Tom Walker had long been attracted to older women, and they to him. He was only six or seven, a cherubic-faced, scrappy towhead with attitude, when the 12-year-old girl next door lured him away from his toy fire truck and into a closet. Hanna Life, a pale stick of a girl, patted and kissed him gently, as if his penis were a baby doll. She did this to him once or twice a week for several months, and then the Life family moved away. He never forgot Hanna Life, nor did he once as an adult consider her closeted ministrations child abuse.
When he himself was 12, Myrna Hoffman, who was 17, seduced him in the upper pew of the First Congregational Church of Elyria, while everyone else he knew was dancing check-to-cheek in the basement. Over half a century later, he could still hear the music drifting up to the pews. The Platters, "Oh yes, I'm a great pretender." Myrna yanked down his jeans, pushed him onto a bench and straddled him. Her breasts, sheathed in a formidable bra, jiggled against his nose. He grabbed with both hands and squeezed them a little. Myrna groaned.
That was when he realized he had been born to do this. Sex was better than dancing, food, or sports. The only activities that came close were playing guitar in a band and driving a car. For many years the guitar was a means to an end, since few girls could resist a musician. But sex in a car with an experienced woman was the gold standard.
"Why're you messing around with them old chicks, dude?" his buddies in the band would ask. They were still in their teens.
"I'm getting laid five days a week," he told them. "It ain't rocket science."
Before too long, young Tom had discovered how best to satisfy all the females now so essential to his well-being. He realized he was also born for cunnilingus. There was a learning curve, but he was a quick study.
By the time he was in his 30s, divorced and living in the San Francisco North Bay, it was the 1970s, the perfect time and place for a man devoted to pleasing women. Women in all their astonishing shades and textures, long-legged, short-waisted, large breasted or with breasts like little hard apples, milky or chocolate skinned, thin or pleasingly plump... so many women needing a man. Many of them were older, soft-thighed, and welcoming.
"Hey there, eye candy, you come with me," Nadine beckoned. She was red-haired and voluptuous, so of course he followed her, as he had, spell bound, followed them all, especially redheads. He was lucky, he reckoned, never to have caught anything more inconvenient than herpes.
After Nadine dropped into his life, he decided it was time to settle down with one woman. It was actually the third such time, but the first, when he was young and relatively inexperienced, didn't count. His ex-wife was a cold and angry woman who eventually turned their two daughters against him. The second had been an all-too-brief romance with a former porn starlet who, as the song goes, left him for some guy she knew before. After that, he'd not been inclined to try again until he was close to 50, when he knew he'd met his match at last. The widowed Nadine McGinnis, 17 years his senior, had a libido twice the size of Texas, from which she hailed.
"You are the woman of my dreams," he told her not long after they'd met at the singles party where she invited him to follow her home.
"Y'all can't be serious," she said. "You tell that to all the girls."
"I'm serious as a heartbeat, Nadine. And I don't recall telling any other woman that."
Her home was a condo in Tiburon, palatial compared to the modest house he rented in San Rafael, and tastefully furnished, in his opinion, aside from a large oil painting of the haloed Virgin Mary with child hanging across from the foot of her bed.
"You've got to lose the religious crap, babe," he told her. "It's counterproductive. I look at that goofy face and think, jeez, 2,000 years of bullshit. Bingo, limp dick."
The widow stared at him, perfect little white teeth gleaming between parted lips.
"But it's inspiring," she began, and then reconsidered. "So is your dick," she giggled, and dove for it.
Her mouth was large, her tongue supple, and sometimes at night, when she felt more comfortable with him, the perfect teeth came out and resided in a glass of water next to the bed.
The painting of the Madonna disappeared.
Nadine had hitherto lived up to her old-fashioned name. She was a staunch churchwoman and community worker who'd raised six children and had only had sex with one man in her life. It was Tom's happy task to unleash the wild woman in her. Hadn't her late husband satisfied her, he wondered.
"May he rest in peace, he did his best," she said. Only it was never enough. McGinnis was too busy working, and then he died. She was so horny the night she went to that singles party where she met Ton, she could have screamed.
She stroked the pelt on his chest. "I never imagined someone like you actually existed," she murmured.
"Likewise," he said.
It was not unusual for them to fuck several times a day, or for Nadine to come dozens of times. Sometimes he clocked her. The record was 52 times in 24 hours.
"Nadine, you are one for the books."
He took her up to Harbin Hot Springs to strut around in the buff. Their bodies were well matched, slender and fine-boned, she full breasted and he large-cocked. They hiked into a copse of oak and mangrove, put a blanket down, and got it on for hours. He was seated on his haunches, stroking steadily, when he saw people between the trees watching them. He bent to her ear and whispered, "Nadine, we've got an audience."
"Do not stop," she muttered between clenched teeth. "Don't you dare stop."
Life was good with Nadine for over a dozen years. They took several trips together, explored the national parks, and even toured Europe. He met all six of her children; she met his daughters and managed to charm them into occasionally attending McGinnis family picnics and dinner parties. At night, snuggled into his arms, she fit against him like the missing piece of a puzzle. Tom felt a rare contentment, holding her. It wasn't all about sex. They loved each other and could be a family, he thought, if only they could live together. When she wasn't around, he missed her wry humor and high energy. He wanted her in his life 24/7.
She was uncertain, citing their difference in age and economic status, for starters.
McGinnis had left his widow a tidy bundle. She never had to worry about paying the rent as Tom did. Although he had a fairly good job managing an electronics store, he couldn't afford the house he rented on his salary without roommates.
"I don't care about any of that," he assured her. "I'll sign a pre-nup, if that's what's worrying you. I don't want your money. I want you."
But there were other issues.
"Our lifestyles are incompatible," she pointed out. He smoked copious amounts of pot, and she drank martinis and expensive wine. She loved to cook elaborate meals or dine in four-star restaurants, while he was fine with a frozen pizza or a Big Mac.
"We are totally compatible in bed," he countered. "We like the same movies and any kind of music. We laugh at each other's jokes. We're friends. We love each other. Nothing else matters."
She agreed food and intoxicants were non-issues. The deal breaker for her was that Tom was a night owl, always had been. Even before he began playing in rock bands back in Ohio, he'd wander around town all night. "Look what the cat dragged in," his mother used to say when he'd saunter in as the sun was rising.
He didn't truly wake up till after midnight, which was when Nadine wanted to sleep. They were having this conversation in his bed at 4:00 AM, and she couldn't keep her eyes open.
"You're fun to visit," she yawned. "But I need to sleep at night."
He'd heard all of that before. "Go ahead and sleep," he told her. While she slept, he could hang out in the next room, practicing guitar or jacking off.
The deal breaker for him might be that, although Nadine had no problem with cursing, drinking, and fornicating, she still believed in God and the blessed saints. She enjoyed attending church on Sunday and complained she could never drag him there, not even for a wedding.
"Well, maybe for a wedding," he said glumly.
"Not with that old-grump face on," she snapped. "When you smile, you look just like Paul Newman. Right now, you look like you lost your best friend."
The bottom line, it turned out, was peer pressure. What would her friends think if she married him? As a boyfriend he barely passed muster in her social circles. These were people who thought rock and roll was a left-wing conspiracy. Tom didn't care what they thought about him, and she knew it.
"So, you just want to be my fuck buddy now, is that it, Nadine?" He was angry with good cause, he believed. He'd devoted himself to her all these years. Was he merely her boy toy?
She stared at him, eyes damp.
"That's not what I meant. I do love you, Thomas Walker. You're passionate and bright and talented, but I can't live with you."
"You love me three nights a week. That doesn't work anymore, not for me."
"Why not? We've made it work all these years, sweetie, you and me. We should count our blessings at our age. Well, I do." She stroked his cheek. He pushed her hand away.
"I need a hell of a lot more than a half-time fuck buddy counting her goddamn blessings," he spat out. "I need to fuck every day."
"Is that what it boils down to?" She was clearly exasperated. She rolled out of bed and snatched her clothes. "Go fuck yourself, asshole," she told him, and marched out of the room.
It wasn't over yet. They were too addicted to each other. But Tom was done with monogamy and romance, at least in theory.
At about the same time, everything else in his life imploded. The rock band he'd played with for several years broke up. The electronics store he managed was sold and all the jobs outsourced. He lost two long-time housemates and let two practically homeless acquaintances crash in the recently vacated rooms in his home, only they had no money to help with the rent. He ran up a huge credit card debt. Finally, he abandoned ship.
He was 63, and he took early social security, gave up the house he'd lived in for 30 years, and moved into senior housing in the next county to the north where rents were more affordable.
Tom lived alone in his new apartment, which was a novelty. Since his marriage ended, he'd had roommates and a succession of girlfriends lolling about in the rented house, where his room had been the largest. Now he had two small rooms with scarcely enough space for his instruments, amps, computer, TV, surround sound music system, memorabilia, and what furniture he'd managed to cram into it. It was like living in a storage unit. The building was shoddily made, its walls thin with paint peeling off, and it smelled of fried oil and garlic. He could hear his neighbors snoring. It was no longer possible to crank up his electric guitar and play in the middle of the night without risking eviction.
Aside from one dotty old lady who brought him a plate of home-baked cookies as a house-warming gift, the women in the building were not as eager to know him (at least in the Biblical sense) as he'd anticipated. He was still attractive with cleft chin and bright blue eyes unclouded, his body trim and his thick, well-cut hair, formerly blonde, now silver white. "I'm a junior senior," he joked. His neighbors were not easily amused. With a few exceptions, they were slovenly and overweight to the point of obesity. He liked old but not fat. Even the skinny ones were unfriendly if not downright hostile. Maybe they were lesbians? He'd have been pleased to "service" any of them (he'd always liked skinny lesbians) but sensed little interest and soon gave up on that plan. Instead, he began working on a recording project he'd long contemplated. He decided to funnel his energy into music for now, rather than women.
The widow was keeping her distance, though she did call occasionally to check on him. Her voice over the phone was hoarse and seductive.
"I worry about you, Tommy. I miss you."
"Ah, sure. I know what you're missing."
"Well," she hesitated. "I miss that, too. But you're wrong if you think that's all I miss."
"You don't care two beans for me. I'm an asshole, remember?"
"Why would you even think such a thing? You know how I feel."
"Do I? Then why aren't you here with me?"
Silence.
He looked around at the still-unpacked cartons. "On second thought, you wouldn't like it here. Why aren't I there with you?"
He drove down to Tiburon for a date a few times a month, but their relationship was never the same. Nadine was moving into a different phase in her life. She was slowing down, starting to look her age.
Meanwhile he was feeling sorry for himself—abandoned by his girlfriend, ignored by his children, and without a penny to his name. His so-called friends were nowhere to be found unless someone needed something from him. He had long been prey to depression and took medication for that. Still, it was a struggle to keep from sinking into lethargy. He was too old for the singles parties and bars he used to frequent. None of that appealed to him anymore. Sometimes, just to be moving, he jumped in his car and cruised the town's streets and back country roads, and that's when he sang and played the radio or his CDs as loud as he pleased. Mostly he stayed in his two small rooms hunched over a keyboard, re-mixing tracks he'd recorded previously or fiddling with ideas for new songs. As long as he kept busy, he could tolerate solitude.
Late one night, as he was about to light up his pipe, he heard a quiet tapping on the front door to his apartment. He put the pipe away and went over to the peep hole. It was the woman from down the hall who'd brought cookies over when he first moved in. He hadn't seen her since and had forgotten her name. He opened the door.
She looked like his mother in her dotage, short and wiry with white hair pulled back in a stringy ponytail. Her face was pale and square, the skin a web of creases. Dark eyes gleamed under scant brows. She wore a short, flowered smock.
"I hope it's not too late," she whispered. "I see your light under the door every night." She held out a can of Bud Lite and a bag of Cheetos. "Maybe you'd like company?"
"Sure," he said gently. "Come on in. Sorry, I can't remember your name."
"I don't remember yours, either," she grinned. "I'm Melba."
"I'm Tom. Now, how did you know I love Cheetos?"
"All men love to cheato," she giggled. "Hows about some beer?" She popped the top and offered it to him.
"No, thanks. I was about to smoke a pipe. You want some weed?"
"You mean mari-joo-wanah? Never touch the stuff. But you go right ahead. I smoke Kools." She patted a pocket in her dress. "We're not supposed to smoke in our apartments, but sometimes I do. Promise not to tell anyone?"
Tom promised. "I would appreciate you not smoking tobacco in my apartment, though," he added. "I have respiratory issues."
"Really?" She watched him exhale a cloud of smoke.
"Pot's not carcinogenic, doesn't have nicotine. And I love the smell."
"It does smell nice," she admitted.
She laughed suddenly, a wild smoker's laugh, half cough. "All them bitches would shit a brick if they knew I was in here," she said.
"Sit down, Melba." He pulled out a chair from the table and sat opposite her with the bag of Cheetos between them. "Sugar Magnolia" was playing on the radio. Melba swayed to the music.
"I heard you was a musician," she said. "My first husband played the banjo."
"How many husbands did you have?" he asked.
"Only two. Maybe three, if I count the SOB I lived with in Detroit one year. Cheers!" She took a long swig of her beer.
"You have children?"
"Somewhere," she sighed. "They don't talk to me much."
"Yeah, I know how that goes."
They commiserated for a while over their ungrateful offspring. He learned she came from approximately the same part of the rust belt as he did, though likely a generation earlier. Melba never revealed her age to him. He estimated she was in the mid- to upper-80s. She walked with difficulty and should have been using some sort of walker but didn't want one.
Finally, he had to shoo her out of the apartment so he could work on his music.
"Can I visit you again?" she said at the door. "I feel I can talk to you about anything."
He hesitated. Might she become a nuisance? She was a little peculiar, but he'd always liked eccentrics, and he did like Melba. "Come back in a few days," he said.
Over the next few months Melba showed up at his door late at night twice a week, always with a snack to share and a can of beer for herself. Sometimes she baked cookies or banana bread and brought those over. He'd strum his guitar and sing a song for her. After an hour or so of chatting about their neighbors or episodes in her life, she'd totter off home. He learned her second marriage, although unhappy, had endured 40 years. Her husband had beat her regularly.
These were pleasant interludes for him. He felt less lonely, more upbeat afterward. When Melba told him she had no car, he offered to take her grocery shopping once a week. During one of these expeditions, they encountered two of their neighbors, who stared at them and whispered to each other.
"They're jealous," Melba observed, looking pleased.
He had a date with Nadine and didn't come home till the next afternoon. Melba had been worried, he found out. What if he'd been in an accident or had a heart attack? How would she know? She wouldn't, he told her, unless she read the police blotter in the local newspaper. And then what could she do about it?
"Who will help us if we don't help each other?" she asked, and he replied, "You know I'm here for you, Melba, if ever you do need help."
She'd already said good night, but something else was bothering her. She was standing at his door with her head down, looking at the floor, and twisting her hands together so that her knuckles cracked.
"What is it now, Melba? Are you okay?"
"You could help me," she began, stopped. She tried again. "Would you please. I'd like it very much if you would please. Fuck me. Even just once."
She still didn't dare look at him.
Tom was astonished and moved. Why hadn't this occurred to him? All along he'd been thinking "nutty little old lady" instead of "older experienced woman." He put one arm around her shoulders and said, "That was very brave of you to ask me that."
"But w-w-will you?" she stuttered.
"Of course I will."
He phoned Nadine to tell her what had happened.
"You bastard," she said. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I tell you everything. I've never lied to you, have I?"
"How would I know?"
He ignored that. "I thought you'd be happy for me. You worry I'm alone too much, and now I'm not. Anyway, it's not like a romance. The poor woman hadn't been properly fucked in years. Decades. Her husband was a drunk. He slapped her around and only did her dog style. Plus, she's really old, like she's the oldest woman I've ever fucked. So actually, I'm doing a good deed."
"Right," she scoffed. "Another jewel in your heavenly crown."
"That's your department, Nadine."
"Basically, you're back to your old horn dog tricks."
"What's a man to do, left to his own devices," he said pointedly. "Besides, I'm only helping this one neighbor. You'd like her. You should come over and watch. She wouldn't mind."
"You're a dyed-in-the-wool rascal, Thomas Walker."
"I hope so."
He loved these spicy conversations with Nadine almost as much as he loved sex with her. In this way he still had her in his life.
Meanwhile it was a relief to keep his oar in without undue effort. He was almost as grateful to Melba as she to him. She was so grateful, sometimes she wept. He'd always loved that, too, watching women weep while they were enjoying a fuck. What power he felt then. And tenderness, too.
Melba seemed tireless despite her advanced years. It was inspiring. He marveled that any human of a certain age could devote so much energy to sex, even if it were only two to three times a week. Did she take uppers? Was this her last hurrah? What if she keeled over in his bed? How would he explain that to the building manager? Or the police?
"I don't want to wear you out, Melba," he said one night.
"No problem," she mumbled.
He watched the thin hair and pink scalp bobbing up and down like a metronome, and he puffed on his pipe and adjusted the volume on the stereo.
"Tell me what you enjoy most, young lady," he asked. "Sucking or fucking?"
She came up for air.
"Hard to say," she said, regarding him gravely. "Hard to say."
Melba did not like to be sucked by a man or anyone, nor could he convince her otherwise. It was a generational tic, he figured. He'd managed to convert Nadine into a screaming, multi-orgasmic enthusiast, but Melba was simply too old to change her ways. Plus, she wore protective pads in her undies, and she didn't always remember to insert one.
He wrote a song to amuse Melba and sang it for her. She listened eagerly, clapping when he was done.
Sweet Melba Toast, she is the most
good old gal I ever did know.
She gets down, she messes around
she ain't no clown, she's Melba Toast.
From then on, he called her "Melba Toast" and she called him "Tommy Tunes." In a sweet, cracked voice she sang him a song recalled from childhood.
I heerd Hawaiians play
in the land of the wicky wacky,
but I must say,
you can't beat Turkey in the Straw by cracky.
And laughed so hard she almost toppled out of bed.
"I tell you, Tommy Tunes, I never had a better time in all my days."
This did give him pause for thought. He knew full well that sooner or later he always said or did something to drive the women in his life away—starting with his mother, who'd complained he'd do just about anything to get attention (he had), and on to his high school sweetheart who put on too much weight (he'd told her so), all the way down the years to Nadine. Possibly they'd still be together if he'd played it differently. If he could have done what? Been kinder, less brutally frank, less selfish? He'd been accused of all these things.
He never would harm anyone intentionally, he believed, and especially not a frail and elderly, confused woman. He didn't love Melba, at least not in the way he'd loved Nadine and at least one other woman—with a consuming and curious passion. Melba was like a salty-tongued, magically aged child, a child who needed him and would never reject him. He wanted to protect her from harm.
Possibly she was getting a tad senile. One evening she showed up with her dress on backwards.
"It don't matter," she told him, "It's coming off anyways."
She never once slept with him overnight. She had to go home for her "beauty sleep," she said. Take out her teeth, ingest dozens of pills, do whatever old women do.
Before she left, he would open a window to clear the air. Although Melba never lit a cigarette in his apartment, he could smell tobacco smoke in her hair and clothing.
"Phoo, your tobacco stinks," he grimaced.
"Your pot stinks worse," she countered. "Like dead skunk."
"It's not half as bad as old cunt," he snapped back, and immediately regretted it. "That's a joke," he added.
She sucked in her breath, stared at him, and to his relief, burst out laughing.
"Melba Toast, you're a good old egg." He gave her a bear hug before she sashayed out the door. They almost never kissed.
Ten minutes later he heard that familiar tap on the front door. Melba was back. He flung it open.
"Did you forget something?"
She smiled brightly. "I can't find my apartment. All the doors look alike."
Oh, oh, he thought.
He walked with her down the dimly lit hall, one of her arms hooked under his, and unlocked the door for her. He'd only been inside her apartment once, over half a year before. It had been so cluttered with curios, stacks of newspapers and magazines, and odd lots of furniture, it made his crowded quarters seem spartan. Now the maze of junk was piled higher and the passages between were narrower.
"Melba, where does all this stuff come from?"
She looked around as if seeing it for the first time and said in a hushed, earnest voice, "It was all abandoned. Now they're my treasures. Look at this."
She offered him a bright orange plastic goldfish and several issues of the National Enquirer, all of which he declined.
"Ms. Toast, you are going to have a big problem when it's time for the annual inspection. You've got to move at least half of this someplace else. You won't be abandoning anything, okay? You'll be repositioning it."
"Okay." She gave him that eerily bright smile.
"I'll help you."
She nodded, still smiling.
He told her he would be walking her home from now on.
"Aw, that's sweet, Mr. Tunes. But what will people say?" she tittered.
Now that was more like Melba Toast talking.
He went home and lit up his pipe and thought hard.
So, his little old fuck buddy was over-the-top dingy and on the downhill slide. What should he do now? "What would be best for Melba?" he said aloud, startling himself. "Shit, did I really say that? What happened to what's best for me?"
Now he was talking to himself. Maybe he was getting demented too, he thought. No, the problem was he had no idea where to begin or what to do in this situation, other than to ask for help, but who or what? He was clueless. Not only was the prospect of seeking help for Melba overwhelming, he knew she would resist any interference in her life. Some government agency or do-gooder might commit her to a nursing home or a psych ward.
He thought she should enjoy what life she had left.
He decided to do nothing about it for now, or nothing official. He would watch out for her, check in on her more frequently, and clean out her apartment. He resolved to be gentler with his good old gal.
Nadine was appalled when he told her.
"You? A caregiver?"
"I didn't say that exactly."
"Doesn't she have family?"
"I told you she doesn't. Or if she does, they can't be found."
Nadine put her wine goblet down carefully before replying.
"Don't expect me to remember every detail of your escapades, buster. I've got my own fish to fry."
"Tell me about it, babe. I'm dying to hear."
She ignored that. She'd served a three-course dinner with an exquisite pinot noir and had been looking forward to him being in her bed all night. All he wanted to do was talk about the senile neighbor he was screwing. He was so distracted, he hadn't even noticed her new leotards and silk tank top.
"You're looking for trouble, Tom. You don't have the skills. You're not a nurse or a social worker. What'll you do if she hurts herself? Or pisses her pants, or worse?"
"I'm learning on the job," he sighed. "Last week I bought her a box of incontinence pads. Yesterday I scrubbed her toilet."
"I'd like to have seen that," she snorted.
"I don't know what else to do, Nadine. I can't just walk out on her. And I won't sic the system on her, know what I mean? They'll lock her up in a loony bin. It would be a death sentence. I just want her to be happy."
"They'll put her in a safe environment with 24/7 care. Can you provide that level of care? That's what she really needs."
"No," he admitted. He stared disconsolate at the spinach salad and half-eaten lasagna on his plate. He had no appetite for food or sex lately. All he wanted to do was sleep.
"Why are you doing this, really?" she prodded. "You've never been much of a boy scout. You're too self-absorbed. If Melba is taken away, you'll have to go out on the hunt again, so maybe you'd rather keep a compliant fuck buddy on call?"
He got to his feet and threw the napkin on the table.
"Damn it, Nadine, I haven't fucked anyone in three whole weeks, and I'm exhausted. I'm going home to sleep. Thanks for the meal. And the advice. I'll consider it."
Out the door he went, without so much as a kiss, not looking back, not wanting to know if he'd hurt her or if maybe she could care less.
Nadine knew him too well.
He needed to blow off steam. He drove up the freeway, windows open, to the north county line and back. It was a balmy summer evening. A full moon was rising over Sonoma Mountain as he drove into town, and he remembered he'd promised Melba he'd take her for a drive in the country. Why not now? She was a night owl, too. He could bundle her into the car, ride up into the hills, and let her howl at the moon. She'd probably suck him off in the car.
He glided into the parking lot of his building and cut the engine. A fire engine with its motor running blocked his assigned space. Beyond that he saw a police car and an ambulance, into which two EMTs were loading a stretcher. He couldn't tell who was on it. They shut the doors, got in, and took off with siren blaring. His stomach churned, never a good sign.
Several residents and the building manager clustered around the two police officers. When he got out of his car, one of the women pointed his way and said something he couldn't hear. Suspecting the worst, Tom hurried over to the police car.
"Tom here knows more about her than any one of us," the woman said. "She was in and out of his apartment night and day." She turned to another woman and smirked.
"What happened to Melba?" he asked the cops, ignoring his neighbors. "Is she alright?"
"Smoke inhalation," one cop said. "I can't tell you for sure, but I think we got to her in time. And the apartment, too. You've got a first-rate alarm system here, folks."
Tom's heart leapt erratically. He took several deep breaths. "Did all that paper combust somehow?" he asked.
The building manager gave him a sharp look. "You knew about that?"
"Yeah. I told her I would clean it out for her. She always had some reason for me not to do it. I should've insisted."
"You should've hired a forklift," the other cop said dryly.
"So, what happened?"
"Grease fire. She put something on the stove to fry and wandered off." The officer turned a page in his notepad and asked for Tom's phone number. "You might hear from us or social services."
"Where did they take her?"
"Valley General. They won't let you in the ER if you're not family," he cautioned.
At the hospital he was told Melba was not yet stable. She was breathing normally but had to be sedated because she kept trying to climb out of bed. There were minor burns on both arms.
"Look, she hasn't any family, but I'm her closest friend." Tom turned on the charm for the benefit of a young nurse. "It might do her a world of good to see me when she's conscious again."
She looked him over, smiled. "Wait over there. I'll see if the on-call social worker can talk to you."
He waited. It was a depressing room with humming fluorescent lights and only women's magazines to read. Willy-nilly, he and Melba were being herded into the system, and what could he do about it now, he fretted, but wait for a social worker. He did not believe it would do any good. After half an hour, he got up and spoke to the nurse again.
"Ellen just texted me," she told him. "She's in the building dealing with another emergency. She'll be here right away."
"Sorry to be impatient," he apologized. "I'm kind of tired. I'm getting old, darn it." He flashed a smile, and she laughed.
Now here's a tall drink of water, he thought.
The social worker towered over him by two or three inches. Her jet-black hair swung in a pageboy. Long lashed green eyes took him in at a glance. Did he look like the old wreck he felt? At least he'd shaved that afternoon.
"What can I do for you?" she asked. Her voice, quiet and melodious, comforted him. He explained his relationship to Melba, omitting the salacious details. How he'd tried to help and failed.
"What will happen to her now?"
"She can't live alone, so she'll be moved to an appropriate nursing home as soon as a bed is available and the financials are worked out."
She advised him to go home, get a good sleep, and come back in the morning. Melba would be unconscious at least until then.
"I won't be able to sleep for worrying," he said.
"She's lucky to have so caring a friend," Ellen smiled.
He went home, fell into bed, and slept 12 hours. A phone call from the hospital woke him from troubled dreams. Melba was awake and asking for him. He splashed water on his face, drank yesterday's cold coffee, and hurried back over. She had been moved to the ICU.
The dark eyes were larger than ever in her shrunken face, her body shrouded in sheets. She saw him and beamed.
"Melba Toast," he crooned. "You just about toasted yourself."
"Tunes, Tunes," was all she could manage for a while.
There was nothing he could do except sit and watch her sleep, wake up, sleep again. Nurses and doctors came in and out, checking monitors. He was told his presence was a calming influence, so he stayed half the day and returned later that night. Melba was alert enough then to sit up and eat applesauce, which he fed her spoon by spoon, as he had his children when they were babies.
Ellen appeared in the doorway, nodded approvingly. She pulled another chair up to the bed and introduced herself to Melba.
"How would you like to live in a lovely place with lots of new friends and activities and all your meals served to you?" she began.
Melba frowned. "Not unless Tommy lives there, too."
"Tommy can visit you there."
"I sure can," he put in. "But I can't live there."
"Why not?"
"I'm not qualified."
"Why not?"
"I'm not old enough. But you are, you lucky duck."
"Do I have to?"
He took her hand in his. "Honey, you almost burned our building down. You can't be cooking anymore, anywhere."
"I can still cook up trouble, can't I?" She winked, and Ellen laughed.
Melba believed her single bed in the double room at Sunrise Gardens was where she was required to stay for an extended convalescence. A curtain on a track separated her bed from the other. Tom learned the aides called the roommate, who never spoke, "Smiley."
Smiley lay on her back in bed or sat in a wheelchair in the corridor with her mouth open in a frozen grin, as if she'd had a stroke while listening to a hilarious story. On the wall next to Smiley's bed hung photos from her youth and of her family.
Tom managed to get into Melba's apartment before management cleared everything out to retrieve photos and memorabilia that might make her feel more at home in Sunrise Gardens, along with her best clothing. Ellen, whose idea this was, came over to help him with the task and wound up directing him. She was energetic and kind, not yet 50, he guessed.
"Oh, to be young again," he sighed.
"You're not so old," she assured him. "You're looking pretty fit, dude. Here, carry this box out."
She took photos of the apartment with her cell phone to document the procedure.
"This is the worst I've seen," she told him. "Melba is so much better off at Sunrise. I hope you see that now."
He still was not convinced.
Melba did seem to be adjusting to her new living situation. She had a walker now and was using it. She rolled it up and down the corridors, into the dining room and activity room, and out into the garden. She loved the garden best of all.
Sometimes when Tom dropped by for a visit, he couldn't find her right away. She was chatting up a resident in another room. She roamed all over the building introducing herself with a firm handshake to anyone who wasn't comatose, whether residents or staff.
"Melba, are you running for mayor of this joint?" he asked her. "You've got my vote."
"Melba for Mayor," she roared. "Tommy, I'll appoint you something, what d'you want to be? Dog catcher?"
A sweet-faced little woman whose hand had just been vigorously pumped smiled up at Tom from her wheelchair. "Is this your son? He's really cute."
"He's my friend," Melba said proudly. "Used to be my boyfriend. In the day."
"Really?" The woman's smile grew brighter, then faded. "Mine have all passed, I think."
There were only a few male residents at Sunrise Gardens. Their dementia ranged from mild to severe. One man looked not much older than Tom and seemed altogether normal until Tom talked to him. His name was Eugene. He had been a trial attorney.
"The burden of the evidence," he said, looking Tom in the eye.
This didn't faze Melba, who had introduced Tom to her new friend. She nodded and laughed and flirted with Eugene. Tom sat quietly to one side, pleased Melba was enjoying herself, and also uneasy. How did a mind like Eugene's come unhinged?
"Beyond a reasonable doubt," Eugene mumbled. "The burden of the evidence."
One afternoon he found Melba in a far corner of the garden, fiddling with the pockets of her muumuu.
"I can't find my Kools," she moaned.
"You know you're not allowed to smoke here."
"Not even outside?" She looked so stricken, he resolved to do something about it. He spoke with a nurse, an administrator, and Ellen. Everyone was sympathetic, but the rules were meant to protect everyone, not just Melba, he was told.
He got permission to take Melba out for a few hours.
This was not one of her better days. She seemed dazed and uncertain when he led her to the car and folded the walker into the trunk. He drove to a large riverside park with a trail and benches, but she didn't want to get out of the car.
"You can smoke in the car," he said. "I'll be close by."
He handed her a pack of Kools, and she stared at it, uncomprehending. Finally, he removed a cigarette and lit it for her. She inhaled deeply.
"Ah, yes, thank you, darling," she breathed, restored to herself for a few more beats.
When she had finished smoking, he got back in the car and drove out into the countryside, though not too far. He didn't want to risk having to find a bathroom, as those logistics boggled him. He turned the CD player on high and sang along. It was a rhythm track he'd created himself.
"Ophelia, where have you gone?" he sang. "The old neighborhood just ain't the same."
Melba gazed at him fondly.
"You're better than Frank Sinatra," she said.
Tom no longer minded being alone at home. He had to be alone to compose music or mix it. Visiting Melba was a distraction from fine-tuning rhythm tracks. He listened to what he'd recorded. It wasn't half bad. He knew he could fix it.
He got so absorbed in the intricacies of a home computer sound studio, he forgot to visit Sunrise Gardens. He even forgot about Nadine.
Ellen told him Melba had noticed his absence and pitched a fit. He wondered if she imagined he was "cheeto-ing" on her. He wasn't. He was creating rhythm tracks for the Tommy Walker One-Man Band and only occasionally choking the chicken. Sometimes making music was sexier than sex.
Ellen had called to invite him to a concert in the activity room that afternoon. She said Melba loved those concerts. So, he saved his files and washed his face and hurried on over.
The room was filled with residents seated on folding chairs and walkers. Melba was already in the front row. Tom leaned against the back wall and watched a middle-aged, bearded fellow singing folk songs and playing acoustic guitar. He asked everyone to sing along. People who rarely spoke and couldn't remember their own names mouthed the words. Tom had never seen them all so lively. Melba turned and saw him, and her smile was radiant.
Suddenly he knew how to make everyone happy, including himself.
"Of course you can perform here," the activity director enthused. Brendan was young and eager with a pocked face. "Let's look at the calendar. A one-man rock band sounds awesome. All these folks really want to do is boogie."
Tom hauled in the amp and speaker, along with his beloved shiny-blue Parker Fly guitar, plugged it all in a half hour early, ran sound tests. The room filled. Melba and Eugene sat in the front row waving at him. Smiley was grinning in her wheelchair at the rear. He sang directly to Melba. She wiggled in her seat and clapped her hands. Before long everyone was clapping and stomping. His voice was in fine timbre, and the tracks he'd recorded sounded like he had a five-piece band behind him. He could play music loud here. Almost everyone was hearing impaired.
The concerts at Sunrise Gardens might be the best gigs he'd ever have, even though he wasn't paid or tipped. There was always a full, wildly enthusiastic house.
"Are we happy?" he asked, flashing that Paul Newman smile, and they cheered.
The women in the audience gazed at him raptly. He knew he looked good in snug-fitting Levis. He wore a cobalt blue t-shirt to highlight his white hair and blue eyes.
More people attended each time, nurses and administrators, the maintenance crew, family members. Ellen came every Friday, too, and told him his guitar solos were "gorgeous." Sometimes the staff danced with the residents.
Nadine was surprised to learn he was performing gratis in the nursing home. She thought he must have an ulterior motive, aside from needing a rehearsal space.
"Is it guilt?" she asked. "Are you expiating your many sins?"
"Don't give me that sin crap, Nadine. I'm having the time of my life."
He tried to explain how his life sometimes veered off on unexpected tangents. "Like when I met you, for instance. It was like life gave me a gift."
She did not respond to that. Sometimes it was easier for him to talk to her on the phone than in person. Still, he'd have liked to have seen her face just then. He knew he could never persuade her to share his life. He couldn't even persuade his own kids to visit him. But for a change it felt like he was doing something right.
"Sure, I'd like a real gig again. Meanwhile, I'm making a difference, and I'm digging it."
"That's good news," Nadine said slowly, as if she were chewing on the idea. "I'd like to hear your one-man band."
"Come on up to Sunrise Gardens, any Friday afternoon."
"I'll pass on that. Let me know when you get a real gig."
"So, it's the nursing home you're passing on?"
"I've been in too many of them already."
"It can be depressing," he admitted. "I don't let it get to me."
One of the residents happened to be the grandmother of the manager of a wine bar who visited Sunrise Gardens during one of Tom's performances and subsequently hired him to play for tourists in Napa. They liked him, and he got booked for monthly appearances all summer and fall. More gigs fell into place after that. He was busier than he'd been in years.
This meant fewer visits to Melba and cutting the Friday afternoon shows to twice, and then once a month. Eventually he stopped playing there altogether.
"I'll catch your act someplace else, man," Brendan said. "We'll miss you here, though."
Melba was losing ground anyway, Tom figured, so she might not notice his absence. Some days she didn't remember what had happened a minute before. Still, whenever he walked into her room, her face lit up. If she were having a bad day, which might mean either drugged listlessness, refusal to get out of bed and take her meds, or wild-eyed agitation, the sight of Tom enlivened or calmed her. Sometimes she seemed to think he was her son, sometimes a former boyfriend.
He had been dreading these visits for a while, he realized.
Nadine did come to one of his play dates in Napa, along with three women who were in her book club. Her hair was still flaming red and stylishly cut. She wore a more sedate outfit than usual, a tailored pants suit. Ever slender, she didn't look her 80 years.
He opened the set with the Grateful Dead's "Nadine," and she leaned forward, listening intently.
I told Nadine I was feeling lost
Lacking in some direction...
After the show she treated him to a late dinner with her friends. The women talked about a book they were reading, Fifty Shades of Gray. They eyed him curiously as if he were an exotic pet or a barely tamed wild animal. He would have liked to go home with Nadine, but that was clearly no longer an option. She was shielded by a female phalanx. He had been demoted to ex status.
Ellen phoned to tell Tom that Melba had been put on antibiotics again due to an especially virulent bladder infection.
So much for 24/7 care, he thought.
"She's asking for you," Ellen said. "Whenever she's lucid, that is. No one can get her to drink anything, and she's dehydrating."
At first Melba refused to look at him. She had pulled a sheet over her face. He tugged it back gently. Her dentures were out and her mouth caved in. She turned her face to the wall.
"Sweet Melba Toast, I love you with or without your choppers," he murmured. To his surprise, his eyes got teary.
He tried to get her to drink water through a straw, but she clamped her lips shut. Her eyes were shut, too.
In the next bed Smiley moaned softly and grinned at the ceiling. Out in the corridor, an aide pushed a cart of laundry. Eugene shuffled by in his pajamas. The station nurse was multi-tasking, typing on a keyboard and chatting with a resident in a wheelchair. Another day in the loony bin, he thought. Somehow, they did their jobs day after day without cracking up. Yet they'd called him in to help, of all people. What could he do?
Sing. He sang Melba the song he'd written for her, over and over, and gradually her eyes opened. The hint of a smile fluttered her dry lips.
"Drink this for me, Ms. Toast." He tried again.
She sipped once, twice. Made a face. Spat out the straw.
"Bad girl," he said.
"Bad boy," she slurred. She looked at him then as if remembering something. That gleam in her eye, he'd not seen it for a while but knew what it meant. Still, he was shocked when she whispered, "Fuck me, Tunes."
"When you're feeling better, Toast. Drink this water, please."
"One more," she pleaded.
He looked at her shriveled face. At the grinning, paralyzed woman on the next bed. At the nurse outside the door. Even if he were family, could he close the door? And if that door were closed, could he ever get it up for Melba again?
"I can't now," he told her. "I'll break you out of here soon and take you for a ride and a good fuck, okay? You've got to drink this water first."
"Fuck fuck fuck," she said, and her voice rose. "Fuck me fuck me fuck me."
He stepped away from the bed. His skin felt clammy. He understood her need all too well.
The nurse looked up from her work with a concerned expression.
Somehow, he got out of the room. "Sorry," he gasped. "I can't, I just can't help."
He hurried down the corridor. But the faster he moved, the more things slowed down. The inmates waved and smiled as he went by them in slow motion. In the lobby near the front entrance, Eugene was sitting on a chair waiting for something to happen.
"Goodbye," he said, saluting Tom. "Res judicata."
"Goodbye," Tom almost sobbed. It could happen to anyone, and nothing could be done. He'd kill himself rather than be confined to such a place, although if it were to happen, he might not know the difference.
Out in the parking lot in the fresh air and sunshine, he took deep raggedy breaths. His hands were trembling. He got in his car and backed it up and almost hit a mini-Cooper that appeared out of nowhere. He turned off the engine and sat there, shaking.
"Tom? Are you alright?"
It was Ellen he'd almost clobbered. She tapped on the window, and he opened it, and she put a hand on his shoulder as if to steady him.
"Melba's in a bad place," he said. "It really got to me this time."
"How about we go get coffee and talk about it?" she suggested.
He turned to look at her. Her large green eyes watched him intently. She was incredibly beautiful, he thought. How had he not noticed that before? Her fingers kneaded his shoulder. She leaned in through the window and kissed him on the top of his head.
"Follow me, dude," she said.
Is this another unexpected gift, he thought, stunned.
