The Genius of Little Things (14 page)

He half-turned and caught my reflection in the mirror. “Didn’t mean to intrude in your office, bro. Anyone die tonight?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Hear about that study? Showed people die within three weeks of an important event. Birthday, new year, whatever. Their minds go, ‘get me out of here I don’t wanna to live another year.’ And boom. Gone. Not suicide. Natural causes.” He zipped up and flushed. “Stay brutal, bro.”

I recalled that my BiMo died less than a week after my thirteenth birthday.

On my third break I took a walk through the C wing to find a vending machine. I heard giggles coming from room C234. I peeked inside. Two nurses’ aides, women about college age, were fitting a sleeping woman with a giant bouffant wig. The woman had hooker-red lipstick and garish dangling earrings. She looked like a ravaged showgirl. The aides covered their mouths to muffle little snorts.

The old woman stirred and uttered a low moan. Her would-be beauticians scrambled out of the room, making peeps of suppressed laughter. The woman’s eyes fluttered open. I went into the room and removed the earrings and wig and placed them on her vanity table. I asked if she wanted me to adjust the A/C. She said nothing. She had no idea who I was.

While the bulk of the night shift was downtime and busywork—transferring residents’ information from one form to another to another—the last hour made up for it. In sixty minutes, each two-person team had to shower ten residents. This broke down to two minutes of pulling residents out of bed and wheeling them, even if they could walk, to the shower room. We had two minutes to put residents inside a free standing shower curtain—not for their modesty, but to prevent us from getting soaked—and spray them with a hose. Soap was optional, depending on the time. There was never enough time. We had another two minutes to dry them off and sprint them back to their beds. As with cleaning up accidents, this process was so fast I didn’t have time to contemplate how degrading it must have been for them.

After classes, through which I basically sleepwalked, I went back to Carl and Janet’s to make final changes to the admissions essays. I put a Do Not Disturb sign on the bedroom door. I had pressed my luck by waiting until the last minute. I was taking an even bigger risk, because I had spent the last 36 hours awake. By 6:20, I had reread the first essay twice and fixed every typo. It was pedestrian, but passable. The second essay was better, and I didn’t hate my opening sentence.

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. If that is true, then it can be said that it takes a university to raise a scholar.

I couldn’t decide whether the closing statement was brilliant or not.

Scientists studying colony collapse syndrome—and I count myself among these scientists—are still baffled by the disappearance of the bees. What’s fascinating is not that they all die together, but that they all leave the hive together and then die, as if they had made a choice. It is more like a mass suicide than a pathogenic bee pandemic. But it makes sense if one realizes that the bee world is based on a complex, interconnected web. They stand or fall together. And though we choose not to believe it, homo sapiens stand or fall together. And I, as a scholar and a human, choose to no longer stand alone. It is time for me to immerse myself in the community of scholars at Caltech.

The essays were pretty good, but not brilliant. Good essays were not enough for Caltech. And admission into Caltech would make up the chain of FoFas and the case managers-of-the-month. It would make up for my biological grandmother and her Jesus fetish. It would make up for my BiMo, her undiagnosed mental illness, every man who dumped her, and everything that had gone wrong in her life. Caltech was supposed to fix everything.

At 7:02 I deleted the whole bee essay. I chose to use the adrenalin rush to create a masterpiece in three hours. Here’s some advice when applying to a highly selective college. Don’t do what I did.

By 7:45 I had written a new opening paragraph.

I read a fascinating news story that suggests mayonnaise is not the reason so many people are sickened by potato salad at picnics. It may be the onions. Sliced onions are bacteria magnets. Within hours, raw onions have attracted every nearby airborne pathogen. My point is, scientists should always question assumptions. Now, about me.

At 7:50 I looked up “successful college essays” on Google, with the intent to lightly borrow from one of them. I saw no examples worthy of the greatest scientific university in the nation.

At 8:30 I smacked my forehead with my biology II book.

At 8:50 I composed a short letter explaining why I could not submit my essay along with the application.

Dear Admissions Committee,

It is impossible to complete the essays on time due to the chemotherapy I am undergoing. You may be asking, why, if Tyler is capable of typing this letter, is he not capable of typing out an essay? Good question.

At 9:05 I began to rewrite my original essay from memory. I finished at 9:25, and proofread until 9:55. I attached it to my application at 9:56 and pressed send. I was calm for one minute. My fate was sealed. I changed into my work scrubs.

Some say they feel a sense of elation after meeting an important deadline. That’s not what I experienced. I felt a cluster of emotions that I could not identify. But I was pretty sure none was positive.

I found a fifty-dollar bill on the refrigerator, held with a cartoon cactus magnet. There was a note on the white board, in Carl’s handwriting.
Money is from Mrs. Kim. Didn’t want to disturb you. Took Eddie trick or treating. Had fun!

Then, a note in Janet’s writing.
I think we’re a good influence on Eddie!!
Check messages!

I pulled out the phone from my Box o’ Crap. I turned it on and it tinkle-tinkled to life and then beeped. Two voice mail messages were from Sun. I surmised that she wanted me not to tutor Eddie, but take him trick-or-treating. One was from Carl, saying he had given Sun my cell number.

I had received $50 for nothing. I could live with that.

But something was wrong. Eddie’s mother paid to have someone take him trick-or-treating. Not even his nanny/housekeeper could be bothered to take him. Did real parents do that kind of thing? I couldn’t process this, because I was brain dead. But it didn’t seem right.

I was starving and it was too late for a real dinner. I was out of Honey Bunches of Oats, so I settled for a packet of Carl’s organic instant hot muesli. I was still staring at the note about trick-or-treating when I realized the microwave had been beeping for a long time. I had fallen asleep standing up.

I took my not-quite-so-hot-anymore oatmeal out and stirred it. Seconds later the oatmeal was splattered against the stainless steel refrigerator. I stared at the glop long enough to question why I had just thrown it. Then I cleaned the refrigerator and the floor before leaving for Colonial Gardens.

THIRTEEN

To: All Staff

Re: Tabitha

If you hear cooing sounds coming from the commons, be aware that it is our newest addition to Colonial Gardens: Tabitha, a ten pound baby seal. Have we reversed our pet policy? Not exactly! Some residents may want to pet her. By all means, let them! Tabitha is loving and gentle, but she will fuss if you touch her eyelashes. You’ll be surprised to learn she’s not real. This animatronic seal is a gift from the Herbert Kling family. But don’t tell Tabitha she isn’t alive!

Cecelia Platt

**

On the second night at Colonial Gardens, Milagro Sanchez did not ask me to read from the Bible or any other book. She insisted on showing me photos from her own Box o’ Crap, an ancient pink makeup case covered with little mirrored diamonds and crusted with dirt. The first photograph was of a small boy sitting on a horse. There was a woman in a red sleeveless dress next to him. I inquired whether the photo was of her and her son, even though the woman didn’t look anything like Milagro. She pointed to me.

In my short time at Colonial Gardens, several residents had mistaken me for other people. Mr. Tate thought I was a kid he beat up in grade school. Mrs. Ambrose was certain that I was her grandson. Mrs. Chernyk was convinced I was coming to evict her from her house.

“That’s not a picture of me,” I said. But Milagro didn’t think I was the boy in the photo. She wanted me to have the photo. I understood this when her roommate, Edna, snarled, “take the picture ya dumb flapjack.”

I put the photo back in her box and replaced the box on the nightstand. “You need your rest, because…” I was going to add something she had to do the next day. But there was likely nothing she had to do the next day.

I took my last break in the outdoor courtyard. The tattooed guy I met the first night in the rest room was sitting on a bench, half lit by a dim security light. I saw a tiny orange glow in front of his face.

“Hey, my man,” he said.

I looked closer. He was taking a drag off a pipe, which was definitely not filled with tobacco. He held the smoke in his lungs and introduced himself as “Kel.” He volunteered a lot of information before I said so much as “hello.” I learned he had been in trouble with the law and might go back to school to study pharmacy. Even if he didn’t go back to school, he would not be a janitor in a nursing home for long. He said all of that before exhaling, which indicated to me that he was somewhat of a pro at pot smoking.

In an attempt to find some common ground I informed him about my infamous sex and drugs campaign speech at school.

Kel held out the pipe. I leaned back a bit and told him I couldn’t smoke because I needed to stay awake. There was another reason, which I didn’t tell him. I had never smoked pot before. I know, shocking.

“Got it,” he said. “If you need a little sumthin-sumthin to help keep you going, you know where I’m at.”

“Where are you at?”

“All around,” he said, making a rolling motion with his hand.

The rest of the shift was a blur, including shower time. I was about to clock out when I heard an animal squawk coming from the end of the corridor. I rushed to the source of the sound, nearly doing a summersault over an empty wheelchair. In room D119, Mrs. Hotchkiss appeared to be accosted by an enormous fuzzy turd. After closer inspection, it was clear that the turd was the animatronic baby seal, Tabitha. The robot-seal made another sound, this time a more contented wwwwAAAAAAAAAA. Its head turned and eyelashes fluttered.

Mrs. Hotchkiss informed me that Tabitha wanted me to pet her. My shift had been over for five minutes and I didn’t feel like bonding with a fur robot. But Mrs. Hotchkiss insisted. I approached the thing tentatively. I reached out just as Tabitha’s head moved toward me, causing me to accidentally jab my finger in its eye. The thing made a mewing sound and jerked away.

“You’ve hurt Tabitha,” the woman said.

I informed her that the seal wasn’t real. This made her angry. “I know she isn’t real,” she snapped. She continued petting it and apologizing for the “rude and angry young man.”

I looked over at her roommate for moral support. But she was gazing forward at the soundless television, mouth agape, at a commercial for a pasta maker.

On the third night, Milagro Sanchez’s light was flashing as I arrived at my station. When I reached her room, she was already holding the pink box on her lap. She offered me a photo of a large family at a wedding. I asked her if that was her wedding. As usual, she didn’t answer.

She handed me another picture. This one was a girl with crooked teeth standing behind a cake with seven candles. The girl wore a Hello Kitty shirt. Milagro made a Catholic cross gesture with her hand, kissed the photo and handed it to me. This time, instead of putting the photos back in her box, I placed them in the breast pocket of my scrubs.

Later, I explained the situation to Ruth and Darla. I asked them what I was supposed to do with Milagro’s photos. Ruth took a closer look at the wedding photo, squinted and cocked her head. There was something wrong. Not only did nobody look especially Hispanic, there was a Star of David on the wall. “She’s giving you pictures of someone else’s family,” Ruth said. Darla said that wasn’t surprising, because Milagro had advancing dementia. They offered advice. Ask questions about the people in the pictures. That would stimulate Milagro’s mind, even if she couldn’t answer.

The lounge appeared to be empty on my last break. On the TV was an infomercial on how to profit through real estate, hosted by two brothers who were also midgets. I’m not making this up. I flopped down on the leatherette sofa with soft pfffft—that was the sound of the sofa, not me—and closed my eyes. I didn’t even look for the remote to mute the midgets. That’s how tired I was. My last thought was a book report I once wrote on Hans Christian Andersen. He feared being buried alive and he kept a note by his bedside.
I am only sleeping, do not bury me
.

I awoke when something fell in my lap. Kel stood over me. He had given me a bag of yellow pills.