by Joseph Glenn
Meanwhile, the production crew silently moved about the table capturing the relevant and trivial moments, the impassioned dialogue, the moment Meredith spit out a grizzly piece of sausage into her napkin.
“I’m pleased you found so much to your liking,” Alice said of the full meal on Meredith’s tray. The woman had selected a banana and a bottle of water for her meal.
Meredith studied this woman to her right as best she could, stealing glances at her as often as she could without staring. She was casually, but appropriately, dressed. She had a healthy vibrancy and an intensity that hinted at clean living. Only after peering at her several times could Meredith distill with any degree of certainty that the woman was wearing any makeup; it was so carefully and judiciously employed she could not help but be impressed with her skill in applying it.
“And that you’ve got such an appetite at this hour,” Rochelle, on her other side, added. “Me, I can’t get interested in food ‘til at least ten in the morning.” Meredith guessed she was the more outspoken of the two women. Her harsh, beak-like face with dark, dramatic eyebrows gave her an antagonistic look.
The comment prompted what to Meredith seemed an obvious question: “Then why do you get up for the earliest breakfast?”
Rochelle studied her for a moment, almost as if she were considering whether the question was on the level. “Meredith, honey,” she explained after a moment of consideration, “we don’t choose our meal times. I’ve been stuck in this awful five-thirty slot for eleven years. Consequently, I skip breakfast most days.” Meredith might have offered a word of concern, but Rochelle continued: “Its reputation as the most important meal is, I think, overrated. For me, anyway. It’s funny, I used to care about meals and nutrition, about what I ate and when. Age, or maybe the park, helps you let go of things.” Rochelle’s face, less artfully made up than Alice’s, with a heavy foundation masking who knew how many years of apathy, seemed consistent with the loss of concern for healthy living implicit in her pronouncement.
Meredith assumed a sympathetic expression, but was uncertain how to proceed. She questioned the sense of pursuing the woman’s grievance. She opted to introduce a new topic. Gesturing to the walls, she said, “I don’t get the sense there’s been much in the way of renovation since I visited fifteen years ago.” She briefly explained her friendship with Tyler, still passing him off as a former work associate, and her previous visit when he had first moved to the park.
The women on either side of her were sufficiently occupied with their meals, or disinterested in her opinion, that they sought no further information than the random observations and memories Meredith offered.
“Going back to your comment about the dismal lack of updating,” Phil piped up, interjecting his opinion from the opposite side of the table, “I don’t know that they’ve ever done anything to this cafeteria. Nothin’ gets updated or replaced until it’s broken.”
“And then not right away,” Rochelle said. Now her demeanor, her delivery, took on a more aggressive tone. It was as if Phil’s comment had awakened something in her. “When something goes out—anything, a tennis court net, a street lamp, a television, you name it—the first question isn’t ‘how much will it cost to replace?” but, ‘can we live without it?’”
“But it’s more egregious than that,” Phil said. “I roomed with four guys last winter. I slept on the floor. Five men in a one-bedroom apartment. “Why? Because there was no heat in my unit.”
“There’s no generator or back-up electricity here at the park—not even for the hospital!” Rochelle exclaimed.
“The infirmary,” Phil reminded her. “That’s what they call it,” he added as an aside, apparently for Meredith’s benefit. “I think it’s supposed to sound less scary.”
“Fallow Park is not the place it used to be,” Alice agreed. She seemed to say this with a reluctance, almost as though she regretted betraying the park.
“And it was never all that,” Rochelle cut in.
“But you might as well shout at the wind,” Alice observed. She gingerly folded her paper napkin as she said this. After delicately placing it over the remaining corners of her toast, she gave her tray a gentle push, as though making a public declaration that she was finished.
“It’s frustrating because many of us came here voluntarily.” This statement came from Jeffrey, a thirty-five-ish man sitting directly across from Meredith. “But even in recent years, when it became compulsory, promises were made. A certain quality of life was offered, was all but guaranteed, in exchange for everything we were asked to give up.”
Rochelle tapped Meredith on the shoulder. “And,” she said, “we gave up a lot.”
Alice added, almost reluctantly, shaking her head as she spoke: “Each cut, each program or benefit that they pull is almost like a death. Maybe not quite as grim as that. But there is always this moment of pause, a split second when you hold your breath. You have a sense that an era has ended. It’s part of the lifestyle, this endless series of goodbyes. You come to realize that the things they take away, or fail to replace or replenish, even the most insignificant things—like something as stupid as the muffins they used to serve at breakfast—”
“I forgot about the muffins,” Rochelle said with a nod. “How many years ago was that?”
“—or as significant as physical therapy or a pharmacy, never come back. When something is gone, it’s gone. And if that means prescriptions are filled off-site and that adds a many-day delay, so be it. Not once have they reconsidered restoring any of the services or commodities they’ve taken away. But there’s nothing to be done about it. And becoming obsessed with the changes—the cuts—only gets you riled up. I remind myself I am but a helpless person. These conditions, this way of life,” she stopped short, as though searching for the right words. Finally, with a wistful nod, she concluded, “It cannot be helped. You accept how powerless you are and you learn to adapt.”
“But what we’ve lost is only a part of the story,” Phil piped in. “It’s the constant fear that we will lose more.”
“And we will,” Rochelle pointed out.
“So,” Phil continued, “you just find yourself waiting for something else to be denied. Consequently, you find it hard to settle into any sense of security. Even though you fall into a pattern or routine, you never feel like you can trust the routine. No one is going to say we’re suffering because we don’t get muffins. For that matter, even the serious reductions in quality of service could never be described as life threatening. But who’s to say the next round of cuts won’t be far more egregious.”
“What I’ve found best is to accept the constant change,” Alice said. She shifted in her seat to face Meredith squarely. “They don’t agree with me,” she said of the others, “but I’ve learned to cultivate an interest in the things they can’t take away. I read a lot—books can never go on the fritz. And, of course, there’s people: friends, family, or what we’ve come to know as family.” As the others at the table made a showing of eating their meals, Rochelle heaved a tired sigh and Phil rolled his eyes with great exaggeration. Meredith formed the opinion that Alice had shared her simple outlook with them before.
With a tinge of frustration, Rochelle finally interrupted: “All we expect is a decent quality of life.”
The four men across the table—Ron, Jeffrey, Phil, and Tyler at the end—nodded agreement.
Ron at the far end seemed to speak for the group when he said: “No one ever told us that even the simplest things of life—the bare necessities—would be parceled out like scarce resources.”
Meredith strained to look serious and concerned as the men and women raged about the deteriorating conditions and their general dissatisfaction with their lives at Fallow Park. She was conscious of the two camera operators, but was trained to ignore them. She had an understanding of the agenda of the sponsor of the program. She understood that, despite the palpable anger of these people, what the cameras were picking up were the broad smiles an
d aggressive noddings, as the microphone recorded gesticulations like, “Yes!” and “I agree with you,” and “We see eye to eye on that one!” She suppressed a sad, knowing smile as those around the table pointlessly unloaded long-standing irritations in an animated way, but in such a jovial manner due to the camaraderie of the group, that the editors would have no difficulty editing the piece into a friendly looking conversation. Meredith was all but certain no negative opinion of Fallow Park would appear in the finished product. Still, she dared not clue anyone in on this assessment. She knew her hopes to connect with the residents would fail if they came to understand what a self-serving fluff piece the documentary was. Should that happen, her credibility would be hopelessly shot. This, she had reasoned with Bill on the flight from Los Angeles, would hamper her effectiveness. He had sharply disagreed with her. “You’re swallowing your pride on this one,” the novice assistant had told her. “If you display contempt for the movie—or worse, disgust with the treatment of the people at the park—what’s to stop them from canning you? Or reducing your participation and shipping us out of there before the end of the shoot?” For a novice, her new assistant was certainly picking up the lingo, she thought at the time.
Perhaps she cared too much. This was, as he pointed out, just a one-week, actually no more than five-day, job. She was here to accomplish one thing. Was it necessary, even feasible, to endear herself to the men and women of the park? “Get in, get out, and don’t look back,” he said to her.
Nevertheless, as she now considered the last of her rubbery, cold breakfast, she quite fantastically found herself thinking, “Thank God Sybil Germaine is here.” Her initial concern about facing the opinionated, loud-mouthed former colleague had dissipated some. She speculated that she could bolster her credibility with a visit with her former co-worker. Hopefully, Sybil had not let on that they were less than jovial comrades. And hopefully Sybil, with her steamroller, take-no-prisoners personality, had already proven herself a popular resident. How could she not be? She had always been popular with the crew on Pots of Luck. She was the type who made a big showing of remembering everyone’s life story: the names and ages of their children, details about their significant others, how long the crew members had been in the business. She made a point of always sending cards on co-workers’ birthdays. In a setting like Fallow Park, her opportunities to shine and reign over the park in her imperious, but friend to everyman, highly affected “low class” manner of speech were probably numerous. Some of the lesbians would probably love her because she was so self-assured and tough. Likely many of the gay men were all over her because, despite her truck driver delivery, she was so actressy. But Meredith knew she was dwelling in stereotypes. And for all she knew Sybil was now just an elderly woman who wanted to be left alone.
Meredith realized she had allowed her thoughts to take her too far into her head, too far from the immediate challenge. She wondered if she was looking too bemused and, if so, if this came across in a lofty, condescending way. She assumed a somewhat grim, though quizzical, expression as she left her own thoughts and rejoined the conversation about her.
“…you think, Ms. St. Claire?” Ron or Jeffrey, she had already forgotten which was which, asked her.
“Hmm,” she faltered, clueless as to the question. “I think whatever Tyler thinks. Tyler Travers is one of my oldest friends, and probably my best friend. I think I mentioned that Tyler has lived here from the beginning; on all matters concerning the park, I defer to his better-informed opinion.”
“But you must have an opinion,” Rochelle pressed.
“Everyone should,” Tyler said sternly, speaking now for the first time since the group had sat down, “You’re a taxpayer, Meredith. Your tax dollars are paying for all of this. You haven’t formed your own opinion? Your friend, one of your best friends, if I may be so immodest in quoting you, lives here.” He interrupted himself for an aside: “If ‘live’ is the right word. Have I not told you how deplorable this place is, and how it continues to deteriorate? Are you not aware of the shortcomings of the medical care? The man who died of a bleeding ulcer in the waiting room? The so-called dental care—by my calculations about one in ten of us over sixty wears dentures. Dentures scarcely even exist anymore outside the parks!”
Meredith had blanked out at the wrong moment and she knew it. Now the person whose opinion mattered the most to her thought she was callous, or worse, too detached to be informed. That anyone else at the park should think she was participating in the film just to make a few bucks was egregious enough, but she was particularly taken aback that Tyler would make such an assumption about her.
“I think the idea of the parks sounded good at the time,” she began cautiously. Her fellow diners fell silent. Phil held his forkful of scrambled eggs before him, his mouth still open. Tyler stopped chewing but did not swallow. “As an idea, you understand,” she continued. I think there were some,” she reached for a term, “some people, some organizations who really believed that lives would be saved and a certain degree of dignity, as well as safety, would be provided to a class that had come to know inexcusable treatment.” Phil put his fork in his mouth; Tyler swallowed down his mouthful of food with a gulp of juice. “But I don’t know if it ever should have progressed past the planning stages. I think the sheer impracticality of what was proposed should have been obvious. The absurdity of the plan should have been apparent. Instead, too many people hopped on a fast-moving train. Somewhere along the line other voices were drowned out; the country was railroaded.”
She caught Austin’s glare for an instant. She smiled briefly, only to be rewarded with the slow shaking of his head. This appeasement to her breakfast companions would amount to naught, but it was impossible to pretend to be indifferent to their grievances. To do otherwise would have broken the continuity of the conversation. She would have appeared cold, oblivious to their plight. Such a reaction would shut down all intercourse. Austin made no effort to hide his displeasure; he checked details with one of his assistant directors and consulted a monitor that displayed the cameras’ images. Still he said nothing as the scene progressed. He wouldn’t Meredith thought, because of the reaction it might provoke from this already hostile group. However, he was now instructing the camera crew to focus on the ever filling tables in the massive room. He made no effort to suggest to the women and men at the table that this was their opportunity to be heard.
“Unfortunately,” Meredith continued in what she hoped was a warm, knowing voice, “it turned out to be an easy sell for some politicians. This will save lives, they said. It’s the compassionate thing to do, they exclaimed. The liberals even got on the bandwagon. Never mind that what was really driving the movement was less altruistic and more charged with a desire to separate, to place a collection of the population out of sight. But all of this is well-covered territory by now. I don’t suppose I’m saying anything you haven’t heard before. I’m not surprised that the reality—what all of you deal with day to day—is a major disappointment compared to the original concept.” She smiled at the blank faces as those at the table processed her vague response, this history lesson of long-established facts. “I’m disappointed with the parks, too,” she added.
It was soon after this soliloquy that Austin cut the sound. The collection of breakfast diners continued with their meals, mostly mulling over the scraps and sipping the last of the now cold coffee. Austin had directed the crew members with the boom microphones to wander about the cafeteria, recording crowd sounds and useable bits of dialogue or exchanges. He told them to find comments like “best way to start the day,” and “rise and shine,” and “top of the morning to you.”
What success they had on this quest Meredith never learned. She reckoned Austin considered the morning’s scene a success; he got what he wanted out of it.
Tyler pulled his mother aside as the collection walked down a corridor from the dining hall. The meal, as warm, soft, and tasteless as Meredith had anticipated, was settling uncomf
ortably in her. She acknowledged her wisdom in eating only half of it.
“What was that all about?!” He scanned her face as he demanded this. “‘On all matters related to the park my opinion is the same as Tyler’s?’” His eyes seemed to search her face for an answer. “You sure know all the pretty words, but don’t you think a little more was called for?”
“I don’t, uh,” she tried to respond, unsure what he wanted.
“You talk the patent liberal point of view—at its most self-righteous and least effective—and you speak it fluently. Is that how you really feel? Is it your position, that all of this—the parks, this sanctioned oppression—is no more than a terrible mistake? An ‘oops, this is too bad, but what’s to be done about it?’ That’s no better than shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘Oh, well, you can’t fight city hall.’ Or, ‘It’s best to bring about change from within the system.’ Is it possible you really don’t understand what it’s like here? Or that you think the situation will correct itself over time? Or maybe you just don’t care. The horror for me is that I feel like a perfect fool imagining all these years that you were a little bit more invested than this. I guess I read too much between the lines every time you wrote to me!”
She was speechless. Clearly he had noticed her lapse of attention and her somewhat flippant cover line, and her effort to gloss over that moment had struck him as insulting. What defense did she have? She had “zoned out.” Maybe that could be blamed on the earliness of the hour or the difficulty she had sleeping the night before. Maybe she found herself unable to listen to the specific complaints of the strangers at the table, people she was unable to help. He certainly did not understand that she no longer required a lecture about the pitfalls and shortcomings of Fallow Park. But then, he could not know how well she had educated herself in recent months.
