On Fridays, I’ve been coming for the food, not necessarily for the company. I know it sounds antisocial, but once a week I’m so glad to go off my budget-conscious diet (beans, greens, turkeyburgers, more beans) that I heap my plate and stuff myself silly. Only as an afterthought do I consent to chitchat (the bores vastly outnumber the interesting folk). The women, as a rule, have more to talk about than the men, so I tend to place myself exclusively in their midst. But as I said earlier, all the women who really appeal to me are married. I’ve made some progress with the few—very few—unmarried ones I find both visually and verbally tolerable, but not enough to satisfy me or—apparently—them. They’re either absurdly reticent or aggressively forward. There seems to be no middle ground. I would hazard a guess that these women have come to Rock Hall for the same reason I have—washed up and broken hearted—and they’re probably lonelier than hell. Yet for some reason, they don’t react to me the way they react to Dr. So-and-so, the retired dentist with a paunch like a wrecking ball and the conversation of a wet blanket. They worship his fat old ass, whereas I bring out the worst in them. They know me by name, they’ve read (or are reading) my books, but any attraction between us seems destined to never reach a critical mass.
Budge’s newfound friendship with Sue Baskin is the preferred alternative. Far from being put off by her great age, he finds it comforting. He can express himself without feeling intimidated by the outcome. He can actually make conversation without struggling to present himself as some kind of ideal man. Formerly dismissive of elderly females, he is now changing his tune.
It’s not just that I’m not interested in her. I regard her more as a person than a woman. Sue and I don’t have to construe that our relationship may lead to “involvement”—one look at her tells me this is impossible. Her face is a corrugated liver-spotted rictus of desuetude. Her general shapelessness, with flesh pendent under her chin and forearms, quite repels me. “Spry” is too kindly an adjective, implying the worse (like “articulate” or “veteran “). Slow of step, diminished by osteoporosis, talkative to the point of rambling, Sue remains in this world by dint of survivorship. Despite the manifold hardships I surmount, I’m nowhere near the survivor she is.
She’s old enough to be my great-grandmother! (No, no, I take it back—not that old, but you know what I mean.) She ran out of sex appeal—or it ran out on her—I would estimate, a good thirty years ago. Not that I’m a connoisseur of aged females, but I do think I can extrapolate with reasonable accuracy that she was quite good-looking in her youth. The echo faintly reverberates in the way she still assumes that others take notice of her. From what I gather, she’s had a long, family-filled life, but everybody is either dead or moved away. For the past fifteen years, she’s been living by herself with four parakeets, with whom she unabashedly communicates.
Because of Sue’s many connections, she is also something of a matchmaker. With adroit questioning, she has grasped Budge’s situation and sorted through the possibilities right in the neighborhood. Through her, he has met Winifred B., whose boyfriend recently passed away from chronic wasting disease. He has met Mildred F., who, though ten years his senior, is actively seeking a replacement husband (the old rogue took up with a younger woman). He has met Jocelyn A. and Tillie Z., both school-teachers, friendly enough, but whose sexual preferences are not altogether clear (if he’s up for that kind of challenge). Plus, there are any number of more distantly habitated single women who’ve just happened to drop in at tea time.
Sue would be only too happy to make more introductions, but nothing seems to pay off. Like the women who come to the Mainstay with their hopeful casseroles and bottles of cheap Australian wine, Budge finds them lacking in one aspect or another. With what passes for a rakish laugh, he shrugs off Sue’s offers of further assistance. He’ll get lucky one day, he assures her.
In the meantime, he continues to stop by her house. He knows that she is always there and always glad to see him. He feels he can trust her.
At least twice a week, I knock on her door. She’s told me that she prefers I don’t phone ahead of time, which is fine with me. My visits break up the monotony of her day sitting in a chair reading the newspaper and listening to NPR. “Come right on in!” she’ll call cheerily, and the invitation itself is a reward. In the neighborhood, she’s become my lodestar, my guiding spirit. I find myself telling her things that I would never tell anyone else. No, I don’t cry on her shoulder, or anything like that, but I do tend to get confessional whenever we talk at length. This past Tuesday, I blurted out how I missed a sex life.
Now why would I confide that to a 92-year-old? What on earth possessed me? In light of my cavalier brush-off of her latest offer of introduction, it must have sounded particularly pathetic. I could just as well have said that I was climbing the walls, that I jerked off twice a week but it didn’t do any good.
A sudden ache of celibacy possessed me, and the words just tumbled out. I felt so stupid! But she just looked at me through those granny glasses that magnify her twinkling eyes and said, “It won’t be long now.”
Whether she was a Delphic oracle or just saying the first thing that came into her mind, her words soothed my poor downtrodden heart. All at once, my courage soared and I was filled with hope. “It won’t be long now.” How I wanted to believe her! She spoke as if it were a statement of fact, not just a prediction. Soon I would be exiting this tunnel of loneliness and limited resources. Soon I would be accepting and reciprocating another’s love. When that glorious moment came, I’d reenter the world a humbler person, so that by my own example I could show others that rock bottom is never the end but always the beginning, a springboard to betterment.
It’s no exaggeration to say that with that simple phrase, Sue turned my life around. When it was time to go, I went over and gave her a big hug.
“What’s that for?” she asked, flustered but obviously pleased.
“For saying nice things. For being my friend.”
“What did I say? Oh, you mean that business about your eventually finding somebody? Well, it’s true, Budge. You’re a very attractive man!”
I sincerely hoped she wasn’t implying that she had designs on me. The idea was worrisome. Had she misread my comradely embrace? Did she think I was into gerontophilia? Fearing the worst, I headed out the door as quickly as possible. Surely, she understood that I didn’t want to get physical—God forbid if I gave her that impression!—but I couldn’t tell for sure. Back at the cottage, hindsight got the better of me. Why had I hugged the old broad so fiercely? My action was totally uncalled for. She said a few kind words, and I overreacted.
Mr. Impulsive screws up again! Sue Baskin—of all people—thinks I’ve got the hots for her, and now I’ve got to deal with that issue as well as everything else.
Filled with at least a paragraph of inspiration, Budge makes his fingers patter busily upon the keyboard.
Women! Always my weak point! Here I am, a 55-year-old guy who’s been around so many times that it’s ridiculous. I’m too damn interested in women—that’s my problem. Invariably, it leads me to do and say the wrong thing. Why can’t I just take an emasculating pill or potion? Lose this perpetual preoccupation once and for all. Other men my age concentrate on luxury cars, boats, stock portfolios, swimming pools. Or drink—lovely edge-dulling alcohol that eases ravelments and encourages karioke. But no, not me—I’m above such pursuits. All I want is female flesh—all flavors and colors and sizes and shapes. I want to gorge myself, I want to devour Women with a capital W. My unrequited nerve-endings cry out for gratification. In my boxer shorts, my penis flops around like a disconsolate eel. I can’t take much more of this horniness. I beg the medical profession for help—surgical, pharmaceutical, psychological, whatever. I am your guinea pig, I am your laboratory rat. Get me out of this inane phantasmagorical rutting rut before it’s too late!
While Budge’s prose liberally flies away with itself, he remains more or less inert at his desk. His financial
survival is linked to his word output; he needs to finish this writing project and get started on another. The sailboat money is running out. Nights are turning chilly, although the leaves on the trees are still green. He looks out to the water, ignoring the portajohn (it was tipped over by vandals this past weekend and righted only after he notified the Rock Hall police). fewer sailboats are heading out to the open bay, and of their number, only one or two have raised sails. This is the time of year when weekend sailors take to the water only briefly, more intent on hauling their craft ashore for maintenance followed by long-term storage.
I was told by the rental agent when I moved here that beach activity would lessen after Labor Day. I figured that the quietude would descend all at once—everybody would just pack up and go home. Well, it hasn’t happened so abruptly. Sunny weekends continue to draw beachgoers; picnickers occupy the tables and kiosks. Sunset clubbers and stray bicyclists still arrive for the end-of-day spectacle, although it’s earlier now and not so conveniently delayed after suppertime. During the week, however, the parking spaces are mostly empty and the sign forbidding beach use between dusk and dawn is inadvertently obeyed.
In the course of one afternoon’s visit, Sue Baskin invites him to stay for dinner. A week earlier, she asked if he liked Maryland blue crabs, and when he said he wasn’t sure, she took it as a sign that he needed some culinary initiation. Now she has caught several of the crustaceans off her bulkhead and wants to share them with him. He gratefully accepts her invitation, but insists on going to the liquor store to fetch a bottle of wine.
It has been a long time since he was a dinner guest—not since he left the western shore.
I don’t care if she’s nineteen or ninety. If a woman invites me for a meal, I won’t turn her down.
To his credit, Budge has gotten over his apprehensions about Sue. Subsequent visits have shown that his elderly friend has no designs on him other than to help him achieve a level of social comfort so that he no longer has to think of himself as an outsider. That and, of course, the matchmaking. If anything, her string of unsuccessful introductions have bolstered his self-confidence. As a result of them, he is finally allowing himself to imagine that he may be more in demand than he had previously thought possible.
Nevertheless, Sue continues to occupy Budge’s writerly thoughts.
She offers a no-strings companionship that a single guy can handle—no hidden agenda, no wishful outcome, and, above all, no sexuality waiting in the wings. She’s just a friend, one that can be counted on. Moreover, she’s not a surrogate mother and I’m not a surrogate son. When we’re together, Sue and I treat each other as equals.
How refreshing true friendship is! She and I have a surprising amount in common. We both love Beach Road for what it’s not. We’d rather look at the water than sail on it. We chuckle over local inanities, like the post-midnight street sweeping truck that wakes up the neighborhood. We agree about so many things that we occasionally fall silent for minutes on end, lost in tandem contemplation.
As ancient as Sue is, she no longer has to prove or improve herself. She leads a life of blissful indifference, though on another level, she’s alert and opinionated. In her company, I find myself taking mental notes; I want to be just like her when I’m an nonagenarian.
Well before dark, Budge returns to her house with the bottle of wine. He has taken his time because he is cognizant of her own slowness—she is never in a rush, not even when the phone is ringing or the kettle is whistling.
He finds her at the edge of the bulkhead, hauling up—with some difficulty—a crab trap tied to a length of rope.
“I just caught three more,” she calls to him. “We’ll have a feast tonight!”
The preparation for the feast turns out to be a complicated procedure, beginning with the locating of the steaming pot which, as luck would have it, is buried beneath a pile of rusty tools in an adjacent shed. As far as Budge can tell, the pot hasn’t been used in years—nor have the tools. The inside of the pot is barnacled with mud-dauber nests and sticky white cocoons of indeterminate insects in the larvae stage. Utilizing scrub brush and garden hose, he scours it thoroughly before filling it with fresh water.
After carrying the heavy, sloshing pot to the waterside deck, his next task is to change the outdoor cooker’s propane tank, which is empty. The spare tank is underneath the back porch—at least Sue thinks it is—and so another search ensues. The spare, it turns out, is hidden beneath an overturned wheelbarrow, where it has lain for a decade or more, judging by its dirtiness, but appears to have some gas left in it. Budge hefts the tank to the cooker and fastens the hose, not omitting to extricate the dry leaves and cobwebs from the grille before he ignites the burner. After putting the water on to boil, his next job is to fetch the crabs.
I can see how grateful she is for my assistance. The crabs don’t go gently; I repeatedly bang the trap on the deck to get them out. Only reluctantly do they drop into the waiting pail—have they an inkling of their fate? The other crabs have been in the refrigerator for a day or two, so they aren’t nearly as feisty. Still, I take the precaution of using tongs. Then another lengthy search: somewhere on the shelves of her pantry is a can of Old Bay seasoning. Eventually, it turns up, but it’s caked so hard that I have to devote a good ten minutes chopping at it with a table knife. Following this, I help her locate the crab-picking tools. These turn out to be irretrievably lost, so we settle for pliers and a hammer from her late husband’s tool chest.
She tells me that she hasn’t cooked crabs in ages, and I believe her.
Waiting for the water to boil, Budge and his hostess occupy deck chairs and sip the wine he has brought—cheap, but French. It’s remarkable how relaxed he can get in Sue’s presence; unrestrainedly, he babbles on about anything that comes to mind. There isn’t much in life that Sue hasn’t experienced, and she listens with a sympathetic ear. As the sun sets, he keeps their glasses full. Finally, at her suggestion, he checks the pot, having risen somewhat unsteadily to his feet. The water is half boiled away. He dumps in the crabs, quickly placing the lid over their demise.
Sorry guys! Can’t be much fun for ya. Rest assurred, however, that you’re going to a good home—my stomach.
But Budge has scant opportunity to ponder the crustaceans’ fate. Once he is back in his chair, his attention is fully absorbed by his elderly friend.
The more we communicate, the more I realize that our age difference is meaningless. Sure, we’re almost forty years apart, but somehow it’s not relevant to the ebb and flow of our conversation. The rapport between us just glides along. If she occasionally repeats herself, I let it pass, knowing that my own head is spinning and I am probably guilty of the same. I haven’t enjoyed such a wine buzz since my wife and I were together, back in the days when we’d sit on the patio with a bottle between us, mapping out home improvment projects and holiday plans.
I scrutinize Sue’s face as she talks. Her merry magnified eyes peer back at me, and her chin bobs like a puppet’s, loosely attached to the rest of her features. Is she watching me watch her? Now she grins, and her cheek-bones stand out like apples as her temples crinkle. She makes a droll point—the years haven’t dulled her funny-bone—showing her uneven yellow row of upper teeth (she grew up before the era of orthodonture).
Her great age gives her a lighthearted authority. I hang upon the import of her every tongue-in-cheek pronouncement. I’m in the presence of someone who can see a lot more humor in life than I can right now.
Having finished his bottle, they opt to open a bottle of hers, a not-bad Argentine shiraz which—at her bidding—he totters to the kitchen for. The fresh glassfuls ensure continuity between deck chair and dining table, between past life and present. Hostess and guest are soon off on another conversational tangent, but suddenly he remembers that he better check the crabs.
They’re done—well done—red and redolent and ready to crack open. One by one, he transfers them to a serving platter and brings them to the newspape
r-covered table. Sue has prepared pickled beets and cole slaw in advance—these he sets upon the table, too. Then he seats her, and before seating himself, refreshes the wineglasses once again.
In a drunken stupor, I pick at my crab. What would normally frustrate me (painstaking process, minimal reward) is an engrossing culinary dissection. I recall watching the contestants at the Party on the Bay—their single-minded alacrity. Under Sue’s tutelage, I work slowly and semi-methodically. The taste of the crabmeat becomes almost secondary—I transfer morsels to my mouth without giving them much thought. Conscientiously, my fingers forage through the exoskeleton. It takes the better part of an hour to polish off three crabs apiece, about the same amount of time it takes to polish off the second bottle of wine.
With twin heaps of dismembered crabs between them, Sue and Budge linger at the table. In the twilight, she no longer looks so old.
I suppose I’m more used to her face. Instead of searching it for the depredations of age, my eyes elide the harsh truth. She’s a woman, no more or less attractive than any other. She’s a woman, prone to the typical thought processes of her sex. She’s a woman—and we get along famously. She can’t help the way she looks and acts any more than I can help the way I look and act. Which just goes to show that appearance doesn’t matter at all. Didn’t Plato say that?
Anyway, I’m making a quantum leap here: I’m seeing her as a definite possibility.
Thus Budge describes his wine-induced assessment. Can he be serious? Apparently he is.
Around ten o’clock—tipsy, sated, talked out, and firmer friends than ever before—we finally get up from the table. I’ve rolled up the fragrant offal of newspapers to deposit in the trash. Sue is not the type to worry about cleaning up a mess, but she appreciates my help. Slowly and deliberately—so as to avoid a fall—she accompanies me as far as the porch steps.
Along Beach Road, it’s a crisp night and the stars are out. The tide is rhythmically hissing upon the rip-rap, and at a distance inland, an owl is hooting. Budge is aware of crab odor lingering on his fingers and chin. In the motion-sensor floodlight that just now casts its beam, Sue’s face is framed in a white aureole like a dandelion gone to seed.
Washed Up with a Broken Heart in Rock Hall Page 11