Ellen

Loneliness can drive people to make unwise decisions. I met a woman once in Queens, the grandmother of a friend. I’ll call her Ellen. Ellen told me she was 10 days shy of her 60th birthday, but she didn’t look a day younger than 70. She seemed fit enough, was able to move around just fine as she demonstrated with her dancing. Her hair was piled messily atop her head, her glasses magnified her tired eyes. Unlike most elderly people I’ve met Ellen was very eager to participate in whatever activity we were doing. She quickly became comfortable with me. As the others were paying attention to a video game Ellen decided to get to know me, or rather, that I should get to know her. She dug out different items to show and tell me about. Ellen sauntered around her in thin nightgown as if it were a full sweat-suit. She was unembarrassed, or perhaps just unaware, that the short nightie wasn’t fully buttoned and that with any movement her underwear could be seen. Besides her wrinkly ass, she showed me a Mother’s Day card from her son stationed in Hawaii, pictures of my friend, her grandson, from his childhood, and different “artwork” she had created. She even brought out several of her old bras to try to offer me. “Oh, no thanks,” I said, “I don’t even really have any boobs.”

Several times during the evening she would bring up her deceased husband, “God bless him.” She showed me a picture of the man she was once married to. An old, weathered photograph, like the man it featured, was propped up on a shelf. Ellen looked upon her pictured husband, who was shirtless, sprawled out on a couch, his bloated belly looked not unlike her own. I only briefly looked at this photo, I was more interested in Ellen’s reaction to it. As she held it in her withered hand, her other rested on her cheek, and for a moment Ellen’s crudeness faded. Her eyes fixed upon his image, her guard down, her pain was visible. Her snarky quip evaporated momentarily and she was vulnerable.

Ellen had a quirky sense of humor. She demonstrated her dancing capabilities and her different exercise instruments for us. At one point she flicked the lights on and off repeatedly to create a strobe effect to which her grandson said “Don’t do that. Do you want to blow something?” Ellen’s response was “Well, if my husband were still alive…”

Ellen sublet a room in her apartment to a young couple. I don’t know if that is fact however because as she put it “I took them in off the streets.” Therefore, I’m not quite sure she collected any rent money from them. As Ellen continued her show-and-tell session with me we moved closer to the couple’s room.

“Do you smell anything? I have no sense of smell, can you smell something?”

“Um, it kind of smells like burning.”

“Is it crack? Does it smell like crack? Is that what they call it, crack?”

“Um, I’m not sure.. I’ve never smelled crack before.”

Sure enough moments later a thin, wide-eyed woman emerged from the room wearing a grin that was missing a few teeth. I wondered why on Earth Ellen hadn’t kicked them out. They were obviously drug addicts who were taking advantage of her generosity, not paying rent and smoking crack while a 4 and 9 year old were in the apartment. I realized, then, that Ellen needed the company. Like the couple needed their crack, Ellen needed someone to talk to, to share her stories with, to be around now that her husband had passed. She put her own well-being, not to mention her grandchildren’s, at risk. She allowed addicts into her home. She allowed them access to her belongings that could be sold for drug money. But really what’s the difference when you’re all on your own? What good is life when you have no one to share it with? Even if they are a couple of crackheads.