Bloodbrothers (16 page)

Stony finished his coffee. "Just remember, Butler, no matter whatever else you forget in your life, always remember that when you're wipin' an old guy's ass, always do it
gently
and make
sure
the strokes are all upwards towards the spine. You got that?"

Butler belched into his napkin.

"This afternoon, they assigned us one-on-one to lifters who've been there a while, so they could show us the ropes, right? I got assigned to this guy Reynard, a very hip spic about twenny, twenny-one. The cat's goin' to hairdresser school on the sly. I tell him what happened in the classroom. He cracked up. He says to me, 'Churchill's the meanest fuck in the whole place.' He takes me down to the locker room. There's nobody around. He opens his locker and whips some bad shit on me, we split a big jay sittin' on this bench. He says, 'This'll make it easier,' then he takes me up to geriatrics. I got a mean buzz on. We're walkin' through the halls in baggy whites, all these people in wheelchairs or staggerin' aroun' in their bathrobes. I realize right away gettin' stoned was a big mistake. I'm comin' down with a bad case of the horrors. I start trippin' out on death, an' what's it all mean, an' I'm gonna do myself in before I get on this stage, an' I'm really fuckin' scared, Butler. See, Reynard, he's been there two years, so like he's immune, you know? He can function like he's at an office somewheres an' I don't wanna tell him what I'm feelin', right? Anyways, he takes me into this long room with maybe twenty beds. All I hear is moans and gags an' screamin'. There probably ain't one guy in this room who got six months to live, all old, old." Stony rubbed his nose with the heel of his palm. "An' I'm blitzed outta my skull, right? I don't wanna look right or left, up or down, I just look straight ahead at the far wall, an' all these guys are yellin' out, 'Hiya, Reynard, hiya, Reynard,' but like babies, you know? So I'm just walkin' with my eyes straight ahead, an' all of a sudden I trip over somethin' an' almost break my ass. I look down, an' I swear, Butler, I scream like a cunt. There's this fuckin'
leg
layin' in the middle of the floor. Reynard laughs an' he picks it up. It's an artificial leg. He puts it next to this guy's nightstand an' he says, 'Be cool, baby.' I just flipped. I said, 'Reynard, I gotta get outta here.' He says, 'Don't sweat it. You'll get used to it,' and then he tells me the first day he was workin' there he got so sick he puked all over this old guy's head. Then he asks me if I want more grass."

Stony raised his eyebrows. The waitress dropped a bill face up on the table. "More grass I need like a third nut, you know? So Reynard takes me into these private rooms down another wing, the rich vegetables' ward. He introduces me to all these guys, runs down their schedules with the john, the showers, physical therapy, occupational therapy, the whole shtick. Half these guys looked like they needed gardeners instead of doctors. He's tellin' me some of the life stories of these cats when we're outside the rooms. One guy was the head of the psychology department at Yeshiva University, that guy I was tellin' you about before with the sixty-two Ph.D.s. Another guy played baseball with the New York Highlanders, that was the Yankees before they was the Yankees. This guy, forget about it. He looked like a scrotum. He was all wrinkled and scrunched up." Stony screwed up his face as he talked. "He had these old team pictures all over the room, baseball players with handlebar 'staches an' striped beanies. I swear, Butler, I don't know what I'd do if that was me. If I was a fuckin' professional athlete reduced to that. I didn't wanna ask which one a those guys in the pictures was him because I didn't think I could take it. Another guy's that lawyer I was tellin' you about—'Gimme justice'—you know, I'm lookin' at these guys an' I can see how you really gotta keep it in your head that there's a
mind
workin' in all that busted machinery there, you know? I really can understand how somebody workin' in a hospital for a few years can blank on that, but you look into those eyes, the whole fuckin' story's in those eyes, man. They are real fuckin' people, man, an' they are in fuckin'
agony,
an' those fuckin' spies and Bimis come there, man, an' they're treatin' 'em like potted plants or like infants with brains like BBs, an' those eyes are screamin', man, they're screamin'
I AM.
I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer. I'm a fucker. I'm a baseball player. I'm a
goddamn human being,
an' all they get is 'Oh Mees-tah Roo-bon-steen, you make in you bed a-gain, you bod, bod boy.' It makes you wanna vomit, Butler, it makes you wanna vomit."

"That's the way it goes." Butler eased himself away from the table.

"Butler, if I ever got like that, and I asked you to check me out, would you do me the solid?"

"If I had the strength, I'd probably be suckin' wind myself by then."

T
UESDAY,
8:00
A.M
. Stony sat on the narrow locker bench scraping crud from the corners of his eyes. He had half changed into his hospital whites. The other orderlies were dressing, drinking from hip flasks of Old Mr. Boston apricot brandy and bullshitting around in general.

"Hey." Reynard discarded his wet-look vinyl jacket and opened his locker next to Stony's. "We late, man, we only got time fo' some quick tokes." He removed a white Baggie from his locker.

"Uh. No way." Stony shielded himself from the dope. "I almost jumped out the window yesterday."

Reynard lit a joint, took three long wet sucks, ground out the burning end and put the roach back in the Baggie. "You on you own today, baby." Reynard struggled out of his street clothes. "But you need some help, give me a yell."

They punched their time cards under the gridded wall clock and walked through the beige, glazed-tile corridor past a vast stainless steel kitchen and scattered stainless steel food carts toward the elevator. Reynard slapped five to every other guy they passed, shouting and laughing, taking his ease. Stony knew Reynard would never become a hairdresser.

"Mr. Plotkin?" Stony braced himself as he walked into the pale green room.

A small, hairless, toothless, blind man sat on the bed, smiled beatifically as if touched by the voice of God. "Yas?"

Stony could see his eyeballs moving under his shut lids, his wide gum-grin stretched from ear to ear. His white gown was too big for him and hung off one skeletal shoulder in a parody of a 1945 movie goddess. Stony clenched his teeth. "Enjoy your breakfast?"

"Yas I did. Who iss dis I yam talkink to?" As if he was on the phone. He kept smiling nervously, jerking his head in the direction of Stony's voice.

"I'm the new lifter."

"Vere is Rey
nard?
"

"He's around, I'm helpin' him out." Stony moved the wheelchair into position, locking it with his foot. "I'm gonna take you to the john now."

"O.K." In a singsong.

Stony cringed for a moment before slipping his arms under Mr. Plotkin's armpits. He was surprisingly light. When Stony lifted him high enough and the blanket slipped away, he saw why. Plotkin was legless. Stony gasped. Plotkin laughed. Stony held him at arm's length, afraid of the smooth stumps. He deposited him in the wheelchair, replaced the blanket, unlocked the catch and wheeled him down to the huge white tile and stainless steel bathroom. He dumped him on the pot and stood there while Plotkin grunted, plopped and farted for ten minutes, smiling all the while. Stony unwound a wad of toilet paper consuming half the roll, lifted Plotkin with one hand across his chest and wiped his ass, his head behind Plotkin's back, almost in the bowl. Stony held his breath the whole time. His eyes were screwed shut. But somehow he still managed to get a lungful and an eyeful in the scant ten seconds the whole operation took.

"Misteh leefteh, you ah colid boy?"

"Nope. I'm Italian." Stony wiped the cold sweat from his face. He was chilled with disgust.

"You are vhite boy? Vhat you do dis for?" Then he whispered, "Dis a chob for der niggers."

***

"Come in here, please." The black nurse beckoned to Stony in the hallway. Stony's heart sank. It was ten-thirty. Hour and a half until lunch. Ten ass-wipes to go. "Meestah Beckahmon vomited all over heself," she said, ushering him into the room. "Please clean him op. I have to go get sheets and a gown. I be back in five minutes."

Stony stared at a cadaver rigid in his bed. An oatmeal-textured catastrophe lay on his chin, chest and blanket. His eyes burned into Stony like a black fire. "Hey look, that's an orderly's job. I'm a lifter." Stony pointed to the name-and-job tag on his breast pocket.

"Meestah De Coco, ah don care what you are. You work in de hospital, you got to do all jobs."

"Oh yeah? When do I get to hire an' fire nurses?"

She glared at him for a second, then marched out of the room. Behind him in the room came a high-pitched cackle. Stony wheeled around.

"Das sweet!" A short, thirtyish Puerto Rican in a gray custodian's outfit was mopping the floor, a galvanized steel bucket with a wringer attachment at his feet. "Dat bitch sometin' else!" He slapped the mop around, making semicircles on the already immaculate floor.

Stony grimaced as he approached Mr. Beckerman. A stainless steel bowl half filled with an antiseptic-smelling green bubbly solution lay on the radiator. A small yellow sponge floated on top like a dead fish. Stony took the bowl over to the bed, squeezed out the sponge and took two half swipes at Mr. Beckerman's face. He avoided looking into his eyes. The stench made him tear. He dropped the sponge into the bowl, splashing the bed. "Shit!"

"Aw, fuck dat chump!" The custodian winked.

"I can't swing it, Jack." Stony slapped his thighs in exasperation. Mr. Beckerman blinked.

"Hey!" The custodian tapped Stony on the shoulder. "Look." He placed the bowl on the floor next to his bucket. "Take off his shirt, man." As Stony gingerly removed Beckerman's pajama top, the custodian wrung out his mop, splashed it in the steel bowl and then proceeded to swab down Beckerman's face and chest. He wrung out the mop, dunked it into the remainder of the soapy solution and gave him a second coat. Beckerman's eyes were blazing with outrage. Stony was caught halfway between laughing and crying. "Das all dere is to it, man." He wrung out his mop again, flung it over his shoulder, stooped, picked up his bucket and left the room. Stony grabbed a towel off the radiator, patted Beckerman's dripping face and chest. He wouldn't look into Beckerman's eyes on a bet. When he finished he tore ass out of the room.

***

"Lifter!" Resisting the temptation to duck into the john. Stony walked into the room. A young nurse leaned over another stiff, naked this time, who looked like Beckerman's twin. "Lifter, I need some help here. Mr. Garro had a little accident. Can you just lift him a sec so I can pull the sheets out?" As Stony headed to the bed someone behind him clawed his sleeve. Stony jumped. The old woman was about four-foot-six. Her hospital gown hung down, revealing withered breasts the size and shape of Santa Clara prunes—Stony looked. Her face had more cracks and crevasses than the Grand Canyon. She was almost bald—the scattered wisps of white hair on her scalp reminded Stony of an empty cotton candy machine before it's cleaned. She squeezed his arm with an anguished urgency. "Be careful."

"Mrs. Garro!" The nurse charged around the bed. "I
told
you not to hinder the help!" She gently pushed the doddering old lady into a second bed. "Just lift him real quick." She hustled over to Mr. Garro. As Stony lifted him from behind he noticed the old guy had gigantic balls. The nurse pulled out the sheet like a magician yanking a tablecloth without disturbing the dishes. There was a four-by-four shiny black oilcloth underneath. "O.K., drop him." Stony did and stepped back. This was a his and hers private room. Between the twin beds on a night table stood an eight-by-ten gilt-framed photo of Mr. and Mrs. Garro sitting in a restaurant. They were both laughing, he had his arm around her shoulder. They wore leis around their necks, his over a loud pineapple shirt, hers over an aqua blue sleeveless dress. The inscription read "Tommy and Marie—Oahu Hilton 3/2/62."

Stony backed out of the room as Mrs. Garro struggled out of bed and fluttered around her naked husband like a bird with buckshot in its wing.

***

Stony wheeled an old guy named Valentine Valentino to the john. As he lifted him out of the chair, he slipped through Stony's fingers, bounced off the toilet seat and fell on his side, his pajamas wrapped around his ankles, his flaccid skin pressed against the cold tile. Stony gasped, grasping him under the arms to lift him onto the seat, hoping nothing broke.

Reynard wheeled a patient wearing a Yankees cap into the john. Stony and Valentine were holding each other face to face, knee to knee, in a semierect crouch.

"He's peein' on ya! He's peein' on ya! Get 'im onna toilet! Get 'im onna toilet!" the old fuck in the baseball cap yelled like a wheelchair general.

Stony looked down. The legs of his baggy whites were slowly turning yellow. "Shit!" Stony almost dropped him again, as he twisted and turned, trying to get out of the line of fire.

Reynard ran behind Valentine, slipped his forearms under the hairless armpits and dragged him backward to the toilet. Straddling the bowl, his spine against the upright toilet lid, he deposited Valentine on the seat, swinging his leg over the old guy's head to free himself. Stony furiously wiped the piss from his dripping pants with a fistful of toilet paper. Reynard's charge wheeled himself over to Valentine on the pot and shouted in his ear, "Yer awright, Valentine? Yer awright, Valentine?"

Valentine sat hunched over, gloomily staring at his white kneecaps, his lips moving, the expression on his face a cross between Buster Keaton and a basset hound.

"Where's your head, Jim?" Reynard rubbed his hands together as if just finishing a grimy job. Stony didn't answer, still wiping his pants. "Don'choo know how to lift someone? You coulda
killed
the dude!"

"If that's a dude, I'm James Brown."

Reynard turned to his charge in the wheelchair, jerked him up and swiftly deposited him on the toilet seat next to Valentine. He turned back to Stony. "You better get your act together, bro\"