He harrumphs. “Are you so blind to what is going on?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You all pay lip service to your elderly parents and grandparents. You talk about how much they mean to you and how deep your friendships are and how valuable their contributions. But the truth is that you resent them. Not because they take up your time — that too — but because seeing them age makes you so fucking resentful. It’s like you’re looking into a mirror fifty years into the future.”
“You’re rambling.”
“I’ve spent decades trying to shield the residents from family members who take out their resentment in sometimes the most tiny, passive-aggressive ways — not paying bills, poking fun at their elders’ habits, bringing unnecessary gravity and drama to the otherwise small human indignities of aging. When the chance came along to let them record their histories, I was on the fence. On one hand, I thought, the technology would create some common ground between generations; maybe it would let your generation see and hear their generation as your peers, not some dried up, gray-haired, bed-shitting versions of yourselves. But I also knew that I was succumbing to the illusion of immortality. We’d keep their stories alive, live in the past, not embrace the beauty of aging. But then I succumbed, and for my own sick, selfish reasons.”
“Money?”
He drops the chalice into the packing box.
“Trust me, you’re not interested.”
“Trust me that I am.”
He sighs. “Sex.”
“Tell me that you didn’t…”
“Of course I didn’t have sex with any residents. How dare you. If you really want to know: I fell for one of the organizers of the Human Memory Crusade. Then I became vulnerable to the argument that we adopt the new technology.”
He seems content to leave it at that.
Before I realize I’ve thought it, I utter a name. “Chuck.”
His pupils widen.
“Chuck Taylor?” I say. “The military investor? You had sex with him?”
I’d sensed Chuck is gay. Pauline told me Chuck found me cute. Then Chuck’s father had reinforced my suspicions by ranting about how his son didn’t go for women.
“Not sex,” he says, quietly. “I mispoke. I meant seduction.”
I blink. I don’t understand. He picks that up.
“We kissed a few times. We connected. There was an implicit promise of something more, something real.”
“So Chuck seduced you, took advantage of you?”
“I make my own decisions.”
“Was Chuck the one who pushed the whole thing? Was he the first contact?”
“He worked with legitimate people. Very legitimate. I would never allow anything to happen to anyone who lived here.”
“You’re not answering my question. Was it Chuck who first proposed the idea of the Human Memory Crusade?”
“I thought you knew all about this.”
“I did not.”
“Then I can’t compromise the privacy of my residents.”
“What do you mean? One of your residents suggested adopting the Human Memory Crusade?”
He swallows hard.
“Who?”
“Mr. Idle…”
The revelation hits me hard.
“My grandmother?”
He breathes deeply.
“Lane came to me just over a year ago. She’d heard about this technology from her neurologist. She proposed it to me as a way to share stories from the past. She rallied other residents. She’s very charismatic that way, and passionate. She’s slowing now, but she got the momentum going, and then Chuck came in and used his wiles to convince me to try it.”
I want to say: Why would my grandmother do such a thing? But I know the answer. She needed someone to talk to — or something.
“Who brought the computers? What company, or individual?” I ask.
“Chuck and his business partners. They showed me documentation that they were working with retirement communities across the country. It was all very legitimate.”
“But it was a trap. It ate their brains. Help me expose this and get to the bottom of it.”
He shakes his head. “I’m leaving.”
“You spent your life protecting your residents and now you’re abandoning them?”
“It’s over, Mr. Idle.”
I’m too incredulous to speak but my sigh betrays my emotion.
“Do I care that their memories faded a little faster?” he says. “Do I care that they pee in their beds? Does the world get angry at an infant for doing that? No, we find it adorable. Why? Because babies are filled with potential, not frailty. Let them lose their memories. Let them die in peace and celebration — the way they came into the world. Let people live and die in peace, Mr. Idle.”
I shake my head and laugh. “I can’t believe I’m not recording this.”
“Maybe you agree with me.”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Your grandmother is in love. Do you know that she had to hide it her whole life?”
“These issues are unrelated.”
“No. No. No. You and your world of chroniclers are obsessed with living in either the past, or the future. You are rehashing what happened or trying to predict what will. But the people who live here — this is their last moment to Just Be. They are living right now, farting and graying and shuffling and being in love. Stop making them fodder for your stories.”
I’ve had enough. He’s a man with a broken philosophy and honor code, defeated and wrapping compact discs in tissue paper and stacking them in a packing box.
“Why do you hate me, Vince?”
“Because you can’t stand the idea of getting old.”
I walk to Grandma’s room. She’s not there. I find her in the recreation center, which has been reopened since the sprinklers destroyed the Crusade computers.
Grandma sits at a round table with Harry, Betty Lou, and Midnight Sammy. On the table is a Scrabble board. Sammy pulls letters from his tray and plunks them on the board.
He has spelled: “M-I-S-R-B-L-E”
“Miserable,” he says. “Seven-letter-word.”
“Isn’t it missing an ‘e’?” Harry asks.
“I’ll allow it,” Betty Lou says, and then looks at me. “He’ll quit if he doesn’t get his way.”
“I may quit anyway,” Sammy says.
I pull up a chair.
“Can I play?”
Betty Lou raises an eyebrow. What am I up to?
“Everyone, I’m sure you’ve met my grandson,” Lane says.
“We’ve met him.”
“Lane, can I play Scrabble with you?”
“I love Scrabble. I used to play all the time. I’ve probably told you before, but if you get a ‘U’ you should save it in case you get the ‘Q.’ There are a few words that start with ‘Q’ that don’t require a ‘U,’ but I can’t recall them right now, and I’m not sure that they were ever allowed under the rules.”
Harry is smiling.
He takes his weathered hand — sturdy fingers encased in wrinkled skin — and puts it on top of Grandma’s and gives her a pat. On Harry’s right ring finger is a gold band.
Grandma smiles.
“May I ask a question?” I ask.
“I don’t know if your grandmother is in the mood for anything too serious,” Harry says gently. Around his neck I notice a thin silver chain. On the end of it is the number 45 and an American flag. His Army unit.
I look at Betty Lou.
“My question is whether I have to use vowels, or can I play by the same rules as Midnight Sammy?”
“Anyone not using Metamucil still has to use vowels,” she says.
“There’s a joke in there somewhere about Bowels and Vowels,” I respond.
Midnight Sammy laughs.
An hour later, we’ve played two games, and I can hear around me the sound of shuffling and chatter, the almost imperceptible sound of life’s twilight. I feel joy.