The Tao of Apathy

by Thomas Cannon

  “Yeah well,” Mr. McIntrye said, “No one else does in this hospital. Well, except for Mr. Seuss here. Low morale and absenteeism were problems before the riot, but now they will run rampant. What are you going to do about that Petty?”

  “There’s not much I can do about that. They got themselves into this mess.”

  Father Chuck stepped forward from the corner where he had always waited to open Grumby’s meetings with a prayer. “There is something I can do. I am going to pray for these people and I am going to counsel the employees. I am going to open my office back up.”

  “It wasn’t shut down,” Petty said. “Just the chapel.”

  “I’m going to teach them about forgiveness and to reach out to others. And I’m going to teach them about God. This hospital was founded by religious people that wanted to serve and sacrifice for the good of God’s people. So you can desecrate my chapel, destroy my pamphlets, bill me out as spiritual services, but I am going to stand on the lawn and tell people of the joy of God’s love.” He looked around at the directors. They look back at him. “Is anybody gonna stop me?”

  The directors shook their heads.

  “God is back, baby.”

  Chapter 51

  Dykes pushed his large wooden cart onto the elevator and pushed six. Today, he stood in the middle and when the door opened on three, he did not look down to the floor or rub his head as if feverish. Dykes was happy. Since the riot at the auditorium, nobody was talking to anyone about a union or anything else. They would all ride the elevator silently, never looking up, and never engaging Dykes in conversation.

  The medical staff had gotten the first raise. With more of the medical staff still under hospital care and unable to vote for themselves, the vote had been a tie. The directors broke the tie in favor of the medical staff, betting that the support grunts (also known as Joe six-pack and Mary Vodka hidden in the linen closet) would forget about the raise and concentrate on the all-star wrestling that was coming to town next month. But both the professional and the non-professional staff were angry, vengeful, distrustful, confused, and defeated. Even the doctors were dejected that their demands had not been met and that they had to make good on their threat and go to the new competing hospital, although most hadn’t. Now, no matter how crowded the elevator was, Dykes rode in blissful silence. It made Dykes want to jump up and click his heels together.

  It was a new nurse that got on. The doors opened and there was Dykes looking straight at her. The first thing Dykes noticed was that she had so many light freckles along the top of her cheeks that they almost ran together. They did not. Instead, they brushed across her cheeks like adoring grandmothers. The second thing he noticed was that her hair was the same color, a warm auburn brown that created a glow that said, “I’m the girl you’ve been waiting for.” Dykes wondered who her hair was talking to.

  Her big, honey-colored eyes said, “You, stupid.” When the elevator door began to close on her as she tried to negotiate around his cart that he had not bothered to move, he grabbed the door and held it for her.

  “Ah, hello,” he said accidentally.

  “Hi,” she replied, smiling and biting her lower lip nervously. Dykes had got a glimpse of her eating alone in the cafeteria as he went through the lunch line to get his food and take it out to his car. Normally, a new person was invited to sit with her co-workers right away so that she could be made to feel right at home and grilled for gossip. But since the riot, new employees were shunned because they had not gone through what everyone else had and had not had to fight for the four- percent raise. No one had helped her get adjusted, or made her feel welcome or told her what food to avoid in the cafeteria. The animosity shown to her and the other new employees for no Goddamn good reason was almost as if the hospital was a union shop. “Looks like it may storm,” Dykes found himself saying.

  “Actually, it’s sunny out. I’ve seen you around. Your name is John, right? You seem to be the only friendly person that works here.” The door shut and the elevator began its assent. The nurse stared at her shoes with her arms tightly crossed as if she was hugging herself. The door opened on the fifth floor. “I’m Michelle,” she said quietly.

  Irene squeezed herself onto the elevator. She had been retired almost a year and was sick of working the overtime. She was beat. She just wanted to climb into her new Kia, turn on the radio and listen to Roger Hedgecock. She pushed the lobby button, saw that the two young people were going up to six and pushed the lobby button again.

  Dykes wanted to make her smile or laugh, even if he was never to cross paths with her again. Michelle, of course, not Irene. At this moment, he wanted to push Irene down the elevator shaft. But he began to question his motives. While he knew why he wanted to push Irene, he also knew why he wanted to strike up a conversation with this beautiful woman. He had been tempted to make small talk to other pretty women and he had always chosen not to. He had enough faults; he did not want to be shallow, too. So John quickly made up his mind that if he were to start up a conversation, he would be finished before he started. He knew he would never find anything to say and he didn’t want to risk looking like the fool he was. He told himself, if you are going to fail, if you are one of those destined to be lonely, why even try? Yet, he had seen her eating her lunch alone and he did not want that for her. “Can I walk with you, Michelle?”

  Dykes walked along side of her as she talked about where she went to school and her previous job of working in a nursing home. Dykes saw Mary Eddy coming towards them and realized that he couldn’t duck his head into the water fountain or turn and walk the other direction. Yet Mary came forward, looking directly at them. He panicked while Michelle continued to talk. “I like being home,” she said. “I grew up here.”

  “Hi, Michelle,” Mary said.

  “Hi, Mom,” Michelle returned.

  A group of employees stopped Irene’s descent on four. Then as the elevator crawled down to the first floor, Dykes abandoned cart and silence filled the elevator. Irene wondered what had happened to her friends. She knew that everyone was holding grudges and refusing to pretend to like each other, but she was retired and didn’t consider herself involved. But things had taken a toll on her, too though, and she felt a great urge to yell, “Jesus, whose breath smells like bacon and cigarettes. Ever here of breath mints or brushing your fucking teeth?”

  She got off the elevator on one after the other four plowed ahead of her and headed toward the door in a fast waddle. Out on the sidewalk, she ran into a cook who was trying to light a cigarette. The match flew out of his hand and onto the ground.

  “Watch out, Irene,” he said.

  The housekeeper walking with him took his hand. Joe had been surprised that since he started taking breaks with Susan, no one had made any derogatory comments about them dating. Of course, most people lived in fear of Susan kicking their ass since the riot. “Don’t be so grumpy, Joe,” she said.

  “I hate this place.”

  Susan smiled. “But you love me, dontcha?”

  He looked at the pretty housekeeper who was the best person he had ever met. He didn’t know how big of an accomplishment that was and yet he felt like the luckiest man in Michigan. He smiled back.

  Fellow smokers stood around the building trying to get enough poison in fifteen minutes. There was more chatter around the entrances than there had been for weeks. Off to the side, Father Chuck passed a flask back to Dan. “You can always try again in a year.”

  Bigger hurried as he scuffed his cowboy boots on the marbled floor of the new administration wing of Saint Jude’s. He wanted to meet Joe and Susan for break, but he kept slowing down to marvel at the wood-carved paneling on the walls and the chandeliers that lit the hallway. The administrators had decided to remain working next to their staff and to just build a new administrative wing instead of a new building. The CEO, vice-presidents, and board members were only an underground, guarded tunnel away from the patients and staff. This way, they would remain close enough
to watch that the employees didn’t riot again, yet far enough away that they could safely hide if they did.

  Bigger now worked with Dykes and was the newest team member of the Central Utility Network of Transportation (formerly the Axial Replenishment Requisition Center (commonly acronymed with a soft C) (Formerly Central Supply)). Bigger had been transferred as the psychiatric staff felt it would be too stressful for Seuss to return to work with his victim.

  He had let his hair return to its natural color, and although he was no longer required to wear a uniform, he always wore a jean shirt with a tie, a pair of causal dress pants and an expensive pair of cowboy boots. He hated his new job as much as his old one and considered it temporary until he began classes in the nursing program at Davenport College, but it was more pay so at least his wife no longer cried on the first of the month. She still called him a loser and told him that he wasn’t a real man because he couldn’t properly care for his family, but she didn’t cry. Bigger’s mom was also proud of his new job and enrollment in college, although she did not approve of his new boss, Mr. Crapper, because she had found out the he was not gay, but dating Rebel Wilson.

  Now that Bigger no longer worked in the kitchen, people were rude to him and complained that he was too late or too early or too right on time (I don’t suggest asking Bigger what happened to the invisibility rays when Joe is around). Bigger looked on the bright side and was thankful for the conversation.

  Bigger walked with a case of caviar for the executive break room under his arm, enjoying the clicking thud his boots made on the floor. He passed where the armed guard always stood on duty. No one was there so he knew Tim was working. Slowly, quick taps of high-heeled shoes echoing down the hallway drowned out his thuds. Then a woman wearing a blazer and holding a microphone came around the corner. Behind her was a guy with a video camera that he kept ready to prop up onto his shoulder. It was then that Bigger remembered the dedication for the new wing was set for this afternoon. “Hmm,” Bigger said aloud. “Maybe I could become a TV reporter?”

  The woman’s ears were red from hurrying and anxiety, but her excessive makeup remained perfect and as she ran her hair did not move out of place. “Excuse me,” she called out. “Are you somebody?”

  “Nah.” Bigger continued on his way.

  339