THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S 39
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THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S --
The Continued Saga of Paul Ess's Rehabilitation
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AAAAAOOOWWWWW! AAAAAOOOWWWWW! GODAMMIT! GET OUT OF HERE!
LEAVE ME ALONE! [But don't you want to get better?] YES! BUT
ALL YOU DO IS HURT MY ASS AND HURT MY LEG! GO AWAY! GIT! This
is episode 39 and you are about to meet Jean, pronounced 'jhon',
some cantankerous old froggy-merican who moved in next door about
two weeks ago. I was introduced to him when he first got here.
It was by virtue of having the bad luck to be traversing the
corridor at the same time the meddling social director came
happily skipping along.
Miss Mary Sunshine. Where can I go to puke? Jean and I
instantly recognized each other as forgettable. It's a good
thing, too, because I've had to complain about his bad habit of
running the squalliest, tinniest pocket radio at two and three in
the morning. The squall makes it through the walls and under the
door as though they weren't even there. This whole place has the
ability to pass the most annoying part of the audio spectrum
nearly unimpeded.
Jean has a contracted leg, probably the result of a minor stroke.
This stroke, or whatever it was, didn't take out his awareness or
make him drool. He's been lolling around in bed somewhere long
enough to get a monster bedsore on his butt. I'll provide a GIF
of that and a lot of other good stuff if I can just have my
camera and some high-speed film.) He listens to cry-in-thuh-
beeeeer C&W or the old farts's station all the time and reads
whatever he can get his hands on -- doesn't appear to go much for
teevee like his roomie Cookie does. Cookie will stare at the
blame thing til his eyes peel.
Cookie puts up a fuss right after breakfast wanting to be set up
in his really FlashGordon orthopedic wheelchair. The thing has
more levers and switches and movements to it than a watch. I
smell another VA case. Just be a veteran and get fucked up and
they can't give you enough fancy, costly stuff. Be an ordinary
queen who only sought to comfort our boys in the best possible
way by relieving them of their load ... and you get jackshit!
They haul Cookie's ass around with the block and tackle -- I mean
the Hoyer lift. They don't have to do this with me any longer
since I got really good at sliding my ass in and out of bed on
this board, see? But this trick came to an abrupt halt night
before last when I was in mid-slide, with my ass between heaven
and earth, and the wheelchair decided to try to park itself
elsewhere without permission. The right brake didn't hold and it
almost got me knocked on my ass.
I screamed at Miss Ralph to put me down in the maintenance book
so smarmy Danny can come back and fix what he messed up. I just
knew that motherless child played with the brakes when he oiled
the bearings. I told him to leave the motherfucker alone. Oil
it and go away. Nooooo, he had to be king shit and mess with
what doesn't concern him. In the meantime, nursey is not happy
having to haul my ass in and out of bed with the sling. Too bad.
Danny finally showed up this morning. He took time from playing
with this goddam generator that ain't never gonna work -- why
don't they shitcan the thing and get a new one? -- to fix my
brakes. I ranted at him like he was a red-headed stepchild. I
swear the man got a hardon. I think he's into abuse. Miss Ralph
says he's a stone freak and has been sniffin' around her lookin'
for somethin'...
They didn't even bother to tell me this morning they were going
to cut the power. But I heard the diesel cough and sputter and
so just logged off the net and shut everything down. I know
what's coming. Sometimes they kill the juice to see if the
generator will start automatically. Sometimes it will and
sometimes it won't. Some day they are going to catch my hard
disk with its write-cycle pants down. That old grinder doesn't
even get the voltage high enough to start the flourescent lamps
in the hall.
I have even more evidence this place is sweating its annual
inspection by the state board of tardfarming. They found some
documentation somewhere about the ingrown toenails I had. This
quack podiatrist at The ERR cut my nails so deeply they ingrew.
Then he came back and cut them even more deeply so they could
grow in. I think there is something basically wrong with this
picture. Not less than four airhead nurses had to pull my shoe
off and look at my toe today. My toes look fine to me, no thanks
to anybody in particular. I don't want to go back to having
antibiotic goo smeared on my foot and wearing bandages when there
is no need for it.
The coup de grace was Ming the Merciful Himself coming in here
just in time to spoil my appetite for the dinner hork. The
paranoid nurses who found an old piece of paper with an unclosed
loop sicced him on me. He needs to look at my foot, too. Fine.
Your foot is infected, he says. He wants the podiatrist to pull
out the nail. Hold the phone. This is MY foot we're talking
about. He never talks to me unless it is to tell me what I am
going to do. This is guaranteed to make me unwilling to go along
with what he wants. Can you say Automatic NO? Where does he get
the idea I trust him or anybody connected with him? Mark my
words: The shrink will show up now to tell me I'm paranoid and
recommend that I take these pretty little pills and chill.
I already went off on one stupid nurse today with my sermon about
footquacks who can't get enough of a private practice and so they
come to rest homes and kick MediCal/Care in the butt for $40 for
every customer they can clip. They make a killing in two hours's
time. Then they get to come back and charge some more for fixing
the damage they did. I told both her and Ming the only person
who will be cutting my toenails from now on will be me. He
wasn't pleased at all when I told him my own father came to me
about his ingrown nails and I cured the problem.
The thought ocurred to me that when they and their friends can no
longer make a satisfying amount of money off of my misery, they
will declare me Rehabilitated and Well and throw my ass out. My,
what a refreshing burst of ethics and honesty that will be! If
it happens before my ISP subscription expires in October, I will
try to connect by splicing into a payphone line and plugging into
the outlet for streetside Christmas lights. Or maybe I can
crawl, raggedy and smelly, to the public library and telnet in.
This morning started out most excellently with my being awakened
by someone feeling my arm to look at my tardband. We all have a
plastic bracelet with our name on it and the phone number of this
place. That way if we wonder off, they will know who we are and
what funnyfarm to call. It also helps you remember who you are.
At times it is quite handy to have the switchboard number right
on your wrist for when you want to call the office and bitch.
I cracked one eye enough to see that my molester was a nurse I
didn't know. Her first mistake was to turn on George's light
instead of mine. He's over there saying Goddam and Fuck. I'm
playing asleep to see what this numbovaries will do next. Did
she rectify the mistake? No, she just kept on messing with me.
She apparently satisfied herself that I was her quarry and
grabbed my best fuck-you finger and was about to stick it in the
center of the pad with a naked Penlet stilleto. There is no
meaner way to let blood and no lousier time to do it than at dawn
and without warning.
At this I gave her the shock of the day. I took my finger away
from her with a queenly limp of the wrist and declared unto her,
WE DON'T DO THE CRUELTY TRIP WITH ME, HONEY! George says Goddam
Goddam again. George gets up to go pee. George says Fuck. I
sat up and grabbed the alcohol prep from her, checked the date on
my watch, swabbed the finger of the day, and stuck myself with my
own Penlet device. I squeezed out an adequate drop of the red
and said Where is the test strip?
Here I am about to clot and need to stick myself all over again
because this ignorant bitch can't find the fucking test strip.
Oh, she didn't bring one in. Here, she says, This is your
Micronase. I have to tell her I don't take my pill until I know
what by BG is because I don't want the stuff to kick my ass and
kill me if I happen to be low. (She went to collich to learn
things like this -- was she giving skull in the library stacks
when they taught this course?) Meanwhile I have blotted and
squeezed to get a fresh drop and say, Where is the damn test
strip? Oh, she says (plopping the pill down), I just can't
handle this. I said, Fine, I'll take care of it with the day
crew.
All this time we are operating in semidarkness because Clueless
Cunt still hasn't turned George's light off and mine on. George
says JesusChrist JesusChrist. I say George, we have a newbie
again. George doesn't say anything. He gets out his teeth and
SLAMS the drawer shut. Finally it dawns on Miss Master of
Science in Nursing to bring me some water and to actually get a
test strip. Florence Nighthawk moans about being up for 24
hours. I put that down in my little book to tell the state
people when they get here. We complete the test and I take my
pill and she gets out and appears glad to leave -- I wonder why!
I just want my Midol and my pile of cuntrags right now. Thank
you for reading me rave.
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