14 Stories (13 page)

The strange thing is what made me come in when I did. I had a feeling. It sprung from a dream. I couldn't sleep last night and so like the doctor said, I took a pill. Fortunately I did. Because I fell asleep and dreamt of Jay taking his life with pills. I woke up frightened and called the floor he's on and she said everything's fine, no complaints from 646. I asked if she could go in and check. She said she's both the charge nurse and the one who gives injections tonight. And that she only has one aide and he's downstairs looking for linens for tomorrow and won't be back for an hour, so though she wishes she could she can't. I told her I'm coming over to check him then. She said I can't come over till regular visiting hours at eleven and then all right, she'll check. She checked. Sleeping like a baby, she said. I felt much better. Only a dream, I thought, and I went back to bed. But I still had to get to the hospital earlier than visiting hours began and get a special pass to go up as I still had this feeling he might take his life. When I walked in his room I nearly passed out. Fortunately I didn't. He's still in a coma but out of danger, which is why I can write to you as lucidly as this and with not so much emotion where I can't. You were always the best one in the family for that and nobody else now is around. I of course hope all is well at your own home and my love to Abe and the kids.

And then back to back another one. Yesterday someone jumps from the tenth. A patient. Not mine, but why'd he jump? Learned he had incurable cancer. Who told him? The question should be why was he told? But they did. Okay, we'll forget about that mistake. But out he went. Put on his bathrobe so he wouldn't catch cold. Very methodical. Two neatly arranged instructive notes. Don't do this and do that. So stupid to tell the patient, even if there's nothing left to be done for him here and no other place for him to go. Walks from the third to the tenth, so he at least had the strength for that. Though it might have taken him two hours, which could give the hospital an even blacker eye. A visitor downstairs sticking a quarter in the meter said he saw the man bounce. Up about three feet in the air and then of course just stayed there. And now this one. Though maybe I'd do it myself. Lose a leg at the hip? No real chance of recovering even from that surgery, he being diabetic, arteriosclerotic, seventy-five and with Parkinsonism as well. I did my best with his wrists. The nurse was very good. The man was smiling all the time. Maybe that's part of his neurological disorder. At last, he also kept repeating. At last what? I finally said, though that repetition could also be part of his Parkinson's disease. His wife got so hysterical we had to hold her down to administer sedatives. We're not supposed to, as she isn't a patient here and naturally signed no release, but she took it very well. What a day. What a day. God only forbid the irony of another patient trying to kill himself. I don't mean irony. I don't even mean coincidence. I'm talking about some link of chance events which God only forbid happening in threes.

He was such a quiet man. Well, still is. Never used the bell once. Even when he had to. So he messed himself. I used to get angry at him. Ask why he didn't buzz for the pan. He said he knows we're busy. Thought he could contain it till we came in on our own accord. Extra considerate like that. It's terrible. Working here you grow hard to these people sometimes. Like they're just very little people for all the money they have. Who have to be washed and watched but not remembered. Or else you think they're just animals of the worst sort. Who mess their own nest. I've seen them do that and playing with it in zoos. Gorillas. Animals who stand up like that with intelligence. But he was different. Such a decent man he was. There I go speaking again like he's dead. Maybe he is. Maybe the dark spirit of death is trying to give me news. His or the hospital news in general. They brought him to intensive care. Who I've heard have about given up hope. Right here. Jab jab. Nice and deep too. Not just a threat. Give me this or I'll do that. Oh no. I hate scenes like that with his wife. I was there soon after she first saw. I can do anything. Cleaning up the filthiest dentures or out the oldest bags. Dealing with the most unsightly sores and smells. You name it. Everything. Throwing up their bowels. Peanuts to us. Human garbage men. But the scene of someone crying for the near or dead I can't take. I choke up too. The end's the worst. We're not all rough and hard. Smoking cigarettes in their rooms. Relatives shouldn't be allowed in hospitals anymore. No, that's silly to say. Actually they can be a great help. Pitching in for some of what we can't. But if I had a list of patients I liked best? His would be up at the top ten. Fourth. Maybe third. The top three left me some blessings in their wills. But he was so cheery till he heard. And it was partially our fault. We should have been more careful with those socks. Even the cleats got stuck in his skin. But if the doctors weren't? Then who would expect us? But he never put us to blame. Forget the wills. First. Right up there second or first. He said that's fate. Not by design but by accidents. Said this right to my face. And not just to please me you know. I'm going to call I.C. to see how he's getting along. I was going to say if they tell me he's dead I'll die.

So the old man's gone and done it. I'd say it was almost a courageous act. And I don't want any looks at me like that. You even know what it takes to slash your wrists? Not that I'm not glad you don't know, though I once tried doing myself in. Worse than slashing myself also I thought, though don't look so scared. I wouldn't try it again. Though why should I be so confident to say never I don't know, though I surely have no plans for it now. Threw myself in front of a subway train. It was moving at the time too. Better than moving it was going at almost top speed, which is why I chose it, though I don't know why. Meaning I don't know why I actually tried it. I was eighteen. Very morose young man, a depressive-depressive. Felt nothing was going right or even would go anything but wrong, though how could I have been so right at such a young age? I also had incipient belated acne and the first half-inch of premature hair loss, but that's how strongly I then felt. I fell between the rails. Does all this seem like a lie? Tried catching the train as it shot out of the tunnel at the start of the station platform, but I must have jumped too fast. I'll never know for sure, though I certainly wasn't pushed from behind. All I got for my try was a lot of explaining to do about torn clothing and this cheek scar here from the broken glass in the well between the rails. And the perdurable image of what it's like underneath a train going sixty or so per. Uproarrrr. Powerfulnesssss. But he should have waited till late evening if he wanted to meet with success. You think he did it at ten because he knew my mom was coming in? She says no and for now he can't say but he could have heard her in the hall. She's small and her heels are always high and she has a characteristic quick clicking walk. You think I'm talking like this to pluck myself up for the unavoidable when I see my two? Mom and dad, misidentify thy son. But the question should be do I think I'm talking like this to steel myself for what almost must be faced? But I better go now as the plane leaves in an hour. I'll miss you a load, toots. The key's where it usually is. The bed's been rigged to cave in at any weight over 110. Also don't overfeed the sea horses with baby shrimp, and the mynas, turtles, lizards and dogs. The bees can take care of themselves.

No, it's not even an endemic. It's two isolated cases coming within twenty hours of each other at the same hospital but in different buildings, that's all. One because he's terminal and inoperable and the other because he believes he can't go on without a leg that must come off. What's unparalleled for us is that they happened on consecutive days. What's not uncommon is that they happen in hospitals. Running this conglomerate is satisfactorily unmanageable without dreary rumors being spread and patients and staff becoming perturbed. My advice is to drop the matter, for there's no story here other than the most witless yawny feature piece of a hospital administrator earnestly trying to squelch the commencement of a full-scale scandal and the perhaps more heart-tickling subsequent blurb of a reporter being denounced or bounced because he persisted in writing the original story.

Morris leaned over the counter and says so and so your patient? I says he was on my floor. He says was you could almost have said but still is is what you should be saying. I say I know and it was only a minor verbal oversight on my part. He says rather than only a minor oversight it was a major blunder that could have been a total medical center setback and financial clobbering. I say I think I know what you're saying and I'm sorry. He says I should hope you would know what I'm saying and I'd be a lot more than sorry. I say what else would you like me to be? He says all I ask is that you sec nothing like it happens again. I say you're not saying you don't think I didn't do everything possible to see it didn't happen in the first place? He says yes I'm sure you did everything you could possibly do to see it didn't happen but perhaps what I'm saying is you didn't do enough. I say enough it was, Mr. Morris, believe me. I've seventeen rooms and there was only me and the aide Patson, because two nurses had called in sick and the other aide that day quit and every room was wanting some kind of attention. If you don't like my performance here then you can just say so. He says I've just said so. Then is that in so many words a discharge on your part? I say. It's nothing of the sort on my part since for one thing there's a nurse shortage and for another I don't even know whether I still have that power, he says. Then what is it? I say. It's an admonition, that's all, he says. A what? I say. A warning to be more careful the next time, he says. I was very careful the first time, I say. Then be even more careful the next time, he says. As I already said I was very careful but he needs private nurses around the clock, I say. That's up to his family, he says. Then tell his family, I say. You know that even his doctor can only recommend that to his family, and goodnight, he says. And goodnight to you, I say. Was that an admonition on your part? he says. A what do you mean by what? I say. By the way you said goodnight, he says. It's what you might call a warning, I say. When it gets to be more than a warning then you can say so to me personally and in private, he says. If there happens to be a next time then I'll do that, I say, while the patients are ringing and from both corridors I can hear them bleating and I've a dozen syringes to fill and pill orders to make up and still two patients to put to bed and I don't know how many sutures to check and the linens for the next shift haven't yet shown and Patson, Patson, Patson's saying will I please listen to him a second as he's ill and a trifle woozy and could I get a replacement for him tonight or at least give him a two-hour rest after his meal?

One day someone jumps off the roof and the next day, yesterday, or the before day, he also tries cutting his wrists. You'll never get me in any hospital. Not once if I can avoid it, even if it's only to see a best friend or use their toilet. Because why go there? He goes there, right, and for one thing and gets another thing which leads to an even more complicated thing which gets so awful he's got to kill himself, and now God knows what that will lead to. At least that's what the article said. Mr. Jay from upstairs. Nice man, right? Used to sit in front of the house all day on the nice days when his wife got the energy up to walk him down. In the wheelchair, with first those clumps of the chair on the stairs past our landing and then when she got it all arranged outside with his newspapers, glasses, tissues and books, their little steps of her leading her husband down two more flights. And always a nice good nod and hello from him, and no matter how warm it was outside, in a coat. And never any unkind words from him either, if never almost ever a word. But always a smile. Bright and big in greeting and his little hands waving his fingers, and then this. All out of the blue. You go and begin and explain it. I was so shocked. I'm always shocked when I read or see on TV about people I know. Last time was that one who was what was that kid's name who got killed, I mean jailed, for riding more than a hundred in a twenty-mile zone? Driving around happily down this street we saw him in his stolen car one minute and next thing we see is him on all the local stations on the early and late evening news shows. Oh how I hated that wise-ass kid. Always did. Even when he was a kid. Always with the smirky wise look like he wanted to poke out your pupils in your eyes. Big kid he always was also, but they cut him to size. Two years it was he got, in a place to make us feel safer and him a better member of the human race. But outside of those two I can't think there was even an article or news film of anyone else we knew than ourselves with our own names in the newspaper lottery list when we were up for the million with several thousand others, but got five hundred instead. That should happen again. Oh, what a day at work. And my head cold's shifting to my chest and those unknown limb pains are back, so maybe what I need before dinner are aspirins and two glasses of your fresh orange juice first. And what do you say this weekend if he's alive we go see him and bring a little gift? Say sourballs or those baby pastries, because no matter how I hate those places I still think his being our neighbor these amount years it'd only be right.

Next door's a man dying from too many cigarettes. On the other side of me to the left's a lady who doesn't know she's having half her insides taken out tomorrow at eight. Across the hall's a boy who's spent the past year in a coma and every other hour on the hour only cries mummy mum mum. Next to him on one or the other sides' a man who tries suicide and I overheard his wife say in the hallway still has to lose his leg. In the next room to his is a woman who no specialist knows what's the matter with other than for her losing weight at an unbelievable speed. Can't eat. Next she can't even speak. Down to seventy pounds for a hefty frame and they don't think she'll last the week. Positively no visitors allowed it says on her door. I feel so ridiculous being on this floor. With only a couple of benign polyps to be removed and a little fright, though I might catch something worse from being around all these sorrowful people and horrible news. Is it at all possible to get my room switched to a less sickly floor?