Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Ma’am, technically he’s not asleep. We have to keep him under sedation for now, for his own benefit.

— Ah the doctor a do this? Why unu don’t want him wake up? Ah what unu ah do?

— Ma’am, you’ll have to take it up with the doctor, ma’am.

— Ma’am. What a way you stoosh. Is where you come from, Manor Park?

— The Bronx.

She jumps every time the monitor beeps. I’m near the doorway trying to leave this room for five minutes now. Yeah, I know I’m a nurse, but when you work in a hospital the smell gets to you. Not the smell visitors pick up on and not the ones patients pick up either. Other smells. Like that of a man with a serious injury and a man gone so bad you know, even before it is confirmed, he will never come back. A man like that smells like machinery. Like clean plastic. Scrubbed bedpan. Hand sanitizer. So much cleanliness it makes you sick. This man in the bed has a tube going into both arms and his neck, four in a bundle through his mouth, one to take away his piss and another to take away what would have been shit. Last week he needed a tap because there was too much fluid on his brain. Jamaican man, black man under the white sheets in a night-robe with sprinkles as a pattern. I’m not one of the nurses who have to adjust him every few hours, leaning him slightly left, then slightly right a few hours after that. Not the nurse to check his vitals, she left five minutes ago. Not here to check his IV or his nutrients, or to make sure he’s under satisfactory levels of sedation. I’m not even supposed to be on this floor for the most part, since my hands are always full in the ER. But here I am, in ICU again, coming so often that this woman, maybe his baby mother — I mean, she is always here with a baby but not today — thinks I’m his nurse. I can’t just say I’m not because then she will wonder what I wonder every day. Why am I here?

I don’t know.

Most of the Jamaicans who showed up at the ER were treated and sent home including a man who will think twice before he takes a shit for a good six weeks. Two didn’t make it out alive, two were dead before they got here. And then here is this man with six gunshot wounds, massive trauma to the head and a cervical spine fracture. Even if he makes it to next week or the one after that, every single thing that made his life a life is probably dead now. I should be hopeful, or pleasantly abstract as they teach you to be with the families of critical patients. But the most I can muster is a kind of indifference, which sooner or later this woman is bound to notice.

I’m gone before she leaves, but most of the time when I visit early she’s already here, sitting by the bed and wiping his forehead. Yesterday I reminded her he’s also carrying an infection so at least use the sanitizer at the door before picking up the baby, and she looked at me like I was insulting her. It’s just a suggestion, ma’am, not hospital policy, I said. I really want to look at him when she’s not here. Telling myself I don’t know why really works if I don’t think about it too much. This man lying in hospital over something that no matter how far a Jamaican can run, it’s always inching up behind you. I don’t want to know why he is here. Nothing about this warring bullshit is of any interest to me. The only reason I’m in the Bronx still is I can’t afford to move to somewhere else, so if Jamaicans want to shoot themselves up over drugs or whatever, it’s really their business. I don’t want to hear that man’s name, not even when they talking about him son. There was a time when hearing it would make me scream. Now when hear it I don’t know what happens until I find myself or somebody finds me, staring out the window of the cafeteria as if I’m lost or something. Damn if I can even remember why that name does what it does to me. Damn if despite knowing I could never kid myself, I always, always try.

— So what you know?

— Excuse me?

I hope she wasn’t talking to me all along. She’s touching his head and not looking at me.

— All unu can talk ’bout is what unu no know. You no the nurse? Him nah improve? You nah go give him no new medicine? Why nobody want chat to me ’bout if him going walk again, I hear ’bout them spine things y’know. Me tired of damn nurse who come in here ah pick up pad and read it, and ah touch him, and ah move him, and doing all sorta thing but can’t say nothing but to speak to the damn doctor. And where the damn doctor deh?

— I’m sure the doctor is coming, ma’am.

— The doctor is already here, ladies.

I hope I didn’t just say shit out loud. Again. Doctor Stephenson doing his doctor strut right into the room, his blond hair slick this time. Maybe he has somewhere to go after this. Tall, pale and handsome in a British sort of way, meaning he hasn’t started using the Bowflex he had shipped to his office two or three months ago but still looks like he just walked out of Chariots of Fire . Last week he pulled up his short sleeve to show me his even whiter arm and asked if I thought he could get a tan in Jamaica, because he has failed everywhere else. This damn woman delayed me. I wasn’t supposed to be here, certainly not long enough for a doctor to run into me.

— Fancy running into you here, Nurse Segree. ER having a slow afternoon, or they finally transferred you to ICU?

— Uh… Doctor, I was just passing by and looked in—

— Why, was something wrong? Did you alert whoever’s on call?

— No, nothing was wrong. Nothing was… I was just passing by.

— Hmm. ER now sending student nurses up to ICU? I swear you must be the only one I know by name, Nurse Segree.

— Well, I need to be on my way, Doctor—

— No, stay a moment. I just might need you.

I was about to say something but he just closed his eyes and nodded yes once, as if that was all that needed to be said on the matter.

— Hello, ma’am.

— Why everybody a chat to me like me is one old woman?

— Huh? Nurse, what is she… well, anyway. And this is your husband?

— Doctor Stephenson, I say. I want to say just talk to the damn woman and stop try to figure out her bloodcloth marital status because if she ever set to start explaining commonlaw marriage to you is another month before you understand, but instead I just say,

— She’s listed as the next of kin, Doctor.

— Oh. Well, ma’am, it’s still too early to say. He’s responding… well, he’s responding to treatment, but it’s early days yet. He’s still critical at the moment, but he might be stable in a few days. In the meantime we’ll have to run some more tests—

— More test? Test fi wha? You must think him inna school the way unu ah run test. And none of unu test can give me no result.

— Ah… uh… Millicent?

— Millicent? the woman says. I don’t have to look to know she’s staring at me hard and frowning right now. The doctor pulls me aside but not far enough. I know she will hear everything he says.

— Millicent… ah… how do I put this? I’m not exactly following what she’s saying. I mean, I think I have the gist but wouldn’t want to put one’s foot in one’s mouth, if you catch my drift. Can you speak to her?

— Ah… sure.

— Maybe in your native tongue.

— What?

— You know, that Jamaican lingo. It’s so musical it’s like listening to Burning Spear and drinking coconut juice.

— Coconut water.

— Whatever. It’s so beautiful, good God, I don’t have a goddamn clue what you’re all saying.

— She wants to know why we’re doing so many tests, Doctor.

— Oh? Well, could you tell her—

— She understands English, Doctor.

— But you could tell her in her native—

— It’s not a language, Doctor.