Wayne Scheer

Selecting the Right Wine

Fiction by Wayne Scheer

Whenever Phyllis brought up the idea of attending a wine tasting, Ben would say, "I'd rather drink than taste." The more he resisted, the more she persisted. 

But he had been married long enough to appreciate the inevitability of attending a wine tasting if Phyllis really wanted to go. He tried convincing himself he might even find it interesting. 

"Okay," he said, putting down the morning paper. "I see Angelo's advertising a tasting of the wines of Northern Italy this Thursday. Let's go. And afterwards we'll eat dinner there."

"You are the sweetest man," Phyllis said.

"I'll make reservations," he said.

"No need."  She smiled. "I already made them."

When they arrived at the restaurant, the hostess showed them to a separate room. Eight tables were set with small plates containing crusts of bread, slivers of cheese and dollops of berries. The room was empty, except for waiters and one other couple.

"For this we paid twenty bucks," Ben whispered to his wife. The hostess smiled politely and showed them to their table. The other couple avoided any sign of polite smiles.

"Be good," Phyllis warned her husband. 

Waiters arranged eight empty wine glasses and a water glass at each setting. "Maybe it won't be so bad after all," Ben said.

Within minutes, people gathered and greeted each other. Phyllis smiled. "Isn't this nice? It's like taking a class with old friends."

Soon, a balding man with a ponytail, wearing a black turtle neck sweater, a light brown sports jacket and well-pressed jeans kissed and hugged his way to the front of the room. The chatter hushed as if Moses had come down from the mount.

"Tonight, we will taste the charming wines of Northern Italy, particularly the Piedmont region and the North Eastern Provinces." 

"Ahhs" and "oohs" passed through the room like the wave at a ball game.

Mr. Pony Tail began detailing the climate and soil conditions of the Piedmont region, explaining that the environment was perfect for Dolcetto, "Italy's answer to Beaujolais."

"When do we start drinking?" Ben whispered.

Phyllis shot him the look she had perfected from twenty-six years of teaching elementary school.

After more lecturing about the state of the grape, the waiters began pouring.

"Ah, that's more like it." Ben rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

But his expression changed when he saw how small a portion graced his glass. Trying to be good, he held his tongue. 

He watched the couple across from him sniff and slosh the wine from cheek to cheek. Another man swirled the liquid in its glass and held it up to the light as if performing a science experiment. A woman sipped and spit the wine back into her glass, describing it as "fruity."  Her companion complained the finish was a bit abrupt.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Ben said, as he tossed back the small amount of wine in a single swallow. "Not bad."

Phyllis said she preferred a dryer wine, but was glad to have tried this one. She turned to her husband and winked. "It is, after all, Italy's answer to the Beaujolais."  

Ben smiled.

"You're starting to rub off on me," she said.

"I love it when you talk dirty." Ben popped berries into his mouth like they were peanuts.

After experiencing a "non-assertive but far from passive" Merlot and a couple of other wines, one of which Ben thought tasted like cough medicine, Mr. Pony Tail assured them they were now in for a special treat. "We have an excellent Borolo for your tasting pleasure."

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Ben said to Phyllis, adding, "What the hell is a Barolo? It sounds like something you wear on your head."

"Barolo and Barberesco are, of course, the most famous reds of the Piedmont region."

"Damn Commies," Ben whispered. "The Sacco and Venzetti of wines." 

This time Phyllis laughed, dribbling the water she had been sipping. 

The man sitting nearby increased his glare to a glower. His wife uttered a "humph."

Ben saw Phyllis's face redden. Afraid he might have embarrassed her, he took her hand.

"It's okay," she said loud enough for the couple to hear. "That was funny. Wine hasn't destroyed my sense of humor." 

The crowd "cleansed their palates" in anticipation of the pouring of the Barolo. Ben had already eaten his allotment of food. A waiter filled his water glass.

But the bottles of Barolo remained unpoured as Mr. Pony Tail shared an involved history of the Nebbiolo grape. Ben watched people take notes.

"Will this be on the test?" he asked.

"Not as original as the Sacco and Venzetti line," Phyllis said. "But if we don't get some food into us soon, I'm going to eat this tablecloth."

Finally, the waiters poured the Barolo.

Ben drank it without fanfare. "Mmm, this is good."

Phyllis agreed.

"Dry but not arid," said the man across from Ben and Phyllis. "A lovely finish. Fresh and original." 

"Actually, this one is dry enough to suck the spit right out of you," Ben declared, as the sippers sniffed and sloshed. "I bet this would go well with a pork chop, maybe lamb."

"You talked me into it," she said, grabbing her purse. "It's getting rather stuffy in here." 

As they stood, Ben reminded her there was still more wine to be tasted. 

"Wine," she said, "is like men. Once you select the right one, there's no reason to keep looking."

Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they made their way out of the room and into the restaurant. He looked back at the wine tasters, imagining they were staring at him with envy. They should be, he thought.

-oOo- 

Want to read more stories like this by Wayne Scheer and others? Be sure to check out the Love Hurts anthology, featuring 21 humorous stories. Click here for more information.

Wayne Scheer

Revenge of the Words

Fiction by Wayne Scheer

Bosco George had a problem. Although born in Iowa, America's plainspoken heartland, his own English sounded like the linguistic love child of Yogi Berra and Sarah Palin. It's not that he didn't know the language, it's just that his syntax sounded like Puff Diddy singing tunes from Oklahoma.   

"I just open my mouth for business and the words come out to play," he'd say. Folks would scratch their heads.

As a young man, he'd get angry. "Don't laugh at me," he'd say. "Or you'll be smiling out of the other side of your teeth."

He grew up a tough kid from Cedar Rapids. "I come from the other side of the railroad," he told people. When he saw the confusion on their faces, he'd try to clarify. "You know, where the grass ain't green with envy."

"Say what?" was the usual response.

 And, of course, he'd say, "What."

In time, it was clear to Bosco he didn't belong in Iowa, so he traveled the country in search of work and acceptance.  

People still laughed. Especially in Texas. 

At a bar outside Dallas, he had an encounter with a man wearing a cowboy hat, boots and pants so tight Bosco was afraid to look. The would-be cowboy drawled, "Y'all sure got some funny ways." 

Bosco assumed the man must have been drunk and seeing double.  That would explain why he dressed so funny and said, "y'all." He just thanked him, and moved on.

In Georgia, he interviewed for a job, but it didn't go well. It began with the woman saying, "Good morning," with her voice rising on the first syllable of "morning." Bosco thought she was asking a question, so he tried to explain why he thought the morning was so good.

Later in the interview, the woman asked him where he was from originally. When he told her, "Iowa," she asked how long he'd lived in this country.

"You're luhnin English real good, sugar. You'll be talkin like us in no tahm."

Frightened, Bosco suffered what he called his "dark bluish" period.  "I guess I'm always gonna stand out, like a hammer that hit its thumb on the nail."

But something odd happened the first day he arrived in New York City. He felt at home. "These people talk funnier than I do. We're kindled spirits."

He found a job at a pizzeria in Queens.  Everyone thought he was from Italy.

Wayne Scheer

Doing God's Work

Fiction By Wayne Scheer

Eli and Vernon Browbridge rolled The Fat Man's bloated body from the trunk of their 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix into the hole in the ground they had just dug.

Eli spoke first. "I wonder if a dead fat guy smells worse than a thin broad that's been roasting in a hot car trunk?" He grabbed a dirty handkerchief from his back pocket, blew his nose and wiped the sweat from his face. Dirt and snot streaked his cheek.

"You got me," Vernon replied. "Ain't never had no dead broad in my trunk. But The Fat Man sure stinks."

Eli put a hand to his chin. "Makes you think."

Vernon nodded, but he paid little attention to his brother. He was enjoying the cool breeze drifting down from the North Georgia Mountains. As a child, he'd spend nights in the hammock on the back porch falling asleep to the sound of chirping insects. Even with the skeeters, Vernon preferred the view of Mount Yonah to the room he shared with his brother, who would spend half the night asking him questions he had no idea how to answer.

"Vern," Eli asked. "How we gonna get The Fat Man into this little hole?"

Vernon circled the overstuffed grave. He tried bending Fat Man's legs, hoping the stiffening limbs might snap off. No luck.

"We gotta dig more. That's all there is to it. We gotta push The Fat Man on his side and dig this hole deeper."

It was hard work digging through the roots and Georgia clay that passed for soil in the mountains. When they finally pushed the body towards the deeper side, Eli wondered if that was enough. 

"No," Vernon said, the body still stuck up on one side. "We gotta fit him in and cover him up good or we won't get paid."

Eli spit a mouthful of dirt. "Why's Georgia dirt get so hard in the sun?"

"Iron," Vernon said. "Georgia soil's got a lotta iron in it." He felt proud when he had an answer to one of Eli's stupid ass questions. "That's why it's so red. The iron rusts when it mixes with rain and that turns it hard." He paused to let Eli appreciate his smarts.

While Eli dug some more, Vernon took a breather. "I sure like the way these woods smell when their ain't no Fat Man stinking it up." 

"Yeah. Me, too. Remember how when we was kids we'd run through the woods nekkid after a rain? Give Mama a fit."

They continued digging. The midday sun took no pity on them. Their T-shirts stuck to their bodies; their jeans felt like they'd have to be scraped off.  

An hour later they had dug The Fat Man's grave about three feet deep. There was still a little hump along the middle of the hole where they had dug around a big rock, but the brothers decided it would do. They laid out The Fat Man's body until he looked almost comfortable and began shoveling dirt and leaves over him. A mound, formed by his belly, remained visible, but they covered it with more leaves until it evened out.

"You think we should say a prayer or something, Vern?"

Eli was back with his damned questions. "Wouldn't do no good," Vernon said after a few seconds. "Only prayer I know is 'Now-I-Lay-Me-Down-to-Sleep.' I reckon it's too late for that one."

"Vern," Eli had on his serious face, the one where his forehead wrinkled and his eyebrows met. "Are we bad people for doing this?"

Vernon answered immediately. "No, sir. The man deserves a grave, don't he? We're giving it to him. We didn't kill him. Now that'd be wrong. We just doing a honest day's work for a honest day's pay, just like Mama always says." He leaned on his shovel. "When we get the money, we'll give her some and she'll give part of it to Reverend Atwater. So the way I see it, we doing God's work." 

Proud of himself, Vernon topped off the grave with more leaves and tree branches. "I reckon this here's as fine a grave as The Fat Man deserves."

The two brothers stepped back to admire their work, threw their shovels into the back of their car and drove off to collect their pay. 

***

In less than two hours, a pack of dogs happened on the shallow grave and uncovered most of the body. Soon after that, a young couple searching for wild blackberries saw the mangled corpse and called 9-1-1. An hour later, Sheriff Erskine Calloway identified what was left of the body as Horace Latimer, a.k.a. The Fat Man, a local loan shark. He specialized in loans of twenty to one hundred dollars to illegals and gamblers, often demanding twice that if the loan wasn't repaid within twenty-four hours. 

"At least we won't have a problem finding folks who wanted him dead," the sheriff told his deputy. He sniffed at the body like a bitch in heat. "Sure is getting ripe out here in the sun. Don't reckon he's been dead too long, though. Can't see no gunshot or stab wounds, but it's hard to tell with all these dog bites. The man's so fat he just might have ate hisself to death. But I doubt seriously he buried his damn self." Sheriff Calloway looked at his deputy who was writing furiously in his ever-present notebook. "You getting all this down, son?"

"Yes, sir." 

"We won't know nothing for sure till Doc Robbins has himself a look-see. Probably won't know much then, if Doc already drank his lunch." He turned to his deputy. "It sure ain't like that CSI show on television."

***

Eli and Vernon collected their five hundred dollars for a good day's work and visited their mother. LuAnne Browbridge had the sturdy, no nonsense look of a woman who raised two boys by herself after beating her drunkard of a husband nearly to death with a frying pan. Nothing surprised her, least of all Eli and Vernon. When they handed her one hundred dollars in twenties, she asked no questions. She just reached under the top of her faded housedress and stashed the money safely into her bra. 

"You boys gimme that kind of money, you got plenty more. Hand over another hundred."

The boys complied without a word.

She separated twenty dollars from the money. "This here's for Reverend Atwater. I'll ask him to pray for your sorry asses. Now y'all wash up good and you can stay for supper."

***

The next day, Dr. Robbins said he couldn't determine cause of death for sure until the autopsy, but it seemed natural enough. The dog bites, at least, were post mortem. "From what I can tell it looks like his heart gave way," the doctor concluded. 

"Well," Sheriff Calloway said to his deputy. "We got ourselves a di-lemma. If The Fat Man here died of natural causes, why'd someone go to the trouble of burying him in the woods?"

The deputy wrote the question in his notebook, adding three question marks.

Sheriff Calloway waited for an answer. When none was offered, he spoke. "My guess is someone didn't want us to know they was with him."

The deputy nodded. 

"Off-hand, I don't know anyone who'd want it known they was with this sad sack of human feces. So we got ourselves a whole mess of folks to question. Or we could look at it another way." He paused for the deputy to turn the page in his notebook.

"If you had a dirty job you wanted done, like burying a body, who'd you get to do it?"

The deputy looked up, his eyes flashing wide. "The Browbridge brothers."

"And who would do the job so half-assed, the body'd be discovered before the devil had time to cart it off to hell?"

"Eli and Vern."

Sheriff Calloway smiled. "What say we have ourselves a little chat with the brothers Browbridge?"

***

Mrs. Browbridge wasn't the least surprised when she saw the sheriff's car pull up in front of her house. "Eli! Vernon!" she shouted to her sons who were watching stunt bowling on ESPN. "The po-lice is here. I don't know what y'all did this time, just keep me out of it." 

Sheriff Calloway and his deputy removed their hats as they entered the surprisingly cozy Browbridge abode. "Ma'am," the sheriff nodded. "Your boys home?"

Eli and Vernon were trying to figure out how to record their show, but operating their mother's TiVO system might as well have been rocket science. They were pushing buttons and cursing when the sheriff walked in.

"What you boys up to?"

Vernon and Eli looked up from the remote. "Nothin'," Vernon said. 

His brother added. "This danged recorder don't work."

"You boys trying to record this here bowling show?" the sheriff asked. When the brothers nodded, he took the remote and pressed the red record button.

"There. Now y'all do something for me. I got The Fat Man's body in the morgue. Found it out in the woods." He looked Eli and Vernon in the eye. "You boys know anything about it?"

"No, sir," said Vernon, speaking fast so Eli didn't say something dumb. 

Eli still managed to get in a few words. "We don't know nothin' bout buryin' no body."

"Who said the body was buried?" He turned to his deputy. "You taking this down? We'll need this when we go before the judge."

"Judge?" Eli asked. "Why we need a judge?"

"Because murder and kidnapping and burying a body without a permit are crimes, that's why." The sheriff went silent, giving Eli and Vernon time to understand.

In less time than it would take a hungry fox to devour a chicken, the boys told him how Missy Taggert had hired them to put The Fat Man's body in the trunk of their car and bury him. "He was already dead," Eli explained. "We was just doing Miss Missy a favor."

"How much she pay you for this favor?"

"A hundred-and-fifty dollars," Vernon said. "We already give it to mama."

The deputy wrote furiously.

Sheriff Calloway took one look at the death stare LuAnne was shooting at her boys and figured they'd be punished enough. "Don't go spending that money or leaving town," he said, as he and the deputy walked out the door. 

***

Missy Taggert had been good-looking enough in her youth to have made a comfortable living as the town prostitute. When her looks went south along with her other assets, she married Darnell Grimes. Still, everyone in town knew her as Missy Taggert, especially the men. Darnell worked construction when he could get on with a road crew and fixed cars when someone felt sorry for him or Missy. He wasn't home when the sheriff knocked on Missy's door. Since Sheriff Calloway had a personal relationship with Missy dating back to her former line of work, he had arranged for his deputy to meet him at the stationhouse. 

Missy knew by the expression on the sheriff's face that this wasn't a friendly call, but she tried stalling. "Erskine, I haven't seen you since Tina Mae had her baby. How old is your granddaughter now?"

"She'll be two this coming winter, Missy. But I ain't here to talk family or old times." He wished he hadn't mentioned old times. "It seems we have ourselves a di-lemma. The Browbridge boys tell me you hired them for a certain job not long ago."

Getting Eli and Vernon to confess took more time than it took Missy to explain how she had been doing sexual favors for The Fat Man to hold her over while Darnell found work. This time his heart couldn't take the excitement. She didn't want her husband to know, so she did what everyone in town did when they had a cesspool that needed unclogging or snakes under the porch that needed killing. She called the Browbridge boys and paid them with half of the money The Fat Man had in his wallet. She kept the rest.

"A hundred and fifty dollars?" Sheriff Calloway asked.

"Is that what they told you? The boys may be smarter than they look."

After coffee with a shot of rum, he agreed to keep the incident on the hush and hush if the final coroner's report confirmed it was a heart attack. After all, The Fat Man had no family and no friends who'd miss him.

***

Sheriff Calloway had one more point of business to take care of before this whole mess could be wrapped up.

"Vern. Eli," he said, wrinkling his forehead to look as paternal as possible. Missy told me the truth, so it looks like you boys are in the clear this time. There won't be no murder charges against you."

In unison, the boys blew air out of their puffed up cheeks. Eli wanted to shout "Yehaw!" but he thought better of it.

"But we still got ourselves a di-lemma." The sheriff rolled his tongue inside his mouth for a moment. "It seems Missy says she paid you five hundred dollars and you say one-fifty. Since I believe her, that makes your statement to me—that my deputy had wrote down for the judge—what we call lying to a officer of the law. Now that can get you jail time."

Eli and Vernon just stared at the Sheriff. Even Eli couldn't think of anything to say.

"But we can work something out. Say you give me two hundred. You boys keep the rest and we won't talk no more about this."

The Browbridge brothers readily agreed. Vernon reached into his boot and took out a wad of wet, smelly twenties. He counted out two hundred and handed it to the sheriff.

Sheriff Calloway took the money. Before walking away, he said, "You boys stay out of trouble now, y'hear? I can't always be bailing you out."

As he slipped into his car, he smiled and put nine twenties in his wallet. The other one he placed in an envelope on which he scrawled, "Rev. Atwater."

Feeling the spirit, he mumbled, "Aw, what the hell," and added another twenty to the envelope. "Somebody got to do God's work."

Wayne Scheer

Fear of Not Flying
Fiction by Wayne Scheer

Oz and Lenny, friends since college, were turning fifty. Their wives talked about a dinner, maybe a party, but the birthday boys were unimpressed. "What I'd really like to do," Oz said, "is get high, go to a club, and let loose. Be wild again."

Carla reminded him he was never wild. 

"Yeah, but at least when I was young I'd get high enough to think I was wild."

Lenny agreed. "I look in the mirror and see my father staring back, disapproving. I say, let's give the old man something to really disapprove of."

Susan, Lenny's wife, wasn't so sure. "Where would we even get weed?"

Oz had already considered that problem. "There's a new Assistant Professor where I teach. She's still young enough to party. I'm pretty sure I can score some shit off of her." He hoped his vocabulary made him sound cool.

The next Saturday evening, they gathered around Oz to watch him pack the loose marijuana into cigarettes. "You never forget how to ride a bike or roll a joint," Oz proclaimed, as he licked the paper to seal the ends. He prepared four cigarettes. They were too fat and loose, but no one complained.

Although they wanted to smoke a joint right away, they decided to drive to a nearby club and smoke in the car before going in, worrying they might not drive safely if they began at home.

In the car, Oz sucked deeply on a stubby cigarette and lost most of the smoke to a cough. While passing it to Carla, he struggled to hold what was left. Finally, the urge to cough overwhelmed him. "I guess I'm out of practice."

Lenny and Susan laughed as Carla took a shallow hit and passed the joint.

Susan, unable to relax, worried about police. "We have three grown kids, for crying out loud."

"Be cool," Lenny said, as he ducked below the car window to smoke. 

Oz remembered how easy it once seemed. "We're working too hard at this." 

Wedged behind the steering wheel and still wearing his seat belt, he stuck his head out the window. "Ya-haa," he shouted.  He tried going falsetto on the second syllable but all that came out was a crackling sound, similar to the noise a car makes when you turn the key after it's already running.

Carla punched Oz on the shoulder.

"That hurt," Oz said.

"You wuss. I hardly touched you."

"No. I mean my throat."

"Another drug-related incident," Lenny said, in his best radio announcer voice.

They passed the joint around, alternating between laughing and coughing.

Finally, Carla opened the car door. "Let's go in before you old men need your naps." 

Entering the club, they were immediately assaulted by the blaring music and the stale, sweet smell of alcohol mixed with the marijuana on their clothing. Susan, who had been quiet, reached in her purse for a hit on her asthma inhaler.

"Smooth," she said.

After paying the cover charge and getting their hands stamped, there was no turning back. Feeling like Baptists at an orgy, they made their way deep into the bowels of the club, trying not to stare at the tattooed and pierced partygoers who looked younger than their own children. Finding no place to sit, they stood along a wall, swaying awkwardly to the music like four wilted wallflowers.

"Let's dance," Oz said, taking Carla by the hand.

"But you don't dance."

Pointing to the crowded dance floor filled with young bodies swaying and jumping and hopping in what seemed like random abandon, he shouted, "What difference does that make?"  

But another coughing fit held him back.

"Maybe we should get beers and build up to a dance," Carla suggested.

After an hour of awkward posturing and even more awkward attempts to dance, Susan complained that the cigarette smoke was irritating her contacts. Relieved, they all agreed to go back to Oz and Carla's for a final weed-induced flight.

At the house, they tried sitting in a circle on the floor but agreed the couch was more comfortable. "Be careful of the ashes," Carla warned, fighting valiantly the temptation to pass an ashtray along with the joint. She put on a classical guitar CD, Andre Segovia, and dimmed the lights.  "No incense. Cinnamon-scented candles from Wal-Mart will have to do."

Earlier in the day, Oz searched the attic and found old Jefferson Airplane, The Fugs and Steppenwolf albums. He really wanted to hear Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion," but Carla reminded him they no longer owned a turntable. He apologized to the group for the music.  

No one cared as they passed the joints and relaxed into the moment. The four friends enjoyed easy conversation, recollecting and creating exploits from their past. Oz pointed out how much this beat talking about their cholesterol numbers. 

They munched on raw vegetables and fat-free ranch dressing.

"Oz, you'll have to thank that Assistant Professor for us. No one at my firm is young enough to remember smoking pot," Lenny said. "Their idea of fun is a brandy before bedtime."

"Sounds good to me," Susan whispered. Carla nodded in agreement.

Oz sat up. "Well, I'm not that old, dammit! Let's make a pact to do this every birthday."

"Right on, my man." Lenny high-fived Oz. 

Oz suffered another cough attack.

"Coffee, anyone?" Carla asked. "I have decaf."

Wayne Scheer

Mardi Gras
Fiction by Wayne Scheer

A surprisingly shapely leg peeked through the slit in her blue silk evening gown. Sequins on her dress reflected the light in the room, flashing like paparazzi bulbs. Although the woman's age hovered somewhere between old and elderly, she flitted from table to table, microphone in hand, doing something resembling singing. She had already treated us to "Walkin to New Orleans" and the Dixie Chicks version of "Iko." Now she warbled her way through, "You Light Up My Life," while running her fingers through men's thinning hair and nuzzling their necks. Thinking herself Whitney Houston's Caucasian cousin, she demonstrated her ability to hit two notes—high and higher still—without concern for the original melody.

Although unaccustomed to prayer, I found myself mumbling, "Dear God, please don't let her come to this table."

But my fear of an unjust universe prevailed. The aging screech owl with legs I reluctantly admit to leering at perched on my lap. Worse, she wanted me to sing along with her. 

She persisted until I monotoned, "You light up my… life," and hit a note so inappropriate she looked at me as if I had passed gas, kissed my receding hairline and sauntered off to her next victim.

I eyed my father-in-law, almost unconscious with laughter, pounding the table and pointing at me. My first inclination was to adjust his oxygen tube, which hung from one nostril like a trapeze artist teasing an audience. I reconsidered. He had gotten me into this, let him fix his own damn oxygen.

With that, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, reinserting the tube, and shouted, "Isn't she a pistol?"

I muttered, "I wish I had one," but my wife kicked me under the table. Dutifully, I replied, "Yeah, she's something, all right."

We were at the Shady Grove Assisted Living Center's annual, Mardi Gras Entertainment Extravaganza, "featuring the song stylings of Miss Lala La Vine." I had already experienced a three sisters' dance act, performed by a trio of octogenarians, and a comic who began his routine with, "I just flew in from New Orleans and boy are my arms tired." Really, he opened with that.

But I hadn't seen Mike, my father-in-law, so happy in years, and before we left the house Bonnie had promised me something special if I was a good boy and avoided sarcasm for the whole night. So I took a deep breath, gave him a thumbs up and returned to Miss La Vine, who now sat on a stool, center stage, crossing and uncrossing her alarmingly shapely legs, promising us her own, very special rendition of "My Way." I closed my eyes and prayed again, this time for the strength to remain sarcasm-free.

She'll probably end with this, I thought. It can't be much longer. I imagined half the audience asleep—at least I hoped they were sleeping—and the other half caretakers, adjusting oxygen tanks and wiping drool. The truth is, as I looked around the converted dining hall decorated with purple, green and gold tinsel, masks and beads, I saw an audience laughing and singing along. Their energy made me feel like I was the old man.  

After a rousing finish, with Lala holding the last note of "My Waaaaaaaaaay" long enough to render Kenny G. unconscious, she called the other performers to the stage for a final bow and an audience sing-along of, "There's No Business Like Show Business."  I had no idea what that had to do with Mardi Gras, but I was grateful they didn't end with "Jambalaya on the Bayou."

Despite my inhibition, I found myself mouthing at least some of the words, amazed at how many residents of Shady Grove knew all the lyrics. Mike not only knew the words, he was doing Ethel Merman's rendition at full volume. It was good hearing him so alive.

The lights came on and I swear I could see molecules in motion. People were still singing; a woman in a wheelchair displayed happy feet. Even Mr. Riconda, Mike's poker partner, a man who hadn't uttered a positive word since Eisenhower's second term, turned his lips upwards in what resembled a smile. 

"See?" Mike was saying to us. "I told you they do a bang-up job." He turned to me. "I bet you're sorry now you missed their Winter Shindig."

Bonnie glared in my direction, but she didn't need to worry. I had caught the spirit. "I can't wait for this summer's Beach Party," I said.

Strangely enough, I meant it. After all, there was a chance I'd see Lala again, this time in a bathing suit.

Wayne Scheer

My Left Foot

Non-Fiction by Wayne Scheer

About a month ago my wife broke a CorningWare dish that we think dated back to a wedding present. CorningWare is supposed to be virtually indestructible, and I suppose forty-three years qualifies it as such, but when it falls from a high shelf onto a tile floor, it doesn't just break. It explodes.

Talk about your thousand points of light. Try a thousand shards of ceramic glass. 

Being the thoughtful husband that I am, I immediately grabbed a broom and started sweeping. 

Being the thoughtless idiot that I am, I did so barefoot. 

After an appropriate amount of cursing and hopping, I tweezed out dozens of shards, wiped the blood from my foot and the floor, applied antiseptic and a band-aide, slipped on shoes—I'm capable of learning from my mistakes—and continued sweeping. No big deal, I thought.

But my foot still hurt, so I dug in with a pin and tweezers and pulled out more glass, discovering that my sixty-five year-old body isn't made for close observation of the bottom of my foot.  My wife who, thankfully, doesn't like inflicting pain on me, thought it wiser to seek the assistance of a neighbor who happens to be a nurse. The fact that he is actually a geriatric nurse wasn't lost on me.

He made a house call, medical bag in hand, took a pickaxe to my foot, and extracted at least eight more ceramic shards, some as big as a baseball. This procedure was performed with a single anesthesia—Scotch, straight up.

A week later, I still hurt. My wife forced me to see our family physician. Donning a headlight and magnifying glass, the doctor burrowed into my foot, and mined a few more shards, without even offering me a drink. Bandaged, with a prescription for antibiotics, I limped off, thinking that would be the last of it.

A week later, still hobbling, my doctor advised me to see a podiatrist, who x-rayed my foot and declared with a perfect straight face, "It's what I suspected. Glass doesn't show up on x-rays." She proceeded to excavate up to my knee, pulled out a few more shards, flushed the wound, and sent me home. Now I hurt far worse than ever. Scotch helped.

Two weeks later, still hurting, I returned to the podiatrist. She scraped away the callous that had formed and shouted, "Eureka," displaying still another piece—this one the size of a baseball bat—and declared me fixed. Again.

Now I'm almost walking normally, probably because my wallet is so much lighter from all the doctor visits and "surgeries."

What have I learned from all this? If my wife breaks a dish, let her clean it up. She's smart enough to dress appropriately.

Also, Scotch makes an excellent anesthetic.