Pretend Plumber by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

Author:Stephanie Barbé Hammer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781955969116
Publisher: Inlandia Institute
Published: 2022-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

After the meeting, Sid and Sylvia and Helen (and Spike) and the two Jakes give us a tour of the B’nai Ahava complex. There’s an intensive care hospital-ly type place but it’s up the road, and everyone here lives more or less on their own with the help of the med techs and other helpers, who pick them up if they fall down, administer their meds, and more or less stand by should they need something.

We walk by the outdoor pool and the main jacuzzi. There are two women in the jacuzzi kissing, and there’s another lady lying on a lawn chair with one of those black bikinis and very long high-heeled boots. An elderly man is assisted by one of those orderlies into a kneeling position (he gets two cushions placed under his knees) so he can lick the spike heel of the boot.

“I know what that is!” observes Zack. “It’s a foot fetish!”

“Zack,” I say. “Stop with the commentating.”

These people seem as happy if not happier than my grandpa, and A LOT happier than my grandma. I wonder how they would do in a place like this.

“So Sam,” says Sid, “I hope you won’t be offended but I’m noticing that you’re very effeminate although you’re wearing boys’ clothes. I gather you’re trans or intersex? We’re all very open about this here. Is this part of why your parents sent you away? Gender essentialism and transphobia are quite rampant with middle class Jews who are otherwise very enlightened, or think they are.”

I don’t understand entirely what Sid is saying, but I’m starting to feel a bit weird again about passing as something I’m not. But.…I feel like I can’t back out now.

“I’m not sure,” I say to Sid, as we meander the paths between these bungalow-type little houses. “I guess I’m what you call ‘gender-queer curious.’ ” I remember Jackie saying they weren’t that, so I figure that’s as good a term as any to use. Because I am curious. And I’m also not sure.

We pass a group of elders sitting in a circle on the grass, passing around a cigarette.

“You’ve got pot here!” says Zack.

“Oh yeah,” says Sid. “We got it all.”

Near the circle, there’s three guys wearing horse bridles sitting at a picnic table. One of them is organizing white lines of something that looks like chalk dust.

“Hey,” says Oscar. “Is that—cocaine!?”

“Shh,” say the two Jakes. “Not so loud.”

“At our age,” says Helen. “For some of us, what does it matter?”

“Dude,” I say to Sid (yeah, I’m mosdef getting back into boy-character). “What about the cops? What about like—management?”

Sid jerks his head and we walk to the side, where we can admire some very nice rosebushes.

“The truth is,” Sid says. “Like a lot of these senior places, management isn’t exactly what you’d call hands on.…” He looks around. “I mean the staff come and take care of us, and the urgent care place is run very well—but the actual managers don’t come by more than once a month.

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