Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (32 page)

Practice

by
Bob Pastorella

“Remember Shelly Baxter?”

I paused for a few seconds, feigning remembering. “Yeah, I think.”

Dave screamed into his radio, then came back to the phone. “You better remember her. You used to go out with her.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” I closed my eyes against the smell of her hair, strawberries and cream, shook away the image of her crooked smile. “What about her?”

“Well, she did it. Hold on a sec . . .” Dave screamed into his radio again, came back. “Hey, call me later on tonight. Some lady just got hit crossing Highway 73. Dumb bitch thought she could just run across during the busiest part of the day.”

“Later.” 

I closed my cell and stared at the computer screen in front of me. Filled with potential customers from the nationwide database, all the names and addresses blurred for a second. I blinked and everything looked normal again.

For a second, all of the names on the screen were Shelly’s. 

———

Seven months ago, she knocked on my back door just as I was leaving to go out for the night.

“Hey,” she said. Her blond hair was the same old style yet different, longer maybe. The screen door made it difficult to see who was there, but her smile, reaching up higher on her right cheek, gave her away fast.

“Hey,” I said, opening the screen door, “what’s going on?”

“Just hanging out. Can I come in?”

I stepped aside. “How did you know I live here?”

She brushed past me, faint perfume hitting my nostrils. “I saw you coming home from work the other day. You still doing the insurance deal?”

“Yeah. You saw me. Where were you?”

“At the taco place. I can see your door from the drive-through.”

“And you knew it was me?”

“Yep. Hey, can I use your phone?”

“Well, I don’t have a landline.”

“You got your cell?”

I nodded, reluctant. “I was about to leave.”

“Don’t worry, baby . . . I’ll tell them not to call the number back.”

I handed her my cell and stepped into the living room. One year had passed since I last saw her, maybe longer, and she knocked on my door like no big deal, and then she was in my apartment wearing her tight jeans and halter top. Sandals on her feet and a silver toe ring. Very sexy.

And calm.

Sitting on the sofa I tried to listen, but all I could make out was
come on man
and
damn it
. She snapped my phone shut and pounded her fist on my counter. When I walked back into the kitchen, she was facing away from me, propped against my refrigerator. The muscles in her triceps clenched for a second, then released.

“Everything okay?”

She turned and, for the briefest second, let her mask slip.

She smiled. “Sure. Boyfriend’s a little pissed I ran out on him, but he’ll get over it.”

I forced my hands into my pockets to keep myself from touching her arms. “You need a ride somewhere?”

She shook her head. “Can I just crash here?”

“Well . . .”

“Just jacking with you, man. He’s going to meet me back at the bar.”

“The bar?”

“Yeah, Shorty’s. You know, that place you hate.”

“Oh yeah. Well, at least let me give you a ride.”

“No. It’s just right there. And besides, you look like you’re about to go out.”

“It’s no problem. I—”

She was out the door and halfway down the steps. “Thanks for letting me use your phone. See you around.”

I never saw her again.

———

My friend Waylon introduced me to Shelly. He had met her friend at the bowling alley the week before and set up a double date without asking me first. “Dude, I need a wingman,” he said.

“That’s really shitty of you, man.”

“I’d do it for you.”

Of course, he would have. When the night came around, he called me forty-five minutes before I was supposed to meet them. “They’re here.”

“At your house? Now?”

“Yes. I want your girl. She’s hotter than mine.”

I drove twenty miles in twelve minutes. He was right—I wanted my girl, too.

Shelly’s hair was shorter then, with a slight curl. I’d seen her around, usually hanging out with people I didn’t know, being loud and cutting up. “I know you,” she said, holding out her hand. “Don’t know your name, but I’ve seen you around.”

I told her my name was Markus and she smiled. “You look like a Markus. Ready to party?”

Waylon drove his Tahoe, Shelly and I sat in the back. She leaned in close, whispered in my ear. “Why are you sitting so far away?”

“I don’t know.”

She wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Loosen up a bit. You’re like way too tense.”

We played pool, ordering pitcher after pitcher of beer. She was a damn good player, better than I was, and drank like a fish.

“Don’t go for that shot,” she said, snaking her arm through mine, guiding the cue stick. “Tap the four ball slightly on the right and it’ll sink in that corner pocket.” She lined up the shot, stood behind me, and guided my arms into the cue ball. It tapped the four ball and rolled into the pocket, just like she said.

Shelly playfully punched my arm. “See?” I looked into her brown eyes, letting them get closer and closer until our lips touched, very gently. She pulled back, crooked smile beaming. “Now really kiss me.”

I went in gentle again, then felt her arms wrap around my back. I touched her face and slowly ground my lips into hers, letting her tongue slide against mine.

She tasted like bubblegum. 

———

Her hair was damp against her brow and she smelled like smoke. “Thanks for coming to pick me up. I feel like I’m going crazy.” She was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy shorts, her feet wrapped in a pair of dirty sneakers with no socks.

“What’s wrong?”

“Take me to my mom’s, okay? I’ll tell you everything, but I have to get out of here.”

I pulled out of the Walmart parking lot, watching her and driving at the same time. Shelly dug around in her purse, pulled out a prescription bottle and read the label. “Damn,” she said, throwing it back into her purse.

She stared out the window the whole ride. When I pulled into her mom’s, she jumped out of the car before it stopped rolling. “I’ll be right back,” she said, already on the front porch. She returned seconds later with a black garbage bag overflowing with shirts and jeans and a giant pillow in a pink pillowcase. She threw everything in the back, jumped in the front and grabbed my arm. “It’s okay . . . right?”

“What?”

Her eyes brimmed over. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.” 

———

Our second date started pretty wild and crazy. I picked her up at her mom’s house and she immediately wanted to go to the mall because she didn’t like what she was wearing. “It’ll take me five seconds to buy this dress I saw the other day, change into it, and then we are hitting the road.”

“Want me to come inside?”

“Just keep the engine running, ’kay? It’s hot tonight.”

Images of her shoplifting the dress, and no telling what else, kept sifting through my mind. Any second, the police would be pulling up to the front of the store, they would drag her out, and then she’d point at me and scream, “That’s him, he made me do it.”

When she walked out of the store, I knew she paid for the dress. It was too pretty to steal. Short and sleeveless, chocolate brown and snug, the color turned her tanned skin a shade darker, her blond hair a little brighter.

She wanted to go to Hampton’s for a drink, then to Shorty’s for more drinks. “Why don’t we just stay at Hampton’s?” I asked.

“They close too early. You don’t have to work tomorrow or anything like that, huh?”

“No.”

“Then I got you all night long. Unless you’re tired, or a wuss.”

“Definitely not a wuss. And I’m not tired.”

She stopped in front of a curtained window outside of Hampton’s, checking her reflection. “Damn it,” she said. I watched as she reached underneath her dress and removed her panties. She smoothed the dress down her hips, turned and smiled at me. “That’s much better.” She tossed the panties into a nearby trashcan and linked her arm through mine. “Let’s get to drinking.” 

———

“My pulse is over one hundred and my pressure is one sixty over ninety-eight. Well, that’s according to the Walmart thing you sit in and it tells you your pressure for free. I don’t think it’s too accurate, but that’s still too high.” Shelly sipped her water then sighed. She was plopped on my sofa, dirty sneakers kicked off, breathing deliberately through her nose.

“Hungry?” 

There wasn’t much food in the icebox, but if she said the word, I’d order a pizza.

“Can’t eat. Heart’s beating too fast.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“You go to the doctor?”

She shook her head.

“Want to go to the hospital?”

“No.”

Later that night, I came out of my bedroom and sunk into the recliner. After hitting the channel button on the remote for twenty minutes, I settled on a South Park rerun. Shelly slept soundlessly for a while, then woke up, coughing and checking her pulse. She stood up slowly and went to the bathroom. When she came back to the couch, she hooked her finger at me, inviting me over.

The first thing I noticed when I wrapped my arms around her was how hot she was.

“It’s my blood pressure.”

We touched and kissed a little, remembering how we liked each other’s body. When my hand slid down her stomach close to her shorts, she stopped me.

“I can’t,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“My heart. Something’s not right. I’m scared to do anything, especially that.”

My fingers felt for her pulse, and instead encountered a mass of scar tissue around her wrist. I turned her arm to look more closely. There was one scar around her wrist, white and raised. It seemed odd I never noticed it before. Along the inside of her arm was a longer scar, pink and jagged.

“What’s this?”

Shelly shook her head. When she realized I wouldn’t break my stare, she gave me a weak smile. “I had some problems . . . okay?”

“And this is how you tried to fix them?”

“No.”

“These are recent, Shelly.”

“No, the long one is. The one across my wrist is from years ago.”

“I never noticed it before.”

“You never bothered to look.”

I stared at her arm. “What kind of problems?”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, she coughed and whispered, “It’s okay. My problems are not bugging me right now.”

“What do you call this?” I said, running my fingers down the long scar.

“Practice.”

——————————

Fading Glory

by
Brandon Tietz

“Such a pity I can’t wear these anymore,” Ms. Murtoil mentions from her daybed, easing a 24-carat band over the wood-like fingernail. The inner edge of the ring scrapes off some of the carnation pink finish, revealing that plank of seaweed brown underneath as it flakes away.

Around the age of sixty this happens: the nail plates of the toes and fingers will begin their swell to a nickel coin thickness, typically due to poor circulation, or:
Arteriosclerosis
. They’ll progressively become more tan. Less polished. And extremely brittle. 

Common knowledge if you’re an elderly healthcare professional.

“Oh dear,” Ms. Murtoil says in her flimsy voice, squinting at her own hand. “Looks like we’ll be painting my nails again,” she sighs, pushing the gold loop down her polish-dusted ring finger, where it stops short on a ballooned knuckle. Merely one in a series as each digit has at least one disfigured knot from Osteoarthritis, like huge chunks of cartilage gravel. “Interphalangeal jewelry roadblocks,” they’re sometimes called.

The staff at Silver Oaks has all sorts of medical monikers.

“Bryce, my dear?” Ms. Murtoil says, dumping the ring onto her bedside table next to a ruby-crusted and platinum number that no longer fits. Both of them will eventually end up in the cherry wood jewelry box with the rest of the can’t-be-worns. She decides with a slight nod, “Today . . . the diamonds from Malachi, I believe,” her face brightening with an expectant smile. Or senility.

Yesterday she called me Barry.

Before that, it was Barton.

The nameplates of the staff at Silver Oaks adhere to the first initial/last name formula, so Ms. Murtoil always addresses me with some variation of a “b” name.

Today it’s Bryce.

This is completely normal coming from someone with Alzheimer’s. Or:
Dementia
. It’s not selective memory. More like a filing down of the mind. When an octogenarian resident can recall a hot August night back in 1944 but doesn’t know if they had a Reuben or beef Wellington for lunch, the brain (quite literally) has begun to rot.

There’s plenty Ms. Murtoil either confuses or can’t remember: names, medications, what day it is. Not once though, has she misremembered a piece of jewelry.

The same woman who couldn’t tell you if she’s gone to the bathroom in the last hour is a human catalogue of necklaces, tiaras, and brooches, right down to the date received and country of origin. Today, she wants the diamonds from Malachi, tilting her cotton candy-laden head forward as the piece is strung around her aged neck. Ms. Murtoil habitually smoothes her hands upward from the base of her skull, clearing any stray hairs from being caught in the links even though she has the same short-and-wispy do as every other resident.

Silver Oaks has over forty female tenants; all of them have the same stark white haircut.
Melanocytes
, which are the cells responsible for producing hair pigment, eventually run out of coloring product. Like the brain, everything about you will dry up and deplete. Until you’re nothing but bones.

But diamonds are forever.

Gold never tarnishes.

“So lovely to be wearing this again,” Ms. Murtoil comments, smiling in wrinkles and crow’s feet as I poise the silver hand mirror a couple feet in front of her, framing all those heavy stones dripping from her neck, making their individual impressions. By the time she takes these off, her chest will look hail-damaged.

“Memory foam skin,” the Silver Oaks staff calls it.

As the dermal and hypodermal layers begin to degrade, your birthday suit becomes more prone to things like rashes, tears, and bruises from hip-checking tables and bumping doorjambs. Magenta veins on either side of the nose means a resident is carrying too much weight in the eyewear department. An ankle-to-knee eczema breakout suggests wool socks or a reaction to the laundry detergent. Danger is everywhere, always hiding in commonality. 

In this specific case: heavy rare stones. Already, that necklace stringing the ice along Ms. Murtoil’s collarbone gutters is searing a red line across the back of her neck. Segmenting and dividing liver spots.

And just like yesterday, the warning comes.

“No more than an hour, okay, Ms. Murtoil?” I say. This isn’t so much a suggestion as it is a reminder, just in case she forgot (and that’s quite possible). Working at Silver Oaks is about knowing people’s limits. Anything past the sixty-minute mark and that chain will saw its way through the epidermis enough to leave a signature.

Reverse-side strangulation.

Ms. Murtoil admires the stones in the mirror, saying, “Please, dear, call me Glory,” as she drags a couple fingers down their slopes. Those flawlessly cut edges. “How many times must we have this conversation, Bernie?” she asks, a smile broadening across her face that almost looks youthful and girlish. The eyes fixated on diamonds, frosty with memories and the denaturation of lens protein, or:
cataracts
. 

Her poor vision is what allows me to slide an antique pearl brooch into one of my pockets, a little Victorian number with an amethyst foliate plaque. This was part of last week’s showcase along with the treble clef ruby pendant and white gold charm bracelet.

She turns her milky blue eyes to me—to “Bernie,” and asks, “Did I ever tell you about how I used to be in the pictures?” but Ms. Murtoil states this less like a question, and more like a conversation-starter. 

“I even did a Howard Hughes film once, in the late ’30s,” she says. “Although, back then I went by Gloria. People said Glory sounded too . . . um . . . well, I can’t remember what they said,” she laughs, a veiny, spotted hand briefly touching mine. Not flirtatious. 

Forlorn. 

And lonely.

The family of Ms. Murtoil rarely ever visits. Unfortunately, she’s always under the belief they’ll be coming that day, and thus, becomes the victim of constant disappointment. Most residents experience some variation of this.

Down the hall, Dino Gosland wakes up at six o’clock every morning to play golf with his older brother, the same one who’s got machines breathing for him three states away. 

Clara Cantu gets all dolled up for coffee with her longtime friend, Miss Marilyn De Colti from Catalina, even though she died over nine years ago from wasting syndrome, or:
cachexia
.

Once you reach a certain age, the brain hardwires specific routines and notions.

“The permanent delusion,” the staff of Silver Oaks calls it.

This is right about the time when Ms. Murtoil announces, “My son will be bringing in the grandchildren, Bernie—so . . . we need to get me back to my old Hollywood self,” delivering a motivating slap to my knee. She says, “I want to look like a star for them . . . the diamonds are a good start,” and the wrinkly knotted fingers smooth the stones once more, swimming with fragmented memory. 

The majority of families visit an average of twice a year: on Christmas and birthdays, and the Murtoils are no different in that regard. When you’re paying an $8,000 per month residence fee, it’s easy to convince yourself that taking time off work to see your mother isn’t exactly convenient. Staying away requires even less effort the first time you see pressure sores or a bony hand clutching a tightening chest, also known as:
Angina
.

Mr. Murtoil sends the check for eight grand like clockwork, operating under that out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality as his mother continuously slips further away, a sort of mutual forgetfulness.

“He will come today, Bosco,” Ms. Murtoil states firmly, giving her wrists a dab of lilac fragrance before sliding one set of tendons over the other, part of the preparation routine. This would be dangerous under normal circumstances because of the alcohol content, a component that is notorious for causing dry skin and rashes in the elderly. However, part of any Silver Oaks elderly caregiver’s job is prevention, and the perfume was replaced with a non-irritating substitute some years ago. A few lacerating square and princess cut diamond rings got the same switcheroo treatment.

A “safety swap,” the staff calls it.

This is also used with: toiletries, oral hygiene and hair products. Relatives are the worst about this. At least once a week some family member brings in a $40 lotion or $60 coloring product that has to be confiscated. They’re completely ignorant to the adverse effects of triclosan-laced soaps or retinoid-harboring anti-aging creams. We’ve all seen a lot of harm done in the name of “just being nice” here at Silver Oaks.

Ms. Murtoil shakily dabs the lanolin-free lipstick on her mouth, a few rosy smears going outside the lines on the upper lip, or:
The Vermillion Border
, but these are gently corrected with a tissue. Just like yesterday’s smudged mascara and overindulgence of blush, the errors are carved back to their original negative space of wrinkles and loose skin.

“Malachi Abramowicz gave me these diamonds while we were courting,” Ms. Murtoil says, pouting her lips. “Right before the premiere of one of my movies—and oh,
Bosco
 . . . you should have seen the gown I wore that night.”

Floor-length red dress. Sequined.

I’ve heard the story, seen the pictures.

The term “a broken record” is a direct reference to the elderly telling their tales over and over, and that doesn’t just include Ms. Murtoil and her Tinseltown adventures. No resident is without a story he repeats ad nauseam.

Mr. Cardiff will talk your ear off about fighting the Nazis in WWII if you let him. His kill count usually goes up a couple each week.

Ms. Parlour used to own a French bakery. The result of these conversations is getting her secret family recipes for apricot croissants or vanilla cheesecake, but with a couple of ingredients added or omitted in the retelling. Obscured, along with the names of her grandchildren and dead husband’s favorite TV show.

At Silver Oaks, the residents are provided a quality of life like none other: the most luxurious furnishings money can buy, a meal plan that borders on gourmet standards, but most importantly, an attentive staff. These are a few of the reasons why all those rich sons and daughters can go months on end without the guilt eating them alive. They’ve outsourced their undivided attention. Transferred their responsibility. The rest of the elderly care assistants and I—we actually listen. Not necessarily because we’re interested. Depending on how much a story changes, this is how one gauges exactly how far the mind has slipped without running an MRI. This is how you can tell if a diamond necklace or Civil War pistol can go missing without reprisals.

A face powdering and majorite-adorned anklet later, Ms. Murtoil asks, “They’re not coming . . . are they, Bradford?” her optimism shrinking along with her torso and appendages. Her neck. Right after your hair follicles and skin begin to dry out, your sense of hope follows shortly after. It’s a medically proven fact of life.

“Moments of clarity,” the staff calls it.

Ms. Murtoil hasn’t had one of these in over four months. This is part of the regular status updates sent to the immediate family, along with any allergies or medications they’re on. It’s also the reason why her son hasn’t visited Silver Oaks since Christmas, two years ago. Quite a bit lower than the average, but some people just can’t handle it. Or don’t want to.

“When he comes . . . you have to make sure that I’m ready, Bradford,” Ms. Murtoil says, shaky, trembling hands clutching mine from a substantial loss of nerve cell function, or:
Parkinson’s
. 

Or maybe she’s scared of being so close to the end, tears turning the blush and mascara muddy. A tissue is plucked out of a nearby Kleenex box, dabbed ever so lightly on the sagging face of Ms. Murtoil, and yet another pearl necklace disappears into my pocket. Two more sets of emerald earrings as she squeezes her eyes shut to blow her nose.

She says with a sniff, “I want to look my best . . . with my diamonds, and you can do the makeup, Bradford—and they’ll . . . remember me right.”

Sooner or later, every resident makes mention of how they want to be found: in their favorite dress or armed services uniform, an ensemble they feel best reflects who they were in the prime of their lives.

“The death-day suit,” we call it.

Besides Christmas and birthdays, this is the only other occasion where the family is obligated to visit Silver Oaks. Beyond the legal commitment to collect their dead, the Murtoils will have plenty of jewelry to claim, but maybe not as much as they thought. It is, after all, the only thing they didn’t get an exact inventory on, unlike the estate and foundations that were seized from her control, when Mr. Murtoil had her deemed mentally incapable of performing her duties, or:
legally incompetent
.

He stuck her in Silver Oaks, waiting for this geriatric bond note of a woman to mature her way into a coffin so he could collect the residuals, left her here to pee on plastic-covered couches with her jewelry and delusions of loving family. The rat bastard said to his mother, “I’ll come visit you all the time.”

From that point on, the record began to skip.

Those are the words I remember every time a ruby hairpin or Columbian black pearl pendant slips inside my pockets. With every diaper change and crying fit, Mr. Murtoil is giving me what any stockbroker, realtor, or financial planner would: a cut. 

“When it happens . . . make me look like a star again,” Ms. Murtoil requests in a desolate tone, officially reaching that point where she’s stopped focusing on living and is now planning out the circumstances of her demise.

The “short-term will,” we call it.

“A Hollywood star . . . just like when I did the Howard Hughes film,” Ms. Murtoil says, a renewed smile emerging, waves of nostalgia flashing over milky blue eyes as she drapes the diamonds with her bumpy fingers. “Did I ever tell you about how I used to be in the pictures, Benjamin? Those were wonderful times.”

——————————