a spaceship as close to the stars as Voyager V, I not quite drunk but laid out straight as an arrow, feet sticking up, hands at my side, eyes on Orion.
    She too.
    Presently her hand comes down lightly on my thigh, stays there.
    â€œOkay then,” says Ellen.
    â€œYes, indeed.”
    â€œI—good.”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œSoon—better.”
    â€œRight.”
    Ellen is still too stoned on sodium ions to talk right.
    I am too drunk for too long to make love.
    But it’s all right. Soon she’ll talk better and I won’t have to drink.
    Disney World is indeed splendid—though I could not stand more than one hour of it.
    After one day of the Magic Kingdom, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Mickey and Goofy, Spaceship Earth, the World of Motion, the Living Seas, I take to the woods.
    The children love it. Ellen seems to like it in an odd, dreamy way. Tommy and Margaret are the only kids around—everybody else is in school. They’re laid out, paralyzed by delight, when they shake hands with Mickey and Goofy (though they don’t really know who Mickey Mouse is).
    But it is splendid. The kids run free and safe, catch the tram, launch, monorail, quasi-paddle-wheeler in a quasi-river, go where they please.
    Ellen makes friends with other ladies in Jack Rabbit Run, plays some bridge, not too well, no better than they.
    We’re there a week.
    I am quite happy sitting in our private little copse in Fort Wilderness reading Stedmann’s History of World War I. A little vista affords a view of the great sphere of spaceship earth and the top of the minaretlike tower of Cinderella’s Castle.
    It is easy to make friends. Sometimes I catch the Conestoga tram up to Trail Blaze Corral or down to the Ole Fishing Hole. Though we are hedged off from our neighbors by a brake of cypress, pine and palmetto, they are only a few feet away. A haze of perfumed briquet smoke, friendly talk, laughter enlists us in a community of back yards.
    We meet on the tram or strolling about Jack Rabbit Run or Sunny Sage Way or Quail Trail.
    Most of my neighbors are from Canada or Ohio. They are very pleasant fellows, mostly retirees who have done well and are cruising America in their Bluebirds and Winnebagos and Fleetwoods. The Ohioans are recognizable by their accents, not their license plates, which are mostly Florida, for they have settled down in places like Lakeland or Fort Myers or Deerfield Beach and have hopped over for a few days.
    Native Floridians look down their noses at the Ohioans. The saying is: An Ohioan arrives with a shirt and a five-dollar bill and never changes either. But it isn’t true. My Ohio neighbors in Jack Rabbit Run couldn’t be nicer. It is quickly evident that I know nothing about motor homes and they spend a great deal of time demonstrating electrical and sewerage hookups and even the features of my own Bluebird, which they know better than I (they marvel at the modifications Leroy has made, especially the map locator).
    The Canadians are as affable but standoffish—though not as shy as the English.
    But both, Canadians and Ohioans, are amiable, gregarious, helpful—and at something of a loss. Here they are, to enjoy the rewards of a lifetime of work, to escape children and grandchildren, and they have. They stand about nodding and smiling, but looking somewhat zapped.
    Ellen gets along splendidly with them too. She talks to the women by the hour, especially the Canadians, about the queen of England and Princess Di. Like many American women, she loves British royalty even more than the Brits.
    Their expressions are fond and stunned.
    The Ohioans looked zapped but keep busy.
    The Canadians looked zapped but also wistful.
    Every time I talk to a Canadian, either he will get around to asking me what I think of Canada or I will know that he wants to.
    I