Fight Night(47)

Ken wanted to show Grandma how to drive the convertible but she said she already knew how. Of course I know how to drive stick! she said. What do you think? Grandma put it into gear and we lurched into reverse. Lookin’ good, man! said Ken. He stood in his driveway and waved goodbye with his big, strong, warm hand.

We drove around and around until Grandma remembered how to get to the old folks’ home. She couldn’t remember the name of the street or the name of the old folks’ home. She just had feelings about where it was. All we had to do was drive around and around until her feelings were made manifest, she said. The roof was off and Grandma’s white hair was blowing straight up from her head. She was wearing her giant welder’s glasses and Ken’s cut-off UCLA sweatpants. She drove fast. It felt like Grandma was younger now. It felt like I was driving around with Mom or Beyoncé or someone. That’s why old people get so furious when young people tell them they can’t drive anymore. Aha! Look at that! she said. She had found the home. When she got out of the car she was normal Grandma again, shuffling. I jumped out of the car without opening the door. I hope I don’t have to tell you that that’s cool. I ran around to her side and slammed on my brakes right beside her and screeched like I was driving a car, too. Ma’am? I said. She took my arm. We shuffled, shuffled, shuffled. We passed a group of old people standing in a bus shelter right beside the building. A nurse came out and told the old people in the bus shelter, Okay, everybody, we’re here! But they hadn’t gone anywhere. They walked out of the shelter and followed the nurse back into the building. Grandma told me those were the people who were always trying to escape and go home. The nurses set up a fake bus shelter where they could wait for a bus that never came before going back into the building. That’s how they do it now, said Grandma, it’s advanced thinking. That’s so sad! I said. Well, yes! said Grandma.

The nurse let us in and everyone who was with it knew Grandma! Some of them even knew me! Grandma had a conversation with her friend Leona. Leona hung on to Grandma’s hand and on to my hand really tightly the whole time they were talking so we couldn’t escape. Grandma told her about Gord. Babies are wonderful! said Leona. Yes they are, said Grandma. Just wonderful! So wonderful! They were really one hundred percent agreed on that. And I don’t mind being ninety because soon I’ll get to see Bill! said Leona. Bill was her first boyfriend, who had died before they could get married. Leona was married to someone else for seventy years but she’s not as excited about seeing him as she is about seeing Bill because Bill will be seventeen and cute and doing backflips from a standing position and her ninety-year-old husband will be lying in bed attached to a hose. Grandma and Leona started singing. It was a song about sitting down by the river in Babylon. When they were finished Leona said, Well, we’ll soon be dead. That’s how it is! said Grandma. That’s how it is, said Leona. That was two things they agreed on now. Babies are wonderful and soon they’d be dead. Leona told Grandma to tell Mooshie what a strong girl she is. Tell her! said Leona. I asked Grandma why everyone was saying how strong Mom was. Grandma said because she is and they know it and it’s good to be reminded of it. I wondered if I was strong.

We went to have lunch in the dining room with all of Grandma’s friends and relatives. She introduced me to them all. Some of them grabbed on to me. Some of them just hung their heads and didn’t talk or look at anything. There were bald ladies. Grandma talked to them. She touched their heads and their arms. She spoke to them in their secret language. She kept telling people who she was and then one second later she’d have to tell them again. She kissed them. One of them asked her if she’d heard from Willit Braun lately and then they laughed and laughed. A woman said she just wanted to die already to get away from Willit Braun because she knew she wouldn’t meet him in heaven, that’s for sure! Even tiny, shrunken, senile people from California with escaping on their minds remembered the awful reign of Willit Braun. They sang a lot. An awful lot. Then we ate lunch with them. It was like a nightmare. One woman screamed for help over and over. Help me! Help me! Help me! A man with a hole in his throat that he talked out of asked me if the two of us were getting married! People tried taking off their clothes. Some just sat there and looked dead. Some of them had dolls in their laps. But they all loved it when Grandma sang the old songs with them. I could see she was getting so tired.

It was nap time finally for everyone in the home and we had to go. I thought some of Grandma’s friends might not wake up from their naps. The nurses were rounding them up. They were wheeling giant carts of diapers around. The diapers were stacked like books on a bookshelf. One guy had ten stolen yogurts under his shirt and the nurse asked if she could have them back. He tried to fight her. The nurse gave up. Then disaster really struck! Grandma was doing this little dance for two old guys who were her double cousins, which means their moms were sisters and their dads were brothers. Grandma said this is the thing that happens in those towns, no problem. The two old guys asked her to do that little dance she did on the porch when she was a kid together with her older sister Irene, who became Lou and Ken’s mom. Grandma’s old double cousins sang Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile! They banged on the plastic arms of their wheelchairs and slid their slippers around on the floor and clapped. Grandma was really entertaining them. They must have really thought they were all kids back on that porch in their old town in the summertime. Grandma twirled around and I could tell she was sort of losing her balance and reaching out to the diaper cart to hold on to, but she missed. I ran over to where she was dancing and then she did a kick that was too high, and then believe it or not Grandma fell down.