I don’t know why I started renting a room that requires me to risk my life every time I enter or leave it. Must’ve been the paint fumes -- the landlord was redecorating when I moved in. You see, there’s this huge hockey skate hung up in the outside hall, right above my door, hanging there by its laces as though it were impersonating laundry on a clothesline. Yes, I can hear you laughing already -- "Risking her life ... It’s a hockey skate, for God’s sake ... The old lady’s crazy."
I can assure you that this is not the case. Oh, no, Miss Helen Bates has her wits about her, let me tell you. I am one hundred and two years old -- by now I’ve earned the right to spell those numbers out, even if it isn’t the way the newspapers do it -- and I am still sharp as a tack. You know why I am? It’s because I never got married. Oh, yes, all a man’ll do is clog a woman’s mind with household drudgery ... Maybe that’s why I never got married. Maybe I knew in advance. I’ve always liked to think that I was a bit of a clairvoyant, but then, they get exposed on TV all the time and they’re never what they say they are.
I wish the landlord, Mr. Sawyer, had a Mrs. Sawyer about; this place is really a hideous dump. Granted, it is the room adjoining the basement -- the "entrance hall" is the basement, so that I can peek out my door and have a lovely panoramic view of the stairs to the ground floor, Mr. Sawyer’s old radio, his stack of eviction notices "just in case," as he puts it, the rolled-up rug that was in the main hallway upstairs until the Sarasohns’ dog relieved itself on it one time too many, a crate full of Christmas and Kwanzaa decorations, and, of course, that skate.
Actually, I can’t see it, but I know it’s there; its aura hangs over my door almost as ominously as it does. I get sick just thinking about it dangling there, waiting to decapitate my next visitor -- or even me. Maybe that’s why the rent on this room is so cheap. It’s not really that it’s drafty after all; it’s that its occupant is going to be killed by a falling piece of sports equipment.
I spoke with Mrs. Sarasohn at breakfast and asked her if she didn’t see that skate as a hazard that ought to be removed. She doesn’t seem to see the skate the same way I do, but then, she lives on the second floor and she’s not as intimately acquainted with the situation as I -- after all, she wasn’t treated to the sight of a mouse skittering down from the rafters to gnaw on the laces today. That skate will be the death of me, but I’m the only one who knows, and I can’t make anyone listen to me about anything. That must be why I never got married.
On other fronts, Mrs. Sarasohn said that Mr. Sawyer wants to refinish the stairwell. He’s always got some sort of improvement project going on around this old place -- he talks about property values a lot. Whenever he’s in the common room watching the black-and-white antique TV, it’s always Bob Vila on public television. I wonder if Bob Vila ever did a special on hockey skate removal. He should. Maybe then it would get Mr. Sawyer to do something about that frightful skate.
If he watched the shows about decorating, maybe he would -- they’d tell him that having any sort of bladed object dangling by a thread over a doorway is a macabre, wicked thing to do and he ought to remove that horrible thing. Not that he ever will. He says it’s been there too long for it to do anyone any harm now. But I don’t care what he tries to tell me; I can feel that lace weakening. Someday it’s going to snap and then he’ll be sorry.
I got into an argument with Mr. Sawyer today about that accursed skate. I told him that it had to be moved or else I was going to have a conniption, right there in his foyer. He told me I was being a paranoid old biddy and that he’d get it down when he got around to it, and not before. And then he laughed at me! Of all the indignities! My concerns are legitimate; I don’t need to be laughed at by a man half my age! If he’d only take me seriously, this could all stop now, but he won’t, that silly boy. Compared to me, he’s an infant.
Oh, well. I didn’t want to go anywhere today anyway. Besides, he’s having new carpet put down on the first floor and I’d only get in the way. I always seem to get in the way. Perhaps that’s why I never got married. Yes, I think I’ll stay in today and crochet. That’s a nice, constructive way for a lady to spend her time, isn’t it? I’ve been crocheting much more lately since I don’t like to get out as much.
It’s really not so hard to get out of my room; all I have to do is dart out as fast as I can. But what if that is the exact moment the skate decides to fall? I think I’ll just stay in with a cup of tea and my afghan-in-progress. Yes; that’ll be nice.
Maybe I’ll send someone out to buy more yarn. The only thing nicer than one afghan is two afghans. After that, maybe I can start giving them to my neighbors as Christmas gifts. I don’t know of any nicer gift than a handmade afghan -- except maybe someone’s taking the skate down. I’d do it myself if I weren’t so sure it’d fall as I was setting up the ladder.
I have nightmares about that skate, about that blade gleaming like a vicious cat’s eye in the night.
The afghans are already done? How long has it been since I left the room for a reason other than a meal? Maybe I am a paranoid old biddy. Maybe that’s why I never got married. I haven’t got enough to do if I’m going to sit around and be frightened of a skate on the wall. Perhaps I should exercise more to take my mind off of things.
I think I’ll try going out for a stroll. But I’m still going to be supremely careful when I open my door. I don’t want it to make any vibrations on the wall that might jostle the skate loose. I’d also like to see how Mr. Sawyer’s doing on his flowerbed. I can see him from my window, fiddling around with the geraniums -- but he must have one in his cranium if he won’t do anything about that skate before someone gets killed. And mark me, someone surely will.
Perhaps I should stay in. I’ve got this nice new flavor of tea that Mrs. Sarasohn gave me and I can’t wait to find out how it tastes. Even old ladies get tired of the same old Earl Gray tea. They certainly get tired of the same old fears.
Why should I be so frightened of that bloody stupid skate? It’s been hanging there forever and it’s not hurt anything yet. It’s probably like me, a fixture. Nothing will happen to me; I’m too old and it wouldn’t be a tragedy if I died. Pathetic, maybe, but not tragic.
Besides, if I were really as frightened of that old skate as I’ve deluded myself into thinking I am, I’d have done something about it by now. So it’s all in my mind; that skate poses no danger to me whatsoever. I’ve lived in fear too long. That’s why I never got married. I just made those other things up, just like I invented all the terror that I’ve surrounded this skate with. It really is all in my head.
I think I’m going to go out for a stroll now -- there’s a great wide world out there, and I shouldn’t think about that ridiculous piece of hockey equipment on the wall. I’m going to fling the door open and let it thump the wall, and I’m going to stride right out into this crazy world for the first time without fear and I’m going to --
Snap. Thwack.
Back to Stuff I Wrote.
© Cynthia 2002.