by T E. D Klein
My grandfather, Herman Lauterbach, was one of those people who could move in either world. Though his Brooklyn apartment had always seemed a haven of middle-class respectability, at least for as long as I knew him, whatever refinements it displayed were in fact the legacy of his second wife; Herman himself was more at home among the poor. He, too, had been poor for most of his life—a bit of a radical, I suspect—and always thought of my father, his son-in-law, as “nothing but a goddamn stuffshirt” simply because my father had an office job. (As his beloved daughter’s only child I was spared such criticisms, although I’m sure he found my lackluster academic career a disappointment and my chosen field, The Puritan Heritage, a bore.) His attitudes never changed, even when, nearing seventy, having outlived two exasperated wives, he himself was forced to don a necktie and go to work for the brother of an old friend in a firm that manufactured watch casings.
He had always been a comical, companionable man, fond of women, jokes, and holidays, but forty-hour weeks went hard with him and soured his temper. So did the death of my mother the following year. Afterward, things were not the same; he was no longer quite so endearing. One saw a more selfish side, a certain hardness, like that of a child who has grown up in the street. Yet one inevitably forgave him, if only because of his age and lack of consequence, and because there still hung about him a certain air of comedy, as if it was his doom to provide the material for other people’s anecdotes. There was, for example, his violent altercation with the driver of a Gravesend Bay bus, which my grandfather had boarded in the belief that it went to Bay Ridge; and then there was the episode in Marinaro’s Bar, where jokes about the Mafia were not taken lightly. Several weeks later came a highly injudicious argument with the boss’s son, less than half his age, over the recent hike in transit fares for senior citizens, and whether this entitled my grandfather to a corresponding increase in pay. Finally, when the two of them nearly came to blows over an equally minor disagreement—whether or not the city’s impending bankruptcy was the fault of Mayor Beame, whom my grandfather somewhat resembled—everyone agreed that it was time for the old man to retire.
For the next three years he managed to get by on his modest savings, augmented by Social Security and regular checks from my father, now remarried and living in New Jersey. Then, suddenly, his age caught up with him: on May 4, 1977, while seated in his kitchen watching the first of the Frost-Nixon interviews (and no doubt shaking his fist at the television set), he suffered a major stroke, toppled backward from his chair, and had to be hospitalized for nearly a month. He was, at this time, eighty-three years old.
Or at least that was what he admitted to. We could never actually be sure, for in the past he’d been known to subtract as much as a decade when applying for a job, and to add it back, with interest, when applying for Golden Age discounts at a local movie house. Whatever the case, during his convalescence it became clear that he was in no shape to return to Brooklyn, where he’d been living on the third floor of a building without elevators. Besides, like his once-robust constitution, the neighborhood had deteriorated over the years; gangs of black and Puerto Rican youths preyed on the elderly of all races, especially those living alone, and an ailing old widower was fair game. On the other hand, he was not yet a candidate for a nursing home, at least not the elaborate kind with oxygen tents and cardiographs attached. What he needed was a rest home. As his doctor explained in private to my wife and me on our second visit, my grandfather was by no means permanently incapacitated; why, just look at Pasteur, who after a series of fifty-eight strokes had gone on to make some of his greatest discoveries. (“And who knows?” the doctor said, “maybe your granddad’ll make a few discoveries of his own.”) According to the prognosis he was expected to be on his feet within a week or two. Perhaps before that time he would have another stroke; likely, though, it would come later; more than likely it would kill him. Until then, however, he’d be alert and responsive and sufficiently ambulant to care for himself: he would not be walking with his usual speed, perhaps, but he’d be walking.
My grandfather put it more succinctly. “What the hell you think I am,” he said, voice gravelly with age, when the question of a rest home was raised, “some vegetable in a wheelchair?” Struggling to sit up in bed, he launched into an extended monologue about how he’d rather die alone and forgotten on Skid Row than in a “home”; but for all its Sturm and Drang the speech sounded curiously insincere, and I had the impression that he’d been rehearsing it for years. No doubt his pride was at stake; when I assured him that what we had in mind was not some thinly disguised terminal ward, nor anything like a day-care center for the senile and decrepit, but rather a sort of boardinghouse where he could live in safety among people his own age, people as active as he was, he calmed down at once. I could see that the idea appealed to him; he had always thrived on conversation, jawboning, even aimless chatter, and the prospect of some company—especially that of fellow retirees with time on their hands—was an inviting one. The truth is, he’d been lonely out in Brooklyn, though of course he would never have admitted it. For my part I was feeling rather guilty; I hadn’t come to see him as often as I should have. From now on, I told him, things would be different: I would find him a place in Manhattan, a place where I could visit him once or twice a week. I’d even take him out to dinner, when I got the chance.
He appeared to think it over. Then—for my sake, I think (and somehow I found this horribly depressing)—he screwed his face into a roguish grin, like a small boy boasting to an adult. “Make sure there are plenty of good-looking dames around,” he said, “and you got yourself a deal.”
The following weekend, with this qualified blessing in mind, Karen and I set about looking for a place. The press had recently brought to light a series of scandals involving various institutions for the aged, and we were particularly anxious to find a reputable one. By Saturday afternoon we’d discovered that many of the private homes were more expensive than we’d counted on—as much as two or three hundred dollars a week—and that in most of them the supervision was too strict; they resembled nothing so much as tiny, smiling prisons. Grandfather would never stand for being cooped up inside all day; he liked to wander. Another, run by nuns, was comfortable, clean, and open to non-Catholics, but its residents were in no condition to feed themselves, much less join in human conversation. These were the unreclaimables, lapsed into senescence; my grandfather, we hoped, would seem positively vigorous beside them.
Finally, early Sunday evening, on the recommendation of a friend, we visited a place on West 81st Street, scarcely a dozen blocks from where we lived. It was called, somewhat optimistically, the Park West Manor for Adults, even though it was rather less than a manor house and nowhere near the park. The owner was a certain Mr. Fetterman, whom we never actually met; it later turned out that he, too, was a bit of a crook, though never in ways that directly affected us. I gather from my wife, who, as accountant for a publishing firm, has always had a better head for business, that the home was part of some statewide franchise operation with vague ties to local government. According to the agreement—common, she informs me—my grandfather’s rent was to be paid for out of his now-meager savings; when they were depleted (as, indeed, they would be in a year or so) the cost would be borne by Medicaid for the rest of his life.
The building itself, of dirty red ornamental brick, occupied the south side of the street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, a block and a half from the Museum of Natural History. It consisted of two wings, each nine stories tall, connected by a narrow, recessed entranceway several steps down from the sidewalk. The place seemed respectable enough, though at first sight it was not particularly impressive, especially at the end of the day, with the sun sinking behind the Hudson and long shadows darkening the block. The pavement in front of the building had recently been torn up for some kind of sewer work, and huge brown metal pipes lay stacked on either side like ammunition. My wife and I had to step across a series of planks to reach
the front door. Inside it, just before the lobby, was an alcove with a battered wooden desk, behind which, seemingly stupefied with boredom, sat a wrinkled old black man in a guard’s uniform—the sort of man one sees at banks these days, ineffectually directing people to the appropriate tellers. He nodded and let us pass through. No doubt he thought he recognized us; it’s said that, to whites, all blacks look alike, and years in various city classrooms have convinced me that the reverse is true as well.
The lobby wasn’t much of an improvement. Like most lobbies, it was dim, depressing, and cold. The rear wall was lined by a mirror, so that, on entering, my wife and I found ourselves confronted by a rather discouraged-looking little couple approaching from across the room, the woman frowning at the man, no doubt for some trifling thing he had just said, the man glancing with increasing frequency at his watch. To the couple’s left ran a long, ornate mantelpiece overhanging a blank expanse of wall where a fireplace should have been. Grouped around this nonexistent fireplace were half a dozen caved-in leather chairs and a pair of dusty rubber plants sagging wearily in their pots, their leaves reflected in the mirror and, on a smaller scale, in the painting hanging just above the mantel: a framed reproduction of Rousseau’s Children of the Kingdom, the primitive figures peering out at us like a ring of ghosts, their faces pale and impassive against the violets, reds, and greens of the surrounding jungle. The colors were faded, as if from having been stared at by generations of residents.
It was the dinner hour. The lobby was deserted; from somewhere to the right came the sound of voices and the clank of pots and plates, accompanied by a scraping of chairs and the smell of boiled meat. We moved toward it, following the right-hand corridor past a series of turns until we came to a pair of wooden doors with windows in the top. Karen, boldened by fatigue, pushed her way through. Before us stretched the dining room, barely more than half filled, the diners grouped around tables of various shapes and designs. It reminded me of the mess hall at summer camp, as if my fellow campers had aged and withered right there in their seats without ever having gained appreciably in size. Even the waiters looked old: a few, hurrying up the aisles, still sported oily black pompadours, but most looked as if they could easily have traded places with the people they served. White hair was the rule here, with pink skull showing through. This was as true for the women as the men, since by this age the sexes had once more begun to merge; indeed, like babies, the individuals in the room were hard to tell apart. Nor were they any more inclined than children to disguise their curiosity; dozens of old pink heads swiveled in our direction as we stood there in the doorway. We were intruders; I felt as if we’d blundered into a different world. Then I saw the expectation in their faces, and felt doubly bad: each of them had probably been hoping for a visitor, a son or daughter or grandchild, and must have been keenly disappointed by every new arrival that was not the one awaited.
A small, harried-looking man approached us and identified himself as the assistant manager. He looked as if he was about to scold us for having arrived during dinner—he, too, probably assumed we were there to visit someone—but he brightened immediately when we explained why we’d come. “Follow me,” he said, moving off at a kind of dogtrot. “I’ll show you the place from top to bottom.” In the noise and hubbub of the dining room I hadn’t caught his name, but as soon as he started toward the nearest exit, my wife and I in tow, a plaintive chorus of “Mr. Calzone” arose behind us. He ignored it and pushed on through the door; I suppose he was glad of the diversion.
We found ourselves in the kitchen, all iron pots and steam, with cooks in white T-shirts and white-jacketed waiters shouting at one another in Spanish. “This used to be kosher,” shouted Calzone, “but they cut all that out.” I assured him that my grandfather liked his bacon as well as the next man. “Oh, we don’t give ’em bacon too often,” he said, taking me literally, “but they really go for the pork chops.” My wife seemed satisfied, and nodded at the dishwashers and the ranks of aluminum cabinets. As for me, I wasn’t sure just what to look for, but am happy to report I saw no worm-eggs and not one dead cat.
Calzone was as good as his word. From the kitchen he conducted us “up top” to the ninth floor via a clanging old elevator of the self-service type, with the numbers beside the buttons printed so large—in raised numerals nearly an inch high—that even a blind man could have run it. (Its speed was such that, had one of the home’s frailer residents preferred to take the stairs, she would probably have arrived in time to meet us.) The rooms on the ninth floor, most of them unoccupied, were shabby but clean, with private bathrooms and plenty of closet space. Grandfather would have nothing to complain about. In fact, with its boarders all downstairs at dinner, the place seemed more a college dormitory than an old-folks’ home. Aside from the oversized elevator panel and the shiny new aluminum railings we’d noticed everywhere—in easy reach of stairways, tubs, and toilets—about the only concession to age appeared to be a sign-up sheet my wife came across on a bulletin board in the second-floor “game room,” for those who wished to make an appointment at some community medical center over on Columbus Avenue.
Our tour ended with the laundry room in the basement. It was hot and uncomfortable and throbbed with the echoes of heavy machinery, like the engine room of a freighter; you could almost feel the weight of the building pressing down on you. The air seemed thick, as if clogged with soapsuds, and moisture dripped from a network of flaking steam pipes suspended from the ceiling. Against one side stood four coin-operated dryers, staring balefully at four squat Maytag washers ranged along the opposite wall. One of the washers, in the farthest corner, appeared to be having a breakdown. It was heaving back and forth on its base like something frantic to escape, a pair of red lights blinking in alarm above the row of switches. From somewhere in its belly came a frenzied churning sound, as if the thing were delivering itself of a parasite, or perhaps just giving birth. A man in a sweat-stained T-shirt was on his knees before it, scowling at an exposed bit of circuitry where a panel had been removed. Beside him stood an open tool kit, with tools scattered here and there across the concrete floor. He was introduced to us as Reynaldo “Frito” Ley, the building’s superintendent, but he barely had time to look up, and when he did the scowl stayed on his face. “She acting up again,” he told the assistant manager, in a thick Hispanic accent. “I think somebody messing with the ’lectric wire.” Reaching around back to the wall, he yanked out the plug, and the machine ground noisily to a halt.
“Maybe it’s rats,” I said, feeling somewhat left out. He looked at me indignantly, and I smiled to show that I’d been joking.
But Calzone was taking no chances. “Believe me,” he said quickly, “that’s one thing they don’t complain about.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Sure, I know, this building ain’t exactly new, and okay, maybe we’ll get a little bitty roach now and then, that’s only natural. I mean, you’re not gonna find a single building in the whole damned city that hasn’t got one or two of them babies, am I right? But rats, never. We run a clean place.”
“Rats not gonna bother my machines,” added the superintendent. “They got no business here. Me, I think it was los ninos. Kids.”
“Kids?” said my wife and I in unison, with Calzone half a beat behind.
“You mean children from the neighborhood?” asked Karen. She had just been reading a series about the revival of youth gangs on the West Side, after more than a decade of peace. “What would they want in a place like this? How could they get in?”
He shrugged. “I don’ know, lady. I don’ see them. I only know is hard to keep them out. They all the time looking for money. Come down here, try to get the quarters from machines. No good, so they got to go break something—cut up hoses in the back, pull the plug... That kind, they do anything.”
Calzone stepped between them. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Klein. It’s not what you’re thinking. What Frito means is, on weekends like this you get people coming in to visit relatives, a
nd sometimes they bring the little kids along. And before you know it the kids are getting bored, and they’re running up and down the halls or playing in the elevator. We’re trying to put a stop to it, but it’s nothing serious. Just pranks, that’s all.” Moving to the door, he opened it and ushered us outside.
Behind us the superintendent appeared rather annoyed, but when my wife looked back questioningly he turned away. We left him sulking in front of his machine.