“I was ready to kill myself when Ed came home drunk again,” the plump woman said. “I trashed the house and ran out onto the lawn screaming and naked.”
Behind the screaming naked woman was an effeminate, pear shaped man practicing yoga while chattering to no one. The squirming guy had a thousand-yard stare on the man doing the yoga.
“Excuse me, Doctor,” Mrs. Annunzio said to him. “I know you people are having a staff meeting, but I really need to talk to you.”
“Umm, hmm,” he said, rocking back and forth.
“But when can I go home? I miss my house and this place is giving me headaches.”
“Well, we’ll get you a sedative.” The doctor turned his thousand-yard stare to the rest of the staff. “One of you nurses, get her a sedative.”
“How about just an aspirin.” one of the nurses said.
“One of you nurses, get her an aspirin.”
The woman with SATAN tattooed on her neck went to the cart where all the medication was kept in locked drawers. She filled out a couple of pages of paperwork and then put two aspirins in a pleated paper cup. She measured out 50cc of water into another cup and handed the aspirin to Mrs. Annunzio.
“We were just discussing your case,” the doctor said. “We believe you might need longer care in one of the state hospitals. Kalamazoo has a bed open right now.”
“No, please. Just let me go home.”
“Settle down or I’ll give you a sedative.”
“I don’t want one.”
“I’ll take one,” the effeminate man said.
“Fine. Give him one, Satan’s little helper. Also record in Mrs. Annunzio’s chart that she refused psychotropic treatment, please.” The doctor put his hand to his face. Sucked his thumb for a few moments. “Let us ask you a few questions, Mrs. Annunzio. Do you believe that you husband is dead?”
“Yes, of course.”
Do you believe that he is after you?”
“No. Not anymore.”
“Good. Maybe you are doing better than we thought. Do you believe that your husband is a ghost haunting this hospital?”
“Certainly not.”
“Good, so you no longer see that hallucination that you kept seeing in the hallway.”
“Yes. Yes, I see him everyday. He brings me my lunch.”
“That’s it,” the doctor yelled, jumping up. “We are shipping you off to Kalamazoo.”
“I am going to go lay down,” Mrs. Annunzio said, “I’m too old to deal with you people.”
The doctor sat down, crossed his legs and quietly said, “She is becoming withdrawn. Let’s give her the diagnosis of non-specific, age-related degeneration of functioning.”
Chapter 28
As Mary Eddy rode the elevator to the Cancer wing to begin a six am to six pm weekend shift, she unwrapped a stick of gum to cover the alcohol on her breath. She had been partying with a guy she ran into at the bars every once in a while and had not made it home.
She took out a second stick and handed it to Dykes.
Dykes smelled of alcohol and sex and was not feeling as bad as he looked. He took the stick of gum without looking at her. “You know,” she said. “For a guy that’s a lot of laughs drunk, you sure are a sourpuss at work. I see you ducking down stairways and shoving your face into water fountains when you see me. I know I am older than you, but you are the one that seeks me out at the bars. At my age, I am not going to pass up a romp with a young thing like you.”
Dykes didn’t look up when the elevator opened at Mary’s floor. “I think you’re great,” he said.
“I hope I can make it through this day,” Mary said to herself, rushing out the door.
When the doors closed, Dykes let the elevator sit idle. He had certainly never meant to sleep with Mary even once, but he had found her to be friendly, sweet, comforting, and sexy. No matter how forlorn he looked in the hallways and in the elevator, Mary talked to him. Not stupid, pointless how about this weather babble, but sincere, unimportant connecting conversation. When he saw her out drinking, which was often, he would try to convey his gratitude for her befriending him and end up sleeping with her. The elevator ride with her proved his conviction that it didn’t pay for him to reach out to anyone. Others could make friends easily and had interesting things to say. They were likeable. He was just a romp.
The elevator began to move down. When the door opened, Dykes would have to see the person that had called it. It filled him with dread. All he would have to do is nod and walk out of the elevator. He wondered if he could do it without attacking the person, without crying.
When the doors opened, Irene began pushing her cart onto the elevator. “Hi, John,” she said. “Which way are you going?”
“Hi, Irene. I’m going down. How’s retirement?” he replied. Then he walked out of the elevator without waiting for an answer.
Mary had to change into her work scrubs, but she wanted to check on Yolanda first. Mary had seen her leave and come back many times. After a brief remission from lung cancer, a new cancerous tumor had developed where it was inoperable. Then it spread. This new admission would be Yolanda’s last.
Yolanda had told no one of her illness. She was too proud to call her few, estranged relatives and she had cut herself off from her friends for fear that they would not come see her. Her friends, in return, let themselves be cut off.
It was patients like Yolanda that had motivated Mary to go into nursing. She believed that sickness mostly came when you were at your loneliest moment. She wanted to be the someone that was there for them. Not to have a nice, glowing letter written about her on the bulletin board outside the cafeteria, but just because it was the right thing to do. There was be nice to get a letter about you on a bulletin board nice and then there was the real, rare nice. (There was also I wanna get in your pants nice, and I need one of your kidneys nice, but those don’t apply here.)
Mary ducked her head into Yolanda’s room, but saw Janis with her and quickly pulled back. She was ready to deal with disease and death, but not Janis.
“Your long fingernails are digging into my arm,” Yolanda told Janis with a fragile, angry voice. “That’s why I am going to knaw them to bloody stumps. Why are you taking my blood pressure anyway? I am dying and you are worried about getting my blood pressure. I am getting so sick of you doing worthless stuff to me and telling me to get some rest.” Janis pumped hard on the spygnomonitor as Yolanda lay in bed. “Look,” Yolanda said. “You will forgive me if I seem rude. I am in so much pain and soon pufft- my life will end. You go ahead and make sure you get my vital signs to get your paperwork filled out, but I still die. Sincerely, I will not try to ruin your day.”
Janis ripped the blood pressure cuff off of Yolanda. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
Mary stepped into the room before Janis threw a temper tantrum and went home sick for the weekend. “I’m here, Janis. Why don’t you go do report.” Janis rolled her eyes as she passed Mary. Mary took Yolanda’s hand and Yolanda smiled weakly. “I know what you are going to say, but I still would rather have her be the last person I see than my family.”
“Yolanda, I know you, don’t I? I know it’s hard for you, but call your dad. You tell yourself that you do not want to see him, but you do. I have worked with cancer patients long enough to know you need to say your good-byes.”
Yolanda shook her head.
“Janis hates visitors, Yolanda. Think of that then.”
Chapter 29
Bigger threw a sweatshirt on over his white shirt and a baseball cap on his bleached head and waited at the entrance of the cafeteria. After about ten minutes, his mother scurried up to him and announced, “I don’t have a lot of time for lunch.”
Bigger followed her into the cafeteria as she picked up two trays. Bigger followed his mother as she stopped at the self-service stations to get two salads and two soups. As part of the remodeling, these stations were new. In fact, everything in the cafeteria was brand new and top of the line.
Everything gleamed expensively from the ceramic tiled floor that led to the carpeted dining area to the crystal chandeliers.
At the counter where Joe was serving the entrée, she asked for two steak tips over noodles. “I’ll pay for you, Bigger. You must be getting sick of bologna sandwiches.” Then she promised to let him come back to the soft-serve machine and make a sundae after he ate.
It was now quarter after twelve and the large dining area was filling up. Everyone vied for a table near the east wall that was now a row of windows looking out over a small lake. Here the Saint Jude’s groundskeepers kept a small flock of ducks and a half dozen flamingos shipped up from Florida every summer. Even now in November, the scene was picturesque with snow-laden trees and the children from the day care building a snowman on Tuesdays and Thursdays and ice-skating on the pond on Monday and Wednesdays.
A classical trio played a jazz tune in the corner and the soft music floated around the room before sinking into the plush carpet. Bigger’s mom chose to sit by the large imitation fireplace because she didn’t like the smoke from the real fireplace along the north wall. A bus boy in a tuxedo came by and filled their water glasses.
“Walter has done a nice job with the cafeteria. The whole atmosphere really relaxes a person and energizes her to get back to work.”
“I wouldn’t know, mom. I really can’t afford to eat here.” Bigger began eating, getting en-tranced watching the light from the fireplace. His mother looked over a few papers she had brought along. Both were startled when Seuss came up to them.
“Could I join you, Ethel?”
“Walter, certainly.” She pulled her papers together. “I was just saying how wonderful the cafeteria has become. It is so relaxing.”
“Yes, I know. I believe it takes some suffering away from the families visiting a sick loved one. I have tried to create a very refined dining experience. How are your tips and noodles?”
“Great,” Ethel said as they sat on her tray untouched.
“Mr. Petty,” Seuss called out, motioning to Mr. Petty. “Come sit over here. Come sit by Ethel Steiffy.”
Bigger froze as he raised his fork to his mouth. Mr. Petty walked over and sat down while his manservant lifted his meal of lobster and tenderloinoff a silver tray and placed it on the table. “Thanks for the invite, Ethel.”
“Ethel,” Petty began as he unfolded his napkin and tucked it in his collar. “I have been wanting Gregg to set up this meeting for a while, so after some mindless small talk, I will get right to the point. How is your husband? Do you have any children?”
“How about just getting to the point. I have a lot of work to do.”
“So, anyway, now that we have gotten to know each other. You are the Patients’ Right Coordinator which makes you a very valuable asset to Saint Jude’s. You see, as you know, some employees are trying to get a union in here. I feel that would harm the patients’ welfare. I believe that harming their welfare would infringe on their rights. In fact, I know it would. A patient could file a complaint against an employee for harassment or even for not treating them with respect and with the union here, I could not ask that employee to change. I know this so well, that I may sue the union on the patients’ behalf if the employees were to succeed in unionizing. You would testify that a union infringes on our patients’ rights, wouldn’t you?”
Bigger wanted only to eat as fast as he could and leave his mother to her company, but they were making him so nervous that he took his sweatshirt off so that he didn’t become drenched in sweat.
Seuss glanced over at him as his white uniform was revealed. “You work in the kitchen,” he said. Then a bell went off in his head and Seuss screamed, “What are you doing here all camouflaged up? You work for me. Ethel. Ethel, is this man bothering you or performing some sort of scam on you?”
“Is he a spy for the union?” Petty asked Seuss.
“Are you a spy for the union?” Seuss asked Bigger. “You may be fired for this.”
Ethel stood up on her stout legs. “What the heck is the matter with you, Walter? You didn’t remember that Bigger works for you?”
“Oh yeah. Now you are starting to look familiar. Why are you sitting with a professional and not with those others from the kitchen?” he asked pointing to Thelma, Ester, and Augusta as they sat staring into their coffee cups and eating their ketchup soup.
“Is he working as an operative for Betty?” Petty asked.
“Are you working as an operative with Betty?” Seuss asked Bigger.
“Who’s Betty?” Bigger answered.
“What’s an operative?” Seuss asked.
“This is my son for Christ sakes, Gregg. The boy that sits across from you every time you have been over for dinner for the last twenty-five years.
“You know, your God-son.”
“Maybe not. I may be an eighty-year-old dead Italian guy. I’m looking into it.”
“Either way, I don’t think you can sit with us.”
Petty intervened. “We do have some important things to discuss.” He gave Bigger a hardy shoulder-shake. “You understand.”
Bigger stood up and turned. Then he turned back again to pick up his tray, but he was doing nothing but getting out of there.
“Sit down, Bigger,” his mother said.
He sat down.
“My son is going to stay. There is no business to talk about. I get a lot of flack for getting people in trouble when a patient complains. But that does not concern me. And neither does the employees unionizing. Patients’ rights have nothing to do with the union and I am not going to try to prevent people from their right to form a union. I am not going to use my care for the sick as a way to thwart an administrative issue. My only concern is ensuring equal, timely treatment to all patients. I don’t give a crap about your profit margin.” She sat down and began eating.
Petty thrust out an open hand toward Seuss and threatened him with his eyebrows. Seuss said, “Ethel, be sensible. You shouldn’t be sitting with your son. I have watched him go in and out of union meetings-”
“Mrs. Steiffy,” Petty interrupted before Seuss could talk some more. “I admire your dedication to the patients, but this hospital is a business and always has been. Despite what Hussein Obama thinks, all charities are. You and I have the same goal, only I know that we must focus on making great profits to be able to continue healing people.”
“Mr. Petty,” Ethel scolded. “All these changes you have made don’t make sense to me. You took God and mercy out of health care and now you want to take rights and respect away from the people who care for the sick. This hospital was not meant to be a business. It was started in 1889 by four nuns in a house donated by a parish.”
Petty cracked a leg of his lobster. “Yeah, well, we don’t have anyone to donate us a new hospital like they got.”
Ethel stared at him across her plate of food and pointed her fork at Petty until she finished chewing. “People donate money all he time and we have over 60 people donating their time in this hospital every day.”
“Well, I don’t see it affecting our bottom line at all. Except for the ones now doing tasks that we use to have employees to do, they may as well not be here at all.”
Chapter 30
There is a long hallway in the basement of the Saint Jude‘s. At the corner where the hallway begins is the specimens’ lab. Down further is the morgue. There are some mechanical rooms and some storage rooms past the morgue. Then the tile floor ends. Here the floor is cement and the lights are attached to steel girders by wire. On the right side of the hall is the Central Supply room (now officially The Axial Requisitioning & Replenishment Center) and on the left is the maintenance shop. Here the men have lockers and on top of the lockers are Little Oscar coolers with their lunches. On the bulletin board are a football pool and a newspaper clipping of when Craig got his 12-point buck. The speaker system that pages the doctors and pipes in Muzak is not wired down here and there aren’t any chairs with Lumbar support. There is only a ben
ch by the lockers and a wobbly stool with a backrest welded onto it next to the counter in the supply room.
This was the wild west of the hospital. A man only had what he needed and he lived by his own code because the law was scarce in these parts. The women were scarcer, preferring to be in the carpeted civilization where coffee was not served in Styrofoam cups and one could have cultured conversations about “Real Wives of San Quentin.”
This was the area Dykes started his day out by picking medical supplies off the shelves and loading them on his wooden cart to deliver to the units. His co-workers down here got a kick out of John. Whenever they asked him how it was going, he would respond, “I wish I cared.” The guys in the supply and maintenance department thought of John as clearly different, but really liked the way he was able to put things so succinctly. In fact, his “I wished I cared.” became their anthem and they were apt to use this phrase when they were told to do anything. Dykes worried that they were making fun of him, but usually he found one of the guys waiting around to shoot the shit with him. His raw, undecorated attitude struck a chord with his co-workers and fit the metal-shelves motif. (At least that was how one of the men that waited around for Dykes a lot put it).
Two floors up, Dykes sat in his boss’s office. Mr. Crapper had three large windows that looked out onto St. Jude’s terraced garden and its two story marble fountain. Eyes down and shoulders forward, Dykes sat in front of Crapper’s desk. He did not notice the dark oak and the glass top over it to protect it from the golf knickknacks and the expensive computer Crapper hadn’t touched since his secretary logged him on four years ago.
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