Carefully peeling back strips of adhesive tape from the boy’s peach-fuzzed face, Cat let the air escape from the cuff of the endotracheal tube and quickly pulled the long plastic piece from his airway. He retched once, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the smooth skin of his neck. The death grip on the sheets turned his knuckles white, although his distress did not seem to bother his redheaded tormentor.
“I want big, deep breaths, and I want them now!” she commanded in Gestapo fashion, making him wonder if he was caught in a Hogan’s Heroes nightmare. The large fräulein leaned over to adjust his pillow, her substantially proportioned breasts blocking his view.
“Do you hear me, Calvin? I want big, deep breaths. Shallow breaths are for sissies. Suck all the air out of the room, but do it now!” She placed two green oxygen-blasting prongs into his nostrils and proceeded to methodically wash away the black lines of tape residue from around his mouth with a hot washcloth that smelled of alcohol and soap.
Unable to pull in enough air past the fire in his throat, he turned quietly hysterical. The adolescent code of bravery not permitting him to blatantly signal his distress by screaming or crying, he twitched pathetically as panic overtook his body.
The redheaded Brunnhilde was unmoved.
“I’m—” He stopped, pushed over the boundaries of bravery by the sound of his voice, or rather, the lack of it. “I’m dying!”
“Nope,” Cat said calmly; extubation panic was not uncommon. “You’re about three days too late for that, kiddo. Almost, but not quite—your mother found you before you made the grade.” She slipped her arm around his shoulders. “Try to relax and take slow, deep breaths. I’ll give you some ice chips for your throat.”
He wiped his front teeth with his tongue, closed his eyes briefly, and let his muscles relax while she spooned ice into his mouth. Savoring their chill, he let several whole chips slide down his throat. For a few seconds, the fire was extinguished. “How long?” he croaked, greedily accepting another spoonful of ice.
“You came in Thursday night, so that’s five days if you count today. Nobody’s exactly sure why you’re still alive. You took enough pills to kill a horse, and an assortment that would have kept the entire graduating class of Berkeley in a stoned-out coma for months.”
She looked him in the eye. “You must have really been hurting to try a stunt like this, but,” she slapped his knee and stood, “I’m glad you didn’t succeed.”
Breaking the moment between them, he focused his gaze first on her breasts then on her shoes. Startled, he mumbled something like ‘holy hot dogs’ and looked away.
She ignored the reaction, and emptied his urinary drainage bag into a clear cylinder. “See how dark your pee is? That means you’re dehydrated. I’m going to let the rest of your IV run in, but you’ve got to start drinking fluids so we can get that tube out of your bladder.”
The teenager’s hand shot under the covers and felt the silicone catheter protruding from the end of his penis. “Oh shit, what’s wrong with my dick?” Corky’s hoarse whisper cracked with urgency. “Who messed up my dick?”
The boy’s eyes were so wide Cat blinked for him. “Relax, kid. Nobody did anything to your penis. We had to insert the catheter because people in comas don’t usually knock off for bathroom breaks. This way your pee drains into a bag instead of the bed, since marinating in the stuff isn’t exactly great for your skin. Not only that, but it saves wear and tear on the nurses and generally lets us know how well your kidneys function after having to filter all those pills out of your system. You also have a slight fever so the more fluids you drink, the better.”
Corky squeezed his eyes shut as if he were enduring the tortures of hell. “What’s your name?”
“Catalina, like the island, but you can call me Cat.”
“I'm going to go seriously out of my friggin’ mind if you don’t take that thing out of there, Cat.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Calvin. I’ll take that tube out if you give me your word that you’ll drink at least four glasses of water or fruit juice to get yourself peeing.”
He grimaced. “Calvin sucks. Everybody calls me Corky. Apple juice with ice, please.”
“Cool, man.” Cat snapped her fingers. “Fluid replacement is on its way, so hang tight and be loose.”
The teenager rolled his eyes and sank back into his pillow. The freaking aftermath was going to be tweaked to the absolute max.
* * *
CALVIN ‘CORKY’ BENNER:
Neuro: Alert and oriented x 4, pupils equal and reactive (pupils equally glued to my chest), all reflexes intact, equal grips with good strength. Short and long-term memory unimpaired. (After the deluge, the attic was found intact.)
Cardiovascular: Blood pressure stable. Pt. remains febrile at 100.2, color pink, skin warm and dry. All pulses present and accounted for, no edema, negative Homans, no extra heart tones or distended neck veins. Normal sinus rhythm without ectopy. (A lively, kicking specimen.) Ran in last liter of D5W.45NS and heparin-locked IV.
Pulmonary: Post-extubation all fields clear. ABGs good on room air. (Could blow a candle off a cake at 10 feet.)
Gastrointestinal: Tolerating fluids well. C/O hunger. (Asking for a double-garlic, anchovy, and pineapple pizza.) Remains on clear liquids at this time. Abdomen soft and non-tender with hyperactive bowel sounds. (They talked to me. Passing flatus with enough force to rattle windows.)
Genitourinary: Foley catheter removed @0930. (Pt. made nurse keep her eyes closed during entire procedure.) Has not voided at this time. Bladder slightly distended. (With the liter of D5W.45NS, five glasses of H20 and four cans of apple juice, the kid should be floating)
Musculoskeletal: Sat up at bedside without problems. Scraped and swollen knuckles of right hand. Asked pt. if he’d been abusing walls. Pt. states these are old wrestling injuries. (Unadulterated bullshit unless he’s been wrestling with concrete blocks.)
Psychosocial: Pt. quiet and cooperative but offering no explanations for suicide attempt at this time. Marked anxiety exhibited when visited by family. (The kid totally wigged out. Had to be coaxed down off the ceiling after mom and dad left)
Plan: Will call Dr. Leffler regarding moving patient to Ward Two stepdown and request psychiatric consult. (I won’t hold my breath on this one either.) Will encourage pt. to express his feelings. (Definitely still holding my breath.)
C. Richardson RN
The chart reviewers found Ms. Richardson’s unusual style disconcerting, improper, horrifying, sometimes useful, and generally entertaining.
* * *
“This is Dr. Leffler. Somebody paged me?
“Son of a bitch! He’s a FREAKING MORON!”
“Um, Dr. Leffler? This is Cat in Ward Two. I’m calling about two of your patients. First, Mrs. Cejaka. Can we go ahead and extubate her? Nora thinks she’s overdue.”
“No.
“Sheeeeeit! Look at that! WHAT? Penalty? Interference? Are you fucking kidding me? NO WAY! He never touched that motherhumpin’ son of a bitch! How many yards? That son of a—
“The answer is no on that, Pat. The old lady doesn’t have the strength to cough up her secretions.”
“Sorry, Dr. Leffler, but that’s not true. Nora was cleaning her tube this morning and Mrs. Cejaka coughed up a mucus plug with enough force to stick it to the ceiling. Her color is great, she’s been stable for over two days, and I think—“
“HIT REWIND! I gotta see that again. Was it an incomplete pass? They called a what? Son of a bitch!
“Hey Pat, when did you get your medical degree? I’m the doctor here, and I don’t want her extubated—she’s too weak.”
“My name is Catalina, and I think the nurses taking care of her twenty-four hours a day happen to know how the patient is doing better than someone who sees her for five minutes every other day. The lady unhooks herself from the respirator each morning and walks around the room doing exercises with Richard Simmons!
“She needs—”
“Whooooeeee! Look at that bastard go! Sweat, you motherhumping suckers!
“Listen Carmelita, I'm the doctor—I happen to know what’s best. For the last time, I don’t want her extubated, and when I do, I’ll come in and do it myself. The nurses don’t have any business doing that anyway.”
“Catalina Richardson, not Carmelita or Pat, but that’s okay, Dr. Leffler, don’t worry about it. We’ll just tell Mrs. Cejaka that she has to wait until you’ve viewed all the videos of the football games you missed last season before she can be extubated. By that time her trachea will be rotted away, but what the hell.
“Moving right along to my second set of requests, I want to transfer the Benner boy to step-down and I was hoping you could call in the psychiatric consult right away. His blood gasses and vitals are good except for a low-grade temperature. Before I extubated him, I got a sputum specimen for culture and sensitivity and as soon as he gives us some urine I’ll get a C and S on that too. He appears to be pretty depressed so I think if we could get somebody in to talk to him while he’s still—”
“YIIIIIIIEEEEEEEESHEEEEIT! Did he get the ball? Who got the ball? WHO THE HELL’S GOT THE FUCKING BALL? Rewind! REWIND!”
In the background, a chorus of male voices roared a variety of curses.
“Dr. Leffler? Hello?”
“Why the HELL don’t they pull that asshole off the damn field? Is anybody in charge out there?”
“Dr. Leffler? Did you hear what I said?”
“Sure. Use your nursing judgment, Maureen. That’s what you girls are paid for. Do whatever you want. Listen, honey, I gotta go. I’ve got an emergency here.”
Placing the phone back on its cradle, Cat sighed, wondering for the millionth time why she hadn’t taken her mother’s advice and gone into cleaning toilets for a living.
* * *
Corky was watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and appeared to be enjoying it. Cat had never been able to account for people’s tastes in television viewing, although there seemed to be certain patterns: Bored by the news and the stock reports, nine out of ten high-powered business execs could be mesmerized by the morning cartoons or any of the game shows. Old ladies loved to watch Geraldo and movies in which overt sexuality was displayed, while old men preferred Oprah and sitcoms. No hospitalized human, as far as she knew, ever watched daytime soaps.
Holding out a new plastic urinal, Cat purposely blocked the adolescent’s view of the screen, on which Mr. Rogers was in the process of closing the show, singing the ‘Tomorrow’ song while neatly putting away his famous cardigan sweater.
“The good news is that as soon as Dr. Barza comes up to talk to you, you’re going to the step-down unit. The not so good news is that if you don’t pee now, I’ll have to shove a catheter back up your penis and into your bladder.” She put a sinister amount of emphasis on the word ‘shove’ without feeling any guilt whatsoever.
Corky grabbed for the urinal. “I’ll pee.” The gravelly voice was smoothing out, ready to move to sand level.
She drew the curtains around his bed and began packing up his belongings—the bedside kit with toothbrush, Kleenex, and mouthwash, and a plastic bag containing the clothes he had been wearing on admission: gray baggies, neon-orange canvas belt, black T-shirt emblazoned with the logo ‘Skate on Haight’. As usual, there was no footwear. In her experience, most people attempted suicide barefoot.
She listened to the silence coming from the other side of the curtain. “It might burn at first, but it won’t last. Just let ’er rip, kiddo.” She leaned against the wall and wiped the inside corners of her eyes. An offensively ugly gray ball of makeup mixed with mucus stuck to her finger. Making a face, she rinsed it off under the faucet. After that, she adjusted the Velcro bands on her running shoes, braided her hair, snapped the band of her underpants, and clicked her incisors together in time to an unnamed tune which had been brewing in the back of her mind since she woke up that morning.
“I can’t do this while you’re standing there,” Corky said through the curtain. “I can hear you twitching or whatever it is you’re doing over there.”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll run down and get you a set of pajamas. I'm going to let the water trickle into your bath basin over here. The sound might help you get started.”
Behind the curtain, Corky listened to the water and imagined himself under a warm waterfall. He felt his bladder full and pressing, then relaxed and let go.
Not a drop issued forth.
His mind exploded in ‘I-read-it-in-the-Enquirer’ flashes of panic. What if the tube blocked him up so he could never piss again? He’d heard of people dying from urine backing up into the blood. What if he had to have an operation and have a tube in his penis forever? Sweat broke out between his eyebrows at the atrocious visions.
Maybe—he felt like ralphing—maybe he’d burst something and have to pee out of a hole in his stomach for the rest of his life. He glanced briefly at his penis, and then at the gold and yellow labels of the remaining juice cans sitting on his bed. When the light broke, a wide though not very innocent grin spread across his face.
In the dark linen closet, Cat dug through the soft flannel bath blankets and came up with one complete set of pajamas. She next picked out a patient gown and slipped it over her uniform, folded up the hem to form a large pocket, then tied the corners together tightly around her waist. Shoving her hands inside the large pouch, she leaned against the wall to sort through the information she’d gathered.
So far, the kid was already showing signs of putting up adolescent-strength resistance against letting anyone know why he wanted to die. None of the information she’d gleaned gave her the sense he was a suicidal type. There had to be a specific, horrific reason.
She again went over her initial conversation with the boy’s mother, fine-combing every word. Seconds later, she jerked herself away from the wall and made a beeline for Calvin Benner’s chart.
Amidst the hectic bustle and noise around the main nurses’ station, she flipped open the gray plastic chart to the section marked ‘Medical-Social History’ and plodded through Dr. Leffler’s tight, linear hen scratches.
Family Hx: No siblings. Normal growth development. Usual childhood diseases. Patient is a healthy-appearing, well-developed adolescent male in his senior year of high school. He is active in sports, excelling in baseball, basketball, and football. He maintains an A average. Hobbies include backpacking, surfing, skiing, and girls.
Dec. 80—appendectomy
Jul. 83—tonsillitis
Jan. 85—pleurisy
Apr. 86—sports injury: left shoulder dislocation.
Dec. 86—Drug screen as requested by parents, negative.
Cat closed the chart feeling uneasy. The subtle flip of her stomach and the tug behind her eyes were warning her to listen to her intuition.
The plastic urinal was half full. Cat could see that the boy was pleased with himself: the corners of his mouth were turned up slightly. It was his first positive expression since his admission.
“Great job, kiddo, you’re a real pisser. Cat poured an ounce of urine into a specimen cup.
Corky nervously twisted his fingers. “Wait a minute. What are you going to do with the rest of that pee?”
“I thought I’d have the laboratory tech divide it up into small portions and send it to all your friends with insulting notes and sign your name to them.”
His face fell.
“Lighten up, kid, I’m joking— it’s going to the lab for a routine test. The rest gets tossed.”
He thought for a minute and motioned her closer. “Bring it over here for a sec, will ya?”
“You want to see your urine specimen?” She shrugged and set the cup on the bedside table. “Each to his own, I suppose. I once had a cousin who used to get off on peeing into hot-water bottles and selling them at football games to old ladies with cold hands.”
He raised his eyebrows, pulled the cap off the cup, and drained it in one gulp.
She covered her mouth. “Please tell me you did not do what you just did.”
“What’re you talking about? This is killer homemade stuff. It’s supposed to make your hair shine.” He poured out another ounce and brought it up to her face. “Here, have a swig.”
She pushed the cup away, but not before getting a strong whiff of apples. “Why you swamp-sucking little rat,” she laughed, playfully grabbing his arm. “You got me and you still haven’t peed! What the hell am I supposed to tell Dr. Leffler? Just wait until I catheterize you, pal. You won’t walk for a week!”
He raised his hand.
She rolled her eyes. “What? What do you want?”
“When you’re done ranting, could I get another urinal? I righteously have to pee.”
When the specimen was safely on its way to the lab, Corky smiled again, though not very much. “You know, until I was about ten years old, I thought my pee was carbonated.”
Cat smiled uncertainly. “Huh?”
“You know, like when a guy pisses, it hits the water all foamy and there’s a lot of bubbles? See, I thought—”
Her initial howl of laughter startled, and then encouraged him. “If you think that’s funny, when I was in the sixth grade, I was taking a shower one night, and I’m soaping up, sort of checking things out down there like a regular twelve-year-old kid, when I feel that ridge that runs down the middle of a dude’s scrotum?”
“It’s called the scrotal raphe,” she said, impressed that she could still remember the term.
“Yeah, okay, well I’d already heard the usual playground version of the facts of life, so I put two and two together and come to the slightly messed-up conclusion that the ridge was actually a scar, and that my parents had me castrated at birth.
“I totally freaked and went charging out of the shower like some kind of raging animal, all soapy and pissed off and crying, and I run screaming into the living room, where my parents are entertaining a couple of business associates of my dad’s, right?”
She bent at the waist, her laughter progressing into wheezy howls.
He allowed a small chuckle to escape. “Like, there I am in the middle of the living room, all naked and totally bummed, wailing and flailing away, yelling: ‘Why did you do it? Why did you have my balls taken out? What did you do with my balls? Didn’t you know I wanted to have kids someday? What about your grandchildren? Oh my poor balls, they’ve cut off my balls.’
“My parents and the two business people just sat there frozen like they were permanent residents of Suspended Animation City for the whole time I was raving.
“My mom snapped out of it first and literally picked me up and carried me to my room. Finally my dad had to come in and show me that his scrotum was exactly the same as mine, before I’d calm down. He still had a hell of a time trying to convince me that everybody had that ridge down the middle of his balls. I was afraid it was some sort of weird family trait going back to the Dark Ages, like hairy earlobes.”
Holding on to the sink for support, Cat wiped her eyes, panted for a moment, and then started in again laughing. She was still wheezing when Nora stopped in. Staring at her friend for a few seconds, she looked to Corky for some explanation.
Corky shrugged. “I think she’s been working here too long.”
* * *
Mercy Hospital was quiet. For a few moments, no one was being born or trying to die, pain was suspended, the doctors had returned to their offices, the nurses were all charting, and the overhead paging system was silent.
In his new room, Corky stared out the window through the middle side rail. Tentatively he moved one leg. The feeling that his body wasn’t his own kept sending him into the panic’s grip.
Everything smells like Pine Sol. I wonder if the smell could somehow get into my lungs or brain and cause cancer? Could I go nuts from just the smells in this place?
He sniffed the air again. The smell of alcohol replaced the Pine Sol.
Nah. These people work here everyday for years and years, and they seem pretty normal, except that shrink, Dr. Barza. Man, what a lame. Wonder what zoo they sprung him from?
He shifted his gaze to the activity on the TV screen. The sound was off, but he’d known since he was three years old that a person needed no more than the IQ of an ant to figure out the situations. He guessed the sexy brunette turning heads as she bounced down a crowded street was probably making a point of her shining, manageable hair, her sheer stockings, or her full-figure support bra with heavy-duty eighteen-hour straps.
Wonder how old that nurse is? She was going to look at my dick to take that tube out. She probably does that all day…holding guys’ dicks and fooling around with tubes. Wonder if she’s married? Wonder if her husband knows she does that? Killer tits. What was it Coach Henny said? More than a mouthful is wasted? No, wait. More than a hand in the bush is two on a breast?
He ran a hand through his hair. Shit, that stuff doesn’t matter now anyway, man. You can forget about all that.
But still she has a killer body for an older lady. Except maybe those feet. I’d love to see those puppies in the raw. Smithsonian donations for sure. Wonder if there’s the same correlation between the size of a chick's feet and her boobs, and a guy’s feet and his dick?
He held up a hand that still didn’t feel as though it was his, studied it for a minute, burped, cupped it to his mouth to test his breath, then returned it to its usual job of drumming out rhythms to the endless songs playing on the jukebox in his brain.
Could tell by the way she looks at me she’s got a thing for me. Wonder what she thinks about me?
Self-disgust mingled with anger and he slammed his fist into the side rail, causing the TV control to jump. In response, the screen went blank.
Chill, dude—she knows why you’re here. She knows you tried to off yourself. What a pitiful, totally fucking desperate move.
Sooner or later, everybody is going to want to know what happened. Nobody is going to buy Mom’s story about me having mono. I can tell just by the way they look at me here, they're all wondering—and they don’t even know me.
I wish they’d let me die. What the hell am I supposed to tell people? I can’t ever say a word about THAT.
Shit, I’m never telling anybody! Not the shrink or that nurse or Mom. Can’t even imagine what Dad would say. He'd hate my fucking guts forever. If just one person knew, my life would be shit. I’d have to move to Siberia. Forget college, forget the new car at graduation, forget everything.
He pressed his fingers into his temples and tried rubbing out the heavy panic feeling.
I have to come up with a reason. It’s got to be something solid so nobody tries to figure it out. How about that some girl from out of town that I was in love with got married to some other dude, and it messed up my mind?
No, that might ruin things with Molly if it got around.
Shit, man, you think Molly wants some lame who goes around trying to kill himself? Forget it. Her parents would never let you go out with her again.
Never mind that. It’s nothing compared to what really happened. Maybe everybody would forget it after a while? Maybe not. Sometimes I still think about what happened to Crystal Silverman in freshman year. Nobody ever forgets that kind of shit.
I’ve got to stop thinking about this. I need to think about what I’m going to do. Maybe take that part time job at Denny’s, or I could start working out at the gym, or join the track team. Except then I’d have to see Adam and Coach Henny or Jason. They're all normal. Nothing like this would ever happen to those dudes.
What did I do to make this happen?
He started shifting onto his side when a thought arrested his movement. What if it happened again?
He dropped onto his back and shielded his eyes with the crook of the arm that didn’t feel like it was really his. His stomach rotated and bounced into his throat, making him sick.
Why the fuck me? I wish I could go back in time. I wish I would have known. I wish I were dead. They’ll all wish I was dead if they ever find out.