Where the town ends and the white-washed houses peter out, there is nothing but cornfields for miles in any direction. The closest city is Cincinnati, a two-hour drive. I am in my third year at the University of Miami, Ohio, and I can’t wait to leave.
My destination is the far edge of town, where you actually begin to see people other than professors over the age of twenty five. The home, hospital—I don’t know what to call it—is a squat one-story building next to the Oak Hill Library and across the street from the Tiny Tots Montessori School. I enter through the automatic doors at the same time an old man with sores on his face is wheeled out by a nurse. I smile at them and make a show of stepping aside even though there is plenty of room for them to pass.
I approach the front desk, where another nurse in blue scrubs is seated at a computer. Her shirt is decorated with a pattern of characters from the Scooby-Doo cartoons and she wears a white cloth hat over bottle-brown hair. When she sees me she stands and gestures at a clipboard on the counter.
“Who are you here to visit?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’m from the Musical Friends program. This is my first time here. When I signed up last week they told me that someone at the nursing home would tell me where to go.”
“Retirement community.”
“Excuse me?”
“We don’t refer to Mount Zion as a nursing home. We prefer to call it a retirement community.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll need you to sign in and to see your I.D.”
“Is a student I.D. alright? It has a picture on it.”
“That’s fine.”
I set my guitar down and sign the sheet while the nurse makes a photocopy of my I.D. It gives me a chance to look around. There isn’t much to see—a wall of streaked windows near the door with a view of the school across the street, a lounge area in the corner with a worn carpet, an old sofa, and a few folding chairs facing a TV mounted on the wall. Artificially lit hallways and numbered blue doors. The air seems to lack oxygen, to be nothing but trapped exhalations. It smells like the meatloaf-and-corn steam of TV dinners.
The nurse, whose plastic name tag reads “Mildred Benning- Supervisor,” looks at her clipboard when she speaks to me.
“I have three residents that signed up to hear music this week. You can spend half an hour with each of them, but please keep the volume down so you don’t disturb the other residents. I will write down their names and room numbers for you.”
I can’t help but register a feeling of disappointment at my initial reception. I am volunteering my time to come and sing for people in a nursing home. I don’t expect a medal, a lei, or a twelve-gun salute, but I imagined the staff would be more excited to see me, maybe even a little bit inspired by my selflessness. After all, aren’t I helping them do their job for free?
Nurse Benning hands me a sheet of paper with a list of names and then returns to her computer. The first name on the list is Horace Atkins, room 302.
“Which way should I go?”
“What’s the first name?”
“Horace Atkins.”
“Down the hall to the left. Horace used to be a fiddle player. He’s originally from Kentucky. His daughter signed him up.”
Before I head down the hall I look out the windows and consider leaving. It would be simple. Just turn around and walk away. I picture myself crumbling the piece of paper the nurse has handed me and shoving it in the trash out on my way out. This is the time to do it, before I’ve made any real commitment. I could be back in the dorm right now, doing bong hits and watching Alice practice sign language. She wears clunky glasses and translates song lyrics while the rest of us get high. She is studying to be a psychologist for deaf people and I’m in love, in awe of the fact that she has such specific ambitions at age twenty. My life, in contrast, feels like shooting a shotgun blindfolded. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be hunting.
Alice is the one who encouraged me to do volunteer work. She cited a study from one of her psychiatry courses whose results showed that most people could cure their own depression by simply making a commitment to do something nice for others. In many cases, it had the same effect as standard doses of anti-depressant medication. I told her I wasn’t depressed, I was confused. There’s a difference. But she wouldn’t argue with me. She just smiled and patted my shoulder like a stray dog, unwilling to buy into my self-pity routine for a minute. She was training to offer psychological help to the deaf after all- working internships at low income middle schools, serving as a volunteer counselor at summer camps for the deaf- and she had plenty of experience helping people whose suffering far out-weighed my own.
The door to Room 302 is already open but I knock anyway. It’s a single occupancy room with an old man whom I assume to be Horace lying on the bed. The bed is tilted upwards at a slight incline, and only his eyes move as I enter. He wears an oxygen mask. Tubes snake down from suspended bags of fluid that disappear beneath the bandages on his arms. His body is skeletal, his hair mostly gone. His face is strangely tan, the color of belt leather- the weathered skin of someone who has spent a lifetime outdoors.
“Hi there, Horace. I’m Peter. I’m with Musical Friends? I, uh, brought my guitar to sing for you.”
I consider shaking his hand, or at least making the attempt, but once I see the withered hand dark with liver spots clutching the white sheets I decide against it. I set my guitar down on the floor and unlatch the case. The chair beside the bed has arms on it, so I have to stand.
“So…the nurse told me you used to be a fiddle player. What kind of music did you play? Bluegrass?”
He looks at the ceiling and blinks a few times.
“What would you like to hear?”
No response. No movement. Is he trying to ignore me? I can’t tell.
“How about ‘Rocky Top?’”
Still nothing. His lack of response is unnerving. I begin to overcompensate by adopting the hyper-cheerful tone of a kindergarten teacher.
“Everyone likes ‘Rocky Top.’ Am I right?”
Horace’s right hand clenches. His body shifts slightly through the shoulders. I tell myself to stop asking questions. I tune the guitar, take a deep breath, and launch into “Rocky Top.”
Part-way through the song Horace moans into his oxygen mask. At first I think he’s trying to say something, so I stop singing and bring the volume down on the guitar, vamping on an open D chord. The moaning stops, so I belt out the next verse. Part way through the moaning starts up again. Maybe he’s trying to sing along. I decide to encourage him.
“Right on, Horace! Hit the harmony. High and lonesome!”
Horace’s crooked fingers clench and unclench. His torso twists. His eyes blink rapidly and they fill with tears. He looks like a man on the rack. I have never, in my young life, seen someone in a more pitiful condition.
Am I torturing this man?
My confidence wanes. My strumming hand slows. I fade out before the final chorus.
“Okay. Maybe something a little more mellow? How do you feel about Simon and Garfunkel?”
More twitching and groaning. His right hand slaps the sheets. I finger-pick the intro to “The Sound of Silence.”
By the time I get to the second verse I can see spittle clinging to the underside of his oxygen mask. His moaning and thrashing have not abated. It is clear to me at this point that he is not trying to sing along. After the next chorus I cut the last two verses and end it.
As I pack up my guitar Horace starts to calm down. His arms and hands go limp. His breathing returns to normal. I have been in his room for ten minutes.
“Well, it was nice to meet you…” My voice is hollow, the sound of someone leaving for good.
“But I think we should probably stop there for today. Maybe I can ask the nurse to talk to your daughter and find out what kind of music you’d like to hear next time.”
I stand beneath the doorway, searching my pockets for the sheet of paper the nurse gave me. I notice that Horace is still staring at me. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot and strained, like a spooked horse. I give a little wave before I go.
The next room number on the list is just a few doors down. The door is closed. I knock and wait. No response. I knock again. Nothing. I look up and down the hall. A voice I’m beginning to think of as the miniature devil on my shoulder says, Great, two down, one more to go. I wonder if Alice will be back from class by the time I get back to the dorm. I wonder if she’ll let me sleep with her once she hears that today I spent my time singing to old folks. I’m about to walk away when I hear a voice through the door.
“Yeah? Come in.”
I hesitate. Once more I consider walking away, but my polite Mid-western upbringing gets the best of me. I enter the room and see a man sitting in a wheelchair facing the window. The room smells like cigarette smoke.
“Darla? You’re early. Time for meds?” His voice is ragged and the words come gargling out like water through a rusty pipe.
“Mr. Prichett? I’m not Darla. I’m from Musical Friends.”
At the sound of my voice he slowly turns his wheelchair in my direction. He stops part way and sits in profile, able to see me and still look out the window at the same time. He is wearing a dark blue collared shirt with short sleeves, like a mechanic’s shirt without the patches. There are tattoos on his arms and thin, fingerless gloves on his hands. His face matches his voice, coarse and unshaven, a smoker’s face. He pats the bed beside him, gesturing for me to sit. As I get closer I notice that his eyes, peeking out from beneath folds of skin like a turtle’s, are a startling shade of blue. The blue of places like Iceland and Norway. Places I have never been.
“What do you have there?” he says, pointing at the guitar case.
“It’s a guitar. I’m from Musical-”
“I know it’s a guitar. What kind of guitar?”
“You mean what brand?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a Martin D-30. One of the lower-end Martins. But it’s still a Martin.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” I unlatch the guitar from its case and hand it to him. He turns his wheelchair toward me some more, so the neck of the guitar won’t hit the window A/C unit. He rests his chin on the wood where the body of the guitar bulbs outward and his beard makes a sound against the wood like brush strokes on a snare drum. He strums an open E chord, keeping one ear cocked at the sound hole. Then he smiles and looks up at me.
“What do you want to hear?”
I shrug, trying to hide my surprise. It’s a question I’ve asked others dozens of times. Now, on the receiving end, I don’t know what to say.
“Whatever you want to play.”
He smiles again. His teeth are yellow and crooked, the teeth of an old mule. He looks down at the fretboard for a moment, lost in thought. Then he hits a few intro chords and begins to play an uptempo jump blues in the style Freddie Green made famous with the Basie band -chomp-chomp-chomp-chomp. He uses jazz chords unfamiliar to me and connects them with walking bass lines. He is, in a word, incredible. I have never heard someone play this type of music in person. It’s a style I associate with a bygone era, a Southern past where black men sang on porches and strummed homemade guitars crafted from cigar boxes, when big bands toured the chitlin circuit in rented buses and singers stretched their voices to beat the brass.
He closes his eyes and sings and the wheelchair and the nursing home fade away. It’s like watching a captive bird released into the wild. His voice carries with it the memories of some red dirt, country past, the sound of back breaking work mixed with Saturday night liberation. There is an ancient resonance in the timbre, like the shift of tectonic plates or the slide of glaciers.
When he finishes he chuckles to himself and hands the guitar back.
“Doesn’t sound too bad. Needs some new strings, though.”
“That was…that was fantastic. Whose song is that?”
“That’s one of mine. ‘The Blood of the Sierras.’” He shrugs. “I used to live in California.”
“Do you still play shows?”
He cocks an eyebrow and looks at me like I’m soft in the head.
“What, you think I just hang out here at the nursing home between tours? No kid, my liver’s shot. I’m here because those days are over.”
“Did you ever record that song? I’d love a copy of it.”
“Sure. Alligator records had me on their label for a while. They didn’t expect much. If I gave them an album every two or three years they were happy with that. As long as I stayed on tour.”
“How did you end up in Oxford, Ohio?”
“I have a daughter that goes to school here. Had her kind of late in life. But I always wanted to have kids. I don’t regret it. I might even live to see her graduate. How about you? How much they paying you to go door to door and sing for us old folks?”
“Nothing. I’m a volunteer. Today’s my first day.”
He snorts.
“How’d you get roped into that? You leave what’s practically a garden of Eden of young single women to come spend time in here? You couldn’t have dragged me in here with a truck when I was your age. Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture and all. You get popped for something? This part of your community service? I know all about that. They had me raking leaves in Dolores Park for a while. Felt like Sisyphus.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I assume it’s slang for some kind of sissy.
“No, I didn’t get in trouble for anything. I just…”
I don’t know what to say. Why am I here? Is it because the things I’m learning in school seem pointless? “Antique Furniture and What It Says About Quaker Society.” “The Origins of Feminist Performance Art.” These are the names of the classes I’m taking. If I could only take a class entitled “Figuring Out What You Really Want To Do With Your Life And Actually Developing The Marketable Skills That Will Help You Do It,” believe me, I would.
“You just what? You needed a gig? Working on your fan base?”
He’s teasing me, and having fun doing it.
“This girl I know suggested that I come and-”
“Ahh…Say no more my young friend. I get it. You got a girl you’re trying to impress. Tell me, is that why you started playing music in the first place? ‘Cause that’s what got me started.”
“No, I started playing before I was into girls. I was eleven. I think I just wanted to be loud.”
“But how about now? It works sometimes, doesn’t it? I bet you’ve had a girl take her clothes off for you that otherwise wouldn’t have given you the time of day, just ‘cause you played her a song. Am I right?”
I’m embarrassed. I don’t know if I want to talk about that kind of thing with him. I shrug.
He grins and nods. He can see right through me.
“Okay. Alright. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“What?”
“Play me something. That’s what you’re here for right? Play me one of the love songs you play for the little ladies. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“I don’t know if I have any.”
“What? Not a single love song in your repertoire? What’s the matter with you? You have ambitions beyond the nursing homes?” He gestures at the room with a sweep of his hand and I notice for the first time the painted concrete walls, the picture of the Virgin Mary hanging near the door, the dreary curtains.
“If you do, then let me tell you one thing. You need to have a song for every occasion. You’re gonna play weddings and you’re gonna play funerals. You’re gonna play dive bars and fancy private parties and everything in between. You have to be able to look out at your audience and match the song to the mood, to the occasion. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“And someday you’re gonna see a woman out there and you’re gonna want to talk to her after the show and you’re gonna have to sing something to get her attention. You’re gonna have to show her what a sensitive guy you are. You think women want to hear murder ballads and political allegories all night? No, they want love songs. Those are the most important songs you’ll ever sing.”
He shakes his head in disgust and wheels his chair back closer to the window. He opens one of the windows a crack and then reaches down into a canvas bag attached to his wheelchair and retrieves a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter.
“They let you smoke in here?”
He blows the smoke out the window and gives me another look, like he’s wondering if I’m really dumb enough to say what I just said.
“Do you want to hear something by Bob Dylan?” I ask.
“No, I don’t. I’ve already heard everything by Bob Dylan. And I’ve heard Bob sing it, sitting as far away as you are now. No, I want to hear something new. I want to hear what someone my daughter’s age is singing. What’s your story? You know what I’m saying? Next time you come I want to hear a love song.”
He turns away and looks out the window and I realize that he wants me to leave. I pack up my guitar and as the clasps click shut I know that I have met neither Mr. Pritchett’s expectations nor my own. Whatever vague goal I had in coming here hasn’t been met. I‘ve failed. I leave the room without another word and close the door behind me as softly as I can.
On my way down the hall I pass by room 337, the last number on the list. Angelo Rigadello’s room. The door is open and I see yet another old man in a wheelchair. His head reminds me of a baby bird’s. A nurse wearing the same cartooned scrubs is rubbing some kind of salve on his forearms. She looks up as I pass, and I increase my pace until I’m safely out of sight.
Nurse Benning at the front desk stands up before I can breeze by. She makes a show of checking her watch and then comparing it to the time displayed on the clock near the door.
“Are you done already? By my watch you still have an hour to go.”
“I forgot. I have a big test to study for tomorrow. And a paper due. I need to cut it a little short today. Gosh, I’m awful sorry.”
Gosh, I’m awful sorry? Did I just say that?
She shakes her head like I’m no longer worth speaking to and goes back to making marks on the clipboard. All of a sudden I’m angry. It’s all I can do to keep from saying what’s in my head.
Fuck you. If you don’t like it why don’t you go sing for the corpses they keep locked up in this mausoleum and see how it goes? I wish you luck. I’m out of here.
I turn toward the doors and stop in my tracks. The entire entryway has filled with people. The residents are gathered two and three rows deep, huddled near the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the automatic doors. Most are in wheelchairs: others lean on canes or hold the elbows of nurses. The sofa and chairs have been turned away from the TV so that they now face the windows. All the seats are taken. The room is quiet. Their attention is fixed. Just then, the bell rings for recess in the school across the street. The children come swarming from the doors to play on swings and slides and monkey bars, their high-pitched squeals ringing like a church carillon. The residents have gathered at the windows to watch the children play.
Alice knocks on my door and comes in, ducking to sit on the bottom bunk next to my legs. I put down the book I’m reading and look at her. Two golden braids like ropes dangle down above her breasts. She is wearing a gray sweatshirt with the name of another school written on it.
“How did it go? Today was the day, right?”
“It went alright. It was interesting. A little depressing. Kind of like culture shock.”
“Well, the folks down there could probably use a little culture. I heard there’s a guy who comes in and does tricks with his dog once a week. Did you see him?”
“No, but I’ll bet they love it.”
“Yeah. He has an Australian Shepherd and he dresses it up in a tutu. The two of them perform choreographed dance routines set to music.”
“How am I supposed to compete with that?”
She laughs and smiles at me. She pats my leg beneath the blanket. Then she sighs and looks out the window. I watch the good feeling slowly drain from her face and I can see that she’s thinking about something else now. When she speaks again her voice is quiet and edged with fear.
“Did you meet Horace? How did he respond?” she asks.
I sit up in bed, the springs from the mattress above are inches from my eyes.
“How do you know Horace?”
She looks at the floor.
“Horace is my dad.”
“But your last name is…”
“Sanders. I know. My parents were never married. My dad wasn’t around when I was born so my mom named me after her. I didn’t get to know my dad until he moved back when I was ten. He was fine at that time. Not like he is now.”
“He was a musician?”
“He used to play the fiddle in a band out of Louisville- the ‘Pine Top Ramblers.’ He would dance with me whenever there were other bands on the bill. I would stand on his boots and hold his hands and he’d teach me to two-step. He’d dip me at the end of every song.”
“So you were the one who signed him up for Musical Friends.”
“Yes.”
She looks directly at me. The glare from my reading lamp is reflected in her glasses, so I can’t see her eyes. But I can feel them.
“How was he? Did he respond at all?” Her voice is quiet.
“He did. To be honest, it was hard to tell. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, with the oxygen mask and all. He moved his hands a bit.”
“Oh…that’s good. That’s really good, actually. He has a degenerative neuro-muscular disease and we’re always trying to get him to respond. He needs to keep moving, to stay as interactive as possible.”
“Well, I don’t know if he liked it. It was hard to tell. He was kind of moaning-” I say this as gently as possible.
She laughs. She doesn’t seem worried anymore.
“He was probably trying to sing along. That was his job in the band. He loved singing harmony.” She laughs again. She has both hands on the thighs of her jeans. Now she places one on the blanket above my knee.
“Thank you for going,” she says. “It means a lot to me and even though he can’t say it to you himself anymore, it means a lot to my dad. He used to tell me it was the bright spot in the week for him, back when he could still talk. So thank you.”
She is leaning on me, putting some of her weight on my thigh. I want to kiss her so badly but I don’t. It feels so good to have her close, to have her thinking good of me. I don’t want to ruin it.
And I decide then that I will go back. I will write a love song for Alice and play it for Mr. Pritchett next week while he sits and smokes cigarettes. I will return to Horace’s room and listen for his voice beneath the oxygen mask, matching his pitch as best I can.
Alice is watching me now, waiting to see what do next. She is so close I can smell the soap on her skin.
Mr. Pritchett was right. I make a silent vow to myself that in the future I will be better prepared, with song for every occasion.
