Black House (21 page)

Between Alice and Burny, three-fourths of the residents of Maxton’s belly up to the tables, stump around on their walkers, sit beneath the trees, occupy their wheelchairs, hobble here and there—yakking, dozing, chuckling, farting, dabbing at fresh strawberry-colored stains on their clothing, staring at their relatives, staring at their trembling hands, staring at nothing. Half a dozen of the most vacant among them wear conical party hats of hard, flat red and hard, flat blue, the shades of enforced gaiety. The women from the kitchen have begun to circulate through the tables with big black garbage bags, for soon they must retire to their domain to prepare the evening’s great feast of potato salad, mashed potatoes, creamed potatoes, baked beans, Jell-O salad, marshmallow salad, and whipped-cream salad, plus of course more mighty strawberry shortcake!

The undisputed and hereditary sovereign of this realm, Chipper Maxton, whose disposition generally resembles that of a skunk trapped in a muddy hole, has spent the previous ninety minutes ambling about smiling and shaking hands, and he has had enough. “Pete,” he growls, “what the hell took you so long? Start racking up the folding chairs, okay? And help shift these people into the common room. Let’s get a goddamn move on here. Wagons west.”

Pete scurries off, and Chipper claps his hands twice, loudly, then raises his outstretched arms. “Hey, everybody,” he bellows, “can you truly believe what a gol-durn gorgeous day the good Lord gave us for this beautiful event? Isn’t this
something
?”

Half a dozen feeble voices rise in agreement.

“Come on, people, you can do better than that! I want to hear it for this wonderful day, this wonderful time we’re all having, and for all the wonderful help and assistance given us by our volunteers and staff!”

A slightly more exuberant clamor rewards his efforts.

“All
right!
Hey, you know what? As George Rathbun would say, even a blind man could see what a great time we’re all having. I know I am, and we’re not done yet! We got the greatest deejay you ever heard, a fellow called Symphonic Stan, the Big-Band Man, waiting to put on a great, great show in the common room, music and dancing right up to the big Strawberry Fest dinner, and we got him cheap, too—but don’t tell him I said that! So, friends and family, it’s time to say your good-byes and let your loved ones cut a rug to the golden oldies, just like them, ha ha! Golden oldies one and all, that’s all of us here at Maxton’s. Even I’m not as young as I used to be, ha ha, so I might take a spin across the floor with some lucky lady.

“Seriously, folks, it’s time for us to put on our dancing shoes. Please kiss Dad or Mom, Granddad or Grandma good-bye, and on your way out, you may wish to leave a contribution toward our expenses in the basket on top of Ragtime Willie’s piano right over here, ten dollars, five dollars, anything you can spare helps us cover the costs of giving your mom, your dad, a bright, bright day.
We
do it out of love, but half of that love is
your
love.”

And in what may seem to us a surprisingly short amount of time, but does not to Chipper Maxton, who understands that very few people wish to linger in an elder-care facility any longer than they must, the relatives bestow their final hugs and kisses, round up the exhausted kiddies, and file down the paths and over the grass into the parking lot, along the way a good number depositing bills in the basket atop Ragtime Willie’s upright piano.

No sooner does this exodus begin than Pete Wexler and Chipper Maxton set about persuading, with all the art available to them, the oldsters back into the building. Chipper says things like, “Now don’t you know how much we all want to see you trip the light fantastic, Mrs. Syverson?” while Pete takes the more direct approach of, “Move along, bud, time to stir your stumps,” but both men employ the techniques of subtle and not-so-subtle nudges, pushes, elbow grasping, and wheelchair rolling to get their doddering charges through the door.

At her post, Rebecca Vilas watches the residents enter the hazy common room, some of them traveling at a rate a touch too brisk for their own good. Henry Leyden stands motionless behind his boxes of LPs. His suit shimmers; his head is merely a dark silhouette before the windows. For once too busy to ogle Rebecca’s chest, Pete Wexler moves past with one hand on the elbow of Elmer Jesperson, deposits him eight feet inside the room, and whirls around to locate Thorvald Thorvaldson, Elmer’s dearest enemy and fellow inhabitant of D12. Alice Weathers wafts in under her own guidance and folds her hands beneath her chin, waiting for the music to begin. Tall, scrawny, hollow-cheeked, at the center of an empty space that is his alone, Charles Burnside slides through the door and quickly moves a good distance off to the side. When his dead eyes indifferently meet hers, Rebecca shivers. The next pair of eyes to meet hers belong to Chipper, who pushes Flora Flostad’s wheelchair as if it held a crate of oranges and gives her an impatient glare completely at odds with the easy smile on his face. Time is money, you bet, but money is money, too, let’s get this show on the road, pronto. The first wave, Henry had told her—is that what they have here, the first wave? She glances across the room, wondering how to ask, and sees that the question has already been answered, for as soon as she looks up, Henry flashes her the okay sign.

Rebecca flips the switch for the pink spot, and nearly everybody in the room, including a number of old parties who had appeared well beyond response of any kind, utters a soft
aaah.
His suit, his shirt, his spats blazing in the cone of light, a transformed Henry Leyden glides and dips toward the microphone as a twelve-inch LP, seemingly magicked out of the air, twirls like a top on the palm of his right hand. His teeth shine; his sleek hair gleams; the sapphires wink from the bows of his enchanted sunglasses. Henry seems almost to be dancing himself, with his sweet, clever sidestepping glide . . . only he is no longer Henry Leyden; no way, Renee, as George Rathbun likes to roar. The suit, the spats, the slicked-back hair, the shades, even the wondrously effective pink spot are mere stage dressing. The real magic here is Henry, that uniquely malleable creature. When he is George Rathbun, he is
all
George. Ditto the Wisconsin Rat; ditto Henry Shake. It has been eighteen months since he took Symphonic Stan from the closet and fit into him like a hand into a glove to dazzle the crowd at a Madison VFW record hop, but the clothes still fit, oh yes, they fit, and he fits within them, a hipster reborn whole into a past he never saw firsthand.

On his extended palm, the spinning LP resembles a solid, unmoving, black beachball.

Whenever Symphonic Stan puts on a hop, he always begins with “In the Mood.” Although he does not detest Glenn Miller as some jazz aficionados do, over the years he has grown tired of this number. But it always does the job. Even if the customers have no choice but to dance with one foot in the grave and the other on the proverbial banana peel, they
do
dance. Besides, he knows that after Miller was drafted he told the arranger Billy May of his plan to “come out of this war as some kind of hero,” and, hell, he was as good as his word, wasn’t he?

Henry reaches the mike and slips the revolving record onto the platter with a negligent gesture of his right hand. The crowd applauds him with an exhaled
oooh.

“Welcome, welcome, all you hepcats and hepkitties,” Henry says. The words emerge from the speakers wrapped in the smooth, slightly above-it-all voice of a true broadcaster in 1938 or 1939, one of the men who did live remotes from dance halls and nightclubs located from Boston to Catalina. Honey poured through their throats, these muses of the night, and they never missed a beat. “Say, tell me this, you gates and gators, can you think of a better way to kick off a swingin’ soiree than with Glenn Miller? Come on, brothers and sisters, give me
yeahhh.
”

From the residents of Maxton’s—some of whom are already out on the floor, others wheelchair-bound on its edges in various postures of confusion or vacuity—comes a whispery response, less a party cry than the rustle of an autumn wind through bare branches. Symphonic Stan grins like a shark and holds up his hands as if to still a hopped-up multitude, then twirls and spins like a Savoy Ballroom dancer inspired by Chick Webb. His coattails spread like wings, his sparkling feet fly and land and fly again. The moment evaporates, and two black beachballs appear on the deejay’s palms, one of them spinning back into its sleeve, the other down to meet the needle.

“All-reety all-righty all-rooty, you hoppin’ hens and boppin’ bunnies, here comes the Sentimental Gentleman, Mr. Tommy Dorsey, so get off your money and grab your honey while vocalist Dick Haymes, the pride of Buenos Aires, Argentina, asks the musical question ‘How Am I to Know You?’ Frank Sinatra hasn’t entered the building yet, brethren and sistren, but life is still fine as mmm-mmm wine.”

Rebecca Vilas cannot believe what she is seeing. This guy is getting just about everyone out onto the floor, even some of the wheelchair cases, who are dipping and swirling with the best of them. Dolled up in his exotic, astonishing outfit, Symphonic Stan—Henry Leyden, she reminds herself—is corny and breathtaking, absurd and convincing, all at once. He’s like . . . some kind of
time capsule,
locked into both his role and what these old people want to hear. He has charmed them back into life, back into whatever youth they had left in them. Unbelievable! No other word will do. People she had written off as shuffling basket cases are blooming right in front of her. As for Symphonic Stan, he’s carrying on like an elegant dervish, making her think of words like
suave, polished, urbane, unhinged, sexy, graceful,
words that do not connect except in him. And that thing he does with the records! How is that possible?

She does not realize that she is tapping her foot and swaying in time to the music until Henry puts on Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine,” when she literally begins her own beguine by starting to dance by herself. Henry’s hepcat jive-dance, the sight of so many white-haired, blue-haired, and bald-headed people gliding around the floor, Alice Weathers beaming happily in the arms of none other than gloomy Thorvald Thorvaldson, Ada Meyerhoff and “Tom Tom” Boettcher twirling around each other in their wheelchairs, the sweeping pulse of the music driving everything beneath the molten radiance of Artie Shaw’s clarinet, all of these things abruptly, magically coalesce into a vision of earthly beauty that brings tears stinging to her eyes. Smiling, she raises her arms, spins, and finds herself expertly grasped by Tom Tom’s twin brother, eighty-six-year-old Hermie Boettcher, the retired geography teacher in A17 formerly considered something of a stick, who without a word fox-trots her right out to the middle of the floor.

“Shame to see a pretty girl dancing all on her lonesome,” Hermie says.

“Hermie, I’d follow you anywhere,” she tells him.

“Let’s us get closer to the bandstand,” he says. “I want a better look at that hotshot in the fancy suit. They say he’s blind as a bat, but I don’t believe it.”

His hand planted firmly at the base of her spine, his hips swerving in time to Artie Shaw, Hermie guides her to within a foot of the platform, where the Symphonic One is already doing his trick with a new record as he waits for the last bar of the present one. Rebecca could swear that Stan/Henry not only senses her presence before him but actually
winks
at her! But that is truly impossible . . . isn’t it?

The Symphonic One twirls the Shaw record into its sleeve, the new one onto the platter, and says, “Can you say ‘Vout’? Can you say ‘Solid’? Now that we’re all limbered up, let’s get jumpin’ and jivin’ with Woody Herman and ‘Wild Root.’ This tune is dedicated to all you beautiful ladies, especially the lady wearing Calyx.”

Rebecca laughs and says, “Oh, dear.” He could smell her perfume; he recognized it!

Undaunted by the steamy tempo of “Wild Root,” Hermie Boettcher slides into a back step, extends his arm, and spins Rebecca around. On the first beat of the next bar, he catches her in his arms and reverses direction, spinning them both toward the far end of the platform, where Alice Weathers stands next to Mr. Thorvaldson, gazing up at Symphonic Stan.

“The special lady must be you,” Hermie says. “Because that perfume of yours is worth a dedication.”

Rebecca asks, “Where’d you learn to dance like this?”

“My brother and I, we were town boys. Learned how to dance in front of the jukebox at Alouette’s, over by Arden.” Rebecca knows Alouette’s, on Arden’s Main Street, but what was once a soda fountain is now a lunch counter, and the jukebox disappeared around the time Johnny Mathis dropped off the charts. “You want a good dancer, you find yourself a town boy. Tom Tom, now he was always the slickest dancer around, and you can plunk him in that chair, but you can’t take away his rhythm.”

“Mr. Stan, yoo-hoo, Mr. Stan?” Alice Weathers has tilted her head and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Do you take requests?”

A voice as flat and hard as the sound of two stones grinding together says, “I was here first, old woman.”

This implacable rudeness brings Rebecca to a halt. Hermie’s right foot comes gently down atop her left, then swiftly moves off, doing her no more injury than a kiss. Towering over Alice, Charles Burnside glares at Thorvald Thorvaldson. Thorvaldson steps back and tugs at Alice’s hand.

“Certainly, my dear,” says Stan, bending down. “Tell me your name and what you’d like to hear.”

“I am Alice Weathers, and—”

“I was here first,” Burny loudly repeats.

Rebecca glances at Hermie, who shakes his head and makes a sour face. Town boy or not, he is as intimidated as Mr. Thorvaldson.

“ ‘Moonglow,’ please. By Benny Goodman.”

“It’s my turn, you jackass. I want that Woody Herman number called ‘Lady Magowan’s Nightmare.’ That one’s
good.
”

Hermie leans toward Rebecca’s ear. “Nobody likes that fella, but he gets his own way.”

“Not this time,” Rebecca says. “Mr. Burnside, I want you to—”

Symphonic Stan silences her with a wave of his hand. He turns to face the owner of the remarkably unpleasant voice. “No can do, mister. The song is called ‘Lady Magowan’s Dream,’ and I didn’t bring that snappy little item with me this afternoon, sorry.”