“Hey, look at me!” he said. His
voice echoed like thunder in the quiet waiting room. Head nodding, I had been slowly
sinking into that catatonic state brought on by beige walls, low fluorescent
lighting and 1980s (non-hair band) elevator music. About a dozen other people
were seated around the big room. Most of the six or seven female assistants
behind the check-in desk were talking on phones. There were plenty of places to
sit, but this guy had settled in comfortably about six inches from me on a dark
brown fabric love seat.
Shouldn’t they be called “holding rooms?” Because your life is on hold.
He was tall, and his thick hair was
one solid color – medium gray. Dressed in creased, dark blue Wranglers and worn
leather cowboy boots, he was wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt that snapped up
the front. He had neatly folded a tan corduroy jacket – Tractor Supply,
not L.L. Bean – on the left arm of the love seat. I guessed that he was in his
early 70s.
Apparently,
the waiting drives some people to steal the newer magazines. Everything here is
from last summer.
Amused, I looked over at him.
He peered through his dark-rimmed
glasses.
“Is that your real hair color?” he
asked, loudly enough to make one of the assistants smile and two people look up
from their magazines.
“Most of it,” I replied.
“What do you call that, dirty
dishwater?” he asked. “My wife’s hair used to look like that.”
“Well I, I mean, I don’t CALL it
anything,” I stammered. “Actually, I prefer to think of it as sort of blonde,
but I …”
“You look just like my niece,” he
interrupted. “She lives in Tulsa. I’m pretty sure she’s older than you, though.”
Why is it you never have to wait long to get
the bill? Why do they take you back to the exam room, just so you can put on a
flimsy gown and wait some more?
Stretching his long legs, he added,
“I’m kind of worn out today. I worked out yesterday, and it takes two days to
recover from that. It didn’t used to take that long.”
Now that I think about it, the StairMaster seemed a lot harder this morning.
I sifted through a stack of AARP, Better Homes & Gardens and Reader’s
Digest and picked up a recent Rolling
Stone featuring Stevie Nicks.
She’s
66?!
“Do you know what it’s like to be
on a submarine?” he asked.
I looked over at him. He was staring
across the room.
I’m
pretty sure he wouldn’t count the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland. And honestly, I was the only nervous one. The kids were fine.
“I joined the Navy when I was 16.
They put me on a nuclear submarine. Nothing makes you happier to see land than
coming off of one of those things. You don’t know what it’s like to be in a small
space until you’ve been on one of those things.”
My
personal space is a minimum of three feet, so getting into an elevator is an issue for me.
“They gave us two quarts of water
for personal use. So, I brushed my teeth and washed my private parts every
other day. Every time we came into a port, the first thing I did was to take a
shower.”
This
might be worse than the personal space issue.
“At least all of you smelled the
same,” I commented.
“That’s true,” he laughed. “It was
terrible! Anyway, I did something crazy and got married young. A sailor
shouldn’t be married. Well, you know what I mean.”
He winked as his light blue eyes met
mine.
I hope he didn’t think I was winking back. I get this uncontrollable eye twitch when I think about paying another medical bill.
“Anyway, all she wanted was that
paycheck, and I couldn’t divorce her until I put in my 20 years. She didn’t
think I would do it, but I did as soon as I could!”
Strangers talk to me all the time. They regularly approach me in Target and other places and ask where to find stuff. I
know it’s because I look approachable, not because I look like I know what I’m
doing. I always say, “Aisle 25.”
“So, you married again?” I asked.
“Yeh, 41 years ago. I married a
girl that grew up across the street from me. It’s her house, and my home, and I
like it that way. I mean, I let her do whatever she wants to the house because
she takes care of it. It works for us. She made this appointment for me, and
I’m OK with that.”
I smiled and started to ask another
question, but he changed the topic.
“Are you from around here?”
“I’m originally from Arkansas,” I replied.
“My grandmother – I called her
Nettie – was from Arkansas. She was in the Land Run when she was 9 years old.
She was half Indian, but, hell, I don’t know which tribe,” he added, laughing.
“I didn’t find out until I was 40
years old that “Nettie” was short for her real name – Cincinnati.”
He took a breath, but it was a
short one.
“My mother was an amazing woman
too. She had eight boys, although the one just ahead of me died when he was a
baby. My dad died of a heart attack when he was 31 years old, leaving mama with
all us boys. We gave her a hard time.”
His voice got quieter, and he was looking
away again.
“I asked her, why did daddy want so
many kids? ‘It wasn’t your daddy’s fault,’ she told me. ‘I wanted a girl.’ ”
He smiled.
“She never had a girl, but all
except one of her grandchildren are girls!” He said, laughing.
“Do you live near here?” I asked.
“Yes, we have a little house on 22
acres. We used to raise thoroughbreds. We raised some good ones, too, but we quit
when we realized we had to choose between groceries and horse feed. But at our
age – I’m 76 now – we spend a lot of our time waiting in places like
this.”
I
know what you mean.
He sighed, but it was obvious he was
just stating a fact, not looking for sympathy. A young woman carrying a clipboard
stepped from behind a door and called his name.
“Are you ready sir?” she asked.
He got up quickly and headed toward
the door.
“Why, yes ma’am. I’ll follow a pretty
blonde anywhere,” he said, grinning.