by Jan Carson
Bill had instantly cancelled the afternoon’s meeting of the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs to join Malcolm, somewhat precariously, at the top of a second borrowed stepladder. Roger Heinz, upon searching through his stash of army treasures, located a still-working megaphone and spent the weekend shouting earthquake-inducing encouragements from a deckchair on the opposite side of the street. Irene, who was crazy in the head and clearly incapable of understanding the raison d’être behind the subterfuge, had taken photos for the purpose of showing Cunningham Holt later. The remaining cul-de-sac ladies quit their usual weekend routine of primping, gossiping and Dynasty-watching to help out. Gathered in Emily Fox’s living room, they’d spent the entire Saturday weaving imaginary ropes from the long-preserved remnants of their teenage ponytails and fixing endless cups of instant coffee, most of which were poured, still steaming, into the flowerbeds of Chalet 6, for their coffee tasted like shit roasted.
When complete, Cunningham Holt had descended from his RV for a preliminary inspection of his, now secure, house.
‘Much appreciated folks,’ he’d muttered as Malcolm led him by the elbow round the ramparts of Chalet 6 describing each freshly-appointed imaginary fixture in grand detail. ‘Much appreciated indeed.’
Cunningham Holt had been clearly moved by the whole duplicitous enterprise, for one of his marble eyes had slipped loose and rolled to rest under a rhododendron bush.
‘So you’ll be moving into the chalet now it’s not going under?’ Roger Heinz had asked, already anticipating manifold megaphone opportunities for yelling at the removal men.
‘No rush,’ Cunningham Holt had answered, and three weeks later was still languishing in his cramped RV whilst Chalet 6 crouched on his doorstep, a veritable palace in comparison.)
Cunningham Holt was odd as Christmas, and kind as Christ himself. Despite the fact that Malcolm Orange had not yet arrived at his twelfth birthday, he kept a treasure drawer stacked with cigarettes, chewing tobacco and unopened cans of Coors Light, just waiting on the boy’s appetite.
‘Any time you fancy a long cold one, son, just help yourself,’ he offered each time Malcolm came to visit.
‘I’m only eleven,’ Malcolm would reply. ‘I’m not supposed to drink or smoke or go out by myself after nine o’clock.’
‘Well, boys will be boys and if the notion ever takes you, just help yourself.’
‘Maybe after my birthday I might start smoking. I’ll let you know.’
Malcolm Orange had no notion of drinking or indulging in sexual intercourse for the next twenty-five years at least. He hoped, by his fortieth birthday, to have developed some sort of an appetite for the manly arts which seemed a prerequisite of adult life. At the age of eleven, Malcolm Orange found sex, cigarettes and alcoholic intoxication faintly repulsive, for they’d formed the shady outline of his father’s existence. However, the fact that Cunningham Holt would encourage him in all manner of licentious adult behavior held an unholy appeal all of its own.
Besides the beer, the cigarettes and the often hinted at possibility of pornographic magazines, Cunningham Holt was careful to keep his young friend well-oiled financially. Over the last few months Malcolm had managed to save almost enough for his first ever shop-bought bicycle, on the accumulated change he’d been urged to keep each time Cunningham sent him to the store. Though Malcolm felt faintly guilty about taking advantage of a man who was blind, lonely and almost as old as the Constitution, the thought of choosing his very own bicycle kept him quietly complicit as he stashed his earnings in a tube sock beneath the bedroom dresser.
As his friendship with the old man developed he found himself more popular, more confident and less lonely than ever. Ever the scientist, Malcolm Orange plotted a graph to record and research this growing sense of well-being. Cunningham Holt was the constant running through all his happy days.
Malcolm had endless amounts of respect for Cunningham Holt. More than Sorry, his mother and all the cul-de-sac crew combined, he trusted Cunningham with the horrible truth.
‘I’m disappearing, Cunningham,’ he confessed from the head of the kitchen table. ‘It gets worse every day.’
‘What do you mean you’re disappearing?’ Cunningham asked, ‘Sounds to me like you’re right here in your mother’s kitchen, just like usual.’
‘I’m not leaving! I’m disappearing. There’s holes all over me and they’re getting bigger every day.’
And, because Cunningham Holt had seen more than his fair share of miracles in reverse he did not, even for the shortest second, doubt his young friend. He placed a limp, comforting hand on Malcolm’s shoulder – hoping to avoid the worst of the holes – and nodded sympathetically.
‘Don’t panic, son,’ he whispered stoically. ‘I’ve no doubt you’re disappearing. In my experience God’s forever taking things away for no good reason. It don’t surprise me one little bit to hear he’s after your own flesh and blood now. Try to keep calm Malcolm. At least you’re not sinking.’
‘He’s not disappearing,’ Sorry rudely interrupted. ‘He’s just freaking out because his dad’s left and his mom’s crazy and he’s stuck in this holding pen for crinklies.’
Malcolm Orange, suddenly seized by a violent, sense-defying hatred, took the first of many swings at Soren James Blue’s head. Anticipating his fist, she dodged behind the kitchen door so his balled hand met several inches of unrelenting wood with a bone-crunching thud. ‘Shit,’ he squealed, nursing the bruised fist in the palm of his hand. It was the first time he’d ever used profanity in front of Cunningham Holt. While the old man swore like a star fighter pilot, Malcolm still felt awkward cursing in front of the elderly.
He apologized profusely all the while glaring in Sorry’s direction, visually willing her to follow suit. Soren James Blue held her tongue. Her face fell into a malevolent smirk as she raised both middle fingers towards the ceiling fan and winked impishly in Malcolm’s general direction.
Malcolm struggled to keep his fists sheathed. An odd tension had surfaced at the back of his throat, like two elastic bands fit to pinch and twisting. Whilst he felt the need to bend Sorry’s fingers backwards until they screamed and snapped like splintered popsicle sticks, he could not help but admire the way her face folded when she was angry. When angry, Sorry’s face was cute as an indoor turtle. In the jaundiced light from the open fridge she appeared a little furry round the edges. Her ears, her forehead and the outermost peaks of her paper-pale elbows smudged an indefinite, tissuey blonde against the light. Malcolm suspected she felt like unpeeled peaches. He wanted to touch her to confirm his suspicions. He didn’t. Though innocent in the ways of women, he knew better than to touch a girl uninvited.
‘Damn you, woman,’ Malcolm whispered under his breath. ‘You’ll be the death of me.’ (It was a phrase he’d learnt from his father, and, without fully understanding, often utilized to great melodramatic effect when his mother retreated into one of her Spanish moods.)
Soren James Blue, true to character, pretended not to hear. She was prone to inopportune outbreaks of deafness and localized hysterics. (It would take a further fifteen years of failed relationships and emotional fumblings before Malcolm Orange allowed himself to admit that these maladies were not peculiar to Sorry, but, rather, endemic to the whole female race.)
A small war was about to break out in full view of the dining room table. Seventy-odd years of blindness had developed in Cunningham Holt a preternaturally perceptive disposition. Though he remained fuzzy on the specifics, he could smell the tension reverberating round the Orange kitchen. He crossed his knotty ankles complicitly, leaned back in his chair and, utilizing all his gathered wisdom, attempted to diffuse the situation.
‘Seems to me,’ he said, arranging the eight remaining strands of snow-white hair across the dome of his head, ‘that the problem’s not going to sort itself in the next two hours and we could all do with a change of scene. Malcolm, do you think you can keep from disappearing before lunch time?’
> ‘Sure,’ Malcolm muttered, somewhat defeated. He felt betrayed. On normal days, in normal circumstances, Cunningham Holt was usually keen to join his cause.
‘Young lady, do you think you can keep your tongue under control for the next few hours?’
‘Yeah,’ Sorry mumbled, fixing her face into the preschool pout Malcolm would soon come to recognize as her favorite expression.
‘Well, in that case,’ announced Cunningham Holt, rising from his foldable chair like a papal blessing, ‘I suggest we go to the People’s Committee as usual and discuss Malcolm’s little problem afterwards.’
Malcolm and Sorry reluctantly agreed. Mr Fluff and Ross voiced no opinion either way. Cunningham Holt, having long since memorized the route from one end of the cul-de-sac to the other, led the charge at funereal pace.
The People’s Committee for Remembering Songs met in Bill and Irene’s living room two to three times a week. Though well-used to the young Oranges, several members were reluctant to welcome Soren James Blue. In their defense, Sorry did little to ingratiate herself, pronouncing the People’s Committee ‘a dumbass waste of time’; the ladies’ coffee comparable to ‘ground mud’; and Bill and Irene’s living room ‘absolutely stinking of potpourri’. When it transpired that she was bloodline related to the Director, who had only that week further reduced the budget for the Annual Thanksgiving Turkey and Tipples Tea Dance, there were calls for a lynching. Roger Heinz immediately fell back on combat experience and pinned her to the living room sofa with a fishing rod. Employing all manner of elderly spit and anger he accused her of being ‘a skinny little spy for those Nazi bastards in the Center’. Thereafter, encouraged by Irene (who was no longer capable of differentiating between good sense and fire starting), he proposed to tie Sorry to the patio furniture with her own hair and interrogate her himself, ‘for days or weeks, or as long as it takes to break her.’
It was only after Cunningham Holt had taken certain key members of the People’s Committee into Bill and Irene’s kitchen dinette, explaining in hushed tones how important it was for ‘our Malcolm’ to make friends of his own age – albeit skinny, little spy friends – that Sorry’s presence was tolerated at the singing circle.
‘Dammit,’ muttered Roger Heinz, lifting his shirt to reveal an impressive array of BB guns and butter knives mounted on a tool belt. ‘I’m still packing. I don’t trust that little bitch as far as I could throw her.’
At around eleven o’clock, the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs laid down their coffee mugs, shuffled their chairs into a shape roughly resembling a circle, and commenced their meeting. In the corner, by the minibar, Soren James Blue sat on both hands to keep herself anchored to the carpet and fought the twitching desire to bolt. Mr Fluff dozed furiously at her feet, emitting, as she slept, the low-level hum of a tropical fish tank.
The People’s Committee for Remembering Songs grumbled thickly towards a beginning. Bill commenced proceedings with a reading of the previous meeting’s minutes. Roger Heinz seconded the acceptance of the minutes and, though a third confirming voice was not, and never had been, required, Irene rose to announce that she ‘thirded the acceptance of last week’s minutes, although the part about the coffee being burnt was an out-and-out lie.’ Objections were duly noted and the singing commenced.
Malcolm Orange, as a latecomer to the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs, had found himself, somewhat against his better judgment, in charge of Elton John.
It was a big responsibility. Elton John sang a lot of songs and Malcolm wasn’t even a proper resident. (The People’s Committee for Remembering Songs was only open to actual residents and their lovers. However, Malcolm was both darling of the cul-de-sac and bearer of various snacks stolen, via his mother, from the Center’s massive kitchen, so the residents had permitted him membership on a trial basis.) He was doing his level-headed best with his assignment but to the untrained, eleven-year-old ear most of Elton John’s songs sounded exactly like most of his other songs. ‘Daniel’, for example, was proving particularly tricky to nail for, even after two dozen listens, it remained vaguely reminiscent of approximately thirty-five other Elton John songs.
Malcolm Orange practiced Elton John in the kitchen whilst preparing his daily meals. He spent a lot of time in the chalet’s kitchen, microwaving TV dinners, heating Ross’s bottles and blending household objects in the name of Scientific Investigative Research. With the blender blending and the kettle singing, the microwave pinging and the extraction fan extracting, it was hard to tell if he was hitting a single note right, but he kept practicing regardless. Malcolm Orange took his responsibilities very seriously.
Bill had lately donated a small battery-operated boom box to the cause. ‘I found it at the Goodwill, son,’ he’d announced, upon arriving at the door of Chalet 13 with the boom box, an industrial-sized box of Duracells and seven hand-recorded Elton John cassettes. ‘You’ll have to stick the play button down with a bit of Scotch tape but it only cost two bucks.’ Moved to almost-tears, for it was the best gift he had ever been given and Bill wasn’t even blood kin, Malcolm Orange shook the older man’s hand and promised on his life, his father’s life and the life of his small brother – snoring thickly in the magazine rack at his feet – to practice Elton John every day with religious attention to pitch, tone and such details as the peculiar, nasal intonations of ‘Tiny Dancer’.
The People’s Committee for Remembering Songs met every Monday, Thursday and alternate Saturday, at 11:30am. Every resident of the cul-de-sac, with the exception of Malcolm’s mother and Simeon Klein in Chalet 8, who was deaf in both ears and chronically incapable of hearing, repeating, or even recalling any music pre-1975, was an automatic member of the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs. All new residents were approached with a platter of oatmeal cookies, warmly invited and if appearing disinterested unceremoniously informed that non-participation was considered a broad highway to social exclusion. In preparation for the onslaught of elderly visitors, Bill, often aided by Malcolm, took the liberty of shoving their everyday furniture into the spare bedroom and filling the room with two dozen stackable chairs, ‘permanently borrowed’, one chair at a time, from the chair shed behind the Center.
Lately Malcolm Orange had been banned from bringing snacks. ‘Listen son,’ Mr Grubbs had said, somewhat unkindly, ‘dentures are awkward enough, but folks just don’t sing right with a mouthful of cookies. We appreciate the gesture, but no more snacks please.’
‘Can I still be in charge of Elton John?’ Malcolm had asked, humming a few bars of ‘Crocodile Rock’ just to convince Mr Grubbs.
‘If you think you can manage. Elton John is a big responsibility and you’re not even an actual resident. Just say the word and you can do Sting instead. There’s no shame in Sting.’
Malcolm Orange had said nothing and stuck resolutely with Elton John. Mr Grubbs knew full well that no one, save the actually senile, wanted to do Sting. Two weeks previously the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs had debated omitting Sting from the project altogether. Unfortunately, Sting had stayed put. In a project as epic and far-reaching as the People’s Committee, there was no room for discrimination or personal taste.
Nate Grubbs was the self-appointed Captain of the People’s Committee. Popular opinion favored Bill, for the idea had originally been his, or Cunningham Holt who had debated long and hard with both the Director and the Board to have the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs elevated to the status of an official Retirement Village Organization or Club.
(The official seal of approval came with access to the Retirement Village’s thermos flasks and coffee supplies, an invite to the annual Organizations and Clubs Awards Ceremony and, most importantly, a small stipend, which the People’s Committee used to keep their members well-supplied in cassette tapes for the purpose of making illegal copies of the Multnomah County Library’s compact disk collection.)
Nate Grubbs had been a resident for almost seven years and kept a shotg
un in his wardrobe. Having long since forgotten whether the shotgun was loaded or not, just to be on the safe side Mr Grubbs had stopped opening his wardrobe door in 1989. Thereafter he had lost a whole rack of perfectly good sweaters and shoes but, as he liked to tell the other residents, ‘I still got my arms. There’s not a pullover on God’s green earth worth losing your arms for.’
A shotgun (loaded or otherwise) opened doors on the cul-de-sac and thus Nate Grubbs had found himself Captain of the People’s Committee for Remembering Songs. Responsibilities were small compared to other groups previously captained by Mr Grubbs: the Amateur Gardener’s Association, a handful of male voice choirs and an ill-fated over-seventies five-a-side team.
Mr Grubbs was placed in charge of Bob Dylan, all by himself and with no assistance. He’d specifically requested this.
‘Bobby sings twice as fast as ordinary folks,’ Cunningham Holt had reminded him. ‘That’s twice as many words to remember in each song and there’s a hell of a lot of songs to start with. Are you sure we shouldn’t split Dylan up?’ Nate Grubbs remained resolute. ‘I’m doing Dylan,’ he’d said, and threatened all those who objected with the possibility of a shotgun showdown. Eventually everyone, even Cunningham Holt, who recognized a suicide mission when he heard one, had backed down. ‘It’s your funeral, Nate,’ he’d stated boldly.
Nate Grubbs could not be dissuaded. He was a stubborn man with a particularly furious way of entering and leaving a room. It was almost fifty-five years since he’d last been convinced to back down, and that particular incident had involved heavy artillery, broken bones and a handful of irate German soldiers. (It would have taken an organization bigger, louder and more viciously armed to convince Nate Grubbs to surrender Dylan. Thankfully they’d managed to talk him out of doing Bowie too.)
