Michael Christie - The Beggar's Garden

When I was ten I broke both arms falling from the roof of my house while helping my dad clean the gutters. I got two casts that ran from my wrists deep into my armpits. Not able to reach my face, I had to be spoon-fed every meal by nurses. I was instantly entranced by the trays of gorgeously compartmentalized food, by the fluffing of pillows and by the lovely regularity with which the nurses asked each morning how I’d slept, as if there were so many different ways it could have gone. Dutifully, I sought to describe these sleeps as best I could.

Effervescent, I said one morning, something I’d learned from a dictionary in the lounge the previous day, and the nurse’s hyena laugh brought another nurse to see if we were okay.

During this time, I refused to wash my hands, smearing them on railings and doorknobs before hiding under the covers to lick each finger meticulously. I would locate the sickest kids, corner them and inhale deeply at their collars. I was polite with the nurses and never watched television, suspecting they looked down on it. I even considered re-breaking my arms by falling off my bed, but I feared the nurses would know I’d done it myself. Also, I feared the crash would wake my roommate, a kid who’d buckled his face on a spruce while riding an ATV. He groaned intermittently and breathed as if through a straw filled with pudding. Sometimes I even swore the room smelled like spruce. His parents came every second day in matching leather jackets, and his father’s girlish sobbing was pitiful to hear. As she drew the curtain closed around them, the mother would regard me with contempt for my breathing clarity and uncollapsed face.

Happily, I managed to stay long enough for other things to go wrong. Before my casts came off, I had my tonsils out, and then, not long after I was spooning up my own solid food, I got pneumonia. I wept in the arms of a nurse when I was finally sent home.

Now here I was, back at the hospital, and even though I’d packed a bag, I had to remind myself I wasn’t here to stay this time.

Hours passed and the ambulances grew more frequent. The injuries migrated steadily from those self-inflicted to those inflicted by others. The television programs, in turn, became more violent and I wondered if there was a connection.

A drunk man in a tank top that said Ask Me If I Care held a diaper to his caved cheekbone and sought for nearly an hour to convince his girlfriend to call his mother because it was her birthday.

Here, I’m dialling, he said, waving his phone with his free hand as she cupped her ears and shook her head, while saying over and over that this was his shit.

A worn-looking woman with a shelf of sparkly cleavage stared unflinchingly up at the television. She clicked her furry heeled boots on the waxed floor and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t flinch when the nurse finally called her, once out loud, then over the intercom. She jumped when the nurse’s silver-bangled hand met her shoulder.

I investigated each person called before me to the examination rooms for signs of illness. Most of them didn’t seem that bad off, but of course neither did I. It’s hard to see that someone wants to end their life just by looking at them, so I trusted in their greater need for medical attention and didn’t get frustrated.

Finally, the nurse called me and I gave one last look to the empty ambulance area and followed the blue line as instructed, walking it like a tightrope.

There was no tissue paper on the green vinyl bed so I spooled some out and sat down. I studied the tools for looking into people’s different holes. They were attached to a little box with curly headphone cords, all hung up like a celebrity kitchen. People like hanging tools on the walls because it helps them remember they can handle any kind of situation.

Put this on, a cheery nurse with a lip problem said, handing me a gown. Then she zipped shut the curtain with a grating metal-on-metal sound.

I set the gown on the paper, took out a tongue depressor and depressed my tongue, but it almost made me puke so I stuck it back in the jar. I didn’t put the gown on because my problem was in my mind not my body so there would be no need for an examination. I waited, listening for the sound of the paramedic’s voice from outside the curtain.

The curtain zipped again. Hi Maya, I’m Doctor Gerwer, said a white-coated man. He had hair that seemed too blond for his face and steel, efficient-looking glasses.

I understand you are having some trouble, he said, that you’ve been experiencing some troubling thoughts.

Oh, they aren’t too bad, I said. I have nice ones too so they balance out.

Well, it says here you’ve been feeling like you may harm yourself?

Everyone wants to impress their doctor and I’m no different. I pronounce clearly and try to present him with symptoms he’ll find remarkable. I want to thrill him with the story of the greatest disease in the history of diseases, a disease that has chosen me only because it knows I and I alone am worthy enough to endure it. I want to lead him to a diagnosis that’s so clear-cut, all he has to do is sign off on it, then we can go for drinks and chat about how brilliant I am for diagnosing myself with no formal training, and about how hopelessly out of touch most people are with their own bodies. But unfortunately, I didn’t want to kill myself at all anymore, and being away from the ambulances made me antsy, so I stamped out my storytelling urges. Yeah, but I’m fine now.

He took a slow breath and seemed like he was thinking. I scribbled a mental note that the pausing-equals-thinking trick really did work.

Do you think it’s possible to force yourself to stop breathing?

Oh, no, I said.

But this is what you told the paramedics? Correct? I made a remembering face. I guess so, I said, then shrugged as breezily as I could manage. He made some notes.

Well, Maya, I think it would be best for us to have you as our guest here a few days to see if we can get you all sorted out.

I really don’t want to stay, I said. I’m feeling better.

I’m afraid it’s something that we strongly suggest.

I couldn’t believe I was turning down a free visit to the hospital, even if I’d be in the psych ward where the nurses weren’t as nice and definitely didn’t fluff pillows, but that’s the kind of sacrifice you have to be willing to make for love. I knew I needed to distract the doctor and the best way was to give him something he could feel good about.

What I have been having is a pain in my guts.

He scrunched his face. Let’s see, he said, putting his hand to my belly, testing me like a steak.

Is the pain here? he said, pressing deep with the two fingers you use to take a pulse.

My guts didn’t really hurt but his pressing could have hurt if he had done it even just a little harder so I said yes.

Hmmm, he said. Have you felt this kind of pain before?

No, I said, I don’t think — Oh! You know what? I did eat some chicken today that had been in my fridge for a while.

Oh sure, he said, chicken can grow all kinds of nasty bacteria. What I do is label food I put in the fridge with a date, so I know how long it’s been there.

That must be it, I said. I’ll be sure to do that smart labelling thing, thanks, Doc, this pain is already feeling better, thanks so much for your help. I stood, clapped my hands and started gathering up my things. I was sure my plan had worked, but he just looked at me, puzzled.

Why don’t you wait here and I’ll have someone walk you over to the psychiatric unit, where you’ll be more comfortable, he said, and left the room.

It felt like something had rolled down a steep hill inside me and struck something valuable. Convinced I would never find my paramedic, my body became heavy with real, actual despair, not the kind that makes you kill yourself, but the kind that makes you give up on something you desperately want and just go home.