Frog (57 page)

You
only would've cried when you saw me with those stupid tubes up my nose and pester the hospital workers with all sorts of questions anybody could answer or nobody could, making it embarrassing and even more painful for me. Because the staff sometimes takes it out on the patient if the visitor makes scenes or insults them or even asks questions that can seem as if he's criticizing them a little. Only Mommy knew how to handle things there and could help me and only Mommy did.” “Glad she was there then,” his father said, “for I'm too much of a softie when it comes to the sicknesses of my kids. But just remember who insisted on the best doctors and hospital rooms and postoperative care for you and who paid all the bills.” He visits her in the hospital the day before an operation. She's in her room waiting for him in a wheelchair. He says “What would you like to do?” and she says “I don't care—anything,” and he says “Mind if I wheel you around and explore the place a little?” and she hunches her shoulders or gives him a face and he wheels her around the halls into the waiting rooms and the solarium and to the little closet that's a library and then toward the children's playroom. “Did you have lunch yet?” he says while they wheel and she says “Look at your watch; use your brains.” “Is the food good here—better than at the last hospital?” and she says “That's one of the dumbest questions I've ever heard, even from you.” “Is the girl you share the room with nice?” and she says “Your questions are getting so dumb I'm not even going to let you know I've heard them anymore.” “What do you want me to ask or say then?” and she stares straight ahead, and he says “Come on, you're not being fair, I came here to see you, so answer what I asked,” and she says “Don't ask, don't say, use the time to think what you've been saying for a change—and you're supposed to be one of the smarter ones in the family?” “Listen, I know what you're going through and I feel lousy about it, the whole world does, so what am I asking or doing or anything that's so wrong?” and she says “Now I'm serious about ignoring you, you dumb dope, so you'll only be talking to yourself from now on.” Lots of things in the room to play with, a volunteer lady who gives out juice and cookies and pieces of fruit to the children who can drink and eat them, another volunteer walking around holding up cups and cookies to several childrens' lips. Some are completely bald. He's never seen that except during the ringworm epidemic at school this year when lots of boys and girls came with their heads shaved, but they kept hats and scarves on all day except when someone knocked or pulled them off. He tries not to look at them, doesn't want to make them feel bad. Same with the ones who sit and groan or who drag the upside down bottles and tubes attached to them on what look like wheeled coat stands. Some are sleeping and a few are so skinny and sick looking they seem dead or close to it, while others you wouldn't know were sick except for their hospital gowns. His mother told him to be cheerful. “You have a tendency to get depressed over things like this, but for Vera's sake make believe everything's hunky-dory. Otherwise, do me the favor and don't go.” “So this is the playroom,” he says. “Mom told me about it. It's beautiful, very nice. Like a snack? Any of the games interest you? I'll gladly play.” “It's ugly here. The games and toys are for morons, which most of us here are going to become if we're not already are.” “You said you weren't going to answer me anymore, but I'm glad you did. It's nice talking. Better than just staring or standing or sitting still. But tell me, why do you say it's ugly? Look at the walls. My favorite shade of blue. Bright but not blinding. Peaceful, cheerful, and it seems recently painted. And the pictures hanging up seem interesting and nice. Not just your regular kids' stuff. What do you think that one's of? Maybe just a design.” “It's of nothing. And the blue's awful on the walls. If vomit was blue that's what shade it'd be. The whole room's awful. It stinks from medicine and disinfectant and diaper rash and shit and pee. That's because most of them can't control themselves anymore. You must have a nose cold.” “I don't and I don't smell anything funny. Maybe only soap.” “Then get the holes in your nose unclogged. But yesterday a boy younger than me, even, died right in this room.” “Oh come on, nobody dies in a playroom. Unless he falls off something and breaks his skull. But they don't have anything that high here—I'm sure just to prevent that. And probably because we're in a hospital, and the part of it just for children, the dying from the fall couldn't happen anyway even if someone climbed to the top of the curtain there and dived off and landed flat on his head. Too many nurses and doctors to help right away.” “He died in his wheelchair fast asleep. I was here but not near him. He was dying anyway. Anyone could see it when they wheeled him in. Mouth open, stuff running out, and more tubes than the usual. But his mother thought his being around not-as-bad-off kids would help him. All of a sudden they shooed us out or wheeled the ones in chairs like me and later we found he died, though the nurses and aides won't say so. But is he around? Because he was way too sick to be sent home. I know what room he was in and that bed was empty today and the card with his name's off the door. Sometimes, I heard, they put kids in the very last room down the hall when they're dying or only have a few days left to live. But that one's taken by someone else we've never seen, since the door's always closed and the window on it's got paper over it.” “I don't believe it. If this boy who you say died was that bad off, then as you said he wouldn't have been in a regular room like yours for everyone to see.” “You're wrong. Sometimes they die here all of a sudden. That's happened in almost all my hospital stays. A nurse even got in big trouble this time because of it. She's not supposed to listen to what mothers want on things like that. If you're dying you're supposed to do it in that last room or your own room if that's all they have, with the door closed and the curtains around you and no other patients or your family in it. You do some asking around here about it and you'll find out. But that's why I don't like it when the nurses pull the curtains around me.” “No, I didn't know you didn't.” “You've seen my face when they do. I'm afraid I won't come out. That they can do something, decide my time is up and the bed's needed for someone else—I've heard that too—and put their hands over my nose and mouth or use a pillow or something or just stick a death dose in my veins and good-bye. But they curtain me all the time when I have to go kaka and pee and can't get to the bathroom myself, which now is always.” “Let's try talking about something else, Vera. This has to be disturbing you.” “Like what? There's nothing else. My operation tomorrow? That I'm feeling ‘oh great I'm going to get sliced up again'? Can you get me out of this thing into a normal chair? I've got cramps shooting up my back that are starting to make me scream.” He gets a nurse and aide who lift her into a soft chair. He should try changing the subject again. He's not doing a good job here. His mother will come and Vera will say he made her feel even worse. He should be taking her mind off things, cheering her up. “By the way, your friend Kitty sends her regards.” “So what?” “She's your old friend. I'm just saying I bumped into her on the street.” “She's lost.” “Maybe you'd like her to call you. She could still do it today.” “I don't want to speak to anyone.” “Almost all our relatives have called and want to see you, but we say you'd rather not till you're feeling better.” “Till they learn I'm not dead.” “No, till a couple of days after the operation, or whenever you want. We're doing the right thing by saying that for you and keeping them away, right?” “What are you talking about? When could they come? Today? Yesterday when I'm in tests all day? Tomorrow when I'm operated on? Make sense.” “I meant the day after you came in, for instance.” “What do I care? Have them sleep under my bed here, for all it means to me.” He says maybe she'd like him to read to her. He could get something from that library closet. He thinks he knows what she'd like, unless she wants to be wheeled there to choose one. Or maybe she just wants to read something herself. If she did, he'd sit beside her, read a book he brought with him. It's OK by him. “What you can do is turn my chair around and pull it up to the window so I can look out. That way I won't have to see anybody but their reflections. And you're strong. You lift weights and do millions of push-ups a day. So pulling the chair's what you can use it for, and then let me look in peace.” “You're saying you want me to go home?” “You want to go home, do it.” “I don't. I'll stay as long as you like, and certainly till Mom comes.” “If you change your mind and go before then, make sure you tell someone at the nurses' station so they know you're not coming back to wheel me to my room.” “I told you, nobody's going.” He pulls her chair to the window, takes the bed pillow off the wheelchair seat and fixes it behind her, sits beside her, takes her hand because he thinks maybe that'll comfort her a little, she looks at their hands together and then stares out the window at the river, boats and barges passing, Long Island or Brooklyn across it, maybe the reflections of people in the room, and falls asleep. He looks out the window a while. He'd like to go to her room and get the book he brought with him, but taking his hand away may wake her. After about a half-hour he signals one of the volunteers to come over and asks if it's possible for her to go to his sister's room and look in his left- or right-side coat pocket for a book and bring it to him. “She's sleeping so peacefully and needs to, I don't want to disturb her.” The woman says there's been a number of petty thefts and one major one in the patients' rooms the last few weeks, night and day, but probably not on the children's floor, so she'd rather not be seen going through anyone's pockets. He says if she can get the pen and pad or just the pad out of his right back pants pocket, since he's sure she has a pencil or pen, he'll write a note with his left hand giving her permission. She says “I'm really not supposed to leave the children unless for something like going to the ladies' room or when someone relieves me, but I'll get a nurse's aide if you think it's that important and perhaps he'll do it.” He says “Don't bother, she should be up pretty soon.” He stays like that for another hour till his mother comes. He's slept the night in the visitor's lounge, washes his face and brushes his teeth with his finger in the men's room, goes to her room and knocks in case a nurse or doctor's inside. No answer, so he lets himself in saying “Vera, it's me, I'm coming in, okay?” She's in the same position he last saw her in late last night, on her back, tubes for this and that, monitors on, blip-blip sounds from one of them, face sweaty or glazed, one side of her mouth dropped and agape, eyes half open if that. She could be asleep or awake or maybe she's gone into a coma. He says from the foot of the bed, while moving a few inches from side to side to see if he can catch her eye, “Vera? Hi. Good morning.” Her eyes go to him and he stays still. “How are you? It's still very early. I slept the night in the lounge. On a chair. Someone was already asleep on the couch when I decided to turn in but not when I woke up, and the other lounge was locked. My back aches,” stretching, “but nothing bad. I should have asked a nurse to open the other lounge—the one at the end of the other hall—but I didn't think of it. Maybe that's where a doctor or two sleep, if they've been on duty all night, and they wanted it locked. But minor stuff, right, so why am I bothering you with it?” She just looks at him, lids still half-closed. Drugged look, but she seems to be hearing him. Part of one side of her head's shaved, he just notices, but he doesn't know what for, since there are no plans to operate on her this time. “This will very likely be the last time you'll be taking her here or to any hospital,” the doctor said. “Why?” They hadn't asked why but he said it anyway. “Because I don't see how she can pull through this time, plain and simple. She's been a lucky girl to have gone home the last two times. So to speak, lucky.” “Vera? Can you hear me? It's Howard. Your brother. That was some sleep I had. I couldn't find a place to stretch out, so I had to sleep mostly sitting up. Remember I spoke about it? The other man on the couch? And it was cold. A nurse offered me a blanket but I said no thanks, I'll use my coat, but it wasn't enough. I was freezing. What do they do in those lounges after ten o'clock, shut the heat off?
Yet
it's plenty warm in here. Just as it was the times late last night I came in to see how you were doing, and you only slept with a single or double sheet. Though good sheets,” rubbing the top one between his fingers, “—thick, but smooth, but not thick enough if the temperature here was the same as in the lounge. To keep you warm, I mean—the sheets. I just thought of something. If I was going to buy cotton sheets, which is the only kind I like—the synthetic kind is so itchy—and which can be very expensive in the department stores, I'd buy them at a hospital linen supply place if they'd sell them to me, right? Because it might be they only sell to hospitals and places like that. Probably a reasonable price, and good quality, because they have to go though so many washings. Every day, and I guess certain high standards that hospitals insist the manufacturer keep. But you feeling OK? Should I come closer so I don't have to talk too loud—maybe that's disturbing you, my voice—and where you can still hear?” Her breath will be bad. She can also stink of urine and shit and other things, but that he can take. “I'll come closer.” Does. Her eyes move with him. “Good. You're on to me. Your eyes. So you can hear me if you can see me, I'd think. Can you?—Is there anything you want? A nurse? Water? Have they been in to see you yet? This morning, I mean. Want me to mop your brow? Are you hearing me, Vera? I hate to harp on it, and if it's any effort to answer, please don't. But can you nod? Can you shake your head? Remember—nodding is to say yes? Shaking your head is for no?—I guess even if you were trying to nod and shake, you couldn't tell me with a nod or shake. Let me put it simpler. Even I didn't quite get what I just said. Nah, let's forget it. I'll give you a break for once with my trying to explain things. I don't know why, but I sure can get tongue-tied. And then sometimes, bam, I'm articulate, but very articulate, talking the way I always want to. But how about blinking your eyes? Can you blink them when you want to? Like now, for instance. No? Want to try? Two blinks for yes and one for no—that sort of business? You know, so we can set up some sort of system where you can tell me what you want or need, including the end of my stupid chatter, right? Let me take care of your brow first. I'll be right back. I'm going to your bathroom to get some wet paper. OK? OK?” He gets paper towels in her bathroom, wets several sheets, dabs her forehead and cheeks with them. “Does this hurt or in any way feel uncomfortable? I hope not. Does it feel better? What about this?” and he pats her lips with the wet paper. “Your lips are getting dry. We don't want them cracked. Then we'll have to take care of them, sores, discomfort—you know. It's this tube with the air in it, I think. And the hair hanging over your head's wet. From sweat, probably. I'm going to tamp it dry.” Pats her hair and face with a dry paper towel, sits beside her. There's a smell, doesn't know what of, but not bad. Doesn't want to sniff deeper, if she is watching him. “Let's forget all the questions from now on. It's getting so where even I can't stand the sound of my voice anymore.” He smiles. “Can't get a laugh out of you, right? Well, you've always been a serious type. Dad always said that about me, but it was really you. I wish I could be like that. A thinker. Deep,” and he jabs his temple. “It's good, maybe the best way. You think about things. You just don't let everything pass, as I tend to do. But mind if I take your hand? If you mind, try tapping my hand with your finger or rubbing it or pull your hand away. I swear, I won't mind. Even pinch me. I could use some waking up, and not just from sleep.” He takes her hand. It's cold and the palm's wet. He dries it with a paper towel, gets up and dries the other palm, her eyes always on his, and sits and bends his head down and shuts his eyes. He's about to cry. Tries not to, biting the insides of his cheeks, but he cries. He says with his eyes shut and head down “I hope you're not watching this. I'm sorry, if you are, but you know I don't like seeing you like this, so that's why. How I wish you were all better. I'd give anything to help you get well in a flash, and you will get well, though in time.” She pulls her hand away. “Well look at that. You see your hand? You pulled it. That proves you're getting well. Tugged it right out of mine. Were you able to all this time? And blinking and tapping too, I bet. I'm sure you were, but you were just holding back. Stubborn, aren't you, or something.” She closes her eyes, her lips move. “No no, don't try to speak. Not with those tubes in you. The nose.” Her lips continue to move. Spit comes out. “Oh, gee.” He wipes it with a paper towel. “No, too rough, the paper.” Wipes it with his handkerchief. “I swear, no germs. It's clean, I haven't even used it. This handkerchief, I'm talking about.” Her eyes open and he dangles the handkerchief in front of her. “Wait. Those lemon-flavored swabs. I just remembered. There's a drawer full of them.” He pulls out the drawer by her bed. They're there, a whole box full. “None here. I'll go to the nurse's station to get them. For your lips. They're still too dry. I'll be right back.” He leaves the room and cries outside. Goes to the station and says “I know there are lip swabs in her drawer, but to get out of the room I told her—” “Who is ‘her?” the nurse says. “My sister, Vera Tetch, 4–26, down this hall.” He gets swabs and goes back. The door's shut while he'd left it partly open. He knocks. A nurse comes to the door and says “Give me five minutes.” “Is she all right?” “Sure, just cleaning up. Make it ten.” His parents are out. His oldest brother's in the army, the other's working as a movie usher. At seven o'clock he says to her “Don't forget. Mom said for you to be in bed by eight and lights out by eight-thirty and asleep by nine.” She says she doesn't have to. “You're not the boss.” “Yes I am, at least for now. You heard them tell me to give you the order if you don't do it by yourself.” “That still doesn't make you the boss. I'm staying up for as long as I want to till Mommy comes home.” “That's what you think.” At eight he yells down the hall to her room “It's eight, Vera. Start getting into your pajamas and don't forget to wash up and brush your teeth. I forgot that's what Mom said for me to see you do too. Your hands and your face. And both sides of your hands and don't forget your neck.” She doesn't answer him. At eight-thirty he yells down the hall “I hope you're in bed and all washed and your teeth brushed and in pajamas because your lights have to go out.” Ten minutes later he yells “Your lights aren't out yet, Vera. Come on, they have to.” At nine he goes into her room. She's in regular clothes, sitting on her bed, talking to a doll in each hand. “Would you like to have breakfast?” she says to them. “Yes we would,” one says, and the other says in a different voice “No we wouldn't,” and they both bow several times. He says “Now I asked you.” She turns to him as if she just noticed him there and screams for him to get out of her room. “It's private. You're not supposed to be here if I don't want you to.” “Listen, I promised Mom and Dad. They're paying me. They'll come home and find you playing and think I didn't do my job. We'll forget the washing and teeth. Now where are your pajamas? Don't worry, with your look-Til leave before you start putting them on.” “I'm not telling you. Just get out.” He gets a pair out of the dresser, holds them out to her, one doll says to the other “What's your favorite dessert for supper?” He grabs that doll and puts the pajamas in Vera's free hand. She throws them and the other doll at his face. “That's it. You could have taken my eye out with that. The shirt has buttons on it and I even think it scratched my cheek.” “Good.” He unbuckles his belt—just as his oldest brother did, slowly—takes if off and says “If you don't do what I say I'm going to beat you with this. Now pick up the pajamas and go to the bathroom and put them on.” She suddenly looks scared, he doesn't know if it's an act, jumps on her bed, curls up and starts crying. “Then put them on, goddammit, put them on.” She's now shrieking. He holds the belt over his head. Same thing Jerry used to do with Alex and him. Sometimes beat them with it and sometimes pulling their pants down and beating their behinds with it and sometimes leaving welts, pants down or up. When their dad wasn't home and their mother complained to him about something they did. They'd be in their room, sent there by then-mother, and they'd hear Jerry in some other part of the apartment yell something like “What! Again!” and then charge to their room in these heavy army boots he always seemed to wear then, and if their door was closed, throw it open so hard it banged against the bookcase behind it and knocked things off the top. Usually by this time they were both huddled together on the bottom bunk of their double-decker bed. And it worked. They did whatever he said, after. Or when he came through the door they'd start pleading they'll do whatever he wants or never again do whatever it was they'd done and apologize to their mother any number of times he wants them to, but usually it was too late. They could see it in his face. After the beating and they were crying, Jerry would rethread his belt and say something like “Tough shit if it hurts. Just be good and not filthy mouths and I won't have to do it. Because you think I like to, you two dumb schmucks?” “Now will you, will you?” he shouts and beats the buckle end of the belt on the other side of the bed from her. She's shrieking. Then he thinks what am I doing? Who do I think I am? I couldn't hit her with this if I was paid to. “Just go to sleep. Even in your clothes if you want. Or don't go to sleep or do anything, but I'm out of it. And tell tell tell all you want and what I did, for all I give a crap,” and leaves the room and rethreads his belt. If she told, neither of his parents or anyone else ever said a word to him about it or looked at him in a different way the next few days. They go to the same summer camp together. “Why's your sister so scarred up?” some kids would ask. One time he overhears a boy say “Last prize is a dance with Vampire Vera at the next social.” He tries to defend her: she's gone through serious operations; it's been tough on her since she was a little girl; she's been tested to have a high IQ but has never had a real chance to use it; the scars are suppose to get smaller and smaller and in a few years almost go away; if they saw pictures of her when she was small they'd know how beautiful she could have been. But he still hears the comments and cracks. Her coordination and eyesight's bad and she loses her energy fast and she can't play most of the sports or be part of a lot of the camp activities, or just does them poorly and clumsily. The other kids mostly ignore her. She's probably made fun of in front of her. Her bunkmates and the girls who swim in the lake with her probably even have trouble looking at her undressed or in a swimsuit or in the shower house and he's sure she picks this up. He sees some of it in the mess hall. His bunk's table is on the boys' side but he sometimes stands up to look over a lot of the other tables to see what she's doing. Most of the other five or six girls at her table are usually talking excitedly among themselves. She's usually just eating slowly, or staring at the spoon or fork in her hand or food on her plate or playing with the salt-and-pepper shakers or looking at the roof rafters or the huge wooden scrolls on the support posts with the names of all-around campers and best athletes and such from previous years. She always lags behind her bunkmates when they're going to this place or that. He'll often yell “Vera,” and wave and point that he has to go with his bunk and she'll wave and stop to look at him. In the rec hall during a movie or show, she's usually at the end of the bench, a foot or so from one of the other girls in her bunk, not talking to anyone, staring at the stage curtains or empty movie screen. A couple of times he sits beside her and says “So how you doing?” and she says “All right,” and he says “Hear from the folks or Alex or anybody recently?” and she says “No, you?” and he says “I'm not allowed to sit on the girls' side but just thought I'd come over a second,” and she nods and smiles and he says “Well, got to go—why don't you talk to your bunkmates next to you?” and she says “I do,” and seems sad when he goes and turns around to look back at him now and then before the lights gc out and show begins. “This place isn't for her,” his counselor says. “Nobody will tell you because the directors don't want to lose the second month's fee when there's no guarantee they'll get a girl to take her place. But I see it. I'm going in after med school for psychotherapy—the mind, the brain, the whole emotional mishmash—so I can pick up your concerns and anxiousness over it and a lot of what she's going through too. You should tell your folks. Shell go home at the end of the summer much worse off in the head than she must have been when she came. Why? Because she's taking a beating. Call them, I'll pay, and if the camp kicks me out for squealing, OK.” He calls home. “Let her stay,” his father says. “Tell that guy to keep his nose out of it; she'll make friends soon.” “Listen to what Howard's saying,” his mother says. “She's unhappy. It's doing her worse than good. It was