this, what she feels about all these old people. I hope she can work up some commiseration for the people here, that it seems worthwhile.
I stand on the other side, watching, trying to pick up pointers. She smiles at me between bites and we talk.
She pushes some custard into Dad’s mouth.
‘You don’t have to hang around here if you don’t want; I can feed your daddy just fine; he’s no trouble at all.’
‘Is it all right if I watch?’
She smiles a quick smile.
‘It’s perfectly OK with me if you want to watch. I don’t mind.’
I talk to Dad as she feeds him. He pays no attention. His eyes are on the girl and he’s cooperating with the feeding. He begins opening his mouth for more food soon as he’s swallowed, even before she touches his lip with the spoon.
I watch her. Her arms are full but not plump or fat; the white uniform is crisp and presses against her body. It’s a lightweight material so I can see the difference where the hem is turned up at the end of her sleeve compared to where the cloth is directly against her skin.
When she’s finished, I ask if I can take Dad outside to sit on the patio.
‘I think that’d be real nice for him.’
We take the restrainers off, get him tightly bundled up in his dressing robe and transfer him to a wheelchair along with his urine bottle. There’s a little holder for the bottle on the bottom, under the seat. He looks better sitting up; any stimulation is better than lying in bed, scared.
I push him through the halls. He’s gotten into the habit of hanging his lower lip open; it’s so unlike him. One of Dad’s characteristics all his life has been a firm mouth and tight jaw. Now, with his lower jaw slack, his lip out in a pout and his head down, eyes peering from under eyebrows, he’s like Charles Laughton playing Captain Bligh. He doesn’t look like himself.
Outside, I find a table with a sun umbrella and park Dad in the shade. I sit down in the sun beside him. I talk about how relaxing it is, how good the sun feels. I talk about the flowers, naming some of them. We sit there for almost an hour. I’m tending to run down, letting the dead calm of the place leak into me.
Then he begins talking. First, he’s talking to himself, mumbling; his voice is so low, so rusty, I can’t catch anything. I lean close from behind not to distract him. His eyes and head are moving, tracking. He’s seeing something across the lawn, out the gate toward the overpass to the freeway. I lean closer.
‘You know, Ed; we ought to start picking them cucumbers.’
He looks back at me, through me, looking for affirmation. I nod my head. I want to keep it going.
‘You’re right there, Jack; we’d better do that.’
‘The pickle factory’s payin’ seventy-five cents a barrel; now’s the time to sell.’
‘That’s right, Jack; do you think we can get them in tomorrow?’
He looks at me closely. There’s more Wisconsin twang in his voice.
‘Don’t forget, Ed, we gotta help Dad muck out the barn tomorrow. Remember that.’
‘Yeah, that’s right, Jack. I forgot.’
‘But we can start soon’s we’re done, then get the last after milkin’. We can borrow the rig and haul ’em in Saturday.’
‘Good idea, Jack. We’ll do that.’
He sits there, leaning forward, shaking his head, smiling. I wait but that’s it. Nothing I say can start it up again. When it begins to cool, I wheel Dad in and fix up his bed, tucking and buckling restrainers. She says her name’s Alicia.
I tell her mine’s the same as Dad’s. I tell her about living in Paris, about being an artist, about coming because Mom’s sick. I know it doesn’t sound real, not even to me anymore.
‘How do you like working here?’
She makes a face, shrugs, sighs.
‘It’s so depressing. I been working in different places like this for five years. You always lose; nobody gets better from being old.’
She goes around to the end of the bed.
‘But when you’re alone and have a little girl, you gotta work, and jobs just aren’t all that easy to find. Here I can usually make my own hours, too. It ain’t so bad.’
She looks at her watch; says she’s going off duty. The other nurse will feed Dad dinner. I ask if I can give her a lift anywhere. She looks at me quickly.
‘Thanks a lot, that’s nice, but Missus Kessler, the lady who runs this place, would blotch the ceiling if I went out with you.’
She giggles, looks at the floor, shakes her head. I think she misunderstands.
‘It’s only I’m going home to check my mother, then come back here to help with Dad’s dinner. I thought maybe I could drop you off someplace.’
She looks at me, cocks her head.
‘Man, you sure are nice to your folks. Nobody comes to see these people here. There’s some I know haven’t had a visitor or even a letter for years.’
She turns, pauses at the door.
‘Even if you was black, Missus Kessler would make us a scene.’
When I get home, everything’s OK. Billy’s slumped into Dad’s chair and they’re watching some show. I tell him I’ll be back soon as I feed Dad and he can take off for the night. Mother insists she’s perfectly all right and doesn’t need people baby-sitting her all the time.
In back with Billy, I help clean things up. Billy says he doesn’t know how long he can take it. Mother’s bugging him about his hair, his bare feet, his uncut toenails, his pimples, his smells, his farts.
He tells me a friend of his from Santa Cruz is coming down and is it all right if they stay in the back room. I tell him I’ll check with Mom. I feel it’s going to be hard. Probably his friend will also be barefoot, bearded and play the same damned twenty songs on the guitar. I won’t have much to say about how he acts around Mom, either. Things are getting away from me and I’m running down.
The third day I go help Dad with his midday feeding. I find him tight and tense. His lips are quivering, he’s chattering madly and his eyes are flickering.
I can’t get him to eat. It’s hard to get his mouth open; then, when we do, he bites down hard on the spoon. It’s the way it was when he had the Elavil.
I ask Alicia if they’ve been giving him his blood-pressure pills, or maybe he should have some Valium; anything to get him off this crazy high. She gets his charts, comes back and shows them to me. There’s nothing about medication. Perpetual didn’t forward his medication records or his medicine!
I go out and tell the head of the home to phone the hospital. I run to the car where there’s some Valium I just picked up for Mother; my cuff’s there, too, and I grab it. When I get back, Dad’s practically trying to fly away. He’s pulling at his straps, straining to get up, being jerked back again. He’s gritting his teeth and groaning.
I work the cuff onto his arm and pump up. He’s two forty over one twenty. Alicia goes to get the RN.
The RN whips out her own cuff, gets the same reading. I want her to give him some Valium, a sedative, something. He’s liable to stroke. But she’s afraid without a doctor; she’s waiting till the records get here from Perpetual.
I charge out to the office phone and bulldoze my way through to Ethridge. The alarm must have gone out, because I get through fast. I tell Ethridge what’s happened.
‘That’s too bad, Mr Tremont. We’ll get on that right away. The medical records are being forwarded.’