Off to the side, she saw a flower and gift shop. There were more counters with desks behind them. Signs: Inpatient, Out-Patient, Accounting, X-Ray.
An organized place, Tree summed up.
There were elevators forward from the waiting room. A wide hallway led from the waiting area to the area of elevators. She watched a guy dressed in white wheel somebody lying on a rolling bed inside one of the elevators. It was something, to see a bed fit in an elevator. But as the elevator doors closed, her heart sank.
Suppose they put Dab in a bed and take him away somewhere.
She sucked in her breath at the thought that Dab might die in an elevator between floors.
Don’t dare to think it!
She heard M’Vy talking to the lady who had come up behind the counter. M’Vy smoothed her hand along the counter top. “Let me see the nurse,” she said confidently.
Tree thought the lady was a nurse, for she wore a white uniform. Obviously M’Vy could tell she wasn’t. Soon another woman in white came to the counter. She was older. “Can I help you?” she asked M’Vy. Pretty woman, she had on a name tag and a little pin on her lapel. Tree couldn’t read the name tag from where she was standing.
M’Vy commenced talking close to the woman’s face. Tree leaned around Silversmith to hear her. Talking, Vy pulled the folder from her pocketbook and planted it next to the nurse’s hand. Tree guessed at the amount of control Vy was using, to not hurry and not raise her voice. Not to break down in tears.
Vy was saying that she was a practical nurse herself. She’d never worked in a hospital. But her group, while she was training, had taken a class in one. She’d seen things done, M’Vy explained.
“That my son,” she said, turning toward Dab. “He hurt and I call on ahead. You look, you find my name, Viola Pratt, bringing her son, Dabney Pratt. Look. The boy got some drugs and maybe he strung out a little bit; but he not a druggie.”
She searched through her pocketbook and came up with a handful of envelopes with the pills and capsules in them that she and Tree had found hidden in Dab’s room. She showed the envelopes and flashed a few bright capsules, but she didn’t hand them over to the nurse. The envelopes disappeared inside her pocketbook as she talked on.
“But that just part of the problem with him,” she said. “Another part is that Dabney some amount of retarded, you unnerstan? He just some slow. It worrisome, be slow. But that not so much. What it is be this.” She tapped the folder and edged it toward the nurse. The woman took the folder. She kept her eyes on Vy until they shifted momentarily to Silversmith, still carrying his burden. They lingered a long moment over Dab, studying the illness that could be observed. Last, the nurse glanced at Tree, up and down; then, looked back at the folder.
“My boy is a porphyric,” M’Vy said, emphasizing the unusual word. The nurse frowned slightly.
Her eyes were gray, Tree noticed. They were distant.
“You-all might not even heard of it,” Vy said, not without pride, “for it most rare—p-o-r-p-h-y-r-i-c,” she spelled. “You know, one havin the disease porphyria.
“Know yo’w like to have the doctors say they own cases,” Vy rushed on. “I’m only tryin to explain what I alone happens to know. My boy is acute intermittent porphyria, or porphyria cutanea tarda, or symptomatic, they hard to classify. But they happens to them between ages seventeen and fifty.” Vy spoke as though she had the words memorized. “Porphyria may be precipitated by alcohol or by drugs, but Dabney not no druggie—”
The nurse interrupted. “You need to have a doctor admit you, Mrs. Pratt.”
“I know that. I know that,” Vy said earnestly. “But Dabney havin stomach pains. He say it hurt him, too, all over. He say the light like to kill him, tellin me to find a faster way to let him die. You ever have to listen to a boy talkin like that? Will you please get him an internist?” Vy paused. Her voice was shaking. “Any of them look Dabney over, they’ll see signs it’s porphyria of some kind. He is constipated somethin awful. But there won’t be a intestinal obstruction. That won’t be it. His urine the color of Coca-Cola. My God, that’s a dead giveaway—porphyria! Dangerous at this stage.”
“We will leave the diagnosing to the specialist,” the nurse said. She had read a minute from the folder. Now she closed it and held it against her. She wasn’t being unkind. But she was crisp, like a cold head of lettuce. “Before we go any further,” she said, “we have to make your son a chart and give him a name band. Mrs. Pratt, I want you to give the clerk all the information she asks for. Just go right there over by the typewriter. She’ll take everything down for you.”
“But Dab got to see a doctor!” Vy said.
“The sooner we get the forms filled out, the faster I can get him a cart and have him taken to his room,” the woman said. She was quite firm.
M’Vy went back to the clerk. “How do you want to pay for this?” the clerk asked.
Vy took out her wallet. “I don’t have company insurance because I don’t have a company,” she said. “I got some bitty insurance, but it so expensive … I wasn’t expectin nothin like this.” She took out a card, handed it over.
“I’ll need your name and address, where you’re employed, your son’s name, date of birth,” said the clerk. “If you need it, we can get a social worker to help you work out the financing.”
“Yes. Yes,” Vy said. “Please. Please. Bring the nurse back here,” she said urgently, and the clerk signaled for the nurse.
After a while, the nurse came. “Yes, Mrs. Pratt?” She still carried M’Vy’s folder.
“The medical histories of my four brothers is in that folder,” Vy told her. “You got in there, too, doctors’ reports way, way back when of Willie, Chinnie, Challie Rush; and the last, my baby brother, Brother Rush. He the youngest.”
“Mrs. Pratt, the sooner you get the forms—”
“—Brother my youngest brother. Brother his name, too.”
There was despair in M’Vy’s voice. Tree saw her face; it was anguished, scared.
“They all of them dead,” Vy said, wringing her hands. “Chin, Challie, Willie and Brother. Brother die in a car accident but he had it, too. He try to hide it. Doctors couldn’t save any of them. They were treated with barbiturate sedatives, you know. Barbiturates make them go crazy. And make the porphyria ten times worse. Barbiturates is counterproductive. Your doctors better know that it can kill. That’s why the boy took on so sudden.”
“Mrs. Pratt, I’m not unfamiliar with porphyria. I have seen one or two cases. If you’ll get half of the forms done, I can call the resident and see about a specialist.”
“Please, yes,” Vy said. “Don’t let him die—me, standin here, explainin. Give the doctor the folder, oh, please.” A shiver passed through Vy’s body. She clamped her mouth shut, holding it in.
The clerk was busy with someone else. It took five minutes before she got back to Vy and began asking questions again. Tree was right there, leaning around Silversmith, who still held Dab in his arms. She couldn’t believe they’d make him wait like that, with a sick person in his arms. She had heard almost every word Vy said. Now she felt dazed. Her arms felt chilled.
What it is. What? Por … a disease. What it called? Dab has it. Will he die, like Brother die, and Willie … Do I have it?
Suddenly Tree was sick to her stomach. Her throat burned with a bad taste. She was afraid to breathe, so fear-sick was she all of a sudden.
In the next fifteen minutes, the clerk filled out more forms for M’Vy than Tree had ever seen. M’Vy signed her name to cards and forms nineteen times. Tree had counted. The nurse was on the phone with somebody. Then she was directing Silversmith to go with Dab someplace, Tree didn’t hear all of it. But presently Silversmith was back and Dab was lying down on a kind of stretcher on wheels, like the rolling bed Tree had seen put on the elevator. Dab had a bracelet on that said his name. He was making noises, holding his stomach. He scrunched down; Tree knew he was trying to get out from under so much light. She
had seen him do that before.
She wanted him to lie still. She begged him in her thoughts not to get so loud and make a spectacle and cause everybody to stare. She did want so to comfort Dab, her big brother. But he was so pale, he didn’t look the same, and her heart was fluttering like crazy. So afraid she was to move and be seen by everybody.
I’ll see you later, bro, she thought to Dab. See you in your room and we’ll talk. Yeah.
She huddled close there behind M’Vy, watching Vy’s hand move, signing and signing. She would never have suspected a hospital was so hard to get into. Vy was sweating down the sides of her face and down her neck clear under her dressfront. Tree detected a faint odor of her sweat, and she knew M’Vy would be itching and feeling awful underneath her clothes. Tree saw the whole scene. Everything—the clerk, the nurse, other employees of the hospital, and all their jobs were a mystery to her.
Don’t know nothing! Tree felt she would soon become nothing.
Finally all the forms, or most of them, were filled out. Dab was gone. Vaguely Tree had been aware of an orderly, a man in white, who had come up beside Dab’s cart. But she had been distracted and wordlessly watched as her brother was taken away. Only Silversmith was there beside her. He went to Vy. She said something under her breath, not looking up from the forms. All this time Tree was having difficulty being out in the open, in the midst of the hospital. She felt exposed, hot and disheveled.
Why I feel ashamed? she wondered. Dab be sick, all it is.
She felt everyone looking at them; she stood out like a sore thumb.
Silversmith took her by the shoulder. He guided her over to the waiting area. She let him; there wasn’t any reason to stop him. She would never have made it over there by herself.
“Your brother be all right,” Silversmith told her. “Don’t you worry, Tree. He is sick; I won’t lie to you. But we get him some good help, and he’ll be fine.”
But it took too long, waiting, not knowing what was happening or where her brother was. Silversmith went back to the counter. The forms were taken away from Vy. She and Silversmith stood close together in the open area. They didn’t seem to care that people all around would see them and stare at them—two big black people, looking out of the ordinary, looking strange, Tree thought, even if they were dressed nice.
Silversmith held M’Vy’s upper arm. He looked around the room, serious, watchful and easy. He wasn’t really seeing the room, Tree could tell. He was aware of comforting M’Vy and showing her that he was close with her.
Someday, Tree thought, I be like that. Stan anywhere and not care who lookin at me funny, or even twice. Can’t see why I’m always so nervous somebody be lookin at me. So what? But it bother me a lot. Like, I can tell they not seeing me. They seeing what they think of me. You want to tell em where to go, too. Only time I feel okay, when Dab an me inside the house.
All at once, Tree felt something. Panicky, she looked all around. A feeling that the ghost was nearby. Rush. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something. When she looked, it was just a real person pausing before sitting down in a seat. People came into her line of vision; she would be startled. And would think of Brother Rush.
A woman in a white pantsuit came for M’Vy. Tree got up from her seat. Vy was moving away. Tree didn’t know what to do, so she stood there, watching M’Vy enter an elevator and the door close on her. Silversmith was beside Tree. He had her by her elbows a moment. Man was always touching. Not in a bad way; it was nice of him. He made Tree less afraid.
“Where M’Vy go,” Tree said as quietly as she could. “Where they taken Dab?”
“They took him where he’ll be more comfortable,” Silversmith said. “So they can give him the examinations. And Vy maybe can talk to some doctor about everything. I don’t know how much they examine him already. Vy says all they have to do is give about two simple tests and they’ll know it all. But whatever, it gone take some time.”
“Where M’Vy, then?” Tree asked again.
“She with Dab, probably right there by his side, or soon will be,” he said reassuringly. “They’ll want to ask her some more answers. What going on ain’t so common. But come on, Tree, I’ll take you for something to eat.”
“M’Vy say it be all right?” Tree asked him. “Shouldn’t I stay close, case Dab need somethin?”
Silversmith looked at her kindly. It made Tree want to stay with him. “You won’t be seein your brother for a while,” he told her. “He have to be treated. But we’ll go wait for Vy. She say for you to stick with me, okay?” He smiled at her. “You not afraid of me, are you?”
“No, me,” Tree said. She looked right up at him. “If M’Vy not, I’m not either scared.” He laughed, letting his voice boom. Tree glanced nervously around. People saw them.
Bet they think he my dad, too, she thought.
Some people even smiled when he laughed. “Follow me,” he said. “I know a place right inside the building.
“What kind of place?” Tree asked. She came on reluctantly, still uncertain.
“A luscious place to eat, Tree; now come on.” He took her by the hand over to the elevators. They got on one, and she looked at him all the way down. They went fast; her head felt light.
Once they were off the elevator, he told her they were below the ground floor. “There are basements even below this one,” he said.
“How you know about this place?” she asked.
“Vy. But I knew they’d be a place somewhere.” They turned a corner and before them was a place called Cafeteria and Coffee Shop. Tree could see inside through the glass front. There was a whole steam table, just like the cafeteria in her school.
“This place got a lot to offer,” she said. “More than my school cafeteria.” She’d never seen such good-looking Jell-O, green and yellow and red and orange.
Silversmith took down two trays with silverware and napkins for both of them. Tree held onto her tray as they moved down the line.
“Get what you want,” he told her.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I don’t eat so late in the night. But I like the looks of that Jell-O.”
“Then have it,” he said. “But there’s cake and chocolate pie.”
“You kiddin! Chocolate pie!” she whispered. She remembered M’Vy spooning thick chocolate sauce into a lightly baked pie shell. “Ummm!” she murmured, “I’ll have the chocolate pie.”
“I see some chicken down there,” Silversmith said. “There’s meat loaf and some mashed potatoes.”
“You going to have some?” Tree asked him.
“I’ll have me a little piece of meat loaf,” he said.
“I’ll have some chicken.”
“You get some vegetables,” he said.
Carefully Tree looked over the food. “Chicken and mashed potatoes. And some green beans,” she told him. She could eat a bushel of green beans. “That will be all,” she said as formally, as grown-up as she knew how.
“Well, you got to have some Coke to go with it.” She nodded. “I’m going to have coffee,” he added.
By the time he fixed a large Coke with lots of ice for her, her tray was full. Gingerly, she carried it to a table. They emptied their trays, and Silversmith took them away.
Tree was as excited as she could be. The food looked good. “It sure do smell nice,” she told him, relaxing. Shyly she smiled at him as he sat down. “Thanks. I can pay you back.” She couldn’t resist taking two bites of pie. So tasty!
“I told you it was my treat, Tree.” He looked at her like he cared a lot about her. She couldn’t get over that.
The chicken tasted delicious. But halfway through her Coke, she thought of Dab. Sitting there, she let go of the straw and covered her eyes.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Tree?” Silversmith said. “Don’t you like the food?”
“Like it fine,” she said. “I just tired, I guess.” Watching her as closely as her own M’Vy would. He was like some mother. She didn’t k
now what some father would be like. “The food tastin real good.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Oh, to eat … and you brother so sick, he can’t eat nothin.” She felt like crying. “It ain’t fair. It just ain’t fair.”
“All so many chilren go hungry every day because they don’t have no food,” he said. “You gone stop eatin, too?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because Dab is sick won’t mean you got to be sick and not eat, too.”
“But it ain’t fair! I get to sit here and he can’t even …” Tears filled her eyes.
“Come on now, Tree,” he said, gently. “It never be wrong for you to eat when you hungry.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She wiped her eyes on her napkin. And took a deep breath, breathing in sadness, letting it out. She played with her food.
“Wish you’d eat, fore it get cold,” Silversmith said.
She ate a portion of mashed potatoes to make him happy and sipped some Coke. But there were things on her mind. She had to ask him. “Why you suppose Brother Rush come to take me out?” she said.
It took him by surprise. He moved his coffee cup around on the saucer. “You need to think about some nourishment,” he said, and laughed nervously.
“You don’t believe it?” she said. “You don’t think Brother Rush … maybe you don’t believe in no ghost at all.”
“No, I do believe you see what you say you see,” he said. “I do. Don’t ask me to explain why a ghost, and who see one. But I know some can and do. And you can.”
“And Dab can,” she said. “But why can’t M’Vy see her own brother?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And why come Miss Pricherd see it? You know about Miss Pricherd?”
“I know,” he said. “Did she see it?”
“Yes, but I pretend she seeing things cause she not eating right.”
“Well, I don’t know why you all see it,” he said. “Maybe because the young is all innocence and the old is past innocence. But I don’t know.”
“You mean, not to be ashamed, innocence?” she asked. Here they were, talking so easily!
Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush Page 13