Tucked away among the pines it likely appeared to be a residence of high standards to those who passed by. But if you were to ask Calvin Smart, that appearance was deceiving, mostly due to the main road being a half-mile off. He and his son Joey rode in relative silence during the sixty-minute trip north from St. Paul, Calvin choosing to watch the pines go by. As they approached Evergreen Gardens, Calvin watched the illusion people saw from a distance melt away as the Ford Explorer advanced on the rambling structure.
Joey eased the truck to a stop. Calvin, making no move to depart the vehicle, sat in the passenger's seat and sized up the place: paint peeling off the building's facade, the tousled grounds, a gaggle of attendants in blue scrubs, smoking and joking around a weathered picnic table. He turned to Joey. “How can you do this to me?” he said. Even though Calvin knew the fix his boy was in, he needed someone to blame.
“It's just for now, Pops,” Joey had said. “Things get better, we'll get you back home. In the meantime, I'll come up every Saturday, bring the boys too.” Joey grabbed a suitcase from the back and came around to where his father sat and rapped a knuckle on the window. “C "mon, Pops,” he said.
Snarling at his son, Calvin stepped from the truck and snatched the suitcase from Joey"s grip, saying he could carry his own damn bag. They headed up the soiled walkway toward the entrance, passing beneath a tattered awning with bent uprights-Calvin several steps behind-and through the double doors and into the lobby, so dissimilar to the full-color brochure Joey had placed in his father's lap, Calvin refusing to take it in his hands. At sixty-five years old, Calvin's sense of smell had deteriorated some, yet the acrid odor of human waste and Lysol was unmistakable. At that moment Calvin was convinced: Evergreen Gardens was not the placid domicile depicted in the doctored literature, where loving sons and daughters left their aging parents in caring hands. No, to Calvin this looked more like a dumping grounds where adult children, calloused by intolerance or indifference, surrendered their elders, like so much refuse, to those who dared call themselves caregivers.
February, 2008
Calvin finished his breakfast and pushed the tray to the side. He dressed himself in polyester pants worn to a shine and a blue work shirt. He stepped into his lone pair of shoes with the rubber soles and started for the door of his room. Passing by his roommate, a disheveled man who rarely left his bed. Calvin waved with his cane but received no response. Calvin could relate-during his first few months at Evergreen Gardens he spoke only when necessary and often slept in his clothes out of spite. He'd refused to take Joey's calls and had him sent away whenever he showed up for a visit.
After stopping at the threshold to check for traffic, Calvin limped down the hallway toward the dayroom. He'd measured 6' 4” most of his life but had lost an inch or two due to time and gravity-a bend here, a crook there. Then there was the cane, putting an angle on his gait. He took his usual seat on the dayroom sofa-really just a wood veneer frame with flattened cushions-and waited for Gloria. He laid his cane on the next cushion over, saving the spot for his friend, thinking the sofa smelled like decades old piss. But it was either here or the bucket chairs hard enough to make his bony rear end sore after fifteen minutes or so. The room's furnishings were minimal, having just the one sofa, maybe a dozen bucket chairs in the soiled pastel of your choice, and a scattering of round tables for visitors, though more often used by the residents to play cards or checkers, or the occasional game of Scrabble. The rising sun fought to shine through unwashed windows; flecks of paint, possibly toxic, formed a line along the baseboards, leaving spots on the walls from which they came. Not exactly the Hilton, Calvin thought when he'd first laid eyes on the place. The Social Security checks he signed over, like most of the others, didn't buy much more than this. Calvin kept an eye on the hallway entry, thinking again how he should have stayed with the railroad. He'd be living off his pension now, have his own place. At last he spotted Gloria hobbling his way, wearing her purple dress with the pink slippers. She planted the aluminum walker out ahead, took two shuffle-steps to catch up with it, and repeated the process until she reached Calvin. Now in the light he could see she hadn't taken much time with her makeup today, her eyes were more tired than usual. He moved the cane as Gloria eased herself into position, letting go a moan. She placed a spotted hand on Calvin's thigh.
