Tea Time
By Darnell “Saki” Dickerson
Copyright 20012 Darnell “Saki” Dickerson
Cover art by the Kreative Karri Klawiter
This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
“Here you go ma’am,” the young caretaker said after he regaining his composure. Just seconds before he had nearly tripped over his own feet and spilled the drink all over the carpet. The kettle rattled on the platter as he set it down on Ms. May’s eating tray with shaky hands. The woman smiled. It was a warm and non-judgmental smile despite the young man’s clumsiness. She adjusted her glasses, squinting to read the young man’s name tag.
“Rob! That’s it Rob, splendid thank you.” She had the hardest time remembering his name, everyday she learned and forgot it again. The kind worker simply offered her a smile and left her to her thoughts, bumping into a dresser before leaving. The door creaked shut.
“That young man reminds me so much of my grandson. Such a clumsy but spirited boy, but how I wish they would lubricate the hinges on that door!” She leaned back in her chair for a few moments staring off into the distance, humming to herself as she let her thoughts wander.
When the lemon tea had cooled to a point that was tolerable to her sensitive gums there came a soft knock on the door as she took the first sip.
“Come in, it’s open.”
Joyce Anderson ambled into the room, leaning heavily on her walker as she advanced one careful shuffle at a time, she brought in the small, hand-held radio the two women loved to sit next to and tune in on the problems of the world.
“What’s going on today Joyce?”
“More bad news I'm afraid.”
“Is there any other kind?”
When Joyce was comfortably seated and caught her breath Ms. May began to knit as the broadcast signal came in.
“Talks today went smoothly as President Bush met with the Prime Minister of Iraq to draw up the new Democratic Constitution of Iraq.”
“Mmm, it’s about time we turned around those Muslims,” Ms. May said, not necessarily talking to her friend, but more out of the habit of talking to inanimate objects as she usually had no one to converse with.
“Now May, not all of the Iraqi people are Muslim, in fact I heard on the television that only about twenty percent of Iraqi’s are Islamic and of those twenty only twenty percent are extremists.”
“Bah, if you ask me that’s twenty percent too many, here have some tea and crackers.”
"Thank you kindly." She removed her dentures and placed them on the eating tray, sipping slowly as the broadcast continued.
After a quarter of an hour of sipping tea, trading polite banter, and conversing about current happenings in the world outside the walls of the Crossroads Nursing Home the women began to gossip and playfully tease each other just as they did as school girls so many years ago.
“Now May, you had best be kind to my little Rochelle when she brings her boyfriend over for Thanksgiving. I know you feel uncomfortable around Negroid people but please mind your manners. He’s a nice boy and a Christian at that, my granddaughter doesn’t need the two cents of an old hag like you.”
“Perhaps my hearing aid needs a change of batteries but I do believe I heard you call me an old hag?”
“Your hearing aid seems to be in top order. Is there a problem?”
“Call me senile but weren’t you born three months before I was?”
“That’s not what my sweetheart thinks, now hush up and pour me another cup.”
“I heard that Fannie Sunbeam from room 312 was chatting with your friend by the ping pong table the other night.”
“No, not my Winifred, that old crow!” Joyce had worked herself up and it took a moment for her to regain her composure before taking the tea her friend had poured to her lips for a refreshing sip.
“Mmm, another school sex scandal, listen,” Ms. May turned up the volume on the radio and the announcer gave the report about a local math teacher engaging in oral sex with several underage students. “In my day they would have pinned her chest with a scarlet ‘W’ for whore.”
“In your day people still worshiped Zeus and running water was a miracle of Poseidon.” Joyce quipped. “I’d imagine she’d have to be awfully pretty to get away with it for such a long time and I don’t believe they’ll send her to prison for too long.”
“So now you’re defending that harlot?”
“No, I'm just saying I don’t blame her for having a little fun while she’s still got fresh eggs in the carton.”
“Skank!”
The kettle was about halfway finished and the women had worked themselves in a tizzy by the time the announcer got around to the daily winning numbers and Ms. Joyce Anderson was only three numbers away from winning the Pick Four today, she nearly fainted from the excitement, but when it was all done both ladies sank back in their chairs, having thoroughly exhausted themselves.
“If I had won I was planning to use the money to buy the burial plot right next to Ernest’s,” Joyce said airily.
“That certainly is sweet, but why are you thinking such morbid thoughts?”
“You know what they say, this place is just a crossroads between life and death.”
“I’d hardly call this living,” Ms. May said, carelessly pricking herself with her knitting needle. Her hands were unsteady and she couldn’t properly thread the needle any longer. She became flustered and put aside her project for another day.
The two drank deeply from their cups and set them down on the table. The radio signal had cut out momentarily as it often did and the two friends sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Ms. Anderson could feel her eyelids droop slightly but she fought to keep herself from dozing off. It was only three in the afternoon, bed time wasn’t for another three hours.
Ms. May was lost in quiet contemplation. All that depressing talk had put her in a mood. She was about to say something to clear the air when she noticed the most peculiar thing. The floral patterns in the wallpaper before her began to move. She blinked and the wallpaper was normal once again. “First my hearing, and now my sight,” she said softly to herself.
“What was that?” but before she could explain to her friend what she had just seen the radio signal picked up again and the thought left her mind.
“Women’s’ rights activists crowded the streets today in front of a Big 5 sporting goods store arguing that the company promoted the negative message that women were not welcome to participate in sports by refusing to stock football equipment in female sizes.”
“Bah! These feminists, I know why they’re angry, it’s because they don’t know how to take care of a man. Their mothers’ never taught them proper. Cook, clean, and look pretty, it’s that simple.”
“Geez, you’re prehistoric,” Joyce said, shaking off a spell of drowsiness. “Get with the times, women are running for president now, things are different.”
“The next thing you know the women will be wearing the long pants and the men will be wearing skirts. Those feminists want this whole country to be as backwards as their ideals.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t personally support their radical notions but if a lady want’s to have a career and not just be a walking baby maker I say let her do it.”
Ms. May was taken aback. “I would have never pegged you for--”
“For what?” But Ms. May didn’t finish her sentence, in fact in the brief pause between her words she had forgot what she had wanted to say next and sank back into her reclining chair. She went to pick up her thread and start working it again but once it was in her hands she fou
nd she didn’t have the energy to continue.
A stretch of silence passed and both women had excited themselves to the point of exhaustion and were on the verge of dozing off. Ms. May said, “My goodness, I wonder what they put in this stuff, it’s mighty powerful.”
“This is nothing compared to what they give the women upstairs,” Joyce said, “those poor saps that have no family, no connections to the outside. Grade A tea. I tried some when I went to visit Maryann, one sip and I was out like a rock.”
“Mmm.” Ms. May put down her knitting and eased back in her chair. It wasn't long before the kettle had gone cold and both women had fallen into a dreamless daytime nap.
The young caretaker Rob slipped in the doorway, easing it closed without a creak and locked it from the inside. He moved across the room soundlessly. There was no one to act for now, no need to pretend to be the nervous, clumsy, teenage intern. He knew it wasn’t even really necessary, just part of the fun.
He put a practiced finger to Ms. May’s neck and felt that her pulse was slow and her breathing was steady. He looked over to find Ms. Joyce slumped in a similar position and smiled to himself.
“Two for one today. “
He had really come to hate this job. The residents were demanding, his boss was a bitch and his pay was nearly nothing. Despite that he really wanted to request to stay on full time once his internship was up.
At least the perks are nice, he thought, running his fingers down Ms. May’s neck, reaching down her blouse.
He went to the window and shut the blinds, then unzipped his pants.
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