Leisureville (24 page)

Jean senses my bewilderment and awkwardly pulls back several inches from my groin. “I just hope I meet a guy, somebody to be with,” she says soberly. “But maybe it's just not meant to be.” She quietly hands me my notebook.

Back at the Andersons' house, Dave is in the lanai, smoking a pipe and working on a large-print crossword puzzle. He puts down his pencil and invites me to join him for a friendly chat, which is something I'm finding myself increasingly looking forward to. He loves to hear about my day, and I enjoy listening to his thoughtful
insights. I make myself a sandwich and pop down on a chair across from him.

“People were searching for a place where they could feel comfortable with peers their own age,” he tells me. “This place prospers because it provides that. When everyone is retired, boundaries fall away and guys from the assembly line find themselves hanging out with executives. Everybody here is from someplace else; it's what you have in common that brought you here in the first place. All these people were searching for community. And now they've found it.

“A lot of our friends here find their kids don't call them, let alone visit. At some point in life, you become independent of family, or family becomes independent of you. Your friends become your
chosen
family.

“To my mother's generation, it was very important to leave money to your children, even if that meant doing without. But this generation doesn't have the same closeness to their children. It's a social revolution: we're no longer dependent on them to take care of us. We can take care of ourselves, and have fun doing it.

“Besides, what's the alternative? Moving to be near your kids? What happens when your son-in-law gets a promotion and that means yet another move? Do you really think they're going to stay behind and say no to the promotion?”

The following week, Ellen calls and invites me to play cards with her women friends that evening. I accept, and then ask what she's been up to. She excitedly tells me about a night out she had at the Savannah Center for twelve dollars, listening to a medley of show tunes. “I go to that show every year,” she says. “Everybody raves about it. It's like seeing a real Broadway show, but cheaper.”

I ask her how her friends from the Massachusetts Club are doing. “We get together a lot,” she says. “We're always doing something. Just the other night we got together for spaghetti and eggplant
Parmesan, and we had strawberry pie for desert. It was a very nice evening. And on Monday, we went to hear a polka band. That was fun, too.”

I'm looking forward to my own fun today. I've decided to forgo a gathering of golf cart hot rodders and play bingo for the first time since elementary school. Silly as it may sound, I'm really looking forward to it, and have planned my day around it. I cheerfully drive into Spanish Springs for a quick lunch before game time.

As I sit eating a sandwich at an outdoor table, I notice a woman on the sidewalk staring at me. She's wearing jeans, a pink T-shirt, sneakers with sequins, and a snazzy purple cap resting at an angle over her white hair. “Hey, Andrew!” she says, waving her hand excitedly. “I betcha you don't recognize me without my makeup!” She's right, and it takes me a moment before I realize it's Sassy without her clown getup. I'm happy to see her, and invite her to join me for a cup of coffee. She says she wants to tell me her story. I've been bombarded with unsolicited biographies, but I really like Sassy and I'm curious about her tale.

“I've been widowed for five years,” Sassy informs me. “I don't want somebody else. I haven't dated since I was seventeen, and I'm not about to start. I was raised Catholic and that don't go away easy.

“After my husband died, I was desperate to share things, even little things. I'd call a friend just to say that I found my keys or paid such and such a bill. But I'd rather bite a cyanide pill than live with any of my kids, God bless them all.

“Being single was really, really hard at first. After forty-five years of doing everything together, I was suddenly cast off. I feel gypped that we can't share these years. He missed the birth of our first great-grandchild, and he loved kids.

“We were best friends. He always said that he should be the first to go because he couldn't live without me. Well, he got his wish. He thought I could cope better with being alone. I hate to say it, but he was probably right. But I'm
angry
. It wasn't supposed to happen
this way. He wasn't supposed to die of cancer.” Sassy shows me her necklace: hanging from a gold chain is her wedding ring wrapped around her husband's. Her misfortune, though a common occurrence at a place like The Villages, is nevertheless starting to make me weepy. I look at the simple yet poignant necklace and my eyes moisten. She looks at me with sad resignation and continues her narrative.

“I'd take my husband back in a heartbeat. The men around here are so different than he was. I always have to tell them to keep their hands to themselves. They're always trying to touch something, cop a feel. I'm a nurse, and I can tell you, that that's the last thing to go. I have a ninety-year-old patient and I can't shower him without somebody accompanying me. Can you imagine?

“Finding love again at my age would just complicate things,” Sassy continues. “I've led a full life. I don't feel I need to ask for more. I don't want to be greedy. It takes years to build a good relationship and I only have so many left. Who would want me, anyway?”

Sassy and I finish our coffee and walk slowly down the sidewalk, pausing to look at window displays. “There's a lot of sadness here,” she says, placing a palm over her heart. “But I'm not going to let it take over. I'm going to fill up my time until it's my time. That's why I like clowning. It beats sitting at home and crying.

“My husband wasn't the only one to go. I've buried so many of my friends that I need to make new ones on a regular basis. I just buried my best friend who I'd known since 1959. I'm getting really good at saying good-bye.”

After this story, I feel sheepish informing Sassy that I need to go because I'm late for bingo. But she just smiles and walks me to my car, where she gives me a big hug. “Thank you for taking the time to listen to an old lady's story,” she says.

The bingo game is held in one of the larger rooms at the recreation center. The parking lot is filled with cars and golf carts. Inside, nobody shows the slightest interest in helping me find a seat.
Bingo, I learn, attracts a tough crowd. Social niceties quickly give way to acerbic moodiness as soon as the bingo balls start bouncing. The vast majority of participants are female, but they are not about to coddle me like grandmothers.

I evenually find a seat beside a hunched-over woman with cat's-eye glasses studded with rhinestones. She wears a sweater to ward off the air-conditioning, which whips around the room like a nor'easter. Her name is Dotty, and she introduces herself without looking up. “Bingo's about the only thing left that I can still do,” she says when I sit down. “I'm too old to do anything else fun.”

A bingo lieutenant walks over and sells me a pile of bingo sheets for five dollars. He asks me if I need a magic marker for dabbing. Dotty flicks one down the table at me like an old penny. “Save your money,” she advises, adding tersely, “You owe me one.”

A woman at a table next to ours shouts, “Bingo!” She wins fifteen dollars. Everyone at the table is encouraged to touch her winnings. “That's lucky money,” Dotty tells me, then kisses her talisman, a little porcelain puppy. The first winner of the game is also presented with a paper crown, and is referred to as the “bingo queen.”

The man on the stage calls out a new game. It's hard to imagine that a game as seemingly simple as bingo could be challenging, but I find decoding the announcer's jargon beyond my ability. A slew of numbers are called. I dab as quickly as I can but I can't seem to get the hang of all the variations of the game, each with its own different pattern on the bingo sheets. I have no idea what Lazy L, the Chair, or the particularly enigmatic Doo-dad means. Why can't I just dab at all my numbers?

A woman across the table offers to be my Rosetta stone. Her name is Marianne. She lives in an age-segregated community in Arizona, but she's here visiting her ailing mother. “Am I winning yet?” I ask. She points out that one measly G-50 stands between me and a crisp Ben Franklin. Another number is called and a woman across the room yells out, “Bingo!” loudly enough to make me jump.

“My mother had a lot of friends here, but at some point after her stroke, she just gave up,” Marianne tells me. “Friends can only help out so much. Then it's time for family. Who else is going to talk with her doctor and make sure she's getting the right treatment?”

The announcer calls out I-17, and we hastily scan our cards.

“My husband and I like living in our gated community,” Marianne continues. “We're proud of it. We've finally made it.”

“N-34.”

Dotty curses, scrunches her face, and clears the phlegm in her throat. She turns toward me and finally looks me in the eye. She's pissed. “Are you here to talk or to play?” She looks at my bingo card. “C'mon, that's the wrong pattern. Fix it!”

Countless bingo games later, I'm bored and exhausted, and my nerves are frayed. I haven't won a single dollar and my mood has noticeably darkened. A bingo monitor politely asks me not to crumple up and throw my losing bingo sheets against the wall. I stare him down. My eyes are bleary, my leg is shaking like a sewing machine, and I want to tell ornery Dotty to shove her lucky porcelain puppy up you know where. I look at the time display on my cell phone: I've been playing for three hours. The room is littered with stained coffee cups and stale popcorn. Marianne left an hour ago.

The next game is for the jackpot. The room is absolutely silent. I can hear the Ping-Pong balls bouncing on the stage all the way at the far end of the room. Moments later, some jerk yells, “Bingo!” The crowd groans and heads for the bathrooms.

Outside, I stretch my legs and breathe in the scent of orange blossoms before driving to yet another recreation center, where Ellen and her friends are gathered to play their weekly card game, called “Hand and Foot.” The room is packed with people seated around long folding tables. There is little socializing between the tables, but the affable participants evidently prefer the hum of a large room to private play at home.

Sitting at Ellen's table are her cousins Pat and Eunice. The two sisters have lived together since their early twenties; Pat is retired, but Eunice works at a nearby pharmacy. Debbie from the Massachusetts Club is also there, as are two friends named Connie and Roberta.

“I miss my grandkids,” Roberta says. “But they're getting older. When they're young they want you around. But when they're teens, you don't exist.”

“With these new phones you don't miss a thing anyway,” Connie says. “My grandson hit a home run the other night and my daughter called me from the bleachers. They can even take a picture with the phone. I'm not missing out on anything.”

I ask the women if any of them are lonely. “No, no, no,” they say, practically in unison. “There are too many of us to hang around with for any of us to be lonely,” Ellen says.

Eunice's job at the pharmacy gives her a firsthand look at the habits of senior singles on the prowl. “You should see all the guys coming into buy condoms, lubricated jelly, and massage oil,” she says. “And the women buy the wrinkle creams. Believe me, those creams don't work.”

“The single men strut around Spanish Springs like a bunch of Don Juans,” Ellen says. “And the women are all over them. I've got a friend who has a guy living with her. She gets mad because we don't call her anymore when we go to the movies. But why should we call her? She's got a
guy
living with her.

“I knew this one guy whose girlfriend threw him out,” Ellen continues. “He asked me if I could put him up. I asked him if he had a car. He said, ‘Yes.' I said, ‘Good, go sleep in it.'” The women all laugh.

I excuse myself to use the bathroom. An older man at the urinal next to me, wearing pressed jeans and a purple polo shirt, grunts and holds his breath as he rocks back and forth in his loafers. “Prostate,” he says with a grimace. “It's killing me.”

Back at the table, the women are still talking about men. “Take a look around,” Connie says. “There's nothing here of interest. Take a look and tell me if I'm being harsh.”

The man with the purple polo shirt and the enlarged prostate strolls up to a table of women across from us. His unevenly dyed shoulder-length hair is combed back and topped with a pair of aviator sunglasses. He leans against a chair and casually sweeps a hand through his hair. “Hey, ladies,” he says. “Don't you all look pretty tonight?”

The women at the table greet him warmly. Ellen and her friends are clearly disgusted. They pause in the game just to watch, horrified. Ellen sticks her fingers in her throat and pretends to gag. “Barf,” she says. “What a zero.”

I decide not to tell Ellen that a far more adept romancer—Mr. Midnight—has invited me to spend a week at his den of iniquity, to research the Village's single life from inside the mother ship.

T
O GAIN A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING OF THE TREND TOWARD AGE SEG
regation, I return to Phoenix to attend a “50+ Housing Symposium” sponsored by the National Association of Homebuilders. Several months after my first visits to Youngtown and Sun City, I once again find myself touring age-segregated communities in the desert, but this time on a large air-conditioned bus packed with developers and their employees chattering away excitedly about “boomers”—the generation born after World War II when the GIs came home and got down to the long-delayed business of making whoopee. According to demographers, they kept at it for another eighteen years.