Extra Virgin

Thanks to a good old-fashioned western/mid-western upbringing by a couple of liberal Californians living in Colorado, I�ve always been quite an industrious fellow. I was taught that I should earn my keep in life and always be a contributor to, and not just a drain on the resources. I celebrated my 16th birthday by getting an after school job on the very first day I legally could work, so I could do just that and start contributing to society.

Of course, that�s complete bullshit. I was 16 - I hadn�t developed morals yet. I was greedy and bored with life in a small town, so I got a job and began contributing to my wallet.

I got a job working in the kitchen of a nursing home. I did a little cooking, a little baking, a lot of cleaning and an obscene amount of pureeing. I�d have to rush home from school, grab my nametag and hairnet, and off to the home I went for four hours of degrading work mopping floors, clearing tables, and cleaning dishes. It was great, actually. I loved every minute of it because I worked around nothing but middle aged women, and I had never felt so much like I belonged. They�d all had hard lives and found themselves in their 40�s doing backbreaking work in an overheated kitchen for minimum wage, many of them single mothers, some of them alcoholics, but all of them great conversationalists. I was a scrawny little kid, scared to death of my own shadow, covered in acne, and they thought I was cute. They used to hide the extra virgin olive oil wherever I�d be sure to find it, because the words �extra virgin� would make me blush. They chose it as my nickname and began calling it out when I entered the building to start my shift, �Hey Extra Virgin! How�s our little Extra Virgin today?�

I was a hard worker, and I didn�t mind getting involved in anything that needed to be done. I wasn�t exactly a nurse, but there were still some nasty things I had to do, what with all of my customers being old and sick and incontinent and crazy. The only thing I tried to avoid doing at all costs was talk to the residents. They scared me. They were all sick and crabby and old. They hated being there, and they weren�t afraid to let you know it. Even if they were all as sweet as candy, I still would have been scared of them because I never spent time around old people. My good grandparents died when I was young. My bad grandparents lived in L.A., and my mother refused to allow us to visit them. They did schlep out to Colorado once to see me, and I soon learned why my mother was so adamant. Grandma walked in on me watching the Cosby Show as a 7-year-old, and she gasped and rushed to turn the TV off. �Don�t watch that,� she said, �it has niggers in it.�

I walked past her and turned the TV back on.

Slowly, I began venturing out of the kitchen and began talking with the little old ladies haunting the halls and dining rooms. They didn�t scream at me. They didn�t even say weird and outdated things about the Depression or the Jitterbug. They saw my sickly looking frail arms struggling to carry water pitchers, and they�d pat my hand and tell me what a strong and handsome young man I was. They�d pinch my cheeks or bottom, they�d tussle my hair, or sometimes they�d just smile, but no matter what they were doing, they were complimenting me while they did it.

Soon, I began coming to work early to chat with Dorothy on the couch, and I�d stay late to listen to Golda�s stories as we sat alone in the empty dining room, long after everyone else had gone to bed or gotten comfortable in front of the TV. They pictured me as their only grandson. They fawned over me until I couldn�t take it anymore, and I�d erupt in a mess of blushing cheeks and awkward smiles. I was having a horrible time in my life, realizing I was different, and already feeling alienated because I was simply that age. I was starting the puberty driven splotchy phase of life, and kids had no problem with looking me in the face and telling me just how ugly I was to them. Even those who didn�t say it hadn�t learned how to politely ignore it, but it seemed that nothing could take the hurt and cruelty and make it disappear like these white-haired and sassy strangers could.

When I came to work and learned that Dorothy had died the previous night, I was devastated. She was an ancient thing, sitting around in a nursing home and waiting to die, but I never thought it would happen. To me, she was someone I loved, so how could I think of her as temporary?

I went through that pain again and again in the few years that I worked there. I had never before had anyone close to me die. Even my good grandparents, though I loved them very much, lived too far away to see with any regularity. We never had a chance to be close. I was incredibly ill equipped to deal with the loss when Dorothy left me, but each loss became easier after that. I still let myself fall in love with those ladies, but I began to deal with their loss before they died, much in the same way they had. Death was very much on their minds, and many of them wanted nothing more than to say good-bye.

There were quite a few that were particularly special to me, but none as special as Mary. Mary was this snappy lady with a wit and sense of humor that�d knock you off your feet. Her non-imposing frame held the mind of someone so much younger. She�d compliment me like the others, she�d pinch my butt like the others, but unlike anyone else, she�d do it while saying loudly, �What a firm ass you�ve got there.� She cursed and reminisced about men and sex and drugs. The juxtaposition of those words coming out of her sweet face was nothing but magic. She taught me about the world during our stolen moments of chatting before my boss would find me. She�d end every conversation with a long hug and by reaching up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

Everyone knew how special she was to me, so when it happened to Mary, my coworker waited outside and met me at the door. �Mary had a series of strokes over the weekend. She�s lost the ability to talk.�

I don�t remember much about that afternoon up until the point that I saw her struggling to walk to the dining table with a walker and a nurse on her side. She was shaking and leaned at the waist. When she saw me, she smiled as brightly as she could, but the left side of her face no longer reacted, neither did her left arm and left leg. She reached for me and looked up into my face as she patted my cheek, and I could see in her eyes everything she wanted to tell me. She told me with her eyes about her weekend, how she�d been sick. How scared she was. Her eyes were alive, but her lips did nothing but tremble. She gave up trying to talk with a frustrating shake of her fist, and she grabbed hold of me instead. When she let go, she stooped awkwardly in front of me, and I suddenly realized that she was trying to stand up straight and kiss my cheek like she did after every one of our talks, but she couldn�t anymore. Instead, I leaned towards her and felt her lips slide against my face, too wet and unsteady to be called a kiss. I felt myself recoil, and she felt it, too. I couldn�t do anything but walk back into the kitchen and return to work.

Nothing has ever made me feel as ashamed as I did in that brief moment. I still wish I could take it back, be back in the situation, and do it right. I�d sit with her and tell her all about the things I did with my day outside of that nursing home. I�d tell her that because of her, I wasn�t wasting my youth being bitter about the way kids treated me, but rather I was searching out the bright spots and finding a reason to smile everyday, usually while thinking of her. I�d hold her close to me until she stopped shaking, until she knew I understood everything she wanted to say to me, until she felt safe again.