Black House

say, he can be a real pain in the bunghole.”

Crowd noises, a buzz of conversation interlaced with children’s voices and songs thumped out on an old upright piano, have been audible through the windows since they entered the room, and when Pete has placed the record boxes on the table, he says, “I better get out there, ’cuz Chipper’s probly lookin’ for me. Gonna be a shitload of cleanup once they come inside.”

Pete shambles out, rolling the handcart before him. Rebecca asks if there is anything more Henry would like her to do for him.

“The overhead lights are on, aren’t they? Please turn them off, and wait for the first wave to come in. Then switch on the pink spot, and prepare to jitterbug your heart out.”

“You want me to turn off the lights?”

“You’ll see.”

Rebecca moves back across to the door, turns off the overhead lights, and does see, just as Henry had promised. A soft, dim illumination from the rank of windows hovers in the air, replacing the former brightness and harshness with a vague mellow haze, as if the room lay behind a scrim. That pink spotlight is going to look pretty good in here, Rebecca thinks.

Outside on the lawn, the predance wingding is winding down. Lots of old men and women are busily polishing off their strawberry shortcakes and soda pop at the picnic tables, and the piano-playing gent in the straw boater and red sleeve garters comes to the end of “Heart and Soul,” ba bump ba bump ba ba bump bump bump, no finesse but plenty of volume, closes the lid of the upright, and stands up to a scattering of applause. Grandchildren who had earlier complained about having to come to the great fest dodge through the tables and wheelchairs, evading their parents’ glances and hoping to wheedle a last balloon from the balloon lady in the clown suit and frizzy red wig, oh joy unbounded.

Alice Weathers applauds the piano player, as well she might: forty years ago, he reluctantly absorbed the rudiments of pianism at her hands just well enough to pick up a few bucks at occasions like this, when not obliged to perform his usual function, that of selling sweatshirts and baseball caps on Chase Street. Charles Burnside, who, having been scrubbed clean by good-hearted Butch Yerxa, decked himself out in an old white shirt and a pair of loose, filthy trousers, stands slightly apart from the throng in the shade of a large oak, not applauding but sneering. The unbuttoned collar of the shirt droops around his ropy neck. Now and then he wipes his mouth or picks his teeth with a ragged thumbnail, but mainly he does not move at all. He looks as though someone plunked him down by the side of a road and drove off. Whenever the careering grandkids swerve near Burny, they instantly veer away, as if repelled by a force field.

Between Alice and Burny, three-fourths of the residents of Maxton’s belly up to the tables, stump around on their walkers, sit beneath the trees, occupy their wheelchairs, hobble here and there—yakking, dozing, chuckling, farting, dabbing at fresh strawberry-colored stains on their clothing, staring at their relatives, staring at their trembling hands, staring at nothing. Half a dozen of the most vacant among them wear conical party hats of hard, flat red and hard, flat blue, the shades of enforced gaiety. The women from the kitchen have begun to circulate through the tables with big black garbage bags, for soon they must retire to their domain to prepare the evening’s great feast of potato salad, mashed potatoes, creamed potatoes, baked beans, Jell-O salad, marshmallow salad, and whipped-cream salad, plus of course more mighty strawberry shortcake!

The undisputed and hereditary sovereign of this realm, Chipper Maxton, whose disposition generally resembles that of a skunk trapped in a muddy hole, has spent the previous ninety minutes ambling about smiling and shaking hands, and he has had enough. “Pete,” he growls, “what the hell took you so long? Start racking up the folding chairs, okay? And help shift these people into the common room. Let’s get a goddamn move on here. Wagons west.”

Pete scurries off, and Chipper claps his hands twice, loudly, then raises his outstretched arms. “Hey, everybody,” he bellows, “can you truly believe what a gol-durn gorgeous day the good Lord gave us for this beautiful event? Isn’t this something?”

Half a dozen feeble voices rise in agreement.

“Come on, people, you can do better than that! I want to hear it for this wonderful day, this wonderful time we’re all having, and for all the wonderful help and assistance given us by our volunteers and staff!”

A slightly more exuberant clamor rewards his efforts.

“All right! Hey, you know what? As George Rathbun would say, even a blind man could see what a great time we’re all having. I know I am, and we’re not done yet! We got the greatest deejay you ever heard, a fellow called Symphonic Stan, the Big-Band Man, waiting to put on a great, great show in the common room, music and dancing right up to the big Strawberry Fest dinner, and we got him cheap, too—but don’t tell him I said that! So, friends and family, it’s time to say your good-byes and let your loved ones cut a rug to the golden oldies, just like them, ha ha! Golden oldies one and all, that’s all of us here at Maxton’s. Even I’m not as young as I used to be, ha ha, so I might take a spin across the floor with some lucky lady.

“Seriously, folks, it’s time for us to put on our dancing shoes. Please kiss Dad or Mom, Granddad or Grandma good-bye, and on your way out, you may wish to leave a contribution toward our expenses in the basket on top of Ragtime Willie’s piano right over here, ten dollars, five dollars, anything you can spare helps us cover the costs of giving your mom, your dad, a bright, bright day. We do it out of love, but half of that love is your love.”

And in what may seem to us a surprisingly short amount of time, but does not to Chipper Maxton, who understands that very few people wish to linger in an elder-care facility any longer than they must, the relatives bestow their final hugs and kisses, round up the exhausted kiddies, and file down the paths and over the grass into the parking lot, along the way a good number depositing bills in the basket atop Ragtime Willie’s upright piano.

No sooner does this exodus begin than Pete Wexler and Chipper Maxton set about persuading, with all the art available to them, the oldsters back into the building. Chipper says things like, “Now don’t you know how much we all want to see you trip the light fantastic, Mrs. Syverson?” while Pete takes the more direct approach of, “Move along, bud, time to stir your stumps,” but both men employ the techniques of subtle and not-so-subtle nudges, pushes, elbow grasping, and wheelchair rolling to get their doddering charges through the door.

At her post, Rebecca Vilas watches the residents enter the hazy common room, some of them traveling at a rate a touch too brisk for their own good. Henry Leyden stands motionless behind his boxes of LPs. His suit shimmers; his head is merely a dark silhouette before the windows. For once too busy to ogle Rebecca’s chest, Pete Wexler moves past with one hand on the elbow of Elmer Jesperson, deposits him eight feet inside the room, and whirls around to locate Thorvald Thorvaldson, Elmer’s dearest enemy and fellow inhabitant of D12. Alice Weathers wafts in under her own guidance and folds her hands beneath her chin, waiting for the music to begin. Tall, scrawny, hollow-cheeked, at the center of an empty space that is his alone, Charles Burnside slides through the door and quickly moves a good distance off to the side. When his dead eyes indifferently meet hers, Rebecca