The Tao of Apathy (18 page)

“
You said we need to look at
health care as a business.”

“
Us. Not you.”

“
That’s what I’m thinking- not
you. Listen to yourself. What you want is loyalty and sacrifice
from us without you having to do either.”

“
Now we’re on the same
page.”

Chapter 36

As soon as Litigious left, there was a knock
on Petty’s door and then the person who knocked, came in. He was
tall, handsome and had a reassuring smile that made Petty nervous.
“You are a piece of shit,” the man said.

“
Yeah, so what?” Petty asked as he
extended his hand for a firm handshake. First his secretary quit so
that he lost his way of leaking information to the union, then his
doctors got uppity, and now this. “And who are you?”

“
I’m Jack Ketch, asshole.” He
shook Petty’s hand, then pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “And
this is my associate, Tom Bowdler.” A fat man slipped into the room
behind Ketch like a watermelon plopping out a child’s arms as she
helped carry in groceries.

“
Have a seat,” Petty said and when
everyone had sat down, he continued. “You’ve got some nerve barging
in here.” He laughed. “You better have a suitcase full of money for
me.”

“
We do,” Bowlder said with a voice
that sounded like he had a half-digested rodent in his throat. “The
question is are you going to louse things up.”

Ketch smiled at Petty.

“
All right.” Petty smiled back at
Ketch. Are you from the mob? Or worse, the government?”

“
Petty, our firm was hired by your
predecessor to reorganize this place into the most efficient
configuration possible and we are doing that. But then you come
along and started working hand in hand with the union.”

“
You jerk off.” Bowlder slapped
the desk. “I monitor this whole place 23/6. Everyone was angry and
desperate just as we planned.”

Ketch pointed at Petty. “Where do you get off
letting the union ruin all of the slashes we have been able to
make? If your hospital is not taken to the bone, how will it look
to other hospitals that might hire us? Mr. Petty, why would you
want to destroy all we have dismantled? Grumby would never have
caved into a union’s demands.”

“
Guys guys, guys, that is why the
nuns got rid of Grumby. I am willing to do anything to prevent a
union from coming in here. I am the person that is going to give
the union anything they want except for anything
substantial.”

Ketch began to like Petty even more than
Grumby who he hated. He and Bowlder leaned back in the soft leather
chairs, relieved. “We thought you were a socialist or a democrat or
something.”

“
No. I have a plan to keep the
employees from unionizing without giving them anything. They are
not going to vote to unionize now. And what I have given them will
vaporize. Although she doesn’t know it, our Patients’ Rights
Coordinator is going to take me to court and prevent me from
allowing the employees all I have offered. As I always say, ‘in
today’s health care market, we cannot control income only expenses.
If we want to remain a leading non-profit organization, we need to
increase our profit margin. Our commitment to helping people
demands that we keep both eyes on the bottom line.”

“
I love you,” Bowlder said,
putting the weight of his enormous body on one knee and kneeling in
front of Petty’s desk.

Ketch scratched his jaw. “Your Patients’
Rights Coordinator is a formidable foe.” He reached into his brief
case and pulled out a file with Ethel Steiffy written on it in red
marker. He opened it up. “There has been twenty things that she
kept us from doing.”

“
Yeah, well, you don’t know that
she has a son that works here.”

“
Actually,” he tuned a page over
in his file. “Her son is Bigger Steiffy. He works in food service,
is married with two kids, and weighs two hundred and ten pounds. He
was in his high school production of “Plaza Suite” and was an altar
boy in third and fourth grades.”

“
Exactly. He’s a loser and Ethel
is his mother. She commits to testifying in court and I give him a
promotion that makes him less of a loser. She will help us because
as a woman she is going to want to help her son first and foremost.
Then I put a little spin on the turn of events and she takes the
heat.”

Ketch nodded toward the door to Bowlder. Four
grunts and three creaks later, he was up off his knees and the two
went out the door, leaving Petty with Ketch’s briefcase full of
money on his desk.

Chapter 37

“
My name is Yolanda, Father. I
would like absolution.”

“
Fine, have it.” Father Chuck
stared out the window without glancing at the gaunt black woman
standing at his table in the Butt Hutt. She leaned on her IV
pole.

“
No. I would like to make an act
of reconciliation. Could we go to the chapel?”

“
No. It’s being remodeled. Why, I
don’t know. So it’s either here or not at all. If it’s not at all,
I’ll understand. Really.”

Yolanda sat down, squeezing between the table
and an extremely fat man sitting at the next table. “Bless me,
Father for I have sinned,” she began, facing the interior of the
room as Father continued to look out the window. “I haven’t been to
confession since high school-”

“
So this is going to take a
while?”

She hesitated. “I don’t think I’ve led a very
good life. I spent many years drinking and smoking. I don’t like
going to church. I didn’t go forth and multiply. I don’t ever give
to charity.”

“
Listen,” he said, tracking his
hand as he flicked his ashes in the ashtray. “I have half a
cigarette here and then I want some lunch. Don’t sweat the small
stuff. Just give me a synopsis of what you want forgiveness for
because so far your sins have pretty much described me.”

Yolanda looked around the room. There was a
group of nurses and a separate group of housekeepers sitting around
tables. They were loud and chuckling a lot. Watching them smoke,
she feared for them. That they would end up like her.

“
Come on. Hurry this
up.”

Yolanda pulled her gown down under her jacket.
“You know what? Forget it.” She strained to get up.

It was then that Father saw her really for the
first time. He saw her thinned out hair and her sunken eyes. He
jumped up and rushed to help her. “You know, I am just a little on
edge here. I think I smoked a whole carton of cigarettes this
morning. Let me help you back to your room and I’ll give you
reconciliation as we go, but no silly stuff.” He grabbed his coat
off the back of his chair and put it on while she shuffled to the
door. “I mean, listen, have you ever killed anyone?”

“
No.”

“
Have you ever abused
kids?”

“
Certainly not. I am an
educator.”

Father raised an eyebrow.

“
Still, I didn’t.”

Father stepped out into the sunlight and had
to shield his eyes for a moment. Then he held the door open for
Yolanda and carried her IV pole as he helped her down the first
step. Father did not know what more you could hope to accomplish.
“Did you try to live the best life you could?”

“
No. And that’s what bothers
me.”

“
Ah-h. Hmm. You know what?” Father
asked as he raised his hands up and wafts of smoke drifted out the
open door and swirled around him. “I am going to absolve you of
your sins anyway. For what its worth. There. You’re
absolved.”

“
Thanks, Father.”

“
Did this help?”

“
No.” Father steadied her IV pole
on the salt-covered sidewalk and swung it around for her as he took
her arm. “Well, it was better than nothing, I think. But I am one
of those people that need a sign. Do you think I will get a
sign?”

“
Anything’s possible with
God.”

“
You really believe that,
Father?”

He sighed. “No. It’s just something we priests
say.” They walked along the sidewalk. “But I’ve heard of such
things.”

Chapter 38

Bigger unlocked the door to the apartment with
the baby slung over his hip, sweating now from carrying the child
up the flight of steps with his winter jacket on while following
his three year-old boy who took forever because he was walking his
Transformer up the stair railing. Inside, he tripped on the boy’s
jacket that had been instantly flung on the floor. He dropped to
the couch and undid the zipper of the baby’s snowsuit.

Lying on a stack of
newspapers on the coffee table was a list of things to do from the
wife. The first on his list was
clear the
newspapers off the coffee table
. He did
that by stacking them in the corner of the living room. Under the
newspapers was a box of Cheerios, so he grabbed a handful for the
baby. Second on the list, was
put the baby
in the high chair
. Then,
feed the baby actual food and not just
Cheerios
.

Bigger put the baby in the
high chair and got out two jars of baby food. She cried while he
warmed the carrots in the microwave and left the pears unheated. He
steered a spoonful towards her, then stopped. Now, while she cried
harder he got out a bib and put it on her. Then he looked on his
list and said, “Ha.”
Put a bib on the
baby
was the next thing on his
list.

He touched the spoon to her
lips, but the baby was so busy crying that she kept throwing her
head back and forth and dragging a line of puréed carrots across
her face. Finally, he managed to dump enough carrots into her mouth
to get her to stop crying, which she did instantly. He glanced down
at his list, skipping down to number twelve. Number twelve
was
Where is Cody? Go check on him.
“Cody,” he yelled. “Cody. Cody.
CODY!”

“
Yes, daddy,” the boy said from
his parents’ bedroom.

“
What are you doing?”

“
Nothing.”

“
Well, at least you haven’t been
killed or maimed.”

“
I’m not allowed to get killed or
lamed until Mommy gets home, right Daddy?”

Bigger gave the baby most of her carrots and
then let her on her own with the spoon and the jar of pears which
she ate by jamming her hand in the jar and sucking the puréed fruit
off her fingers. He went to the medicine cabinet to find some
aspirin. His head throbbed as he tried to undo the child safety
lid. He banged it on the bathroom sink, and then finally pried it
off with his teeth.

It was empty. He cursed the kids, then the
wife, then realized he was the one that had been too lazy to throw
the empty container away. In desperation, he ate eight baby aspirin
and went back to the kitchen to find the jar of pears upside down
on the floor. Just as he was about to get the vacuum cleaner to
suck up the mess, the doorbell rang. He gave the baby a few more
Cheerios and answered the door.

His mother came through the door, looked at
the coffee table and sat her armful of files down on the floor. “I
can’t stay for long,” she said. “I’m taking a night class and then
your father has this function we have to go to.” She sat down,
grabbed a pen and opened a file. “So let’s talk.”

Ethel's little boy tried to figure out what he
had done wrong. “About what?”

“
About what you need to talk to me
about.” Ethel replied as her eyes scanned a document. “Gregg said
you needed talk to me about something. He said it was
urgent.”

“
I can’t believe he asked you to
come over here.” Bigger dropped to the couch again and rubbed his
forehead. “I didn’t decide that I needed to talk to you
yet.”

“
God, I hate this furniture,” she
said looking up. The couch and chair were a brown plaid with a
green moose stitched on each of the head cushions. “Where did you
ever pick out such homely stuff?”

“
From your den when you remodeled
it two years ago. Would you like to go hate our bedroom set? Under
the dirty clothes and Legos is the bedroom set you and dad got when
you were first married.” Bigger was seething. “You have never
gotten the tour. Have you? Come see the kids’ room. It’s decorated
in early rummage sale.”

Ethel did not look up again. “Well, you better
get a good job soon, because I am running out of rooms to remodel,
sweetie.”

Bigger heard the rain of Cheerios on the floor
and he knew that now he had the pears and a box of cereal to vacuum
up. For the moment, Bigger could only listen as a little more
cereal got dumped, but it was that moment that Cody raced into the
kitchen and wiped out on the pears with a thud.

“
Mom, get the baby,” Bigger yelled
as he staggered into the kitchen. Both the kids were screaming in
terror, making the dog bark as she came out from under the kitchen
table to lap up the pears.