bounce back and forth and I waited until she was done before I spoke again.
“I was wondering. Is there any way that I could move one floor up?”
“What?” the nurse asked. Why would you want to do that? That’s the cancer ward.”
“I know,” I said. She stared at me, a look of confusion on her face, then walked out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next morning when I woke, the sun sliced through the partially open blinds and fell across the cast on my leg and gave it a striped look like that of a zebra. I wiggled my toes a little and when I did, the dull throb in my leg led me from the clutches of sleep like a demented tour guide with a cruel agenda. My mouth tasted like at some point in the night I’d sworn off hospital food and eaten my pillow instead. And I had to pee.
I thought about pressing the call button and having the nurse help me up and into the bathroom, then decided against it. I wanted to do it myself. By the time I got my crutches under myself, got up, took care of business and made it back to the bed twenty minutes had passed, but I had done it. I brought a damp wash cloth back from the bathroom and sat down and wiped the sweat from my forehead. A few minutes later, while I was watching the morning news a nurse’s assistant who I had not yet seen came into the room pushing a small cart ahead of her ample body. I estimated her weight at somewhere around three hundred pounds. Maybe more. Her bright pink lipstick and bright pink fingernails were a perfect match to the pink uniform stretched tight across her body. When she walked the fabric looked like it was being strained to the breaking point and I thought if one of the buttons on the front of her blouse let go I might need a bullet proof vest for protection. Her dark kinky hair was pulled back in tight cornrows that pulled the skin on her forehead so taught it made her look like the top half of her head was younger than the bottom.
The wheels on the cart made a wobbling noise that reminded me of the sound my air conditioner made last summer just before the compressor failed. It was not until she was almost next to the bed that I realized the noise wasn’t coming from the cart, but from the nurse’s breathing. She was wheezing from the effort, whether from pushing the cart or moving her own weight around. Maybe both.
I knew what was coming and even though I was starting to notice my own stink, I did what any sane person in my situation would do. I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, hoping she would go away.
“Good morning. My name is Miss Sally. What’s yours?”
I did not answer and instead I pulled the blanket up over myself and turned away. Miss Sally was not impressed.
“Oh, child, you’re gonna have to do better than that,” she said. “Come on, now, I’m here to hep ya. We’re gonna get you cleaned up. Won’t take but a minute or two. Lord, I swear I could smell you before I could see you. That’s not an insult, you understand, I just tells it like I smells it. What’d you say your name was, again.”
I opened my eyes a little bit, squinted at her. “I didn’t.”
“I see. Well, you know, I can see right here on your chart your name is Virgil. I was just trying to be polite.” She pulled the sheets off of me and set them on the chair next to the bed. “Now, untie your nighty there and let’s get started. You don’t have to be proud or ashamed, either. I done seen ‘em all, the big ones and the puny ones. I expect yours will be somewhere betwixt em.”
“Look,” I said, “I think I can clean myself up, okay? The doctor said I’d probably be going home today anyway, so thanks just the same.”
The nurse laughed, one hand resting on the cart, the other on her chest. “Oh lord, if I only had a nickel. You know how many times I heard that one? It’s always this and that, or some such thing. Come on now, I got me a schedule just like everyone else around here and you’re my last one. Don’t want to make Miss Sally late for quitin’ time, now do you?”
“No, I don’t suppose I do,” I said. I began to untie my hospital gown, thinking if there were a God, he’d do something about this. Then, as if I had a direct line to the heavens, the door opened and another nurse stuck her head in.
“Miss Sally? Mr. Jenkins down in six-oh-two missed the bed pan again. We need your help to lift him up so we can get the sheets.”
“Be right there,” she said over her shoulder. Then to me, she said, “That poor Mr. Jenkins. Well, you’re off the hook this time, handsome. Moving Mr. Jenkins around can take some time, and I’ll be off by then. Hope you do get out today, but iffen you don’t, someone from the next shift will be in to clean you up.”
“Thanks,” I said. When she was almost to the door, I said, “Miss Sally?”
“Yes, child?”
“Everyone calls me Jonesy.”
She smiled without answering and wheezed her way out of the room, her breathing like that of a locomotive’s steam whistle disappearing down the tracks. There is a God after all, I thought.
But then, proving God had a sense of humor, she was back five minutes later. “You’re in luck, Sugar. Morning shift change is happening right now. They didn’t need me down there to help with Mr. Jenkins after all. Now, where were we?”
Sandy walked in just as the nurse was finishing my sponge bath. The nurse looked her up and down one time with approval and said, “Hi. My name’s Miss Sally. What’s yours?”
Sandy smiled at the nurse. “I’m Sandy. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure, child. My pleasure.” She leaned in close to Sandy and said, “That’s quite a fella you got there. Wouldn’t let him get away, I were you.”
They both turned and looked at me. “I don’t intend to,” Sandy said.
When the nurse left the room, Sandy walked over to my bed and gave me a kiss. “Did I miss anything good?”
I ignored her question, and said, “If you love me, you’ll find the doctor and get me the fuck out of here.”
Sandy went to check with the nurse’s station as to when the doctor might stop by to release me and when she came back into the room, she told me the nurse said the doctor was going to be delayed. “He got called into an emergency surgery.”
“Ah man,” I said. “Any idea how long?”
Sandy shook her head. “They didn’t know. Listen, I talked to your dad this morning. I’m going to go pick him up and we’re going to get your truck from the station and get it back to your house. I’ll be back to take you home after I drop him off. That okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Grab my case notes off my desk will you?”
“Virgil…”
“What? I’m just going to be sitting around. Might as well do the paperwork. By the way, how’d my truck get back to the station?”
“Rosie drove it over there and put it in the lot.”
“Oh, geez, you let Rosie drive my truck?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Have you ever seen his car?”
“You worry to much, Jonesy. Hey, you’re going home today. Treat me right and maybe I’ll dress up in a little nurses uniform for you, make you forget all about the paperwork. You know, show you what a real sponge bath is like.” She winked at me. “See you in an hour or so, boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. I liked that.
Later that same afternoon after Sandy returned, the doctor came with a list of instructions for my release and the nurse who was with him made an appointment with me for a follow-up visit the next week at his office. After another hour and a half of preparations and paperwork, I was informed I was free to go.
I took the mandatory ride in the wheel chair to the front entrance and waited with the orderly-an elderly gentleman who appeared to be in greater need of the wheelchair than I-while Sandy pulled her car around. When
