Patients and Pets
[1]
She looked in her Mc’ds salad and wished a Jack in the Box was on her way to work. Suzi thinks on about the drive that got her here, is there a Hardy’s, I mean a Carl’s Jr? No there’s Rally’s but they ain’t got ‘em, shit; even Wendy’s give you the same shit, just a slightly different flavor with the same kind of logo.
Suzi thinks on about her drive to work, Asian chicken tomorrow or the Caesar or should I just get the Garden with ranch again, this time I’ll use the seeds and the croutons, no fuck them croutons. The kids dropped off with enough time for the “this and that’s”.
She looked at the yogurt and thought about her thighs then looked at the napkin with the fork and glanced and the foiled top thinking about when the time amounts to that. Suzi picks up the fork and realizes there’s no spoon. She hits the floor the flat of her shoe then rises her heal and hold it there for a moment, wrinkling her brow.
The buzzer for Bed B in Room 12 calls. Sally looks over then turns to Suzi as she eye’s a mush room with her plastic fork already armed with a leaf of romaine covered in ranch, “that’s your room.”
Suzi looks over at the dry erase marker board and looks at her name and the list of people she nurses, she darts the fork pronging the mushroom then a flick and a dab she stabs at the bowl just filling the three plastic cul-de-sacs with what ever she could gag her mouth with to keep “I’m on my way.” From coming out.
Suzi holds the fork up; a giant meat ball of greens and processed creams, looking over it to Sally, “You know that bastard hates me and well all I’m gonna say is he’s interrupted every meal of mine for the last 3 weeks and well…” She looks at the lit plastic of the frosted lighting on the ceiling then, to a picture of her kids in front of her bellow the lip of the counter next to a cylinder of pencils, pins, permanent markers and highlighters, “…it all started when we had that steak pizza. I said don’t let anyone them sick mother fuckers try and keep us from this meal, the night of the anniversary of the hospitals’ first year open.” She opens her lips again and takes her pickings into her mouth and stands up and with her free hand she pushes the off button on room 12’s concerns. She chews a few bites and swallows, sits back down and pushes her salad about with her fork. Suzi spouts, “I can’t help it if he’s a racist mother fucker.” Ranch and spit touching her kids picture, she says nothing and looks forward holding an empty fork half way between her and the counter.
Sally says nothing as Suzi’s words come and go like the coupons she scans from the paper. She says to herself in her head, “The other guy in the room, that’s the racist mother fucker.”
[2]
“Goddamn buzzer aint no good. Why don’t they give us a phone we can reach, shit I can’t reach the one on the wall or the dresser with this catheter and this feeding tube and that goddamn pointer finger and this beeping mother fucker next to me…” Patient B hits the side of his coffin crib hostpital bed, jabbing the IV on the back of his hand his jolts a sound of pain then blurts at the breathable ceilings dotted panels, “they could at least make this bed voice activated. Fuck.”
Patient A next to him stairs at the TV on the wall. Propped up like the star on a Christmas tree airing Jeopardy, finally Patient A says “I don’t know.”
The room fills with applause, boo’s, beeps and the electrical hum of silent stagnation.
Patient B continually pushes the red button on the wired joy stick, “Well they got to be hearing this out there!”
The TV says “No, What is Will Shortz”
Patient A, “I don’t know.”
“I mean come on the rates we pay they should have a nurse for every patient. One nurse to every 14 people what the fuck. I’m going to get infections or have a fucking heart attack, dear god what are they thinking.”
The TV says, “No that’s the wrong answer Shirley, The answer is “What is Sudoku?”
Patient A says, “I don’t know.”
Patient B looks over at Patient A and shakes his head as if someone would laugh and stares at his roommate staring at the TV. Finally he puts the stick down next to him wet with his sweat. He looks at the TV and watches ticking us along a conveyor belt… Patient B says inside, “why not some truth.”
“Who do you think they got in the kitchen cooking?”
Silence.
“This is the last time I am going to go to a hospital ran by a church… and fuck what’s up with that nightly prayer… is there a shortage on priests or priestess’ who could visit the whatever the patients faith is, I’m nothing and don’t want anything they could at least offer me some head phones… No they got to cut out the TV! Always when something good is on and purge there fears onto us from a god damn speaker in the wall… is this thx crap or what? I mean I’m not just rag’n on the churches, I bet a lot of the employs are here on military funded college loans or grants or whatever they call this laundry…”
The Jeopardy metronome ticks on. Silence except for the machines, Alek says…
Patient B Yells at the tinted window of a city of blinking lights like twinkling stars before the ozone left and all that caused the twinkling was fumes and gasses. Answers and Buzzers ring, they words and responses are all shot down. The Game keepers watch there game fatten with disappointment or just sleep or laugh not caring as the banks fill…” Patient B thinks on then erupts, “ Fuck your apple juice can I get a fucking glass of red wine in here!!!”
“No, the answer is What is
