May We Be Forgiven Part 19

I try to get it down. As I'm looking at what I'm writing, I see that it's not making sense. I'm not writing in English. Whatever marks I'm making on this paper are not anything that another person could read. I focus on catchphrases, I draw pictures, I try to make a map-I am all over the page, hoping I can clean it up later. He's going on and on, and right when we get to what I think would be the end, the denouement, the guy sits bolt upright. "I'm not breathing," he says.

I push the call b.u.t.ton. "He's not breathing," I shout. "He's going from pale pink to deep red, kind of purple."

Soon the room is filled with people. "We were in the middle of a conversation, he was coming to the punch line, and then, suddenly, he sat up and said, 'I'm not breathing.'"

Now he's sputtering, choking, in trouble, and more people come, and it's like an audience. They're all standing there watching the guy.

"Are you going to just watch or are you going to do something?" I ask.

"There's nothing we can do," the nurses say.

"Of course there is," I say.

"He's DNR. Do Not Resuscitate."

He wanted to die a good death. But look at him. He's struggling like he's choking to death.

"We know not when or how we will be called home," one of them says, and then they whip the curtain between the beds closed.

"That is not okay," I say, hauling my damaged self out of the G.o.dd.a.m.ned bed and peeling the curtain open.

He's bucking and heaving and seems to be begging for someone to do something. Despite the tangle of EKG wires hanging off my chest and my double IVs, I get close to him, my exposed a.s.s edging the nurses out of the way. And in my mind he's telling me to sock it to him, so I do. I give him one h.e.l.l of an uppercut, slamming him in the gut with all I've got.

His mouth drops open, his teeth come flying out, and he gasps for breath. "f.u.c.king dentures almost killed me," he says.

"You said you didn't want to be resuscitated," the nurse says, indignantly.

"I didn't say I wanted to choke on my own G.o.dd.a.m.ned teeth."

"I thought it was an embolism. Did you think it was an embolism?" one nurse says to another.

"Do me a favor, send me home, where at least I can shoot myself when I'm ready."

"Would you like me to call someone?" the nurse asks.

"Like who?"

"A representative of the hospital? Case-management personnel, the patient advocates? A doctor? You tell me."

"Start at the top and work your way down," he says. "And change my forms immediately. Clearly you don't know the meaning of DNR."

Half an hour later, a woman comes with the forms rescinding the DNR order. "It can take a while before the change makes its way into the system, so how about I put a sign on your door."

"Do what's necessary," the man says.

"PLEASE SAVE THIS MAN," the woman writes on the dry-erase board mounted on the door that already lists our names and that we're IN DANGER OF FALLING/USE PRECAUTIONS.

In the middle of the afternoon, the pet person comes back, with photos of Tessie and the cat sitting on George and Jane's sofa next to some nice-looking young fellow. "You're squared away," she says happily.

The cop from the park comes-he's in uniform and carrying an FTD Big Hug bouquet-flowers with a stuffed bear clinging to the side of the vase. "Listen, I want to apologize-I treated you badly, you deserved better."

"Okay," I say.

The cop sits on the edge of my bed, and we make small talk, and then, when there's really nothing more to say, he tells me that he'll come back again another day.

"That was painful to watch. He must be in the program," the roommate says when the cop is gone.

"What program?"

"One of the twelve steps-This-Anon, That-Anon, Everything-Anon-Anon. Step number nine is making amends for the harm you caused."

"Interesting," I say. I'm tempted to tell him my story of crashing the AA meeting, but, given how much he knows about these steps, some things are better left unsaid.

When dinner arrives, there's nothing for him.

"Nothing?"

"I don't have you down for any meals, but I might be able to get you a liquid tray," the delivery woman says.

I lift the insulated cover off my plate and find the main dish unrecognizable.

"What is it?" I ask.

The delivery woman peers over. "That would be our chicken Marsala."

"I'm dying," my roommate says. "I have got no intention of drinking my last meal unless it's very good Scotch."

"How about some carry-out menus from the nurses' station? They're always ordering in."

"That would be great." He's suddenly pleased; more than pleased-inspired.

I put the cover back on my plate to keep the fumes from escaping and wait to see what happens next.

"What do you want for dinner?" he asks as he's going through the menus.

"Anything but Chinese."

Excited, he pulls his cell phone out from where it's been hidden under the covers and starts dialing. His ability to move is limited, but he's on a mission. First he calls the burger place and orders two cheeseburger deluxes with fries and extra pickles, then the pizza place for a medium pepperoni pie, the deli for some rice pudding and cream soda. I ask him to have them throw in a couple of Hershey bars with almonds. And when the deli guy says it's a minimum of twenty dollars to deliver, he tells the guy that he'll give him a fifty-dollar tip if he also stops at the liquor store for a very specific bottle of Scotch. The man says he'll do the job himself.

"So what if I order more than I can eat? I'm dying, I don't have to worry about leftovers. Is there anything special I can get you, something you've been dying for, no pun intended?" the roommate asks me.

I used to like caviar, fresh-made cheese blintzes, chocolate eclairs, and there was that doughnut I ate maybe forty years ago that I can't ever forget, an orange cruller on a cold morning outside a polling place during the 1972 presidential election that was as close to perfection as any food can be. But the fact is, I'm lying in a hospital bed and am not exactly feeling any kind of culinary craving. "Thanks," I say, "but I'm good with whatever you choose."

We wait. Will they remember to bring ketchup and mustard? Should we call back for mayo? We share a reverie about our love of mayonnaise, and he asks, Have I ever had Belgian French fries and dipping sauce, well done, salted and piping hot? Yes, I have, and his description of them is enough.

It takes longer than you'd think. There's a hospital to be navigated, security procedures downstairs-do they make them open the cheeseburgers?-elevators, corridors.

"Can you get my pants out of the closet?" the roommate asks. I get up slowly and make my way to his closet, dragging my IV pole and wires and my left foot, which doesn't seem to be fully functional. "Look in my pocket."

His pockets are loaded with cash, wads of twenties and a wallet filled with travelers' checks, euros, and English pounds.

"Looks like you're going for broke," I say, trying to make a joke.

"The last few times I left the house, I made sure I went to the cash machine. You never know what's going to happen and the worst thing would be to have no cash. We live in an economy and we die in an economy-wherever you go, you have to tip. No point being on a downward spiral and getting lousy service as you're sinking. I prepaid my funeral years ago. You want the euros, take them."

"I'm not going anywhere," I say, putting the foreign currency back in his pants.

We bet on how long it will take each of the delivery boys to find us. I am the winner at thirty-eight minutes, and the roommate gives me a hundred bucks in "bonus points" when the cheeseburgers arrive. The pizza is a close second. "I've never delivered to a patient before, it's cool," the guy says. "I mean, as long as you're not contagious." The deli guy is the last to arrive. "Sorry it took me so long, I had to find someone to cover the register." He hands over the bag of goodies along with the Scotch. My roommate peels off another hundred to cover the debt and offers him a drink.

"I'm gonna pa.s.s," the guy says. "I have to get back to work. But I'm curious what's wrong with you, that you're lying in bed ordering rice pudding and Scotch."

"I'm dying," the man says, "and you know what's amazing? Today I really did almost die once, they were about to let me go, and now that I lived, I feel great, not like I'll live forever, but I'm okay with dying." He pauses. "I'm dying," he says. "I've said it more today than ever before, and suddenly it's a fact, something that's out there, like a coming attraction at the movies."

"I guess we're all dying," the deli guy says. "I mean, sooner or later we gotta go."

The woman who delivered the hospital meals comes to collect my tray. She stays for a slice of pizza and a few fries.

I'm enjoying the cheeseburger; it's a perfectly gummy, gristly combination, cut by the salty fries and the sour snap of the pickles. I am well past my fill line when I take a tumbler of rice pudding and fill both of our hospital-issue blue plastic cups with Scotch.

"You want me to get some ice?" I ask.

"A straw," he says, "a straw would be good."

We've propped up the head of his bed, and now he's happily sucking down the Scotch.

"I wouldn't mind a square of chocolate," he says.

I give him a whole bar. "Live it up."

Bloated, belching French fries and pickle juice, and trailing the IV pole behind me, I take the trash down the hall and stuff it in a can on the other side of the floor. The nurses seem pleased at how well I'm getting around, dragging my sluggish side, sporting one gown worn forward, another worn in reverse, the chic way of shielding the b.u.t.t.

We watch one of the cop shows on TV, and sometime between ten and eleven, he feels restless, uncomfortable, and buzzes the nurse asking for Maalox. They tell him there's no order for Maalox on his chart. He asks if his papers have otherwise been updated.

"Yes," she says.

"Good," he says.

"Just because I lived earlier doesn't mean I'm not dying now," he reminds me.

Sometime after midnight, a frightful sound wakes me up. The roommate is pitched forward, eyes bugged out as if a terrifying nightmare has grabbed him. I buzz the nurse. "Hurry" is all I can say. Before they get there, he's already slumped back in the bed, limp.

First one nurse comes and then a roomful and the red crash cart. They're rushing, shouting, cracking vials of drugs, shooting him full of this and that. It's brutal and terrifying, and at some point it's clear that, despite how hard they're trying, it's not going to turn out for the best. After they've shocked him twice and his body literally bounced up off the bed-and while they're still upon him like vultures-I walk out of the room. I pace, dragging my weak leg behind me, up and down the hall and finally back into the room, where I'm standing pressed into a corner when they "call it" at twelve-forty-eight. They cover him with a clean sheet and leave, taking their magic cart with them. There is debris everywhere, syringe parts, gauze, plastic bits. He lies under the sheet. I come closer, never having seen a body not breathing. The creases of the fresh sheet relax over him. I hold his hand, touch his face, his leg. His body is still warm, human, but vacant, the muscles dropping away from the bone, all tension dissipated. They leave us alone, and about an hour later, two security guards come with a gurney and take him away. Something about it, the here and gone of it all, is too strange.

The room still smells like French fries.

I need to talk. If I call the house, what will happen? Will the machine with Jane's voice pick up? If I speak, if I beg, if I prattle on long enough, the dog minder may answer. If I bark, maybe Tessie will bark back. I want to call Tessie. Tessie and Jane.

I am about to dial when a nurse comes in to offer me a sleeping pill.

"It's not easy," she says.

I accept the pill. She pours water into my cup, not realizing she's mixing it with Scotch. I say nothing and swallow it all, the sleeping pill, the Scotch.

She stays until I sleep.

In the morning, the bed next to mine is stripped, the floor washed, the debris swept away.

Not a word is said about the night before.

Midmorning, someone from the hospital comes with a plastic bag and cleans out his closet, his drawer, and asks me, "Is there anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Like you don't know? Like you were here all night with his stuff, maybe you took something?"

"There's a bottle of Scotch; you want it, it's yours," I say. "But if you're randomly accusing me of theft because I happened to be in the next bed-you are so far over the line...."

"He may have had something else, like a watch, like a ring?"

"I have no idea what he did or didn't have."

The guy looks at me like he's the hospital heavy, the goon squad sent to shake down patients.

"I don't have to put up with this." I lift the phone, dial "9" for an outside line and then "911."

The guy fights me for the phone. "Give it a rest," he says, grabbing the receiver and slamming it down.

A moment later, while the guy is still there, the phone rings, I answer. It's the 911 operator calling back. I explain the situation. She tells me that because I hung up they have to send someone to make sure I'm not being held hostage, not being forced to give statements against my will. The goon squad is looking at me in disbelief. "You f.u.c.k," he says. "You f.u.c.king f.u.c.k."

"What are you going to do now, beat me up?"

He looks at me again, shaking his head. "You got no sense of humor," he says, leaving.

An hour later, the cops arrive-thank G.o.d it wasn't an actual emergency.

"You doin' all right?" they ask me.

"As best as can be expected given the circ.u.mstances," I say.

One of them gives me his card in case I continue to have trouble. "You'd be surprised," he says, "the number of calls we get from people in hospitals, old-age homes, trapped in their children's houses, elder abuse; it's a problem."

I never thought of myself as elder. A few minutes ago, I was a guy in the middle of his life; now, suddenly, I'm elder.

Today is a school day. I realize it when the nurse comes in and tears two pages off the calendar. "Sometimes we run late," she says.

I phone the school and tell them that I've got to cancel cla.s.s due to a death in the family.

It's a relief when a volunteer from the physical-therapy department comes to get me.