Across the Curtain From Joe
Monday, December 22nd, 2008Ah my three loyal readers: welcome to my humble abode.
I’m sorry for not writing as of late: I recently spent six days in the hospital.
I’m ok. I’m a little worse for the weather, but I’m alive. Thank you, hallelujah! I don’t need any comments saying “Get well!” and “Ah shucks, I hope you feel better gollydarndagummit!”
All is fine.
That being said: I will still leave you with some observations of mine made while stewing at the Chester County Hospital. If you want to read about your mortality and what’s in store for you when your hairs turn gray and your body says “no mas,” when all is dark clouds and bad news, then be my guest. Just don’t blame me for the misanthropy. One second sharing a room with “Joe’ was a sufficient infusion of that to last a lifetime.
Postscript: I am at 0 miles for 10,000 days. I am trying to think about a grand comeback–formulating all the dark-of-night runs, but I don’t see that happening. Not for a while. I aspire to return to some semblance of running after the holidays. Yes, you can say that I’ve gone over to the dark side–to the group of people who hope to run when the calendar year changes, but probably won’t, because there are a million reasons to stay inside, in bed, where everything is good smells, soft skin, and supreme laze.
———–
Joe’s mother is about 100 years old. She was wheeled into my room tonight to visit her son. Joe’s sister drove her here.
Joe’s pancreas is disintigrating.He hiccups constantly. “Heat cups,” he tells the nurse, “are fucking killing me.”
The nurse empties whatever he spits up into a basin that sits in the toilet. Sometimes, they forget to clean the basin and so I get the pleasure of discovery. Lately, I’ve opted to wheel my IV stand down to the only public restroom by the cardiac ward. It’s really clean in that one–spacious too.
Joe’s mother weighs in on things immediately.
“I’m smothered with this coat and I”m smothered with in this hot room. You need to get out of here Joe this place is not your home. Your home is Philadelphia.” I can hear her pounding on her armrest.
“Mom, the doctor is Italian,” Joe says. Joe is 60 years old, but he sounds like he’s a kid telling his mother it’s ok to play on the highway. Joe divides the world into foreigners and Italians–fuckin arabs and to-best trusted Italians from South Philly. South Philly is where the good guys hang out. Everyone else–all youse: stay da fuck back.
Joe greets his family. “Youse people are awful,” he says. Good times for Joe. That’s how he handles things with his kin.
“You need to be closer to your friends, Joe. I could be walking there with my little basket–my water and soda. You’re all closed in here. There’s no air here,” he mother says. She coughs a wet cough. I envision her spitting phlegm into a ceckered napkin.
Joe tells his mother to shut up.
Joe’s sister chimes in. “Joe you always do this; you let things go and then you make us come out to take care of you. Your dog can’t stay any longer with us and your car is illegally parked.”
“Shut up you,” Joe says. He then coughs and spits into a basin.
Joe’s sister turns to leave. “That’s it. I’m leaving. I need to pick up Mikey. Come on Anna.” She tugs at her daughter’s elbow as both leave the room.
Joe’s mom wheels herself using one foot over to the window. “Oh dear Jesus, dear sacred heart of Jesus, look at this rain. Dear God give us a break.”
“You are somethign else. You don’t realize nuthin’, you,” Joe says.
“And they give you nuts? When you are older they don’t give you no nuts.”
“Nuts get stuck in your system. Don’t matter if you are old or young. They just get stuck,” Joe says.
Joe starts to fumble with the television. He waivers on Fox News–his perennial favorite. A little animated .GIF American flag flaps in the corner of the screen: a symbol of fair and balanced objectivity.
“Turn it to channel 10,” his mother says. “Channel 10’s got the good news and the funny shows.” From my bed, from behind the curtain, I can only see her feet. She’s wearing snow-white tennis shoes that look like they came out of the box.
“Who’s the sick one here, mom?”
“I”m sick too Joe. Look at me I”m in a wheelchair. I’m old. I’m your mother.”
“I got heatcups for Chrissakes mom!” Joe coughs for effect.
“Oh this place is so hot. It’s hot and stuffy. Can you open up a window in here?”
“Can’t do that mom. Me and Duncan already tried it.”
“Who’s Duncan?”
“He’s the guy next to me,” Joe says. I can feel eyes from behind the curtain looking at me. Until the family visit, I was listening to MGMT at decible level 10.
“He knows what Duncan means, ma.”
“It’s hot in here.”
“Duncan is Scottish for brown warrior. He must be a Highlander fan or somethin.”
“Joey you need to come home. You can’t have this operation here. It’s too far from your family.”
“Ma. I’m gonna do whatever I want to do.”
“Turn it back to Channel 10. The news is on…yeah that one.”
Joe clicks the remote back to Channel 10. Someone got shot in the city. An action newscaster stands in front of yellow caution tape. He holds an umbrella with one hand and a microphone with the other. He turns his head and looks back at the crime scene. It’s the city’s 10,000 murder, we are told.
“Bah: another nigger shooting,” Joe says. [Theresa is Joe’s assistant nurse. She’s black. She literally changes Joe’s shitty pants; she dumps his heat cup deposits and changes his piss-stained sheets.]
“See. That’s why you should have your operation close to home,” Joe’s mom says.
The room grows quiet. Joe falls asleep. He starts to snore and fart and say things that make no sense…things like “Berp! and Whatcha mean garny?” I stand up and walk over to the bathroom. I see his mother. Her head is supported by her wrinkly arm that is propped up on the wheelchair’s armrest. She just sits there and blinks.
I open the bathroom door and see that Joe has painted the floor and ceiling with a 50-50 concoction of pancreas and barium–a real Jackson Pollock special.
I walk out of room 261 and stumble down the hall. I catch Theresa as she’s in the middle of trying to put a blanket over that open-mouthed lunatic in room 255 . [The guy who screams ‘LINNNNNNDA! LINDAAAAAAA!]
“Does Joe need something?” she asks.
I want to say, “Joe is a fucking racist.” I pause and search for the right words.
“Tell him I’m coming right away,” she says.
“It’s the bathroom,” I say.
“I’ll be right there,” she says.
“Take your time,” I say. “I’ll go use the other bathroom.”
When I come back to room 261, Joe and his mother are both asleep. My IV stand makes a clanging noise crossing the door’s threshold and it stirs Joe’s mother.
“You should come home, Joe,” she says.
I hope Joe listens to his mother.
—————
Earlier in time.
My hand is the size of a grapefruit; it’s red and swollen. A red line runs up my arm-giving the hospital ward a tour of the lymphatic system Go to 3:26 in this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpCr6Ojozz8
to see what I’m talking about.
“It’s on its way to your heart,” Doctor Potts said. He picked up the phone and dialed the ER. “Cellulitis: left hand.” He hung up the phone and crunkled his brow. “Don’t waste any time.Go right there,” he told me.
So here I’ve sat–for two days,so far. “You’re in for many more,” I was told.
I share a hospital room with a creature named “Joe.” Joe’s from South Philly. Joe don’t like no foreigners. He tells me that arabs are all terrorists. Joe is 300 pounds and missing pieces of his pancreas. He talks to himself.
Right now, an old crazy man with a gaping mouth and skin the color of chalk dust is calling out into the hallway: “Help me. I’m dying!” he moans. He does this all night. He’s the kind of guy who pushes the nurse’s button and unhooks the ivs intentionally so that the world can share in his misery. Doctor Kevorkian should wander the hall with his little machine; we’d all at least get some peace and quiet.
Joe rolls over, farts, and says, “Shut your trap dumbfuck,” to no one. Well, I suppose, to me.
Joe tells me what kind of poop he lays–whether it’s a long log or a brown turtle. I get to hear it all.
Joe just said, “Allright, I”m fine,” to no one in particular. Whenever I have to walk over to his side of the airline aisle (because thats what it is–a large airline flight–straight to hell.)
Joe pushes the nurse call button and just blurts out: “I need somethin’.”
I spent 5 seconds getting to know him. Here’s what I gleaned.
1. He can’t seem to answer any Daily Doubles.
2. He says he doesn’t like foreigners or arabs. He says this while a Chinese-American nurse with a big grin is filling him up with happy juice.
3. He told the nurse last night that he is into Korean movies and gets “the cassettes” in some guy’s house that this guy has converted into a Korean video rental store; I put my noise cancelling headset on my head at that moment, because the conversation was heading down a scary path–down somewhere where a gimp with ballgag has been shackled to the insides of a Harry Houdini box.
4. He pronounces “you guys”as “youse.” I don’t like how youse sounds. Its similar to Palin’s downhometowngollygeewasilla-speak..snowmobile n’ deer eatin’ banter. When I hear “youse” I expect someone like Joe to come around the corner and ask youse to help him pick up a box full of Chinese-made Pocono deer targets. I expect Walmart sprees and farts.
——————–
To be cont. Falling asleep now…on ambien and percocet.
very close to chanelling Hunter S. Thompson
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