And then B Thrice and I both walk through a second door and into the home.
We make our way through some depressing hallways with dusty fake plants in the corners, but we don’t see any staff members.
There is a great cheer when I walk into the common room.
I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m sorta like a rock star to these people.
I slip BBB to Knitting Carol, who hides my pup in a lap full of yarn. B Thrice loves to sleep in yarn, so no worries. Knitting Carol loves dogs, so it’s a match made in heaven. With B3 in her lap, she’s smiling like a little girl on Christmas morning. True? True.
“All right, kid,” Old Man Linder says to me, massaging my shoulders from behind. “The old broad has been mumbling nasty things about you all week. She’s coming at you hard today. Don’t let her rattle you with any low blows, because the wrinkly bag’s brimming full of ’em, as you are well aware.”
Old Man Linder is my manager. He’s something like a hundred and fifteen years old and has to drag around an oxygen bottle that pumps pure air through these clear tubes that are stuck up his nose. His breath stinks and he has spots all over his face, but he is a kick-ass manager, and he hasn’t thrown in the white towel on me yet. He’s tough as nails, so I trust him to manage my corner.
Big Booty Bernice has shut the common room doors, so the staff won’t hear the cheering and come break up the battle in the middle of my exchange with Joan of Old.
All of the old people are slowly pushing chairs and wheeling the wheelchair-bound into position, so that everyone can see and hear, which means that everyone has to be really super-mega close to the battle, because old people don’t see and hear too well. Word.
White hair abounds, along with homemade sweaters, no-name dress sneakers, cough drops, ear-hair, yellow fingernails, shaky limbs, wrinkles, diapers, and an intense hospital smell that dries out your nasal passages in—like—ten seconds.
Joan of Old is in her wheelchair, front and center, staring me down with her wrinkly pink eyelids, trying to psyche me out. She might weigh eighty pounds if her clothes were soaking wet. She’s wearing all black like always, still mourning her husband who died—like—thirty years ago. True.
Joan of Old wiggles an old pink finger at me and then shakes her head so that her black bonnet falls a little to the left, so she straightens it with her bony shaky hands.
Joan of Old has no manager, mostly because everyone in the home hates her. She is such a downer most of the time, and she likes to quote depressing Nietzsche 24/7, which, of course, wins her no friends.
I take my place by the sunniest window in the room, and Old Man Linder says, “Remember, the crowd doesn’t always get your newfangled MTV kid references, so keep your jokes age appropriate. You’re battling for our happiness. This is the only thing we look forward to all week. Besides this weekly battle, our lives bore us to death. This is the one thing that’s different and exciting, so don’t let us down. You making that old crusty broad smile—this is something to believe in. It breaks the awful chain of days. So for us, please just keep going at her until she smiles. No mercy!”
I nod once and roll my head along my shoulders, crack my knuckles, and jab the air a little—like Cassius Clay. (Also known as Muhammad Ali, sucka!)
All of the old people are seated and waiting for the battle to begin, so Old Man Thompson—who actually wears a bowtie every Wednesday, just to play the role—stands and turns to face the audience. He’s hunchbacked but sprightly.
“Welcome once again to the Wednesday Afternoon Battle between Hope and Pessimism. To my left we have the indomitably hopeful one, the girl of unyielding optimism, the teen of merriment, the fan favorite, the girl you wished were your granddaughter or maybe even your great-granddaughter, the only minor who visits the home on a non-holiday, the undisputed Wednesday Afternoon Champion, Amber the Princess of Hope Apple-Tooooooooooooooon!”
I raise my hands in the air and hop a little.
The people clap and all the old dudes with front teeth left whistle.
“And now the challenger,” Old Man Thompson says, and everyone starts to boo. “This woman needs no introduction. The woman in black. The constant mourner. The self-proclaimed nihilist. The one who says the building is too cold and forces management to keep the thermostat so high that we have to dress as though we are all back in the spring of ’36 when we had that record-setting heat spell. The woman who once faked a heart attack because she thought we were having too much fun at last year’s Christmas party. You know her well. You have no doubt suffered her insults at least once in the last twenty-four hours. The brittle broad you love to hate. Joan! Of! Old!”
Boos abound. Someone throws a crochet hook at Joan, but misses her head by at least four feet.