The Tao of Apathy (23 page)

“
I guess Petty is expecting
trouble because he has all the security guards on duty.”

Bigger looked around. “So if a mob breaks
loose, you are going to break it up when they come out the
doors?”

“
Oh, no. No-no-no.
I am going to go
hide in the doctors’ lounge. I think its going to be bad.” Tim
grabbed the door for them and Bigger and Joe made their way into
the crowded auditorium. Staff from every department sat in the
cushioned theater seats and on the aisle steps. The maintenance
guys stood against the back wall in their brown shirts and brown
pants (available at any Fleet N Farm or Farm N Fleet). In front of
them on the steps were the food service workers in their white
blouses, white polyester pants and old lady shoes. Dykes and the
rest of his department sat in the last row. The nurses and the
CNA’s in their mauve or aqua-marine scrubs took up most of the
seats. The surgical teams sat by the emergency exit doors and they
all had on yellow scrubs and nylon booties over their shoes to keep
them sterile in surgery. The physical therapists were hanging out
by an entrance holding water bottles and looking like pogo sticks
wrapped up in Christmas wrapping paper (very thin people in gaudy
outfits). One of the male therapists had been treated for his
eating disorder and actually looked almost as fit as the
maintenance men, but he had a fresh haircut and did not have a tin
of tobacco in his back pocket. Up in front was the staff from the
psychiatric ward with some of their more heavily medicated patients
including Mr. Seuss.

“
I have had twelve forums in my
short time here. I believe communication is the key to a successful
hospital, but I must say that this is the biggest
turnout.”

His employees cheered Petty’s approximation of
self-deprecating humor. His forums had been one of the major
insignificant changes he had made. He had encouraged those that
could and wanted to get away from their duties to discuss the
important issues of the hospital in “Forums.” Any one of the half
dozen employees that attended could make statements for him to
ignore and ask questions that he quickly sidestepped.

He stood in front of them now beaming with
pride, yet humble. He rotated, giving the crowd a smile and
throwing a cute wave to the few workers he could place as working
for him. Dr. Swagger stood next to Crapper; Dykes sat next to Mary
Eddy; the maintenance staff stood behind their team leader laughing
at him; Mr. Annunzio stood next to Bigger; Mrs. Steiffy sat in
front of Petty with the gun sitting on the files on her lap; Joe
had stepped out for another smoke; and Dr. Daneeka stood with his
hand on the shoulder of Irene. “I know,” Petty said, “that all of
you will vote tonight on whether or not to have a union. I do not
know the outcome. But friends, if the union does not pass, you do
not need to be disappointed and I’ll tell you why.” Petty went on
about the direction he was taking Saint Jude’s and the leadership
the Board of Trustees had in Lansing. Telling them how humble he
was, he crowed of his past successes at other hospitals. Then he
outlined his version of how he and Betty, Susan, and Dan had worked
to empower each team member of St. Jude’s. He described how the
union, by working together with him, was actually giving them more
collective bargaining than a union. “Because,” he said, “It’s like
I am your representative and the board’s at the same
time.”

“
What a dick-head,” Irene confided
in Daneeka as she swatted his hand off her shoulder. She was now
more than ready for retirement, but Daneeka wouldn’t let her.
Everyone else, though, was in great spirits and felt a kindred
warmth for their fellow employees and for Petty. The energy of the
crowd seemed to carry everyone along.

“
But you are here to hear my
announcement,” Petty said. “And it is good news indeed. I have been
working very diligently to find a way to reward my staff for all
your hard work.” They gave him applause, more energy. “Together, I
with the union delegation have come to an agreement.” He opened his
hands to the people on either side of him. “Yes. So, I am raising
on-call pay by 3 percent. Tech’s will no longer be asked to work
six twelve hour shifts in a week. I am increasing staff in the
float pools so that people will no longer be forced to work
overtime more than one time per shift. I am authorizing an employee
recognition system where people can be nominated by their peers for
doing something and receive many prizes too numerous to
mention.

“
I am most proud, however, to
announce that along with the other rewards, there will be a
hospital-wide raise of five percent.” The staff cheered, shook
hands, high-fived each other and directed positive energy toward
their CEO.

Petty let them congratulate themselves and
thank him for doing this. They not only clapped, but raised their
clapping hands over their heads and directed them at Petty. Petty
used hand gestures to tell the crowd to give the credit to the
union members up on the stage beside him. Then as the crowd’s
turning to the others in their cliques turned from “Can you believe
what we are getting?” to just idle chit-chat, Petty folded them
back to him. “Okay. Okay. Quiet please. Okay. I have further news.
There will be a referendum with your paychecks tomorrow—I am going
to empower you-- the team members of Saint Jude’s— by allowing you
to decide which half of the departments will get their raise now
and which departments will get it in two fiscal years.
Congratulations people.” He backed away from the podium and flicked
on an overhead projector. On the screen that had slowly descended
from the ceiling was an example of the ballot for the referendum.
There were two boxes that could be checked. The sentence by the
first box read: The medical staff with pay grades D or higher
should receive the immediate five percent with all the lower grades
taking the second installment. The sentence that corresponded to
the second box said: The non-medical staff with pay grades A to D
should receive raises with the core staff taking the second
installment. Petty was gone before the screen stopped
moving.

There was the silence of lips moving as people
read. Then people began yelling and the roar got louder as people
finished reading, peaking as soon as the x-ray technicians
finished. A guy from the receiving dock grabbed the mike from the
podium and screeched out, “Give us our raises. You professionals
make enough freakin’ money.”

A nurse who did not need amplification yelled
back, “We earn our money. We actually have skills to be compensated
for.”

Craig from maintenance pushed his way to the
stage and the mike. “I got skills, too. The money should go to
us.”

A large nurse wearing surgical scrubs and a
lab coat (for the sole purpose of covering her expansive ass)
raised her arms and addressed the crowd. “This just isn’t about the
money for us; these are our careers.”

“
Careers Smareers,” chanted the
league of housekeepers, kitchen workers, lab aides, CNAs and
maintenance men.

Everyone was up. Some stood on the seats. The
large gangs of people with the same jobs now circled together and
ebbed toward their enemies. Janice made her way through the crowd
and jumped up onto a decorative post. She yelled, “We are
professionals. We have specialized, studied skills and deserve to
get paid the norm in the industry. Can’t you dirty little people
see that? Not just anyone can do our jobs.”

“
Yeah well, I am going to kick
your candied ass,” Susan called out as she lurched off the stage
and pulled her down.

After that, things got out of control. The
housekeeping staff pulled the stage curtains down trying to hang
Dr. Daneeka. Susan got tired of giving Janice a true migraine and
dropped her. She grabbed a social worker as he stumbled by and
bitch-slapped him. Then she threw him to the maintenance men who
depanted him. Susan tore threw the crowd in a tirade, kicking the
legs out from any professional person who had looked down on her.
Where appropriate, she head butting them. She pushed the podium
over on Dr. Daneeka as he tried to get up from the pile of curtain
on the floor. She hadn’t kicked this much ass since her high school
graduation party.

Margaret from the kitchen decided that maybe
could stop faking strokes during work and took her can of soda from
her hand and dumped it on the floor. With speed and agility, she
lay down on the floor and began to scream. Joe lit a cigarette and
jumped off the top of a seat into a pile of nurses. They promptly
beat the hell out of him. Dan took the microphone and began
swinging it by the cord to get people under control. But he
couldn’t control the cord as it slithered further and further out
and he hit several lights. He hit the ceiling several more times
trying to get the swinging mike under control until he hit himself
in the back of the head with it and knocked himself off the stage.
People climbed over each other as the ceiling tiles and the lights
he had hit showered down. Pictures were ripped from the walls and a
statue of Saint Jude was used as a battering ram. People tripped
over Margaret as she lay on the floor, now in real pain.

In the debris filled air and dim light, the
unskilled workers stood victorious. “What have you won?” Mary Eddy
asked them as she stood in the doorway. She had not hit anyone and
no one had felt enough animosity toward her to attack her. “What do
you gain?”

Susan looked around. Joe had been right.
Things were worse for trying. And the joy of kicking people’s asses
that had needed kicking was quickly fading with her adrenaline
levels. What was even worse was that the ER staff was badly banged
up, so that when the police arrived, the injured had to be
ambulanced from Saint Jude’s to another hospital. That was a
fifty-dollar co-pay under their HMO.

Everyone limped or was carted away except for
Bigger. He stood in the middle of the auditorium. “How come nobody
put a beat on me?” he wailed.

Chapter 49

Yolanda opened her eyes to find a man in all
white with a pale face beside her bed. She made out 2:14 am on her
clock. “Listen, someone picked up my food tray a long time
ago.”

“
That guy, he is an imposter,” the
man said with a heavy Italian accent. He stood above her looking
down warmly. Yolanda then noticed that this man was old, with a
beard, and transparent.

“
You Yolanda Carver?” he asked
peering at her.

“
Yeah. Who the hell are you?” She
wanted to jump out of bed, but was weak. Her chest felt so heavy.
“I don’t want my breakfast tray yet.”

“
You will have to forgive me,
Bella. I am new at dis. It’s a time.”

“
Time for what? And I asked you
who you were.”

The old man put his white hand to her head.
“Ahh-forgive me, as I said, I am new at this. I was Gabriele
Annunzio. You can call me Gabby. Yolanda, you know what time it
is.”

Yolanda picked her head up and looked around
the room. “What about a bright light and a tunnel? What about
those?”

“
I don’t know my sister. Didn’t I
just tell you two times dat I was new at dis? Jeesh. All I know is
I didn’t get dat either.”

“
I’m not ready.”

Gabby smiled knowingly.

“
But do you know?” she asked. “Was
I a good person?”

“
He told me to tell you, you did
okay.” Gabby flashed her the okay sign. “He knew, of course, you’d
ask. Taka my hand, Yolanda.”

“
Wait, Gabby. Tell me.” She
grabbed his arm. “Am I going to like it where I’m going? I don’t
want to go to Hell, but I dread Heaven a little, too. I don’t think
I could live in pure happiness for eternity. I get bored. Plus, my
mother is in Heaven now and we didn’t get along.”

“
Well, I tell
you. My wife, she took her hand off the steering wheel of our car
so that she could slap me for my changing the radio station and we
hit a Lincoln Town car. Dat’s what killed me. But where we are
going, I was able to forgive her for dat. Take-a my hand, sister.”
With a song from
Summer Magic
in her head, long forgotten until last night, she
got up out of bed and took his hand.

Chapter 50

Mr. Seuss shuffled along the corridor in his
slippers, his only pair of jeans, and his suit jacket. He wore his
slippers because they had taken the shoelaces out of his shoes and
his jeans because they stayed up without a belt. He still hadn’t
shaved because he did not to want to ask for a razor. It was early
morning, but he had already gotten his meds and a milk out of the
snack refrigerator.

His escort, the nurse with SATAN tattooed on
her neck escorted him down the hall, talking about her plans to
build and live in a tree house. Finally, she opened the door for
him and Mr. Seuss stepped into the boardroom with the rest of the
directors.

“
Here he is boss dude,” the nurse
said to Mr. Petty.

“
Come in, Gregg. Don’t be nervous
about joining us. We have all had a harrowing night. The rest of
you, don’t worry. Just because Mr. Seuss is insane doesn’t mean he
doesn’t have something to contribute to our meeting.”