Sufferin' Sunday at Timmy's
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SUFFERIN' SUNDAY AT TIMMY'S
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Breakfast this morning as reported in the menu:
Waffles with Hot Syrup
Milk
Orange Juice
Coffee
Oatmeal
The waffles were dead cold and so rubbery I could not put a fork
through them. The syrup was straight off the shelf, the dietetic
medicine-y shit. For all the syrup I use, they could have given
me two tablespoons of fake maple goo and not hurt me.
I got no milk nor orange juice. They flat forgot to put them on
the tray. The milk is out of a box and not left to sit to wed
with the water. It is only fit for thinning the oatmeal a bit if
necessary -- no loss on the moo juice or juice juice.
Both my cups of coffee turned out to be lukewarm water. Somebody
forgot to put coffee in the basket. I think they forget on
purpose so they can steal the coffee! Most of these old fools
don't know the difference because the coffee is weak as hell
anyway. It's hot, it's wet, and it's in a brown cup. Yesterday
I had coffee in San Francisco with Demon at lunch. It was so
full-bodied I was glad for the anti-tippers on my chariot.
The oatmeal was soupy enough without any thinning, anyway. My
idea of oatmeal is a cup of rolling boiling hot water poured on a
cup of oat flakes and left to steep for two minutes. Add a mere
splash of cold milk and a touch of sweetening and scarf away.
I called my nurse and told her I wanted to see somebody from the
kitchen. Now. The weekend cook showed. I explained all this to
her without calling her names or being ugly. I understand when I
am dealing with idiots and small children. Half an hour later I
got a completely new tray with cheesed scrambled eggs and toast
instead of rubber tire patches. The coffee was up to snuff.
This bowl of oatmeal was stiff enough to stand a spoon in. They
don't even stir the pot before dishing up. How lazy and stupid
can you be?
I told the cook if she dared to serve this way at Denny's they
would burn the place down around her. The coffee at lunch was
made off the breakfast grounds -- all color and no aroma or
taste.
Only five more days, please, Jayzuz...
* * * * *
This morning we have Jake moved in next door. The room has been
vacant and a storage area for three beds and two tardchairs for
weeks. George and I have been thankful for this, but all decent
things must come to an end so that our sufferings may continue.
The occupational therapist has Jake in the bathroom we share with
his room. She is trying to get him to wash himself. Wash under
your arms, she says. Why, he asks. I want you to rinse your
mouth out with mouthwash, she says. I don't want to, he says.
It'll make your mouth feel fresh and clean, she says. I don't
like that, he says.
Can you wash your bottom for me, she asks. Not today, he says.
Then when, she says. I don't know, he says, but not today, he
continues. Don't you ever wash your bottom, she asks. No, it
don't get dirty, he says. Here, she says, I want you to put this
deodorant on under your arms. No, no, no, I don't want to, he
says. Yes, she says, I want you to. Not today, he says.
Will you do it tomorrow, she asks, Will you promise me you'll do
it tomorrow and you won't say not today? Okay, okay, he says.
Jake wants to continue wearing the same clothes he came in
wearing yesterday. He won't let them go to the laundry. So,
mostly unwashed and in stale clothes, Jake is up for the day.
The therapist has met her match. Maybe they can borrow Stephanie
from The ERR and worry the old codger to death.
I went to the dining room to get a diet cola and a bag of corn
chips. When I came back, the OT had Jake sitting in his chair in
a wallowed-up green teeshirt and faded charcoal work pants. All
he needs for perfect cliche' is a beer and a teevee. Jake is
getting The Business. The Business is The Assessment. First
they ask you what year it is. [ 1932. ] Do you know what month it
is? [ October. ] What is the date today? [ I don't care! ]
What day of the week is this? [ What difference does it make? ]
Do you know what city you are in? [ Yeah, Brooklyn. ]
Jake has lush brown hair all around his head. He is completely
bald on top. He is typical of many really old men here in that
they are not greyed and have the general complexion of men we
used to think of as late 50-ish. Cyborg Daddy, for example,
doesn't look a day over 60 but is in his mid to late 80s.
Miss OT is now assessing coordination and motor skills. Can you
touch your nose, she asks. Touch your knee, touch your belly,
touch your shoulder, reach toward the ceiling. Later on the OT's
assessment, some doctor's notes, nurse's notes, additional papers
which came with him from the acute hospital, and notes from an
interview with Miss Ralph will all go into the MDS, Minimum Data
Set, a state-mandated document of eight pages which purports to
describe the person but fails by describing only a case number.
George is put out. He has come back to the room for his mid-
morning shit. Jake and the OT are in the john. George goes out
into the hall and tells the first avaiable nurse, I gotta go poo.
They find a vacant pot for him. George and Spastic Lady are
having a spat. Spastic Lady has finally gotten it through her
thick skull that George is nice to her for what he can get out of
her.
George always did take an ocassional puff off her cigarette as he
held it for her so she could smoke without dropping it. But now
he is doing more than half the smoking of her cigarettes and
she's tired of it. She is also getting tired of him coming to
her room after evening smoking period to get a little head.
She's been wearing her teeth more often lately, and I think there
is an implied threat in this.
This morning George stood at the foot of his bed, looked at me
and said, [Spastic Lady] is a bitch, you're a bitch, and I'm a
bitch. What he meant was, Spastic Lady is a bitch, you are a
faggot, and he is pissed off. Maybe you have to live around
George for a while to comprehend how he can use one word to mean
three different but related things. This is why I say his sense
of irony was not lost at all -- only his ability to let it hang
out.
This morning as I went into the blinding sun on the tile of the
dining room to get my first diet cola of the day, I passed a
forest of IV stands bearing tube pumps. There were a full dozen
standing mute and very like a stainless steel forest. They are
ready to be hooked up to new tards fresh in from the real
hospital down the street. Tards come to us after having direct-
connects installed in their belly. Miss Ralph must've been out
stumping for more business. I guess they're going to do an ERR
thing and specialize in coma cases. Coma cases just lie there
and shit. They don't bitch about the food or the rudeness of the
staff.
Meet Cookie Monster. This is the newest loony they've added. He
has wild, flyaway Einstein white hair and a giant bushy white
moustache which makes him resemble Timothy Leary in his last
state of living decomposition. He sat in the hall bellowing in
his gruff, cigarette-enhanced stentor, I WANT TO GO TO THE
BATHROOM. From him it sounded more like AHWUHGUHTHUHBUHRHUM.
Over and over and over he ranted. Little Dorothy across the
corridor from him resembles a ferret and has a temper to match.
She's our most accomplished scratcher/biter. She was upset at
all the noise and was screaming for him to SHUT UP JUST SHUT UP
GET OUT OF HERE SHUT UP JUST SHUT UP. Rochelle went in to check
on Cookie Monster. They take him to the bathroom all the time
but he rarely does any business. He took a swing at her. She
shook her fat little finger at him and warned, Don't you hit me,
now, or I'll call 911. Cookie Monster isn't impressed. He
growls, You're a sonofabitch; kiss my ass.
I've been taking pictures of the place and of some of my favorite
people. I have shots of the front lobby and its grand but used
hotel furniture. The stuff is of traditional designs that ape
Old Money. It's hard to get a meaningful picture of a nurse's
station from my perspective. All I can see is bad hairdos and
the teller's row-like divide between medical doings and we who
are done unto. I did get a good picture of the tardpump forest,
of the boredom in the dining room, and the bleak hospital white
of the halls.
I got a picture of Miss Ralph at her social services desk, the
officious bitch. But I can't be too nasty because she shooed
Manuel out of the kitchen long enough for me to get his picture.
Manuel is the one who wanks into the diced beets and over the
canned apple slices. As cute as he is, you'd think his work
would taste better. Oh, well... Manuel came back a few minutes
after posing and asked where was the picture. These kids today,
they think everything is instant. I also have a couple of
pictures of bedridden tards with their oxygen bottles and their
tardpumps.
These eighty-some chapters of journal beginning in The Eternal
Rest Room and ending here at St Timmy's are to remind you not to
live too long. Do yourself in before you get old and nutty. If
you're going to hang around and let one of these places deplete
the family fortune, be good to yourself and go comatose.
If I'd had any idea what the past two years was going to be for
me, I wouldn't be writing this. But since I suffered it and
wrote about it, heed its message. Get political. Get active.
Your brush with this system is coming as surely as your own grey
hair. Reform or dismantle this tardfarm system which is based on
the exploitation of hopelessness and which is designed to spit
out only the dead ones. Lobby for additional new and remodeled
living space compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA). Expand the amount of space in HUD-financed buildings
which must be set aside and equipped for the handicapped. It is
much cheaper to let the infirm and crippled live in their own
private space and have visiting nurse service than it is to store
them in institutions.
I have to move out now. I have to make it or break it in the
real world now. If I stay another month I will be trapped and I
will only get out by putting my neck on the railroad track around
the corner.
T H E E N D O F T H E T R I A L S
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