“Get Lou-Bertha before it’s too late!”
He kept hollering instructions to me from the trauma room. “My mother … Mary Brochard 849-0917 … Try the Adam and Eve Bar for Lou-Bertha.”
Lou-Bertha has just left the Adam and Eve for the Shalimar. It was busy for a long time, then an answer, and Stevie Wonder for a whole record of “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing.”
“Run that by me one more time, honey … He OD’d on what?”
I told her.
“Shit. You go tell that toothless worthless nigger he better be taking a lot more of something a lot stronger if’n he expects to get me outta here.”
I went in to tell him … what? She was glad he was okay, maybe. But he was on the telephone in room 6. Had his pants on, still wore a polka-dot gown on top. He had located the half-pint of Royal Gate in his jacket pocket. Was just sort of lounging around, like an executive.
“Johnnie? Yeah. Otis here. I’m up here at City Emergency Room. You know, off Broadway. What’s happening? Fine, fine. That bitch Lou-Bertha messing ’round with Darryl … [Silence.] No shit.”
The charge nurse came in. “He still here? Get him out! We have four Codes coming in. Auto accident, all Code Three, ETA ten minutes.”
I try to sign as many patients as possible before the ambulances arrive. The people will just have to wait later, about half of them will leave, but meanwhile all are restless and angry.
Oh, hell … there were three here before this one but better just sign her in. It’s Marlene the Migraine, an Emergency habituée. She is so beautiful, young. She stops talking with two Laney College basketball players, one with an injured right knee, and stumbles to my desk to go into her act.
Her howls are like Ornette Coleman in early “Lonely Woman” days. Mostly what she does is first, bang her head against the wall near my desk, dump everything off my desk with a swoop.
Then she starts her cries. Whooping, anguished yelps, reminiscent of Mexican corridas, Texan love songs, “Aiee, Vi, Yi!”
“Ah-hah, San Antone!”
She has slumped to the floor and all I can see is an elegantly manicured hand, extending her Medi-Cal card above the desk.
“Can’t you see I’m dying? I’m going blind, for crissakes!”
“Come on, Marlene — how’d you get those false eyelashes on?”
“Nasty whore.”
“Marlene, sit up and sign in. Ambulances are coming, so you’ll have to wait. Sit up!”
She sits up, starts to light a Kool. “Don’t light that, sign here,” I say. She signs and Zeff comes to put her into a room.
“Well, well, if it isn’t our old angry pal, Marlene.”
“Don’t you humor me, you dumb nurse.”
The ambulances arrive, and for sure they are emergencies. Two die. For an hour all the nurses, doctors, on-call doctors, surgeons, everybody is tied up in room 6 with the two surviving young patients.
One of Marlene’s hands is struggling into a velvet coat sleeve, the other is applying magenta lipstick.
“Holy Christ — I can’t hang around this joint all night, right? Seeya, honey!”
“See ya, Marlene.”
Temps Perdu
I’ve worked in hospitals for years now and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the sicker the patients are the less noise they make. That’s why I ignore the patient intercom. I’m a ward clerk, my priorities are ordering meds and IVs, getting patients to surgery or X-ray. Of course I answer the calls eventually, usually tell them, “Your nurse will be there soon!” Because sooner or later she’ll show up. My attitude toward nurses has changed a lot. I used to think they were rigid and heartless. But it’s sickness that’s what’s wrong. I see now that nurses’ indifference is a weapon against disease. Fight it, stamp it out. Ignore it, if you will. Catering to a patient’s every whim just encourages him to like being sick and that’s the truth.
At first, when a voice on the intercom would say, “Nurse! Quick!” I’d ask, “What’s the matter?” That took too much time; besides, nine times out of ten it’s just that the color’s off on the TV.
The only ones I pay attention to are the ones who can’t talk. The light comes on and I push down the button. Silence. Obviously they have something to say. Usually something is the matter, like a full colostomy bag. That’s one of the only other things I know for sure now. People are fascinated by their colostomy bags. Not just the demented or senile patients who actually play with them but everyone who has one is inevitably awed by the visibility of the process. What if our bodies were transparent, like a washing machine window? How wondrous to watch ourselves. Joggers would jog even harder, blood pumping away. Lovers would love more. God damn! Look at that old semen go! Diets would improve — kiwi fruit and strawberries, borscht with sour cream.
Anyway, when 4420, Bed Two’s light came on I went into his room. Mr. Brugger, an old diabetic who had had a massive stroke. I saw the full bag first, just as I figured. “I’ll tell your nurse,” I said and smiled into his eyes. My God, the shock that hit me, like falling on a bicycle bar, a Vinteuil sonata right there on Four East. Little beady black eyes laughing from epicanthic gray-white folds. Eyes just past Buddha eyes … sloe eyes, slow eyes, near-Mongoloid eyes. Kentshereve’s eyes, laughing into mine … I was engulfed with the memory of love, no with love itself. Mr. Brugger felt this no doubt, since now he rings his ever-loving bell all night long.
He shook his head, mocking me for thinking it was his colostomy bag. I looked around. The Odd Couple was spinning dizzily up on the screen. I adjusted the set and left, hurrying back to my desk, to soft billows of memory.
Mullan, Idaho, 1940, at the Morning Glory mine. I was five years old, making shadows from the early spring sun with my big toe. I heard him first. The sound of apples. Celery? No, it was Kentshereve, under my window, eating hyacinth bulbs. Dirt in the corners of his mouth, purple liver lips, wet like Mr. Brugger’s.
I flew to him (Kentshereve), no looking back, no hesitation. At least the next thing I remember is biting into the crisp cold bursting bulbs myself. He grinned at me, raisin eyes glinting through doughy slits, encouraging me to savor. He didn’t use that word — my first husband did showing me the subtleties of leeks and shallots (in our adobe kitchen in Santa Fe, vigas and Mexican tile). We vomited, later (Kentshereve and I).
I worked mechanically at my desk, answering phones, calling for oxygen and lab techs, drifting away into warm waves of pussywillows and sweet peas and trout pools. The pulleys and riggings of the mine at night, after the first snow. Queen Anne’s lace against the starry sky.
“He knew every inch of my body.” Did I read that somewhere? Surely no one would ever say such a thing. Later that spring, naked in the woods, we counted every single mole each other had, marking where we left off each day with India ink. Kentshereve pointed out that the ink dabber was just like a cat’s pecker.
Kentshereve could read. His name was Kent Shreve, but when he told me I thought it was his first name and that first night said it over and over, sang it over and over to myself as I have done with Jeremys and Christophers ever since. Kentshereve Kentshereve. He could even read the Wanted posters at the post office. He said that when we grew up he’d probably read a poster about me. Of course I’d be using an alias but he would know it was me because it would say large mole on ball of left foot, blaze on right knee, mole in the crack of the ass. Maybe somebody will read this who was once my lover. Bet you didn’t remember those things. Kentshereve would. My third son was born with the same mole, just at the crack of his buttocks. The day he was born I kissed him there, pleased that probably one day another woman would kiss him there, or count it. Kentshereve took longer to document than I did since he had freckles as well and there was a fine line. He didn’t trust me when I got to his back, accused me of exaggerating.