The "gift" of speech

Last night five of them played Canasta: Sara, Small Betty, Shelta, Vera, and Nora. Nora was disappointed to see Shelta get off the elevator with Sara but hid her chagrin because, after all, one had to be pleasant and get along with everyone in the Twilight Zone. Besides, who was she to think she was any better than anyone? Except five people playing also meant they couldn’t do partners, which the usual four players preferred. Oh, well, live and let play.

It was one of those nights when no one had a very good hand, the cards didn’t seem to be shuffled thoroughly—only Sara and Shelta could shuffle because the others’ fingers were too stiff—and the same lame cards kept turning up, like fours, fives and sevens. Small Betty used her invention that Sara’s son had made for her in his woodworking shop—grooved boards that held her cards because her right hand didn’t work so well.

Again, Shelta made her small asides, such as “You’re going to give me something (discard) that I can use, aren’t you?” If she said it once she said it three times. But Nora, easily made grumpy by Shelta, held her peace. She had wretched cards—no bonus cards, one Caliente, and two or three wild cards, which was good, but only a pair of tens or Jacks, and soon enough, other people were melding the very cards she wanted to.

They talked about the impending visit of a woman named Gertrude who’d formerly lived there but had a stroke and had to go to a nursing home and then to her son’s because she needed constant care. Sara, who kept tabs on every human being within ten miles—or so it seemed—had kept in touch with Gertie even though the poor woman had lost some speech facility. It was Sara who’d arranged for the visit and tea party that was to be staged. Sara reported that Gertrude had regained “quite a bit of her talking ability except she sometimes has to pause to think of a word.” Well, most everyone living in the Zone had the same problem except Ralph, whom a minor stroke might’ve improved socially. But not to be wishing that off on anyone, except, to be honest, it did go through Nora’s mind briefly. Probably because she’d had a recent experience with Ralph during which she learned volumes of his personal life.

He kindly had offered to cut down a small table for her that she’d gotten from the thrift store. So last week he came to Nora’s door in his two-wheeled conveyance, balancing on his lap his Skil saw, measuring tape, and two large clamps.

He let himself down onto Nora’s carpet and began both to talk and to work. She sat with him to be of support and made a mental vow to be brave about listening to him go on…and on. But she didn’t want to distract him from the job at hand, shortening the small table’s legs exactly four inches so that it would fit better against one of her blue slip-covered chairs.

He had a strange way of measuring, using masking tape, but he did it, and made the cuts, all the while talking. His marriage, his children, the way his wife, Maureen, treated him (not well, but then, to live with a talker must incite frequent thoughts of murder), and on and on. Soon, the little stubs Ralph cut off were in Nora’s hands. She held them up just for fun. They didn’t match! Two were longer than the others.

The table was still upturned on the carpet. “Uh, Ralph,” she said, “look at these, they aren’t the same length.”

Ralph turned up the table and set it on its amputated legs. It listed to one side.

“I’ll be darned,” Ralph said. “How did that happen?”

I don’t know how but I know when, Nora thought; when Maureen took off for the weekend that time leaving you with no food in the house, etc., etc.

There was nothing for it but to trim off the two longer legs which Ralph did, still not shutting up, although Nora by now had set her mouth in a grim line. And so, finally, the small side table stood up levelly, a bit shorter than planned. Nora thanked Ralph, helped him gather up his tools, swept up the sawdust, and saw the handyman to the door. “Oh, your measuring tape,” she said, putting it atop the carpenter’s apron he wore, underlining “measuring” with heavy sarcasm which of course Ralph wouldn’t get because he lived in his own total world. Yet, she was still grateful to him and easily forgave him once he’d left. She surveyed her table, snugged up now against the chair. It was fine; it would do.

Oh, Ralph had asked her one question during the course of their “conversation.” It was, “Where did you grow up?” She had rushed to jump into discourse. “Oklahom—“ but she was quickly cut off before the word got completed.

Now she pondered the coming visit of Gertrude who was recovering from a stroke and regaining her powers of speech. Somehow, somewhere, there was a lesson in all this for Gertrude had also been a marathon talker. Poetic justice?

No, Nora would not think that. She was happy Gertie was recovering. And coming to visit.

Shelta: (for the fourth time at the card table): “I know you’re going to give me something I can use.”

Nora, to herself: yes, a frontal lobotomy.