This Old Man

by Lois Ruby

  “What door?”

  I was surprised he hadn’t followed my track. I thought I was being so clear with the signals. “Old Man’s hospital door, didn’t you figure that out? Something’s waiting for me on his side of the door.”

  “What do you think is there?”

  I shrugged.

  “Have you tried to open the door?”

  “No!” There was Old Man’s privacy to consider, and Wing standing there like a guard at the gates of the palace. And something else: though I’d been curious about Old Man at first, now I felt that seeing him would spoil something special. Either that, or it would plunge me into whatever it was that was lurking there, waiting for me.

  I realized with some astonishment that I had no desire to open the door anymore, and yet I was irresistibly drawn to it, drawn to Old Man’s voice and to how I imagined, no, knew everything to be in his room. I knew about his bedside table covered with his calligraphy brushes and ink. I saw his drapes, shut tight, admitting just a sliver of light. They are thick gold tapestry with a simple country scene repeated on them: a man viewed from the back as he walks through a meadow. He carries a cane, or a staff. There are some birds, a brook, and a black mountain peak ahead.

  I saw Old Man’s silver-and-blue brocade robe hanging in his narrow closet. He makes sure the nurse hangs it just so, with the shoulders straight across the hanger, so that when he looks at it from his bed, he sees that the hem hangs even.

  I saw his orange procelain teapot, with the bamboo handle that falls to one side. There are black serpents painted on the porcelain, and there are two small cups to match. They sit together like a teacher and two pupils, on a small shelf next to his bed.

  The room was always untouched. Nothing was moved, except when Wing spread his bowls out on the table that was wheeled up to Old Man’s bed. I saw the white linen napkin, starched fresh each day by Mrs. Kwang, which Wing arranges like a bib for Old Man. When he finishes his dinner, Old Man discreetly dabs at his lips and chin with the napkin, and folds it corner to corner into a square with his unsteady, bony hands.

  I saw it all, and I would not go into the room to have my vision shattered.

  Mr. Saxe pulled me back, asking, “May I give you a piece of advice?”

  “You never held back before.”

  “Return to Old Man.”

  “But you told me to stay away from Chinese Hospital. You told me that right in this room, not a month ago.”

  “It was right then. Now I see it’s right for you to go there. Find out what’s waiting for you.”

  “Are we sure I want to find out?”

  “When the time is right,” he said.

  With Darlene gone, and Pammy only a shadow of her former self, we seemed so small and cozy around the dinner table. Still, I knew the facts. In July, when Jo turned eighteen, she would have to leave Anza House and find a place of her own. Pammy’s foster family waited impatiently for her. If she didn’t come back soon, they’d be forced to take some other poor, misguided wench off the streets. And Sylvia’s family wasn’t entirely vicious. They were in family therapy together, twice a week. Sylvia’s migraines were under control. It was only a matter of weeks before she’d be ready to go home.

  Those nights, though, I would sit at the dinner table, with Elizabeth at the head, and two of us on either side of her, and I would imagine that we were a family at Sunday dinner, after church. I’d look from one person to the next—at Pammy’s paper-thin white skin and slim body; at Jo’s dancing, cutting eyes; at Elizabeth’s smile, full of kindness and authority; at Sylvia’s cheeks, which were beginning to sag as the pounds dropped away. I would imagine I was the mother of these four girls (I thought of Elizabeth as a girl, those evenings), and I hoped they would never marry and leave me.

  By dessert time I would feel the crackling log fire bursting to life in the den, where we would all go to knit, or do needlepoint, or draw, or write letters. Where had I gotten such romantic notions? I had to remind myself that I was Eliza Doolittle, fork-lifted down into a scene from Little Women. We had no den. We had no fireplace. After dinner we’d hit the TV or the telephone, even resort to doing homework. Two or three radios would blast, the dishwasher would be roaring, someone would put the ironing board up in the living room. That was the closest we came to having a cozy fire. Still, those evenings were very precious and predictable.

  On Thursday night, May 26, all hell broke loose. Carmella Bridges invaded Anza House. Like the men at Pearl Harbor, we weren’t ready for attack.

  Carmella was nearly six feet tall. She should have been measured in hands, like a horse. If you can imagine anyone strutting with a policeman grafted to each arm, you can picture Carmella’s entrance. The story was, she’d pulled a knife on her science teacher in the parking lot of the junior high. Why? Because he’d spent forty-two minutes talking about evolution, and this wasn’t what she got in church.

  “Whatchu staring at?” she shouted at us. We’d made a wide path for her and were lined up on opposite sides of the parade ground. “You never seen cops here before?”

  We’d seen them. It was Carmella Bridges who intrigued us.

  “You gonna leave me here with these wimps?” Suddenly she and the cops were in league together; we were the enemy.

  “Welcome, Carmella. This is Jo,” Elizabeth said, “and Sylvia. That one’s Greta. The little one’s Pammy.”

  Carmella gave us a cold stare. I dared to look up into her bloodshot eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in three days. She wore a yellow turban on her head, and bits of brown fuzzy hair stuck out all around it.

  “I can’t stay in this place,” she bellowed.

  “However, Judge Corbett says you can,” Elizabeth reminded her. “Maybe you’ll get used to being here. Maybe not. At least give it a try.”

  “Whatchu got, nine o’clock curfew?”

  “Ten-thirty,” Jo said.

  Carmella reeled around. “Did I ast you?”

  “Let me take you up to your room.” Elizabeth firmly guided the hulk of Carmella toward the staircase. Pammy was trembling. She must have thought Carmella would be assigned to her room.

  Jo asked, “Are you bunking Carmella with me, because if you are—”

  “I tell you now, I ain’t gonna live with that one,” Carmella announced. She waved an elbow in Jo’s general direction. “Because that red hair is gonna give me nightmares.”

  “Relax, girls. Carmella’s going to have the room down the hall.”

  We all sighed in relief: she’d have the isolation room. Elizabeth signed some papers and dismissed the policemen. She led Carmella up the stairs. We closed ranks behind her and followed, stopping in the hall for some clean sheets, which Elizabeth tossed on Carmella’s bed. Sylvia brought in a couple of towels. There was no luggage. I wondered if Carmella would wear the same sagging brown cords and the Hawaiian print halter top to school tomorrow. Would they let her back in school after she tried to stab that teacher? I didn’t have long to wonder, because Carmella was issuing a proclamation: “You all turn around and get out of my room.” We skittered like spiders! Elizabeth bravely closed the door and was in there alone with her. We listened at every available crack.

  “Carmella, I’m going to give you fifteen minutes to figure out where things are up here and wash up or do whatever you have to in the john. After that, you’re in here till wake-up in the morning.”

  “I don’t need nothin’ down the hall.”

  “Wait here. I’ll go get you one of my nightgowns to wear. And I’ll get you a toothbrush.”

  “I tole you, I don’t need nothin’.”

  “Right.” Elizabeth stepped over us on her way to her room. In a minute she was back with a flannel flower-print granny gown folded into a neat package, and a toothbrush sealed in cellophane, the kind the dentist gives you free. She knocked on Carmella’s door, and getting no response, went on in.

  “Whatchu doin’ back here?”

  “I just came to say good night, Carmell
a,” Elizabeth said sweetly. She came out, kicked us gently aside, and locked Carmella’s door. In all the months I’d been at Anza House, no one had ever been locked in her room. Not just rumors, there were changes in the wind as well.

  16

  You could take a bus just out of town to Colma, where most of the San Francisco cemeteries were. It seemed like a good place to meet, if you didn’t want anyone to follow you or see you.

  There was a sort of gazebo outside the mausoleum at Heavenly Peace, and that’s where I met my mother, Marla, on Saturday morning. I watched her climb up the hill from the bus stop. She was wearing beautiful wine-colored boots and an expensive-looking maroon tweed suit. She seemed very sophisticated to me, with her hat tilted at a chic angle. Then again, she could have come in army fatigues, and she would have looked beautiful to me. It was three months since I’d seen her. I ran to meet her halfway down the hill, to haul her the rest of the way up. For a moment I forgot that she wasn’t a mother to win state fair prizes. I was just happy to see her, and proud to be seen with a woman so elegantly decorated.

  She was out of breath by the time we reached the top of the hill. We sat in the gazebo holding hands, like second-graders. I couldn’t remember ever feeling better with her.

  “You look just terrific, sweetie. You’re wearing your hair much more girlish.” (She hadn’t seen me since I’d given up the cinnamon rolls for the straight look. Now I simply blow-dried my hair, away from my face.) “And look at you—you ditched the overalls. You look so nice and slim in jeans and that turtleneck. In fact, you look like a million bucks.”

  “You’re the one who looks so good, Marla.”

  “Well, then, style must just run in the Janssen family.” She giggled in a lighthearted way. Under it, though, she seemed a little nervous. I knew she had something important to say, or she never would have risked so much to meet me. “Listen, sweetie, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  It sounded bad. My hand turned cold in hers.

  “I, uh, I’m not getting any younger.”

  “You’re only thirty-two. You’re younger than most people’s mothers.”

  “Oh, yeah, compared to what. But it’s like baseball players. After thirty-five you’re no good on the field, to play or trade. Anyway, there’s other reasons. I’m quitting Hackey.”

  Quitting Hackey? Who would look after her? It wasn’t as though she had social security and sick leave and health insurance. “Ohhh.” I caught my breath. “You mean quitting Hackey, or quitting work?”

  “Both.”

  “What are you going to do, then?”

  “You’ll laugh. I’m signed up for this computer programming course.”

  Laugh? I thought I’d fall off the bench! Marla Janssen sitting in front of an IBM terminal eight hours a day? It was hilarious.

  Her eyes, behind those huge tinted lenses, seemed wounded. “It’s a surprise, but I’m getting my G.E.D.”

  “You’re graduating from high school?”

  “Next month. Night school.”

  “That’s wonderful, Marla. How did you fit that in?”

  “Hackey said okay. He said it wouldn’t hurt me to get some better grammar.” She laughed wickedly. “It didn’t do nothing for my grammar, but I don’t care, because I’m quitting Hackey.” She’d said this many times before, but never with this kind of determination.

  I didn’t know how to ask the next question, so I just blurted it out: “Am I coming home to live with you?”

  “Well, sweetie, things isn’t ever that simple. See, I’ve got to slip away, where he can’t find me. I’m not even going to tell you where I’m going, so if he finds you, he can’t make you tell him. But I’ll keep in touch. Elizabeth over at that house will know how to reach me, if it’s an emergency or something like that. I’ll send you some money when I can. I won’t have much for a few months.”

  “I’m working at Candlestick Park this summer. I can send you money.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “How is Hackey going to handle this?” I asked, blowing a puff of air out of my mouth. I knew how Hackey would handle it.

  “I’ve made that man lots of money, and he’s been good to me most of the time. Part of the time. He loves me, best as he can. I think he wants me to have a good life.”

  I nodded, as if I believed her.

  “Who am I fooling? My baby, who’s seen it all? Hackey will be having shit fits when he finds me gone. But I’ve gotta go, baby. What’s he going to do when I’m forty and no good to him, put me out on a raft to float? I gotta just disappear, where he won’t come looking for me, you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “I am going to miss him, honey.”

  Each to her own, I thought, giving her hand, which felt so frail and dry, a comforting pat.

  “There’s only just one thing. If I get out from under—”

  Yes, I knew the rest.

  “Well, if I’m gone, he might lean on you a little bit more, come looking for you and all.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “Listen, baby, burn those pictures.”

  “Oh, no. I’m hanging on to them. I might need them some day.”

  My mother nodded. “You do what you think. You always was on your own anyway. You’ll be okay?”

  “I’m fine at Anza House.” Despite Carmella, I thought.

  “I knew I was doing the right thing, sending you there, you know that, sweetie? That might be the most decent thing I ever done.”

  After that there wasn’t much more to say. We walked down the hill to a flower shop and looked around in there for a while, until the first bus came. I bought her a rose to pin to her suit coat, and she slipped me $25 just as she got on the bus.

  There was the usual hum of activity at the vegetable market. Mrs. Kwang slapped her hands together to kill gnats that were circling her fruit. “Hello there, Greta,” she said. “Do you want a nice tomato?”

  I’d been taught to say no, thank you and wait to be coaxed. Hackey always liked coaxing. What he especially liked was to stop, just before I bit. “Oh, no thanks,” I told Mrs. Kwang. “Actually, I’m looking for Wing. Do you know where he is?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s at the hospital,” she said.

  “How is Old Man today?”

  “My father-in-law is very well today. He will live to be a hundred and ten years old. I think he’ll live longer than all of us!” Mrs. Kwang smiled shyly. “You see, I take good care of him. I feed him good food. Wing is taking him a small supper now.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Kwang. I’ll go on over and wait for Wing there.”

  “No tomato?”

  My mouth was watering. I wanted to grab one of those things and pop it in my mouth.

  “Here.” She picked out the plumpest, brightest red cherry tomato in the pile. One bite shot thousands of sweet seeds all over my mouth. I didn’t dare open my mouth even to say thank you.

  There was that time when I was about nine, and Hackey took us to the King’s Table for dinner …

  The restaurant’s in Millbrae, a town on the San Francisco peninsula. It’s made to look like an old English pub, with a huge buffet table you can go back to over and over. I load up on macaroni salad, deep red Jell-O, thin slices of rare roast beef piled high, black olives, fresh hot bread, sliced peaches, scalloped potatoes, Yorkshire pudding puffs—and six cherry tomatoes. I have to cup my hand around the plate to keep things from falling off on my way back to the table. The bread, five tomatoes, and half the roast beef go into a plastic sack in my purse. That’s for tomorrow and the next day. Then I begin working my way down the mountain of food to the savory macaroni salad on the bottom. The first thing I have to take care of is that one tomato that is rolling around on the mountain peak. I suck it into my mouth. My mother says I look like a vacuum cleaner. My mouth falls open when I laugh. I bite down, and tomato seeds spray all over the white tablecloth. My mother can’t stop laughing as she slides the seeds into a neat pile with her knife. H
ackey looks from one to the other of us, faking a smile now and then, but he hasn’t been able to get into the silliness of it. Finally he says, “You got enough on your plate to feed the Russian army.”

  We’re not going to let him spoil our fun this night. I blow the paper off my straw, and it flies past my mother, winging its way to a table of old folks on leave from the Home. The Jell-O shaking on my plate like blubber is enough to drive us wild with laughter all over again. Oh, a new discovery: the macaroni tubes fit over both my little fingers. I curl my macaroni pinkie around my water glass. My mother has to turn away from me to keep from cracking up. The old folks are all staring at us, waiting to see what happens next.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s like going out to eat with Laurel and Hardy,” Hackey says. He throws $20 down on the table and leaves. We still can’t stop laughing and carrying on like slapstick comics, even when we discover that Hackey isn’t in the lobby, or even in the parking lot, and we’re twenty miles from home and have $2.17 between us to get us home.

  I have always loved cherry tomatoes.

  I didn’t have to wait long at the hospital. Nor did Wing seem surprised to see me when he came out of Old Man’s room. He looked positively ecstatic that day.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re here, Greta. Guess what? Chen lost the job.”

  “What job? Did he go to work for the fish man?”

  “No, no, no. This job.” Wing gestured toward Old Man’s door. “Old Man yelled and yelled and told Chen not to come back to this room, or he would never eat another bite of food, and Chen would have his great-grandfather’s death on his conscience forever.”

  “That’s wonderful! I’ll bet Old Man would have done it, too. Now he’s all yours again.”

  “All mine. He was in such a good mood tonight. He told me stories about life along the Pine River, in the old country. He told me about his father, who had the weight of responsibility for a household of forty-six.”

  “That’s some family.”

  “Oh, they were not all what you would call family. There were his brothers and their wives and children, and many servants, and orphans from the village, and travelers stopping with him on their way to the big cities.”