by Dean Kutzler
Not quite chanting. Praying. More like the soft sounds of someone praying.
Jack turned his head towards the sound. The curtains to room number three had been partially drawn and the door was halfway open. A man with small shoulders, dressed all in black except for a bit of white sticking out of his collar, adjusted an oversized black hat and made motion of a cross over the patient. The patient looked on in bewilderment. Although Jack realized that this wasn’t his uncle’s room, his fate wouldn’t be far behind.
Jack took a few more breaths and calmed himself the best he could. The panic attack left him ill to his stomach, but he wasn’t blowing whatever chance he had left to see his uncle. He let go of the nurse's station, grabbed his goatee and headed around the desk to room number four.
The curtains were closed.
He looked up at the Car 54 light, it was off duty.
Had he been too late?
Jack took one last breath and swallowed hard. He took hold of the handle and slowly opened the door to room number four. He looked about the room, purposely avoiding looking at his uncle. The machines were all running, a little fast he thought, but running. That was a good sign. He wasn’t too late. Jack approached his uncle.
Now or never.
He didn’t know what he was going to say to his uncle, if he was even still coherent, but Jack realized that it didn’t matter what he said. What really mattered most was that he was there.
He made it.
The inevitability of escaping death had pulled back the shades on the realization that no words or actions could change what was brought on by the end of life’s cycle. Death has many definitions—defined as peace for the suffering, and defined as a means to the end for the rest of us. Within the scope of that end, helplessness is all there is left to cling to. Death, like time, is unstoppable.
Jack finally faced his uncle. Like a cog in a machine, he idly laid there in the center of the room, grinding away motionlessly with the rest of the mechanics. There was a tube for him to pee, a pouch to take care of the thicker stuff and a hose that brought him breath. More tubes administered drippy fluids and wires were all over him to monitor their progress.
His uncle’s head was to the side, facing away from Jack as if to spare him the sight. His skin was the most subtle of the grays. Not dove gray, nor slate gray, but the sullen gray of death.
Jack put his hand on his uncle’s arm. His muscle immediately tensed and the monitors blipped a bit louder. Reflexes Jack thought, another good sign. “Hey Uncle Terry,” he said in the softest voice. “It’s just me, Jackie Boy.” His uncle always called him that as a term of endearment. When Jack was little, he secretly hated the term because it made reference to his age. ‘I’m six and a half! NOT six!’ Jackie Boy would always say when his uncle would ask how old his big boy was that year.
“I got here as fast as I could. What a hell of a time I had getting here, too. The doctor said that you were asking for me? Can you hear me Uncle Terry? It’s Jackie Boy, your favorite nephew.” They used to joke about him being his ‘favorite nephew’. ‘Hey! I’m your only nephew!’ Jackie Boy would say. “Are you awake? You with me, Uncle Terry?” Jack gently shook his arm.
The monitors began racing faster as Jack watched his uncle begin to stir. Maybe this was a bad idea? He should have talked to the doctor first. The last thing he wanted to do was cause him another stroke.
“Just take it easy, Uncle Terry. Just stay calm,” Jack said, more to himself. His uncle’s arm began to shake beneath his hand. Wouldn’t the alarms on the monitor go off if he was having another stroke? Was this how it started? Maybe the excitement was too much for him? Then he heard faint muffled sounds of moaning coming from his uncle. He needed to get the doctor or at least the nice Nurse Julie. “It’s going to be all right, Uncle Terry. I’m going to go get—“ As he started to turn and get help, Uncle Terry grabbed at Jack’s arm. Startled by his sudden movement, Jack stopped and looked back at his uncle.
Uncle Terry’s head lolled slowly in Jack’s direction. His face wore a painful grimace and his eyes were wide open, dilated and terror stricken. His hair was stuck to his brow from sweat, his face was a serious shade of red. Jack was scared. He thought the worst part he’d have to endure would be to visit his dying uncle. He never fathomed witnessing his end.
“Stay calm, Uncle Terry. Stay calm. I’m just going to get the doctor.” Jack looked into his eyes. He was looking back almost beseechingly at him. A single teardrop started at the corner of his eye and ran down the curvature of his cheek. Maybe he was just happy to see his nephew, Jackie Boy?
Could that be all that was going on here?
Was it possible he could get better?
Jack could tell by the weak grip of his uncle’s hand that he wasn’t strong. He wasn’t strong at all. It took all he had to stop Jack from leaving, yet he still held fast to his arm.
“Are you just happy to see me, Unc’? Is that all? Are you okay?” His uncle squeezed his eyes shut hard and more tears ran down both cheeks this time. His head slowly started to shake. “Are you trying to tell me something? The doctor’s message said you really wanted to see me?” His uncle’s head stopped shaking and he opened his eyes. There was that look again, but more sorrowful this time. “What is it, Uncle Terry?”
His eyes started rolling in the back of his head. Jack gently took a hold of his face, trying to remain calm, remembering what the nurse had told him about stroke victims. “Uncle Terry? Uncle Terry!” Is he choking on his tongue? The railings on the bed started clanking. The monitors were out of control. Jack could feel his uncle’s body starting to convulse. He didn’t need to be a doctor to see that this wasn’t another stroke. He was having another seizure.
Could a patient even choke to death on a ventilator?
Ventilator or not, he quickly decided it wouldn’t hurt to make sure he wasn’t swallowing his tongue before he got some help. Jack tried to get his fingers around the tube and into his uncle’s mouth to fish around and see if he’d swallowed it.
Clamped shut.
No time to waste. He needed to get help.
Jack let go of his uncle’s face, never imagining what would happen next. The monitors were a blur of activity, the sound alone anxiety inducing.
Thump.
Jack could feel the white—Thumpa—noise—Thump—Thump—ocean—Thumpa—Thumpa—starting to rush back in at high tide. Thumpa—Thumpa—Thumpa. He was frozen. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. His uncle’s head started shaking wildly back and forth, the intubation tube pulsating like a snake.
Jack was paralyzed as he watched his uncle ride out the seizure, powerless to help him. His head bobbed back and forth then lolled to a halt on the side of his face. His eyes were rolled to the back of his head and he started making a terrible choking sound as if he was dry-heaving.
Then it happened.
His uncle let out a guttural gasp and a spray of thick red blood shot out in all directions, gurgling over his chin like a waterfall, followed by a bloody grayish mass that smacked the bed guard before it flopped over onto the floor with a meaty splat.
October 27, 6:48 P.M., EST
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City
“Mr. Elliot?”
Darkness.
“Mr. Elliot?”
Darkness and pain.
It was completely dark, someone was calling his name and it sounded so far away. His head hurt and a hand was on his shoulder gently nudging him. The fogginess cleared a little and he opened his eyes to blinding light. His head was screaming from the brightness, pounding in that worst hangover sort of way that only too many Long Island Iced Teas could provide.
“Wha—where am I? What happened?” His eyes started to focus. Yellow things danced before his face. It was the nice nurse, Julie. Her face scrunched up in a frown as she looked down at him.
“Got worried there for a moment, Mr. Elliot.” She nestled an ice pack between his neck and the pillow. “You have a nasty scrape an
d bump on your temple. Actually it’s on your sphenoid bone. Luckily, you didn’t break it. That could be very dangerous for obvious reasons.”
“My seefa-whaa?” Struggling with the wooziness and the pounding he went to inspect the bump on his sphenoid and his hand stopped short with a clank. He tried again.
Clank—clank!
“What the—?”
“The police insisted on having you restrained until they questioned you when you came to. I tried to tell them it was silly and wouldn’t be necessary. I even insisted, but they wouldn’t listen. Something about policy or procedure. I don’t know. That’s why I’m still here. My shift ended over an hour ago, but I didn’t want you to wake up to this—“ She motioned to the cuffs. “—alone. Especially—with, ah—what happened.” Her face was troubled but she smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder as she turned and headed for the door. “You’re suffering from a slight concussion, but other than that, you’re okay. My fiancé is going to start worrying, give me a sec. I’m just going to give him a buzz and I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder and out the door.
“Police? What—“ He didn’t get a chance to finish, before she’d left the room.
The room?
He was still at the hospital? In a bed? No way! It was coming back to him, in bits. He tried to raise his other hand to adjust the ice pack and saw that it too was cuffed to the bed railing. The pack fell behind the pillow, out of his chained reach.
“What the—” he uttered, dropping his hand. What was he doing before? Before what? His uncle. That’s right—he’d been visiting his uncle and…what happened?
He laid his head back down. He needed that ice pack. The pounding in his head was doing a number on his concentration.
More bits.
It was starting to come back to him in bits. Geez, his head really hurt. Getting whacked on the noggin wasn’t like you see on TV where they just shook it off. He was thinking. He’d been visiting his uncle and then he started to convulse like he was having a seizure. Suddenly he sat up and the ice pack slid behind his back.
Unholy Christ! “Then his—“
“That’s a mighty nasty bump you took on your noggin,” said the tall man dressed in a smoke gray suit and black shirt standing in the doorway. He was almost old enough to be Jack’s grandfather, a pencil rested behind his right ear, sticking out from a crown of receding black hair that should’ve been shaved off ten years ago. “I’m Detective Scanlin, Gary Scanlin.” He flashed a billfold badge. “You know, like Bond, James Bond?” He smirked, waiting for a laugh that never came. “I just have a few questions for you, Mr. Elliot. Do you mind if I call you Jack?”
“Do you mind taking these cuffs off me and explaining why I’m wearing them?” Jack’s head was starting to clear.
“I’m sorry—Jack?” He raised his brow and waited for approval and continued when Jack nodded. “Just a formality, I assure you. You have some friends in here. The Sponge Bob chippy didn’t want me to cuff you. Quite a pip, that one. She insisted there was no need for those,” he said, crossing the room reaching inside his jacket and producing a key. “But you can never be too careful these days you know, and I always practice safe over sorry.”
While the detective unlocked the cuffs, Jack looked into his eyes—crystal clear blue. The eyes of an honest man with suspicion justly pinched in each corner. The eyes of a seasoned cop. Jack’s head was still pounding but the fog cleared enough so he started to piece together the puzzle.
“How is my uncle? What happened to him? Is he okay? I wanna see him.” He was getting impatient, rubbing at the marks from the cuffs.
“This shouldn’t take too long, Jack. I just have a few questions concerning what happened in there with your uncle. Now, Sponge Bobby told me that you probably suffered from some sort of shock or panic attack, fainted and hit your head on the chair. Dr. Alderson confirmed as much. Spongy said you were real worked up about seeing your uncle and just before that you had a run-in with a patient named—“ He reached inside his jacket and fished out a notepad and flipped through a few pages. “Eyes ain’t what they used to be. There it is, a Ms. Fredrickson. Why don’t we start there? Tell me your version of what happened in that hallway with the late Ms. Fredrickson.” The detective pulled the pencil from behind his ear, flipped to a fresh page and looked at Jack with an innocent smile that held the illusion of sincerity on the surface of a sea of doubt.
“My version? Excuse me? My version? Okay, I see where all this is heading—” Jack began to say.
“Really? That’s great! Let’s have it! I’m all ears. After the events that have occurred here today, I’d really like to hear it,” the detective said, motioning with his notepad. “Please, go on,” he finished with a meaty grin.
Jack didn’t like his sweet sarcasm, no matter how hard he grinned or how shiny his badge was. After all, he and his uncle were the victims here. The journalist in him was silently working a victim story. He got spit on by topsy turvy, assaulted by a crazy corpse and wound up double handcuffed to a bed in this insane asylum with a bump on his head bigger than Rhode Island. Yeah, he wasn’t having it.
“Excuse me, detective, if I seem a little perturbed. Because I am! I came here, from Montréal—“
“So you’re not a resident?” He purposely interrupted. “You’re from Montréal, Canada?” He started scribbling away. “I will need to see your passport. I think you need a passport now to cross over from Canada. Don’t cha?” Apparently, the constant interruptions were a tactic of interrogation or just bad manners on the detective’s part. Jack knew not—nor cared not.
He thought for a moment. Different shoes, different perspective and all. The detective had a right to be suspicious. It really didn’t look good the clearer his head became—dead patient in the hallway, his uncle. This guy was just trying to do his job, which he had every right to do. His anger softened.
While Jack was thinking about this whole ordeal, he looked up and realized the detective was studying him with those crystal-blue, instinctual eyes. He could almost see the scales of judgment tipping out of his favor in those baby blues.
“Let me be straight with you detective. I understand how this looks!” He put his hand up in protest before he was interrupted again. “And I really don’t know what the hell is going on in this crazy place. I just came here, from Montréal like I started to say, to see my uncle. He is dying and for all I know, at this point he may be dead and I don’t even know what happened. I was told that he suffered from a severe stroke that left him catatonic. Basically brain dead. I got a call saying that he was slipping in and out of consciousness.”
Detective Scanlin held his gaze on Jack just long enough for it to be uncomfortable and then made a note in his notepad. “Okay, so you’re saying that you don’t know what happened to Ms. Frederickson?”
“No! All I can tell you is that she was standing in the hallway, looking all crazy. Can you please tell me what’s happened to my uncle? Is he still alive?”
“Crazy?” the detective asked, looking up from his notepad.
“Yes, crazy! She was babbling on incoherently and I tried to ask her if she needed help and then she slapped me, quite hard I might add, on the neck, then dropped to the floor. Dead. Like someone turned out the lights. So—can you please tell—”
“So—when she hit you, did you retaliate?”
“Wha—no! No I didn’t retaliate!” Jack clenched the bed sheet. “I’m telling you, she really knocked me for a loop. That’s when Julie came along.”
“Who’s Julie?” The detective tilted his head and arched a brow.
“The nurse. The nurse that was just here.” Jack gave him an exaggerated eye roll.
“Oh!” He flipped a few pages and squinted at the notepad. “Sponge Bobby! My grandson loves that ‘toon. That poor ole Squidward. Always gets the raw end of the deal. Hee hee—I’m sorry.” The detective shook his head. “I’m sorry. I digress. Please continue. You saw her in the hall? She was talkin
g nonsense? You asked her if she needed help? Then POW! Punched in the neck?”
“Slapped! She slapped me on the neck!” Jack wondered if this was a ‘Columbo’ tactic.
“Right. She slapped you on the neck. Quite hard you added.” He said, erasing in his notepad as he mouthed the word slapped. “It’s all in the details, Jack. All in the details.” He tapped the eraser on the pad. “That’s why I use a pencil. Everyone down at the station laughs at me.” Big surprise. “They tell me I’m so low tech that I haven’t discovered pens yet. But you know what Jack? I like my pencils. Ticonderoga number twos.” He twirled the pencil between his fingers like a magician doing the quarter trick. “Unlike the crimes I solve, Jack, the mistakes can be erased. The crimes? They can only be brought to justice.” Detective Scanlin winked at him and resumed the fake, toothy smile.
Jack was going to lose his patience with this man and he knew he shouldn’t. Couldn’t. He knew how this all looked. The guy was just doing his job and going about it an old gumshoe—strange sort of way. But the fact still remained—he didn’t do anything wrong and he still wasn’t getting any answers about his uncle.
“Detective Scanlin, I understand. I get it. You have a job to do here, but I didn’t do anything to that poor old woman and I still don’t know what happened to my uncle. I don’t even know if he’s still alive or not. For all I know, death’s clock is ticking away and I’m going to lose my chance at talking with him one last time before he passes away.” Jack’s voice was reaching shrill status. He was losing it. He pulled the spent ice pack out from behind his back and threw it at the nightstand. It bounced off the edge and landed next to the detective’s shoe with a splat.
He looked down at the ice pack with the indifference of a DMV clerk. The condensation from where it hit the nightstand was dripping on his freshly polished black shoe, beading up instantly. Without a blink he continued. “Jack, can you think of anyone that would want to harm your uncle?” Still penciling away in that damned notebook, painfully oblivious to Jack’s situation.