Jumpstart the World

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” Long silence. I had no idea what else to say. And I was refusing to look at her face. At last, I thought of something that felt safe. “If I give you my key,” I said, fishing around in my pocket for it, “will you give Toto his pill tonight and in the morning? He missed another two today. I’m starting to get scared that he won’t get better. You know. If I keep skipping his pills.”

  I held the key out to her. On the flat of my palm. I expected her to just take it. But instead, she took the whole hand. Held it a minute, and squeezed it.

  “Frank’s in two twenty-three,” she said.

  Then she let go. I looked at my palm and the key was gone.

  When I looked up, so was she.

  I had about half a dozen stealthy plans for how to do this. But it was all too easy.

  I was almost disappointed.

  When I got to Frank’s floor, there was still a good ten minutes of visiting hours left. So I just walked in. No one said a word to me, or even looked at me. I walked by a nurses’ station staffed by three female nurses—one of whom had probably threatened to call security on Molly—but none of them even looked up.

  Frank lay unconscious in a double room. Thank God that drain thing was covered completely in bandages. His whole head was covered in bandages. He looked small and frail. Younger than he usually looked to me. I’m not a motherly type, but he almost brought that out in me now.

  In the next bed lay a strong candidate for oldest woman on the planet. She must have been a hundred and something. Her hair was just a faded wisp, barely covering her scalp, allowing a mass of dark age spots to show through. She looked at least unconscious. If not dead.

  I had to swallow my irritation over the fact that they put Frank in a room with a woman roommate. I was beginning to see more of the point about the whole hospital and jail experience.

  It wasn’t hard to find a place to hide. Not an absolutely perfect place, but the best I had available to me. It would do. It would have to.

  The white curtain that divided the area between the beds extended most of the way around the head of Frank’s bed. Not all the way down to the floor. That would have been nice. But the gap wasn’t really all that huge.

  I slipped into the bathroom and found a ridiculously white bleached towel. And then I disappeared. I slid under Frank’s bed, tucked myself behind the curtain, then used the towel to cover the parts of me that weren’t white. If I hadn’t been under the bed, it might have been pretty obvious. But to see me, somebody would have to pull the curtain all the way back on one side of the bed or the other and then look under the bed. And even then, once the lights went out, I’d be hard to spot.

  I wondered when that would be.

  And if it didn’t work? Well, then they could arrest me.

  It was too cramped under the bed to sit up normally. I curled up as best I could. And waited. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  It was dawning on me, I think, that it was going to be a long night.

  I woke out of a sound sleep, hurting. My back hurt from sleeping at that weird angle. One hip bone hurt from the hard floor. My muscles felt locked into place.

  But it was dark. And completely silent. I had no idea what time it was. But it was late. Night shift. And I had not been busted.

  Yet.

  I came out of hiding.

  The oldest woman in the world was snoring. More loudly than I ever imagined it was possible for a real person to snore in real life. I thought only cartoon characters and old men in fifties sitcoms sounded like that.

  On the plus side, it meant she was alive.

  For about an hour, I sat in the chair next to Frank’s bed. In the dark. My eyes were pretty well adjusted to the lack of light, so I could just about make out the contours of his face.

  I know this next bit will sound weird. But here’s what I was thinking:

  Two things.

  One. We would never treat anybody like shit if we knew they could be about to die. I mean, anyone we care about even a little. If we knew they could die, we would just freaking get over all the petty crap, because losing someone you love is more important than any of that. But, now, here’s the part that actually took up some of the hour: Anybody could be about to die. Every single person we care about is going to die. And we have no idea when. So how can we afford to treat anybody like shit? Well, that’s the easy part. We can’t. But here’s the harder part: Since we all know for a fact that we’re all going to die, why don’t we all treat each other like we could lose each other at any minute? Because we all know it’s true.

  That was actually the good part of my thinking. The happy stuff, in comparison.

  Now. At the distinct risk of sounding weirder still:

  Two. You feel something for somebody. And then you find out they’re not what you thought they were. So the feelings go away, right? Because, you know, they were based on something that’s gone now. Right? Wrong. I kept looking at Frank, wanting those feelings to be gone. They were not gone. What if they never would be?

  I heard a sudden noise, and jumped a mile. The door. Someone was opening the door to Frank’s room. My first impulse was to dive back under the bed, but there wasn’t time. I’d get caught out in the open. So I just hit the floor behind the chair. Just huddled in the corner, squatting there more or less in plain sight, with nothing but a plastic chair to block someone’s view of me.

  The good news, if there can be good news in a spot like this, is that the sudden visitor was a nurse—I assumed—working with a small beam of flashlight. If she turned on the lights, it would all be over. By flashlight, I just might get by.

  I watched her checking on the ancient woman in the next bed. I don’t know what she was checking, but it seemed to take forever. I was squatting in a position that was hard to hold for long. My calf muscles were getting trembly, and my sock feet wanted to slip on the shiny floor. I was worried I might topple right over.

  In time, she moved around to Frank’s bed. I saw white pant legs just a foot or two in front of my face. I saw her shine the flashlight on the bandages on Frank’s head and begin to gently peel back the outer layer.

  I quick looked away.

  By the time she was done checking Frank’s drain and had the bandage back in place, I was so unsteady and so trembly that I was afraid my movements would catch her eye. I reached out to steady myself by holding the chair. It moved slightly, scraping on the linoleum.

  The nurse looked up. Looked my way.

  She turned on the little reading light by Frank’s bed. Shined it in my direction. Just before I blinked into the light, I was surprised to see that she was not a she at all. It was a male nurse.

  I plunked into a sit. Having nothing left to lose.

  He walked over to where I was sitting and squatted in front of me.

  My whole body turned to ice. Somehow, getting arrested didn’t seem like such a small deal anymore.

  “Well. Who do we have here?”

  “Only me,” I said. Hoping against hope that he had a sense of humor.

  He was about in his late twenties, and handsome. One dark, curly mass of hair hung down between his eyebrows like the forelock on a horse. He had a Velcro-length beard and long, thick, dark eyelashes.

  “What are you doing here, little one?”

  “Taking care of my friend Frank.”

  “I thought that was my job.”

  “I’m watching his back.”

  “Against what?”

  He waited a minute for me to answer, but I didn’t know what to say. Maybe too much information would only hurt Frank’s situation. So I said nothing at all.

  “Oh wait. I know. You think maybe some vicious trans-phobic asshole is going to take advantage of him in his helpless state. Well, not on my watch, girlfriend. I’m the only one assigned to this floor tonight. And I’m family.”

  I think my mouth might have been hanging open.

  “You’re related to Frank?”

  He threw back hi
s head and overflowed with quiet laughter. It sounded so genuinely gleeful that it actually made me smile. Against odds. I think it was contagious.

  “Not that kind of family, honey. The GLBT variety. The community.”

  It’s not as if I’d never heard the expression before. More that my brain was moving in low gear.

  Before I could answer, he said, “Gay …” A pause, as if he were teaching lessons to kindergartners. “Lesbian …”

  “Right, bisexual, transgender. I know. Oh. I get it. You mean you’re gay.”

  His index finger reached out and touched the tip of my nose. Pushed it slightly. “You’re slow, baby girl, but at least you get there eventually. Nothing bad is gonna happen to your friend on my shift. Over my dead body.”

  “Thank God.” For the first time since I heard the door opening, I breathed. Really breathed. “Can I stay with him anyway?”

  I was still worried that he would wake up alone in this room, and the nice male nurse would be nowhere around, and Frank would be scared. I wasn’t even here mostly because I was worried someone would hurt or humiliate him. Because the chances of that were fairly small. I was here so he wouldn’t have to be afraid someone would.

  “Well, you have to stay now. You’re committed. You can’t just go sauntering by security in the middle of the night. You’re here till seven a.m., girlfriend. Like it or not.”

  “Thank you,” I said. As he pulled to his feet. “For not busting me.”

  “Yeah, and just one thing about that. I could lose my job for letting you stay. If I knew you were here. So it’s a good thing I never saw you, right?”

  “Right! You never saw me.”

  “We never had this conversation.”

  “What conversation?”

  He reached down and pushed the tip of my nose one more time.

  He winked at me just before he turned out the light. Then he slipped out of the room.

  After he left, I sat in the same chair, staring at the same Frank. But I could feel how the energy in the room had shifted. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t hiding out. Or feeling like I was surrounded by enemies.

  The night was different and so was I.

  After a while I moved, and sat on the edge of Frank’s bed, because I wanted to look at him more closely. I had to go around to the other side because I was afraid of bumping his poor right arm.

  I reached out and touched his face, then took my hand back. Waited for a while to make sure I hadn’t wakened him up. No movement. So I touched him again.

  I ran my hand down his cheek and his chin. Over the stubble of five o’clock shadow. He must have been taking hormones. Because it was definitely the right feel for a man’s face. It reminded me, in a big strong flash, of my father. When I was really little. I haven’t seen my father in a long time.

  I ran my hand gently over the outside of his ear. It was small and perfectly shaped. Sculptured. Like a seashell.

  Something was building up in my stomach, a sort of electricity. I felt as though I were stealing something. Cheating somehow. I’d never imagined what it would feel like to be with Frank while he was unconscious. I could sit with him, stare at him, touch him. All in secret.

  Was I invading his privacy? I wasn’t sure. But I think the little electric buzz in my stomach thought I was.

  Why did I still feel the same way about him? How could it still be like that?

  But a little voice in the back of my head—well, not exactly in the back of my head, more like in a spot over my head—said “why” and “how” questions were almost never helpful. Things either aren’t or they are. All the wondering why in the world won’t make things anything but just what they are.

  I was sleepy, and tired of sitting up, so I lay down on the little piece of bed that Frank didn’t fill. I was afraid of crushing his left arm, so I picked it up and tucked under it.

  If the nurse came back, he’d think I was insane. But he probably wouldn’t come back. Besides, maybe he wouldn’t think that. Maybe he would just think I loved Frank. Maybe he already thought I was Frank’s partner. That was a weird flash that came into my head. It felt strange, but also kind of good, to think we were an actual possibility in somebody’s eyes.

  I have no idea how long I lay beside him that way, his arm draped over my shoulder. But I do know that I was right on the edge of sleep. That weird patch of no-man’s-land when you’re not fully asleep but dream images start invading your brain.

  I said something, but I wasn’t sure if I said it out loud. Maybe I just thought it. Maybe I just dreamed I said it out loud.

  Anyway, here’s what it was:

  “I love you, Frank.”

  And then, when I heard it, either out loud or in my head, it startled me awake again. And I realized I was crying.

  I sat up and reached for a tissue from the little table near the bed.

  I felt a hand on my back. There was only one person it could possibly have belonged to.

  “That’s so sweet,” Frank said. He sounded a little bit like he was talking in his sleep.

  I jumped to my feet and took about three steps back from the bed, hearing his hand fall hard back onto the mattress.

  “Oh my God. You aren’t supposed to be awake. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  No answer. His eyes were still closed. For a minute, I thought maybe he’d really been talking in his sleep. Literally.

  Then he said, “Sorry.”

  “You’re supposed to be unconscious,” I said. I know. What an idiot. But that’s what I said. “You’re supposed to be all doped up on painkillers.”

  His eyes flickered open and then closed themselves again. “I do feel a little dopey,” he said. His words running together.

  It struck me that I was supposed to be thrilled that he was conscious and talking. And all I could think about is what I’d said. And how I shouldn’t have said it. And how he shouldn’t have heard it.

  “Am I in the hospital?” he asked. Sounding a little sharper.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. It couldn’t be helped.”

  A long, long silence. I walked around to the far side of the bed again. Sat down on the hard plastic chair.

  Then, after a time, he said, “What are you doing here?”

  “Watching your back.”

  “That’s very sweet.”

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why do you think? What kind of idiot says something like that to an unconscious person and then starts to cry?”

  Another long pause. Literally a minute or two. As though he were napping between sentences.

  “A sweet one?”

  I sat up straight for a long time, waiting for him to say more. Terrified of what it might be. But after that, I think he went back down into his drugged sleep for real.

  Sometime, just as it was getting light outside, I looked up to see the world’s oldest woman awake and watching me in the faded light. It startled me a little. Snoring aside, I still thought of her as being in some loose category of the state of dead.

  “Are you an angel?” she asked. Full-on serious. I swear.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not. Far from it.”

  “You look like an angel,” she said.

  “I don’t feel like one.”

  She closed her eyes again. The corner of one side of her mouth twitched up a tiny bit. Like she was wearing about 20 percent of a little smile.

  Just a hair after seven o’clock, a female nurse appeared. Opened the door and left it that way. A little blond woman who I swear couldn’t have stood any taller than four foot ten.

  The shifts must have changed.

  She looked at me strangely.

  “It’s too early for you to be in here,” she said. Not harshly. Just sharing information. “Visiting hours don’t start until eight.”

  “Really? Eight? I thought it was seven.”

  “Nope. Eight.”

  “Okay. Sorry. I’ll wait out in the hall.”
>
  “There’s a waiting room one floor down.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait in the hall. I’m watching my friend’s back.”

  “What do you think is going to happen to …”

  I could feel her fishing around for a finish to that sentence. And I knew what her problem was. Happen to him? Couldn’t be. This was a room for female patients. To her? The heavy growth of beard made that tricky.

  “… this patient?”

  “Kind of a long story,” I said.

  I scooted past her, hoping she wouldn’t notice my lack of shoes. And I sat cross-legged in the hall, my back against the door-jamb of Frank’s room.

  For quite a long time.

  “You’re here early.”

  I looked up to see Molly standing over me. She gave me a little wink to go with the words. A little signal that the sentence had only been playacting.

  I looked away again. I couldn’t bring myself to look into Molly’s eyes. Or even at her face. I felt nervous and guilty. Uncomfortable. As if I had trespassed against her.

  She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Toto is okay, as far as I can tell,” she said. “I gave him his two pills. And I cleaned his litter box. He still has plenty of dry food but I gave him a can of wet in case his mouth still hurts. And I freshened up his water.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Still not looking.

  “Here. I brought you a present.”

  I looked up just as far as her outstretched hand. No farther. My big old lace-up boots.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”

  “I figured I owed you one.”

  “Not really,” I said. Putting on my boots, right there in the hall, as an excuse to keep looking down. “The way I see it, we’re only just barely even.”

  I walked all the way home. The morning was just recently fully light, the air motionless but cool. I had enough money in my pocket to take a bus or the subway, but I didn’t.

  It was Monday, I figured out with some effort. A school day. But I knew I wouldn’t go.

  I took a longcut through the park.

  I wanted to be outside. I felt alive, more so than usual, and I wanted to hang on to the feeling.