“We’re opening the door,” Dustin shouts. “Stand back.”
A chorus of elderly voices erupts from the other side—overlapping, panicked. “No!” “Stop!” “Don’t come in!”
“We need you to open the door!” Dustin shouts again.
“No can do!” a male voice shouts.
“We’re coming in!” Dustin shouts.
“No, no, no?—”
“DON’T YOU DARE?—”
“Harold, find your pants?—”
Dustin doesn’t wait. The axe comes down and the door pops open.
Nothing could have prepared me for what’s waiting for us on the other side.
Six senior citizens, half-dressed, moving left and right, colliding into one another like startled birds. Clothing is strewn everywhere—socks slung over lamps, pants pooled around ankles, shoes scattered across the carpet and more wrinkled skin is exposed than I ever thought I’d see in a lifetime.
“What are we looking at here?” Dustin asks me quietly, his eyes bugged in shock.
“I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure I’d rather not be. Where’s the fire?”
He scans the room and my eyes follow his.
It was a card game, or so it appears.
One man sits frozen at a folding table in nothing but boxers, hands clasped in his lap like he’s waiting for the game to resume. Everything around him is a whir of motion and noise.
And in the center of this human tornado stands a woman who can’t be more than five feet tall, wearing a full girdle, industrial-strength bra, and the expression of a deer in headlights.
Her eyes are wide and her mouth forms an “O,” but herarms flail around, shooing at me and Dustin like we’re pests at a picnic, not the two firefighters here to save her from a fire.
“You cannot be in here,” the tiny woman snaps.
Dustin blinks. “Wilma?—”
“We’re not … This isn’t …” Wilma sputters. “You have to leave!”
She does a quick sideways shuffle—three steps in quick, flustered succession, facing us the whole time as if she can’t afford to take her eyes off us. When she reaches the folding table, she squats and hunkers down so only her head is popping out over the tabletop like it’s being served for dinner.
“What are you doing?” the man at the table asks her.
“I’m being discreet.”
“I smell smoke!” another man yells.
“Get some pants on, Walter!” Wilma shouts. “And throw me my dress! Loretta, stop turning in circles! Frank, cover yourself!”
The man she called Frank is wearing briefs and a tank undershirt. He lunges toward a side table, knocking over a chair on his way. Then he grabs the lampshade off the lamp and clamps it in front of himself.
The other seniors in the room scramble around, grabbing items of clothing and trying to hurriedly dress themselves. It’s a flurry of limbs and fabric. I’m still trying to identify where the smoke is coming from. It’s in the air, but the source is unclear. Cigar, maybe?
“Poker,” the man at the table blurts. “It had to be poker.”
“Strip poker,” Frank corrects him.
