The Tao of Apathy (20 page)

“
Most of my people have worked
here for twenty-five years. That’s twenty-five years without
brainstorming meetings and without meetings where I pretend I might
actually listen to their suggestions and I would like to keep it
that way. They’ve never had any say or power in their jobs. Compare
that to sex. How much sex would you want after going without any
for twenty-five years?

“
Listen, I could tell you how
much.”

“
Yeah, Greggy. It sounds like you
could. But right now your Bigger is preparing to come and tell us
everything is set. Relax.”

Chapter 42

In the visitors’ area of the psych ward,
Father Chuck jonesed for a cigarette while patting Mrs. Annunzio’s
hand and listening to her go on. He wanted to comfort this lady,
but he wanted a cigarette, more.

“
I couldn’t have walked into our
house the day Gabby died. And once I would have made my way in, I
know I would never have been able to step out of it again. But now
I am going home and I am going to go out and do things. I am tired
of being in here where all I do is watching TV and play Donkey Kong
on the Nintendo 64.”

“
Well, good. Good.
Good.”

“
But I am afraid that Gabby will
haunt me.”

Father covered her mouth. “Don’t let them hear
you say that or you will never leave. I am going to remove my hand,
but you must not talk about any spirits around here holy or
otherwise. Okay?”

Mrs. Annunzio wiped her mouth. “I meant his
memory. His memory. I haven’t been able to think about him in
here.” While she spoke a large man in a T-shirt and no pants ran
into the room followed by staff who wrestled him to the
ground.

“
Why’s that?”

Mrs. Annunzio looked at him. “Are you Polish
Catholic?” The patient and the staff rolled behind her. The man now
had two nurses by the lanyards around their necks and was choking
them.

“
Let’s go the chapel,” Father
Chuck heard himself say although he was clearly planning on saying
that he would just come back, if he had the chance. He knew why
though. He would not be able to bring himself to go in alone after
not going to church for half a year. With desire, selfishness and
fear, Father Chuck wanted to return to the traditions of
Catholicism and Mrs. Annunzio was just the crutch he needed. With a
nod of his head while standing at the door, Father cut through the
paperwork that kept Mrs. Annunzio on the unit and soon found
himself in the elevator with her.

The elevator stopped and two housekeepers got
on. “So, Irene,” one of them said. “Did you see the ghost of that
poor lady’s husband today? You are so brave to work the
CCU.”

“
Yeah, I asked him if he was going
to vote for the union tomorrow and he said he was management now if
his mom let him and couldn’t vote.”

“
He’s a strange boy.”

Father helped Mrs. Annunzio through the
elevator door and shot the housekeepers a look.

Blah, blah, blah, he heard from Mrs. Annunzio,
but he tried to listen. Inside his head, a cowboy rode up on a
horse and rolled him a cigarette. He wanted to get back to the Butt
Hutt, but it did feel good to be heading towards the chapel and to
be giving comfort again to this old bag.

“…
and the kids have probably
looted the house by now.”

Yes, he had never really felt attached to the
chapel before, but he realized he had been giving mass there for
twelve years. He remembered how envious he had been of the size of
his classmates’ churches. His old roommate had a cathedral in New
York. But now he was happy to think of how so many had searched out
his little chapel in times of need and how he had been able to give
care and attention to God’s children. “Oh, hey,” he said. “You
stopped talking.”

“
Shall we go in, Father,” Mrs.
Annunzio said, pointing to the double doors of the
chapel.

“
You are returning home, Mrs.
Annunzio. And in a way I am too. Maybe if I can get back into the
chapel, I can get rid of my doubts and feel strong again. Lets go
into my chapel and get the strength from God to begin anew.” He
pulled both doors open, pushed one so that it would stay open and
then the other.

Hand in hand, they headed inside.

“
Jesus Christ on the Cross,” he
said and fainted.

Chapter 43

Bigger sat on the roof of the hospital with
his legs dangling over the side. Although he had his jacket on, his
ears were red beneath his paper hat. He looked down at the doctor’s
parking lot and at the vice-presidents’ and directors’ arboretum.
The parking lot gleaned with Porsches, Cadillacs, Lincolns, Roll
Royces, and Hum Vees. The arboretum served as a kind of day spa and
teemed with directors sitting in hot tubs with drinks in hand while
servants in winter jackets stood by in the snow to serve
them.

“
Are you going to
jump?”

Bigger swung his head around to see Joe
standing behind him. “Because if you are, I’d like you to wait
until next week so we can have your funeral the day after
Thanksgiving and I can get a four day weekend.”

“
No way, man. I don’t think this
fall would kill me- just send me to the emergency room. Then Dr.
Supercilious would take care of me and I can think of funner ways
to die. How did you find me anyway?”

“
Well, I went to every floor and
asked if they had seen you and they hadn’t.”

“
If we shadows have offended,
think this and all is mended, that you have but-”

“
So I figured you would be where
you could do the most harm to yourself and here you are.” Grunting
with wooden movements, Joe sat down next to Bigger. He took a big
drag off of his cigarette and then flicked the ashes over the
executive fitness area. “Thelma and I finished bringing down the
carts for ya.”

“
Sometimes, Joe, I sit up here and
wonder how those guys got to be so bitter,” Bigger said bitterly as
he pointed to the directors and vice-presidents in the hot tub
below. “They started out in this field; they chose a job which is
helping people get well. That means they had to be caring people
once, doesn’t it? I even take some satisfaction in my job because I
help people. If we didn’t make food and take it up to the patients,
they would starve to death. At least I’m not doing something
worthless like a flight attendant, or limo driver, or hairdresser,
or-”

“
I get the point,
Bigger.”

“
Right now, those guys are
thinking up a new rule to make our time at our jobs harder.
Remember the memo last week about using paper clips instead of
staples because paper clips are reusable. They are not trying to
save money; they just ran out of more evil ideas for making us
miserable.”

Joe nodded. “Well, you’re right that these
people started out trying to make the world better. It’s the only
thing that I can come up with that makes sense. And now they’re
angry. I can hear it in their voices. They hate us.” Joe looked at
Bigger in the eye as he talked in a sneer. It was not a sneer of
anger, but of strong emotion. He took his cigarette to calm
himself.

“
Bigger, they are miserable every
moment of their lives and they just want to spread it around.” Joe
leaned his head away from Bigger as he exhaled, away from the point
he just made. “My other theory is that before they were bosses,
they were underlings and they really fucked off, so they assume
we’re fucking off too.”

“
Right. So. Do I have to be like
that to get what I want?”

“
Bigger, what the hell is the
matter with you?”

“
I have a dead end loser job. No
offense. I am two months behind on the rent. My wife isn’t talking
to me and my boss thinks I am some kind of bush. You know I try to
live in the moment or whatever.

“
But today, I tried to do my job
and I tried to talk myself out of being depressed, and yet I
couldn’t bring myself to do another menial, thankless minute of my
job. Not for double the pay. I could have cancer and be dying, but
I don’t think I would mind that so much if I had done something in
my life. If people would remember me.”

He sighed. “Seuss offered me a team guider
position, which is a huge step up, but what will it do for me? I
want a prestige job and money to give my wife what she deserves. I
want a career to make my mom proud and enable me to play golf with
my dad a couple of times a week. I want to do something that makes
me important.”

“
So what?” Joe leaned forward to
see a small crowd of people gathered below their four white legs
dangling over the side of the building. Some looked up and then
moved on. Others, wanting to be a part of the event if something
terrible happened, leaned against Petty’s new Land Rover (his
winter beater) and waited. “Who doesn’t want that? But there has to
be somebody to super size our order.”

“
Some people are happy doing that.
Like you. You like who you are and you get respect because you
always have things under control. But I’m a screw up.”

“
That’s because you don’t know the
secret.” Joe flipped his cigarette down at Mr. Seuss who was
dictating a letter to his secretary in the administrative hot tub.
He kept sliding away from her as she kept sliding towards him to
try and take his dictation in the steamy mist. “The secret is to
simply not care.”

“
You think I care? Do you? Look at
me. I crash into people on purpose and get into fights all the
time.” Bigger waved to Tim the security guard as he looked up at
them and put up his hands up in a “what the hell?”
gesture.

“
Right. You do those things
because you want to do a good job and you want to be noticed for
it. It gets you flustered and stressed out until you explode,
except for you, exploding is doing something stupid. Me, I keep
both eyes on the clock and care about nothing but passing time and
getting my smoke breaks in. I just happen to do my job. I am not
worried about my team guider or Seuss or anyone else, so my head is
clear to incidentally do my easy ass job.” Joe pulled a cigarette
out of his pack with his lips and lit it. “Look at those
administrators. They run this place like shit. They’re so worried
about looking good and getting ahead, they screw everything up.
This hospital functions because of people like me who don’t give a
rat’s ass. We are the few, the proud, the apathetic.”

Bigger took a cigarette from Joe’s pack and
lit it. “I bet you I can spit into the hot tub from
here.”

“
Do you understand me,
Bigger?”

“
Yeah,” he said, hesitating. He
pinched the end of his cigarette and brought it to his mouth. “I
think you have helped me with a more dangerous situation than just
jumping off the roof. I was considering making a deal with Seuss.
He said he would only make me a team guider if I got my mom to
testify in court against the union.”

Joe took the cigarette from Bigger’s mouth and
threw it off the building. “You told him no, right?”

Bigger took off his hat and crumpled it up
with disgust. “No. But I will.”

“
Bigger, nobody is happy with
their life, but you were on the verge of making yours
worse.”

“
So give up my dreams?”

“
Exactly. Look at me. I’m mildly
contented with Susan. And how did I get here? I never acted on my
dream to nail a nurse.”

Bigger took his crumpled hat and threw it off
the roof. “Joe, everyone has their fantasies. That’s not the same
as what I am going through.”

“
No, it is. Listen. I really don’t
care to do anything else but work in the kitchen, but I would still
like to have a nice house, and a nice truck--oh and a hunting
cabin. The only way I could get those things would be to hook up
with someone like a nurse who would be able to buy me those
things.” Joe pulled on his shirt and wiggled to get more
comfortable. “And I’d be able to hang out with a higher class of
people.”

“
You’d miss me.”

“
People that thought and talked
about important things and not how cold it is in the walk-in
freezer. You and I and Susan waste our days at our
jobs.”

“
Susan does waste her day. But we
feed the sick. If we didn’t feed them, they would die of
starvation.”

“
I’d rather go to a restaurant
without kitchen help than a hospital without doctors.”

Bigger paused and then nodded his head.
“That’s why you are always hoping I get fired.”

“
Sure. Now let’s go in. But would
you please stop making problems for yourself when you seem like a
good guy to those that know you?”

Bigger stood up. “Well, I can’t promise
that.”

Chapter 44

Petty’s official announcement about the
concessions he had made, the biggest announcement since the
notification that the nuns would no longer be in the operating
rooms, was tomorrow, but that was not why Jan was trembling with
anticipation. It was ten-fifteen and everyone else had left the
Knights of Columbus parking lot after the Annual Lion’s Banquet.
Because he had not raced his little 1976 red MG to be first out of
the parking lot, she could not think but that Seuss was going to
finally make his move. The dome light gave off a romantic glow and
did not show the fear in his eyes. Seuss was trembling as well. But
that was because the announcement and the vote on the union was
tomorrow.