My roommate was a boy a year or two older than me named Roger. He had been badly burned somehow and the doctors had just grafted skin onto his neck and chin. He watched while the nurse got me settled in the bed and gave me a big plastic tumbler with shaved ice in it. He said “Hey…my name’s Roger, what’s yours?” I told him Richard. ( I didn’t know how far to carry the ruse of being Jean’s son, so I didn’t answer with his name, which was Ricky. ) I waved from my bed and asked what happened, gesturing to the gauze bandages around his neck. He seemed to be in a good mood and wasn’t in any pain that I could tell. “Let just say that if you’re ever tempted to light a cigarette from a gas stove, don’t do it. They’ll graft skin from your butt onto your neck!”
That was an impressive summation of his problem, and I replied back best I could: “And if you’re ever told that monkey’s have the strenght of 10 men, believe’em, or you’ll end up like me.” I gestured to the arm now supported by a gauze sling and shrugged. I could tell he half believed me, or at least wasn’t going to question what I said in front of the grown ups. I immediately took a liking to him.
Roger had been there a week already, and he let me know what was what. He knew about the power outage, he knew which nurses to ask for treats or ‘cigs’, and especiaally when his favorite volunteers came on. He had a likin’ for a buxom little candy striper named Helen. He told me if I was in long enough, I could ask for a sponge bath on Thursdays, and she’d be the one that had to do it. I remembered he fell back on the bed sighing and squirming a bit “I’m pitching a tent just thinking about it!”
Well I had no idea what a sponge bath was, why I’d want a mere volunteer to do it, or what it had to do with camping at all. But I wasn’t going to let on like I wasn’t just as clued in as he was. I said “Yeah? That good is it?” which was about all I could safely contribute to the conversation. Fortunately that didn’t slow Roger down at all, he was full of advice and tidbits of trivia, mostly about girls, and sexual positions neither of us had actually tried. Apparently he had access to the dark materials that I had only heard rumor of. He described his accident in great detail and how he couldn’t wait to get back to his girlfriend in Kentucky cause he was shore itching to give it to her doggy style. I was just nodding and saying “Hell yeah” at what I thought were the appropriate moments in his speech, but apparently at some point I admitted to being a big fan of doggie style too. He got all serious for a second and said “That’s not why you’re in here is it? How you hurt your arm? Oh man I’m sorry!” He paused for half a second to let me to tell my story, but I never even got close to the whole swing and concrete stair thing before he was off again. He talked nonstop till the nurses came around and made us go to sleep, admonishing us that it was 3:00 am and other patients needed to sleep.
I realized I was very tired soon as it got quiet, but startled awake every time the nurses came in to check on us. I don’t know why I had to be wakened every 2 hours and asked about my pain. I’d had enough adventure for one day and just wanted to sleep. Come 7:00 am or so, a huge black lady pushing a cart full of food came in. She gave Roger a tray with a metal lid on it. She was surprised to see me and said “I don’t have an order or nuthin’ for you honey, but I’ll go check at the desk.” Roger started eating right away and when he noticed me watching, he offered me his dessert. It was yellow Jello, and had a small dollop of whipped cream on top. “Its supposed to be diet, so you can have it.” he said leaning over in bed to reach my table. He slid it across to me and it stopped against my beaker of ice shavings, which was now just lukewarm water.
Thanks I said and had it half way to my mouth before I remembered what the doc had said the night before. I didn’t want to be here another 8 hours, even in good company, and I certainly didn’t want to face my dad when he found out I had screwed up again and cost him another day’s stay in the hospital.
So I sat it on the windowsill, where it would stay cool though I was very reluctant to give it up. “I’ll wait till the food lady comes back, and when they tell me I can eat, I’ll have it then. If she brings me a different kind, you can pick which dessert you want.” Roger said I was alright between mouthfuls and I looked around for something to read or look at for a while.
I didn’t have much luck finding reading material and the food lady didn’t come back anytime soon. About 10:00 am another doctor came by to talk to Roger. I sat up on the bed, waiting expectantly for him to come over and ask how I was and to tell me I could eat something. That Burger King meal was a long lost memory, and I hardly regretted it at all by now.
The Doc looked at me and checked his watch “Someone from the nurse’s station should come by and check on you.” He said, then left. Right behind him was two members of Roger’s family: His mom, who was a big roly-poly woman barely my height and his younger brother John who reminded me of my brother Kelly, but perhaps not so evil. His dad was down the hallway with his sister, cause she was too young to be allowed on the wing where sick people were. Children carried more diseases I was told. It didn’t seem logical to me that more germs would stick to a child than a grownup with a larger body, so I filed this info away for later consideration.
Roger’s mom had brought him some home cooking. A big pot of slow cooked cube steak simmering in gravy with onions and potatoes all around it. It smelled wonderful. His mom introduced herself to me, told Roger to share it with me, and slapped John’s hands as he tried to dip into the pot and take a lick. This was easily the closest, messiest, loudest, friendliest bunch of people I’d ever met. I think to this day I have a soft spot for Kentuckians as a result.
Roger’s dad came in to see him once his mom was done visiting. He was a tall thin man with big thick glasses that gave him an owlish demeanor. He offered to shake my hand and I shook it back weakly in surprise. Grown ups didn’t shake hands with children in my neck of the woods. This seemed to disappoint him on some level and he asked what trouble I’d been into to break my arm? I told him I fell out of a swing, for some reason unwilling to lie to him. Roger looked at me over his shoulder and I could tell from the look on his fast that the news that I hadn’t actually been arm wrestling with a gorilla was a complete and total surprise to him.
After his family left I could still hear them down the hall chatting with nurses and even other patients. His mom had a loud easy laugh that I found both surprising and comforting. She sent John back around to our room and he stuck just his head in: “Mom says the girl across the hall is the daughter of one of her cousins, so you’d better go over and say hello.” Then he grinned and said “Bring a pillow case with you, you’ll want to cover her head before you jump her bones, she’s as ugly as 4 miles of bad road!”
Roger told his brother to get the hell out, and apologized for his coarseness. Still, I got the impression this was important news to him. His younger brother John was even more girl obsessed than he was, or maybe Roger just hid it better, thinking that a touch of suave might improve his chances. I could see the door across the hall from my bed, but both doors were never open at the same time. Roger asked me to keep a look out just the same and gave out a mock sigh “Its a shame you can’t eat, my dad fixes the best cube steak you ever had…” Then he proceeded to tuck in and had everything eaten and cleaned up before the noon time meal came around.
A candy striper by and filled our water jugs with shaved ice. Roger chatted her up though she was clearly several years older than he was and had little to no chance of getting anywhere. My odds were less than zero. He used my plight to prolong her visit, leaning over close to her and trying to sound all confidential like. “Rich over there hasn’t eaten in days, someone out there should sign a form. I understand he’s taken to hoarding jello against the forced dieting policy they have here…”
My ears reddened and eyes got big and the girl asked if that was right? I said in all honestly I hadn’t eaten yet that day and could not tell her the exact hour of my last meal. Roger nodded encouragingly behind her but I didn’t have anything else to say. She promised to ask the head nurse what was going on and left. Roger said “Man, you should have said something, anything! Tell her what your favorite position is, girls love doin’ it on all fours.” I looked at him crooked and pointed out he hadn’t mentioned anything about sex either. He assured me that was only because she would probably know Helen and he was saving himself for her and her sponge.
The food lady pushed open the door right then and I sat bolt upright in the bed. “Finally!” I cried out. “Uh Oh!” cried out the food lady and she backed out again, taking the cart with her. Even Roger was surprised. She held the door open and shouted down the hall “Does 13-B get food?” “He doesn’t?” “Sure smells like food in there, you sure?” She looked back in at us and Roger was pretending to read a newspaper his dad had left, and I was leaning forward like a hound waiting for his master to throw him a bone. My ears were pricked up and I had the scent, just let me at it!
Food lady came back in, carrying only one tray, which she sat on Roger’s table. “I’m sorry honey, they have an order from the doctor not to give you any food, but the nurse is going to call down and see if you can have an IV.”
I said “OK…thank you.” though it was done half heartily, I had already watched Roger eat two meals that day, and I wasn’t looking forward to round three. I looked out the window at the parking lot, wondering which direction the Burger King was from there. I was formulating a plan to get my clothes and escape that I’d put into action if this IV thing wasn’t tasty and filling. I turned the dish with the jello in it and licked my finger, it was lemon, and artificial, but it tasted great. I had to get up and stand looking out the door of the room to avoid eating it, and to diminish the sounds of Roger eating whatever passed for hospital food back then.
The door to the room across the hall was open and I saw a young man about 20 or so holding the hand of someone in the bed. He was talking quietly to her and all I could make out was a spill of long blonde hair. He looked up at me, reached over and pulled the privacy curtain across and sat back down. I could see his arm moving in the shadows on the curtain, he was stroking her hair slowly, over and over as he talked.
I looked down the hall at the nurse’s station, It was circular and looked like it could have been a library reference desk if it weren’t for all the women in uniform standing around it. Our school librarian Mrs Justice didn’t have a uniform, but she did wear the same green sweater every day, hot or cold.
I went down there keeping my backside tight against the hallway wall to avoid breezing my gown open and said very softly “Excuse me, I think I’m supposed to get an IV? I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m very hungry.” The nurse i spoke to asked another nurse and she looked up and asked my name? “Jervis” I said, and pivoted as a group of visitors walked by, I would have liked to sit down so my butt wasn’t in danger of sticking out but there wasn’t anything on this side of the desk for people to sit on.
“You mean Burns?” she asked, looking at me over her glasses. “Yes I think so.” “You can’t have anything to eat cause we don’t know when the power will come back on. They’ll want to take you into surgery right away.” She paused as if she had more to say but could tell the talk of surgery had upset me. Then she said “Did your parents visit today?” I couldn’t answer right away. I wondered if anyone at home knew I was gone, if someone at school might miss me, or even that one of my friends would have thought to ask my brother why I wasn’t on the bus? Wasn’t it normal to be visited in a hospital? Wasn’t it normal to eat? “No.” I said trying to hide my confusion and sadness, “That was someone else’s family.”
She waved me back to my room with a metal clipboard “Well I’ll try to find out who your family doctor is, and see if he can authorize an IV. You go back to your room now and wait, hear?” I went back down the hall muttering under my breath. “Family doctor?” I haven’t seen a doctor in 5 years, my family doctor’s back in Virginia.”
I almost walked past Roger’s bed before I noticed it was empty. I looked up and down the hall and couldn’t see him. I didn’t think he’d gotten past me while I was at the nurse’s station, but maybe he had. I inspected his tray and found there wasn’t so much as a crumb left over. That didn’t help my mood, not that I would have eaten it anyway. I turned to go back out and heard laughter from across the hall. I stood outside the door for a while until I heard Roger’s voice clearly over the other. I opened the door and he was leaning over the bed, showing the girl lying there his newly grafted skin around his neck. It was bright pink and looked tighter than the rest of his neck. He looked up at me, winked and looked back down. I followed his gaze and could see he had a great vantage point for staring down the girl’s gown from where he was. I blushed and walked over noisily, bemoaning the fact that I still hadn’t eaten.
“This here’s Rich. Say hello to Sherri, Rich!” Sherri was frail, and the palest person I’d ever seen at that, but she wasn’t ugly. She had wide blue eyes and a firm chin. And there was a calmness about her I wasn’t old enough to even fathom. I smiled and made a mental note to never listen to John’s opinion on what a girl looked like ever again. I said hello and she asked what was wrong with me? I said I had a broke arm, and she waved a hand weakly in my direction “Oh, they don’t admit people to the hospital for a broken arm, they just put a cast on it and send them home.”
This was the same thing I’d heard Roger’s mother say, and it embarrassed me not to have something more dire wrong with me. Before I could return the question in a kindly manner, Roger piped in “She’s got blood poisoning Rich, real dire stuff.” Then he looked back down at her with a solemn look on his face, but unable to keep her gaze his eyes rolled down to her chest. She caught on this time and tutt tutted at him, tugging the woolen blanket up around her neck. “And Roger was showing me how he has ass skin on his neck!” She laughed at his distress at being made fun of in front of me, and I laughed too, served him right I thought.
“Is she your…cousin?” I asked, not sure what relation she was to Roger, if any. He said “Shoot no, I could kiss her or anything.” He grinned at her shocked look and said in way of explanation “We don’t really kiss on our cousins back in Kentucky, despite what the rest of the world thinks.”
Sherri tried to sit up in bed, gave an exhausted sigh and pushed the buttons to raise her up instead. I was surprised by this and stepped closer “Your bed folds up?”
“Yours does too silly, they all do in hospitals!”
“Mine doesn’t have a thing with buttons like that on it. I don’t think it moves.”
“Well….” Roger started, trying his luck on the other side of the bed. “That’s partly my fault. When they put me in that room I played with the controls so much it quit working. So I moved to the other bed and some guys took the broken bits away with them. Sorry.”
I gave him a look that said “Well that’s just great!” Not only do I have a broken arm, and I’m admitted into a hospital instead of getting a cast and being sent home, which aparently never happens, and all the while I’m not allowed to eat, and now I have a broken bed. I turned to go back to my room and sulk when Sherri said “Don’t go yet, I think y’all are funny.” then she paused and said softly “They’re gonna come get me for some more tests in a bit. Please stay till they do, my husband had to go back to work after his lunch hour.”
Needless to say my eyes got as big as saucers when I heard that, and I looked down and noticed a small thin ring on the correct finger. That guy I saw holding her hand must have been her husband. I looked over at Roger, who seemed unphased by the revelation. He’d probably noticed the ring right away, and maybe he’d come over there before Sherri’s husband had left. I pictured him bumming a cig and trading knives right there in the hospital while all the while ogling another man’s wife. I was so out of my depth I didn’t know what to do. I was pretty sure Roger was 110% BS, but he was fearless and entertaining. I sat down across the room and listened to Roger re-tell his story of using an old mobile home as a hangout and lighting up stolen cigarettes from the propane stove only to have it blow up in his face. Sherri laughed softly at all the right places, and I did too, despite having seen his ‘eyebrows blown off’ look 6 or 7 times by then.
I got my first IV later that day, and I can’t possibly communicate to you the dis-appointment. I had envisioned some sort of space age diet, something like astronaut food, maybe even whole meals in a pill or a blender like on the Jetsons. What I got was a stab in the good arm, and a drip of saline water. I pointed out to the nurse hooking it up, that if all I was getting was water, I could drink it faster from the jug they’ve gave me. Especially if I could use my good right hand. This had as much impact as you’d imagine it would, and she told me it was Doctor’s orders. I hadn’t even seen a doctor yet, and I was sure I wasn’t going to like him when I did.