Martin was, for the moment, alone in the main area. He chewed his sausage—which was surprisingly flavorful—and wondered where the other clients were. Hadn’t Bernard woken everyone in the same whimsical manner? And why was Ethel—the person he assumed was in charge—unsure of how many clients they had right now? That seemed like the kind of thing they’d keep a close count on. So what was the deal?
Maybe if he didn’t eat his food too quickly, someone else would show. He suddenly wanted company.
As if she’d read his mind, Ethel appeared a few moments later with a small paper cup in her hand. “Here you go.” Martin took the cup from her, saw it had five—five?—pills, tossed them all into his mouth, downing them with a deep drink of orange juice.
“Open your mouth, please,” said Ethel, clicking on a small penlight.
Martin did; Ethel shone the light into his mouth. “Lift your tongue for me.”
He complied, Ethel nodded her head, clicked off the light, and started to walk away. Martin called her name and she turned around.
“Do you have to go?” he asked. “It’d be nice to . . . have someone to talk to.”
“Martin, come this time tomorrow, if not sooner, you’re gonna be looking back at this time by yourself as the good old days. Enjoy the quiet while it’s yours to enjoy. If you’re still hungry after you finish, they brought extra trays of food—they always bring extras; have some more if you want. What doesn’t get eaten goes down the disposal.” And with a bright and sincere smile, she went back into the nurses’ station, closed the door, and took her seat at one of the desks; another nurse, this one much younger, with porcelain-doll skin and a head of lustrous red hair, was typing something into her computer while talking to Bernard, who caught sight of Martin through the glass and gave him a quick nod.
Martin looked down at the food remaining on his tray and wondered how many trays like this the hospital kitchen had to wash every day, and just as quickly remembered all the times he’d watched his mother standing at the sink washing dishes, her and Dad having never been able to afford a dishwasher, and as he stared at this remembered image of her arthritic hands slipping dirty dishes into hot soapy water (while she hummed Charley Pride’s “Kiss An Angel Good Morning,” her favorite song), he wondered how many hours of her life she’d spent like that, alone in the kitchen, after the meals, standing at the sink washing dishes; had she ever gotten tired of it? Did she wish she’d been able to afford a dishwasher so she didn’t have to spend so much time on this chore that no one else really noticed or thought about unless it wasn’t done? Did she ever want someone else in the kitchen with her, someone to talk to while she performed this thankless task in a day filled with thankless tasks? How much of her life had she spent washing . . . ?
Martin set down his plastic fork and knife, lowered his head, and wept into his hands. He could try thinking about Dad but odds were he’d just come up with some equally happy image alive with equally cheerful thoughts. Christ! Why was it that the bad memories were always broadcast in high-definition crystal clarity, while the good ones could only be found using an old set of rabbit-ears that obscured them in static and snow?
I’ll do the dishes, Martin, don’t you worry about me . . .
She’d said the same thing to him the last time he’d had dinner with her, the night before she had the massive coronary from which she never awakened. Nine months since Dad had died, nine months with no one else but her son to cook nice meals for, and he couldn’t be there every night, and when he did, by-God she did the dishes . . .
. . . you gotta stop this right now, Martin told himself; but, still, the tears kept coming.
And his food was getting cold.
“Oh, this is fuckin’ great!”
Martin pulled his hands away from his face, then wiped his eyes to see a young woman of perhaps twenty-three standing there glowering at him.
“It ain’t bad enough that I wind up in fuckin’ Buzzland,” she snarled. “No, I gotta have breakfast with some cry-baby, over-the-hill loser . . . well, fuck that!” She stormed over to the trays and grabbed one, piling on the milk and orange juice containers before heading back toward her room. “Where you going, Wendy?” said Bernard, stepping into her path. “I’m gonna eat in my fuckin’ room, all right? I don’t wanna be around no cry-baby.” Bernard shook his head. “You know the rules, Wendy; you eat out here with the other clients, or you don’t eat.”
“But I’m fuckin’ hungry!”
Martin wondered if there was some rule requiring her to say either “fuck” or “fuckin’” in every sentence; would she perhaps be heavily fined otherwise? The thought should have made him smile, but he was still stuck back in his mother’s kitchen, watching as she reached for yet another dirty dish, and so looked down at his food so he could cry without drawing too much attention to himself. Besides, he still had another sausage link and a fruit cup to finish.
“I ain’t eating in here, Bernie. Not with that guy! No fuckin’ way!”
“Then you’re not eating, period.”
“To hell with you and your lousy goddamn food, then!” screamed Wendy—
—Martin thought: don’t you mean to say, Fuck you and your lousy fuckin’ food?—
—then Wendy spun around and hurled her tray, drinks, and utensils into the wall over Martin’s head. The tray hit with a loud bang!, its lid popping loose and splattering food all over the wall, the floor, and the back of Martin’s shirt.
Bernard grabbed Wendy from behind, throwing both his massive arms across her chest and pinning her arms, then lifted her off the floor, her legs kicking, her head thrashing side to side, a stream of curses and profanities spewing from her mouth that would have made a trucker blush, and before Bernard had even turned fully around, Ethel and the other nurse were there, the redhead pulling out and holding steady one of Wendy’s arms while Ethel stuck a needle in and sank the plunger; Wendy was unconscious before Ethel pulled out the needle. Bernard and Ethel took Wendy to her room. The redhead turned around to make sure Martin was all right, saw that he was crying, and said, “This doesn’t happen all that often.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“No one has to, where Wendy is concerned,” replied the redhead, then set about cleaning up the tray and food. Martin was confused about what the nurse had said; he hadn’t been talking about Wendy at all.
He finished his breakfast in silence, stopping only once more, halfway through the fruit cup, when a particularly hard burst of tears got the better of him. Finally he was done with the food (and out of his mother’s kitchen), showing the redhead his plastic utensils before tossing them in the trash, then being given a towel and a bar of soap for his shower.
“You doing all right?” asked the redhead, whose name tag identified her as Amber Fox; Martin wondered how much teasing she got about her last name, being as pretty as she was. “I don’t mean to sound rude or anything,” he said, “but if I was doing all right, why would I be here?” Amber nodded. “Good point.” “Will Wendy be okay?”
“That’s sweet of you to ask. She’ll be okay. We can’t promise anything more than ‘okay’, but we can promise that.” Martin started toward the bathroom when something occurred to him: “Amber?” She stopped, the nurses’ station door halfway closed. “Yes?” “What happened to my grocery bag?” “You’re not getting any of that stuff back, Martin, so don’t bother asking again.”