Getting Old is a Disaster

by Rita Lakin

  “Grandpa drove off in ‘his’ car.”

  “You let him get away?” Bella asks.

  “I had no choice. Grandpa knocked me down.”

  I ask, “Are you hurt?” I can’t figure out why Ida emphasized the his.

  She’s still grining. “Nope.”

  What’s going on? I wonder. But Ida is having a good time with this and she’s going to do it her way.

  “How did you know it was him?” Joe asks.

  “By the pimple on ‘his’ face.”

  “Huh?” That comes from all of them. Ida can hardly contain herself. She does a little jig. Evvie chews her nails in frustration. Bella and Sophie are just flummoxed.

  I ask the practical question. “Did you call the police?”

  “No, not yet,” she says. “Later will be soon enough.”

  Evvie, even more annoyed, asks, “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You know who he is, don’t you?” I ask.

  “We all know ‘Grandpa,’ ” she says, accentuat-ing the name.

  “Spit it out!” chorus Bella and Sophie.

  She looks directly at the two of them. “Didn’t Madame Ramona tell us we were chasing a magician? Didn’t she say we thought he was a fool, but he really wasn’t? And four was a number to remember?”

  The two of them slowly nod their heads in unison.

  “She told us all about him. I wondered how she knew,” Ida says.

  Evvie, puzzled, asks, “Isn’t she that weirdo with all the flamboyant clothes? What’s she got to do with this? When did you learn all this... this magician stuff?”

  Ida says, “You drove off with Joe the morning Gladdy was on her way to Tampa. We had a tarot reading at Madame Ramona’s.”

  Bella’s feelings are hurt. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

  “Well, now I have to.”

  Evvie glares at Bella. “What for? What silliness were you up to?”

  I say, “Never mind that. Where is Grandpa Bandit?”

  “Let’s go ask the Madame.” Ida turns to Joe, since she knows we have to leave Jack’s car. “Onward to Phase Four. Magic number four.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “You’re taking us to the man who just robbed the bank? Don’t you think we should get Morrie? And Jack?”

  If Ida smiled any harder her teeth would hurt. “Trust me,” she says.

  We follow Ida as she leads us to a ground-floor apartment. Evvie glances at me as if to say “What is going on?” I shrug. I don’t have a clue.

  Bella is quaking. “I don’t want to go back in there.”

  Sophie whispers, “Me, neither. She’s crazy.” They cling to each other.

  “Yeah,” Ida says, “crazy like a fox.”

  We all crowd behind Ida as she pounds on the door. No response. She rings the bell, and then pounds on the door again. Still nothing.

  Ida shouts, “I know you’re in there, ‘Gramps.’ Open up. We’re not going away, even if we have to stand here all day and all night.”

  The peephole finally opens and we see an eye. A voice whispers, “You have a reading with the Madame?”

  Ida demands, “Just open the damn door.”

  “I won’t,” says the voice.

  “You will,” says Ida.

  Evvie shakes her head in wonderment.

  “Get out of here or I’ll call the police,” yells the hoarse voice.

  Ida puts her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you do that? And ask for Detective Morgan Langford. His stepmother is standing next to me.”

  I shoot her a look.

  “To be,” Ida adds.

  A silence, then we hear many clicks of many locks and finally the door opens. To our surprise, a rather tall, skinny man—in his mid-sixties, I would guess—is standing there, in an undershirt and shorts. He’s almost bald, with just a ring of gray surrounding his scalp. “You can only stay a few minutes,” he tells her. “Madame has a client coming very soon.”

  “Can the act,” Ida says, pushing her way in. We follow Ida into the living room. This is her show. Bella and Sophie linger behind. Evvie and I have not been here before, and we stare about this room, fascinated by the velvet paintings.

  “Sit down,” Ida demands.

  We all hurry for seats. I find myself seated on the couch under Liberace and his candelabra. Evvie and Joe land on a love seat under Michael Jackson. Bella and Sophie huddle in the hallway, obviously hoping for a quick exit.

  Ida shakes her head in disbelief. “I meant for him to sit, not you.”

  Joe smirks. Evvie hides a smile. I’m speechless. The baldish man sits down opposite us, on the edge of a straight chair, nervously picking at a large red pimple. He’s seated under Shirley MacLaine, who looks down on him from her velvet spaceship.

  “Tell them who you are,” Ida demands.

  “I’m... I’m Madame’s boarder.”

  “And when you put on your outfit, which always has big ruffled blouses, and you pull out of your pants a colorful skirt, and then add your long gray wig with ribbons, you’re also chubby Madame Ramona.” She twirls the blue baseball cap in front of his face.

  Eyes open wide at that. Even mine. Bella gasps. She turns to Evvie. “Give a quick look around for a Macy’s tote bag.” I watch clever Ida as she watches the man, whose eyes immediately dart to a closet in the room. “Try that closet,” Ida says, pointing. He starts to get up, but Ida pushes him back down.

  Evvie retrieves the bag from the closet and upends its contents onto the floor. Out falls the windbreaker. The big sunhat, dark sunglasses. The long gray wig and the frilly blouse and skirt. And a wad of money. Ida tosses her the blue Marlins cap. “That goes with it.”

  The old man looks chagrined. Evvie turns to him and recites his own lines back to him, “Things are seldom as they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream. Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  He tries for an impish smile at me.

  I say, “Why did you do all this? Why the green feather?”

  He remains quiet. Ida says, “You might as well tell us. They’ll get it out of you at the police station.”

  “Yeah,” says Bella, from the hallway, suddenly brave. “You might as well, ’cause you’re no good as a psychic. Your advice didn’t work. Dora’s still in my apartment!”

  Evvie and I look at him, and he shrivels up, realizing he just gave himself away. So that’s how he did it.

  There is a knock on the door. The man jumps up. Ida pushes her thumb into his chest. “Stay down.” She walks into the hallway. Sophie and Bella move out of her way. She peers out the peephole.

  A voice outside asks, “Izzy here?”

  Ida, confused, replies, “Is who here?”

  The voice repeats, “Izzy. Izzy here?”

  Our thief says, “He wants me. I’m Izzy.”

  Ida shuts the peephole, and opens the door to let the visitor in. He is a small, nervous man in shabby clothes. He is bent over, carrying a cane made from a branch of a tree. And he’s quite old. His watery eyes squint to seek out “Izzy.” “Sorry,” he says in a shaky voice, “but I don’t mean to intrude when you’re having a party.”

  “It’s all right,” the man we now know as Izzy says.

  “I’ll just get what I came for and leave. You got the money?” the newcomer asks pleadingly.

  Izzy gets up. Ida doesn’t stop him. He goes to the tote bag on the floor and takes out the cash. He hands all of it to the man. “It’s time?” Izzy asks him.

  “Doc says I can’t wait any longer.” He hugs Izzy tearfully. “You’re a saint. God bless you. Otherwise, I’m a dead man,” he explains to us.

  With that he turns and heads for the door. “Happy birthday,” he announces, making an assumption, and leaves.

  I jump up. “Wait a minute, that’s stolen money...” I stop. Do I grab the money out of the hands of some pathetic sick man? Who might die?

  The girls all look to me, aghast. Breathlessly awaiting my decision.

  I sit ba
ck down. I’m glad Jack wasn’t here. I sigh. Let the police unravel this later.

  Izzy also sits down again.

  Ida says, “Izzy. Are you going to give us a last name with that?”

  No reply. Only silence.

  Finally, I say, “The green feather. You’re playing Robin Hood? Steal from the rich, give to the poor?”

  He corrects me. “Steal from the young, give to the old. Who takes care of the lost old people?” he asks. “The ones under the radar. Who cares if they live or die? They live in places you would run screaming from. They eat cat food when they can get it. They have no one. Then they get sick. And then they die. Alone. I pay for their needs the only way I can. The fourteen hundred I stole today is for his gallbladder operation. I steal only what I need for each individual case.”

  That explains the odd amounts.

  “But why don’t these people go to the proper authorities for help?” Evvie asks.

  “Yeah, sure. These people don’t know from how the system works. They don’t know from papers to fill out. They’re barely able to read. Or even see the fine print without any glasses. Folks who barely function at all. Old and infirm. Where’s the health care for them? I do what little I can do.”

  I ask, “How long have you been doing your”— I grope for a word—“your charity work?”

  “Many years. Since the day my sister died of a brain tumor because she didn’t have any money to pay for doctors.” He chokes up. “I had no way to save her.”

  Evvie walks close to him. “I don’t get it. Why did you write to us? Did you want us to capture you?”

  He glances up to her and shrugs. “Maybe I’m tired. Maybe...” Then he grins mischievously. “Maybe I was bored and I needed a little excitement. Pit myself against you to see which of us is smarter. I found out you were helping older people, so maybe I just wanted to reach out—one old professional to another.”

  I hear Bella and Sophie sniffling behind me.

  I don’t want to say it, but I know Jack would have. “But what you do is against the law. It’s a federal crime to rob banks.”

  He cries out to me, “It should be a federal crime in such a rich country for only the wealthy to afford health care. It’s enough to make a man turn into a Communist.” Abruptly, he grins at me playfully. “Better he should be a bank robber.”

  He’s getting to me, but I keep on. “We have to turn you in or we’re aiding and abetting a criminal.”

  “No!” Sophie cries out.

  What a terrible dilemma. My girls are in anguish. I feel awful, too. Evvie reaches out to touch my hand.

  Ida comments, “And Madame Ramona was your cover.”

  “An escape method. I knew the cops would never think Grandpa was a woman.” The imp in him can’t resist. “Now, aren’t you sorry you only gave me a dollar?”

  Sophie jumps up. “Wait just a minute. You weren’t wearing a dress when you posed as the guy with no legs.”

  Bella sighs. “I wish someone would tell me how you did that.”

  He smiles. “I wasn’t robbing the bank that day, either. I was there to watch how you operate, so I stayed a guy.”

  Bella says happily, “I still have your pencil.”

  I look to Evvie and Ida. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Izzy says. “I’ll go quietly. But can I put some clothes on?”

  “Of course,” Ida says quickly.

  He heads into his bedroom and Ida follows him to the door. He grabs some clothes from the bed and waves them at her as he enters his bathroom.

  We wait for him in the living room. I see tearful faces and listen to the unhappy murmurings around me.

  “Do we have to turn him in?” Bella wails.

  Ida says stiffly, “We have no choice.”

  Evvie says, “I wish he had never written to us.”

  Bella asks, “Do you think we’ll get a reward?”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” says Ida.

  Evvie helps Ida pick up Izzy’s disguises from the floor as they repack the tote bag. Wait ’til Morrie hears this, I think ruefully. He’s not going to be happy at how easily they were all fooled. This is not a win-win situation.

  Ida gives me the tour of Madame Ramona’s all-black office with the crystal ball, Ouija board, and tarot cards.

  We wait. And we wait. Ida knocks on the bathroom door. “Let’s go, Izzy.”

  No answer. It dawns on me; he’s just pulled the oldest scam in the world. And we fell for it. Joe hurries into the bedroom. Of course the bathroom door is locked.

  Joe rolls up his sleeves. “I’m gonna break the door down!”

  As he starts to sprint; shoulders pointing, Evvie grabs him by the arm and pivots him around. “Are you crazy? What do you think this is—like the movies? It’s not so easy to knock down a door.”

  “I can do it,” he says, but his voice betrays him.

  “You’re an old man! The only thing you’ll break is your neck.”

  “He’s gone,” Ida announces as she walks back into the apartment. “I looked outside and the bathroom window is definitely open, and bye-bye, Bandit.”

  I sigh. I’ve watched this scene in a lot of movies, too.

  But everyone is smiling. And Joe actually winks at me.

  Needless to say, Izzy didn’t leave anything in the apartment that will give us his real name or any other information. The Madame Ramona name is obviously phony. The apartment is a rental. Even if Morrie checks out Izzy’s fingerprints, I’ll bet he has no police record to match them against.

  Bye-bye, Grandpa. I wonder where you’ll turn up next. You wrote us that getting old was not for sissies, and you were right.

  I can’t wait ’til Jack gets home so I can tell him that the Grandpa Bandit case is solved. More or less.

  And Morrie will have a fit that we let him get away. Oy!

  An Unexpected Visit

  The doorbell rings. Enya, on her way to her kitchen, is startled. Hardly anyone ever comes to her door. Which is just the way she likes it. She peers through her peephole. To her surprise, Abe Waller is standing there, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

  She doesn’t answer, standing still, almost holding her breath. Maybe he’ll go away. What does he wants from me? she wonders.

  He rings again.

  She hesitates, unconsciously smoothing her skirt down with her hands. He must know she’s in here. She can’t be rude. As she opens the door she sees Abe glancing at the mezuzah on the right side of her door frame.

  He smiles ruefully. “It is a very strange feeling living in someone else’s home. I have never lived anywhere without a mezuzah. May I, Mrs. Slovak?”

  Of course she knows what he is asking—permission to pay his respects to God. Her second husband, Yacov, whom she met after the war, himself a survivor, put the tiny box up when they moved into the apartment. She protested; she cared nothing about religion anymore. She looks at this pious stranger. Let him do what he wants. She nods.

  He touches the sacred parchment scroll gently, then places those fingers to his lips. Then he hands her the flowers, which she accepts in puzzlement.

  “What did I do for you to bring me flowers, Mr. Waller?”

  “It’s what I did. I felt I did not treat you kindly in the laundry room the other day. Perhaps I was too abrupt?”

  At that moment, Evvie and Joe come out of the adjoining apartment. There is a moment of awkwardness, but quickly and at the same time they all nod. Then Evvie and Joe walk off.

  Enya, not knowing what to do, and feeling obliged, says, “Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?”

  “A glass of water, maybe.” Abe says, following Enya inside.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Evvie says to Joe as they head for his car, out to a restaurant to celebrate their capture of Izzy. “Bringing flowers? How romantic.”

  “I brought you flowers a while ago. You gave them away.”

  Evvie flicks an imaginary bit of dust off his shoulder. “
Don’t go there, Joe. That was then and now is now.”

  With that she flounces into his car before he has a chance to open the door for her.

  Across the way, Jack turns from the kitchen window. “Well, well,” he singsongs, “love is in the air. Tra-la-tra-la. Just saw Abe bring flowers to Enya, and Evvie actually touched Joe’s shoulder.”

  I come over, wiping my hands on my apron, and put my arms around him. “It’s catching, isn’t it?” He pulls my arms even tighter, closer.

  “What is?”

  “Being a yenta and spying on people. Like everyone else does around here.”

  He swivels around ’til he’s facing me and gives me a playful swat on my rear. Then he goes over to the stove and sniffs what I’ve cooked for dinner.

  “Decisions, decisions,” he says. “Food or sex? Sex or food?”

  “I thought you wanted to hear more about our Grandpa Bandit story?”

  “It can wait.” With that, he drags me out of the kitchen and I toss my apron behind me.

  Enya stares at the few photographs on her small kitchen table. They are very old, tattered, practically shriveled up. Abe’s empty wallet sits beside them.

  Abe points to his photo of a young boy with a bicycle, and says, “We wanted Max to play the violin; he was interested only in sports.” He manages a small smile. “I was a musician in the old country.”

  As he talks about his children, she thinks of the photos on her bedroom wall. For a moment, she is tempted to get them, but she can’t bring herself to share them. She politely listens to him, sensing how much it must mean to him to be able to talk about his family. But something won’t let her open up to him.

  He reaches over to touch her hands, but the moment he does, she pulls away. “Sorry,” she says.

  He gestures by raising both hands aloft, as if to say he understands. “You had children?”

  She can barely speak. Her throat seems to be closing up on her. She doesn’t want to talk about them. But she doesn’t know how to be rude. This very kind man is sharing his pain with her. She whispers, “Rebecca was four and Micah was five. My babies...” The tears start to flow. He hands her a handkerchief.