The reporter’s escort and driver stopped the golf cart at a steel security door. The six-story warehouse loomed overhead, painted a gunmetal gray. Windows reflected a few clouds drifting over low mountains to the south. Flat desert stretched in all directions, punctuated by scrub pinions and creosote.
“I wait one hour,” Emil said, lighting up a cigarette. Seeing Garth’s face, he relented. “Maybe two. You understand. Happy hour at four.”
Garth grabbed his backpack and ascended concrete steps to press a button in the wall. A speaker squawked. “Garth Potter, from the Sun City Times?”
The latch clicked. The door swung open, hinges screeching just a little. A small woman in gray overalls nodded him into a dark hallway. “Squeaky. Not much traffic through this door,” she said. “I’m Letty. This way, Mr. Potter. Let me introduce you to some of our residents.
The hallway opened into a high-ceilinged living room. Letty pointed out the features of the room as she moved into the room. “Natural light, sustainably sourced bamboo carpet, hypo-allergenic environment. Ergonomic furniture. Blue-block glasses for watching PBS on the big screen TV.” Letty stopped in front of an elderly white-haired woman seated in a wheelchair.
Garth held out his hand. “Hello, I’m Garth Potter, how are you?”
“Fake,” the woman said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Have some ice cream, Mrs. Lewis.” Letty motioned to an aide standing next to a pushcart loaded with a large plastic cooler and stacks of tiny plastic dishes. The aide scooped a round ball of something into dish and handed it to the old woman.
“Spoon,” Mrs. Lewis said.
“Come this way, Mr. Potter. I’d like to show you some resident apartments.”
As he followed Letty, Garth noticed the light coming from the windows in the living room seemed inordinately bright, given the late afternoon hour. He examined the nearest window and realized the light emanated from fluorescent bulbs placed behind blue frosted glass. He pulled out his reporter’s notebook and jotted a note.
Letty punched a button by the down arrow in the wall between two elevator doors. One door opened. Garth followed her inside. In the confined space, she had a body odor Garth found unpleasant, a musty smell mixed with garlic that brought to mind his grandmother. She had died in a place somewhat like this, he remembered.
Letty poked a button on the elevator wall marked –10.
Garth said, “Is there a basement? This place is bigger than I realized.”
“Six stories above ground. Twelve stories below.”
The elevator hesitated and began to descend. Garth felt the vibration of motors, pulleys, and levers through the soles of his dress shoes. He stood next to Letty in silence and watched the numbers above the door, breathing through his mouth.
The elevator stopped with a thud. The doors opened onto a narrow corridor lit by overhead fluorescent lights. Garth stopped. “Why, it looks like a train car!”
Multiple heads sporting various amounts of hair, mostly white, emerged from bunks on either side of the hallway. Elderly people peered at him through thick glasses.
“Whoo, what have you brought us, Warden?” cackled a bald oldster, leaning dangerously out of an upper berth.
“A young one, a young one!” warbled a white-haired woman much like Mrs. Lewis.
Clanging echoed off the walls as word began to spread.
“What is this? What is going on here?” Garth turned to Letty.
“This is the modern solution to an old problem.”
“Come here, young man,” beckoned a woman. Memories of Garth’s deceased grandmother resurfaced. Wrinkled cheeks dusted with powder. Lipstick applied with a shaky hand. Wide smile showing missing teeth. And that pervasive smell he associated with old age: perfume, mildew, garlic, and feces. “C’mere. Look at my crib.”
Garth walked a few steps along the hall to peer into the woman’s room. Her berth was about four by eight feet square. A thin mattress occupied a good amount of floor space. The rest was dedicated to a dresser, an ottoman, and some shelves loaded with bins that appeared to hold clothing and various household items. A one-burner campstove sat on the top of the dresser. Garth noticed several gallon-sized jugs along the back wall, some empty, some appearing to hold a clear liquid.
“This is Rapunzel,” Letty said, waiting expectantly. When Garth didn’t respond, she added, “From Warehouse Adventures?”
Garth shook his head.
“Come here, young man,” Rapunzel said. She held a smartphone in her hand.
“Are you filming me?”
Rapunzel smoothed her mane of long white hair and smooched at the phone. Then she turned the camera toward Garth. “Now I am. What’s your name, sonnie? Say something to my followers.”
“Your followers? You mean . . . ?”
“Warehouse Adventures,” Rapunzel said. “My YouTube channel. Is the earth still turning up above? Does the sun still shine?”
Garth turned to Letty. “YouTube channel?”
Letty smirked. “I would have thought you would have done your homework, Mr. Potter. Almost all of the residents in this retirement community have their own YouTube channels. How do you think they survive?”
“I thought the government subsidizes . . . I mean, our taxpayer dollars . . . “
Rapunzel laughed. “He thinks the goverment takes care of us! Isn’t that charming?” She beckoned Garth to lean into her space. “I just got thirty-thousand views for my latest vlog. I redid my floor plan last week. Moved my bed from that side to this side. My best video by far has been the poop video.”
Garth swallowed. “The poop video?”
“Yeah, for some reason, my followers really like to hear how old people go number two in this place.”
“Don’t you have restrooms?”
“Sure, down at the end of the hall, but most of us can’t walk. Nobody is going to help us. So we have our systems. Some of us use buckets and bags. Me, I have a little tripod thing with a very comfy seat. I used to use kitty litter, but I switched to pine pellets recently. My followers had a lot of questions.”
“How do you get supplies?” Garth asked, pulling out his notebook.
“From Amazon, of course, like everyone else in the world, duh,” Rapunzel laughed. “Here, check this out.” She lifted the lid of her ottoman. Garth reared back at the smell. “Oh, sorry, I forgot I hadn’t dumped this morning’s poop. Wait, let me set up my camera. I should film this.”
She inserted the phone into a device on the dresser and turned it so it would capture her movements. With practiced hands, she lifted the toilet seat lid, twirled the bag of poop and presumably pine pellets, and tied it off with a neat knot. She grabbed the phone from the holder and pressed some buttons. “Hold on, I’m just going to upload this real quick . . . there.”
Garth had backed up into the hallway to escape the stench. He turned to Letty.
“What happens when they . . . ?”
“Die? We have a system to handle human waste of all kinds,” Letty said.
“I didn’t see a cemetery on the grounds,” Garth said. “Where do you . . .?”
“Dispose of the bodies? In each van—sorry, bedroom, I mean. The residents like to call their rooms vans—in each bedroom, there’s a trash chute leading to the incinerator. Plastic trash goes to the incinerator. That includes all the poop bags. The human remains are diverted to the reclaimer, where they are mixed with water and other chemicals for recycling.”
“Recycling! You can’t possibly mean . . .”
“No, heavens, Mr. Potter. We aren’t cannibals. No, we make fertilizer. How else are we going to feed the world’s growing population? We ship our slurry to several fertilizer plants along the Gulf Coast, where the remains are processed into a very nutritious compost tea highly appreciated by America’s corn and soybean farmers.
Garth nodded and put his notebook in his backpack. “Well, this has been very informative, thank you for the tour. My driver is waiting for me.”
“So long, kid!” Rapunzel yelled as Garth backed away toward the elevator. “Don’t forget to like and subscribe! Warehouse Adventures!”
Letty escorted Garth to the exit. As he hurried out the door, Garth muttered something to indicate his appreciation, for what exactly he wasn’t sure. Outside, he found his driver parked at the foot of the steps in the golfcart.
“Seen enough?” Emil said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.
“More than enough,” Garth said. “Do we still have time to make happy hour?”
“On our way.”
