The Art of Living Other People's Lives

by Greg Dybec

  Visits to Grammy’s nursing home were harsh reminders that things had changed. Not to mention I was genuinely frightened by the place. I’d never liked hospitals (even though my father has worked in one all my life), and I found the nursing home to be even worse. The hallways were stale and colorless, with sporadic, gargling coughs and the crackle of oxidized joints that reverberated through the walls like carnival rides just getting started. Hospitals at least house diversity. One person could be dying from gunshot wounds, but only one wing over a child has just taken its first breath in a new mother’s arms. Nursing homes are depressingly monotonous.

  I also couldn’t help but feel overly protective when visiting Grammy. I’d see other old ladies with the same thinning, disheveled hair and cloudy eyes. They’d have identical wrinkles across the same loose-skinned knuckles and an all-too-familiar pattern of veins winding up their legs. But they weren’t my grandmothers. Grammy was different, I’d tell myself, and it pained me to think someone else would even place her in the same category as the others.

  I always just assumed her stay in the nursing home would be temporary. I figured that once she was back home we could rebuild the structure we’d lost. It’d never be the same without Nanny, but at least there’d be two sides to even out the scale again. One grandparent on each side would be enough to hold the fabric of my childhood together.

  One night following Grammy’s admittance to the nursing home, I had a strange dream that her house, along with Nanny’s and Pop’s, melted. Slow drip by slow drip, the two homes simultaneously formed shiny, metallic puddles in the unforgiving summer sun. I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat, as if I’d actually been there, collecting the heat and beginning to melt myself. The dream reinforced my fear that if the familiarity of my grandparents’ homes faded, the memories somehow would, too. I was desperate to conserve the convenience of the location and pass it down to generations after me, like a museum artifact or piece of rare art. I had visions of one day buying both houses, moving my parents into one and my future wife’s parents into the other, just so my future kids could have the same accessibility to their grandparents I had.

  Months after the dream, memories took on an even greater meaning in my life. It was no longer the fear of my childhood memories vanishing that took center stage, though—it was the reality that Grammy’s memories were actually starting to disappear. We first noticed something was off when she began repeating questions during visits. It started with simple questions like “What did you do today?” or “How is school going?” She’d ask, listen intently while nodding along, then, a few minutes later, ask the same exact question, as if she weren’t happy with the first answer and was offering a chance at redemption.

  At first, I blamed fatigue for her cloudy memory. I’d look around the small room, sunlight barely creeping through the window, her teeth in a tall glass of water on the nightstand, and imagine I wouldn’t be the sharpest person in that setting either. Though I knew the issue was not to be taken lightly when I noticed her impressive reading output go from one book a week to hardly one page a day. In her healthier years, she had the ability to read more quickly than anyone I’d ever met. Each time I’d visit her as a child, she’d have a new hardcover book from the library bookmarked and sitting on her coffee table. Hundreds and hundreds of pages a week that stood no chance against her. People would always bring her books to the nursing home as gifts, and I took tally each week as their unread pages began to stack up on her nightstand like a miniature city skyline.

  Doctors officially diagnosed her with dementia after the repetition began making its way into every conversation. She wasn’t even able to recall who had visited her earlier in the day. Once when my entire family was visiting, she announced she needed to use the bathroom. We waited patiently in the room and when the bathroom door swung back open her face lit up with genuine astonishment. “What a surprise!” she cheered. “I haven’t seen you in so long. So sorry you came while I was using the toilet.”

  Luckily it was only her short-term memory that was affected. With each visit I’d test her thoroughly, making sure my childhood was still intact and vibrant in her mind. We’d recall the funny stories we wrote together, the vocabulary words she would test me on when I was younger, and all the recipes she’d brought to life for my family over the years. We’d have the same conversation at least five times during one visit, but it didn’t bother me. It was refreshing to relive the moments that had shaped our relationship throughout the years.

  What I loved most was that she’d always remember how passionate I was about writing, and with each visit, she told the same exact story of her father, who worked as a newspaper journalist for an English paper in Puerto Rico. She’d go on for minutes at a time about his ability to write and how captivating of a storyteller he was. She’d explain that during the holidays the entire family and all the kids would huddle around him, hanging on to every single syllable that slipped out of his mouth. Without fail, she’d finish the story by boasting about how he was good friends with Joe DiMaggio, because even the greatest baseball player in the world loved my grandfather’s stories. Each time, I left her side with a renewed sense of purpose.

  I eventually found out through my parents that Grammy had been aware of her impending dementia early on. She’d started staying home more often a few years prior to her eventual diagnosis. She’d even opted out of Christmas Eve dinner at my family’s house. At the time I hadn’t even noticed, but now it made me sick to my stomach to think of her afraid and alone, desperate to hide any hint of her mind’s deterioration from us.

  I thought of my own selfish fears. The notion that I’d somehow lose a piece of my childhood if my grandparents’ homes didn’t stay forever intact and stable next to one another was an impractical one, brought on by my mind’s irrational tendency to place the burden of existential fears onto something tangible. When I was younger I was convinced that if I didn’t say good night to my family they’d cease to exist while I slept. I also believed that if I didn’t pray before bed my house would set on fire. I’m not sure where that particular dread came from, but I think the Catholic church would be proud.

  Then I thought of Grammy’s fears. Legitimate fears. The fear of actually losing her memories. For years she must have woken up unsure if that particular day would be the day her forgetfulness transformed into something far more damaging. Forgetting what she had for dinner the night before was saddening but manageable, I’m sure. But the constant fear of one day forgetting her family members or even her own childhood must have weighed more heavily on her than anything else.

  In the nursing home, she was past the point of fearful anticipation. Like riding a roller coaster, she had been most aware and afraid on the way up, preparing for a sudden drop that she could only sense but not quite see in front of her. Once she was past the initial free fall and her dementia was full-fledged, she was simply along for the ride. There was a strange sense of comfort in knowing she was at least free of the fear.

  Then there were my parents, the ones who’d actually grown up in those two homes I’d learned to cherish so much. Their fear and emotions surrounding this huge change must have been devastating, yet I was the one wallowing in angst over inevitability instead of taking the time to consider the new memories I could still make with Grammy.

  I was able to enjoy a beautiful spring afternoon with Grammy a few months before she passed away. It was the first warm day of the season and my family decided it would be nice to take her outside to enjoy the weather. We helped her out of bed and into her wheelchair and made our way to the nursing home’s courtyard. Surprisingly, the courtyard was extremely well-kept, flush with blooming flowers and dense, vibrant foliage that blocked the view of the looming brick building. Compared to the stark hallways and cramped rooms inside the nursing-home walls it was a true oasis. We were the only ones outside and we took our time wheeling Grammy around the narrow cobblestone path. At that point her mind would refresh almost instantly,
and every few feet it was as if she’d just stepped outside for the very first time. “What a day. It’s so beautiful,” she’d repeat without fail. It was the perfect commentary for the moment, and none of us would have ever gotten tired of it, no matter how many laps we took around the courtyard.

  As we prepared to make our way back inside I took a long hard look at my family. My brother stood close by me, as shocked as I was that a setting so gorgeous could be affiliated with the very place that made us feel so uneasy with each visit. My mother strolled slowly next to my father as he pushed Grammy’s wheelchair. She was leading the pack, with a blanket draped over her lap and one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen. I tried to envision the first time my father realized a cute girl was living next door. I pictured their first date, which they’ve told me was to a softball game. I thought about the initial doubts they must have had, questioning whether or not it was possible that the person they were meant to be with forever could really be the person that’s been right there—right next door—all along. I imagined my mother meeting Grammy for the first time, slowly becoming more than just the girl next door. I thought of how nervous my father must have been meeting Nanny and Pop. I felt warm picturing Grammy introducing herself to Nanny and Pop not just as a neighbor, but as something more. “It’s so beautiful,” Grammy chirped from her wheelchair.

  I knew that once Grammy was settled back upstairs in her room she wouldn’t even remember that she had been outside. She’d forget the warmth of the sun and the smell of the trees. She wouldn’t recall that she saw my family and me. The day would all be one empty space in her mind. But it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t remember the day. Luckily, the important thing about memories, whether they change with time or disappear completely, is that they happened. I knew the feeling of that day would last forever, and that was enough for me.

  My Summer as a Pick-Up Artist

  It was a spring night in New York City as I surveyed the open-seating section of an outdoor bar with my best friend Phil. Like so many of the other men around us fueled by the warm seasonal breeze and alcohol, we were searching for women.

  Generally, the strategy behind selecting which girl to approach is as arbitrary as it is animalistic. Whether it’s the first girl a guy sees or the girl who looks most receptive to conversing with a stranger, there’s usually only surface-level rationalization involved. That night, though, we weren’t interested in which girls would be easiest to approach. We were in pursuit of the biggest challenge.

  Phil had been studying the “science” of pick-up artistry for months, and that night he was prepared to show me “The Cube” technique for the first time. The cube is a personality exercise of sorts. The idea is to tell a girl that you could accurately describe her personality by asking a series of questions. You then recite blatant generalizations based on her answers, which more often than not, she’d perceive as detailed understandings of her own personality. It’s not all that different than the curbside hustlers with novelty crystal balls and handwritten signs that advertise five-dollar psychic readings. My only job was to tag along and not screw anything up.

  We settled on a table of three girls and three guys. Phil wasted no time. “I have to ask, do you believe in psychic intuition?” he interrupted. “I know this is random, but I bet I can tell you everything about your personality.” He focused on the girls, ignoring the guys altogether.

  “So prove it,” one of them responded. Phil motioned for her to put her hands in his and instructed her to close her eyes. Before he could even get started, the guys said they had to go and left the table without acknowledging us.

  “Imagine a cube,” Phil began. “How big is it? What color? Now imagine a ladder. How many rungs? Now a horse. What kind and color? There’s a storm. What kind of storm?” And so on and so on with similarly inane, ludicrous questions. All the while, one of the girl’s friends nudged me playfully, assuming I had been privy to this show before.

  When the questions concluded, the girl slowly opened her eyes, readjusting to the world around her. For the next two minutes, I sat in awe as Phil interpreted each one of her answers without missing a beat.

  “The cube represents you,” he said. Since she described her cube as being small, it meant that at times she was an introvert. Her cube was on the ground, so Phil told her she was well-grounded. The ladder represented her friends, and since she described it as having only a few rungs, it meant she had a select few friends that she really cared about. The horse was her ideal man. She picked a stallion, which meant she wanted a masculine partner. And the horse’s color was white, so she also desired someone that could be sensitive and emotionally stable.

  With each interpretation, which was nothing more than a series of basic abstractions, she grew more wide-eyed. “You’re describing her perfectly,” one of her friends shouted. By the end of the night, the three guys had never returned. As the girl entered her number into Phil’s phone, she explained that she had a boyfriend, but that she didn’t know where the relationship was going. One of her friends gave me her number, and with that, we left as suddenly as we’d arrived.

  I was first introduced to pick-up artistry when Phil, following the end of a four-year relationship, turned to books on seduction to help heal his heartbreak. Like many before him, he was directed to Neil Strauss’s New York Times best seller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. As critiqued as it’s been worshipped, The Game is a memoir that profiles the now mainstream personality Neil Strauss’s rise from loser to ladies’ man through the mastery of the highly controversial and taboo culture of pick-up artistry.

  There is an entire underground culture of men that dedicate their nights to learning the science behind attracting women. These men are not born alpha males that light up rooms with their charisma and physique. These men are average, usually dorky dudes who, by following a set of well-practiced rules, are able to intrigue and even sleep with women who would otherwise overlook them.

  After The Game, Phil devoured any related text he could get his hands on, from Robert Greene’s The Art of Seduction, to W. Anton’s The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them, to sales books about persuasion and FBI manuals about body language. He was consumed by the notion that if he read enough about what women wanted to hear, speaking and embodying those tactics would become second nature.

  At first I dismissed the idea that there could be any legitimacy within the books Phil left lingering around our apartment. I never had any issues connecting with women, and the concepts that he presented seemed like the complete opposite of anything I’d ever done to attract a girl.

  “A neg,” he explained, “is a backhanded compliment. It’s important to slightly offend the girl you’re interested in. Or at least to not show immediate interest.”

  “How does that make sense?” I asked half-heartedly, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

  “Next time you go out, watch how every guy interacts with the best-looking girl. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘You’re really pretty.’ The most attractive girls never have to work for affection, so they can’t help but want the guy that makes his presence known but doesn’t pursue them.”

  Conversations like these became commonplace, and each time I found myself paying closer attention. It was our first summer living on our own in New York City, and like Phil, I too was recovering from the fallout of a four-year relationship. Breakups have a funny way of changing people in the first few months following the split. Some people go skydiving. Others get makeovers and chop off their hair. My ex-girlfriend got a tattoo the size of her torso and took up pole dancing. I, whether I knew it at the time or not, would spend the entire summer of 2012 becoming a pick-up artist—and a good one at that.

  I was only a few chapters into The Game when Phil decided I was ready for my first real taste of “gaming,” as it’s called. We were at a rooftop bar for a friend’s birthday when he assured me I’d be leaving with the pho
ne number of a gorgeous waitress he’d spotted. “I’ll open, then you neg,” he instructed. An “open” referred to the initial approach, which was meant to gain the target’s interest without displaying immediate signs of attraction. I felt extremely unprepared.

  When the waitress made her way to the corner of the bar to catch her breath, we approached. “We’ve been debating about something all night and we wanted to get your opinion,” Phil said. “Our friend got in an argument with his girlfriend the other night because she got drunk and kissed a girl. He thinks it’s cheating, she says it’s not.”

  This was all a devised lie of course, but it was my job to play along. Whatever her opinion was, Phil would take the opposite stance. When she said she thought the imaginary girl in our scenario was cheating, I playfully boasted that she’d sided with me. Then, without even thinking, I threw in my neg.

  “You look like the type of girl who hooks up with other girls when you’re drunk.” My insides tightened as the words slipped from my mouth. I’d never say that to anyone, let alone a girl I was interested in. To my surprise, she laughed and stroked the length of my arm while chuckling. “No way, silly. I like guys.” This touch was referred to by pick-up artists as “kino,” as in kinesthetic—a friendly touch that signifies the girl’s interest and comfort.

  I ended my first official night of gaming with a number from the waitress, whom I found out was six years older than I was. As I said my good-byes, I watched out of the corner of my eye as Phil locked lips with a woman at the bar. It all seemed too good to be true.

  The following months would prove to be the most social of my life. Looking back, I have a difficult time determining where the social experiment ended and the full-blown obsession began.