Cockpit (32 page)

Several weeks later, the super called to tell me the old man had decided to move to Florida because he couldn’t stand the loneliness and city hazards: his most valuable possession,
a color TV, had blown out right in the middle of “The Match Game.” The set had remained in the repair shop nearly a month, and, when the repairman brought it back, he had charged an exorbitant sum for having it fixed. Two days later, the set went dead again. The bachelor suspected that the repairman had cheated him by removing perfectly good parts and substituting old ones, but he could not prove it. When he called the repairman to look at the TV, the man claimed that it needed an expensive new part and demanded a large deposit. The bachelor considered suing the repairman, but a lawyer told him that the small-claims court had a backlog of one year on its docket. Fed up with the city, the bachelor had decided to move to the Golden Years Community in Florida.

I moved into the apartment even before it was cleaned and painted. When I opened the front closet, a torrent of leaflets and clippings, many of them from me, poured out. As I looked through the material in the course of throwing it away, I began to wonder about the nature of a community consisting entirely of the elderly. The young and middle-aged came into contact with these people only in the briefest, most fleeting way. Such an environment must be radically different from the ones in which its members had spent most of their lives.

As soon as the new apartment was in order, I took a plane to the Sunshine State and headed for the Golden Years.

I saw before me a town whose sole purpose was to provide a place where people could sit in the sun, their lives slowly evaporating like moisture in the desert. Everything was of the same pale color, as if faded by the light.

“I’m surprised to see so many convertibles here,” I told the attendant at the car-rental agency. “I thought that people didn’t buy them anymore and Detroit had almost stopped making them.”

“You’re forgetting where you are. This is the senior citizens’
capital of America. There are probably more people in their eighties and nineties in this one community than in any other town in the U.S. of A.,” he announced proudly.

“What does that have to do with convertibles?”

He leaned against the car that had just been brought over and patted its canvas top. “Everything. It’s a lot easier for the old folks to get in and out of a car when the top’s down. Bending is a real chore for them, you know. I buy convertibles on special order, and in this community there’s always a demand.”

As I drove toward the main lodge, I went by vast golf courses, and parked my car among a dozen other convertibles.

At the registration desk, I noticed a stack of large-type newspapers on the counter.

The young clerk came over to me and asked, “Are you visiting your parents?”

“No, they died a long time ago.”

“Another member of your family?”

“In a way,” I said, strolling toward the dining room.

The middle-aged hostess introduced herself as Hannah and patted my shoulder affectionately. “Will you be eating with your folks?” she asked. I told her I was staying by myself and that I planned to lunch in my room but would like to join one of the larger tables for dinner.

“Dinner is served from five to six-thirty. Come down whenever you want and I’ll seat you with Harry and his cronies.” She paused. “Harry is right up there in his eighties, like all the rest of them, but what a character! You might have to buy your way into the group with a bottle of wine.”

When I went downstairs at six-fifteen, the dining room was blindingly bright and very noisy. Dinner was just ending and all the tables were crowded. Hannah spotted me and led me over to a group of aged men and women. She introduced me to Harry, who greeted me exuberantly while
his tablemates nodded. Only when I sat down, did Harry recall that we hadn’t yet shaken hands, and eagerly extended a veiny claw, speckled with enormous brown splotches.

“Where is your wife?” asked a man in a wheelchair on my right.

“My wife died many years ago,” I answered.

“This is Tom,” announced Harry. “Tom never married.”

Tom asked why I hadn’t remarried. When he spoke, one side of his mouth moved ahead of the other. Before I could answer, Harry announced, “We’ll marry you off here.” Then he continued, “How about marrying this nice gentleman, Miriam?” From across the table, Miriam turned her head and aimed her hearing aid toward him, and Harry repeated what he had asked. She nodded but said nothing. Harry pointed at me again. “He looks sickly,” he said, “but if he can get up so easily, I bet he can still get it up. Can’t you?” His eyes focused on me through thick lenses. One pupil was larger than the other and he never stopped blinking. “You are so thin,” he said. “You should eat more. Or maybe you’re being eaten? A cancer? How are your bowels? Is your mouth red and blistered? Stick out your tongue.” He coaxed me as if I were a child.

“Harry’s been married four times,” interrupted Miriam. “Once before he came to Golden Years and three times since. He has children from his first wife,” she continued. “They’re all married. Even their children’s children are married and have children.”

“I have no children,” barked Harry.

“Yes, you have, Harry. You have a boy and two girls. You’re even a great-great-grandfather, aren’t you, Harry?” she went on, raising her voice.

“I have no children,” muttered Harry roughly. “They may think they have a father, but I know I have no children.”

“Harry’s been married four times,” repeated Miriam, ignoring
what he had said. “Harry’s wives all died. They left him their money, didn’t they, Harry?”

“I married three times, not four,” Harry snorted angrily. “And when they died, they only left to me what I had coming. I never accepted anything I didn’t earn.”

“Harry’s wives died without even being sick,” said Miriam, smiling serenely. “Harry did something to them. They weren’t killed by his love alone.” She tittered, pounding the table with her fists.

Tom laughed with her and rolled his chair closer. He was wheezing with excitement. “Tell us what you did to your wives,” he demanded, but Harry pretended he hadn’t heard. “Harry didn’t do anything to his wives. You know why? Because he couldn’t! He couldn’t do a damned thing!” Tom sought my approval, then continued with a crafty smirk. “Harry married his wives to lift their skirts. Then he took a long, hard look, and that’s all they got. It was his long, hard looks that killed ’em.” The table went wild with laughter. Harry gnawed his lip, struggling to remain calm. Tom renewed the assault. “After his last wife died, Harry paid the colored girl who mops the floors here to let him shave her between the legs with his electric shaver. Didn’t you, Harry? Now, whenever she pulls on her panties, her crotch tickles her and reminds her of Harry.” Everyone laughed uproariously.

Harry’s jaws began to jerk in spasms. “You are making this up,” he screeched. “You are making this all up. If you don’t stop lying, I will not give you any more money. Not one more dollar.” Tom suddenly stopped laughing and stared blankly at Harry.

“You have to pay him, Harry,” Miriam reminded him patiently. “You made a contract with him. Through a lawyer.”

Tom looked as if he would cry. “You have to give me the money, Harry. Every month. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford to stay with you. Then you would be all alone, Harry.” He
was gripping the arms of his wheelchair with such desperation that his knuckles turned white.

Harry clutched my arm. His grasp was weak and his face twitched. “I’m rich,” he said. “I always was rich, but Tom never had anything because he had no guts.”

“I worked very hard,” Tom shouted back. “I was rich. The richest. Once I even owned a mansion. A genuine palace.”

“So why can’t you pay your own bills? Why? Why?”

“Depression, Harry. The depression. And now you pay me to play bridge with you and eat lobster with you and look at the colored girl’s twat with you and listen to you babble. But you know you’ll get it back when I’m gone. Your lawyer made damn sure that you’d inherit the little I have. Every penny. You’ll benefit from the passing of your only friend.” He began to sob.

Harry impulsively grabbed a piece of bread, stuffed it in his mouth, then spat it out and began wringing his hands. “Don’t believe him. Don’t believe him. He’s lying through his teeth. Tom’s the one who hopes to make the profit if I go first … but I won’t.” He paused, wheezing with impotent rage.

“How do you know you won’t be the first to go?” sneered Tom. “Who told you, Harry? Did the colored girl tell you?” He turned to me, trembling, his sunken chest rising rapidly, his breath whistling and gurgling in his throat. “I’m younger than Harry. I am at least two years younger. At our age, every day counts. Harry, you know, goes to the bathroom all the time. He can’t hold his water for more than five minutes, and when he passes it, it’s green and gravelly. That’s why Harry wears a plastic bladder!” Abruptly, he broke into a happy grin, as if he had ridiculed not just Harry but the whole human race.

Harry struggled to his feet and reached for Tom’s throat, but the effort was too much for him and he fell back onto his chair, coughing and spitting out saliva and bits of half
chewed bread. Everyone at the table frowned in disgust. Harry tired quickly; the cough grew hollow, then stopped. “You know what’s going to happen to you, Tom?” he gasped. “Any day now, your nerves are going to wither away. You’ll wake up one morning and your mouth won’t open.” He chuckled and smirked malevolently. Tom glanced up, puzzled. He opened his mouth to prove to himself that he could still do it, then looked at me, begging for help.

Everyone else at the table waited expectantly. “You won’t be able to open your mouth except when you see someone yawning in front of you,” said Harry, emphasizing each word. “You’ll eat only when you yawn,” Harry went on. “Then they’ll have to stuff the food down you. Only then. No yawn, no food,” Harry repeated triumphantly.

With sudden dignity, Tom looked at Harry with a firm, unflinching expression. Harry instantly detected the change and attacked again.

“You know what this means, don’t you, Tom? It means that I will also have to pay for your yawner. What if I can’t find one? What if I find a badly trained yawner who yawns only once a day? A yawner who manages only one quick yawn every twenty-four hours?” Harry was moving in for the death blow. “How much lobster could you swallow in one quick yawn, Tom? How much?”

Miriam was upset by now, but it took her so long to stand up that Harry spotted her before she could get away. “Miriam,” Harry chided, “must you go to the bathroom?”

Everyone’s attention focused on Miriam. She looked down at the floor, pretending to ignore the others, but scooted her chair back close to the table and began to buff her nails with the edge of her pink cardigan.

Harry raised his voice. “Miriam! For God’s sake, don’t do it here! Leave the table if you must!” Miriam frowned and then smiled sweetly, as though she had everything under control. “You know I can’t just after I’ve eaten. I
always keep it inside for a while so you can watch me when I do it in my bathroom, Harry.” Everyone at the table pretended to retch.

I asked Hannah to bring us a bottle of wine. When it arrived, I poured it into all the wine glasses. Harry’s friends rolled their eyes upward as if in prayer. Then they grabbed their wine and gulped it in a race to the second glass. I ordered another bottle, which was drained instantly.

No one spoke. They stared at each other with beady eyes. Whenever one of them fidgeted, everyone else glared at him. Tom began to push his chair away from the table. The others noticed his maneuver, but Tom, intent on the operation, didn’t realize he was being watched.

“Tom is leaving us. He can’t hold it in anymore!” Harry announced joyfully, and his voiced stopped the other man as he began to turn around. Tom’s chair moved a few inches before he gave up and dejectedly turned back to the table.

Suddenly, everyone turned toward the dining-room door. A tall figure, supported by a nurse, was making its way haltingly through the now silent room. All eyes followed its progress from table to table. The figure was wrapped in soft white cloth; like a giant bandage, the cloth covered it from head to toe, disguising the contours of its head and body.

I grabbed Harry’s wrist and asked who it was. When he turned to me, I saw he had gone chalky. “It’s Ono,” he whispered.

“Ono?”

“ ‘Ono’ means ‘It,’” Harry said, “because it isn’t a man or a woman anymore.”

“Why?”

“Ono is older than anyone else here. Cancer has eaten its whole body. It’s a monster. They should kill it.”

“Why is Ono here?”

“It pays for its keep. Like everyone else. It’s fed by
tubes, but once in a while Ono likes to walk across the dining room, just to frighten everybody. They shouldn’t allow it to do that. They should put Ono to sleep.”

I studied the figure. With the nurse steering it between the tables, Ono plodded on. It reached the far door and hesitated at the threshold. For a moment, I imagined that Ono would turn and face us, unwrap the bandages and reveal itself to us all. From one of the tables came a single hysterical shriek. Prodded on by that sound and by the nurse’s shoves, Ono crossed the threshold and was gone. The waitresses resumed clearing the tables and the room exploded with voices.

I returned to the city. One evening I was photographing a girl in one of my apartments, when I ran out of film. I called the drugstore and asked them to send me half a dozen rolls, but they told me the delivery boy had already left for the night. I decided to run down for the film myself. On my way out, I told the girl that I would be back in ten minutes, and didn’t bother with the three combination locks. I got into the elevator and, as it glided down to the street level, I noticed that the light panel indicating floor numbers was not working.

When the car paused, I figured it had reached the lobby, but the doors did not open, and immediately the elevator began to rise again. I assumed the doors would open at the top, but when the elevator hesitated again, presumably at the top, it began to descend silently again. I pressed the “Stop” button, but the elevator did not respond. I pressed “Alarm,” but no alarm rang. I touched all the floor buttons simultaneously with my forearm but the car continued noiselessly. I pounded the stainless-steel door with my fists, but the sound seemed to die.