"That new meter maid is a crazy bitch. She'd give a ticket to Mother Theresa parked in front of a bar giving out free ginger ale to sick people who needed a slug."
At the same time an old boxy Sony television talking reruns in the background politely made its way in and out of the tables discussion.
"Hey, Suzka, where ya been?"
"Around."
Mrs. Greg, an opera singer sat in a lawn chair
chatting with her daughter-in-law on the phone. She gave me the five finger wave of recognition and went back to her phone conversation. Her eyes traveled alone to the one wall that was not obstructed with equipment. The wall displayed a series of art pieces created by their only grandson. The order on the wall recorded his young life. The number of pinholes in the corners of the papered art pieces gave away their age. The wall had been rearranged over the years to make room for the most current piece. Their grandson was now 18. There was no more rearranging and no more room. The collection was complete.
"Give me an S.” The old Sony television’s words were clearly heard in the background and made their way into the conversation without interrupting its flow.
"There is one S," said the Sony. A blonde Sista'Vanna strolled across Sony's dusty screen and flipped one square in the line of 19 blanks. Before the blonde got to the end of the screen, I spoke.
My voice ripped the room like a pair of scissors cutting through a long fabric of silk - "Fly Me to the Moonshine."
The homies left their thoughts; Greg raised his eyes from the glass. Mrs. Greg squinted, looking closer into the television and back to me. The room’s punning stopped.
After the puzzle’s time expired, after exhausting all the possibilities, the contestant inside the Sony spoke slowly pausing between each word. "I'd like to solve the puzzle. FLY…ME…TO…THE… MOONSHINE."
Everyone froze in place. They first looked at the TV screen and then moved their eyes to me. No one said a word. “How’d she do that?” circled the room like an excited fly on the wharf after the squid festival.
Frankie sat back down in his chair. "Holy shit. How’d she do that?’
“She’s creepy!"
"Anybody know much time I got on my parking?” 14.
THE W.O.F at the A.O.P Every Sunday there were two activities scheduled at the same time at The Aged Oaks Pavilion - a compressed, nondenominational prayer service, held in a small room that was primarily used as a patient-doctor lounge on the Monday through Saturday days and the Wheel of Fortune in the main dining room with a seating capacity of three hundred.
This is good. This is very good , I told myself. Surely this would change her attitude. I wheeled my mother to the dining room that was set up into a mini game show studio. On the far end of the room, a white bed sheet was tacked and draped from one column to another. Perched across the top were colored clothespins holding large cards to the sheet. Blank cards. Their backs were marked with one letter, a clue to the answer in the word puzzle.
The room was full of erratic traffic. The cane’d and walk'ables rolled and wobbled around for the best position near the sheeted stage. Smells of dry parchment, rose water, medicine and a nip of Yukon Jack to wash down the meds followed.
The scents Le Baiser du Dragon and Narciso Rodriguez hovered around the stronger women. The Estee, Shalimar, L'Heure Bleue and a gaggle of others squeezed in there somehow unnoticed.
A man in the corner of the room tried to take off his sweater without losing his hair. The lady wearing the chenille robe and bunny slippers, waved at us to come closer.
Most of the room was in movement except for gridlocked section in a center isle. A rather engaging character with bulgy white eyelids stopped and stood heroically stoic without moving an inch. You would have thought he was glued to the floor. People kept rolling around him as if he were a familiar curve in an oftentraveled road.
Then suddenly, a suited man with glass eyes and a nose like a badly scraped carrot began waving his fist and shouting in my face.
"What do you think you're doing? You can't just park yourself here. This is my seat. Everyone knows that. Every Sunday I sit in this exact spot at this exact time."
The agitated man looked around nervously. "And what did you do with my ascot? It is very expensive. Where is it? Where is my ascot? "
"I... I don't know where it is, I really don't." What’s an ascot? "I don't like that tone. You maz'well learn now girlie that we have rules around here. We have rules that everyone follows without exceptions for sassy visitors like yourself."
I was an outsider to this world. I knew to back off. I turned my back and attention into the room hoping to find a suitable space for my mother’s wheelchair and a seat for myself. A second later, I heard a loud slap. The suited man's hand was gripping the arm of my mother’s wheelchair.
"Get your hands off of me you old fool." The voice was familiar… my mother. I thought we were going to have a calm evening. I told myself… Talk to everybody, use your charm; simply try to fit in. I was everywhere in my thoughts. But in that minute I could not stop that pitiful reaction in my head to the whole damn world and all its resident crazies. I was getting myself in the worst possible state. Stop it.
He persisted. My mother hit him again but this time hard with her purse knocking him nearly clear off his bullishness. The suited man let go of the chair and fell back a slight bit. A friend standing at his side held his stance; a short stout character with black hair that hid his brows; hairs that originated in the back rows of his head. He had a mustache like a seal and wore a plaid robe with proud new tags hanging on its back.
The friend tried to calm the old man and pointed to a chair a few feet away. A blue satin ascot was tied to the chairs back post.
"Oh... ok. My chair seemed to have found a more suitable place with a better view. I hope you learned your lesson little lady. Have a good day." He moved on with his friend, arm-in-arm.
A female microphone voice spoke. “Ok now. I need your attention. Everyone needs to be sitting before we can start playing the Wheel of Fortune.”
The crowd started to ease themselves into the night’s activities. They found their seats, stretched their legs and pushed themselves backwards to snatch a little extra floor from the people behind.
Nurse Vanna, the Wheel of Fortune hostess started the night’s game. Vanna was a rather chunky moon colored girl about thirty years in age with thick black hair she pulled back and gathered in a ponytail. She wore blue-rimed eyeglasses that pinched out rhinestones on both sides. When she smiled her eyes disappeared altogether behind the glass.
"Find your seat. We need for everyone to be seated before we begin. Does everyone have a number? You can't play unless you have a number."
Hands flew in the air, hands waving little worn pieces of paper with numbers written in black marker. Everyone received a number when they first walked into the room. The numbers would determine the players order.
We could win big tonight. I had watched the Wheel of Fortune with my mother often enough this past year, more often than I wish to admit to anyone. But in my humblest opinion, I considered myself quite proficient in the wheel game world.
"Mom, I feel real good about this. We're going to win it all tonight." I couldn't stop thinking - this would be a great way to help my mother fit in with the other residents. They would admire and respect this little lady in the morning for her quick thinking and her ingenious knowledge of the wheel.
Vanna stood on top of a short stool and shouted into the crowd. "Ok everyone. Let’s begin.” In back of Vanna were fifteen cards close-pinned to the sheet; five then two then eight. The letters previously written on the reverse side were hidden. The puzzle contained three words.
“Our first puzzle is the name of a movie."
Nurse Vanna then pulled a number from a large glass bowl. "44. Whoever has the number 44 will be the first one to guess a letter. Who has 44?"
Seven hands waved their carded numbers in the air. The cards had numbers close to
44 written in felt marker. Someone in the back yelled..."Give me a B, Vanna."
A man in front turned around, "No, no. There's no B. And you never start with a B for Christ’s sake." He turned his body back to nurse Vanna while waving his hand in the air. "Give her an S. You always start with the S. Holy crap, everyone knows that.”
The lady who yelled out the letter ‘B’ was not happy. She stood up from her chair, "I know what I’m talking about. I want a B... like in Bye Bye Birdie."
Another woman close to my mother leaned over and said, "Oh dear. She gave us the answer. It wasn't even her turn in the first place. Her number was 23. Do you thinks that's fair?"
My mom answered. "N. She should have said N." Soon everyone began yelling out movies they remembered that had the letter 'B' somewhere in the title
- Breakfast at Tiffany's, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... The old man in the corner with the loose hair piece yelled out, "Lolita!"
Vanna tried to calm the group. She surrendered and overturned the random letters. The yellowed sheets of paper spelled out... B I R D S O F P A R A D I S E .
I must be on another planet. What in the hell is going on around here. I leaned down to my mother. "Birds of Paradise is not a movie. It's a flower for God’s sake, it's a flower."
A lady sitting in front with a pug face and soaked in lavender toilet water snapped at me. "It is too a movie. I remember seeing the 'Birds of Paradise' with Anne Margaret and my late husband. Why are you trying to cause problems?"
The little bald man in the oversized flannel, whom I had met earlier, turned his head to the small group of serious gamers. "She’s a troublemaker that one. Just look at her boots. They got blood on 'em."
A few started yelling. "Sit down. You're stopping the game. Why are you trying to ruin everything? Sit down already.“
“She’z a trouble maker that one."
My mother pulled at my arm. I leaned over. "Suzka, are you sure Birds of Paradise is a flower?" I tried to explain myself from a distance. Vanna was
not happy with me. She avoided my presence. After a disturbing hour and a half of misspelled titles and countless game rule violations, I wheeled my mother out into the hall. "I know we could have won big-time mom, but these people just don’t play fair. They make up their own rules that make no sense whatsoever. This place pisses me off."
"But Suzka, I could swear Burt Lancaster was in The Birds of Paradise... and Myrna Loy." We wheedled down the corridor together. Not much more could be said. I stopped at the bird sanctuary in order to lose sight of our losses. My mother sat there watching the wonderful creatures and whistling to them. At the end of their conversations, she stood up from her chair, placed her hand on her heart and began to sing.
“Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming... And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave... O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” When Violet finished singing she sat back down into the chair.
"Did you know that Bea was married to a black man and lived on a cattle ranch in Minnesota? They have no children." How in the hell did my mother come up with this idea.
[ On that day in California the Annual Tournament of Roses Parade was drenched in heavy rain for the first time in 51 years.] When I returned the next morning to the Aged Oaks
two things were brought to my attention. First, according to my mother, a woman visited her after the morning breakfast and told her she had a beautiful voice. Second, we were banned from the dining room on all Sunday’s Wheel of Fortune nights.
My mother never did leave the residents with the impression of being clever, if anything they pitied her for having an unruly daughter.
I packed my mother and her ten-day accouterments in the car. But before we could officially leave, she needed to thank everyone as if they were the servicing crew on the Regal Princess cruise ship. She had eleven bags of candy to give away – three were sugarless.
“We have to wait for Horney. I think he starts to work about 9 o’clock.”
“Mom, that’s ten hours from now.” She quickened her thinking and brushed aside any acknowledgement of timing. “Ok. Let’s go home.”
My mother was wrapped in the impatience that people wear in the final hours of a long cruise.
15.
DAY ELEVEN We walked into the house together. Without notice my mother left my side and scurried to the corner room. She moved like a leaf rolling in the wind. Her feet hurried fast and kept their balance. I followed at my own pace. I wasn't sure what to expect. My mother and I were now committed roommates now. I wasn't sure she realized I would be staying.
The corner room was filled with a warm sun that melted the edges of the day. She looked around wideeyed almost surprised, looking in wonder as if she had walked into a large garden where every flower was in its fullest bloom. Leaves moved close to the window, the sun winked at her from behind. I couldn’t help but follow her around the room. It was as if I were watching a small girl at her first day of school.
My mother plopped her purse on the couch and deflated her body into its cushions.
I stood in the margins as she ran her fingers through her hair like a rota-tiller loosening compacted roots and weeds from the hard soil. There was no sweet-talkin’ comb that could have completed this job without some serious resistance. Those hairs were styled and pinned in place, trained not to move for decades. Even between washings, they knew their place. But now, without notice, they were freed from their lacquered hold.
Hundreds of bobby pins were uprooted and tossed across the room. Some hit the wall others nose-dived into the carpet. Lifting both her arms head-high in the air, my mother scratched her scalp excessively releasing every single strand – a pardon after a fifty-year sentence. After all her hairs ran out into the free world, she straightened the eye glasses on her nose and pushed herself back into the sofa. Turning her full head toward me, she spoke.
"Now that feels better!"
I never saw my mother with her hair… out… and about like that. This was radical, a subversive move on her part. I was flabbergasted. She looked like some damn fool angel that didn't even know the name of God.
Unsure of what to think, I slowly lowered my body to sitting. Half my butt landed on the sofa's cushioned edge. My mother, the woman the world called Violet with the lacquered-lavender French twist, had she gone mad?
My eyes never left the face of this strange person in front of me. Cautiously, I leaned over to her, extending my head out slightly, barely an inch, slow and with trepidation, as you would if you were about to pet a friend's new pound rescued pit bull. I forfeited thinking and opened my mouth slowly.
"Uh... Can I get you something to drink?" It was a respectful two hours close to five. Thoughts of alcohol seemed reasonable and warranted, considering the circumstances. A drink was the first thought that popped up in my head. I knew my mother never drank any alcohol except for Julian's Red Altar Wine - wine that was supposedly blessed at a discount liquor store in Paw-Paw, Michigan - a three-hour and forty-seven minute drive my mother often made from her driveway to the Julian Wine's graveled parking lot. She was a religious woman.
I repeated the offer but this time with less intoxicant volume. "Would you like to have a little something to drink, mom? Perhaps orange juice or water?"
"Oh no! I'm just fine but you can have a beer if you like." Even the room was confused. The air could barely carry such blasphemous words. My mother hated beer. The taste made her nauseous, other people drinking beer made her nauseous and the smell made her nauseous. She would start her lecturing the second she heard the pop a cap makes when it is pried from its bottle.
“You wouldn’t mind if I had a beer?” My breath was short and unsure. Slowl
y I rose from the sofa and stood on the soles of my feet.
In walking to the fridge, I couldn't help but turn my head back several times starring at this little foreigner with the Einstein hair sitting on my mother's sofa - my grandmother's sofa. Everything in that room was waiting for something to happen.
I got the said beer out of the fridge and also a lemon. It was risky but I took the lemon, cut a wedged slice and hung it on to the rim of the bottle and carefully walked back to this stranger.
She tapped the sofa's cushion. "Come sit here." I did.
"Closer. Move your behiney closer to me.”
I did.
“I am so glad you're here. How long are you staying?"
I peeled my dry lips apart creating an opening for an answer to work its way out into the room but my words were shoved back into my mouth by her unbreakable line of chatter.
"We have so much to do. First, we need to plant those flowers I bought. They're downstairs in the... the room downstairs… you know… in the three big bags. I bought some beautiful red begonias and yellow daisies and some tiny blue flowers with white eyes. They’re the… I don't know what their name is."
Every year Violet would plant plastic flowers in her garden. And on every summer Tuesdays and Thursdays she would water her garden during the hours allowed by the water gods at City Hall. Watering her plastic begonias on the regulated days for my mother was patriotic. She thought it her civic duty.
"They're all downstairs in the... the room, you know, the room downstairs. Go get them for me."
I welcomed any reason to leave these four walls. I needed to clear my head, to walk on familiar ground. I had to make sure reality, as I know it, was somewhere waiting for me outside this room. The windows behind the sofa offered little corroborating evidence.
I was about to stand when my mother grabbed my hand and pulled me closer into the sofa.
"Sit back down. You can bring the flowers to me later."
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 9