Wrath White - Hero

Adelle shook her head.

“Or maybe it is. Maybe your stroke was the result of poor circulation, arteries clogged with fat from not exercising and eating fried chicken and pork. In which case your clumsiness is your fault, now isn’t it?”

Adelle shook her head vehemently and scribbled furiously in her pad. “Your fault! I didn’t fall. You pushed me! You hit me!!!”

Natsinet snatched the pad out of Adelle’s hand and tore it to shreds. Adelle winced, afraid the woman would strike her again.

“I told you not to spread lies! How are we going to get along if you keep lying like that?”

Adelle stared at the woman, trying to figure out if she was really crazy, if she really didn’t remember punching her in the face and yanking her out of her bed onto the floor. There was a smirk on the nurse’s face. That told Adelle all she needed to know. The woman wasn’t crazy, at least not that way. She remembered everything she’d done to her. She was just playing with her, enjoying the power she held over her, trying to mess with Adelle’s mind. No, not crazy. Evil.

Not evil either. Adelle reminded herself. People aren’t evil. They may be misguided, confused, hurting, mentally or emotionally impaired, but not evil. There’s a reason she’s doing this, a reason that makes sense only to her.

“Oh, your daughter stopped by also, but you were sleeping and I told her it was best not to disturb you. Too bad you missed her. She said she’ll be back to visit again this weekend. She’s got some big project she’s working on at her job. But she promised to call every day to check on your progress. I’ll make sure to keep her well informed.”

When the nurse smiled it looked to Adelle like one of those vampires in the horror movies baring her fangs. Natsinet dipped a spoon into the oatmeal and shoved it into Adelle’s mouth, pushing it all the way to the back of her mouth. The warm lump clogged her throat. Adelle almost suffocated as she tried to force her partially paralyzed mouth to chew before she gagged on the food. As soon as she swallowed and sucked in a big lungful of air another thick spoonful was jammed into her mouth.

Oh Jesus, give me strength. Help me, Lord.

Adelle gagged and choked several times as Natsinet continued to shovel the tasteless gruel into her mouth. When Adelle wretched and regurgitated most of what she had eaten, the nurse stormed angrily out of the room. It was several hours before she returned and by then the room smelled rancid, sickening sweet from the putrefying vomit.

“It smells like a pigsty in here!” Natsinet announced, curling up her nose and covering it with her sleeve. “I guess I’d better clean you up a bit before we begin physical therapy.”

Natsinet grabbed the soiled sheets and jerked hard, dumping Adelle onto the floor again. Ignoring Adelle as the old woman rolled back and forth on the floor moaning in pain, Natsinet stripped the bed and left the room to toss the bedding into the washing machine down the hall.

Adelle tried to crawl. Her shoulder was screaming in pain but she ignored it. Her right leg felt strong but, with her left arm useless and her right shoulder injured, she couldn’t even manage to push herself up to all fours. She fell over onto her back, letting out another hoarse yelp as her head struck the thinly-carpeted floor. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. She began to weep silently, hating herself for it, feeling even more miserable and useless with each tear. When she looked up, Natsinet was standing in the doorway staring down at her.

“You’re pathetic. Is there any wonder why the White man has been kicking your people in the ass for the last four hundred years?”

There she goes with that “Your people” thing again. Distancing herself from me. Trying to dehumanize me. Marking me as something other than herself, something she won’t feel guilty about torturing or even killing.

“Well, let’s get you cleaned up.”

The nurse reached down and grabbed a handful of Adelle’s hair, which was still long and thick despite being almost completely grey. She began dragging Adelle across the room into the adjoining bathroom. Adelle had to use her right arm with the injured shoulder and her good leg to scramble as best she could to keep from getting her hair pulled out by the roots. Several times she fell flat onto her face. Blood trickled from her nostrils and she was panting heavily when she finally made it into the bathroom and Natsinet dumped her into the tub.

“Sorry about that, but your hair was the only thing on you that wasn’t filthy.”

Adelle had no more energy to fight back as she was manhandled out of her nightgown. When Natsinet turned the showerhead on full blast and the cold water struck her, Adelle’s breath once again caught in her throat. The nurse tossed her from one humiliating position to the next as she scrubbed her skin raw with a coarse brush like the kind Adelle’s mother had once scrubbed floors with in the White folk’s houses she cleaned for a living, using it even in areas so tender that they swelled and bled as the rough bristles scoured the delicate flesh and Adelle cried out in anguish. The water quickly went from cold to scalding hot and Natsinet made sure that she exposed every inch of Adelle’s skin to the searing spray.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the water stopped. Adelle could sense Natsinet looking down at her. “There. All clean now. So, can you manage to crawl your lazy ass out of that tub and over to your bed or do I have to drag you again?”

The nurse was standing above her, tapping her orthopedic white shoes impatiently as Adelle pulled herself out of the tub and then inched across the floor on her belly using only one arm and leg to propel herself forward, adding rug burns to the abrasions caused by the scrub brush. By the time she’d made it back to the bed she was sure that she was going to have another stroke or a heart attack. She was also sure that this was exactly what Natsinet was hoping for. No one would question it if an old woman, who had already suffered a stroke, died of another. There would be no coroner’s inquest, no autopsy at all. Adelle closed her eyes and fought like hell to get her breathing and heart rate back under control. She refused to go out that easily.

“I don’t suppose you can make it back into your bed now, can you? That’s okay, we’ll work on that soon. Now go ahead and catch your breath. I’ll be right back.”

Natsinet left, once again leaving Adelle huddled on the floor in misery. This time Adelle had no strength within her to attempt any type of escape. She was so tired and sore. She just wanted to sleep. Her eyes closed and her head began to nod against her chest. She was fast asleep when the nurse returned.

“Wake up! Time for your physical therapy.”

Natsinet knelt down and gathered Adelle in her arms. Adelle’s mouth was inches from the nurse’s neck and she was calculating whether she had the strength to rip out the woman’s carotid artery with her jaw partially paralyzed. She doubted it. In all likelihood it would do nothing but earn her another beating, or worse. Natsinet tossed Adelle down roughly on the bed and eyed her suspiciously, as if she were somehow aware of what Adelle had been thinking.

Natsinet began with some light physiotherapy, lifting Adelle’s limbs and rotating the joints through their full range of motion. Taking her time, and with surprising patience, she guided each limb through several repetitive movements and stretches. She then asked Adelle to wiggle her fingers and toes while she pressed against them providing a counterforce to intensify each muscle contraction.

“These are the therapy techniques your doctor recommended. Conductive Education, a type of physiotherapy where we use repetitive movements to help reeducate your brain on how to use the muscles, hopefully creating new neuropathways in the brain to replace the ones blocked by the stroke. And Muscle Energy techniques utilizing a voluntary contraction of the patient’s muscles, like the one you use to wiggle your fingers and toes, against a controlled counterforce like the resistance of my hand on your fingers. These are all great techniques, and if they work you can expect to see results in as little as two weeks. They say that pretty much whatever movement you recover in the first thirty days is all you will ever recover. That’s why I’ve decided to try a new technique.”