When Boomers Go Bad

by Joan Boswell

  Baffled in Blind River

  Dear Baffled,

  You go, girl! Don’t use your can opener to open a can of worms. You need to take charge of your life. There’s no one looking out for you but you. Get with the program. There’s nothing wrong with you that fresh makeup won’t cure. Get a square meal and a good night’s sleep. Recharge your batteries. Remember, you’re never broke if you own a charge card. They are designed to help you buy things when you need them, not when you can afford them. Indulge yourself. Pamper yourself. Feed your soul; feed your body. Write to me again. I care.

  Dear Tabby,

  You were so right. I checked into a fancy hotel in Winnipeg. I enjoyed an expensive dinner with a glass of wine and slept in a bed bigger than my kitchen at home. The next day I stopped at a spa and luxuriated in a massage and a facial. I feel rejuvenated. I look radiant. I deserve this, after all those years. I earned my day in the sun. I’m in the driver’s seat again, pedal to the metal, born to be wild. Only this time I’ll pace myself. It’s not like there’s anyone chasing me.

  Winning in Winnipeg

  Dear Winning,

  You go, girl! Success is a journey, not a destination. It shows what a woman can do when she puts her mind to it. Rise above the crowd. Let the wind fill your sails. Be like a postage stamp and stick to one thing until you get there. Write to me again. I care.

  Dear Tabby,

  This freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. I’m an invisible person. I have no home, no daily routine, no identity. I feel like a poor lost soul wandering around with four cents in my pocket. I hate eating alone in restaurants. I hate living out of a suitcase. I’m just another dowdy grey-haired woman who looks like her mother, moving from Holiday Inn to Best Western in a shabby sedan. Is this all there is? Help me, Tabby.

  Morose in Moosejaw

  Dear Morose,

  You go, girl! When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Give yourself a makeover. Go see a hairdresser. Put a little life in your hair with a new colour, a new cut. Go back to school. Buy a new house. Buy a new car. A little attitude makes a big difference. Write to me again. I care.

  Dear Tabby,

  I knew you were smart when I first wrote to you. I did what you said. I took that fork in the road. I never thought I’d see this giant mall. It’s fantastic. I traded in my grey blunt cut for a soft brown pixie cut, and the hairdresser said she could hardly recognize me as the same person who walked in her door an hour earlier. I hardly recognize myself in the mirror. The department store across the mall delivered a rainbow of co-ordinates to complete my new look. I tossed all my old stuff in the dumpster. I withdrew a huge cash advance on Brian’s charge card and filled my new purse with money. I’m going to chop the card up and throw it away, so I don’t have to see Brian’s name glaring up at me every time I use it, or feel his reproach, reaching across time and space. I’m my own woman. Now I just have to find my way out of here to the parking lot. This place is huge.

  Ecstatic in Edmonton

  Dear Ecstatic,

  You go, girl! Dress for success. Clean out clutter. Shoot for the stars. When you’re green, you grow; when you’re ripe, you rot. It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. Take time to smell the roses. Write to me again. I care.

  Dear Tabby,

  Have you ever seen the Rockies? They’re even bigger than that mall. I’ve been driving toward them, and I don’t think I can drive through them. There’s snow up there, and I’m wearing a sundress.

  There’s nothing like a huge immovable object to make you face your situation bluntly. I’m tired of life on the road, eating in roadside diners. I want to arrive. I want to settle down. I want to read the same newspaper every day, sign up for yoga classes, get a library card.

  Hold on. There are some men whispering at the next table and drawing little maps on the table napkins. One of them is squawking, something about a car. Be nice, that’s what you said.

  Well, that’s better. I’m finishing this letter on a plane flying over the caps of those mountains, and they’re not so scary from up here. Those men in the restaurant? I walked over to their table and asked if they wanted to buy a car, cash, no questions asked. Turned out that’s exactly what they needed. They were kind enough to carry in my suitcase before they left. There was a shuttle bus to the airport. I’m headed for the coast.

  Jittery near Jasper

  Dear Jittery,

  You go, girl! Climb every mountain. Don’t try to nail jelly to the wall. Everybody can be partly right some of the time. Start fresh, with a new you. The sisterhood of women is on your side. Write to me again. I care.

  Dear Tabby,

  I can’t believe how beautiful this city is. But so many old people. There seems to be a funeral entourage coming out of the church beside my motel every day. Yesterday’s service had hardly any mourners, so I joined them, to show some support for the lonely dear departed. She was a woman slightly older than me, single, no relatives, and few friends. Frankly, the guests kept looking at their watches like they’d rather be on the golf course. I pretended she was near and dear to me, shed a few tears, and a nice gentleman insisted on driving me to the gravesite. He said I must be Janice’s sister, we look so much alike, and he hadn’t realized, after all these years, she still had family back east. Her name was Janice Hart. Miss Hart. Isn’t that a beautiful name? I searched the phonebook for her address. Her house is a little bungalow on a quiet street with the key under the doormat. She has photos of herself on the mantel, and that man was right, she looked a lot like the new me. Her clothes fit me, too, even the yoga outfit. I found her library card in a book about the habits of successful people. And I love her decorating taste. The bedroom is burnt orange.

  Victorious in Victoria

  Dear Victorious,

  You go, girl! Carve out a space for yourself in life. Seize the day. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It isn’t over until it’s over. We’re all in this alone. Write to me again. I care.

  The Halifax Courier-Sentinel

  POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING WOMAN

  Halifax police are asking the public’s assistance in locating a 56-year-old woman who has been missing from her home in Halifax for several weeks. Police say Margaret Lucy Sanderson was last seen in the local hardware store purchasing home decorating supplies.

  A search of the area by the canine unit and helicopter was called off after it was learned Mr. Sanderson’s credit cards had been used at three gas stations in Ontario, a hotel in Winnipeg, and several establishments in the West Edmonton Mall. The Sanderson family car was found abandoned in a nightclub parking lot in Banff. Police in that city are conducting a search.

  Anyone with information on Mrs. Sanderson’s whereabouts is asked to contact local police. Halifax police wish to contact Mrs. Sanderson regarding an urgent family matter.

  The National Examiner

  MAN PAINTED TO DEATH

  Police in Halifax are close-mouthed about a man found painted into a lounge chair at his suburban home. Neighbours say he’d had his head split open. His body and the chair were completely coated with tangerine satin finish latex.

  See page six for full colour photos.

  Vicki Cameron is the author of Clue Mysteries and More Clue Mysteries, each fifteen short stories based on the board game Clue. Her stories appear in the Ladies’ Killing Circle anthology series and Storyteller Magazine. Her young adult novel, That Kind of Money, was nominated for an Edgar and an Arthur Ellis. She edits Sisters in Crime’s Books in Print.

  A River in Egypt

  Jenifer McVaugh

  The special care wing in the fancy nursing home called Hambleton Hall cost $350 a day and was furnished a la French Provincial to look as little like a nursing home as possible. Judge Livermore was paying to get the best, but he didn’t give a rat’s rump about the decor. He grimaced and cursed as he shifted position. I stood by, holding the old fashioned urinal that he had insisted on my bringing from h
ome. I was dead on my feet. I had been travelling for two days and still hadn’t caught up on my shaving, let alone my sleep.

  “You’re doing fine, Dad. You can relax now.”

  “Don’t bug me!”

  Judge Livermore had fallen and broken his tailbone. He was here for rehab; his doctor wanted to get him walking. At eighty-plus, a man can be sidelined for good if he isn’t careful. I had flown into town to help him move into the complex, and to shut up his house for a month or two. The house was full of stuff I recognized, maybe valuable, I don’t know. I left home when I finished high school and never came back. I have very few memories of growing up.

  A round-faced woman in a print smock popped her head around the door, then came in. In an accent from the Islands, she said, “How are we doin’ in here?”

  “I don’t know how we’re doing,” the Judge snapped. “I’m all right, if nobody starts bugging me. Tell them to bring me tea, they promised tea.”

  “Sounds like you’re still upset from your movin’,” said the aide. She tried to catch my father’s eye, but he looked away. “The tea trolley come around at four, but your son can fetch you a mug from the lounge whenever you like. Your name is down for a single as soon as we have one. Let me know if you need anythin’ at all.”

  “What are you talking about?” the judge demanded. “Who are you? Leave me alone.”

  The aide turned her smile to me. “Judge Livermore is upset. It sometimes happen when they move in. Don’t you take it personally.”

  She pulled the curtain shut around the bed as she went to answer a bell across the room. There was banter from the other bed.

  “What kind of noise is that?” My father struggled to lift his head. “Where am I anyway? What are you doing here?”

  “They called me to come down, Dad. You’re at Hambleton Hall. That’s your roommate talking to the nurse.”

  “The hell with that, I need a single. Don’t be so stingy. It’s not your money yet!” His rude voice got louder. “What are you doing standing there holding a piss pot?”

  I put the urinal down.

  “Good boy. That was always you, my good boy. I’d say jump, and you’d say how high!” The old man had lost a lot of weight. His cheeks were sunken, and his skin looked pasty and irritated. “Jump! How high?” His lips hardly stirred in his still face. This move, or the pain of it all, had exhausted him. I was surprised he could be so changed and still so much himself. My dad.

  He laced his fingers across his chest, and his eyes fluttered shut. His lips fell into a loose smile. “You won’t remember, but you’ve got me to thank for that. You used to cry at first. Every time you cried, I’d pick you up and shake you until your teeth rattled. I’d say, ‘No! no! Bad boy!’ Like with a puppy. Finally, your head would droop, and you’d stop crying. Nowadays I suppose that wouldn’t be politically correct.”

  I wondered if this punch to the gut was one of those things I shouldn’t take personally. “I don’t remember it happening,” I said. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Why, what did I say?” the old man’s eyelids struggled open. “Stop mumbling.”

  “I’ll go get your tea, Dad,” I said. I walked out into the wide corridors to collect myself. My first thought was to find a drink, my second was to phone my wife to talk me through it. My third thought was to pay attention before it vanished into the denial which is for me, as my wife is fond of reminding me, much more than a river in Egypt.

  “Rotten, stinking, destructive, child-abusing bastard,” I ventured to myself, under my breath. Then I said it again. A wild-haired old woman gave me a frightened look.

  I went into the lounge to make tea. As the kettle boiled, I did some neck stretches. I tried not to let myself imagine how a baby would feel being shaken.

  When I got back to my father’s room, the curtain in front of his bed was closed, and his roommate was wheeling out of the bathroom in a cloud of fresh aftershave. He squawked politely to get my attention. “You think you could help me back into bed, young man, so’s I don’t have to call Martha?”

  I put down the insulated mug of tea. “I can try.”

  “I don’t have the muscle to get in and out of the chair any more,” said the old man. “Somebody has to help me. I’m virtually bedridden. Oop-la, thanks very much.”

  “Stroke,” he confided, leaning back against the pillow, “but I beat it. I can do anything. I’ve been a cattle rancher, a millionaire, a chess grand master, I’ve sailed the seven seas, and I’ve been on TV a lot of times. But now I’ve lost my mobility, I’m virtually bedridden. Other than that, there’s nothing wrong with me, except for talking too much.” The man was small and birdlike, missing most of his hair and teeth. He did look very healthy, I was glad to see. He gave me a wistful glance.

  “Your dad is out for the count. Why not sit down here with me. I hardly ever get visitors with all their marbles.”

  The wing-backed chair looked strong and comfortable, part of what you get for $350 a day. An insolent snore and a smear of gutturals came from behind the curtain around my father’s bed. I sat down and introduced myself as Douglas Livermore, and told him that his new neighbour was Thomas Livermore.

  “Old ‘Twenty-to-life-Livermore’! I’ve heard of Judge Livermore. A wingnut! Screwed a friend of mine. I heard what he was saying to you earlier, too, nasty old asphalt! Forget it, he’s probably making it up, their minds wander and they’ll say anything. Still, holy cheese fried, what a bastard, you a defenceless baby and him gloating over it like that! A mental case! Just like my ugly old, hairy old father, the brutal bully.” A wave of purple rage flooded up the old face, then subsided.

  “Brutal bully,” he repeated, remembering. “I soon got rid of him. Heeh!” The old fellow had a bark of a laugh, accompanied by a cock-headed outlaw smile. “Killed him dead, not to put too fine a point on it. Oh, did you bring me tea? Very thoughtful.”

  I was too surprised to protest the hijacking. Anyway, “Twenty-to-life” Livermore was still snoring. I watched the roommate wrap shaky hands around the sides of the mug.

  “How I did it—you’ll be interested in this,” he nodded. “I’ve had an interesting life—I invited him to a meal at the restaurant where I worked. I was a top chef at the Four Seasons restaurant. Brought arsenic in this very ring, it opens up, it belonged to a Borgia.” He indicated a ring with a crest. “I sprinkled the arsenic into an omelette, and I ate half of it to put him off the scent. But unbeknownst to him, I had built myself up an immunity. I was studying chemistry.”

  Right, I thought. And writing Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries in your spare time.

  I said, “You better be careful who you confess to, you could get in trouble.”

  “What are they going to do to me? Lock me up? Besides, they’ve got to prove things nowadays, one of my lawyers could get me off like that.” He attempted unsuccessfully to snap his fingers. “I keep a lawyer on retainer. You know, ninety-nine out of a hundred poisoners are never caught. Not that it matters any more when any foreigner can walk into a 7-Eleven and mother of nuts and bolts, somebody tie a knot in that elephant’s flabby old trunk!”

  The Judge’s snores really were a piece of work. A mounting series of painful, halting intakes, as if he were getting more and more excited, and then a long whinny. A pause, just long enough to make you think he might have quit, then the tentative painful intake again. “Weest...... weeest....” It produced the horrible sensation of being jerked awake, time after time, without the comfort of sleep in between.

  The roommate cackled and stuck out a wobbly hand. “My name is Culbertson, but you better call me Cubby, Cubby Culbertson. And I’m kidding about the lawyer on retainer, those days are long gone, and I was never actually a millionaire, although I did pretty good, well, some years.” The hand bobbed around until I grabbed it out of mid air and pumped it. Cubby had a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Sorry about the snoring,” I said. Behind the curtain, a bubbling snarl degenerated into a series of
loose-lipped mouth farts. I imagined shaking him until he shut up, but I didn’t want to touch him.

  “Worse things happen at sea.” Culbertson shook his head. “I haven’t heard anyone saw wood that bad since the Navy, I was on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, our Sarge snored so loud none of us could get any sleep, and he’d put you on report if you complained. Heeh!” His shoulders began to heave up and down. “Sarge used to always have a jar of bromo beside his bunk, one day somebody switched it for Drano and the sarge woke up dead. The brass tried to hang it on somebody, but they had no evidence. Everybody in the barracks slept through it. Nobody heard a thing. Checkmate!”

  “Cubby,” I said, “could I ask you to go easy with the murder stories? First, I don’t really believe them and second, I’m not in the mood. It’s been a long couple days.”

  “Damned dog!” came my father’s voice. Then he growled, then mumbled, then snored again, softer this time, with a nasty slurp.

  “Like the one about my dad, hey?” Culbertson peered at me. “No, you’re right, I was only kidding about killing my dad, I got that story out of a book. And I wasn’t the head chef, although I should have been. I was in the Navy, though, four long years, and I’ve got my papers to prove it. Arsenic? Heeh! I don’t even know where you’d get such a thing. I don’t even know if they make such a thing any more.”

  His voice cut through the heavy static being broadcast from behind my father’s curtain. “Household products is the way to go. That and the medicine chest. Now you take that valium by the sweet suffering sassafras would you shut the heck up!”

  “Take him away,” my father snarled. “He’s bothering me.” The snoring subsided to a murmur.

  “Or Mother Nature,” said Culbertson, in a lower tone. “We had a neighbour, not to speak ill of the dead, he was a lying son-of-a-bitch who tried to steal ten feet from my property line, excuse my French. You don’t want me to talk about such things, but he ate a poisonous plant and died of it, and I’ll tell you why. He was a long-haired hippie, and somebody told him nightshade would get you high! Checkmate! But you don’t want to hear that.”