Winifred’s Army.

It took him a couple minutes to figure out he’d put on a complete stranger‘s underpants. Only after putting the jeans on did he realize what was happening. The underpants were loose but he thought maybe they’d somehow simply stretched out. The jeans however were just all wrong: too big, too blue. He didn’t even own jeans.

Dad’s key supposedly slipped seamlessly into some other guy’s lock. He opened the locker and automatically proceeded to get dressed. “How the hell should I know?” That’s all he said when I asked the obvious question. I’d been waiting in the car outside the gym a long time, with growing concern. He was always punctual and I couldn’t know he’d gone in for a second shower after removing the pants and undies. I also couldn’t know if his story was even true but that’s the way of it.

Dad still wanted to visit his old gym regularly even though he couldn’t do much. I guess it was mostly somewhere to go, some place familiar. Then we’d head over to ‘Sunshines’, his favourite restaurant. He hated the home he’d just been moved to, the ‘Meadowlands Retirement Community,’ complained all the time. I could hardly blame him only he clearly needed way more help than I could give him. It was getting dangerous. We tried hiring a live-in helper but after the third one quit the proverbial writing was on the proverbial wall.

The first assistant was a lovely young lady from Malaysia but he hated her cooking. She was really trying only not nearly enough for a cranky impatient old man like dad, eventually just gave up. The second was a tall thin Hong Kong gentleman who didn’t have a Canadian driver’s license. Apparently dad wanted the guy to drive him to ‘Sunshines,’ the man suggested they simply call a cab and dad flew into a rage hollering something about immigrants not knowing how to drive properly anyway and how they clog up the health-care system. The last was a West African lady who wouldn’t even tell me what he‘d said but I could guess. He was not an easy person to live with.

The facility looked like a nice enough place. The unit was simply practical with typically neutral paint on the walls, a large bedroom, bathroom with safety bars and a small living room. There was a view of a charming church down below. Unfortunately the view included a graveyard and, dad being dad, immediately remarked that his next move would be so much simpler for all of us. That’s just the kind of guy he was.

I went in with him for lunch that first afternoon and immediately wished I hadn’t. He was seated at a table with an ancient man who leaned precariously to one side in his chair drooling. An old lady kept up a constant undecipherable dialogue with nobody in particular. There was another old guy who slithered slowly in and insisted on standing while he sang opera for a while that dad, a lifelong lover of opera, said was like nails on a blackboard. He was sure right about that.

As the meal got going a few nurses wheeled around on chairs with rollers. They’d spoon a mouthfull or two to one person then whiz off to the next and the next before returning to the first. It created a pin-ball effect that was quite distracting for those of us capable of eating without help, or maybe just me. The food, however, was not too bad. The nurses were of differing ethnic backgrounds: Asian, African, Oriental, maybe others. They went about their work somewhat robotically but efficiently as far as I could tell.

Later that week I returned to take dad to the gym and out for lunch. We went to ‘Sunshines’ of course at the Bayview Village centre. It was a large restaurant with a small fountain in the entrance. Nobody seemed to ever get impatient as he walked so slowly with his cane down the aisles to our table. Nobody seemed to ever get impatient with how long it took us to place our oders. He looked over the menu for ages, the waiter always had to return a couple times and then dad would inevitably order the fish.

Of course he immediately started complaining about the home: how it smelled, the people sitting listlessly on their strollers in the hallways. He hated attendants talking to him as though he was a child. He hated this, hated that. He just seemed to hate it all. I almost wished he’d get a little senility happening. He grabbed up a dinner roll out of the basket and asked me to pass the butter. When I reminded him about his cholesterol he barked: “I’m ninety-two years old, my friends are all dead, I haven’t had sex in forty years, I live in an institution run by a bunch of foreigners, it smells and I have a view of a graveyard. Pass the fucking butter!”

As I finally and happily opened the passenger’s door back at ‘Meadowlands’ a big lady with a bigger smile came out to help dad but he brusquely brushed her arm away. I recognized her from that first lunch, clearly African, wearing a colourful dress under her white smock. She didn’t seem the least bit put off by dad’s rudeness, just walked slowly beside him as they entered the place together. Two old ladies sat quietly on a bench beside a large fake bush and a green garbage can. There was a yellow ambulance parked nearby. The driver leaned against his truck as he ironically smoked a cigarette. And as I drove away I felt just a little sad for my old guy.

I couldn’t get back to see dad for a few weeks. I was away on business, wrapped up at home. And when I finally got over to the home it was lunch-time. So against my better judgement I went with him to the dining hall, was a bit surprised to see dad straighten the ancient man up in his chair. “That’s Moe,” he told me. “A Holocaust survivor.” He pointed at the old lady and said matter-of-factly: “Helen. She makes sense sometimes.” But what really surprised the heck outta me was that as the opera singer slithered slowly in dad stood back up and arm-in-arm they sang an aria together. Everything seemed to stop until they finished. Only then was lunch served and I quietly said: “Dad I thought you hated that guy singing.” Without looking up from his soup he responded dryly: “If you can’t beat em join em.”

As I pretended to eat some lunch I noticed Helen lean over and gently wipe Moe’s mouth with a napkin. The nurses were whizzing all ’round on their chairs but the large African one spent her time with a tiny wizened old lady at the next table over from us. She fed the lady slowly all the while talking softly and lovingly. The old creature was really pretty far gone, barely acknowledged anything going on, just opened her mouth once in a while to ingest a bit of food.

We fell into a routine around that time. About once a week dad would take ‘Wheel-Trans’ to his gym, do whatever he did there and I’d pick him up after. We’d go to ‘Sunshines’, he’d order the fish, complain all throughout and then I’d drop him off back at the home. He didn’t complain as much about ‘Meadowlands’. He focussed more on my apparent lack of concern for his well-being, the fact that nobody else ever visited at all. He focussed more on political pundits he felt were full of crap, religious leaders, gays, global-warming idiots, tree-huggers or his meal not being prepared exactly as he liked. Needless to say I tended to tip waiters quite well.

One of the attendants back at the ‘Meadowlands’ would always come out to meet dad, most often the African lady. Although he never seemed to even acknowledge the lady’s existence at least he didn’t brush her arm away. Sometimes somebody sitting on the bench would call out a greeting that he’d ignore.

I heard about the African lady’s disappearance on the radio. I heard something about ‘The Meadowlands Retirement Community’ and my ears went straight up. “Winifred Abebi, a nurse at ‘The Meadowlands Retirement Community’ for the past three years has been missing since Friday,“ the reporter said, “the day she’d been ordered to leave the country.”

The report went on to describe how the deportation order stemmed from a complicated maze of immigration procedures that threatened to separate Ms. Abebi from her Canadian-born daughter and possibly subject her to danger in West Africa. She was of course suspected of having gone into hiding and officials admitted that all leads had so far proven unsuccessful. I found that last bit of news curious because I immediately knew exactly where she was.

I was planning to swing by the home that day anyway. Dad had cancelled our weekend appointment and even though he insisted there was nothing wrong I thought I’d go see for myself. ‘The Meadowlands’ certainly appeared unfazed by Winifred’s disappearance. Life seemed unchanged in every aspect. There was coffee and cookies in the lobby, folks were sitting around the lounge as usual. I met the director as she came out of her office and I asked how she felt about the news. She simply shrugged with a rather mild mixture of sympathy and concern playing upon the features of her young face as she hurried off to a meeting.

Dad didn’t appear happy to see me, wasn’t particularly welcoming, but he could hardly leave me standing at the door. So we sat in his living room and he proceeded to complain about a neighbour playing music too loudly. In fact I could hear music clearly coming from somewhere nearbye. And as we sat there his door opened and an ancient lady entered without asking. She pushed a walker forward while holding onto a plastic handle-bag, didn’t even look over at us before going in the bedroom.

Dad seemed totally unconcerned that some lady had just gone into his bedroom. “Dad,” I said smiling across at him. “I thought you hated immigrants.” “Well you maybe don’t bloody well know everything do you?,” he responded stone-faced as his door opened again. The opera singer slithered slowly in holding a plastic handle-bag, half-waved to us and went in the bedroom just as the old lady was coming out.

A few short moments later we heard voices outside dad’s door. There was some sort of scuffle going on so I went to look. Three fully uniformed police officers were trying to get around the old lady who‘d just left dad’s unit. She was thrusting out her walker like a lion-tamer holding out a chair, screeching at them while several octogenarians, and older, began gathering around. Dad hollered: “This is my goddamn place and you pigs aren’t welcome.” I suggested he scale back the rhetoric just a bit but he was on fire. “Don’t fuck around with me,” he yelled standing his ground in front of the door.

Within another few short minutes there were dozens of people arrayed between the police and dad’s door. There were people with canes, walkers, wheel-chairs yelling, waving various appendages and or equipment, rallying on behalf of their nurse, their friend. Helen was there, somehow even Moe was there leaning precariously to one side in his wheel-chair. Three or four folks were taking photos or videoing with their phones. I immediately called CBC to suggest they get to ‘The Meadowlands’ as quickly as possible.

Then I turned to the cops and mentioned that dragging Winifred out forcibly would not look fantastic on the news. They readily agreed but as Winifred Abebe along with her totally adorable little girl voluntarily came out the crowd immediately quietened down. She tearfully thanked everyone adding that she should not be causing them such distress and offered to go with the officers. Her army of ancients began protesting loudly again. There were actual photographers there at that point and one of the police-officers, who’d been talking to some official or other on his phone, held up his arms asking to be heard.

“Ms. Abebe does not need to come with us at this time,” he announced to a chorus of cheers. “We’re simply happy to know she and her daughter are safe and sound.” People were hooping, hollering and clapping their hands. “Priority consideration has been granted for special circumstances and no further deportation order will be issued.”

At that point Winifred, weeping openly, was walking through the group hugging each person while her girl skipped around without a care. And dad turned to me: “Well if you’re taking me to ‘Sunshines’ let’s get going.”