It’s time to step it up. In my previous misadventures in philanthropy, I have, for the most part, been on my own program: random acts of kindness, donating clothes, eating green. Now it’s time for the next level. Instead of going rogue, I need to join an organization and do some real, proper, honest-to-God volunteering.
I choose my organization with a careful methodology: whoever was open at the last minute. Google leads me to the number for a Shelter. I call them up.
“Hi, I’d like to volunteer tomorrow.”
“We don’t have anything for tomorrow,” she says, “But you can use our website-”
“I’d really like to do something tomorrow.”
“Sir, then you can find other animal shelters-”
“Wait, this is an animal shelter?” I ask.
“Yes sir.”
“That’s no good,” I say. Awkward pause. “Yeah, I’m more interested in helping people.”
No response. I talk faster: “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish the animals any harm, you know? I don’t want to hurt them. But aren’t our resources better spent on human beings?”
“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”
After more googling I find an organization — an organization for humans — that allows walk-up volunteering. The Dorot group, which is devoted to helping Seniors. They have a program where you “Deliver a Package” to a Senior and visit with them for an hour.
This is perfect and this is terrible. Seniors. Excepting my own grandparents, Seniors creep me out and make me uncomfortable. I don’t like the smells, the huh-what’d-you-say?! chit-chat, the 40 minutes it takes them to climb stairs. It’s true, I suppose, that one day I might be a Senior, but I’m banking on my unhealthy lifestyle to kill me first.
The mission itself makes me uneasy. Delivering a package seems simple enough, even if it does sound like something from The Wire. (“Hey, Senior. This here’s from Barksdale.”) But I’m supposed to “visit” with them for an hour? What does that accomplish? Just ask my ex-girlfriends: a visit with me is not likely to do anyone any good. What would we talk about? How would this not be awkward? Should I entertain them with jokes or tricks or juggling?
I wake up Sunday morning and hit the Dorot center. Orientation. I immediately feel out of place. The center is packed with good people, smiling people, philanthropic people. They offer me cookies and apple juice and thank me for helping. I feel like a fraud.
But I feel something else, too … excitement. It’s rare, as you get older, that you do something truly new. Even First Dates and First Days on the Job are echoes of past experiences. This is my First Day Volunteering. The newness invigorates.
After Orientation I’m assigned the address of a Senior. I pick up the package. I call him to tell him that I’ll be there in thirty minutes.
“HUH??!” He asks over the phone.
Uh oh. I repeat myself, speak louder, tell him that I’m with Dorot.
“WHO ARE YOU?!?”
I repeat myself again. Then he gets it.
“Okay, okay,” he speaks in a thick accent, Czechoslovakian, I think. “That’s fine. See you soon.”
Thirty minutes later I’m at his building — Assisted Living — and I buzz the intercom. It sort of does feel like a First Date. I’m nervous and wish I wore better clothes and hope I will make a good impression.
I knock on the door. He opens it, gently shakes my hand. A quiet man in his early 80s, maybe. I look in the small apartment. It doesn’t smell weird. It doesn’t look weird. A simple bed, a kitchen table, a TV with C-SPAN. He also has another visitor: his male attendant/nurse.
We speak about the weather. Cold. Yep. Snowing. Yep. I open the package and show him the contents: applesauce, tea, chocolate, soup, a generous mix of winter-themed comfort foods. That kills 2 minutes. 58 left. And my fears come galloping back. How can I possibly keep him company? What do I have to offer?
He points to the kitchen table. A chessboard. “You know chess?”
I nod. He asks me to sit down. We play. Should I let him win? If I go into a Senior’s home and destroy him at chess, doesn’t that put me in the running for Asshole of the Year?
It’s been years since I’ve played. I’d forgotten the pleasure. Three moves in — three — he moves his bishop and says, “Chess-mate.”
That can’t be right. I look at the board. Damnit. Sure enough. Checkmate.
We play again and he starts to open up. I ask him about the neighborhood, where he grew up, how he thinks the city has changed. “For the worse,” he says in his thick accent. “Everything is worse when you get old.” He thumps his heart. “When you lose your battery.”
This time I last seven moves. “Chess-mate,” he says.
Then he plays his attendant. He beats the attendant in seven minutes. “Chess is strategy,” he says. “Like political strategy.” He nods to C-SPAN. I try to get him to open up on politics but he won’t go there.
We play again. Ten minutes. “Chess-mate,” he says.
He has some trouble moving the pieces. Sometimes his fingers accidentally knock down his pawns, and, at times, he’ll confuse his queen with his king. But each time he kicks my butt. “Chess-mate.”
“I can’t win!” I say, laughing.
“Of course you can’t,” he says with just the hint of a smile. “I’m the better player. The better player always wins.”
I like this guy. Now he’s trash-talking. Chess-mate. Another game. “I used to be much better,” he says. Chess-mate. He later reveals that he’s been playing chess since he was 5 years old; his father taught him in Czechoslovakia and that he once played in competitions.
“What kind of competitions?” I ask.
He’s cryptic. Dodges my questions. But then he tells me that he once played Bobby Fischer.
“You played Bobby Fischer?” I ask, amazed. “When? Who won?”
“Bobby’s a good player,” he says, and lets the matter drop.
He wins again. Chess-mate. I look at the clock. I was only supposed to be there an hour. 90 minutes have gone by. Jesus. How’d that happen?
I’m supposed to leave. I don’t want to.
“Sir,” I ask, “Can we play one more game?
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