Little Falls, page 9
Although my intention was to visit several patients before I meet with Miriam, after the encounter with Mr. Tolten I don’t know how many more I can stand. I decide to alter my plan and simply visit Miriam next.
I take several steps towards room six before turning back towards Rose.
“Rose, please make sure Mr. Tolten gets an exit survey.”
“Okay,” she responds as if she is uncertain if I am joking.
I nod and proceed to room 6.
Before I can knock on the door, Rose pipes up.
“Mr. Teak, Ms. Kliffman is contact precautions. You’ll need a gown and gloves.”
I feel my stomach gurgle at the prospect of acquiring some disease resistant to the best modern medicine can offer. This should not be a surprise from the review of her records. Miriam is a human cesspool of diseases suffering from every conceivable acronym. Rose taps on a bright pink sign taped to the window that I overlooked announcing the need for contact precautions when entering the room. I wait as Rose retrieves a blue plastic gown enclosed in a clear bag from a cardboard box. Ripping the bag open, I slip my head through a hole in the gown and let it unfold towards my feet. I am unnerved by the fact that the gown only reaches my calves and wonder if the germs will find their way onto my pants or shoes. How high can they jump? Rose snuggly makes a bow along the back of the gown and hands me a pair of gloves, which I anxiously tug onto my hands.
“Do I need a mask or shoe covers?” I ask as I prepare to enter the hot zone.
“You’re good, Mr. Teak. She’s not on droplet precautions…not this visit at least.”
I nod and knock on the door. There is no answer. I knock again with a bit more gusto.
“Whaddayou want?” a voice shrieks from the room. “I’m watching a show, for fuck’s sake.”
Rose casts me a farewell, good luck expression as I open the door. I pass into the room and shut the door behind me.
The room is darker than Mr. Tolten’s. A small television suspended from the ceiling fills the room with flashes of blue light. I find Miriam lounging in her bed dressed in a blue and white hospital gown intently watching television. She looks like a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old stone gargoyle, her face a pale canvas with so many wrinkles that her lips look like she just emerged from a twenty-year submersion in the Dead Sea. Her eyes are disturbingly dark, an intense black like drops of tar. During the lulls of loud banter from some asinine talk show I can hear the hiss of oxygen being forced out of two clear nasal pongs jammed into each nostril. With each breath I can see muscles in her emaciated neck rhythmically contract like taut rubber bands. She casts an exasperated look my way raising the palm of her right hand in the air in a bid to halt my advance.
“Yes. Can I help you? I’m watching my show,” she spits out at me.
I’m initially taken aback by her behavior. I stammer.
“Are you one of those stut…stut…stutterers? Whaddayou want for Christ’s sake?” She waves angrily at the television suspended in front of her. “My show! I’m missing my goddam show you moron.”
“Hi, Ms. Kliffman. I’m Edward Teak, the CEO of the hospital.”
Miriam twists her mouth into the shape of the letter ‘O’ feigning being awe-struck by this news. “Well, congratulations. You’re the big shot running this Hell Hole? It’s a wonder anybody gets out of this place alive. You should put a cemetery in the fucking lobby.”
I try to remain in control. “I just wanted to stop by and see how your stay is going. We value your opinion.”
Miriam smacks her lips and sticks out her lower lip as if she is thinking. “Well for one, the food stinks. I’ve had everything you guys offer and it all stinks. Every single dish is worse than the one before it. Another thing, the nurses are a bunch of catty assholes. None of them can ever get an IV in me. They treat me like a pincushion. Look at my arms for Christ-sakes.” She holds them up like a toddler looking to be picked up. There are several impressive bruises tattooed across her emaciated arms. “They’re also obnoxious and loud. All night I hear them yapping away about crap. Crap. What they got at the supermarket, what games they play on their phones, stuff like that. And don’t get me started about the transporters.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “They’re all a bunch of fucking gangbanging, tattooed delinquents, the whole lot of them. And the respirator therapists are pedophiles, I suspect. You know what a pedophile is?”
Miriam looks at me as if I am a simpleton.
“It means they like children,” she swats her hand. “Oh, how can I forget about the doctors here? They’re all a bunch of towel head foreigners and witch doctors. Where do you find that crew? In a catalogue or something?” Miriam shakes her head. “Now you are getting me all worked up and all I want to do is watch my show.” Her breathing is labored.
“I’m sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience,” I robotically respond. “Quality care is our number one goal.”
Miriam scrunches her face. “Well you are doing a shit job. And another thing, you guys are discharging me today. You want to kick me out like a dog. For fuck’s sake I live alone. Something could happen to me. I’m sick. They’ll find me dead sitting in my kitchen. Just watch. I’ll be dead sitting in my kitchen chair! I’ll sue your asses. I got me a good lawyer.” Miriam forces a series of junky coughs. “Listen to my lungs for Christ-sakes. It sounds like I swallowed a kid’s goddam rattle.” She hocks up a huge glob of pink, frothy phlegm, spits it out into a tissue, and holds it aloft like a trophy. “Look at this shit coming out from my lungs. It’s terrible.”
I try to look but my knees begin to quiver and my stomach burbles.
“Look at this shit,” Miriam demands holding the tissue even higher. “My lung’s coming out of me.”
I continue to back up, resisting the urge to be sick right there in Miriam’s room.
“It’s been nice visiting you,” I blurt out and bolt for the door. I rip off the gown, toss the gloves in a medical-waste basket, and escape the room. As the door slams shut, I can hear Miriam wail. “Hey, where are you going, Boss man. Ahhh…fucking figures.”
Miriam is right about one thing: she is discharged to home later that day. Over the next two weeks, I am intent on learning more about the woman. I leave early from Cole’s lacrosse game and visit an outdoor recreation store a couple of towns from Ashbridge. The store is filled with all the trappings of a hip, virile life—an endless assortment of tents, kayaks, and mountain bikes with oversized posters of the wonders of the natural world. I purchase a dark wind-breaker, fleece-lined pants, black gloves, a black ski hat, and a pair of bird-watching binoculars. At night I park my car on a desolate street and hike into the woods neighboring Miriam’s house. A fallen tree trunk serves as a nice perch for my elbows as I peer through the tree line at the house in the distance.
Miriam’s house looks like a row house that lost the row. Narrow and rectangular, the structure is a solitary unit neighboring an unruly grassy field. The façade is worn, and the roof looks like it should have been repaired decades ago. The house is completely dark with only the kitchen lit. I can see Miriam move about the kitchen, jerking her oxygen tank behind her as she chain-smokes and watches television. This appears to be the extent of her daily routine. When she does depart the house, she laboriously lugs her oxygen tank into a beat-up car and drives a short distance to a bodega to stock up on food and cigarettes.
I continued to survey her house over the subsequent weeks all the while wondering what I really hoped to accomplish during these stakeouts. Last night, I trudged back to my car with the tip of my nose frozen and my cheeks raw. I arrive at the unfortunate realization that I am no closer to figuring out what to do with Miriam than when she was assigned number one on my hit list.
CHAPTER 14
“Mr. Teak, your momma is not having a good day.” Joyce announces as we walk down the hallway. Not a very auspicious beginning to the visit.
“How bad?” I query, casting a pained glance at Joyce.
“Probably best you see for yourself,” Joyce responds.
Joyce is a diminutive, twenty-something-year-old Filipina nurse-aid working at Sunnyvale Manor while she pursues a nursing degree. I slip her fifty-dollars a month to provide extra attention to my mother. She seems to spend all the money on getting her nails done, sporting elaborate designs that change weekly.
As we near my mother’s room, a shoe flies across the hallway from the opened door and strikes the opposite wall with a thud. I fucking hate this version of my mother. The happy, demented version may be depressing, but the angry, demented version is something else entirely. We stop at the edge of the doorway and tentatively peer into the room. A second shoe whizzes by my head and cracks a painting of a turkey that hangs across the hallway. I look at the glass on the floor and then down at Joyce apologetically.
Joyce shrugs. “I never liked that turkey, anyway,” she says without emotion.
Convinced that my mother has used up all her shoe projectiles, I step into the doorway and find her sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. Her hair is in disarray and she is dressed in a gray nightgown that reaches her ankles. She grimaces as if I am the last person on Earth she wants to see.
“What are you looking at mother-fucker?” she snarls. Her eyes are alight and she glares up at me as if she would like to detach my head from my body.
“Hi mom,” I offer.
“Don’t hi me, you asshole! What do you want me to do? Suck your cock you perverted piece of shit.” I look away from Joyce. Although I’ve heard all of this more times than I can remember, my mother’s vulgarity profoundly embarrasses me. Frankly, I’m mortified more for my mother than for myself. This was not how she was. This is not who she is, not the mother I remember. My mother was a kind and dignified woman who never uttered a foul word towards anyone. It’s as if there is a room in her scrambled brain that houses all the curse words and vile thoughts she has suppressed through her lifetime, and with the dwindling of her inhibitions, the door has been opened. World beware!
“Joyce, I got this,” I mutter into my armpit.
“Okay, Mr. Teak,” Joyce responds. “Yell if you need me.”
“Sure.” I turn to see Joyce kneel by the smashed frame and begin to pick up the larger shards of glass and deposit them in a nearby garbage can. I step into my mother’s room and silently close the door behind me. My mother tracks my movement like a mountain lion, her fingers clawing at the arm rests as if she might suddenly spring forward and slash my throat. I tentatively back up and sit on the end of her twin bed, taking pains to avoid eye contact. I feel claustrophobic in the small bedroom. Other than the bed, the room has little more than a small desk over which hangs a bulletin board with photos of our family pinned to it and a mirror fastened to the wall. I see Cole’s eighth birthday party, an action photos of the kids jumping into the community pool, a picture of my mother and father from their wedding, and a photo of a younger me standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The facility encouraged us to locate photos under the rationale that it might help calm my mother or even jog some residual memory from the recesses of her demented brain. My eyes return to the photo taken in Paris. I look tiny in reference to the Eiffel Tower looming high above me. It’s quite the contrast to a selfie that would be taken today. In the past, the monument was the focus of the photograph. Now everybody seems to want to be the main attraction with their big heads occupying ninety percent of the photo.
“Mom, how are you feeling today?” I delicately ask.
She seethes.
“Jeff, do you want me to suck you, you pervert? Is that why you’re here? I see…I see how you look at me…you…you…”
I conclude that this promises to be a particularly bad episode and that the best approach is to not to rile her up. I have found through the years with my mother that all things pass eventually.
I silently sit on the edge of the bed and actively ignore her. I remain this way for at least an hour, intermittently and furtively glancing at her. She continues to sit stiffly in her chair, her frame taut, eyes fixed on me like a feral animal. After some time, she lethargically looks away and gazes at the shadows spreading across her desk. I rejoice that the storm has finally broken. I wordlessly reach over and turn on the lamp on her nightstand. I can see the tension in my mother’s face release as the room is filled with the soft yellow glow.
“Jeff, help me to bed. I’m tired.”
“Sure thing, Mom.” I rise from the end of the bed, assist my mother to her feet, and direct her to the bed. I am careful to swing her feet onto the mattress, delicately position her head on the pillow, and bring the blanket up to her neck. I tug the lamp’s cord, sending the room into darkness except for the light of the waning day peeking through the half-closed blinds.
She looks up at me and smiles serenely. I bend down and plant a kiss on her forehead.
“Good night, Mom,” I utter and make for the door.
“Jeff. Let’s go bowling tomorrow,” she offers from the bed.
“Sure. Bowling it is,” I reply and shut the door behind me.
CHAPTER 15
I tell Sam that I need to take care of some work at the hospital and slip out just before her friends arrive for their monthly book club/wine-drinking gathering.
Not long after I find myself back in the forest, lying prone on the ground, each shift of my torso causing dry leaves to crinkle. My elbows rest on a log and I have my binoculars trained ahead of me. I pan across the darkened yard before focusing on the illuminated kitchen window.
This is peculiar.
Through the window I see Miriam slumped over on a kitchen chair, her chin awkwardly resting upon her right shoulder. Minutes go by as I try to detect the faintest motion, but Miriam does not appear to stir. I move the binoculars and see an untouched, smoldering cigarette perched over the lip of an ashtray and, further afield, the kitchen faucet, which appears to be running. Resting the binoculars on the trunk of the tree, I process the possibilities before picking it back up and surveying the field behind the house a second time. Still empty. Directing the binoculars towards the back of the house, my eyes linger on the back door, which I now notice is slightly ajar. I detect subtle movement in the blackness causing me to grip the two cylinders of the binoculars even tighter and adjust the focus rings. A black cat slinks out of the house, squeezing its lithe frame through the narrow opening in the doorway. I watch as the creature pauses as if to take in the crisp air and then proceeds to vigorously massage its back against the edge of the door. The cat loiters in the field before lazily plopping in the grass. In all the time I have been spying on Miriam, I’ve never seen that door open. Curiosity gets the best of me and before I know it, I slip the binoculars into my pocket and crouch. Bent over, I carefully make my way through the darkness across the field, zigzagging as if I am a member of a tactical assault team. The cat monitors my progress with initial indifference before scampering away. I make it to the rear of the house, plaster my back against the wall, and creep in the shadows until I am directly beneath the kitchen window. Awkwardly craning my neck, I peek through the glass into the kitchen. I can see that the faucet continues to run, filling a basin piled high with filthy dishes. I twist my neck further. A waterfall runs over the lip of the sink and onto the yellowed linoleum floor. Perched on the tips of my toes, I can see that Miriam has not moved a smidgen since I first spotted her. The plastic tubing attached to the oxygen tank by her feet is stretched taut.
Son of a bitch, I think to myself. The wacky bird was right when she said that they would find her dead in her kitchen chair. I cannot believe my luck. As I turn to leave, I am seized by a need for certainty. My thoughts drift to Jeffrey and the forty-eight-hour period of hell that followed the accident—how I wished that I had confirmed that he was gone. I glance over at the slightly open back door and stammer with indecision. Do I risk it? I study the neighboring field. Not a sound. No movement. Shuffling to the back door, I pull my gloves snuggly onto my hands and take several long looks behind me to ensure that I alone. I shuffle further and give the door a tentative shove only to meet resistance. With some difficulty, I am able to push it open just enough that I can squeeze my body inside. I discover a mountain of cardboard boxes preventing the door from fully opening. Slipping off my right glove for a moment, I trigger the flashlight application on my phone and direct it at the hallway, finding it filled from floor to ceiling with even more boxes. At the same time, as I pan the light across the hallway, I am greeted by at least fifty green eyes staring back at me, nearly causing me to turn and bolt before realizing that they belong to a troupe of cats perched along the ledges of the stacked boxes. Clutching the cellphone in my hand high above my head like a torch, I am able to better characterize my surroundings. I am in a hallway made into a mazelike cave complex by haphazardly arranged boxes, so severely narrowed in some pinch points that it can only accommodate a single person sliding sideways. She’s a hoarder. Even worse, she is one of those crazy cat loving hoarders. I push further down the hallway, twisting my body from side to side to navigate the obstacles. I am overcome by a terrible stench—a sour, ammonia-tinged odor that permeates the room, burning the back of my throat and stinging my eyes. I am forced to cup my gloved hand against my nose and mouth. The cats slink between boxes, coolly following me. I continue forward, peering into a room to the right. It appears to be a dining room cluttered with even more stuff. The light from my phone settles upon an antique table piled high with scrubs and bed linens inscribed with the logo of Little Falls Hospital. Bags of saline, emesis basins, rolls of medical tape, packets of gauze, alcohol wipes, and plastic urinals clutter the floor. I spy a portable commode in the corner and even discover a painting of a covered bridge that went missing from the third-floor family waiting area over three years ago. I conclude with disdain that Miriam’s been pilfering items from the hospital for years. Any pity I had for such a pathetic figure has been eclipsed by seething contempt. Shaking my head, I turn away from the dining room and continue forward.
