pressureless lenny (2008)

Dedicated to Justin Whiting.

Eighty-two-year-old Lenny woke at dawn and waited outside the Greenwood, Indiana’s third-largest Wal-Mart’s sliding glass doors with the excitement of a child at a funeral.

One day earlier; the small, square, grey-skinned Lenny received his doctor’s recommendation to purchase a walker in order to get around. For his back. Lenny’s doctor recommended he purchase a brand-new Duro-Med ultralight: two-button, adjustable, aluminum, folding, rolling walker with a 300 pound capacity and five-inch wheels. Silver. Lenny’s doctor told him that the walker was perfect for his own wife’s eldest aunt and that - for the price - the quality was superb. It was easily portable. The large wheels would work well on grass. After having spinal surgery, it was the only way she could get around the house.

Lenny’s doctor told Lenny what was best for him, but - in Lenny’s mind - Lenny’s doctor was also young, naive, and blowing sawdust. But since Lenny’s own spinal surgery six months prior, he understood that he had no choice but to follow the doctor’s unwanted orders.

So while Lenny bought the $49.99 Duro-Med walker from his snaky doctor’s practice, he was sure he didn’t need it. In his younger days as a tennis professional, Lenny was known for having more energy during practice than the Hoover Dam and - though his back didn’t always agree with him - he never thought of himself as having trouble ‘getting around.’ Even while holding a cane after his surgery, Lenny never considered himself to be handicapped, which is rare for the kind of man who sometimes needs help going to the bathroom.

But as Lenny’s lower-back worsened and his arthritic knees weakened, his regular post-retirement depressions were becoming slightly more than he felt comfortable with handling alone. He was having trouble eating and having trouble getting out of bed. This would mean that he would also have trouble getting out of the house... and when that day came, so did the need for the walker.

Lenny stared at the lustrous aluminum Duro-Med. ‘You can’t varnish a turd.’ The quality of the device was not nearly as superb as his doctor described it to be, nor did it work well on grass. Lenny spent most of his younger days on grass, swinging toward the net... and even on a surface built for speed like astroturf, the walker was too slow for Lenny. Thought it was sturdy, lightweight and inexpensive, the front wheels were not in alignment. That caused the Duro-Med to be very chattery when in use and - more importantly - hard to control.

Lenny deplored his own compliance in buckling to his doctor’s derisive orders. And as Lenny stood outside Indiana’s third Greenwood Wal-Mart, alone and waiting for the store to open its automatic sliding doors and allow in the first cold winter breeze of the day, his argyle tie blew over the left shoulder of his fuzzy, yellow sweater-vest, and his knees began to shake.

When the shiny aluminum and glass sliding doors opened two minutes later than scheduled at 7:02 a.m., Lenny scurried in past the old-aged-but-still-working-part-time greeters and in between aisles of sugary cereals, exotic glassware, poker chips, braziers, digital cameras, and made a bee-line straight toward the sporting goods section, followed unendingly by the echoey click-clack of his orthopedic shoes and the rubber back legs of the Duro-Med, which dragged and squeaked and marked the linoleum floor like magic markers. Or like Len Bias’ shoes on the hardwood. Lenny had an idea of where to find what he was looking for in the megastore; it seemed like just a few summers ago he was inside another Wal-Mart much like this one: shopping for light tennis shoes, athletic tape and a sturdier ball hopper than the one he’d been using for the previous thirty-seven years. And as Lenny hobbled past a group of teenaged clerks chit-chatting in the instructional DVD section of the sporting equipment aisles, still doing their last-minute inventory check for the morning, he came dangerously close to happening upon what he was looking for... before a young whippersnapper interrupted his shopping.

“Welcome, sir,” said an adult clerk who was just a baby in Lenny’s own mulish mind. Lenny looked at the man the way he looked at all young men and women. Children who knew nothing. To Lenny’s eyes, remnants of an amniotic sac were still somewhere to be found behind this man’s ears. He was so fresh. His visage of jet-black hair and tanned skin worsened Lenny’s mood, reminding him of the dark hair and outdoor skin he gave up without any fuss in his 50’s - a defeat he would always regret ceding to. “Can I help you?” the clerk asked.

Lenny usually thought twice before talking to anyone he thought young enough to still remember the wet feel of afterbirth well enough to describe it, but as the searing pain in his lower-back was unearthing enough new pain in his nerves to distract him, he took to using the boys help as a distraction. Taking in a mouthful of warehouse aroma (Lenny spoke with more air in his speech than most 82 year-olds), Lenny said, “I am looking for the Wilson #T1001 Pressureless Tennis Balls.”

“Alright sir,” the clerk said. “I’ve got to check out the aisle for you... can you follow me?”

Lenny promptly felt colder, older. ‘Can,’ not ‘will.’ How was this any way to address a senior? Was Lenny so helpless-looking? Lenny felt his knees shake, which made the wobbly Duro-Med squeak in place. “Yes.”

The clerk walked forty paces while Lenny walked fifty-two walker pushes through the empty aisles to where the butt-end of the tennis aisle appeared. Pointing to a small, black and endlessly-shiny ball-shooting machine at the end of the aisle, the young clerk began to reveal that “We just got these in yesterday, and they’ll shoot up to 65 miles per hour...” but he was cut off by Lenny, who had already grown impatient.

“Don’t sell me a ball machine. I want a can of real fine tennis balls! I once had lots of friends to rally with, and just like back then, I still don’t need any ball machines.”

“Alright, sir... I was just saying... then let me find you what you need.” The clerk took Lenny down the row another ten paces (thirteen heaves of the walker) and the Duro-Med squeaked twice with each full pace.

“These are the best of the pressureless balls we have in stock, the Penn ATP XD Tennis Ball. I use these and they’ll retain their bounce indefinitely.”

Lenny was not satisfied with the clerk’s procedural chit-chat... these were not the balls he was looking for.

“These are not the balls I’m looking for. I want the #T1001’s. I used to use them and only them during my career.”

The clerk’s ears percolated. “You really played professionally? You know, I always wanted to but my parents wanted my brother and I to do something more permeant.” The clerk tucked his hands inside his blue and white vest’s pockets.

Lenny reached his hands out of his fuzzy yellow vest’s pockets and placed them back onto rubber grips of the Duro-Med, leaning his weight into the walker to relax his knees. “I played in some tournaments in the forties. But I haven’t played for some years.”

“Well,” said the clerk, “I still do, and I can tell you, these are my favorite balls. They’ll literally last you forever. It’s nice to be able to tell people that at least one thing in this store will never get old.”

Lenny’s face lit up like a child’s at the mere mention of permanence. “Really? But… how can these here balls last me forever?”

“It’s pretty cool how it works,” the clerk began. “By the way, I’m Todd.” The clerk held forth his right hand with a smile to reach Lenny’s own, but all Lenny could do was nod hello, knowingly. He considered for a moment switching his weight to his left arm to lean on his Duro-Med and extend the right hand, but he needed his stronger right arm to support himself.

“I’m Lenny.”

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” The clerk took his own hand back, understandingly. “So as I was about to say, all pressureless balls are not created equal to the others. Some cheaper pressureless tennis balls might feel a slight bit heavy - almost like dead canned balls - but there are two premium brands of pressureless tennis balls that I think you will be happy with using. For my own usage, the Penn ATP XD is my highest ranked for feel. Wilson’s pressureless ball is a close second for me. That’s the official Wilson US Open Tennis Ball Replica.”

Lenny’s curiosity began wearing thinner as his heart became more set on his original purchase. “That’s all great, but what about the one I’ve asked for?”

“Well actually, Wal-Mart doesn’t carry the T1001’s anymore. Wilson moved their balls to an all new naming system a few years ago, and the only thing close to the T1001 isn’t really close to as good as the Penn is.”

“Penis?” Lenny stiffened up and asked.

“What?”

“Penis?” Lenny leaned in with his left ear, adjusting his hearing aid.

“Uh... the Penn is. They’re not as good as the Penn is.”

“Oh.” Lenny’s eyes rooted through the shelves for something familiar, but everything he saw depressed him. Wilson Pressureless ‘SpongeBob’ Tennis Balls, 6-pack. Pressureless ‘Dora the Explorer’ Tennis Balls, 2-pack. ‘What were Spongebobs and Doras,’ Lenny wondered? The designs on the balls were atrocious to him - pink and yellow, with smiling cartoon faces on them that he wouldn’t have allow his grandkids (had Lenny ever married) to play Tennis with.

“Those kid ones your looking at? They’re the closest thing we have to Wilson’s old T1001, but I don’t think that’s your style anymore. The Penn ATP has lots of youth and feel to it, but more importantly, it has the sophistication that these Wilson balls don’t. You’ll see what I mean when you feel it in your hand.”

‘Youth... with aged sophistication! How fantastic!’ Lenny thought. “Let me see one!” he starkly demanded. His youthful smile, which hadn’t been seen in public nor in mirrors since Lenny’s spinal surgery, was so wide that his dentures felt loose in his mouth.

Todd handed Lenny a used Penn ATP XD from the display rack. “Alright sir, have a feel on this one.” Lenny froze for a moment as the fuzz first touched his pale grey skin, holding the ball and basking in its beauty in a clear moment of déjà vu. The weightless round feel of the ball... the gorgeous black print on the fuzz and... the fuzz! It was only a few seconds before Lenny felt a rush he hadn’t remembered in many decades.

Lenny smiled, kept a good grip on the walker and began to gallop amuck around the store, ball in hand - testing it, bouncing it, squeezing it hard with his right hand, checking for pressure and durability, tapping on it to see how hollow it was, rolling it between each hand to gauge how long the fuzz would stick close to the ball’s center, sniffing it then and finally shooting it through a basketball hoop on sale at the end of the aisle. Lenny’s energy was  inexplicably higher than most doctors could ever have seen in him as of late, and it reminded Lenny of just why those snaky doctors knew nothing about him in the first place.

Lenny’s ball swished through the net, bounced to the floor and slowly rolled along the tile - into the foot of one of Wal-Mart’s other first patrons of the morning, who handed the ball back to Lenny. Without acknowledging how silly the old man had just acted, Todd began his sales pitch anew: “Eventually, the cover will become worn, but it’ll take at least two years of constant use in and out of ball hoppers and machines for that to happen.”

Lenny wanted his hearing aid to be failing him. He leaned in closer, gently tilting his left ear in the direction fo the boy, and sloppily blurted, “What?”

“The ball will get old eventually.”

Lenny ceased bouncing the tennis ball and adjusted his left ear, hoping he had heard imprecisely once more. “Old? Will it need replacing?”

“Yes, eventually. While the pressure inside the ball, the essence of what makes it so good - it’s soul, will remain; the exterior cover will wear and the ball will need replacing.”

Lenny held the tennis ball in his trembling left hand and looked over it carefully, being sure to have a good grip. “But you said it would last forever?”

Todd shook his head left, and then right. “No, Lenny. I said its bounce would last forever. That explosive pressure inside isn’t ever going to wear out... but eventually, what holds it together will.”

Across the aisle, a twenty-something mother placed two packs of the Wilson Pressureless ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ Tennis Balls into her shopping cart for her pre-school-aged daughter, who had been audibly clamoring for the product ever since she locked eyes with the familiar googley-eyeballs looking right back at her from the fuzzy face of each bright, yellow ball.

“Okay boy, I understand.” Lenny hobbled back to the shelf and carefully placed the ball down onto its display. “I’ll take two.”

“Great! Just so you know, they’re $9.80 for each three-pack. I’ll grab this one here and another from the back, and I’ll meet you at the front of the store when you’re ready.”

Lenny shook his head, raising a fist in the air and slowly extending his index and middle fingers out to Todd.

“No, I meant that I just wanted two tennis balls.”

The clerk blinked. “Well, these balls only come in sets of three. There’s no singles packs, so I can only sell you three. But I can assure you that you’ll feel better taking home three of the tennis balls; you know how handy these can be - and if you lose both you wanted, you will always have the other one to play with.”

Lenny smiled and had a laugh inside his head about how little Todd really knew about the elderly.  He momentarily forgot ‘Todd,’ the young, hopeful Wal-Mart tennis expert who he had come to know over the past nine minutes, and instead Lenny could only recall ‘the clerk’... the naive, placenta-covered child he saw when they first met. Lenny wasn’t going to argue rhetoric about the balls with Todd - he would be having a long day of clerking ahead of him. Lenny instead said, “alright, son. I’ll take one whole can.”

The two walked to the front of the store together, and Todd put out his right hand once more for Lenny to shake (which Lenny found the energy to oblige) before he disappeared back to the sporting aisles to handle other customer’s queries.

In the early hour that it was, the boy at the register yawned as he rang up Lenny’s purchase.

“What’s your name, boy?” Lenny asked him.

The unenthused clerk pointed to his name tag. “Christopher.”

Lenny let out one of those ‘ah yes’ sounds that he began to make in the 1980’s. “That’s was my nephew’s name, you know. If I ever have a problem with these tennis balls, I will come to you for help, Christopher.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Lenny drove home at thirty-five miles per hour. He pulled up to his first-floor apartment on the other side of Greenwood. He chose to take the elevator instead of the stair from the parking garage because he couldn’t carry the Duro-Med, though he had usually taken the stairs up until a week before his surgery out of a desire to keep moving or lose the ability to do so. Lenny’s doctor once said that these stairs were to blame for Lenny’s bad knees, knowing nothing of his previous career and never staying with Lenny long enough to bother asking him about it.

As Lenny walked though the door, he mumbled “I’m home,” as he always had. No one came to greet him. His eyes slowly scanned across his brown walls while glazing over accolades and trophies that adorned the hallway shelves as he painfully scurried into living room. He placed his purchase on the messy collapsable coffee table and sat down on his plastic-covered sofa - exhausted from such a full morning - and let out a dark sigh as he noticed the Duro-Med facing him from a cobweb-covered corner of the apartment, by his TV and TV tray. Lenny grunted slovenly, a vocalization of his worsening depression, and stood up again - this time needing more effort than he feared he had the energy for - and walked into the kitchen that was adjoined to his living room. In a single breath, he found the sharpest knife he owned in his kitchen drawer, walked back over to the couch, and placed the knife on the coffee table, right on top of his psychiatrist-recommended self-help book, “No Time to Say Goodbye,” and right next to his newly purchased can of three pressureless tennis balls.

Lenny braced himself for what he was about to do, as if he were participating in a ritual. Letting out a great, sad sigh, he peeled opened the can with great efforts, having to pull on the can’s tab thrice in order to fully separate the aluminum lid from it’s plastic bottle. The blast of fresh, rubbery air released from the can hit Lenny’s face and excited his senses... and as he breathed the compressed air, he remembered a feeling he had as a child with his mother - the first time he inhaled a fresh can’s potentially-toxic redolence - well enough to describe it.

The smell awakened Lenny’s senses while degrading his mood. Lenny took the knife. He took the knife with a shaky, sweaty palm and cut hard across his chest, deep into the thin, pale grey skin of his new tennis ball’s rubber, plunging the knife’s angulous edge deep into the ball’s pressureless sole.

First one, then another, and he placed both on the hind feet of his walker.

“There,” Lenny said. “That’ll do.” And he sat back down with a plasticky-squeak from the polyethylene-covered sofa with a smile on his face, an extra tennis ball in hand, and he thought of how to make the best of his new, fuzzy, yellow friend.

---

michael alahouzos

2008

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