Characters and Characteristics of Hospital Life
What else do I have to do? It’s nothing but crap, drink, and ideas.
As different ward staff members enter the room where I’m hospitalized, I’ve started giving them distinct identities, like the lady who comes in each morning to dust the floor. I have secretly named her Zeppelin. I don’t know if she’s a good or bad person, she’s big and round, with a pointed head, or it’s a tall hair day, and comes in and out of my room like she’s on fire! Hence the name.
Yes, I agree, it’s in poor taste, but it gets the point over without me having to resort to calling her, you know, fat.
Zeppelin never got close enough so that I can read her name badge, but I can pretty much guarantee it ends with the phonetic sound ah. I mean, there’s a Kalisha, Makayla, Alexandra, and Jada. Now, all these people I’m introducing to you are black. I believe the majority of the people working in this hospital (owned by a group called Mercy, are likely to be black if this ward alone is anything to go by.
The thing I love about this, and I’m right, is that these people know how to be with you, care for you, listen, have fun, and do tricks to get what the patient wants. They are all just so damn caring. Beautiful.
It makes sense, right? How many black families put their parents into old peoples’ homes? Go on, tell me. They don’t. We do, we white folk. Hit seventy years of age, and we white folk start checking out senior living. Am I right?
The surgeon who performed the operation to repair the broken bones in my neck is black. I mean, not just a shade of black; oh no, this man is seriously black. Or maybe he just looks that way because his coat is so white? Anyway, I call him Brains. He’s not exactly a barrel of laughs, always asking about pain. “What number on a scale of one through ten is your pain today, Mr. Hogg.” Brains is obsessed with my pain ratio. I don’t know how smart he is, it maybe that's all he knows about, my neck fossils or he invented this neck collar to cause pain to white folk.
There’s an interesting thought. How many black inventors can you name? Go on, quickly, name one. See, got you. You cannot. Why is that? It’s not because there aren’t any. Of course, there are. Hmmm, I think there are.
Anyway, look, I meant to stay on the subject of Brains, a non-inventor but a wonderful doctor. One of the best, if not the best in Missouri. This prompts me to ask why he’s not in New York or LA, working on stunt actors. Well, he’s not.
The surgery went very well. That’s not my opinion; that’s Brains’. Then he asks again about pain. I say four. Does it keep me awake? Does what keep me awake? Pain. I could write a novel on this question.
Brains is from Maylasia; his father owned a rubber estate. Not that kind, geez, where do your minds go to? No, a proper rubber estate, you know, plantation. (Can I say that word?) Brains said he didn’t want to stay making rubber and thought he would become a math teacher. Then his mother taught him how to knit, and that got him interested in cross stitching, which in turn lead him to stitching up broken necks, kind of. It’s a long-convoluted story, but stitching is his pride. (What’s a harmless lie.) He’s fucking awful at stitching.
You’ve been introduced to Melody in a previous diary. Melody hums. I don’t mean tunefully. She hums, you know, smells a bit off. I’m pretty sure she smokes on her breaks, is white, and I’m pretty damned sure she kicks her shoes off as soon as she gets to the staffroom, throwing her legs sideways over the arm and cursing how much her feet hurt. I haven’t seen it, and I could be wrong, if Ro-Jane is telling me porkies, but I think we have an honest relationship. Melody is starched-stiff and droopy bosomed, and who, as regards the nursing part of the work is the top banana. She’s the one always asking the elderly volunteer who comes in every other day, who I call Sniff, and is the lead woman in the Fuchsia Patrol, to make sure the nurses’ station gets a fresh bunch of flowers.
The bottom banana is Rustle, she wears a really noisy apron and takes out any litter from the room and sprays the litter cans. Anyway, Rustle loves dogs, so we have a wee chat every other day. “Fuchsias,” I tell her, “Stink and I’m not sure if it’s the flowers or Melody?” She laughs loudly and removes the Fuchsias.
But no, the stink comes every day, humming down the corridor.
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