Leisureville

by Andrew D. Blechman

  I jog down the street and look for signs of life at Morse’s private eating club, which, unbeknownst to residents, is hidden above a popular Italian restaurant. I run up an unmarked staircase at the back, only to find the club door locked and its windows dark. Resigned, I walk back to my golf cart, but I soon notice, across the parking lot, a lone SUV with its lights on, idling. Curious, I walk toward it. The driver puts the car in gear and slowly drives off. I watch the red taillights grow smaller as the SUV heads toward the big white spot in middle of the map.

  I’m left wondering what I might have asked him, if given the chance. In some ways, Lester is right—the story of The Villages’ is really about the residents: why they’ve chosen to live here, and what they make of it. But Morse is the one who created this kingdom of leisure that will one day be home to 110,000 retirees. Is the wizard pleased with his creation? Does he have second thoughts about his impact on the region, let alone the end result of the lifestyle he is selling? And why does he keep such a tight rein over his residents and the region as a whole? Does he consider such measures necessary to protect his investment? Or is he simply monopolizing local politics and the media because he can? After all, The Villages isn’t a charity; it’s a business. If there’s one thing I feel reasonably certain about Morse, it’s this: he has an uncanny ability to provide people with what they want, and make a fortune doing so.

  I toss on a sweater and drive my cart back to the house with the bunny ears. Mr. Midnight is still out, most likely at Crazy Gringos with the usual suspects. I sit down at his computer to check my e-mail, but I’m distracted by an instant message query in the form of a purple and pink cat with long lashes winking repeatedly in the middle of the screen. “Hey, Mr. Midnight. Are you there? My kitty’s purring for you.”

  A few days later, the ground collapses beneath a house in the Andersons’ village, while a utility company is digging in the area. The collapse causes the house to shift dramatically, and a gas line springs a leak. There’s no explosion, but the place looks like a disaster zone. The flashing emergency lights and yellow crime scene tape look acutely out of place. Neighbors do their best to simply ignore the mess as they go about their daily business. When I ask Dave about the sinkhole, he expresses little concern. “I’m sure they’ll patch it up soon enough,” he says.

  The lead story in the next day’s Daily Sun is decidedly upbeat: “Study Reveals People Living Longer.” Farther down the page is a short article addressing the neighborhood calamity. The reporter extensively quotes a utility foreman on the job, who explains in excruciatingly technical detail how his crew executed the dig to exacting standards consistent with industry regulations.

  I read the story two more times, but still can’t figure out what happened. Nowhere in the article is it explained how or why the ground collapsed. I recognize the byline; it’s by Kim, the reporter I met at The Villages’ government orientation class. I call her cell phone.

  “It was a spontaneous sinkhole,” Kim tells me flatly. “It had nothing to do with the digging. I tried putting it in the story, but my editor deleted it. When I complained, he told me to stop bulldogging the story. The Villages doesn’t want to admit sinkholes exist, because they’re related to the aquifer, and that scares them. So, we’re not allowed to mention them.”

  By now, my own “Village vision” dims my concern over the incident and its outrageous yet predictable manipulation. I’ll be leaving shortly, and after weeks of hustling around from morning to night, I want to relax and try living like a Villager.

  And so here I am. The sun is shining, the gentle breeze smells sweet, and I have a golf cart to tool around in. If the sinkhole doesn’t affect me directly, then why should I care? I have my own concerns back home to worry about. Sinkholes aside, life in The Villages is relaxing, pleasant, and comfortably predictable. I spend my last days lounging at the pool with Mr. Midnight, going to the movies with Sassy, and lingering over lunches at outdoor tables in sun-splashed Spanish Springs.

  Waking up on the little sunporch, I face few bigger decisions than which friend to visit during the day and where to go out at night. Sometimes, the decision isn’t even that difficult—friends often come calling at Mr. Midnight’s. It’s not unusual to wake up from a lunchtime nap and see a caravan of golf carts turning into the driveway.

  “Hey, is Midnight around?” a friend named Danny shouts across the yard one day. He’s wearing an open shirt, a big floppy straw hat, and a stripe of zinc oxide down his sunburned nose. His attractive young wife sits beside him and waves pleasantly. Another three friends pop open beers and wait in a second golf cart decked out to look like a fire engine—it even has miniature ladders. I squint into the sunlight and explain to Danny that Mr. Midnight’s probably at the pool scouting bikinis and popping Viagra.

  I hear a shuffling behind me and turn around to see Harry, Mr. Midnight’s best friend from back home, who is visiting for several days. To his credit—as I mentioned earlier—he has been assigned the coveted formal guest room reserved for non-female A-list visitors. Harry, like me, is hungover. He reminds me of a college freshman the morning after a blowout party, but half a century older. His beer belly is sagging over a pair of polka-dot boxers and his skinny legs.

  “Hey, Harry!” Danny calls out. “Some night, eh? Welcome to ‘the lifestyle’! Sure beats shoveling snow, don’t you think?” Harry belches and nods.

  “Hey, why don’t you and Andy join us for a few beers at the pool?” Danny asks. “You could use the sun. You look like a plucked chicken.” Harry stares down at his pale legs and knobby knees. Four aspirins later, Harry and I hop into my cart and join the caravan.

  One day I peel off from Mr. Midnight and his crew while they hack their way through a few holes of golf. I don’t play golf, and I’ve already soaked up a bit too much sun, let alone beer, so I resolve to visit Wendy Marie, who spends most days cocooned indoors.

  On the way over, I get lost yet again. After all this time driving around The Villages, I still find that its sprawling suburban layout frustrates my otherwise adequate navigation skills.

  I pull over and wave down an approaching golf cart. Its lone occupant is an African-American man in his mid-sixties, one of the very few I’ve seen since arriving. I ask him for directions, and then inquire about The Villages’ black community. He tells me there are about 250 African-Americans living in the development.

  “We’re here for the same reason white people are: we enjoy the amenities,” he tells me. “I came here because I’m accomplished and I can afford to. I’ve proved everything I wanted to prove. I excelled in a white man’s world. I climbed the corporate ladder. Now it’s my time to relax. I don’t cut my own grass or do anything else I can pay someone else to do.”

  When I arrive at Wendy Marie’s house, she’s giving a tour to a realtor. “I’m thinking of selling,” Wendy Marie says. “But I still don’t have any concrete plans. I don’t know where to go.”

  I take a look around the house. It’s small and tidy. Nothing about it betrays the fact that the woman next to me has a penis under her skirt, except a small collection of pickle-ball trophies on which her name appears as Donald. After the realtor leaves, Wendy Marie prepares tea and we sit in her mint-colored living room to drink it. I compliment her on her appearance.

  “I just had a visit to the Hair Club,” she says. “I’m actually balding a bit, so they cement hair to my head. I figure in my situation, good hair is an absolute necessity.”

  I ask how her plans are progressing for the big operation.

  “I’m going to Thailand in October,” Wendy Marie responds. “They have a really good program there. And it costs a whole lot less.” I caution that perhaps price shouldn’t be the most important consideration: does she really want to cut corners when cutting off her penis?

  “Oh, they know what they’re doing,” she says. “Thailand is like the sex change capital of the world.” Wendy Marie begins to describe the procedure in painfully graphic detail, but then
stops.

  “I don’t really want the operation,” she says. “The only reason I’m doing it is so I have a shot at a relationship. Not too many people would want me in my present condition, and I want to love and be loved.

  “But even after the operation, I’ll probably still be lonely here. They say it’s better to start fresh somewhere. But where? I have no place to go.”

  I ask Wendy Marie if she has heard of a new retirement community for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals in the Santa Fe area, or about plans for others around the country. She hasn’t. We go to her computer and get online using an old-fashioned dialup modem. “Have you thought about getting broadband?” I ask. “What’s the rush?” she responds. “I’m retired. I’ve got plenty of time.”

  When I find the community’s home page, she grows excited. “Print it out! Print it out!” she fairly yells. “Maybe there is a place for me.”

  But once she looks at the information about prices, her enthusiasm quickly deflates. “I can’t afford it. The only money I earn is from my military pension, and from dog sitting. And that money is going toward my operation in Thailand.”

  “Maybe there’s a way,” I say, trying to pierce the gloom.

  “Maybe,” Wendy Marie softly replies. “Maybe.”

  For dinner, I’m invited to a potluck meal at Ellen’s Sociable Singles club. Ellen tells me not to bother bringing anything, but I’m embarrassed when I arrive empty-handed and everybody else is unwrapping platters of food. Most of the women have brought casseroles. The few men who attend mostly bring pizza and doughnuts, except a guy named Woodrow, who brings a poached salmon with homemade cilantro relish. “It’s amazing what you can do with a microwave,” he says.

  Another man brings chocolate-covered jelly rings with a clearance sticker still displayed on the cellophane-wrapped box. His name is Hugh, and he tells me he’s lonely. “I would love to meet someone,” Hugh says. “My wife died nine years ago. There’s nobody in the house but me.”

  “Have you met anyone at these meetings?” I ask.

  “Nobody has chased me yet—and I don’t run too fast,” Hugh responds. “One day the right one will come along. I’m still hopeful.”

  Before we can eat, we have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and listen to several club announcements. Ellen delivers the club’s financial report. “We have $1,123.67 in the bank,” she says. Next, she pitches a day trip: a river cruise. “It only costs fifteen dollars, and soup and salad bar are included,” she says. “We need a minimum of eighteen people to sign up, and so far we only have eleven.” Ellen then notes that only seven members showed up for a recent scavenger hunt. “That was disappointing,” she says.

  Each table is called up to the buffet at random. Mine is next to last. When I scoop up the meager remains of a lifeless chicken noodle casserole, a woman behind me gives me the evil eye. “That was my casserole,” she snaps. “And now you’ve finished it before I even got a taste. That’s the last time I’m making that dish.” She slams the metal serving spoon against the Pyrex dish and bitterly pushes the now empty casserole aside.

  I stare down at the cold noodles and one lonesome chunk of poultry splayed across the center of my paper plate. I don’t know what to say. What can I say? I didn’t even bring something to offer as compensation. Ellen jumps in and tries to defuse the situation. “That’s good if it’s gone,” she says cheerfully. “It means that everybody liked it!”

  The sharp-tongued woman who brought the chicken noodle casserole ignores her. She looks around the buffet table and motions at the rest of the food. “What is this crap? It’s all pasta. My dish had chicken in it.”

  Back at the table, Ellen leans forward and whispers in my ear. “No wonder she’s single!” Then she imitates the woman. “Everyone ate my green beans! I got none to bring home. Poor me! No green beans!”

  The following night, Dave and Betsy Anderson invite me over for a going-away dinner. I soak in the simple comforts of their tidy home, careful to not walk on the white carpet. Betsy prepares a tasty meat loaf, and after dinner we spend an hour or so chatting easily on the lanai.

  When I ask if they have any plans to travel, Dave responds, “Not at all. We’re in no rush. It’s like we have all the time in the world. When the mood strikes, we’ll just hop in the car and go. But take a trip? I can’t think of a reason.”

  “I’m already on vacation,” Betsy says. “The comfort level here is wonderful.”

  Betsy points out a neighbor’s latest bit of handiwork—an outdoor light that illuminates a backyard palm tree. “Isn’t that nice?” she asks. “It took him most of the morning to put it up.”

  “A lot of these folks feel a need to keep ‘doing,’” Dave says. He gestures in the direction of various neighbors. “This guy over here lays tiles to keep busy. That one over there helps people file their taxes. He really likes to crunch numbers.

  “That’s what some people need. I don’t have that one. I’m happy with who I am. I don’t need to keep ‘doing.’ Some days if I feel especially ambitious I might put up a shelf or fix a light, but most days I don’t. On the golf course, I’m competing against myself, not others.”

  “Leisure certainly has its benefits,” I say.

  “The Villages isn’t about leisure,” Dave responds. “It’s about opportunity—the opportunity to pursue one’s real interests.”

  “What I want is peace and quiet,” Betsy says. “I don’t want to join clubs and get involved in anything right now. We wanted to shed our obligations when we came here, not increase them. But that will change. Before we moved, I did a lot of volunteer work and I enjoyed it. At some point I’ll probably volunteer here as well.”

  “Back home, the future I could see was very limited in terms of my golf game,” Dave tells me. “There was just one golf course and it didn’t really have enough variation to make me a better player. My golf game has improved a lot here, and I’ve met some nice people. In six months, I’ve talked more with my neighbors here than in fourteen years back home.” As a former neighbor who enjoyed chatting with Dave regularly, I’m not sure how to respond. But I do know that I am grateful for their hospitality.

  After dinner, I pop over to Katie Belle’s, and then to the Bistro for a last beer. Inside, a graying keyboardist dressed in a black shirt, sunglasses, and a cowboy hat is playing a medley of Johnny Cash songs. I run into Harry, Mr. Midnight’s friend who’s visiting for the week. I ask him if he’s thinking about moving to The Villages.

  “I could never leave my kids,” Harry says. “No. No. No. Exclamation point! No. My kids are too important to me. Moving down here would be like abandoning them. I don’t care what anybody else here says. That’s just how I see it.”

  Harry orders another vodka cranberry. “Besides, I couldn’t take this 365 days a year,” he says. “My liver would explode.” I couldn’t agree more. Back home I rarely drink more than a few glasses of wine or beer a week. I’m surprised—and exhausted—by how much partying I’ve done here at The Villages.

  Mr. Midnight strolls in and goes to the bar, then shakes his head in disgust. He’s as close to pissed off as I’ve ever seen him. Apparently, one of his old flames from back home had the audacity to buy a house down the street from him in the very same village.

  “I told her, ‘That’s it, the party’s over.’ She knew the rules.”

  Harry can’t resist. “Are you ever going to fall in love?” he asks his friend.

  “I don’t fall in love,” Mr. Midnight responds. “I don’t have that emotion.”

  “I wouldn’t want to die alone,” Harry says.

  “I’m not alone,” Mr. Midnight responds, growing agitated.

  “I’d rather be in an argument than be alone,” Harry continues.

  “Jesus Christ. Get a dog.”

  Mr. Midnight loses all interest in the conversation. He swills his beer, takes a look around the bar, and gets up to leave. “I’m beat,” he says. “I only came here for a quick walk-through,
to see if anybody really needed me tonight. I’m headed home to fall asleep in front of the TV like a normal old person. I need to rest up. I got another lady coming in this weekend. You should see this one. Legs up to here.”

  He walks to the door but turns around before exiting. “Right down the street, in the same village,” he says, nodding his head in disbelief. “Can you imagine that?”

  The next morning on my way out of town, I decide to attend my last club activity. I choose a breakfast hosted by the so-called “Village Idiots.” On my drive over, I take a last swing through Spanish Springs. I watch as songbirds hop around the “fountain of youth” and a retired couple mosey along the sidewalk hand in hand. Katie Belle’s and the Bistro are silent, but Starbucks is filled with early birds, their golf carts neatly parked outside. A radio announcer’s soporific voice flows gently forth from a lamppost. “Good morning, folks,” he says. “It’s another beautiful day in The Villages.”

  There’s also a crowd at the bakery where I conducted many of my interviews. The sun creeps across the outdoor tables filled with customers reading the Daily Sun. I notice that the breakfast crowd has grown considerably since the nearby sales office wised up and quit serving free doughnuts and coffee.

  Outside town, I look over and see a dozen men sitting in lawn chairs on the banks of an artificial pond, maneuvering remote-controlled sailboats. One man wears a skipper’s hat. Some ducks paddle past the boats, hop ashore, and promptly fall asleep in the sun.

  The Village Idiots’ breakfast is held on the back patio of one of The Villages’ many country clubs. I arrive to find two dozen Villagers dressed in pajamas and silly hats. I ask a woman wearing a flowerpot on her head if she could direct me to the club’s president. “Who’s the head idiot?” she asks. “Idiots don’t have heads! But you might want to speak to Bob; he’s a real idiot!”