Golden Years

Ollie and his wife, Loren, were at Chuck Schick’s cocktail party enjoying vodka gimlets when Ollie spotted a bloated, black rat zipping down the hall toward the bedrooms.  He nudged Loren when he saw it, but wouldn’t mention it until the drive home.

            “Could you believe that?” Ollie asked her.

            “Chuck always flirts when he’s drunk,” Loren said.

            “That’s not what I was referring to,” Ollie said, turning down the radio.  “I’m talking about the rat.”

            “Rat?”

            “Yes, rat,” he said defiantly.  “It was the size of a mongoose.  The goddam thing almost made me spill my drink on your lap.”

            “I didn’t see a rat,” she said, turning the volume back up.

            “Well, they have vermin,” Ollie said.

            “That makes two rats you’ve seen in the past month,” Loren said.  “One in our home and one tonight.  Don’t you find that the least bit strange?”

            “Of course it’s strange, but what does that have to do with anything?”

            “If it was a rat then you wouldn’t have been the only one to see it,” she said, squinting at the night road ahead.

Ollie slept fitfully that night, which was typical.  The last time he slept straight through an evening was about six months ago, Thanksgiving, while he was still working.  He tried valerian root, but that only made him tired, not sleepy, and there was a difference.  Ollie felt he shouldn’t let intermittent sleep bother him, though, because he didn’t have to be at the office in the morning anymore so what did it matter how much sleep he had each night?  He could nap whenever he chose now. 

He’d retired from corporate finance just before Christmas this past year and was ready to enjoy the life he’d neglected from working so hard.  That’s what retirement was about, after all, but what he hadn’t realized was that he hardly knew the life he’d stifled because his work was his life, not the other way around.  He discovered he’d been happier working than not working and now wondered why he even bothered to retire at all since he couldn’t recognize any benefit.  It felt dreadfully ironic to him that he worked his whole life so he could retire a wealthy man only to discover that he hadn’t been working toward anything.  Now that he was living a life without charts, pie graphs, analyst reports, mergers and meetings, he only wanted to be numb, to relax and recline in the tomato garden like Marlon Brando in The Godfather and age with dignity.  A life without corporate indicators was hard to measure. 

His retired friends spent most of their time playing Keno at Foxwoods and drinking Cape Codders, but Ollie didn’t like bars, never gambled, and learned quickly that having lunch with friends who were still working was awkward and uneven.  Some moved into their children’s lives, but Ollie and Loren didn’t have children, believing they didn’t need the stimulation other couples presumed kids could provide and protect.

            Loren, on the other hand, had taken to retired life like a child discovering the sandbox.  She’d been an environmental lawyer and, like Ollie, she willingly allowed her career to consume her life, but, unlike Ollie, Loren was able to actually look forward to not working while Ollie never thoughtfully imagined it, instead concentrating on the immediate affairs of the day.  Aside from financial logistics, they’d never discussed their after-career lives together and this didn’t seem strange to him then.  Since leaving the firm, Loren consumed her time as if she still had a job, which made him feel somewhat shamed, as if he’d been fired. 

She exercised at a gym six mornings a week, which had turned her once soft shoulders into doorknobs, practiced yoga in the back yard, made wool hats and sweaters on a giant knitting machine, which reminded Ollie of an electric keyboard with all its intricacies.  Loren filled their home with exotic plants she’d ordered on the Internet.  Last week, she became a certified bartender in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, telling Ollie, “you never know,” when he asked what on earth for.  Her pace awed and exhausted him and he had no desire to mirror it.  He was trying to settle down, waiting for retirement to grow on him.  That’s what it had been so far.  A lot of waiting.  Waiting in front of the television and behind books, waiting to fall asleep at night, waiting for a signal.  And he feared what might happen when he couldn’t stand to wait another second.  So while he couldn’t figure out what to have for breakfast and stared into the cavernous kitchen cabinets for hours, Loren zoomed through her time and wouldn’t wait for anything.

It was only a week before Chuck Schick’s cocktail party that Ollie saw a rat in their home.  At three in the morning, he had woken up famished and went downstairs to try and eat himself tired.  The halogens outside had eerily illuminated the kitchen, which made him uneasy as he made a corn beef and Swiss sandwich on the butcher block.  He hadn’t been wearing slippers that night, it’d been unusually warm, and he felt a tickle in his toes.  When he reached down to scratch his foot, he saw a fat, black rat nosing his big toe.  Ollie yelled and kicked the rodent across the kitchen, then headed for the bathroom where he washed his feet in the tub.

            “What’s the matter with you?” Loren had asked as he snuck into bed.

            “I don’t want to alarm you,” he said, “but I just saw a rat in the kitchen.”

            “A rat?” she said, sitting up and removing her eye mask.

            “Yes, a rat.  I’m lucky I don’t have rabies.”

            “Are you sure it was a rat?” she asked again.  “We’ve never had rodents before.”

            “Well, now we do.”

            “You know,” she said, lying back down, “when you don’t sleep enough you can see things that aren’t really there.”

            “You don’t have to speak to me like I’m a child.  I saw a rat.  If you were there, you would have seen it, too.”

            “Okay, Ollie,” she said, patting his arm.  “I won’t doubt you saw a rat, but I still think you should talk with someone who will help you sleep.  At the very least you would have been up here with me and never would have encountered it in the first place.”

After Chuck Schick’s cocktail party, Ollie decided it was time for professional help and called an exterminator while Loren was visiting her sister in San Francisco for two weeks.

            “You don’t have any children or pets, do you?” the exterminator asked, stroking his long mustache.

            “No.  None,” Ollie said.  “Why?”

            “I want to use rodenticide.  Poison,” he said, addressing the confusion present in Ollie’s eyes.  “If there are no small children or kitty cats then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t.”

            “Whatever rids the problem,” Ollie said.

            The exterminator placed small blue rectangular chunks behind the heaters and refrigerator, under the sinks, and on top of the entertainment cabinet.  Then he left tiny bags like sugar packets in all the cabinets and drawers.  Ollie followed him throughout the house, curious.

            “How does all this work?” he asked after the exterminator finished with the downstairs.

            “There’s Bromethalin in the blocks and pellets,” he explained.  “A lethal dose is consumed in one feeding so there’s no chance of bait shyness.”

            Ollie liked the way he talked, the authority and patience in his tone.  The exterminator was a bit older than Ollie, probably by five years or so and it was nice to have someone explain something to him.  It’d been some time since he received any instruction about anything.  Ollie also admired his long mustache, which he thought made the exterminator look distinguished, where it would have made Ollie look foolish.

            “May I?” the exterminator asked politely when they came to the closed door of the master bedroom.

            “Sure,” Ollie said.  “No one’s in there,” he said, opening the door for the exterminator.

            It occurred to Ollie that there’d never been another man in their bedroom, at least as far as he knew, and he felt vulnerable standing by the unmade bed next to the exterminator.  You could see that only one person slept there the night before since one side of the bed remained made.  There was really no sign of Loren, but that wasn’t so odd since she always packed her whole world whenever she took a trip, but it bothered him now that someone was bearing witness to his solitude.  Ollie felt compelled to explain to the exterminator that everything was fine, that he hadn’t been deserted by his wife, that he didn’t sleep alone every night, that his wife was only visiting her sister in California.  But he said nothing once the exterminator went about his business, poking in and out of the tiny spaces of their bedroom.

            When he was finished filling the house with rodenticide, Ollie offered the exterminator a glass of wine and the two men sat comfortably at the round marble table in the living room.  It’d been some time since he had company besides his wife and it felt appropriate to offer hospitality to the man who was trying to protect your home.  They sipped their wine silently, both staring out the large windows at the small yard and garden dimly lit by dusk, the red shed with the door open revealing a multitude of rusted lawn machines and old hobbies, like fly fishing rods and snow shoes.  Ollie made a note to clean the shed out the next morning, but he’d made that note before, somehow afraid to embrace even the simplest tasks. 

            “What happens after they eat the poison?” Ollie asked.  “I mean to say where will they go when they die?”

            “A lot of exterminators will tell you the rodents will go outside and seek water or just die and dry up without smelling, but I’d never tell you that.”  The exterminator licked his wine-stained mustache and Ollie refilled both their glasses.  “Bromethalin is an anticoagulant,” the exterminator continued.  “In laymen’s terms, the rodent loses its ability to have its blood clot once the poison is in their system.  Once an artery or vein ruptures, the animal dies.  This can happen from a cut or when the animal sustains an internal hemorrhage.  Either way, it has the potential to lead to a mess.  Be prepared to find them all over the place.  Random death we call it in the industry.  And be prepared for them to stink like everything else that dies.  In other words, you’ll have to clean up after them.”

            Ollie never considered the science of extermination, the biological acumen necessary to effectively rid vermin.  In his mind, he would have equated a garbage man with an exterminator, which almost shamed him that he could dismiss people and their occupations with no sincere thought at all.  Perhaps there was a whole world to waste management he never processed before that might prove fascinating as well.

            “I hate them,” Ollie said.  “Rodents.”

            “You have to respect them, though.  That tiny and we can’t permanently rid them.”

            “Humbling,” Ollie said.

            “Yup,” the exterminator replied, finishing his Chianti.

Although he had only slept probably ten hours in the past seventy-two, Ollie somehow felt rested and accomplished, like he’d managed a problem for the first time since he left work and this made him hopeful.  He wondered why he hadn’t let himself sleep?  He was tired most of the time, after all.  Anybody could sleep if they wanted to he believed. 

But anything could happen while you slept, terrible things you couldn’t control and Ollie’s dreams had been abysmal for months, consumed by the likes of tidal waves and airline crashes.  At least when he was awake, he knew where he stood, at least he did until he spotted rats.  Truth was he was ashamed there was vermin in their home, but also hoped the random death the exterminator spoke of was accurate so that he could prove to Loren that he wasn’t seeing things, that someone else would see what he saw, and then maybe he could finally rest.

The night after the exterminator’s visit, Ollie’s own frenzied heartbeat woke him up.  The house was quiet, so silent he only heard the rumblings of his own body: his heart beating like it was in a rush, his stomach churning, his blood zooming through his veins.  He turned on the bedside clock-radio, but couldn’t drown out the boom of his heart, wondering if it had always beat like this—one-two-one-two-one-two-one-two-one-two.  Ollie marveled that this muscle, this red, fleshy mystery could keep such a pace for sixty years.  It had to end soon.

Ollie called the exterminator the next morning.  While he was watching PBS the night before, he smelled something burning, something smoky like a liver pâté, and checked the stove and kitchen appliances.  Nothing.  Then with a pang it struck him what it might be and he was elated.

“I haven’t seen them, but I’ve been smelling death all morning,” he told the exterminator.  Ollie realized he was still wearing his paisley pajama bottoms, but wasn’t embarrassed like he’d expect to be.

The exterminator closed his eyes and breathed deeply though his nose, opening and closing his hands like a holy man during prayer.  He did this for several minutes, then stopped suddenly.

“A dead rodent smells like nothing else,” he said.  “I’ve never been able to make a proper comparison in terms of the olfactory.  It’s a very unique stink.”

The exterminator walked carefully through every room, inspecting the blocks and packets, eyeing them like a jeweler might a precious stone.

“Where’s your wife?” he asked while they were in the bedroom.  “Did she smell something, too?”

“She’s away.”

“Women have a keener sense of smell than men.  Keener senses all around.”

“Well, what do you think?  I don’t smell it now, either, but there was something putrid floating around this house early this morning.”

“Do you have any more of that Chianti?” the exterminator asked.

“Yes,” Ollie said.  “There should be some more.  Why?”

“Let’s continue this conversation over a glass of wine.”

Downstairs, Ollie brought out a jar of foie gras and water crackers.  He poured the exterminator a glass of Censio Chianti and the two men faced each other across the round marble table.  It was almost noon.

“You’ve seen one rodent in your house,” the exterminator said, his mouth full of crackers.  “One at a friend of yours.  Do I have it right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Ollie said.

“Have you ever seen anything before?  Here or anywhere?”

Ollie thought about this and all that came up was a time when he was in college, about forty years ago, when he drove from Connecticut to Florida.  He’d driven straight for thirty hours and by the time he reached Jacksonville he began spotting pink bunnies bouncing across I-95, which he knew was his mind playing tricks on his eyes.  Ollie didn’t mention this to the exterminator.

“No,” Ollie said, spreading foie gras onto a cracker.  “That’s what my wife thinks.  That I’m hallucinating.”

“What do you think?”

“All I know is what I saw, just like I see you right now.  If there was no rat in my kitchen and no rat at Chuck’s, then you’re not in front of me, either.  That’s where I’m coming from.”

The two men were then silent, only the sounds of chewing and sipping filling the house.  The exterminator had crumbs in his mustache.

“There are no nibbles on the bait I left.  I detect no random death smell in the air.  I don’t think there’s any vermin here,” he said in a softer voice.

“So where does that leave us?” Ollie asked.

“What happened the day before, the week before, or the month before you found the rat under the butcher block tickling your feet?  What’s changed in your life?”

“I feel like I’m in therapy,” Ollie said, smiling.

“No,” the exterminator said.  “Just two guys having a French lunch on a nice spring day.  That’s all.”

            Ollie sat back and cradled his wine glass.  Nothing much had happened in four or five months so it wasn’t difficult to conjure up specific events.  He and Loren had gone to see Othello in Boston.  That was about two months ago.  They almost went to Vermont for a cross-country ski weekend, but they canceled last minute since Ollie’s knees were sore.  They hadn’t spoken of anything of matter really, nothing more then the precarious weather, local politics, IRA tax implications.  Boring retirement talk.

            But they did talk about sex once.  Or, rather, she did.  That was about five weeks ago.

            She’d announced she wanted to talk to him over breakfast about something important, which Ollie translated into something dismal.  They spoke different languages most of the time.  With her background in law, she’d layer every word like a magician and it was his task to decipher what was tangled up underneath.  Ollie remembered he took an extra long shower that morning and dressed like he was about to attend a sacred event, like a wedding or a funeral.  Loren had made eggs Florentine and cappuccino.  She wore a gray headband, he remembered, which he’d found odd because she never wore anything on her head since she always said it made her scalp itch, but she’d been doing a lot of things differently since she left work so he didn’t mention it.

            “I’m ending my sex life,” she blurted.

            “I’ll alert the media,” Ollie said, blowing on his home fries.

            “I’m serious, Ollie.  I’m telling you now so there’s no confusion upstairs.”

            “You’re ending your sex life and you’re telling me this because that means you’re ending mine, too.  Is that right?”

            “That part of my life is over.  I understand you might still have needs and I wouldn’t fault you if you sought to exercise those whims elsewhere.”

            “Whims?  Jesus Christ, Loren.  I don’t understand this,” he said, dropping the silverware on his plate.  “I don’t understand this because it’s not like you have a broken hip or an IV attached to your vein.  You’re in better shape now than when you were at thirty.  You have more energy.  And we now have time!  We’re retired.  We’ve earned time.  Why would you turn your back on sexual possibility, but embrace everything else with such passion?”

            “My desire is gone,” she said simply.  “And I’m too old now to do anything I don’t want to do.  That I’ve earned.”

            Staring at her full plate, Ollie wanted to take it from her since she hadn’t touched her food and he was still hungry.  He realized twenty years ago he would have been destroyed over this news, torn up, but he was more devastated they were having an intense conversation than shocked over her declaration.

            “This is ridiculous, Loren,” Ollie said, peppering his hollandaise.  “You don’t deny my urges nor forbid me from seeking pleasure outside of wedlock.  Is that what the golden years are about?  Retiring from vows and order and each other?”

            “It’s about rediscovery, Ollie.  You don’t seem to accept or welcome that.  If we’re going to stay together until death do us part then you need to adjust.  You might not believe this, but I still love you.  That’s why I’m telling you this.  If I didn’t care, I’d just fake migraines every night.”

            More than any other emotion, Ollie was confused.  He figured his sexual life would end when he was no longer able to perform, when his body went limp.  But to rid sex at a point when you have ample time and energy to work on it seemed insane.  They never had that kind of time during their thirty-two years of marriage and the little time they did have was not often spent exploring in the bedroom.  It was mostly spent talking about work, talking about money, but never about where they were right then and how they could enjoy it.  Ollie’s libido wasn’t raging, his desire was mild compared to other men he knew, but he didn’t want to put out that fire for good.  He didn’t want to imagine those consequences.

            “She’s put you in a difficult position,” the exterminator said after digesting Ollie’s story and a second glass of wine.

            “I don’t think these rats are in my mind, though.”

            “I’d bet about thirty per cent of the homes I’ve serviced over the years have never borne a rodent.  You have to understand that I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been married.  People call me ostensibly to get rid of pests, but sometimes people want me to do more somehow.  It’s a strange job I have,” he said, tapping the stem of his glass with his ring finger.  “Very strange.”

            “So what should I do?” Ollie asked, dumbfounded.

            “I’d do what your wife says.  Adjust however you can.  I’m sixty-six years old and I don’t ever want to retire.  I try to make every day work for me and that’s all I would ever dream of asking for.”

            “I don’t want a life like my wife’s,” Ollie said, making a fist.  “I don’t want to be some senior acrobat.  I don’t want anything, really.  Jesus, I sound like a goner.”

            “Do you want to die?” the exterminator asked, brushing foie gras from his chin.

            Ollie thought about this carefully.  One day, yes, he wanted to die.  Some day when he was forced to wear diapers or couldn’t drive a car, but not yet.

            “No,” Ollie said.  “I don’t want to die.”

            “So what does all this tell you?”

            “I don’t know,” Ollie said.  “That’s the problem.”

            That night, Ollie watched television in the den, fixated on a documentary about tremenation, a surgical procedure in which a hole is drilled into the top of the skull.  The advocates believed this allowed a release of cranial pressure, which would enable a calmer, more insightful persona.  One woman claimed it ended her battle with depression and anxiety.  She said it’d been a quick and painless operation thanks to the local anesthesia and she even went to a cocktail party that night.  Ollie wondered if he only might need a release, that perhaps a hole in his head might be just what the doctor ordered.

            Ollie poured himself a glass of Shiraz, disappointed he and the exterminator finished all the Chianti.  Reclining on the leather sofa, he kicked off his slippers and stared into the black of the back yard.  Squinting at the old birch tree, he briefly imagined himself hanging from one of the limbs.

            Maybe he couldn’t live like he wanted to with her beside him.  Maybe the signal he’d been seeking couldn’t reveal itself while she was present.  Maybe he’d be able to rediscover like she said if he didn’t have to witness her own rebirth. 

Maybe it’d be best if they separated for a bit. 

He’d ask her for a sincere reply in plain language.  It’d been a good ride, after all.  There’d be no shame in admitting they couldn’t live together anymore, he’d say.  ‘Til death do us part is impossible to consider when you’re twenty-five, when you’re sixty-five, even.  Maybe ever.

            Ollie stood up, encouraged he might be able to sleep the night through.  He placed his wine glass in the sink and ran the dishwasher.  Breathing through his nose, he couldn’t detect the smell of random death.  As he reached for the light switch, he caught something dart into his office at the end of the hall and he went for it, unafraid of what he might find.

            When he pushed open the door, he saw the brown thoroughbred.  It was a beast of a horse, the animal crammed into the tight space of his office, its sleek tail resting on the FAX machine.  Blood dripped from its sides forming little pools on the Turkish carpet.  It looked as if the horse had been stabbed a hundred times with a cheap steak knife.

            But it was the sadness of the animal’s eyes that almost knocked Ollie over.  He ran into the kitchen for some rags, a tablecloth, anything to stop the bleeding.

            “Loren!” he called.  “Loren!”

            Back in his office, Ollie struggled to keep the horse on its feet as the animal’s bony knees began to buckle.  He put all his might against the horse’s warm rib cage, giving everything he had to keep the horse upright, doing everything he could to keep them both standing.