The Old Man in the Club (32 page)

“We've been through a lot,” he said. “All of it self-inflicted. I don't know where this will go, but I know where it has the potential to go. We've cleared a big hurdle—my kids don't hate me anymore.”

Danielle and Daniel could not take it anymore. They came from around the corner.

“Can we be a family again?” Danielle asked.

“I'll say this,” Elliott began. “I never stopped loving your mother.”

“And I never stopped loving your father,” Lucy added.

“And so, we have a chance to at least do family things to try to build back what was lost,” Elliott said.

“I can't ask for any more than that,” Lucy said. She hugged Elliott, and he felt at home again.

“I have an idea for our first family outing,” he said.

“What?” the three of them said in unison.

“There's a party on Saturday at Bottle Bar in Buckhead,” Elliott interjected.

“Dad, no way,” Daniel said.

“A party, Daddy?” Danielle said. “Really?”

“What can I say?” Elliott cracked. “Once the old man in the club, always the old man in the club.”

He was only half-joking.

Ω

I was fifty-two at the conclusion of writing this book—not quite old enough in theory to be an old man in the club. Still, I stopped clubbing several years ago. I liked to dance as much as the next guy. But it was just too loud in there, which may be a sign that I was too old for the club scene.

My preference for lounges and relative quiet took over in my early-40s. But, like you, I always wondered why the guy who was obviously two or three generations older than me would roam the nightclub as if he were hanging with his peers. That curiosity spawned this book.

As an author, I like to address situations—and confront questions—that we all consider, but sometimes never receive an answer. In many cases, there is no answer. It is what it is. In the case of the old man in the club, I created a multi-level answer in Elliott Thomas.

Without even trying, we pass judgment on someone in a nanosecond. Almost instantly we assess a person's values, motives and character. We do this without even saying a word to the person. Most of the time it is an involuntary reaction. We just do it.

But is it fair?

To my way of thinking, a man sixty-one years old who hangs out with young adults his children's age does it for reasons beyond being the proverbial “dirty old man,” although those characters
certainly exist. In the case of this book, Elliott was more complex. He had his reasons—real and imagined—and that's what made writing this book so much fun and so challenging.

To explore his psyche, address his demons, examine his hang-ups and dive into his heart took me on a literary journey that was fulfilling. I did not always agree with Elliott on this journey. But I empathized with him. I admired his strength, his commitment—to himself, his ex-wife, his kids and his friend, Henry.

And by the time I was done, I understood his actions, even if I did not agree with all of them. Above all, I came to a conclusion about myself: No more judging of people from a distance.

We have no idea what has happened in people's lives that impact how they act, what they do, who they are. After Elliott Thomas, I look at the old man in the club differently. He
could
be there because he's a pervert. I choose to believe he's there for reasons far more complicated than I could imagine. And since this is a free country, why not do the things that make you feel your best?

I do not expect to be the old man in the club one day. But if you see me out there in a decade or so, don't judge me. I would have my reasons. Just offer me a drink and point me toward the exit.

Curtis Bunn

1) What was your impression of “old men in the club” before the book and did it change after reading it?

2) What would make a young woman attracted to a man her father's age and did you understand Tamara's interest in Elliott?

3) Did you approve/understand Danielle's and Daniel's disenchantment with and treatment of their father? Why?

4) What did you think of Elliott's commitment to keeping the secret he kept, even though it impacted the way his children felt about him?

5) What did you make of Lucy's confession? Should she have said something earlier?

6) How did you take Elliott remaining friends with Henry after learning about his lifestyle?

7) Did you have any empathy for Henry or were you mortified by his actions? Is there any room to forgive him?

8) Can relationships with a thirty-five-year age difference work?

9) Did Elliott's past justify his desires to pursue younger women?

10) What are your thoughts on the book's cover? Was it effective? Did it match the book's content?

I
F YOU LIKED
“O
LD
M
AN IN THE
C
LUB
”
WE HOPE YOU WILL PICK UP
C
URTIS
B
UNN
'
S NEXT TITLE
. E
NJOY THIS SNEAK PREVIEW
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SEIZE THE DAY

BY
C
URTIS
B
UNN

C
OMING
S
OON FROM
S
TREBOR
B
OOKS

C
HAPTER
1: L
IFE

I'm about to die. Doctor said so. Maybe not today. Perhaps tomorrow. Whenever it's coming, it's coming soon.

Cancer.

But I'm not scared. I'm a little anxious, a little curious, to be honest. Curious about how it will happen. Where I will be at that moment—the place and where will I be in my head, my mind. Will I get scared when I feel it coming?
Will
I feel it coming?

Well, those are thoughts for another day, a day that, truth be told, should not come for a few months or so. That's how long it will take the cancer to totally ravage and deplete my body and put me to sleep. Forever. That's what the doctors say. And they know everything.

So, here I am. In the prime of my life…waiting on death.

Can't cry about it. Not anymore. When I said I wasn't scared, I was talking about now. Three weeks ago, when Dr. Wamer gave me the news, I was scared as shit.

Do you have any idea what it's like to be told you're at the end of your life's journey? At forty-five? With a young daughter? With so much more to do? With so much not done?

I was so overwhelmed that it took me two days to pull myself out of bed, to turn on the lights in my house, to eat an apple. Then it took me another two days to tell my father, who took it as if cancer were eating away at his existence.

“Why can't it be me, Calvin?” he said. “Why you? You've lived a good life. The best thing I ever did was marry your momma—God rest her soul—and contribute to your birth. The rest of my life, I can't say I'm that proud of. Except you. You've made me proud.”

And why did he say that? I bawled like a freshly spanked newborn, and my sixty-eight-year-old dad and I hugged each other at the kitchen table at his house for what seemed like an hour, two men afraid out of their wits.

Since then, I have pulled myself together—what's left of me, that is. Doctors say they can't do surgery, but I can try radiation and perhaps chemo. But there are no guarantees. That's code for: “it won't work.” And I have seen how debilitating those treatments can be.

It never made sense to me that you go to the doctor for a checkup feeling fine. Then he tells you that you have cancer or some hideous disease and starts firing chemicals into your bloodstream like you shoot up a turkey you're about to fry on Thanksgiving. Almost immediately you feel like shit and before long, you start
looking like shit. You lose your hair, you lose your energy…you lose who you are. And eventually you lose your will to live.

For some, for most, that's the route they choose and I don't begrudge them that. That's their choice.

Me, I would rather live whatever time I have left instead of having my insides burned out and become so drained that I could not live, only exist…until I die.

Maybe it's me, but that doesn't seem like fun. Haven't had much fun since I went to the hospital for my annual checkup, feeling good and looking forward to a date that night with a nice lady I had met. Next thing I know, they tell me I have some form of cancer I can't pronounce, much/less spell. “Sarcoma” something or other. Attacks the blood cells, organs, bones…you name it. When they said it was fatal, I lost interest in any more specifics.

I will be forty-six in four months…if I make it that long. I have a twenty-year-old daughter and a zest for life that is as strong as a weightlifter on steroids. Staying laid up in a hospital, withdrawn and diminished after chemotherapy does not qualify as living to me.

When I finally was up to eating, I ended up at this spot in midtown Atlanta called Carpe Diem in the plaza across from Grady High School. It was an interesting spot with good sandwiches and nice desserts, which fulfilled my sweet teeth. Yes, I enjoy cakes and pies too much to limit my attraction to “sweet tooth.” That's why I said “sweet
teeth.”

Anyway, I sat alone, at a high-top table near the bar—a dying man with a plate of food and his thoughts. Ever since the doctors told me I would die, I haven't been able to slow down my thinking. Everything is on express.

People walk right by me, many of them speak to me or smile at me. None of them realize they were in contact with a dead man.
That's how I see myself—Walking Dead. I'm like a zombie, a creature walking around the earth but already departed. I just don't look like one…yet.

I see everything differently now, too. Like, it does not matter if my favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, wins another Super Bowl. I don't care much anymore about my wardrobe or purchasing that Mercedes 500 I had been eyeing or even if my 401(k) flattens out. It all seems so meaningless to me now.

Still, I'm not sure what I'm inspired to do or how to live out my life, other than to
not
let doctors turn me into a bed-ridden slob before my time. That, again, did not appeal to me and I didn't ask anyone else's opinion on it. I just went with it.

My daughter, Maya…I couldn't tell her. I can't even say her name without getting choked up. That's how daughters are to their dads; we live to their heartbeat.

My father told her. “She deserves to know,” he reasoned. “Maybe not everything going on with you. But this? She deserved to know this.”

Maya did not even call me about it. She just showed up at my house one Saturday afternoon, right before I was about to get in a round of golf. The garage door went up and there she was, pain and sadness all over her soft, lovely face. I know my daughter and that look made me cry, without her saying a word.

“Daddy,” she said, hugging me so tightly. Every time we embraced, I smelled baby powder, like I did when she was an infant. It was my imagination or my desire for my little girl to remain my little girl.

“I'm OK, Maya,” I said. “It's going to be all right.”

She sobbed and sobbed and I held her as tightly as I could without making her uncomfortable. It broke my heart. We're here as
parents to protect our children. It crushed me that I was the cause of her anguish.

“You didn't have to come here, sweetheart,” I managed to get out when I finally composed myself. “See, this is why I didn't want to tell you right away. You are all upset over something you can't control. It's out of both our hands right now.”

Maya wiped her face and looked up at me with those eyes that were the replica of mine: brown and piercing.

“Daddy, we can't control it, but you've got to let the doctors try,” she said. “I spoke to an oncologist from Johns Hopkins on my way over here. He said nothing good will come out of doing nothing.”

I had to break it down for her so—as, Isaiah Washington said in the movie
Love Jones—
“It will forever be broke.”

“Let's go inside,” I said. I wiped away her tears and kissed both sides of her precious face. She turned me into mush. We both were.

I called my friend, Thornell, and told him I had to renege on golf. I hadn't told him the news, either. That would be another tough call. But nothing compared to that talk with Maya.

“Sweetheart, about two months before I went to the doctor, I spoke to an old high school classmate at Ballou. His name was Kevin Hill. Yes, your godfather. Great guy, as you know. Do you know how we met? We played basketball against each other in junior high and became friends when we ended up at Ballou High together. When Kevin got sick with MS, it slowly but surely ravaged his nervous system over the years until he was unable to do anything but lie in bed to die.

“I visited him at Washington Hospital Center. We reminisced and I was able to make him laugh and take his mind away from his plight, at least for a few moments. But the whole time I was looking at him and feeling so sorry for him; there was so much more
for him to do in life. I thought I didn't convey that, but he sensed it. And he wrote a letter to me that means more to me now than ever.”

I pulled out the folded sheet of paper with the letterhead that read: “Kevin Hill…Remember Me.”

And then I read it to Maya: “Calvin, don't feel sorry for me. The things I did in my life, I enjoyed them. I could have done more, but I learned and accepted that God's plan was different. But all this time laying around in bed, I have had a lot of time to think. And I have a lot of regrets. I regret not traveling and not mending my relationship with my sister and not learning Spanish and so many other things. You know what I should have done, but makes no sense to do now? Cut off all my hair. I saw how some bald guys looked so cool with a shaved head. Even Samuel Jackson looked cool with a bald head in
Shaft
. I should have done that a long time ago. Now, if I do it, no one will see it.