14 Stories

by Stephen Dixon

  “But I’m serious. My woman’s in the john there, but if you give me my order the way I want it then we’ll be out of this joint in a flash, your apron and sneakers tossed behind you forever, and you’ll never regret it, you’ll always remain free and warm and happy as you are and never get overcomplicated and neurotic because I’d never allow it, we can make this life the most enriching experience possible for each other and all you have to do is give the word.” She said “What’s the word?” and I said “You just said it” and gave her my hand, she climbed over the counter, the cook in back yelled “Where you going, Cora, and what in hell makes you think you can be leaping over the counter like that? Now go back proper around the right way and pick up this egg order. And dammit, you know the Board of Health has serious ideas about our girls wearing hairnets—I said why aren’t you wearing your hairnet, Cora?” but we were past the screen door, June was still in the john, we ran across the road and stuck our thumbs out and the first car coming our way stopped for us and the driver said “Where to?” I was immediately taken with his forceful intense looks, his dark hair down to his shoulders and his lean body, and once in the car with the door just shut I said “Would you go into collusion with me and drive me to the end of the earth if need be and even continue to respect and love me though I’m about to ask you to tell this diner beauty here who I love as I’ve never loved anyone in my life to get out?” The man said “I was really only going to the store for a six­pack and bag of corn chips but I probably would, yes I would.”

  He stopped the car, Cora got out and said how throwing away her apron and new white sneakers had been about the most goddarn stupid suggestion on my part because now it would cost her a whole mess of money to replace them if she ever could get her job back, and slammed the door and crossed the road and stuck her thumb out for a ride back to the diner. I felt bad about Cora, but being with the person I loved I knew that everything would turn out all right, that love had its own actions, that when one loved there was always understanding, that love was surely the only way. We drove westward and the countryside and mountains and bright blue sky beyond and really life itself had never looked so glorious.

  CUT

  They want to take my leg away. Cut it off just a little below the hip. Gangrene’s set in around the ankle. Spread to the heel and now shoots of it to the skin. Not much blood circulates down there because the aorta’s clogged at the knee and calf. Black tissue they call the cancerous stuff. My wife said to me what else can you do? I said anything better than that. She said the only alternative was the implant but it just wouldn’t take. A fibrous artery to bypass the blocked spots and get some more blood flowing to the foot so the gangrene would dry up. I’m seventy-five. The real arteries weren’t strong enough to stretch far enough to meet the implanted tube, the vascular surgeon said. Or something like that. And that or your life. Plain as that. Horrible as that must sound to you both. Sorry as I am to be so frank. Well I’ll at least walk some more before I go. You won’t walk for more than a month and probably less. The gangrene’s spreading too fast. You mean the black tissue, I said. Call it what you want, he said. Endless trouble’s what I’m calling it, though the worst part of the worst dream I’m now waking up from is what I’d like to call that rot. They all agree. Vascular man, internist, urologist who operated on me to have my prostate removed. That’s what I originally came in here for. I was fine after that operation. Learning to urinate like I used to. Three days away from home. When my wife noticed two ulcers from the friction burns caused by the postoperative surgical stockings they’d bound around my feet but too tight so I wouldn’t shoot an embolism in bed. They said complications like the embolisms they prevented and ulcers they weren’t smart enough to avoid by simply removing my stockings at night often happen to men of my age. And because I’m diabetic and my arteries are crummy, the ulcers wouldn’t heal. Gangrene set in and spread. But I’ve been over that route. Those murderous black shoots. And they only gave my wife fifty-fifty I’ll survive the operation and nobody’s promising my condition won’t get worse and worse if I do. I stick my wrist with the vascular man’s scissors, then the other. Then the blood flows. Better than getting a leg sliced off. Then my head flows. Better than dying like a what? Sitting outside in front. Trouser leg pinned to my behind by two extra-safe diaper safety pins. In time the surviving leg sliced off. Till I’m sitting in front like a what? Like a what? That’s my wife standing by the bed. Comes in every day at noon and here she is at ten. Tough luck, lady, I try to say. She’s ringing, screaming. Running, in the corridor screaming. A nurse comes. Tough luck, I want to say. Runs outside the room and yells call the resident. Too late, I say. And I’m so sorry for you, dear.

  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.