Getting Old Can Hurt You Read online

  It’s a typical sizzler of a day, with the temperature in the 90s and the humidity at 85 per cent – that’s why swimming and swimming events are held early in the morning.

  Sure enough, the ‘twins’ are eagerly waiting right outside our door. As usual, the two of them are doing their peas-in-a pod routine. Sea-green swim outfits, and sea-green flip-flops are the color-coordination of the day.

  Lately, Sophie has been suffering with weak legs; she is using a cane more and more, and even the cane has green ribbons.

  And here come Evvie and Ida, with Tori lagging behind.

  My neighbors are already poised downstairs or on their walkways and landings, or peeking out windows waiting to watch the big event.

  Once a year we have the Skip to My Lou race, which awards a prize for the first person to skip his or her way from Buildings P and Q and jump into the pool. For a group our age, it’s a relatively short race. What we lack in mileage, we make up in laughing. Years ago, somebody named Lou had started it and the name stuck. So did the game. And that old song. And, as in every year, those who need canes and walkers are eligible to a three-foot head start. All our cars have been moved from the front of our buildings to provide skipping space.

  ‘Who you betting on this year, Glad?’ Sophie wants to know.

  ‘Naturally, Hy, he’s won the last seven years in a row. The even money is on him.’

  ‘I’m going with Lola to place.’

  ‘Also a sure thing.’

  Bella tee-hees. ‘Yeah, she holds onto the back of his trunks, so he can pull her in with him when he jumps.’

  Evvie adds, ‘Even my Joe skips, though he usually comes in last. Though he tries real hard.’

  We clutch our betting tickets. Toby, a ninety-three-year-old newcomer with artistic abilities, designed our programs to resemble the ones at Hialeah, our famous local racetrack. With write-ups of the players, and their odds. Jeffrey, our favorite Canadian snowbird, an accountant from Toronto, is in charge of all the betting money. All bets are one buck each. Money goes to charity.

  Our whistle blower, Ernie, from Building T, stands at attention, to the left of the excited, waiting skippers.

  Jack comes out on our landing with his coffee cup. Tori immediately sidles up to him. ‘How come you aren’t racing?’ she asks to get his attention.

  Putting her on, ‘I’m more of the intellectual type.’

  Tori, eager now, ‘Really? Me, too.’

  I tune in, amused. Jack is going to trap her.

  Jack pretends enthusiasm. ‘I’ve just finished James Joyce’s Ulysses for the fourth time. Still can’t put it down. Of course, you’ve read it?’

  She looks chagrined. ‘I’ve been too busy lately to read.’

  ‘Oh, so sorry. Though the Irish dialect makes for tough reading, don’t you think?’

  I give Jack a look that says – you should be ashamed of yourself; she’s only a child.

  Tori smiles shyly, wanting to please him. ‘But it is on my to-read list. That’s the one with his character, Leopold Bloom, and his life in one day in Dublin. I have the paperback and I’m really looking forward to it.’

  Jack turns red. Tori is absolutely right. He changes the subject quickly. ‘So, what have you been doing since you got here? Sightseeing?’

  Tori tunes him out. ‘Yes, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.’

  By now all spectators are lined up. Everyone is in bathing suits, prepared for the Giving of the Awards swim party afterwards.

  Tori, asks, with pretended interest, ‘What’s with the yelling and cheering? Why is everyone outside and who are those weirdoes lined up down there?’

  Evvie explains Skip to My Lou to her.

  She laughs out loud. ‘This is a race with all those oldies with canes and walkers? They’re going to skip? Skip! That’s your idea of racing? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘We enjoy it, wait till you’re our age,’ Ida says with that same flat tone, so unusual for her. Tori must still be giving her a hard time. I look to Ida as if asking – has she learned anything new about her granddaughter? Why she’s here? Ida shakes her head. Nothing.

  ‘Two minutes,’ Ernie announces.

  Evvie is pointing. ‘Look what our resident egomaniac is wearing.’

  She doesn’t have to identify Hy. We all know who it is. Our bantam-sized neighbor is showing off as usual. Over his hairy chest, he wears all seven of his fake gold medals on their equally fake gold chains. He is bowing and waving his Miami Dolphins cap to his fans. Stepford Wifey, Lola, gazes adoringly at her champion.

  Joe, waiting, does knee bends. Evvie waves her home-made flag at her hubby. He waves back.

  Tori watches everyone as if she were at the zoo, and these were the inhabitants. She mimics ape noises and scratches her underarms. Then switches to laughing hyena sounds. The new kid on the block is actually letting herself have a good time. For a moment, I can see the eager child in her.

  Then she munches on what she identifies as her power bar.

  Ida whispers low to me, ‘She doesn’t like my cooking.’

  Evvie and I exchange meaningful glances. Ida is considered our best cook. Unkind and aggressive behavior is going on in that apartment. She is punishing her grandmother. Why?

  We lean in on our railings, ready for the race to start. Tori squeezes herself next to Jack. Jack looks at me over her head, amused by her obviousness.

  ‘Ready,’ Ernie calls out and lifts his whistle, and the team straightens up. As best they can with creaking bones. ‘Get set,’ he shouts even louder. The able skippers, caners and walkers lean inward, ready, willing, though I’m not sure able.

  The whistle is blown, loud and shrill; the skippers take off. Everyone on the sidelines bursts into song:

  ‘Skip, skip, skip to my Lou (repeat three times)

  ‘Flies in the buttermilk (repeat three times)

  ‘Skip, skip, skip to my Lou …’ (eight verses)

  Ernie now uses his mic and gives us a skip-by-skip rundown. He imitates the colorful raspy guy he hears every week at Hialeah. ‘Hy taking the lead. Lola right behind him. Joe has gotten a cramp in the leg and is falling behind. Irving is running out of breath. Helena from Building M has dropped her cane. She bends down to reach it and Mary from Building S falls over her. They both limp to a bench … Too bad, girls.’

  Evvie sighs, tells us watchers, ‘I told Joe he would be too stiff to skip! It’ll be an hour in the hot tub tonight.’

  The downstairs viewers follow the sweating skippers from the starting line, walking quickly alongside them, calling out to their favorites, singing loudly, as well. Chorus after chorus of ‘Skip to My Lou’. Everyone is having a grand old time.

  I am aware of the expression on Tori’s face, pretending to hide her smile. She’s getting a kick out of this.

  Hy, ahead of the crowd as usual, hits the edge of the pool first, looks down. He hesitates for a second, sees something, tries to stop himself, waving his arms wildly, then loses his balance and falls in. Lola, holding onto his trunks, falls in right behind him. With the other ten in hot pursuit. Those with canes and walkers push their equipment aside, and jump in right behind Lola and Hy. To their instant regret.

  ‘They’re screaming,’ Tori says as we hurry downstairs and are getting close to the pool fence. Like all the others, we rush along the path to the pool to keep up with the race.

  Evvie comments, smiling, ‘Yes, aren’t they? Screaming in pleasure.’

  ‘No, I’d say that they’re screaming in terror.’ Tori smiles, wickedly.

  And suddenly there is a mad scrambling and splashing as the ones in the pool try to crawl back out, colliding with those still jumping in. Smacking and elbowing when someone gets in their way. Hy, loudest, pushing hardest. Pandemonium. Shouts are heard inside and outside the pool.

  ‘Alligator!’

  ‘Help! Alligator in the pool!’

  ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘Get out!’<
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  ‘Somebody call 911.’

  ‘Somebody call a wrangler!’

  ‘Alligator! Ugh!’

  ‘Oy vey!’

  ‘Stop hurting me!’

  ‘You’re stepping on my wooden leg!’

  ‘Get out – don’t get in!’

  ‘Ohmigod!’

  The rest of us arrive at the pool, trying to see what’s happening. Horrified at the panic. Hands waving helplessly at the carnage about to occur.

  Hy, always with the right words for the occasion, screams at them. ‘Don’t just stand there, shmucks! Do something!’ He crawls backward to the steps, shoving others aside, like a football wide receiver running for the touchdown.

  ‘Wait, listen!’ It’s Charles from building U standing close on the grassy edge of the pool. ‘It’s dead! You have a dead alligator at the bottom of the pool.’

  Everything stops. All looking down from whatever their perch.

  Smiling.

  Nervous laughter.

  Hysterical sobbing.

  ‘Thank God!’

  ‘Disgusting, I’ll never swim in here again.’

  ‘We’re okay, it’s dead. We’re alive!’

  ‘It must be a female to be so ugly.’ That, naturally, from Hy.

  Those still in the pool swim or walk around this huge ‘scaly thing’, examining it with scholarly interest. The terrorized have become the Nature Channel.

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘How did it get in?’

  ‘It wasn’t here last night.’

  ‘How long has it been there?’

  ‘Ugly,’ again Hy.

  ‘Must be an 800-pounder.’

  ‘Thirty feet long, I bet.’

  Hy, taking charge again, now safe on the grassy edge, calls out, ‘Somebody phone for a handler to get this disgusting lizard out of here?’

  Lola cries, ‘Hy, honey-bun. I’m stuck! Pull me out.’ But he’s too busy giving orders.

  Suddenly, Phil, from Building H, who had been helping lift Sonya from Building J, up onto the pool rim, drops the terrified woman back into the water. He shrieks, ‘Omigod, it isn’t dead!’ Phil desperately tries to scrabble up the pool wall, clawing uselessly, and praying at the same time.

  The alligator’s eyes slowly open.

  ‘It must have been sleeping!’

  ‘It’s waking up!’

  ‘Get out! Get out!’

  ‘Oh, save me!’

  ‘Out! Out! Out!’

  ‘Oy vey!’

  Nature Channel now becomes the Sluggish Flight of the Zombies as they splash crazily in their attempts to re-scramble their way out.

  The panicked watchers on deck, trying to help, throw things at the alligator. Webbed beach chairs, chaise lounges, puffy pillows, mini-tables, snorkels, sneakers, anything and everything; trying to distract the monster. Mostly hitting the skippers. Brave do-gooders, mostly the Canadians, reach into the dangerous waters, pulling helpless women out.

  Everyone on deck is running in different directions. This goes on for a dreadful half-hour. Finally all the terrified skippers are out of the pool.

  Hooray, the professional wranglers have arrived, amazingly fast, and take charge. They tell us that our alligator looks like he’s been pickled by the chlorine, which slowed him down. Lucky for all.

  Everyone watches, gasping, as the alligator, now caught, with jaws tied shut, slimily climbs up the steps, out of the pool, and is carted away in the wranglers’ truck.

  There is much relieved laughter, and then Tori shouts, ‘Cool!’ So, the California girl allows herself to have fun, after all. Is there, somewhere inside that seemingly troubled child, a happy little girl trying to come out?

  The Awards pool party afterwards is an almost no-show. Thank God no one died, drowned or was bitten. Or eaten. Lots of people are hurting from bruises brought on by their hapless flailing, fellow skippers.

  Most everyone has gone home to either rest and/or take tranquilizers. Or call their lawyers. Except for our group with Hy, who demands his eighth fake gold medal.

  Hy suddenly notices Tori, especially when she takes off Ida’s swim top and reveals the smallest bikini in the world.

  ‘Hot diggity,’ Hy says, everyone guessing his meaning.

  A few still enthralled people call out to us sarcastically, as they exit our perimeter. ‘See you later, alligator.’ Hy, of course has to add, ‘In a while, crocodile.’ But Tori gets in the last word again. ‘Dorks.’

  PART TWO

  The Past Reviled

  FIVE

  Tori’s Story – The Church of the Blessed Child

  Six months before

  Tori, with one hand, tried to raise the small-hinged, stuck window a little higher. She needed more air. Never easy, since the church located in Van Nuys, in a downtrodden neighborhood, is so old and made of such ratty wood; she’d only get splinters again. It always gave her the creeps being in this awful, stinking bathroom. She gave up on the window and kicked at the toilet plunger at her feet, trying to punt it far away from her. Smelly and full of crap. This place made her constantly scratch her body, sure there were creepy crawlers on her.

  Her cheap cell phone, with its old-fashioned flip-flop cover, is slowly dying out on her. Oh, how she envied all the kids at school with their iPhones. But her stingy grandparents, they never spent a nickel on her unless absolutely necessary.

  Tori felt her sister getting impatient and wanting to hang up. ‘Marilyn, I’m begging you. I can’t live with them another minute.’

  ‘We’ve been over it a hundred times. I just don’t have the room and Tom …’

  ‘Yeah, I know Tom can’t stand me.’

  ‘Well, you don’t make it easy.’

  ‘You got out. You had to marry a dumb-dumb so you could escape, but at least you’re free.’

  ‘Yeah, free. I’m paying for it now.’

  ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’

  ‘You can’t. Billy wets the bed every night and ends up on it.’

  ‘A sleeping bag in the garage. I’ll sleep on the lawn. Anything,’ unable to hide the desperation in her voice. ‘When I move in, I’ll be so polite to Tom, he won’t even know I’m there. And I won’t use bad language in front of the kids.’

  ‘Please, stop! You know I can’t. And don’t keep calling Shirley. You know what a mess she made of her life.’

  ‘Gloria! Aren’t you finished cleaning yet?’ Her grandmother shouted from the inside of the church proper. ‘You better not be on that phone!’

  ‘Aren’t you finished cleaning yet,’ she mimicked, imitating the elderly woman’s nasal, rasping voice. She whispered, ‘It’s Tori, why won’t she remember, Tori! I hate that damn Gloria. What kind of family makes a child scrub bathrooms every Sunday, especially disgusting ones like this one? Why, it’s Maxel and Gertrude Steiner, poster grandparents from hell!’

  Marilyn’s voice softened. ‘I know how bad it is. I remember it well.’

  ‘No, you don’t get it. You refuse to believe me how much worse things are; the old crappers have turned sick and decrepit. They can hardly move and they make me do every sickening thing they want. You never had to change old people’s diapers! Gross! And giving them showers, ugh. You remember the non-stop drinking and non-stop smoking? Well, it’s triple bad now. I’ll probably die of lung cancer before I’m twenty. And the shouting. Neither one can hear worth a damn anymore, so it’s screaming at each other. The neighbors have called the police.’

  Marilyn interrupted. ‘You’ll escape soon. But promise me, not like I did. You’re smart; you can get a scholarship in just about any school with your grades.’

  ‘But that’s still two years away. One more day and I might murder them.’ She recited, sing-song, ‘Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks, when she’d seen what she had done, gave her father forty-one.’ She was crying now. ‘At least we three girls used to have each other.’

  ‘Dear, I’m so sorry, but I’m hanging up, now. Say you
r prayers and God will help you.’

  ‘I need a miracle,’ she said to the dead phone.

  Tori heard the next loud shout, knowing that it would be her grandfather this time. They took turns. ‘The parishioners will be here soon,’ Maxel shouted, way too loud. ‘Clean yourself up and get out.’

  She didn’t bother to answer but headed for the filthy sink. As the tears rolled down her face, she cried out, as if anyone could hear, ‘You were the one who loved us. Who made us laugh. Who sang us to sleep with sweet lullabies. You left your grandchildren to these monsters. Grandma Ida, why did you abandon us?’

  SIX

  Tori’s Story – Panorama City

  Five months before

  The street darkened as she walked from the bus stop to their house at the end of Brimfield Avenue. She kept her eyes always alert in this crummy neighborhood. There were dimly lit, small, box houses, surrounded by six-foot-tall chain-link fences with razor blades lining their tops, the smell of pot in the air, shadowy figures leaning into beat-up cars. Ominous sounds. Too loud, abrasive rap music. She walked along the edge of the gutters in case she needed to run for her life. She feared walking too close to doorways, imagining being pulled in to one of them by someone evil. She sometimes smiled at her vivid imagination. Even though afraid of the dark, and its possible dangers, she made it a habit to come home as late as she could, so as to spend as little time in that house as possible.

  As she moved along, like whistling in the dark, she liked to savor the stories her sisters told her about how things were before she was born. When her family moved into what was then this sweet little tract area in Panorama City – now a slum. Her sisters, eleven and eight years older than she, were eager to rub it in. Over and over they gleefully told her what she missed and what they had before she was born. They did it to be unkind; instead, Tori reveled in those pictures they painted. She could visualize and dream about their wonderful childhood; a real neighborhood. Families with starter homes, lawns being taken care of, charming little gardens. Lots of pets. Picnics and barbecues in back yards. Neighbors became friends, their kids walking to and from schools together. Playing in each other’s yards every afternoon. With their loving grandparents living nearby.