nursing home
by Christopher Hadin
They come into my room and talk to me, saying things like “Hi Dad, how’s it going?” and “Janey and the kids are here too,” even though I can see them standing right in front of me. The fat one is fatter, like her mother, but I don’t say this. I don’t speak.
I know one of them is my son, and he has a name, and if you said it I would know it but I can’t think of it when he’s here. The others I don’t know––the ones who don’t talk––but they come too.
I have a daughter. She is with the quiet ones who come but don’t talk, and I prefer them like I prefer my grandkids who stand quietly and have to be told to speak. “What do you say to Grampa?” their mother prods them and they mumble out “Hi Grampa,” like a chorus of fools. Why do they make them come to this place?
My room is small and there is another man in here. He groans and cries and then sometimes he talks, saying “Nurse! There’s a body in my bed! There’s someone in my bed!” The nurses come in to tell him there is no one in his bed. The nurses are all black so maybe I’m black now too. Their voices are soft and they whisper like cooing birds, next to my bed,. “This” and “that” they say, but what they talk about to each other–– I don’t know. But none of it matters anymore.
Out the window, my God, don’t I know what’s out that damn window? And they come in, the talkers, and ask, “Did you look outside the window? It’s a nice day!” like they invented windows. Like they made the day. Outside the window I can see a tree, and I hate it. It grows alone and drops its leaves and grows new ones every day it seems. I have to check to see what that damn tree is doing. No leaves means winter, green is summer, but who doesn’t know that? I only say it to show you I know.
The quiet ones are always here. Talk or don’t talk, it’s all the same to me, but I like it that they don’t talk. How there’s room for them all doesn’t make any sense. Dozens of them all around, and still room for a nurse to walk in and feed me lunch. There’s men and women, and the one who looks like my daughter is always smiling at me. They could shut off the damn lights sometime. Every damn light in the place burning all night. Would it hurt the quiet ones to sit in the dark a little? We had to sit in the dark sometimes when the power was out. But it doesn’t matter because it seems like I sleep all the time now, light or dark.
And I’ll wake up and one will be sitting near me. One of the nurses comes in and she talks, but only to me. Like I’m all alone in this room full of people and bright lights. They never do anything, maybe because they don’t know how to do the stuff around here. Or maybe they did everything already, I don’t know. Once I tried to ask one of them something, and my voice was like a grunt, not even a voice. They nodded, but how they knew what I was saying from that one grunt, I don’t know. That was the last thing I said, a grunt. Since then I don’t try to talk at all.
And then one day there was a quiet one who bent down and put his hand on my forehead, so he must have been a doctor. Maybe they are all doctors, studying what happens when you get too old but don’t die. The one who touched me had a hand that was warm and cool at the same time. I was feeling sick that day, like I was falling down, but you can’t fall down when you lay in bed. When the quiet one touched my head I got better. He smiled and stood back when the others came in the room and started talking about baseball. Goddam baseball. I felt better enough to look around when my son said, “Dad, Tommy pitched a no-hitter and brought you the ball!” I must have smiled because they all looked happy. “Look, he’s smiling!” the wife said. The little fat one was trying not to cry––and all at once I could see how she’ll be pretty one day. When she grows into herself and those braces come off she’ll see it. The brother of hers is a lump of wood but she’ll be pretty.
And the quiet doctor went over and put his hand on her head. She was looking down but when he did she looked around, then looked at me, this time smiling big like school picture day. The doctor looked at the others and nodded his head. He walked out and then no one said anything, the talkers, my son, his kids, none of them said a word. Then the wife said, “Well let’s let dad get his rest,” and they all said “Goodbye Grampa!”
Yesterday, or this morning, one of the quiet ones came by the bed and waved to me to get up. They know I can’t walk but I wanted to try, so I moved a leg a little. That other guy in my room saw it and started yelling, “He’s got someone in his bed!” Then a nurse came in and told him to shush. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up, there were more quiet ones standing by the bed.
This goddam bed. The next time they want me to go with them I’ll go. I just need a little help getting out of this goddam bed.
Christopher Hadin teaches horticulture/environmental enrichment for adults with disabilities. A graduate of Michigan State, his work will appear this fall in Sky Island Journal, Better Than Starbucks, October Hill Magazine and The Thieving Magpie. He lives in Bethel, Connecticut.