Getting Old Is Murder

by Rita Lakin

  “But what about your dear friends, those ugly, stupid women you spend all your time with? How could you bear to leave them?” The fangs are really out now, and her voice is dripping acid.

  “Try me. See how fast I pack.”

  I can feel her analyzing her options. Can she kill me here and now and get away with it? Or should she promise me anything until she can find another Dumpster?

  “I don’t think so,” she says icily. “It’s your word against mine. Nobody would believe a senile old fool like you who has nothing to do but read too many murder mysteries.”

  “They’d believe my proof.” I whip out of my pocket a sheet of paper and read: “Five five five-six two four three, five five five-seven seven six three, five five five-five two two eight—need I go on?”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to be?”

  “The phone numbers in the phone booths you used here and next to the hospital to call poor, pathetic Denny every night at ten o’clock. There will be a record of his number being called when I hand it to the police to check.”

  “That does it!” she shouts, lunging for me. “I’ve taken enough of your crap!” She knocks me against the wall. I grab at her hair and pull.

  “Stop it!” I scream at the top of my lungs, holding on for dear life. “You might have gotten away with beating your mother up all these years, but you won’t get away with hurting me!” Instinctively, my eyes look toward the door.

  The twisted expression on Harriet’s face is terrifying. “Bitch! You’re too smart for your own good! Watch me!” She smashes her hand against my mouth and, although I’m in agony, I instinctively bite as hard as I can. She pulls away, shrieking.

  “Murderer! Why did you have to kill them that way? Why!?” I shout at her, now crying bitter tears. “They died in such pain!”

  Her voice hisses back at me. “Maybe I liked seeing them suffer! Maybe it was fun getting rid of you old miserable pieces of garbage! Maybe I was doing society a big favor! Wasting space, still living when you should have died long ago. Who needs you, you pathetic, brain-dead losers. With your goddamn wheelchairs and walkers. With your shriveled-up, useless bodies. Even your families have deserted you. Even they wish you were dead!”

  With what little strength I have left, I butt my head into her stomach and ram as hard as I can. With ease, she lifts me away from her and knocks me down on the floor.

  “Damn you! You’re dead, old lady, you’re finished!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.

  If ever I heard an exit line, that was it. Practically crawling, I manage to get out the front door as fast as my arthritic knees let me.

  And fall into Evvie’s arms.

  “Come back here, you bitch,” Harriet screams, rushing out the door. “I’m not through with you—”

  Harriet stops dead in her tracks as she is aware of two things at once. Everyone who was around the pool is now standing in front of the clubhouse. And her voice is reverberating over the loudspeaker: “. . . through with you . . .”

  I manage to smile, though every bone in my body is hurting. Harriet stares, thunderstruck. Hostile faces stare back at her, and then she sees Detective Langford, off to one side, grimly looking at her. And next to him is Denny Ryan.

  “Hey, Harriet,” I say.

  Harriet whips around to glare at me.

  “I’m sure glad Hy finally taught me how to use the PA system.”

  50

  The New Old

  (Not an Oxymoron)

  Picture this. Time seems to be standing still. Nobody is moving.

  I am reminded of a game we used to play when I was a child, called Statues. (Do kids still play that?) The leader would yell “Freeze!” and everyone would stop immediately, caught in some dramatic pose or another. The leader would turn around and there we’d be, statues frozen in time. Who would move first?

  Today it will be Evvie.

  She turns toward Langford, terribly upset. “Why didn’t you go in to help my sister! Harriet could have killed her!”

  “No,” I interject. “He was right not to. You know I had to go all the way.”

  “You did a hell of a job,” Langford says to me, slowly starting to walk forward, his eyes never leaving Harriet.

  And Harriet’s eyes never leave him.

  “It was too dangerous. It was crazy to try it!” Evvie says.

  “But it was the only way, dear Evvie.”

  “With a lot of help from my acting lessons,” she adds, finally relaxing, wanting her due.

  “You bet,” I say, kissing her cheek.

  “Do you need a doctor, Gladdy?” Langford asks me as he continues his move toward Harriet.

  “I’m fine, really,” say I, the stoic, but boy, will I be black and blue tomorrow morning.

  “But did you have to call this place a dump?” Ida whispers.

  “Yeah,” says Sophie, “and couldn’t you put in a nice word for us?”

  The crowd parts for Langford as if they are the Red Sea, and he, our Moses. Everyone watches him intently.

  “I want a lawyer,” Harriet says.

  “Why do they always say that?” Bella wants to know.

  “Harriet Feder,” Langford says, “you are under arrest for the murders of Selma Beller, Francine Charles, Greta Kronk, and Esther Feder . . .”

  There is much murmuring and sighing at these names. Sophie is practically jumping up and down from the drama of it all.

  Bella says, “Again like in the movies.”

  Sophie pokes her. “This is better than the movies. Come on, let’s move closer.”

  Ida, queen of grudges, is enjoying the sight of payback at last. She announces, “I knew it was her all along.”

  The other three give her a dirty look.

  As Langford continues to recite the Miranda warning, the three girls, holding hands and weapons, move sideways and forward for a better angle. “I hope he pulls out his gun,” Bella says, shivering with anticipation.

  “Nazi!”

  Everyone looks around.

  And there is Enya, eyes wild, rushing toward Harriet, hands fashioned into claws. “Nazi!” she is moaning and sobbing. “My shayner kindlach, my Jacov . . . They put my beautiful babies to die. Put them out of their misery, they said, pushing them into the ovens. The world would be better off without them, they said. Oh, Gott im Himmel! God, where was God?? Why didn’t God stop them! Why didn’t God stop you!” The clawed hands stretch to Harriet’s face as if to scratch and tear at it. “You are one of them! Nazi!”

  But the hands go limp, trembling, impotent. Harriet looks down on her, pitiless. Enya, finding a last bit of strength somehow, spits in her face.

  With that, she runs off sobbing.

  Silence. Everyone is transfixed by what has just happened. Then someone calls out. “Yes, Nazi!” And a chorus of people echo the vile word, reaching for one another for comfort.

  “My God!” Ida says. “She never cried. Never! Not in fifty years!”

  Harriet takes a few steps back, wiping at her face, as the group rage builds.

  And suddenly there’s Tessie pushing past Langford, through the crowd to Harriet, who cringes at the sight of her. Tessie, all two hundred fifty pounds of her, lifts her arm, opens her hand, and smacks Harriet’s face with a sound as loud as a gunshot.

  “This is for my Selma!” she cries.

  The crowd, now caught up in the hysteria, goes wild, moving erratically, yelling and calling her names. Harriet, forgetting caution, begins to run across the lawn away from them. I suddenly find myself thinking of a famous story of long ago, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” about a public stoning. Is it turning into that?

  “Stop!” Langford shouts at the crowd. Frustrated, because he can’t push through the mass of elderly folks, he is stuck.

  Utter chaos. “Somebody do something!” A voice in the crowd yells. “Don’t let her get away!”

  The crowd is now speeding up in Harriet’s direction.

  “And they’re of
f!” Sol Spankowitz shouts, elbowing Irving as if they were at the starting gate at their beloved Hialeah.

  The three Gladiators go rigid in shock as Harriet heads right for where they are standing.

  Ida punches Sophie. “Spread out! Block her! Move!”

  “A klog iz mi!” Sophie cries. “And me in my flip-flops!”

  Puffing away on short, stubby legs, disregarding osteoporosis and every other ailment, the girls spread out and take blockade positions. With weapons aloft, they prepare to attack. Sophie wields her toilet plunger. Bella, her fly swatter. Ida, her rolling pin. Ida, in her usual choler, shouts, “So we’re ugly and stupid, are we, you . . . you ugly, revolting . . .”

  But they are no match for Harriet, who lifts hundred-pound weights at the gym. She plows through them, knocking them away as if they were bowling pins. Bella is down, still gripping her swatter. The other “weapons” go flying, but amazingly Sophie and Ida manage to cling to Harriet like a couple of swamp leeches. Harriet keeps running, unable to shake them, dragging them behind her as Sophie hangs on to the tail of her blouse and Ida clutches the belt of her pants suit.

  Langford is trying to find an opening, but by this time the Red Sea has closed and he is falling farther behind. “Stop! Everyone stop!” he calls. “Let me through!”

  Exhausted, Sophie can no longer hold on, and she falls by the wayside, plopping down like a rag doll. Evvie reaches her and, without breaking stride, gets her to her feet and pulls her along.

  The crowd of seniors, giving it their all, is still trying to catch up, but at their ages, and physical conditions, and those old legs—not to mention the metal walkers—they don’t stand a chance.

  Ida, the bulldog, is still clutching the back of the belt of Harriet’s pants suit. Her feet are being dragged along, her body almost scraping the lawn, as Harriet tries to shake her off. But she’s gamely hanging on, working like an emergency brake and slowing Harriet down a little.

  I look for Langford, but he’s now on the ground under Tessie, who accidentally tripped over him, God help him.

  Sol, still at the track, announces, “Harriet, carrying a one-hundred-ten-pound handicap, is four lengths ahead. Langford is blocked at the far turn. The rest of the pack is losing ground. What a race for a trifecta!” Sol is jumping up and down in excitement. “Whadda ya know—Harriet’s now passing the long shot, Denny, who is the only one not running after her!”

  That’s not quite accurate. Denny and I are the only ones standing still. Evvie left me long ago to join the fray. My body hurts too much to move. But the muscles of my mouth still work. “Denny!” I shout. “Go get her!”

  Denny, who has been watching it all, befuddled, reacts to the sound of my voice.

  “It’s all up to you now!”

  His slow mind is processing what I am telling him.

  “After all she did to you, don’t let her get away!”

  Denny may not be swift of mind, but he sure is swift of foot. Like a greyhound after the rabbit, he takes off after Harriet, who is now right in front of him, still lumbered with the stubborn Ida.

  And just in time. Ida has finally lost her grip and has tumbled down next to the duck pond. “Shit!” she cries out in disgust, as she realizes what she’s landed in. Poor Ida. The ducks quack at her, having had the last laugh.

  Denny is breathing down Harriet’s neck. She sees him coming and panics. She turns quickly trying to avoid him, but in her confusion she’s now running back toward the crowd. Seeing her mistake, she tries to turn again, but Denny is on her. He grabs her by the arm and with the other hand hammerlocks her around the neck, holding fast. The two of them stand there, panting.

  Sol catches up to them and starts gesturing with his fists. Now Hy is there, joining Sol, dancing up and down, jabbing along with him. “Hit her. Knock the broad out!”

  “Don’t lose her!” Irving yells, and he puffs up to them, his hands punching air.

  Denny studies the three excited, jabbing men. Harriet is about to break loose.

  “You’re not my mama!” he yells, and with a neat left uppercut, he knocks Harriet out cold.

  Sol grabs Denny’s arm and pulls it up high. “The winner and new ‘champeen,’ Denny Ryan!”

  The crowd cheers.

  The running stops.

  The kvetching begins. “I lost my glasses.” “I need my nitroglycerin.” “My bathing suit is ruined.” “Does somebody have a seltzer? I have such a thirst.”

  My girls and Evvie come back to where I’m leaning. They are panting and disheveled. Sophie’s lost both of her pool sandals. Ida’s French twist has come undone. I won’t even describe her clothes. Bella is hyperventilating. I hug them all. “I told you to bring weapons. That’s all you could come up with?”

  Bella holds up her fly swatter proudly. “There’s a lot of flies who wouldn’t agree with you.”

  “You were brave and wonderful and I love you all.” We all hug and kiss again.

  I’m surrounded by all the well-wishers congratulating me. I thank them profusely for their gallantry. And boy, am I glad no one dropped dead of a heart attack from all that exertion!

  “Best entertainment we ever had at the clubhouse,” says Mrs. Nettie Fein from Phase Three, tugging at her support hose that came flopping down in the chase.

  Yolanda leads Millie to me. They are both giggling. With a terrible Spanish accent Millie says, “Basura, malo, hasta la vista, bueno.”

  “What, in the name of heaven,” Evvie asks, “does that mean?”

  Yolanda answers in equally bad English. “I teach Millie, she teach me. Means good riddance, bad rubbish.”

  Leo, the Sleaze, is smiling. “Gotta hand it to ya, Glad. You took a fixer-upper and turned it into a fast seller!”

  “Good show!” chorus the Canadians.

  My heart swells with pride that word of mouth brought out nearly fifty “extras” from the other five phases, who turned up to give me moral support and bear witness.

  As the accolades keep coming, I glance toward the lawn and watch someone familiar reach down to help Langford up. Morrie balefully looks up into his father’s eyes. “You look like hell, boy,” I hear Jack Langford saying as he grins. “Wait ’til the guys at the station hear about this. Done in by a bunch of old fogies!”

  “Dad!” Morrie says, horrified. “You wouldn’t!”

  Jack sees me looking. He waves at me and I wave back.

  We all watch Detective Morgan Langford (who is not only disheveled, but limping) take the handcuffed, and still groggy, Harriet away.

  “I hope she gets the chair,” Hy says cheerfully.

  “God forbid,” Ida retorts. “Life in prison without parole. I wanna see how she likes it when she gets old!”

  “Like you’re gonna be around to find out?” Evvie asks, sarcastically.

  I put my arms around Hy and hug him. “No, but Hy will be here. He can tell us.”

  We all have a great big laugh at that. And it feels wonderful to laugh again.

  Do I feel good. Considering how bad I hurt. At last the forgotten ones have had their day. We senior citizens fought back. We reserve our right to live.

  We are the new old.

  51

  All’s Well . . .

  What a celebration we had last night! All six phases attended. The Manischevitz Malaga kept flowing, the klezmer band kept playing, the deli platters never ran out. I even sneaked in a dance with Jack and the girls never saw us. Which made me face the fact that I haven’t gotten around to telling them about him. And wait until Evvie hears. . . . Well, they’re going to find out today, heaven help me.

  It’s ten A.M. and no sign of the troops yet. Probably hungover like everyone else and slept late. Oops, I spoke too soon. Four bleary-eyed faces peer in at me through the open louvers.

  “Coffee,” a desperate Evvie begs.

  “Bagels, or I’ll perish,” adds Sophie.

  “With a schmear,” continues Bella.

  Ida, as usual, has to be dif
ferent. “I could go for some scrambled with a little lox. And maybe a slice of Bermuda onion.”

  “Come on in, the kitchen is open. The cook is up.”

  In they march. “I’m so tired I could sleep for a month,” Sophie announces cheerfully.

  “But wasn’t it wonderful?” Bella says, sighing. “A day and a night to remember.”

  Ida says, “My favorite moment was when Denny floored Harriet.”

  “Mine was seeing you on the grass with the ducks.” Sophie chuckles at the memory.

  Ida scowls. “You would. My best pool lounging outfit is ruined!”

  “Did you see that Enya came to the party?” I comment. “She was actually talking to people.”

  “And even smiling,” comments Sophie.

  “So out of killing came a mitzvah. Enya joined the living again.” Evvie’s eyes tear up.

  “And Denny,” I say, and this time it’s my eyes tearing. “Just sitting there shyly as everyone came up and said how glad they were that he came out all right.”

  “Wasn’t it nice of the Haddassah women in Phase Four to clean up Denny’s apartment for him?” Bella says happily.

  Ida comments, “I hope they got rid of that battle-ax’s portrait. Right smack into the Dumpster!”

  “You know what Tessie told me?” Sophie says. “She’s thinking of moving. After knowing what really happened to Selma, she says she can’t bear living here next door to her apartment anymore.”

  “And speaking of moving,” Evvie says proudly, “I cornered the Sleaze and told him we’re on to him. Don’t be surprised if there’s a ‘for sale’ sign on his place soon.”

  “Yeah, that was some party,” Sophie says contentedly. “Even the Canadians had fun after a few belts of the Manischevitz.”

  “But,” says Ida, “what I really want to know is who gets Esther’s four hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Good question.” Evvie turns to me. “Glad, maybe you can ask Langford.”

  “Poor Morrie,” I say, laughing. “We totally demoralized him.”

  “Do we get a reward for catching Harriet?” Bella asks eagerly. “Maybe they’ll give us the money.”