Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

He stopped the car, Cora got out and said how throwing away her apron and new white sneakers had been about the most goddarn stupid suggestion on my part because now it would cost her a whole mess of money to replace them if she ever could get her job back, and slammed the door and crossed the road and stuck her thumb out for a ride back to the diner. I felt bad about Cora, but being with the person I loved I knew that everything would turn out all right, that love had its own actions, that when one loved there was always understanding, that love was surely the only way. We drove westward and the countryside and mountains and bright blue sky beyond and really life itself had never looked so glorious.

They want to take my leg away. Cut it off just a little below the hip. Gangrene’s set in around the ankle. Spread to the heel and now shoots of it to the skin. Not much blood circulates down there because the aorta’s clogged at the knee and calf. Black tissue they call the cancerous stuff. My wife said to me what else can you do? I said anything better than that. She said the only alternative was the implant but it just wouldn’t take. A fibrous artery to bypass the blocked spots and get some more blood flowing to the foot so the gangrene would dry up. I’m seventy-five. The real arteries weren’t strong enough to stretch far enough to meet the implanted tube, the vascular surgeon said. Or something like that. And that or your life. Plain as that. Horrible as that must sound to you both. Sorry as I am to be so frank. Well I’ll at least walk some more before I go. You won’t walk for more than a month and probably less. The gangrene’s spreading too fast. You mean the black tissue, I said. Call it what you want, he said. Endless trouble’s what I’m calling it, though the worst part of the worst dream I’m now waking up from is what I’d like to call that rot. They all agree. Vascular man, internist, urologist who operated on me to have my prostate removed. That’s what I originally came in here for. I was fine after that operation. Learning to urinate like I used to. Three days away from home. When my wife noticed two ulcers from the friction burns caused by the postoperative surgical stockings they’d bound around my feet but too tight so I wouldn’t shoot an embolism in bed. They said complications like the embolisms they prevented and ulcers they weren’t smart enough to avoid by simply removing my stockings at night often happen to men of my age. And because I’m diabetic and my arteries are crummy, the ulcers wouldn’t heal. Gangrene set in and spread. But I’ve been over that route. Those murderous black shoots. And they only gave my wife fifty-fifty I’ll survive the operation and nobody’s promising my condition won’t get worse and worse if I do. I stick my wrist with the vascular man’s scissors, then the other. Then the blood flows. Better than getting a leg sliced off. Then my head flows. Better than dying like a what? Sitting outside in front. Trouser leg pinned to my behind by two extra-safe diaper safety pins. In time the surviving leg sliced off. Till I’m sitting in front like a what? Like a what? That’s my wife standing by the bed. Comes in every day at noon and here she is at ten. Tough luck, lady, I try to say. She’s ringing, screaming. Running, in the corridor screaming. A nurse comes. Tough luck, I want to say. Runs outside the room and yells call the resident. Too late, I say. And I’m so sorry for you, dear.

The strange thing is what made me come in when I did. I had a feeling. It sprung from a dream. I couldn’t sleep last night and so like the doctor said, I took a pill. Fortunately I did. Because I fell asleep and dreamt of Jay taking his life with pills. I woke up frightened and called the floor he’s on and she said everything’s fine, no complaints from 646. I asked if she could go in and check. She said she’s both the charge nurse and the one who gives injections tonight. And that she only has one aide and he’s downstairs looking for linens for tomorrow and won’t be back for an hour, so though she wishes she could she can’t. I told her I’m coming over to check him then. She said I can’t come over till regular visiting hours at eleven and then all right, she’ll check. She checked. Sleeping like a baby, she said. I felt much better. Only a dream, I thought, and I went back to bed. But I still had to get to the hospital earlier than visiting hours began and get a special pass to go up as I still had this feeling he might take his life. When I walked in his room I nearly passed out. Fortunately I didn’t. He’s still in a coma but out of danger, which is why I can write to you as lucidly as this and with not so much emotion where I can’t. You were always the best one in the family for that and nobody else now is around. I of course hope all is well at your own home and my love to Abe and the kids.

And then back to back another one. Yesterday someone jumps from the tenth. A patient. Not mine, but why’d he jump? Learned he had incurable cancer. Who told him? The question should be why was he told? But they did. Okay, we’ll forget about that mistake. But out he went. Put on his bathrobe so he wouldn’t catch cold. Very methodical. Two neatly arranged instructive notes. Don’t do this and do that. So stupid to tell the patient, even if there’s nothing left to be done for him here and no other place for him to go. Walks from the third to the tenth, so he at least had the strength for that. Though it might have taken him two hours, which could give the hospital an even blacker eye. A visitor downstairs sticking a quarter in the meter said he saw the man bounce. Up about three feet in the air and then of course just stayed there. And now this one. Though maybe I’d do it myself. Lose a leg at the hip? No real chance of recovering even from that surgery, he being diabetic, arteriosclerotic, seventy-five and with Parkinsonism as well. I did my best with his wrists. The nurse was very good. The man was smiling all the time. Maybe that’s part of his neurological disorder. At last, he also kept repeating. At last what? I finally said, though that repetition could also be part of his Parkinson’s disease. His wife got so hysterical we had to hold her down to administer sedatives. We’re not supposed to, as she isn’t a patient here and naturally signed no release, but she took it very well. What a day. What a day. God only forbid the irony of another patient trying to kill himself. I don’t mean irony. I don’t even mean coincidence. I’m talking about some link of chance events which God only forbid happening in threes.

He was such a quiet man. Well, still is. Never used the bell once. Even when he had to. So he messed himself. I used to get angry at him. Ask why he didn’t buzz for the pan. He said he knows we’re busy. Thought he could contain it till we came in on our own accord. Extra considerate like that. It’s terrible. Working here you grow hard to these people sometimes. Like they’re just very little people for all the money they have. Who have to be washed and watched but not remembered. Or else you think they’re just animals of the worst sort. Who mess their own nest. I’ve seen them do that and playing with it in zoos. Gorillas. Animals who stand up like that with intelligence. But he was different. Such a decent man he was. There I go speaking again like he’s dead. Maybe he is. Maybe the dark spirit of death is trying to give me news. His or the hospital news in general. They brought him to intensive care. Who I’ve heard have about given up hope. Right here. Jab jab. Nice and deep too. Not just a threat. Give me this or I’ll do that. Oh no. I hate scenes like that with his wife. I was there soon after she first saw. I can do anything. Cleaning up the filthiest dentures or out the oldest bags. Dealing with the most unsightly sores and smells. You name it. Everything. Throwing up their bowels. Peanuts to us. Human garbage men. But the scene of someone crying for the near or dead I can’t take. I choke up too. The end’s the worst. We’re not all rough and hard. Smoking cigarettes in their rooms. Relatives shouldn’t be allowed in hospitals anymore. No, that’s silly to say. Actually they can be a great help. Pitching in for some of what we can’t. But if I had a list of patients I liked best? His would be up at the top ten. Fourth. Maybe third. The top three left me some blessings in their wills. But he was so cheery till he heard. And it was partially our fault. We should have been more careful with those socks. Even the cleats got stuck in his skin. But if the doctors weren’t? Then who would expect us? But he never put us to blame. Forget the wills. First. Right up there second or first. He said that’s fate. Not by design but by accidents. Said this right to my face. And not just to please me you know. I’m going to call I.C. to see how he’s getting along. I was going to say if they tell me he’s dead I’ll die.