The Tao of Apathy (10 page)

Joe flicked the burning ash off his cigarette
with his finger and cupped the dead butt in his hand to throw away
inside. He thought about saying, “What? Who’s talking to me? Is it
the spirit of Christmas past?” but he hated lame jokes. “You’ve
lost me, Bigger.”

“
What if they’re right? I told
everyone that came running to help Mrs. Annunzio that I was Bigger
and not Mr. Dead Guy, but they still treated me like I was some
sort of freak of nature.”

“
That’s how they treat
everyone.”

“
But what if
they are right? Maybe I am a ghost like Bruce Willis in
Sixth Sense
and last
month was the first time I realized it.”

“
Speaking of ghosts, look who’s
coming.” Joe nodded towards Tim, the security guard as he came over
to them. “Tim, I thought the hospital was getting rid of you
security guards so that they could contract out to a
company.”

Tim smiled. “They did. See this new patch.
This is the company I work for now, Contract Services. They’re the
ones doing security for the hospital. What a joke. They pay me an
extra fifty cents and hour and bill the hospital fifteen dollars an
hour to do even less than I used to.”

For a moment, Bigger saw himself in a uniform,
patrolling the grounds. “Are they hiring?” he asked.

“
Don’t bother applying. I mean my
boss came right and told me that his bosses here at Saint Jude’s
believe health care is too important in this community to have the
cost of it so high that people cannot have access to it. Well, I
told him I didn’t give a shit, but it turns out I do because now I
work for Contract Services which keeps their expenses low by not
giving me any health insurance.” Tim laughed. “But they don’t do
drug testing. Do you guys want to go out to my van and get
high?”

They shook their heads, but Joe punched him in
his arm. “Suit yourself, guys.”

Chapter 17

Bigger the ghost waited for Dykes the
disenchanted as he dropped off supplies to the Pediatric Ward.
Dykes leaned on the counter at the nursing station and held out his
clipboard for the nurse sitting there to sign the requisition form.
She turned slightly and repositioned the phone to her ear. “You
need to give the kids a bath tonight,” she said into the phone.
“No, you do. Uh-huh. With a hair wash. Okay?”

She paused. “So what else is going on, honey?
What are you going to have for dinner? Oh. Just a minute.” She put
the phone down and reached over for a doughnut that was on her
desk. “I’m back.”

Dykes sighed, gave up, and signed Mary Eddy’s
name on the form. He turned to Bigger and glanced at his white
hair. “Bigger, I still can’t get use to you being in uniform. How’s
it going?”

“
Pretty good right now, but I’ll
mess it up somehow. How’s it going for you Dyke-man?”

“
The usual. Terrible.”

They walked slowly down the red and gray
carpet. Bigger ran his hand down the plastic-coated rail that ran
down the hallway. When one of the physical therapists waved to them
before jogging into his office, Bigger waved back and wondered if
he should become a physical therapist. The physical therapy staff
wore brightly colored jogging suits with drawstrings positioned in
various locations on them. Their outfits often had a colorful
stripe that started on the pullover jacket and continued on the
shiny pants. All of the PTs, as they were called, wore expensive
running shoes, but were never required to run. The PT that had
waved often told Bigger that his work was interesting, but Bigger
quickly ruled the career out because when he came home, what could
he possibly slip into that would be more comfortable? “Do you like
your job, Dykes?” he asked running his fingers through his white
hair.

Dykes shrugged and opened the door so that
they could both pass into the Nephrology Department. “I don’t mind
it so much, I guess. I have nobody that keeps tabs on me and I
spend most of the day just walking around. Why?”

Bigger grabbed the food cart full of dishes in
this department and began pushing it. “I’m looking for an important
career, but I can’t figure out in what. My dad says I should sit
down and ask myself some important questions. But what should I ask
myself?”

“
Are you able to urinate without
pain?” a nurse asked a patient as they passed the patient’s
room.

“
I don’t know, Bigger. What’s
wrong with your job? You don’t have to talk to anyone. You just
drop off the cart and go. You’re lucky. Nobody is every rude to
you.”

“
Hey, where is that God-damn cart
going? Fucking thing always ups and leaves before we’re
ready.”

“
Oh, yeah,” Bigger yelled back.
“Well, I’m not coming back until you’re done with it.” Bigger
shoved the cart back to the angry nurse.

He caught up with Dykes who was waiting for
him in the brightly-lit elevator lobby. “I don’t know, John.
There’s nothing satisfying about my job. But you get to meet people
at least. People know who you are. You are like a bartender. Your
job sucks, but you’re friends with everyone.”

Dykes looked down, unable to look Bigger in
the eyes. “I know no one. All of these people here are strangers to
me.”

“
I can name six you slept
with.”

“
Especially them.” Dykes kept his
head down. “I picked them up because I was drunk. In the morning,
there is no point in getting to know them. I mean I wouldn’t mind
knowing them, probably, but after ‘Do you need a ride home?’ I run
out of things to say.”

“
Wow,” Bigger said, putting his
hands on his hips. “That is so cool.”

“
Bigger, for Christ’s sakes,
you’re married.”

“
Yeah, I’m on my way to being a
typical married with children type. I am already in the rut of
going off everyday to a job I hate and coming home to people
disappointed in me. I can’t let that be all. Look at you, you are-
infamous.”

“
Lucky me.”

“
Yeah, you got the perfect life--
except for being sick all the time. There is a rumor going around
that you have cancer.”

John pushed the down button for the elevator.
“No, Bigger, I wish I had your life. You have people that know you
and still like you. And I am never sick. I don’t even get colds.”
Dykes stepped into the elevator full of housekeepers and a
construction guy with two-by-fours slung over his shoulder like he
was waiting for Mr. Tally Mon to tally his banana. Dykes fell into
a coughing fit.

Bigger pondered about cheating on his wife as
he went back to get the cart he had left now that the nurse wasn’t
around. He dreamed of sneaking around and having to avoid people.
He had seen Dykes duck into a mechanical room to avoid passing a
person in the hallway. Dykes said he did things like that because
he was uncomfortable with passing by someone and not knowing if he
should say hi or not, so Bigger knew Dykes was doing it to avoid a
scene with an ex-lover or an angry boyfriend. Dykes must be a real
Casanova for Bigger had watched him take a drink out of every water
fountain on a floor to avoid eye contact with people walking in the
other direction. All his women must adore him and want to tie him
down.

His wife was the only woman Bigger had ever
been with and she didn’t think much of him at all. He lusted for
lust. He lusted for the excitement of being single. Then reminded
himself of the glue that held his marriage together- twenty-five
percent of his wages that would go to child support for the two
children. And Dykes called him lucky just because she also loved
him and supported him more than he deserved. Bigger decided he
would just try and see some women naked. That would be
enough.

Chapter 18

Joe and Bigger came into the meeting room
smelling of cigarettes and sat down in the back. Mr. Seuss and the
rest of the employees were already there. The new guy was in the
back row putting in his earrings. The new team guider was
downstairs watching the kitchen, so Ester had shut off the power to
all the equipment and put the phones on hold.

Seuss stood up at the white board with a red
marker in his hand. He wrote something on the board that nobody
could read from the glare. “Today,” he said, “as we look forward to
the grand opening of the cafeteria once the remodeling is done, we
must also look back to find a means of justifying the remodeling.
Many of my fellow directors are now objecting to the one million
dollars I have spent. Sure the old cafeteria was clean and
serviceable as a place to eat, but I really think hospital
cafeterias should be an event. A cafeteria needs to have ambience
and texture and a personality. Sadly, others do not see my vision.
More work needs to be done. So if I am going to continue to expand
my budget, which I must do, which I will do, I am going to have to
find ways of cutting my budget. So at this meeting, we’re going to
brainstorm new ideas on ways of adding value to our services. This
is me empowering you.”

He choked for a moment.

“
So we will write down all the
ideas we can come up with. Let’s hear them, if you can come up with
any.”

“
Eliminate the director’s
secretary.”

“
Reduce the director’s position to
part-time,” Joe called out.

“
Eliminate the director’s position
altogether,” Helen topped.

Seuss stood motionless at the
board.

Augusta then spoke out in her slow and shaky
voice. “Stop buying hundreds of damn spatulas every year. Cripes,
we must have five thousand spatulas that you buy every year with
left over money from our budget.”

“
I think,” Delores said meekly,
“that we could move to the Just-In-Time inventory management system
where we order food supplies more often, but only order things we
need for the coming week. That would enable us to go from two
freezers to one and reduce the amount of spoilage on our
perishables.”

He writes down, sell spatulas in the
cafeteria. “I can work with this idea. If I stop ordering those
spatulas, then they will reduce my budget by that much next year.
But if I sell them, then I will in fact be generating revenue and
increasing my department’s importance.”

“
Who is going to buy a spatula at
a hospital?” Joe yelled.

“
I loved Justin Time’s last
album.” Bigger was not paying attention.

“
I’m desperate here. I’m having a
great deal of anxiety. We will set the price of the spatulas at
below cost so that they will fly off the shelves.”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

“
If there is no discussion, then
we can move on. Okay, the second item on my agenda is that Mr.
Petty wants us to have fresh bread for the breakfast meal and I
think that is a great idea. So I will need two people to volunteer
to bake the bread from four to seven in the morning.”

Augusta raised her hand. “This is not some
sort of deal where if I do it, then I get sent home so that you can
avoid overtime.”

“
Absolutely not.”

“
So then I would have fifteen
hours of overtime on my paycheck?”

“
Absolutely not.”

“
What the fuck?” Delores
asked.

“
I said I needed volunteers.”
Seuss raised his finger. “Stay with me a moment, ladies. You too,
Joe.” Bigger looked up from his daydream. “To avoid problems, to
avoid layoffs, we should do this fresh bread thing. But I would get
major flack if I were to start paying overtime. So, like I said, if
two of you would volunteer, sick people would have fresh, healthy
bread for breakfast and my department would look good and I would
not have to lose any of my employees.”

Silence.

“
This is a great opportunity for
someone.”

Nothing.

“
I’m sure baking bread would be
fun?”

Scornful looks.

Then he looked at the women--all of them a
broken hip away from retirement, but still he said, “It would look
good on a resume.”

The ladies picked up their purses and
sweaters.

“
Look. This could be the start of
a prestige-getter, which would lead to higher wages for the
kitchen. Then I could hire higher caliber employees. Ones with
college degrees and tensile strength.”

They scowled at him.

“
I’ll do it,” Bigger
said.

“
Slap him, Joe,” Margaret said.
“Stop the boy from doing this.”

Joe looked at Bigger’s whiteness from head to
toe and shrugged. “I can’t.”

“
Maybe, you could help him, Joe,”
Seuss said.

“
I won’t.”

“
Someone else needs to volunteer.
How about you back there, newbie?”

The new guy stopped hacky-sacking and shook
his head.

“
If this works out I might be able
to change your position to a fte instead of a lte
position.