June 10, 2003

[Here's the first portion of an as-yet-untitled bit, as promised..]

Altemonde Rest Home was the last home that most of its residents--average age, 84 years--would ever have. This was of varying concern to them, depending upon their degree of lucidity and affection for their children.

Lucinda Torres--92 last week--didn't mind so much, because her last child had died five years ago of congestive heart failure at the age of 69, and had been a good boy. In fact, he had visited her a week before he went facefirst into his Sunday bowl of lobster bisque. "Charlie, you should ought to watch your weight," she had chided him. "It's no good for you, at your age, to be shaped like such a pear." Charlie had been a good boy, despite his four marriages--two of them to the same person, that unpleasant Ludovitch girl--and his inability to dress himself nicely. But he had always visited, and established a trust fund for her continued care. So no, she didn't mind the home so much. When the weather was nice, she spent the afternoons out on the grounds, near the rhododendron grove, knitting vast shapeless blankets of acrylic yarn. When it was cold, she watched movies in the common room, or watched from the windows of her room as snow fell lazily across the manicured landscape, a white comforter.

Anthony Scafia, 87 years old, had been at Altemonde for twelve years, and had seen his three children--Thomas, his oldest, was 57--a total of eight times. His youngest--Celeste, 50--was a guilty sort of person, courtesy of her mother--God rest her--and sent cards scrupulously, on all the holidays, his birthday, and sometimes just because she felt that she wasn't doing enough. Which she wasn't, as Anthony mercilessly reminded her during her annual telephone calls. He would have reminded her more frequently with cards of his own, but his arthritis kept him from holding a pen and he refused to write with the big fat markers or stubby pencils some of the other residents used. "If I can't write with a Bic like a normal man," he would declare, "Then I don't write at all." So he didn't. And he minded the home, very much. Everywhere he looked, people were old, and sick, and dying. His only real friend at Altemonde, a small fellow named Yul who spoke no English but played a mean game of dominos, had died last winter at the age of 90. Someone on the staff had left the window in his room open a crack, Anthony maintained, and so killed him with the cold. Anthony was very adamant that his windows be checked every night during the cold Vermont winter, sometimes more than once. He more than half-suspected that he was a marked man, and that come next November he would be playing dominos with Yul in the Great Beyond.

Then there was Frizzi--not her real name, but that's what everyone called her on account of her vast halo of white, curly hair. Frizzi was only 67 but in the advanced stages of an Alzheimer's-like dementia that didn't respond to any of the currently available treatments. Nevertheless, Frizzi was quite happy at Altemonde. Arthritis had badly knobbed her knees and confined her to a powered wheelchair. She enthusiastically directed it with a joystick to which Franklin--a member of the Altemonde staff who was handy with such things--had attached the 8-ball from the billiard set in the rec room. No one at the home played pool, and the big black sphere helped Frizzi's grip immensely. She spent most of her time zipping through the long halls of the home with an agility that belied her apparently complete lack of connection to the outside world. Frizzi had eight children, who came to visit in a rotational schedule that amounted to a visit from one child every seven weeks or so. She didn't recognize them, not really. Often, she regarded them as famous figures from the history of auto racing. When Roger, her 40-year old son, had come to visit last month, she had taken one look at him and screamed, "Ha! You'll never catch me, Frankie Clement!" before tearing out of the cafeteria at top speed and upsetting a tray full of applesauce bowls. Frank Clement, Roger discovered after a bit of research, was a driver from Great Britain who raced in the ‘20's and ‘30's, mostly in Bentleys. He had set the fastest lap at Le Mans in 1923 and 1927. All of which was very odd, because Frizzi, whose real name was Margaret and who had never shown any interest in or knowledge of racing before the onset of her present condition, hadn't been born until 1933.

Altogether, there were 47 permanent residents at Altemonde. The youngest was 61, and the oldest was 105. Jefferson, the oldest, spent all of his time in bed in his room beneath the eaves on the top floor. Not because he couldn't get around--he did well with a walker--but because he had worked eighteen-hour shifts, seven days a week, for the entire duration of the Great Depression and felt that he had never caught up on his sleep. "I'll die when I'm rested up, not before," he would say. He had been catching up on his sleep for over twenty years. Percy, the youngest, was very conscious of that status and spent a great deal of time trying to coax the female staff into giving him extra pudding. Or, failing that, a sponge bath.

There were also a dozen attendants on staff at Altemonde. About half a dozen less than would be minimally required to give the sort of care that would be optimum, but not so few as to make the residence unsafe. Altemonde was a privately run institution, but still the majority of its residents paid for their stay via governmental assistance...