The Tao of Apathy (8 page)

Bigger sat up. “Prove it to who? The only
person that would see the connection is you.”

“
I’m the only person that needs to
know it.” Joe laughed and finished his drink. “I think I’m caught
up to you.”

Chapter 11

It was 0600 and the critical care unit (as
most people still called the SOL) was quiet and dark. The machines
that monitored the four patients made their necessary sounds. The
steady rumble of air tumbling down the ventilation ducts was there
too. The ceiling lights were off and the staff used florescent desk
lamps to read the paper and drink coffee by.

Without making a noise, as if to sneak out
unnoticed, Mr. Annunzio passed away fourteen hours after his wife
allowed the life support to be disconnected from him. She had come
to terms with being without him and decided that it was better to
be haunted by him than have her Gabby suffer.

The night before, their children had come to
say their good-byes and then sit in the waiting room, talking about
their dad. Mrs. Annunzio had been with him through the night,
stuffing her used Kleenexes in her sleeve and holding his hand. He
did not move and when his heart stopped, she stroked his
cheek.

“
See, lady, we were right.” The
nurse came out of the room after getting the body ready for the
morgue. “There are no ghosts.”

“
Oh, Gabby, my Gabby.”

The nurse marked his chart. “Hey, you have to
go now.”

Mrs. Annunzio almost smiled at the young man’s
rudeness because she could tell it was not of anger, but from
growing up talking to a video game and not to other kids. She
nodded her head. With tears in her eyes, she left the room. She
felt at peace with faith that Gabby had gone to a better place and
had forgiven her. With a final whispered good-bye, she turned into
the hallway to go to the chapel.

“
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” She
hit her knees and crossed herself in the hallway. “Gabby. Gabby,
forgive me,” she pleaded to a white ghoul coming toward her. It had
human features, but its face was a pale white and its hair coated
its head like a snowdrift. Its dress, although looking of this
earth, was all white, too.

“
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” the spirit
moaned as it grabbed its head. It grimaced and moaned again.
“Uhhhhhh.”

“
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Mrs. Annunzio’s screams
brought the staff from the CCU and three other units. Mrs. Annunzio
pointed to them. “It was them, Gabriele. They made me do
it.”

“
I ain’t Gabriele,” the apparition
moaned. “I’m Bigger.”

“
Forgive me bigger than Gabriele.
Please don’t torture me. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Two security guards grabbed the ghoul as he
spoke. “I’m going to lose my job as it is lady. I am not going to
torture anyone. And please stop yelling, I have a hangover the size
of Rhode Island.”

They got Mrs. Annunzio sedated and the staff
figured out Bigger was the weird boy from the kitchen that usually
work green pants and purple shoes, but now was in a fresh, white
uniform. A nurse reeking of bacon and cigarettes looked at his pale
face and freshly bleached hair. “You ghoul,” she said.

Chapter 12

Petty began his first directors’ meeting with
roll call. And even though, he had never met any of the directors
since their last meeting with Mr. Grumby, he did not call out their
names, but looked at each one and said their name and their
department. He got everyone right, which was intimidating which is
why he did that which is why he was hired to replace Grumby. “Let
me begin this meeting,” he began, “the way I plan to begin every
director’s meeting. And that is to remind you that we must be in a
continual process of reducing costs. Any waste, any expense must be
sought out and eliminated.

“
With that said, let me tell you
that the remodeling of the cafeteria is underway. Mr. Seuss, please
update us on that.”

“
Well,” Seuss said. “Really all I
have is that the remodeling of the cafeteria is
underway.”

“
Excellent.”

“
Aren’t we going to start the
meeting with a prayer?”

“
Who asked that?” Petty asked with
a smirk. Father Chuck stepped forward from the corner behind Petty.
“Oh yes. There you are Father.” He looked at the short statured man
wearing his signature black shirt, white collar and electric blue
button sweater. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned his hands
as the lay on the table. “Father, I see your role here at Saint
Jude’s as drastically reduced. I really do. You do good work and
all that.” He smiled and made direct eye contact with
Father.

“
But I feel we are working against
each other here. You are trying to convince our clients that faith
and prayer will save them and I am trying to convince them that
expensive tests and surgery are needed. Do you see? And frankly, if
we have patients believing that their prayers got them through
their illness, then they are going to wonder why we are charging
them tens of thousands of dollars. Bottom line is we want them to
think that they are getting good value for their stay here with
us.”

Father looked at him and at the directors and
got a wall. “Believe me. I have a lot of respect for the people of
Saint Jude’s,” he said. “They perform near miracles and God loves
them for it. But often the sick need spiritual healing as
well.”

“
Father. Good Father. People have
been praying for an end to TB, polio, and small pox for a long time
and no matter how hard they prayed, they still died. They died in
droves until modern medicine was invented to care for them. Its
time for people to come to terms with this.”

Father opened his mouth, but couldn’t say
anything. He brought his Bible up to look for a fitting verse, but
did not open it.

”
You’ll stay on, of course. Not
having a Father at Saint Jude’s would be like that San Diego team
not having that big chicken.”

Chapter 13

Father Chuck stood for a few moments looking
at Mr. Petty. Then he blinked a few times and woodenly turned and
walked out the door. He stopped only at his office to take a couple
swigs of his whiskey before walking out to the Butt Hutt and
lighting up. For the moment he was alone with his Winstons, unable
to fully comprehend what had happened. He sat out in the Butt Hutt,
figuring it out. Then once he figured it out, he sat out in the
Butt Hutt angry, bitter, and drunk.

“
The altar boy replies, ‘a candy
bar and a pat on the head.” Mr. Petty said. “Okay. Construction, as
you guys well know, is underway on converting fifty-three patient
rooms to office space that we can rent out. This will put our
number of beds to one hundred fifty.”

One seventy-five. One seventy-five. The number
one seventy-five floated around Mr. Seuss’s head. His department
was one of the few that had to account for every patient, so for
Seuss, the higher the current census the more important he was.
This week, his importance was hovering at one hundred and seventy
five on a scale of 203 beds. “Wait a minute,” Seuss found his mouth
saying. “Our census of those still alive is one hundred and
seventy-five. How can that be? Is the only one wondering, me? How
can we remodel rooms, put up molding and trim, when sick people are
still using them?”

“
Our construction crews only work
in the rooms when the patients are sleeping or comatose, so as not
to interfere with medical treatment,” Liberace pitched. “And
really, most of the rooms being eliminated that are still needed
are in the Geriatrics wing. We can wheel those people out wherever.
They just sit there and moan all day anyway.”

The Director of Geriatrics jumped up. “It is
my expert opinion that you are right, I guess.”

Mr. Petty motioned for the Geriatric Director
to sit down. “This conversation is wasted time. It is already
happening. Regardless of how many patients are in those rooms; our
budget analysis does not show a need for them. It does show that we
need the rent for those rooms.

“
Okay. Next item of business is my
plan on creating three new departments. I will scout for new
directors at my next family reunion. But what we need to do today
is decide where we can put these new departments.” Petty stood up
and put a diagram of the hospital with the floor plans to each
floor on an easel. “This is what I want to do. I want to put my new
Wing of Holistic Organizations on the first floor.” He pointed to
the first floor with the WHO department carved out of patient
rooms. “I want to put my Wing of Healthy Attitudes Today on the
floor above that and my Wing of Healing Youths on the floor above
that.” His diagram showed WHAT on the second floor and WHY on the
third. “Does everyone understand?”

“
What?” They all said in
unison.

“
WHAT is on second.”

“
Who’s on second?” Dr. Daneeka
asked.

“
No. WHO is on the
first.”

“
I’ll take this,” Montgomery Hall
said. “Who’s on the first?”

“
That’s right. It’s
simple.”

The directors began to random take turns
talking. “Then Who is it on first?”

“
Right. Along with the other
departments already there. WHAT will be on second and WHY will be
on third.”

“
What will be on the second and
third floors? And what will be on the first floor for the
matter?”

“
No. WHAT is only on the second
floor. Please just discuss WHAT will be on second.”

“
Why?”

“
WHY will be on the third
floor.”

“
Why?”

“
Yes. It will be on the third
floor. I know-the third floor. You are thinking why WHY on the
third floor, but it makes sense.”

“
What makes sense?”

“
I value your input, Mr. Freedman.
But it doesn’t make sense to put WHAT on the third
floor.”

“
What will be on the third
floor?”

“
Don’t take that tone with me, Mr.
Skinner. We can discuss putting WHAT on the third floor, but don’t
tell me who is going on the third floor.”

“
WHO is on the first floor,” Mr.
Hall ventured.

“
Who is on the first
floor?”

“
Mr. Hall just said that, Mr.
Swine. Please pay attention.”

“
What are we talking
about?”

“
Don’t try to fake that you were
paying attention. We were talking about WHAT and WHO and
WHY.”

“
Screw you, Petty.”

“
How did you hear about my pet
project? It’s not even included in these remodeling plans. My Skin
Cancer Resource and Effective Waiting with Unity will be on a
separate site.”

“
Why?”

“
No. SCREWWU will be on a separate
site.”

“
Screw you, Petty.”

“
That’s right.”

Chapter 14

Bigger sat in Seuss’s office with Seuss and
someone he didn’t know that was his immediate supervisor. She was
the new team guider for the kitchen, replacing Ester’s supervisor
position. Ester was demoted, but because she had topped out on of
her pay scale fifteen years ago, she got to keep her close to eight
dollar an hour pay. She also continued on with all of her duties.
So the Team Guider’s workload was rather light, but some would say
still important. Although she had never worked in a kitchen, she
had a B.S. in Nutrition, fiery red hair and a slim
figure.

“
I don’t know why I thought you
would like me dyeing my hair white, but I did,” Bigger explained
with tears in his eyes and a pounding in his skull. “It seemed like
a good idea last night. I am trying to do right, Mr. Seuss.
Ma’am.”

Seuss did not believe Bigger’s story or his
tears and he did not manage his department on emotions, but on
carefully spelled out rules. One of the rules he had created for
himself was to never fire someone who was crying. The second rule
he had was never fire someone when the new baker hadn’t shown up in
the last three days. “Okay, just go back to work then.” Seuss would
also have asked his new team guider if she had anything to add, but
he couldn’t remember her name either.

Bigger went out the Butt Hutt to talk to Joe.
A cold, fierce wind hit him as he walked across the small lawn to
the yellowed door. It was about to storm and darker out than when
he had gotten into work. Joe was in his usual corner of the cold,
dark and stained room. But it surprised Bigger to see an extremely
fat man with as many chins as he had wrinkles on his forehead at a
table, and Father Chuck sitting in the back corner looking like he
was going to kill someone. Things have definitely changed around
here, Bigger thought. Father usually doesn’t come in here until his
mid-morning toot of whiskey.