Chapter Three
Mr. Wallace repeated the instructions he had already given us about 99 times. We were to get up again the next morning at five, and spend the day at the hospital and then go back to Mystic late in the afternoon. Mr. Wallace spent a lot of time telling us how to behave at the motel, Nellie and Sweets found the candy machine in the lobby and learned that they served free jelly doughnuts and coffee for breakfast. The rest of us just wanted a hot bath.
Eunice and I had a room together, and Lucas was alone next door. He was the only male besides Mr. Wallace, but he was alone in a room. I wondered why Mr. Wallace and he didn't room together, but I guess the teacher didn't want to spend time with a student. Too bad; Wallace probably could have learned something.
We walked to a local hamburger joint down the road and filled bags full of their special baconburgers with double cheese and heavy on the fries. They handed us big waxed paper containers of the sugar water they called tea, and we were off. Someday we'd try the chicken fried steak, with buttermilk biscuits. And someday I would find a fresh salad somewhere and some zucchini cooked with tomatoes and Parmesan, and maybe an anchovy. Not here. Maybe in Chicago or Florida, but not here. Bless the deep South, and their arteries.
Eunice and I got back to the room to eat, sat around the little Formica table and swapped stories of our day. Eunice saw a lot and said little; she was a very experienced nurse. She had worked in every part of several hospitals as an aide and an LPN, and her favorite stories came from the Pediatric wards. She told me about a routine tonsillectomy she took care of once, that wasn’t so routine.
“Turns out this child was deaf, and no one told me. That was a wild day I can tell you. When you can’t communicate with a patient it’s the hardest thing there is. You have to find your own way, to reach the patient without the normal ways people get to know each other. We got through it, this deaf child and me, like we always do, but it took some doing I can tell you.” She shook her head and I got butterflies in my stomach thinking about it. I had to learn how to do some doing, that I knew.
“How do you feel, coming back to school after working so long?” I was curious about what motivated my older classmates to do what they did. Like a lot of folks my age I thought school was only for young single people. I had a lot to learn in those days.
“I put my husband through an electrician apprenticeship,” she said, “and he told me, ‘now it’s your turn.’ I work on weekends at the hospital in Broxton sometimes, when we don’t have a big test, but it’s not the same. I’ll be glad to graduate and get back to full time work.”
Eunice wore the same student uniform that the rest of did, in the hospital, but her shoes weren’t new. They were well worn and broken in. She polished them up and kidded about how many miles they had on them. I loved to hear her talk about the hospital, about some of those miles.
“Old people, little kids, middle aged people, it’s the same when they’re sick. They’re scared, and helpless. Sometimes that makes people mean, or quiet, or confused. You just have to figure it out, and let them be. Keep an eye out and watch, and the opportunity comes, sometime, to let them know you’re there and that you understand.” She looked over at me, with a smile. “You can’t be too hard on yourself, neither. It’ll come, you let yourself be, too. It’ll come.”
We studied for a while for a quiz coming up, and worked on our medication cards and then I settled down with the journal in my lap to write about my experience on this first day of clinicals. As I wrote I could feel Eunice watching. She had some knitting for a grandchild and looked at me over her glasses. She must have been waiting for me to take a break, because when I got up to stretch and have a Coke, she put her knitting down and shook her head.
“You take to that journal like a hog to slops, girl. It takes me time to get going and then time to wonder what to write, and then time to see if I spelled it all OK. How do you do it?”
I thought for a minute, and considered that question. “How do you knit and talk at the same time? Or crochet and watch TV?”
She thought about that for a minute. “Just do it, just sit down and remember where you were, and do it.”
“That’s the journal, just write what you did that day. Pretend you’re writing a letter to a good friend you haven’t seen for a while. Don’t worry about the spelling, that’s Wallace’s problem. Or if you want it real neat, write it out in pencil on loose paper and then correct the spelling and redo it in the journal. That way you’re sure it’ll pass with Wallace. I never saw a teacher so consumed with spelling and not words. It has to be correct, he doesn’t care if it’s true.”
Eunice nodded. “Good idea. Will you help me?”
I laughed. “Eunice, you’ve saved my life a million times on the floor with patients, of course I’ll help! I’m glad to find something I can do to help you!”
She chuckled and put her knitting away. “You’ll do, missy. Just keep at it and don’t give up. You do know how to listen.”
We put the lights out and got to bed and set Eunice’s alarm because I had forgotten one. We talked in the darkness a bit, sleepily, and then Eunice murmured, “Don’t know why I’m so tired. Just flat worn out.”
We slept, and I dreamed of long empty hallways with old clothes blowing in the cold wind. There were no people inside, just the flapping arms of coats and shirts and worn empty shoes.
Our second day began at the motel, with the free breakfast. They served coffee and doughnuts, some nice fruit and no grits. Students milled around, talking about the day before and their impressions of the hospital and the residents. We sat in the little motel lobby in comfortable chairs and ate our breakfast and enjoyed the change of pace from cafeteria breakfasts at school and the hospital. It broke the routine, and gave us a new way to look at our world, and what we were doing with patients, a completely different kind of patient. One lady, a red head from Douglas, said what many of us were thinking.
“It’s so different that I feel like I’m in another world, you know the feeling? On the floor, different units are about the same, Peds and Med Surg, they all have to have medication and linen, and shift report. Here there’s confusion, no direction. Probably because we don’t know the routine yet. Will the confusion go away, do you think?”
I wondered. It was confusing, that’s for sure, not knowing our way around, seeing unfamiliar people all over. Not only the unfamiliarity of new faces, but the newness of watching people whose minds didn’t work quite like we thought ours do. It was going to take some getting used to.
We loaded up the van, being careful of the buckles on the luggage, and paid the bill and got to the hospital at around 8 o’clock. Breakfast was over, and the residents were scheduled to exercise. After that, they had some free time before the crafts hour, and then lunch. I stood by the door, helping some of the residents get into position for their exercise, and the Physical Therapy lady began.
It was a very serious thing, exercise. All the residents in my group watched very carefully and tried to follow her movements. She went slow, at first, and explained what she was doing. It was a sort of yoga, an Oriental slow moving expression that involved the whole body and many muscle groups. I did it for a few minutes and was amazed at how difficult it was. Mr. Lastinger stood beside me, his forehead wrinkled in a frown, and his lips pursed, trying to get it right. The others moved slowly, drawing their arms up and down, in a graceless but concentrated effort. The Therapy lady told them to be willows, waving in the wind, or cattails in the stream and they responded, quietly and seriously. The willows all wore layers of outdated and mismatched clothes, they had shoes that needed a shine and minds that wandered where we from Outside could not follow, but they stood in rows and became willows and cattails for her.
At the end of the exercise, Lucas and I sat on the floor with a thump and breathed hard. We looked around, as the residents stood in their willow places, smiling at us.
“That was wonderful!” I said, “what a great way to start a day.”
One of the old women came over to me and moved my leg with her foot, and looked concerned. I looked up at her, and she said, “You’re in my stream; you’re the wrong cattail.” I nodded and got out of her stream, and Lucas and I took a tour around the Dayroom.
There was a sense in the room that a curtain was about to go up; as if the house lights had dimmed, and something important about to happen. The techs stood against the wall, and the nurses stood at the window of the glass barrier. I didn’t see Guard Dog but the nurses seemed to be looking for her. There was a silence, a waiting kind of hush, and then we saw an old black man in a wheelchair come slowly from the back where the residents’ rooms were. He was dressed in a checkered flannel shirt, red suspenders and dark pants, and he had a vest on over the shirt. There was a dark taxi driver’s cap on his gray head, and slippers on his feet. He had a big smile on his weathered and wrinkled face, creased with age. He looked like a big old tree, bent and gnarled but still strong and rooted in the earth. He was pushing himself a bit, but behind the wheelchair a young man was straining and pushing, carefully guiding the old man toward the center of the dayroom. The young man was short and plump, his fair hair wispy on his head. His eyes were a little slanted, and his forehead low. Lucas leaned toward me and whispered, “Down’s Syndrome.” I nodded, and watched. The short little man must have been about twenty or twenty five, but his mannerisms were those of a child of nine or ten. He was deliberate and slow, and serious. I could feel that he knew how important his duty was, to push this fine looking old man in his wheelchair They reached a small bookcase against the wall, and the little man reached out and took a leather bound book from the top shelf. He put it in the old man’s lap, with a serious frown on his face.
There was a chuckle from the techs, and I looked at Lucas. He shook his head and frowned, not sure what the chuckle meant. And then I saw. The old man was blind; he looked at the world through blank opaque eyes, the white scars of cataracts where the brown iris should be. He took the book, and held it in his lap, with his face down. There was a peaceful sigh, and a silence in the room. The old man raised his head and still holding the book, he started to speak.
His voice was low, and it resonated in the room. He quoted the book and said, “Ask, and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives, and he that seeks will find. What man is there of you, if his son ask for bread will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?” He raised his face with the sightless eyes to the people in the room, and in a solemn voice he said, “That’s Matthew 7, it’s our lesson for the day.”
Again we heard the sigh of the quiet people in the room. I looked around, and saw two little old ladies nodding to themselves, another old man swayed back and forth to some silent music. Some talked to themselves, others just stood, waiting. The little man took the book carefully and put it back on the shelf, and with his tongue sticking out in concentration, pushed the wheelchair around and toward the back of the room.
I looked at Lucas and he looked at me, and we both watched the slow progress of the wheelchair out the door and down the hall.
“Who was that?” I whispered. “Who gave that lesson?”
Lucas frowned. “I think they call him Blind George, I heard someone say that in the nurse’s station. Don’t know why he’s here; no one said.”
Gradually the residents dispersed, wandering here and there, some with slow purpose to the crafts rooms, some with no purpose at all but to sit and listen to the words that the old man had left hanging in the air.
The crafts rooms were all along one long hallway, with doors that opened onto it like a verandah. Each room served a purpose, I had seen the shop where the plaster molds were made. In this room a sewing class was being held, where the residents were sewing table mats and pillows by hand. It was difficult for the teacher to pay attention to everyone, so I gave her a wave and sat with a group of old ladies.
“What are you making?” I sat cross legged in this circle, with the women concentrating on their work. One of them looked at me and said, “You were the willow in my stream.”
Thinking fast, I nodded and said, “Now I’m here to learn what you’re doing.”
She nodded, but moved a little away from me with a look under her lashes. No wandering willows in the wrong place for her. She stuck her tongue out and frowned, poking a long needle through the cloth and making a stitch.
“I’m making an apron, for cooking.” She nodded, making another stitch. “Or maybe for dress.”
I nodded, and watched her friends work. One little lady was making a cap, and kept putting it on her head each time she made a stitch. She looked at it and kept saying “It won’t fit Lou, but maybe me.”
The teacher came over to us and watched, smiling.
“Do they use what they make?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Doesn’t usually get finished, and they can’t really remember where they stopped last time.” She sighed, and helped one woman thread the long blunt needle. “But it passes their time, and gives them something to do.” She gave one woman a little backrub, smoothing another’s hair, and went to the next circle, smiling. I left the sewing room and watched an old man rub stain on a piece of wood in the next little crafts room. He didn’t want to make anything, he said, just put the stain and polish it. He did it lovingly, patiently. Over and over, applying the stain with a rag and then rubbing it in, slowly over and over.
It was time for lunch, and I realized that I was tired again. I never got tired, why now? I used to work eight hours in the hospital clinicals and then study until late and get up and do it all over again without getting tired. What was making me tired? Fresh air, maybe, with all this walking in the long cool hallways? More heavy food than I was used to? No hustle and bustle like a regular hospital floor to keep you on your toes? I puzzled about that during lunch, and then thought about it again during the meeting in the conference room.
“Are you listening, Miss De Sando?”
Lucas coughed, and I felt Eunice poke me gently with her pencil.
“Yessir, I was just thinking.” Was not listening, not at all. Had no idea what Wallace was saying.
“Won’t do to think in conference, you know.”
No one laughed. I wrote this down in my notes, figuring that anything that ridiculous could be important. Wallace continued; he was talking about our journals.
“Always put only the resident’s initials, never a full name. Some people still think that mental illness is an abomination, something shameful. Something to be feared, and if anyone found a journal and the resident was identified, it could be very bad for the school.”
To say nothing for the resident. I sighed and wrote that down, he had only told us about 999 times. Lucas was frowning and looking at Mr. Wallace with a funny light in his eyes.
“Is it, sir? A shame, I mean? It seems sad, and a waste of minds, but is it something to be afraid of?”
Wallace coughed, and looked away from Lucas. “Some people still feel that way, yes. The general population doesn’t want to be reminded of such people, such things.”
Elaine, the little redhead from Douglas spoke up. “Maybe people are afraid because they could be like that, too, in other circumstances. An illness, an accident, things like that could happen to any one of us, or our family.”
“Doesn’t do to read too much into this, young lady.” Wallace spoke quickly, almost through his teeth. “You’re going to be nurses, not psychiatrists. Just see them for what they are...” Wallace continued, and Lucas doodled. Redheaded Elaine frowned and looked down. In my tired state, I felt like someone had told a story that I didn’t understand. Something was missing. Wallace got very busy with his notes and told us that we were to meet by the van, for the ride home to Mystic. He looked around with those tight lines around his mouth, and asked if there were any questions. As usual, when he asked like that, no one had any questions, at least not out loud.
Lucas and Eunice and I stood up, and I shook my head to clear the cobwebs.
“What’s with this tiredness, you guys? Do you feel it, too? I need a soda.”
On the way to the crafts rooms down the drafty straight hallway was a little canteen with five tables and some metal chairs and some vending machines. I looked in, and saw that the room was nearly empty. The only occupants were two men with an old-young look about them. I watched them for a minute; I stood at the door with that funny feeling that I was waiting for a train.
They sat there at the metal table, two thin stringy men, blank eyes, worn hands, lots of sun wrinkles in their faces. I later found out that they were only about thirty five years old. The way that they had lived had revved up their years and accelerated aging. They went from being young to being old and skipped maturity. I had seen the type in Mystic every day; they were just guys; did a little farming, worked some tobacco on someone else's land in the summer, got a little drunk, got a little crazy. They fished a little, and played a little poker at Joe's Liquor store out on the Macon highway. One of them wore a baseball cap with a John Deere logo on it, the other wore a rolled up bandana around his forehead. They both wore jeans and denim work shirts, which seemed to be the uniform of the day. I remembered them from the group session; they had walked out.
I introduced myself and they stood up, polite as everyone was in the South, and told me their names. The one with the baseball cap was named Cracker and the other one Duveen. We all sat down in an awkward sort of silence, them glancing at me, measuring the degree of danger this skinny Yankee girl was. I got my soda and sat down, and smiled at them. They didn’t smile back.
“I’m one of the student nurses here from Mystic. We’ll be here every other week all spring.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but they still didn’t smile.
"You gotta light, friend?" Cracker turned to his buddy and they made a solemn ritual of lighting up. Everyone seemed poor here, somehow, in the gray light of Georgia winter. Everyone seemed to have very little in the way of material possessions, clothes or books, but they always had cigarettes. Always. Holding their crumpled packs of Luckies and Camels, they would pry out the last weed as reverently as a priest extracting the last wafer from the Chalice.
"Sure, man; here you go."
The lighter emerged, worn shiny at the top from repeated shaky thumb strikes, caressed by needy men. The cigarette lit, Cracker leaned back, inhaling deeply, savoring the new smoke. I wondered why the smell of a just lit cigarette is so seductive while the last stub is a burning gasp soiling the air. He blew the smoke out, closed his eyes, and then, at last, ritual satisfied, we could begin. Duveen winked at me, turned the bandanna so the ends hung down the side of his head like a mortarboard's tassel, and said,
"You’re a student to learn about these crazy folk?” he replied. “Not everyone in here is crazy, you know. There are some," and he put his index finger on his temple and twirled it round and round," that are really out to lunch and whacked out, but we're here," he hit Cracker on the knee to get his attention "because we were into some heavy duty addiction, and need to get off it." Innocent blue eyes ringed with pale blond lashes looked up at me expecting what? Agreement? Cracker rubbed the pale blond stubble on his chin and watched me.
"What kind of heavy duty addiction?" I was learning the language of evasion, trying to figure out the landscape. We were taught to repeat the statement of the patient and turn it back to him, being nonjudgemental. It was tricky going, not knowing where the mines were.
"Booze, mostly. They gave us something called Antabuse and we can't drink." Duveen looked down at the scarred unvarnished table top, and moved his Coke can around with a shaky hand, making wet circles on the table. "We're cured." This last in a tone that was flat and unemotional.
"How do you feel about that?" Good little Junior Nurseperson, intervening.
Duveen looked at me, and I saw his fingers tighten on the Coke can.
"They're helping me, ma'am. They're making sure that I never get drunk again." His knuckles were white against the red of the Coke can. "I gotta get outa here, and Antabuse will help." He turned to Cracker, listless against the overwhelming power of Antabuse, and said,
"Man, we're gonna get out. Right? Hey, wake up."
Cracker looked at him, pale gray eyes, pale hair, reddened sunburn over pale skin. He took a deep breath. "Yeah, if you say so. Seems a lot of work, just for us two. A whole lot of work and a world of hurt."
"Why do you feel that way?" Again, reflect the patient's words.
Duveen turned to me with a polite sort of anger in his eyes.
"Don't you ever talk, just give us back the same questions that we ask? When do you quit being a student and start being a person? Or do you have to go through being a nurse first?"
I considered that for a minute. "Oh, I'm a person, just trying to learn something. Learning to help. Sometimes questions seem a better way to learn than answers." I looked around at the canteen, the plastic laminated blue counter with ketchup and mustard in its little metal hedge, with the salt and pepper; the bags of chips hanging on their hooks, the little boxes of breakfast cereal waiting for the waxed paper containers of milk in the refrigerator. There was a microwave oven with its big sign saying that anyone with a pacemaker beware, and a cardboard container of about twelve different kinds of gum and crackers. There were the cartons of Luckies, Camels and Kools along with Red Man chewing tobacco and Copenhagen dipping snuff for the old ladies. Where were the answers here? I needed to learn the questions, first.
Duveen nodded. "Good girl, ma'am, asking questions is fine for students. Does your teacher have the answers? Do you learn the questions before you come into this place, or after?"
He moved his bandanna around again, the tassel falling on the left. The mortarboard had moved, the graduate ungraduated.
I considered this for a minute. None of the students were around and Lester Wallace was nowhere to be seen and had not been in the area since conference. Duveen seemed to know that. He also seemed to know Mr. Wallace.
"Do you know my instructor?"
Duveen nodded, and Cracker smiled. They both took a drag on their cigarettes and blew silently, Duveen trying to make smoke rings, Cracker just blowing. They looked up at the ceiling dented with cracked plaster and lacy lines that created visions for them, silently smoking.
"Yes, ma’am," again the earnest blue eyes, the nod. "Yes we know him. Not well....we’re from near his home."
A look between them. Duveen started his knee bouncing again, and twisted the empty pack of cigarettes in his hands. I got up and bought a package of a handful of potato chips for fifty cents just to have something to do with my hands. Either I needed to bring knitting or start smoking.
We sat there in a sort of companionable silence; they didn't say much. Perhaps they were afraid I would start repeating their sentences again, and Antabuse doesn't bring patience, just nausea. Duveen finally blew a ragged ring and Cracker applauded quietly. He looked past me and without any change of expression he said,
"Oh, shit, sorry ma'am, there he is."
I turned around and saw only Mr. Wallace, walking rapidly in our direction.
"Oh shit who?" I asked.
"Oh shit, him." Again, quiet, no expression except stiffness, shiftiness of eyes.
"That's just Mr. Wallace, he'll be looking for me, it's time to leave." I began to stand up, when I saw the expression in my instructor's eyes and for some funny reason, thought of the dayroom.
"Miz Jennie, it's time to go, and I want you as a witness. A witness to deliberate and felonious destruction of property, to savage vandalism...."
He stopped and looked at Cracker and Duveen, who were looking at the ceiling.
"Are you finding that therapeutic silence works with these people?"
The way he said these people made it sound nasty, like something you wouldn't touch without gloves.
"Yes, sir, they're very interesting. I enjoyed, I mean I felt I have learned something....." tripping over my tongue and my language, I stood up and tried to smile without looking stupid. "I'll be back, you see, and we can continue our talk."
I turned around and walked away, with Mr. Wallace behind me, wringing his hands.
"I don't know why they keep those people on Antabuse here, they're nothing but trouble, it was probably them that did it..."
"Did what, Mr. Wallace?"
"Did what! Did what...defaced my wife's van, that's what!" By this time we were near an exit in one of the long Army Engineer hallways, and we stepped outside into the parking lot. There was Mrs.Wallace's van, parked on a yellow line so that it took up two parking spaces. Along the side of the van was a long scratch, made by a sharp instrument. Probably the key of the man who had to park a block away because Mr. Wallace was nutty on the subject of parking places and his wife's van.
Mr. Wallace's face was red and a little sweaty; he looked righteous. He was breathing hard, looking at the damage.
"Maybe if you just used one parking space..." It was a timid response that I made, but it brought a fierce reaction. Mr. Wallace looked at me as if I had turned into the devil Herself.
"In this place, with all these people running around?" He gestured to the empty parking lot. "They'll deface property just for the pure joy of it. You were talking to two of them, degenerate reprobates!" He was roaring now, in full voice.
"It's time to go, sir, I'll go get the rest of the students." I fled into the quiet of the hospital hallway, and leaned against the wall. And down the hall, leaning against the wall, watching me, was Leo. I went toward him, and he walked toward me, and we met in the middle of the cold hallway.
"Missy, did someone scrape his vehicle?"
"Yes, they did. He's mighty upset."
Leo nodded. He looked out the window, an empty windy frame where glass had been, once.
"He thinks about things, vehicles, tires, not us. Not ever us. Too bad." Leo said it absently, almost as if he were talking to himself.
"What can we do. Leo? Can we help him?" Student Rescue Squad.
Leo looked at me, quiet contemplation in his green eyes. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
"No way. No way at all. Learning comes hard to Mr. Lester Wallace." Leo stood in the empty window for a minute, looking out at the empty parking lot, now spattered with cold rain. Clouds built up, more rain coming.
"Go home, missy. Maybe you can find me next time, I'll be here."
He was gone, striding on long legs down the wooden hallway, soundless. I heard the horn of the van, tooting impatiently, little sharp sounds like a puppy, calling me to go home and leave it be. I walked slowly out, ignoring the fine rain, and got wet, and climbed into the van and listened to my fellow students.
"Why do we have to be there in plain old street clothes, no uniform? What if They think that we belong there, that we're one of Those People?"
“I like it, it’s interesting. Confusing, but interesting,” Elaine said stoutly.
"I saw an old man, taking his clothes off, disgraceful, that's what it is."
"I'm going to be a nurse for really sick people, not Those People, why do we have to come here, why do we have to take Psych stuff?" This was the same student who wanted to know why we had to learn about cells and microbiology. She was going to take care of people, not cells. Nellie and Sweets unwrapped Snickers bars and carefully put the chocolaty paper back in their pockets, along with the chips and Nutty Crunch wrappers.
I listened to them, and let their conversation wash over me, as usual. I opened my journal, a big fat red spiral notebook with lots of beautiful empty pages, and started to write about today. I wrote and wrote, and Mr. Wallace drove Mrs. Wallace's van with the scratch on the door through wet wintry South Georgia back home. The pines were black, and then the sky was dark, and I kept writing.
"Girl, you're writing in the damn dark, did you know that?"
I looked up, and sure enough it was dark, too dark to see. But not too dark to write. It was never too dark to write.