Death in the Polka Dot Shoes (26 page)

A Scotsman named Thomas Morton invented the marine railway in1818 by extending rails well into the water, running a wooden boat cradle into the water at high tide, and floating a boat to be repaired onto the cradle. Then men or horses would pull the boat out of the water. He called it “slipping” a vessel.

Sampson Brown just called it hauling, and he used an electric winch to pull the boat to his shed. If the electricity was down, Sampson could use his pickup truck and pull the boat up the rails without much trouble. Sampson could pull a boat and power wash the barnacles off the bottom, or even repair an engine, in very little time. Between the railway and the crabbing, he became a relatively wealthy man and a reasonable target of affection for Mabel Fergus. Indeed, her marriage at age fifty to Sampson would just about lock up the waterman business in Parkers, a fact no one seemed to bemoan, and everyone wanted to celebrate. There was no better place to do it than the Moose Lodge, and the ensuing party had the parallel effect of making a folk hero out of Jimmy Shannon. Right up until his death by tuna, he was known as “that guy who joined ole Moonie in chugging beer at the Moose,” and his wife Martha was given high marks for sticking by her man in his inebriated condition. These are the kind of incidents that create reputations for a lifetime in Parkers.

Lillian left the Moose Lodge knowing her fundraiser was off to a good start. The date was secured, and the Lodge, which is a community service organization with a special interest in health care issues, found this cause appealing. Plus, it would bring together the very fabric of the community. She was so excited by the prospect for a successful event, that she stepped out of the club into the sunlight, rummaged her purse for her cell phone, and slid behind the wheel of her car to complete the last segment of her mission.

Lillian hit her automatic redial and the phone started ringing in the Calico Cat, where Effie Humbolt started pushing around swatches of cloth to find her portable telephone, an instrument that never seemed to be in its cradle and often had batteries which needed charging. Effie's phone was a testament to her large circle of friends and relatives that received daily nurturing by telephone. Lillian knew she would be perfect to organize the food service, and childcare if need be, for Martha Claire.

“Effie,” she said to the instantly recognizable voice, “this is Lillian Wildman and I'm calling about Martha Shannon.”

“I know,” Effie said. “Isn't it unbelievable? How could all these terrible things happen to her, in such a short time? I don't know what to do.”

“Well, here's my thought,” Lillian said. “I'm arranging a fundraiser at the Lodge to give her some quick cash. I don't know whether she needs it, but it's a way for everybody to help out. And in these times, it can't hurt.”

“That's good,” Effie said. “When is it?”

“No date yet, but we'll let everybody know,” Lillian said, referring to the organization of women she was about to put together. “But I think we're going to have a more immediate need. I talked to Martha and she's going to have this operation within days. My God, it's a ten hour operation and they take a whole side of her head off. The doctors won't even project an outcome, except she has a five percent chance of dying and a fifteen percent chance of paralysis. My God, Effie, they're talking about all sorts of terrible things.”

“How long has she had this thing?” Effie asked.

“Maybe 20 years,” Lillian said, “and she isn't going to survive this with a couple of aspirin and a week in bed. We have to help with food, and rehabilitation, and that darling little girl of hers.”

“What about Ned?” Effie asked, thinking of her office neighbor.

“I don't know,” Lillian said. “But I know the watermen will take care of him. Vinnie is running his boat. I don't know anything about his law practice, but I think most of his clients are local and they'll understand. I'm not sure Neddie bargained for a family in this deal, but he's got one now, and I'm sure he can do it.”

“Neddie's life in Washington may seem pretty good right now.”

“Don't say that Effie,” Lillian said. “That boy is home now and we're going to take care of him.”

“What do you want me to do?” Effie asked.

“Can you do the food, for say two weeks, after she comes home?” Lillian requested. “Contact the wives, schedule them, figure out how many days a person can live on beef stew, and maybe make sure a few desserts are included. That should get us started and we'll figure out the long-term later. We just don't know what condition she's going to be in.”

“I'll do it,” Effie said. “What about transportation? Her rehabilitation could be over at Johns Hopkins or some place else. We may need a car schedule.”

“I'll get someone else to think about that,” Lillian said. “You know that book club that meets at the Bayfront. Those are young wives with a little free time, and they have good eyes for driving. I'll get them organized.”

The town of Parkers was about to roar into action.

Chapter Twenty

Two incredible things happened to Martha during her “preparation” for the operation at Philadelphia's Good Conscience Hospital, getting admitted and the pinholes. Just getting in the place at 5:00 in the afternoon was traumatic. Tons of people were streaming out the double glass doors to the main lobby, apparently at quitting time or at least time for a shift change. I didn't know anything about hospitals except that it must require a huge staff to run the place day and night. And if Dr. Nablani wanted to prep Martha at 7:00 at night, there must be a large night crew that could operate the place at full steam.

We weren't quite prepared for such an old hospital. It looked to have had about three hundred additions since the end of World War II, and each one represented the advance of architecture. Jutting out of flat walls with small square windows would be a circular room with floor to ceiling glass made of the thick smoky cubes so popular in the 1950s. I could imagine it as a solarium for brain operation patients where things didn't go quite right; the patients were moved to the light where they could sleep all day waiting for a miracle to happen. Then there was a two story glass waiting room on the second floor signifying the invention of escalators, probably in the 1960s, and clear windows allowing maximum sun. And finally, another large wing wedged between the old building and a ten story parking garage.

But these were all superficial impressions, and in fact, most of my memory of that first night is a blur. Somehow we were whisked into the brain surgery wing, Martha was told to hang her clothes in a closet because she would be wearing them home in a couple of hours, and I was ushered down the hall to a small waiting room. One should never go to a hospital waiting room at the end of the day. Magazines were strewn everywhere. Newspapers were stacked on the corner table but all the sections were out of order and I knew there would be jelly or sugar residue on the inside sections. A family of Latinos was seated on the plastic covered couch, with one child asleep on her mother's lap and a teenager stretched out on a lounge chair, disheveled, tired and drinking from a Coke can. Their conversation indicated that a family member had been in surgery most of the day, and they had heard nothing. Mom and Dad were scared to death and the kids were just exhausted. I pictured myself at the end of tomorrow, after I had devoured several cans of soda pop, read every newspaper twice, and probably had lunch in the basement cafeteria with no windows and bland food. This was not a good start. I hoped at least for a cleaning crew. The doctor's plan was to do the ‘prep' tonight, and we were to arrive at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. the next morning for the actual operation. So I didn't expect the ‘prep' to take long.

But I soon realized my exhaustion, and fell asleep with the sounds of Spanish words forming a mental haze. The next words I heard, about an hour later, were, “Mr. Shannon, your sister-in-law is ready to go home.” Those were actually very reassuring words. I awoke and managed a smile before falling in line behind the nurse on the way to Martha's room.

She was smiling. “I hope you're ready for this,” Martha said. I went to her bed and took her hand, mostly to steady myself. I knew it was important to not say the wrong thing, not the words she might remember forever. So I said, “That looks pretty good.”

Half her hair was gone. It looked like a Mohawk haircut, except the barber was called away before he could finish.

“Why didn't they just cut it all off?” I asked.

“The doctor said it was less shocking to patients and this is the way they do it now.”

“What doctor? Nablani?” I asked.

“Well, I said doctor, but I don't know who it was. He said he was on Nablani's team. Looked young, probably a resident,” Martha said.

I just stared. Finally I asked, “What else did they do?”

“They just made marks, and stuck some pins in my head,” she said. “Didn't hurt.”

I looked closely and could see the small blue marks that outlined the operation. Then I noticed the pin holes on her forehead, one on each side. I realized that in any situation where we have no real experience, we are victims of our private knowledge, right or wrong. All I could see was George Patton. I had seen an old black and white movie that portrayed Patton's shocking death at the end of World War II. It showed him in the back seat of a 1940 sedan, driven by his loyal young aide. But the driver came to a railroad track, had to brake fast, and threw the general forward with such ferocity that he broke his neck. The next scene was in an Army hospital and the great Patton with his pearl handled pistols was lying in bed, with a square wooden brace around his head, with pins in each corner that were stuck in his head and held it from any possible movement. And that's the way he died. My god, I could see those little pin holes in Martha's forehead and I realized the operation tomorrow would require just such a brace as the power saws tore into her head like a dental drill and the side of her head was removed. I shuddered and hoped Martha did not notice. We never said a word about it.

The next day we arrived at the hospital and the doctors put Martha on a gurney, said goodbye, and wheeled her down the hallway, presumably to the operating room. It was so fast I hardly realized it was happening. I stumbled to the little waiting room, trying to figure out the logistics. She would have to be anesthetized, which would take a couple of hours I supposed, the operation itself was supposed to take eight to ten hours, then recovery in the intensive care ward, assuming everything went all right. So it would be seven or eight o'clock at night before this was over. I started through the newspapers.

But there is loneliness like no other in a hospital waiting room. The faces are all strangers. Families of patients suffering all sorts of ailments, and one cannot avoid the speculation. Then you hear the conversations in piecemeal, of family heartaches, or friends who were at the movies only yesterday, and today they have a death sentence. How can that be? At what moment can it be when a single cell of cancer stands up in one's body and says, I'm here, the next several months of your life are destroyed in a haze of chemotherapy and radiation and weakness of mind and body. How does that happen? What does it mean for free will, and disease avoidance, and “taking care of yourself” in any way? It's so arbitrary and capricious that it destroys your confidence in the living. Then you are a victim of the disease as much as the patient. And finally, in that last painful moment of self pity and tearful fear of the world around you, you realize that no one shares these fears but your family. You realize that family is that small group of people who cloister around you in the remote corners of life and hold on to keep you warm, or take you to a bed, or find you a home, or give you food. It is a rescue so basic that you can never forget it, or live without it. And in Good Conscience Hospital, as the strangers moved through this little waiting room with me, the air passed out of my lungs until I was gasping. And only the two ladies on the couch beside me kept the decorum, kept me from yielding to my own shrinking and garbled thoughts until I screamed to an unholy god that had let me down.

I had no family but Martha and Mindy, who would never know her father, and might never know her mother. And I hoped she would never know what I felt at that moment: “I am so alone.”

But then I looked down the hall, past the blood pressure machines and past the nurses' station with ghostly figures responding to red lights and bells, and two figures emerged from the elevators. They looked familiar. I squinted, closing one eye. And sure enough, it was a friend.

Pete and Lillian Wildman turned the corner and hurried toward the waiting room. I got up to tuck my shirt in my pants, arrange my hair, and otherwise look presentable. This was unexpected. Philadelphia is at least a three hour drive from Parkers, and would require a day's commitment to visit. Pete and Lil hadn't even called. They just took a chance. I had told everyone that the operation was today, and I probably named the hospital. But I never offered times, or a specific location, or an invitation. Yet my eyes were big as saucers and I felt like Mom and Dad had come down from heaven for a visit.

“Neddie,” Lil shouted from the area of the nurses' station. “How are you?”

She was still about five steps from the waiting room, and one of the nurses shushed her as she walked by.

I gave her a big hug and it was good to feel her hands on my back. Nothing reserved. No peck on the cheek or social grasp. It was an honest to goodness family greeting that said “we care about you and Martha.” I suddenly realized how long it had been since I had received one of these unrestrained hugs, without calculation or equivocation. I reached behind Lil's back and grabbed Pete's hand. His face was aglow. I couldn't tell whether he was excited to see me or just red burned from the sun and wind after a day on the water. I didn't care.