The Tao of Apathy (19 page)

Cody continued to scream as Bigger picked up
the pear and cereal-coated boy and sat with him on the couch. He
held his son to soothe him. In response, Cody cried until Bigger
wanted to punch him.

“
There you go, Eva. Let Grandma
wash you all up.” Ethel was handily washing the baby’s face while
holding her and reading a case file. Bigger had picked the wrong
kid as Eva was now laughing.

Eva cooed as Ethel brought her into the living
room and looked over a file. “Where’s Jenny?”

“
Working overtime,” Bigger said
over Cody’s whimpering.

“
Are you guys really that hard
up?”

“
No. We’re doing fine. Just fine.
No problems.” The phone rang and the machine picked up. “This is
the Steiffys. Leave a message before the phone company disconnects
us. Beep.”

“
Hello.” a computer voice said,
“This is Citi bank concerning you account. In order to protect you
credit rating, please contact the delinquent accounts office at
1-800-” Bigger pulled the plug on the answer machine.

“
All right life. I’ll do it,”
Bigger said on his hands and knees in front of the phone. “Mom, Mr.
Seuss must have had you come over to talk to me about my new
promotion to team guider.”

“
A promotion,” Ethel said, with
gladness in her voice as she bounced Eva on her knee without
jostling the file on her other knee. “Let’s clear a space on the
floor and do a little dance. Here, better, yet,” Ethel said
flipping her tablet of paper to a new sheet. Let me make you a list
of exactly what you need to do for your new job.”

“
No.” Bigger screamed. “No list.”
Cody stopped crying and wiggled to get down. Bigger began to pick
Cheerios out of his hair but then gave up and let him run
away.

Ethel closed her file. “I am just so proud of
you, Bigger.”

“
What? Really? Mom, you put aside
your work.”

“
I want to talk about your new
job, Bigger. Tell me about it.”

“
Really?” Bigger looked at his
mom. “We can do that. But first, we’re going to have to maybe talk
as a fellow management personnel about the union.” He looked at his
mom again to see her reaction. Still pride, he thought. “The talk
at the management meetings is that unionization is really going to
hurt the patient’s rights.”

“
You’ve been to management
meetings already?”

“
That seems possible. I was
wondering. I was just wondering what maybe you thought. About
that.”

“
I am worried about my patients. I
think it is likely. But what can I do about it? When something like
that comes up, I will just work longer hours and fight a little
harder. Unless, the newest team guider in management has any
suggestions.” She looked up and gave him a smile of encouragement.
It took him a while to figure out what kind of smile it
was.

“
Well, actually-”

Ethel’s pager cut him off. “Oh, That’s your
father. I was suppose to pick him up from Volvo dealership. Here
Eva, let me put you by your toys,” she said putting the baby down
in front of her. “ I gotta go. But I’ll come talk to you tomorrow.
Will you be in the kitchen around two?”

“
Either in the kitchen or on the
roof.” Bigger said.

Chapter 39

The gray and blue squares of the carpet
pattern complemented the light blue walls. Even the colors in the
large pastorals bolted to those wall in large metal frames accented
the decor of the hallway. The hallways of Saint Jude’s created a
sense of security and spoke the lie, There is no asbestos in me.
The dark, thick carpet told the patients that the hospital was
successful and high class. It also made moving carts and
wheelchairs down the halls as fun as pushing a baby stroller along
a sandy beach.

Bigger grabbed the cart with the dirty dishes
from 2B and pushed and yanked it into motion as the early afternoon
sun streaked through random windows. This was the first cart to
bring down and he wanted to be done with all his carts. He still
was not sure if he even wanted to ask his mom to go against the
union, but the possibility of the promotion made his current sucky
job suck even more. He was just about as pleased with his job as
Jenny was with him to come home and find pureed pears all over and
her list not done.

He got about ten feet with the cart when a
nurse ran after him eating an extra crispy chicken thigh. “Food
cart. I hope that food cart is not leaving us. We didn’t get no
chance to pick up all the dirty trays,” she said with a greasy
mouth. “We have been too busy and you always go down too early, you
stupid cart.”

The rage of having a bad day after a bad night
and of having to be around people like this nurse bubbled to his
fists and to the back of his neck. His face was still red from the
slap in the face of being told that he was a model food service
employee. It was a deep red now because that was what he was
aspiring to be. He wanted to curse this nurse. He wanted to strike
her. He wanted to follow this nurse home and kill her dog. He
wanted to give Seuss the information he wanted, so that this nurse
and the others like her wouldn’t get their union. He pulled the
cart a few more feet and then let go of it and walked
off.

“
She wasn’t busy, she was eating,”
he told Joe while he stood in the kitchen and waited with crossed
arms. “Then, of course, because of my invisibility, she just talked
to the cart instead of me. I hope her greasy fingers slip off the
handle.”

Bigger’s body began to shake. “I am going back
to get that cart. I don’t care what she thinks.” Bigger stomped out
of the kitchen. He took the stairs two at a time and walked right
up to the cart and grabbed it angrily.

His hand slipped off the chicken-greased
handle. “All day long I got to walk behind and get out of the way
for wide-hipped, motor-mouthed, gibber-jabbering, gossiping,
sneering, facial hair-having temperature-takers,” Bigger muttered
to himself as he stood in the middle of the hallway. Then he
developed a facial tick as he saw the nurse carrying one last dirty
tray, waving at the cart to wait. “God,” he asked, “why are you
making me so miserable? Why does everything bad happen to
me?”

“
There is no particular reason, I
guess,” Yolanda said from her room, clutching the phone to her
head. “I just wanted to call.” Yolanda’s hand trembled. “Yeah, I
know we haven’t talked in eight years, Dad.”

“
I am just calling
now.”

Bigger stood motionless as the nurse made her
way.

“
Actually, I just wanted to see if
you remember when I was ten and you and I went to see the movie
“Summer Magic” together.”

“
I-Dad, please listen. I have just
been thinking about that day a lot lately. For some reason, I
wanted to see that movie really bad.” She paused. “It had Burl Ives
who helps a poor family and sings. I think I wanted to see it
because we were poor and I thought maybe I could learn what songs
we were supposed to be singing.”

“
Yeah, I was kind of a strange
kid. Anyway, you took me there and you let me pick the front row to
sit in. You sat hunched down next to me and let me hold the big tub
of popcorn that we shared.”

The nurse set the tray on Bigger’s
cart.

“
I want to thank you for that day.
I loved it. That’s all…. There’s no trick. I would give anything to
be back in that theater…..with you. You took me there as a reward
for my report card. And. And it was the last time I felt worthy to
get good things. I haven’t seen it since, but thought of that movie
many times over the years.”

Yolanda held onto the phone with both hands.
Bigger could hear the emotion in her voice. “Actually, there is
something I should tell you- Oh….. I understand. I can let you
go.”

“
Bye, Dad.”

Bigger turned and began walking without the
cart. Bigger had noticed Yolanda’s name on a menu card many times.
He had seen her walking in the hallway with someone supporting her
and had heard the nurses talk about Yolanda. He knew. He knew that
he should just be thankful that he was luckier than she was, but
the scene had only colored his world and the whole world more
bleak. Life was sad. The world was full of abused kids, lonely
people, abandoned elderly, and a large number of un-neutered pets
according to Drew Carey. His own life was filled with bills, dead
end jobs, honey-do lists and a condescending ass for a boss and
Godfather. Bigger veered into the stairwell to collect
himself.

Tomorrow, Bigger knew he would be more
optimistic. He would be able to see the things he lived for, the
only things to live for: his children, his wife, his parents, and
his dog. But tomorrow, he would still know that he and that patient
would be one day closer to death without really having lived and
that more days than not would be filled with pain, lunacy,
frustration, anger, and boredom. And only if they were
lucky.

Chapter 40

A workman in a hard hat with his tool-belt
slung over his wide shoulder lumbered on to the elevator pushing a
wheelbarrow of cement. The workman held up the wheelbarrow and
waited patiently as a frail man in a hospital gown shuffled out of
the way. The door closed and a nurse opened her mouth.

“
You know, I am getting pretty
damn sick of you construction guys all over the hospital. I know
you’re doing your job, but do you guys have to make so much noise
knocking down walls and drilling and stuff?”

“
We were told those rooms had to
get remodeled toot sweet.”

“
There are patients still in them,
though. Doesn’t that seem like a problem?”

“
Nah. Most of them just lay there
real quiet. Hey, I remember you from the bar last night.” He
squinted at her name badge. “Mary. You and this guy were hanging on
each other like my dog hangs on my leg.”

Dykes raised his hand up from his corner of
the elevator in a slight wave.

The door opened and everyone looked at Father
Chuck to stare him into taking the next elevator, but when he
pushed on, everyone shuffled against the wall to make room. Father
pushed his button and slid into a corner where he began to rub his
forehead and look at the floor.

“
What’s the matter, Father?” the
nurse asked.

Dykes did not look up, but thought, they tried
that with me too in the beginning, but don’t let it get to you
Father. Don’t even answer them.

“
Fuck off.”

That could work, too,
Dykes thought.

“
Boy, you look as pissed as the
lone tree in a dog park,” the construction guy said.

“
Damn right I am. I haven’t been
allowed in the chapel in six months because they are remodeling it.
Well, I’m happy just to sit out in the Butt Hutt and smoke. But now
they are letting that lady that kept seeing her dead husband go
home today and she wants me to bless her before she goes. They say
she is sane, but she doesn’t smoke so she doesn’t have liberty
hours, so now I have to go up to the psych ward. I hate all those
whackos up there.”

The nurse with SATAN tattooed on her neck
frowned. “I am a nurse up on that ward and our staff does not allow
people to call our patients wacko.”

“
I was talking about the staff.
You guys weird me out.”

“
Yep,” she said. “That’s why
administration makes us identify ourselves with these badges to
wear around her neck,” she said holding up her badge and tugging
the string it was on.” The nurse squeezed out the door the moment
it began to open.

The construction guy picked up his wheelbarrow
and followed her out as he said, “We finished the chapel months
ago, Padre. It’s been as empty as the Michael Jackson Day Care
Center.”

Father got out on six and Dykes realized he
had missed his own floor, but now he pushed 2. The chapel was on
the second floor. The chapel that would be quiet and
unpopulated.

Chapter 41

Seuss paced his office as Mr. Petty sat at his
desk and tried on the paper hat that Mr. Seuss wore when he served
punch at the annual hospital holiday party (formerly the Christmas
party). “Relax, Gregg. What are you so worried about? Bigger told
your secretary this morning that he was taking the promotion. He
knows that there is no promotion unless he gets his mom to agree to
help us. It’s foolproof.”

“
You don’t know the
boy.”

”
It’s a done deal.”

“
He’s flighty.”

“
Gregg, this is my plan. It is
going to work.”

“
And what if it doesn’t. The vote
on the union is tomorrow and by then I want all these people to
know that we have a big weapon.”

“
Gregg, I’m the one that should be
worried. All you have to deal with is the food service people. How
much could they possible want?”