F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

“In the lot. Where’s yours?”

“Oh, I don’t drive. Trust me, hon, you wouldn’t want to be on the same road as me. You’re taking me and Oyv home.”

12

As soon as Anya got in the car she placed Oyv on her lap and lit up an unfiltered Pall Mall.

“Mind if I smoke?”

A little late to object now, Jack thought.

“Nah. Go ahead.” He lowered all the windows.

“Want one?”

“Thanks, no. Tried it a few times but never picked up the habit.”

“Too bad,” Anya said, blowing a stream out the window. “And if you’re going to tell me to stop, save your breath.”

“Wouldn’t think of it. It’s your life.”

“Damn right. Over the years I’ve had five doctors tell me to stop. I’ve outlived every one of them.”

“Now I definitely won’t say a word.”

She smiled and nodded and directed Jack onto a road leading west of town.

The sinking sun knifed through his dark glasses and stabbed at his eyes as he drove westward. He watched what passed for civilization in these parts fall away behind them. The land became progressively swampier, yet somehow managed to retain that burnt-out look.

They passed a freshly tilled field of rich brown earth and wondered what had been growing there all summer. Most of the cultivation seemed given over to palm tree nurseries. Odd to pass successive acre plots, each packed with successively larger palms, all of equal height within their own acre.

Anya pointed a crooked finger at a twin-engine outboard motorboat in someone’s front yard.

“‘For Sale By Owner’?” she said. “I should hope so. Who else would be selling it? Do they make ‘For Sale By Thief’ signs?”

A few turns later, past stands of scrub pines, they came to a block of concrete with a blue-and-white-tiled mosaic across its front.

GATEWAYS SOUTH

GATEWAY TO THE FINEST IN MATURE LIFESTYLES

The droopy plants and palms framing the sign looked like they were on their last legs.

“Here we are,” Anya said. “Home sweet home.”

“This is it? This is where he lives?”

“Where I live too. Turn already or you’ll miss it.”

Jack complied and followed a winding path past a muddy pit with a metal pipe standing in its center.

“That used to be a pond with a fountain,” Anya said. “It was beautiful.”

All of Gateways South must have been beautiful when it was green, but it looked like it had been particularly hard hit by the drought. All the grass lining the road had been burned to a uniform beige. Only the pines— which probably pre-dated the community—seemed to be holding their own.

They came to a checkpoint divided intoVISITORS andRESIDENT arches, each blocked with a red-and-white-striped crossarm. Jack began to angle left toward the visitor gate where a guard sat in an air-conditioned kiosk.

“No,” Anya said, handing him a plastic card. “Use this at the other gate. Just wave it in front of the whatchamacall it.”

The whatchamacall it turned out to be a little metal box atop a curved pole. Jack waved the card before the sensor and the striped crossarm went up.

“I feel like I’m entering some sort of CIA installation,” he said. “Or crossing a border.”

“Welcome to one of the retirement Balkans. Seriously though, as we all get on in our years, and become more frail than we like to admit, sometimes this is what it takes to let us feel secure when we turn out the lights.”

“Well, as the song says, whatever gets you through the night. But I can’t see this place as much of a crime risk. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

“Which is exactly why we like a security force guarding the gate and patrolling the grounds.” She pointed straight ahead. “Just take this road to its end.”

Jack shook his head as he followed the asphalt path that wound past what looked like a par-three golf course. The grass was sparse and brown and the ground looked rock hard. That wasn’t deterring the hardcore hackers; he spotted half a dozen golf carts bouncing along the fairways.

“Can’t they even water the greens?”

Anya shook her head. “Drought emergency restrictions. No watering at all in South Florida now, even if you have your own well.”

He drove on, passing tennis courts—at least their Har-Tru surfaces were still green—and shuffleboard areas, all busy.

“There’s the assisted living facility,” she said, pointing to a three-story building done up in coral shades. Then she pointed to a one-story structure. “That’s the nursing home.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The drought?”

“No. Why my father moved down here.”

“Warmth is a factor. You get old, you feel the cold. But the main reason people come to Gateways and other places like it is so they’ll never be a burden on their children.”

“You talk like you’re not one of them.”

“I don’t have anybody to burden, hon. I’m here for the sun.” She held up an arm to show off her wafer-thin, beef-jerky skin. “As you can tell, I love to sit and soak up the rays. I used to sunbathe in the nude when I was younger. If I didn’t know how the community board would squawk, I’d do it now.”

Jack tried not to picture that.

“But I can’t see my father being a burden on anyone.”

“Maybe you don’t, kiddo, buthe can. That’s why he’s here instead of in some West Palm condo.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Gateways South—and North and East, for that matter—is a graduated care community that provides for us through the final stages of our lives. We start off in our own little bungalows; when we become more frail we move to assisted living where we have a suite and they provide meals and housekeeping services; and when we can no longer care for ourselves, we move into the nursing home.”

“All it takes is money, I suppose.”

She snorted a puff of smoke out her nose. “It’s not cheap, I can tell you that. You buy your house, you buy a bond, you pay monthly maintenance fees, but your future care is assured. That’s important.”

“Important enough to hide yourself away down here?”

She shrugged and lit another cigarette—her third since leaving the hospital. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard my neighbors say. Me, I’m here because I’ve got no one to care for me when I start losing it. But the rest, they’re all terrified of ending up in diapers in a son or daughter’s home.”

“Some children might not see that as a burden.”

“But what of the parents? They don’t want to be remembered like that. Would you?”

“No, I guess not. Iknow not.”

He didn’t even want to remember his father as that flattened man pressed between the hospital sheets today. He wanted even less to remember him as an empty-eyed drooler in diapers, a lifetime’s store of dignity vanishing like a gambler’s paycheck.

He said, “Getting old sucks, doesn’t it.”

“For some, yes, but not all. The body begins to remind you in ways big and small that you ain’t themaidel orboychick you used to be, but you find ways to adjust. It’s largely a matter of acceptance.” She pointed to the right. “Turn here.”

Jack saw a sign for White Ibis Lane as he made the turn. At the end of the short road stood two small, identical houses. The four parking spots in the little cul-de-sac were empty. Jack pulled into one and stepped out of the car. Anya opened her door and let Oyv hop to the ground. The Chihuahua immediately trotted to the nearest palm and let loose a tiny yellow stream against its trunk.

Jack smiled. “That tree looks so dry, I bet it’s grateful even for that.”

Anya laughed as she straightened slowly from the passenger seat to a standing position. “You’d win. Take a look around while I go in and get the key to your father’s place.”