CHAPTER 14
ON THE FIRST THURSDAY IN JUNE, AS TEMPERATURES IN MANHATTAN began to surge and humidity hung heavy in the air, the hospital room was cool.
Too cool, in fact, for the nurses, but kept at the frigid temperature by the room’s sole resident for two simple reasons.
One: He despised being hot, and his body overheated in a flash.
Always had, since the age of fifteen. And considering he wasn’t able to bathe himself yet, the last thing he needed was to wallow in sweaty sheets and a foul-smelling T-shirt.
And two: He knew the thermostat set at sixty-one degrees pissed the nurses off. And, well, to hell with them.
The blinds were closed and the last he remembered was the final remnants of the summer evening spilling through the boxed edges of the window.
Physical therapy wiped him out by seven o’clock each evening, causing him to doze the nights away, only to wake alert and restless at three each morning.
This was something else that angered the nurses, since he pressed the call button as soon as he woke to ask for assistance to the bathroom.
He didn’t piss in bed, he’d told the nurses more than once.
And the other act was completely out of the question.
They didn’t like his defiance, his contempt, or his generally curmudgeonly attitude, and the nurses had let him know.
“I’ll add you to the long list of folks in my life who feel the same way,” he had told the head nurse who staged an intervention-type sit-down with him two days after his arrival. “I’ll even do it today if you’d just help me to the john.”
What pissed him off most about being in this place was that he had no control over his environment.
Helplessness had never been part of his character.
He simply didn’t buy into the premise. He had lived his life by taking control of situations, and lying in this hospital bed had stolen not just his dignity, but his authority as well.
To ram this reality home, the nurses played the game of making him wait for half an hour before they appeared each morning.
He was sure most chumps in this place soiled themselves during the wait, or filled the clear plastic container that stood on the breakfast table and then lingered like cattle for their keepers to come and congratulate them on such a fine accomplishment before dumping their waste in the toilet.
But he was new to this place, having just been delivered after surgery a little more than a week before, and the nurses hadn’t quite figured out that he wasn’t like most chumps.
Once he recognized the purpose of the waiting game, which he took as a nonverbal way for the nurses to explain to him how things worked, he turned the predawn hours into a real treat for everyone yesterday when he purposely capsized the breakfast table in his attempt to make his own way to the toilet.
The chaos sent nurses sprinting into his room to find him sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Lil’ help would be nice,” he had said.
They were not amused.
That was yesterday morning and the witches had adapted their strategy this morning.
He noticed now as he opened his eyes in the darkened room that they’d moved the breakfast table to the other side of the room; and while he slept, the plastic receptacle had been tucked between his good hip and the side rail of the bed.
They may as well have attached a sticky note: Up yours. He almost appreciated their tactics.
The glowing windows were dark now, the first clue that he’d been asleep for at least a few hours. The next was the pressure in his bladder. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, the wall clock told him it was just past 3:00 a.m.
He pressed the call button and waited. He took a deep breath, adjusted in bed to take the stress off his bladder, and considered that he might have no choice this morning but to use the plastic receptacle.
He watched the clock tick along until the minute hand crept past the nine.
He knew that’s what they wanted—to walk into his room and discover that they had broken him.
A broken man he was, there was little doubt of that.
But beaten? Not a chance. He didn’t piss in bed, simple as that.
The IV and port came out first with a surge of pain up his arm.
The tubes in his nose next, and the sticky buttons on his chest after that.
One of them—he couldn’t tell which, since he’d ripped them all in such quick succession—created a hell of a racket with alarms beeping and blasting.
The nurses were there in a blink, two of them bolting through his door.
When they saw him alert and awake, they started their scolding.
“What are you doing, Mr. Morelli?”
“I’m not playing your game,” he told them. “I pressed that button forty minutes ago.”
“We have other patients to take care of,” the nurse said as she assessed the damage, picking up the loose IV. “You could’ve hurt yourself pulling this out.”
“At three in the morning? You’re not so busy in the middle of the night that you can’t at least check on me. I have to take a leak. I’m not asking you to fluff my pillow. If I could make it to the bathroom on my own, trust me I’d do it.”
“There is a urinal right here,” the nurse said, holding up the plastic container.
“And I told you I’m not using that. It’ll take five minutes out of your shift to help me to the john. Have some goddamn compassion!”
The nurse pulled the wheelchair over, while the other grabbed him under the armpit. “It’s such a joy to have you here, Mr. Morelli.”
He grunted as they lowered him into the chair. “The pleasure’s all mine,” he said.
* * *
The following evening, Friday, was the start of the weekend staff.
Although he hadn’t seen any of them yet, he knew they had arrived for the 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. shift.
He would never admit it, but the regulars were making his life miserable.
He hoped for a better crew this weekend.
Even made a quick vow to be more tolerable.
His hip was on fire from physical therapy, and the pain was preventing him from dozing off to sleep like he normally did at this time of evening to escape the pain. He pressed the call button and was surprised when a nurse appeared a minute later.
“What do you need, Mr. Morelli?”
Gus opened his eyes. “Oh, I didn’t expect you so soon.”
“I’m Riki. I’ll be your nurse tonight. And again on Sunday. What’s up?”
“My leg hurts from therapy.”
She checked the log next to his bed. “Where’s the pain? One to ten?”
“Eight.”
“Your last morphine was six hours ago. I’ll give you another dose. Your doctor approved it every four to six hours for the first week post-op.”
“Thank you.”
Riki returned a minute later, pushing a tray draped with white sterile paper. A syringe and vial rested on top. She peeled open the syringe and speared the needle through the top of the vial, drawing out the morphine. As she adjusted the port on his arm, he twitched lightly at the pain.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Riki said, looking at Gus’s arm. “You’re all bruised. What’ve they been doing to you? Beating you up?”
Off to such a good start, Gus felt it unnecessary to explain that his tantrum the previous morning was the cause of his purple arm.
“Nah,” he said. “I had a new gal. She did the best she could.”
Riki shook her head as she examined the port. “I’ll take care of you.”
Never great with needles, he looked up at the television screen to keep his eyes occupied. He saw a woman’s face filling the screen.
“See,” Riki said. “You didn’t feel a thing.”
A direct avenue into his blood supply, the morphine had an immediate effect. Though he stared straight at the television, Gus struggled to hear as the morphine pulled him away.
Riki drew the needle from the port and dropped it back onto the cart. She looked up at the television as she peeled off her latex gloves. “Oh, I’m excited to watch this. It’s about that girl who killed her boyfriend in St. Lucia. Remember that?”
Gus blinked his eyes. He heard the nurse’s voice, but her words didn’t fully register.
The nurse finished cleaning up, keeping her gaze on the television. When she looked back at Gus, his eyes were in a stoic haze, unblinking as he stared straight ahead.
“She was convicted years ago,” Riki said, pointing at the television. “Now she says she’s innocent. The documentary is supposed to be good. Supposed to show that maybe she didn’t do it. At least, that’s what a few of the spoiler websites are saying. Tonight’s the first episode.”
The nurse looked down at her patient. He was staring at his hand, like it belonged to someone else, opening and closing his fingers into a tight fist.
“Yep,” Riki said. “That’s the morphine. Makes you numb. How’s the pain?”
“Gone,” Gus said in a far-away voice.
“Good.”
Riki picked up the remote and changed the channel to the Yankees game.
“Here, this seems like it’s more up your alley.”
Gus leaned back into the pillow and stared up at the game. The Yankees were winning in the bottom of the eighth. “You’re a sweetheart.”