A Quiet Neighbor (19 page)

HOSPITAL ROOM (IV):

Tuesday,
June 26, 2012

6:40
P.M.

The blinds are drawn tight. It could be dusk or
dawn, morning, noon, or night.
In this tiny room where I
will die, where my nose and eyes burn with disinfectant and bleach, how can I
tell? The smell is harsher now. I feel my bowels slowing, gurgling to an
uncomfortable halt. That thick smell envelops me, all mustard gas and shit. Of
Death, stroking smoothly, confidently toward me across a deep lake of bleach
where no light reaches the bottom.

If the disease doesn’t kill me this stench sure
will.

Joe’s body felt weaker today. Every movement was
stiff and sore. His throat burned and scratched every time he tried to swallow.
Going in and out of consciousness every so often, he felt the end closing in.
Maybe now he would finally get to be with his beloved and she wouldn’t slip
away from him anymore.

Turning his head took more effort than it did
yesterday. The dividing curtain was pulled back. His trusty neighbor was fast
asleep. Only able to see his neighbor’s right profile and the gentle rise and
fall of his chest, Joe was often concerned about what the man looked like from
the other side; not that it mattered any. Flowers continued to color the man’s
bedside table. Today there were yellow daisies, last week there were pink tulips.
And that Chinese lantern awhile back was a real beaut.

Hey Sarg. Whimpy, you hear me?

When he heard no response except the steady
beeps of the monitors, he simply nodded and closed his eyes. These days, Joe had
been closing his eyes more often. His lids felt heavy, as if weighed down by
lead.

Isn’t life so predictable. The way people go
about their daily rituals day after day without so much as a thought of change.
Or of why they do it. How every day is executed the same as yesterday, the same
as tomorrow. Why is that, I wonder? Is it monotony they enjoy? The knowing of
how things will play out in advance? Do people experience some kind of solace
in the knowing? Maybe. That way, even when the mind blanks out, the body will
continue down the well-worn Road Always Taken. A path seared into the
subconscious mind like grill marks, freshly tilled furrows in a mental bean
field, like a department store pianist playing the same dreary piece of music
every day, over and over, that sometimes their mind drifts—goes into
autopilot—and when it returns they realize they’ve been playing the piece, riding
the same furrow, without a single hitch.

I guess mindless routine has its benefits: never
forgetting what you’re supposed to be doing, always being productive in the
eyes of others, never worrying about wasting a moment because it was already
laid out in advance, your loved ones knowing when to expect you and when not
to…I guess you can feel safe in the knowing, because it is dependable. Being
dependable is safe. Safe is good.

You know, I was one of those people that stuck
by a ritual. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I woke up at seven,
ate scrambled eggs (one yolk and three whites), toast, and coffee while reading
the paper. Got washed and dressed. Took the pug out for a quick loop (don’t
forget the plastic bag!). Got to work by nine. First break at eleven. Lunch at
one. Second break at three. And headed home when the clock struck five-thirty.
Drove to Keil’s for some groceries. Came home. Went for a walk with the pug.
Made dinner. Ate dinner. Washed dishes. Watched a television show or read a
book and was in bed by eleven. Weekends were also the same: by nine I was in
the yard pruning my garden. Then lunch. Next, I would straighten up the house,
do laundry, vacuum, and dust. Then I’d follow the same weekday ritual all over
again. I enjoyed it. It was safe. It worked for me. But now, as I spend my time
lying on this squeaky bed and staring up at this room, this room (oh, that
smell), I wonder if it was how I should have lived my life. I guess there’s no
point pondering it now. The past is the past, right? And if I enjoyed my life
while I was living it, I shouldn’t regret it now.

Or should I?

I found comfort in the sameness that’s centered
on a routine. Routine is a comfortable afghan on a cold clear night. No
surprises. No curve balls, no going off-course into the unknown. Because, if
you didn’t stick to a routine…if you tried to jump out of it and into the
blind, what if you got whipsawed? What if you found yourself doing something
you shouldn’t be doing? Something wrong. Something damaging. Something you’d
later regret, and have to spend time, money, and blood to repair. I guess
that’s the price you pay for being spontaneous. In my opinion, such
spur-of-the-moment behavior just isn’t worth the price of admission.

Right?

Choices are made throughout your life. Easy
choices. Difficult choices. Sometimes you don’t even realize you are making a
choice, but you are. You always are. And every choice you make steers you one
step further down a long and mazelike path, always culminating in the life you
experience in the Here and Now.

Just like the true/false section of any exam you
didn’t study for is always the hardest part because it is the trickiest. Sure
there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll pick the correct answer, but there’s always doubt
when you make your choice. There’s no gray area. It is just black or white.
It’s hard to choose when you don’t know jack shit and there’s no partial credit.
No bullshitting your way out of that one.

Here’s an even trickier one: if you never know
the question is being asked, no one rings a bell to let you know the test has
begun—in all that fog—how do you know which choice to make in any given moment?
Which reality do you choose…

Now?

…and Now?

…and
Now?

Idiots. It doesn’t really matter what reality
you choose! Tallied up, it’s never all right or all wrong. It’s just our
condition.

It’s ridiculous how some people can openly
complain about their stake in life as if they had no choice in how it turned
out. Why are they so poor while others live so grand? Why are they so down and
out, so unhappy, so fat, so ugly, whatever, while others are living it up with
looks and money and cars? That’s not
fair
, right? Like they had
no choice in whether to suck or sing, that everything was and is completely out
of their hands.

I’ll tell you, there is only one ladder, and it
reaches all the way down and extends all the way up, buddy. If you want to be
higher up, you just have to shut up and climb. If you fall, you just have to
get up and climb again. I’ll tell you, whining gets you nowhere; or, at least
that used to be true until the therapeutic-state Democrats got their mitts on
D.C. this last time. Now China owns our asses.

Damn it, why should people who continually make
the right choices silently pull up the slack for those who make bad decisions
hand-over-fist, who don’t pull their weight yet still complain about their
circumstances? What’s that, you say? The Upstanding Citizen is too well off,
too fortunate to be the squeaky wheel, you say? It’s not Politically Correct to
be so hard on the poor and disadvantaged, you say? Bah.

What’s more ridiculous is that our society
actually panders to fuckups more than Upstanding Citizens. That’s a dying
breed, the Upstanding Citizen. Exemplars are hard to find. I understand charity
and good deeds and all that—especially when it comes to children—but when did all
that goodness become diluted into entitlements for unmotivated, uneducated,
beer-guzzling, cigarette-smoking, drug-using, hate-spreading, littering,
dead-eyed baby factories?

Shut those bastards down, sober ‘em up, make ‘em
work in chain gangs if you need to until they wise up. Why is it all of the
sudden a person’s God-given right to throw ambition into the garbage, make a
mess of their life, and then get a chip on their shoulder when the healthcare
and pension system aren’t good enough? And why is everyone so damn afraid to
discriminate when it comes to issues of poverty and charity, of net contribution
to Country? Why can’t we turn the faucets off in our bleeding hearts for a damn
minute and realize all that blood just makes a mess if we don’t use our heads
in all this business? Who knows. I sure don’t. I can scratch my head thinking
about it all day long until my head bleeds, my stomach gets an ulcer, or I die
from cancer and I still won’t have a goddamn clue.

I tell you Whimpy. I fear for what this country
will soon become. I fear it in my dying bones…

AS JOE RATTLED ON, THE DOOR TO THE ROOM
yawned
open. Yellowish light flooded in, exposing the right profile of Sgt.
Whimplestein’s serene face. Nurse Freckles appeared, pushing a metal cart
filled with extra pillows and blankets. Catching the tail end of the
conversation, she frowned, her eyes filled with pity. His state of mind was
deteriorating, he was uttering more gibberish and delusional thoughts. The
morphine was clouding his judgment and the illness was spreading. His organs were
shutting down. He didn’t have much time left, she thought.

Joe feigned sleep.

He didn’t like the way she looked at him, like
he was senile and vulnerable. He didn’t want pity from his nurse, just
assistance into the afterlife where all this pain and suffering would be but a
distant memory. He forced out a few grunts and shifted to the side, wincing
from the shooting pain in his abdomen.

From the tiny slits of his teary eyes, he made
out a blurred Nurse Freckles fixing the machine to drop more medicine into his
system.

Sweet Savior!
It must be seven
o’clock
.
Love medicine time.

He inhaled slowly and shivered, relenting to
the chill of the morphine as it dripped into his veins.

Nurse Freckles unfolded the extra blanket she
brought with her and placed it over his shivering body. With a tight smile she
tucked the blanket along the length of his body, cocooning him in its warmth.

As his mind grew heavy, Joe slowly relented to
the heavy tug of the opiate. Betsy’s sweet voice called his name. Peppermint
wafted into his nostrils. An inane thought crossed his mind:
Whimpy’s
granddaughter missed her daily visit
.
With a
mental smile and slight movement of his lips he mumbled,
I wonder
what choice she made to throw off her balance? Was it good or bad? Black or
white?

Or is she a believer in the gray?

At this thought, the oceanic sleep of a heroin
addict overtook him.

Detective Kylie Kang:

8:00
P.M.

Follow-up from the Michael Cobb interview takes
longer than I expect. Entering the crowded hospital lobby fills my throbbing
head with unease. A cacophony of coughing, sneezing, belching, crying,
stomping, fidgeting, and throat clearing greets me with demented cheer as I
move through the atrium and down the hall toward the elevators.

The sudden whiff of feces reels me back on my
boot heels. Others join my disgust, their faces scrunching into that universal
pucker of foulness. Orderlies whisk a janitor’s cart into a nearby room. A moment
later the smell is displaced by bleach and Hefty bags, but shit always lingers.
In pit-stop time, the orderlies wheel out with solemn faces and unsavory cargo.
The staff in this hospital are definitely efficient and very likely underpaid.

People dressed in scrubs rush past in different
directions while piles of paperwork fill my peripheral vision. With a sigh, I
think about my own pile of paperwork waiting for me back at the station.

Coffee. I need coffee. Rubbing my temples, I
dream of sleep. I envy those who can sleep standing up; my mind just didn’t
come equipped with an off switch. God, I just need one restful night. One
without the ghosts from my past cropping up, without the constant reminders of
what I did and who I disgraced.

This case has dredged up hidden feelings and
memories that weren’t meant to be uncovered.

Ever.

Why now, when I’m just starting to get a grip
on my life? If living in solitude, avoiding men, denying myself a
relationship—except for the one I have with Gramps, who is in a coma—burying
myself in work, never taking a vacation except for visiting the hospital, and
harboring guilt for something I did when I was eleven years old constitutes a
grip on life. Ugh…I know, I’m fooling myself.

The coffee machine is just around the corner (makes
a better java than what’s back at the station); it wouldn’t be more than a five
minute detour, but I can’t do it. First I have to visit Gramps, then coffee.

I always feel a twinge of guilt when I don’t
make my daily visit. Logically, I know that it doesn’t matter, that he can’t
know if I visit or not. If I missed a few hours, a few days, months, even
years, I’m sure he would not be able to tell the difference. That all my visits
meld together in one long string. But it matters to me. He took me in, loved
me, saved me.