A
Good Son
PM
Kellermann
I’m not sure the nurses know what to make of me. I’m always here—arriving before eight in the morning, staying late into the night, leaving only to pick up my dad and later drive him home. “You’re a good son,” they tell me. A good son.
The guard downstairs never looks twice as I stroll past him. I think he thinks I work here. “Good morning,” I say. He nods his head. I’m dressed as usual: sweater, torn blue jeans, black hi-top Reeboks, black leather jacket. My hair’s tied back; it usually is when I visit the hospital. My hair has a mind of its own and I can’t leave it to its own devices. At times, pin curls swirl over my shoulders and down my back. Other times, it frizzes out horizontally in a Rosanne Rosanna-Dana do. When time allows, I braid it wet to keep the ponytail from branching out. Time doesn’t allow. I haven’t trimmed my beard in weeks.
Mom’s hair is beginning to grow back. Every time she loses it to chemotherapy, her hair comes in fuller. Now, it’s short and spiky, like geriatric punk rocker. And it’s gray. Growing up, I never knew what color Mom’s hair was. She changed the color every week.
I feed Mom breakfast, shoot Dilantin down her throat. I talk to the nurses. I watch Mom sleep. I stroll the halls. I get Mom towels. I do what I do. Mostly, I watch Mom sleep. When she’s awake, we talk. Disjointed conversations. “That’s right,” I say. I have no idea what she’s talking about; her syntax is breaking down.
I sneak down the hall to smoke cigarettes in the lounge. During visiting hours, the lounge is always crowded. Families of cancer patients smoke a lot. But early in the morning and late at night, I have the lounge to myself. Sometimes, the chemo patients wheel their IV poles down to the lounge for a quick nicotine fix. I’m not sure how to respond when they ask me for a cigarette—all emaciated and gravel-voiced. Usually, I oblige. What harm could one more cigarette do? Most cancer patients, however, don’t bother going to the lounge. They slip into their bathrooms to smoke and hope a nurse doesn’t catch them. That’s what Mom used to do—back when she could get out of bed.
Now, Mom puffs on imaginary cigarettes. With exaggerated Bette Davis gestures, first two fingers extended out, her hand sweeps toward her mouth. She takes a long, drawn-out drag, holds it in, and then exhales the imaginary smoke as her arm swings away. Mom is asleep. Her eyes are open.
Pete, the nurse’s aide, gives Mom straws to smoke. Mom likes Pete; she thinks he gives her cigarettes. With his thick Irish accent, he lingers on the first syllable whenever he says my mother’s name: “Shiiiiiiiirrr-ley.” He takes good care of her, rolling her over to prevent bedsores. Sometimes, he sings when he changes her diaper: “O Shirley girl, the pipes, the pipes are calling . . .”
w w w w w
The hospital is my home, the only place I feel at ease. I spend more time here than I do at my apartment. I know what to eat in the cafeteria (as little as possible) and what to avoid (the ham and cheese on a Kaiser roll). The coffee sucks—tepid muddy water with non-dairy creamer—I drink it ceaselessly. The nurses feel like extended family. Some I’ve known for six years, ever since my sister Lynne began coming to the fourth floor for chemotherapy. Now, I see them every day; I miss them on their days off. Patients come and go. Mom stays in Room 425.
They wanted to put Mom in Room 415, in the West Wing. “No,” I said, “You can’t do that. That’s the room where my sister died.”
The nurses talk about Lynne a lot. They tell my father what a shame it is that she had to die so young. My father can barely keep his shit together. I won’t let him drive. His cataracts are getting worse and his nerves are shot. He paces, shuffles his feet, jingles the change in his pockets. “Where do you want to eat dinner?” he asks. Dad feels the need to buy me dinner. Almost every day.
w w w w w
I leave the hospital and walk down the street to Robin’s apartment. She’s a postal carrier. Her route takes less than three hours to complete, but the post office doesn’t know it. Rob spends her afternoons watching television and getting stoned. “How’s your Mom?” she asks.
“About the same.” I visit Rob because she’s a sympathetic ear—sympathetic enough to know when I don’t feel like talking.
I sit on the couch and close my eyes. A short time later, Rob wakes me up. “I’ve got to go back to work to punch out,” she says, “but you can stay here if you like.”
“No, I’ve got to get back to the hospital.”
w w w w w
Mom’s room sits across the hall from the nurse’s station. The sickest patients always get the best rooms. Lynne’s room had been across the hall from the other nurse’s station. When the walls begin to cave in on me, when I can no longer sit and watch my mother sleep, I step into the hallway and lean on the nurse’s counter. “May I help you?” they ask. “No.” I talk to the nurses. Or not. I linger in the hallway.
Walking the halls, I see an IV pole with only one arm branching out. I stare at the pole, taking wonder in its asymmetry. Then, I burst out laughing. If Jesus was an amputee, I think, this would be a religious symbol. I can’t stop laughing. I look into a room where a patient is coughing up blood, but the thought of her praying to a one-armed cross just makes me want to laugh harder. Passers-by stare; I’m doubled over. “What’s so funny?” a nurse asks. I try choking back the laugh, but end up spitting all over her. “I can’t explain.”
A few days later, I show the pole to Jim. “If Jesus was an amputee…” I say. He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I have.
w w w w w
Jim and I are at Mom’s bedside when she dies. He is talking to the doctor on the telephone. I sit, watching Mom breathe. Whenever Mom exhales, her oxygen mask fogs up; when she inhales, the fog clears. I study Mom’s mouth through the clear plastic covering. When the breathing stops, I feel for a pulse. I think I feel one, but it must be my own heart beating.
Ever the good son, I sit quietly, holding my mother’s hand.