“There you go.” Natsinet said above her. “Now climb back into bed yourself! How’s that for physical therapy?”
Adelle was certain she blacked out at that point. Her next memory was lying in bed—how she got there she had no recollection of, but Natsinet had obviously gotten her back in somehow. The nurse was standing beside her, a smirk on her face.
Please, Adelle thought.
Natsinet leaned over her. “You are not going to spread false rumors about me…correct?”
Adelle could only look at the nurse, her eyes growing wide with terror. There was no sense of compassion in the younger woman’s face. No sense that she’d done anything wrong.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
Trembling, Adelle moved her head slightly. A nod. Yes.
“Good. Nobody will believe you anyway. The medication you are on has a possible side effect of hallucinations.”
For the first time Adelle realized her pad of paper and pen were gone. Tears of frustration and rage welled from her eyes. She felt trapped in this body that was now broken and useless. Her right side and wrist ached with a dull throb.
“You are going to lie here and do nothing,” Natsinet continued. “You will eat when I feed you, urinate and shit when I take you to the bathroom, and sleep when I tell you to. And that’s about all you are going to get from me. If I can find a way to avoid touching you at all I will. Furthermore, when my five days are up you will say nothing to nobody. Remember, you will be so doped up that nobody will believe you. And I’m only off for two days so I’ll be back and I’ll know if you’ve been talking.”
They’ll believe me alright you hateful woman! Adelle thought.
“Remember… you’re under my care now.” Natsinet’s face was pure evil. “You can complain all you want, but this time complaining and bitching won’t do shit for you.”
What the hell is she trying to say? Adelle thought.
Natsinet continued her rant, as if she knew what Adelle was thinking. “Oh yes, I know all about you. Big Civil Rights leader. Bitch and complain about how the White man is holding you down, the White man won’t let you po’ Black folks get ahead!” Natsinet’s voice adopted a mocking ghetto-speak. “Well guess what, sister? That’s your damn fault! You had all the chances in the world and here you are still stuck in the ghetto with the animals. And they’re still animals. Out there killing each other every night. Rutting like pigs and creating more little bastards for the welfare system. This is what your little Civil Rights movement left behind. You took away all of their excuses and they still haven’t done shit with their lives. All people like you ever did was cry and moan and complain about equality and yet you never assimilated into society. You still live and act like savages. And don’t tell me about how you haven’t had the same opportunities or how the legacy of slavery destroyed the Black man’s sense of identity and self-worth or destroyed the Black family structure. You fools did this to yourselves! You stayed in these slums and fed off your own people. Your men killed each other, sold their women. Black men didn’t protect their women during slavery. They let the White man rape and abuse them. They didn’t protect their children, and they don’t now. They—”
Adelle was so angry at the nurse’s rant that she lashed out. Her right arm flew out and she grasped Natsinet’s left wrist. If she’d had the ability for speech she would have let loose with a hearty, “Fuckin’ bitch, I’m gonna kick your ass!” What came out instead was a muffled “Fffff—”
Natsinet jerked her wrist away. “What the fuck? You think you can hit me?” And then before she knew what was happening Natsinet punched her in the face with her bony fist, driving her head down into the pillows.
If it hadn’t been for the stroke Adelle was sure she would have felt greater pain from the blow, but she didn’t. She was more surprised by the ferocity of the blow, by the fact she’d been punched in the face by her home care nurse at all. Barely aware of the thin trickle of blood leaking from her nose, Adelle glared at Natsinet, who loomed over her, fists clenched. “I oughta beat the fuck out of you, old bitch!”
Adelle glared at her defiantly. Go on. Hit an old disabled woman. I dare you!
Something in Natsinet’s features changed. Her look of fierce anger once again changed to cunning evil. She grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re gonna wait out the five days I’m here with you and then you’re gonna complain to somebody and I’ll be dealt with. That ain’t gonna happen. I’m not gonna give you that chance even if I have to keep you drugged out of your mind the entire time.”
She leaned closer to Adelle. She reminded Adelle of a deadly snake about to devour its prey. “I’m the only person you’re going to see until the other nurse comes to relieve me in five days. You are entirely dependent on me now, to eat, to go to the bathroom, to get your medications, to wash your stinking Black ass. Your life depends on me. You piss me off and by tomorrow you’re gonna wish I was dead. By the end of the week, you’re gonna wish you were dead.”
Oh my goodness, she’s going to torture me! Adelle thought. She couldn’t help herself. Pure panic flooded her system. She felt her bladder give way. She was too terrified to even be embarrassed.
Adelle noticed the growing stain of urine on the bedsheets. Her upper lip turned up in a snarl of disgust.
“You’re just going to have to lie in it. I’ll be damned if I’m changing those sheets. You people are like a bunch of animals!”
You people? Obviously the woman has not looked in the mirror lately, Adelle thought.
Despite her “high yella” complexion and her green eyes, her lips and nose were unmistakably Black as was her thick wooly hair. The woman had some serious self-hatred going on and she was going to take it all out on Adelle.
Why is she doing this to me?
Adelle remembered something she’d heard one of the Pastors at her church say before one of the many marches she’d attended in her youth.
“Everyone is the hero of their own story. No one is just evil. Even the most hateful, most racist redneck in the South believes in his heart that he is doing what is right. You have to find out why he believes that way before you can change his mind.”
Back then Adelle had no desire to understand racist rednecks. She hadn’t believed in desegregation. She tended to side with the Black Nationalists of the era who believed the White man to be a devil whose sole purpose was to oppress and ultimately destroy the Black race. She was wiser now. Now she knew that old preacher had been right. Everyone thinks their opinion is the right one. Their actions justified. But for the life of her she could not figure out what justification this woman could possibly have for striking an old paralyzed woman. It made no sense to her. Her mind kept going back to the simple solution: she’s just evil. But that thinking left nothing to appeal to. It left no hope at all. If Natsinet was just evil or crazy, then Adelle was a dead woman.
Maybe her Black daddy walked out on her when she was a child or her mother left him for someone her own color? Maybe her mother was Black and her daddy was some rich White guy out for a one night stand who won’t have anything to do with his illegitimate Black baby? Whatever her issues, it doesn’t excuse her behavior. She’s going to pay for this.