A Manual for Cleaning Women (44 page)

I admit it is pretty fascinating when the women bring in Jay for a pre-op with Dr. Rook. Everything is bizarre. They are midgets. They look like sisters, maybe they are, they are very tiny and plump with rosy cheeks and curly hair, turned-up noses and big smiles. They are lovers, stroke each other and kiss and fondle with no embarrassment. They had adopted Jay, a dwarf baby, with multiple, serious problems. Their social worker, who is, well, gigantic, has come with them, to carry him and his little oxygen tank and diaper bag. The mothers each carry a stool, like a milking stool, and sit on the little stools in the exam rooms talking about Jay and how much better he is, he can focus now, recognizes them. Dr. Rook is going to do a gastrostomy on him so he can be fed by a tube through an opening in his stomach.

He is an alert but calm baby, not especially small but with a huge deformed head. The women love to talk about him, willingly tell us how they carry him between them, how they bathe him and care for him. Pretty soon he’d need a helmet when he crawled because their furniture was only a foot or so high. They had named him Jay because it was close to joy, and he brought them so much joy.

I am going out the door to get some paper tape. He is allergic to tape. Look back and see the two mothers on tiptoes looking up at Jay, who is on his stomach on the exam table. He is smiling at them, they at him. The social worker and Dr. Rook are smiling at each other.

“That is the sweetest thing I ever saw,” I say to Karma.

“Poor things. They’re happy now. But he may only have a few more years, if that,” she says.

“Worth it. Even if they had today and no more. It’s still worth all the pain later. Karma, their tears will be sweet.” I surprised myself saying this, but I meant it. I was learning about the labor of love.

Dr. Rook’s husband calls her patients river babies, which makes her furious. He said that’s what people used to call such babies in Mississippi. He is a surgeon with us too. He somehow manages to get almost all the surgeries with real insurance like Blue Cross. Dr. Rook gets most of the disabled or totally nonfunctioning children, but not just because she is a good surgeon. She listens to the families, cares about them, so she gets a lot of referrals.

Today there is one after another. The children are mostly older and heavy. Dead weight. I have to lift them, then hold them down while she removes the old button and puts in a new one. Most of them can’t cry. You can tell it must really hurt but there are just tears falling sideways into their ears and this awful unworldly creaking, like a rusty gate, from deep inside.

The last patient is so cool. Not the patient, but what she does. A pretty red-faced newborn girl with six fingers on each hand. People always joke when babies are born about making sure it has five fingers and five toes. It’s more common than I thought. Usually the doctors schedule them for an in-and-out surgery. This baby is only a few days old. Dr. Rook asks me for Xylocaine and a needle and some catgut. She deadens the area around the finger and then she ties a tight knot at the base of each extra little finger. She gives them some liquid Tylenol in case the baby seems to be hurting later, tells them not to touch it, that pretty soon, like a navel, the finger would turn black and fall off. She said her father had been a doctor in a small town in Alabama, that she had watched him do that.

Once, Dr. Kelly had seen a little boy who had six fingers on each hand. His parents really wanted the surgery but the child didn’t. He was six or seven years old, a cute kid.

“No! I want them! They’re mine! I want to keep them!”

I thought old Dr. Kelly might reason with the boy, but instead he told the parents that it seemed to him the child wanted to continue having this distinction.

“Why not?” he said. The parents couldn’t believe he was saying this. He told the parents that if the boy changed his mind then they could do it. Of course, the younger the better.

“I like how he sticks up for his rights. Put her there, son,” and he shook the kid’s hand. They left, the parents furious, cursing at him, the child grinning.

Will he always feel this way? What if he plays the piano? Will it be too late if or when he changes his mind? Why not six fingers? They are weird anyway and so are toes, hair, ears. I wish we had tails, myself.

I am daydreaming about having a tail or leaves instead of hair, cleaning and restocking the exam rooms for the night when I hear a banging on the door. Dr. Rook had gone and I was the only one there. I unlock the door and let in Amelia and Jesus. She is crying, shivering as she speaks. His hernia is out and she can’t push it in.

I get my coat, turn on the alarms and lock the door, walk with her down the block to the emergency room. I go in to be sure she gets registered. Dr. McGee is on call. Good.

“Dr. McGee is a sweet old doctor. He’ll take care of your Jesus. They’ll probably operate on him tonight. Don’t forget to call to bring the baby to the office. In about a week. Call us.
Oye
, for God’s sake, don’t feed him.”

*   *   *

It was crowded on the subway and the bus but I wasn’t afraid. Jesus was sleeping. It seemed like the Virgin Mary answered me. She told me to take my next welfare check and go home to Mexico. The
curandera
would take care of my baby and my
mamacita
would know how to stop him from crying. I would feed him bananas and papayas. Not mangos because sometimes mangos give babies stomachaches. I wondered when babies got teeth.

Lupe was watching a telenovela when I got home. Her kids were asleep in the bedroom.

“Did he get the surgery?”

“No. Something happened.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. What dumb thing did you do? Huh?”

I put him down in our corner without waking him up. Lupe came into the kitchen.

“I found a place for you. You can stay there at least until you find your own place. You can get your next check here and then tell Welfare your new address. Do you hear me.”

“Yes. I want my check money. I’m going home.”

“You’re crazy. First place, this month’s money is spent. Whatever you have is the last of it.
Estas loca?
It wouldn’t get you even halfway to Michoacán. Look, girl, you’re here. Find a job in a restaurant, someplace they’ll let you stay in the back. Meet some guys, go out, have some fun. You’re young, you’re pretty, would be if you fixed yourself up. You’re as good as single. You’re learning English fast. You can’t just give up.”

“I want to go home.”

“Fuck a duck,” she said and she went back to the tele.

I was still sitting there when Ramón came in the back door. I guess he didn’t see her on the sofa. He started grabbing my breasts and kissing my neck. “Sugar, I want some sugar!”

“
Ya estuvo
,” she said. To Ramón she said, “Go soak your head, you stinking fat pig,” and shoved him out of the room. To me she just said, “You’re out of here. Get all your shit together. Here’s a plastic bag.”

I put everything in my
bolsa
and the bag, picked up Jesus.

“Go on, take him and get in the car. I’ll bring the things.”

*   *   *

It looked just like a boarded-up old store but there was a sign, and a cross over the door. It was dark but she banged on the door. An old Anglo man came out. He shook his head and said something in English but she talked louder, pushed me and Jesus through the door and took off.

He turned on a flashlight. He tried to talk to me but I shook my head. No English. He was probably saying they didn’t have enough beds. The room was full of cots with women on them, a few children. It smelled bad, like wine and vomit and pee. Bad, dirty. He brought me some blankets and pointed to a corner, same size as my kitchen corner. “Thank you,” I said.

It was horrible. The minute I lay down, Jesus woke up. He wouldn’t stop crying. I made sort of a tent to keep the sound in, but some of the women were cussing and saying, “Shaddup shaddup.” They were mostly old white wino women but some young black ones who were shoving me and pushing me. One little one was slapping me with tiny hands like quick hornets.

“Stopit!” I screamed. “Stopit! Stopit!”

The man came out with the flashlight and led me through the room into a kitchen and a new corner. “
Mis bolsas!
” I said. He understood and went back in and brought my bags. “I’m sorry,” I said in English. Jesus nursed and fell asleep, but I leaned against the wall and waited for morning. I am learning English, I thought. I went over all the English I knew. Court, Kentucky Fry, hamburger, good-bye, greaser, nigger, asshole, ho, Pampers, How much? Fuck a duck, children, hospital, stopit, shaddup, hello, I’m sorry,
General Hospital
,
All My Children
, inguinal hernia, pre-op, post-op,
Geraldo
, food stamps, money, car, crack, pólis,
Miami Vice
, José Canseco, homeless, real pretty, No way, José, Excuse me, I’m sorry, please, please, stopit, shaddup, shaddup, I’m sorry. Holy Mary mother of God pray for us.

Just before light the man and an old woman came in and started to boil water for oatmeal. She let me help her, pointed to sugar and napkins to put in the middle of the lined-up tables.

We all had oatmeal and milk for breakfast. The women looked really bad off, crazy or drunk some of them. Homeless and dirty. We all waited in line to take a shower, by the time it was Jesus and me the water was cold and just one little towel. Then me and Jesus were homeless too. During the day the space was a nursery for children. We could come back at night for soup and a bed. The man was nice. He let me leave my
bolsa
there so I just took some diapers. I spent the day walking around Eastmont Mall. I went to a park but then I was scared because men came up to me. I walked and walked and the baby was heavy. The second day the little one who had been slapping me showed me or somehow I understood her that you can ride all day on the buses, getting transfers. So I did that because he was too heavy and this way I could sit down and look around or sleep when Jesus did because at night I didn’t sleep. One day I saw where La Clinica was. I decided the next day I’d go there and find somebody there to help me. So I felt better.

The next day though, Jesus started to cry in a different way, like barking. I looked at his hernia and it was pooched way out and hard. I got on the bus right away but still it was long, the bus then BART then another bus. I thought the doctor’s was closed but the nurse was there, she took us to the hospital. We waited a long time but they finally took him to surgery. They said they’d keep him for the night, put me on a cot next to a little box for him. They gave me a ticket to go and eat in the cafeteria. I got a sandwich and a Coke and ice cream, some cookies and fruit for later but I fell asleep it was so good not to be on the floor. When I woke the nurse was there. Jesus was all clean and wrapped in a blue blanket.

“He’s hungry!” she smiled. “We didn’t wake you when he got out of surgery. Everything went fine.”

“Thank you.” Oh, thank God! He was fine! While I fed him I cried and prayed.

“No reason to cry now,” she said. She had brought me a tray with coffee and juice and cereal.

Dr. Fritz came in, not the doctor that did the surgery, the first doctor. He looked at Jesus and nodded, smiled at me, looked over his chart. He lifted the baby’s shirt. There was still a scrape and a bruise on his shoulder. The nurse asked me about it. I told her it had been the kids where I was staying, that I didn’t live there no more.

“He wants you to know that if he sees any more bruises he is going to call CPS. Those are people who might take your baby, or maybe they will just want you to talk to somebody.”

I nodded. I wanted to tell her that I needed to talk to somebody.

*   *   *

We have had some busy days. Both Dr. Adeiko and Dr. McGee were on vacation so the other doctors were really busy. Several Gypsy patients, which always means the whole family, cousins, uncles, everybody comes. It always makes me laugh (not really laugh, since he doesn’t like any joking or unprofessional behavior), because one thing Dr. Fritz always does when he comes into the room is politely greet the parent, “Good morning.” Or if it’s both, he’ll nod at each and say, “Good morning. Good morning.” And with Gypsy families I suffer not laughing when he squeezes into the room and says, “Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning,” etc. He and Dr. Wilson seem to get a lot of hypospadias babies, which is when male babies have holes on the side of their penises, sometimes several so that when they pee it’s like a sprinkler. Anyway, one Gypsy baby called Rocky Stereo had it but Dr. Fritz fixed it. The whole family, about a dozen adults and some children, had come for the post-op and were all shaking his hand. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Worse than his good mornings! It was sweet and funny and I started to say something later, but he glared. He never discusses patients. None of them do, actually. Except Dr. Rook, but only rarely.

I don’t even know the original diagnosis for Reina. She is fourteen now. She comes in with her mother, two sisters, and a brother. They push her in a huge stroller-wheelchair her father made. The sisters are twelve and fifteen, the boy is eight, all beautiful children, lively and funny. When I get in the room they have her propped on the exam table. She is naked. Except for the feeding button her body is flawless, satin smooth. Her breasts have grown. You can’t see the hooflike growth she has instead of teeth, her exquisite lips are parted and bright red. Emerald green eyes with long black lashes. Her sisters have given her a shaggy punk cut, a ruby stud in her nose, painted a butterfly tattoo on her thigh. Elena is polishing her toenails while Tony arranges her arms behind her head. He is the strongest, the one who helps me hold her upper torso while her sisters hold her legs. But right now she lies there like Manet’s
Olympia
, breathtakingly pure and lovely. Dr. Rook stops short like I did, just to look at her. “God, she is beautiful,” she says.

“When did she start to menstruate?” she asks.