Kris’ train stopped at the platform outside W by 9:30. The distance was really not that far—the train just had so many scheduled stops before it arrived at her destination that it took an hour. Kris had emailed her mother on the previous day with a note that said, “I am going to come visit you tomorrow morning.” Her mother had not responded, which almost certainly meant that she had not received the email. Still, by 9:30 they would be awake. If her parents had not had breakfast yet, they could all go over to the dining hall together.
She knocked on the door of their unit and was surprised when no one answered. Maybe they were already at the dining hall. She knocked again—maybe they did not hear her, unlikely as that was considering how small their unit was. Inside she heard some movement and a little coughing. “Who is it?”called a weak voice from behind the door.
“Mom? It’s Kris. I sent you an email yesterday that I was coming to see you. You probably didn’t get it. I just came by to see you and bring you something.”
“Just a minute. Wait there; I am coming to open the door.”
Kris stood by the door for what seemed to be a very long time. When it finally opened, she saw that her mother was limping badly on extremely swollen red feet.
“What happened?” she asked, although she suspected that she already knew.
“I had a gout attack. It’s been going on for over a week now, and it’s in both feet. I can hardly get up; it’s so painful I can’t stand it.”
“Let me help you,” Kris took her mother’s hand and helped her back to the couch. “Where’s Dad?”
“He walked down to the dining hall to get our breakfast and bring it back. I am not able to leave this unit, so he has been going down and getting our meals and bringing them back here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You should have sent me an email?”
“Even assuming that you got my email, and I send you a lot of emails that I don’t think you ever get, there’s not anything you can do. There’s not anything anybody can do. I just have to get well.”
“Have you seen the doctor?”
“Not exactly. Your dad called the doctor the first couple of days. He wanted me to come in, but I couldn’t walk down there. I talked to a PA over the phone, and he told me that they could prescribe me some medication to lower my uric acid levels but I would have to wait for the attack to end.”
“You don’t have to walk to the clinic. They have these little electric golf carts that they pick up patients in. In my community I see people getting picked up for anything and everything—if they get too hot working in the garden, they call for a pick up. If anybody ever needed to be taken over to the clinic, you do. Do you have anything for the pain?”
“Just some Ibuprofen that we bought at the community drugstore. I am taking that and staying off my feet.”
“Well, surely the clinic can do better than that. We need to see what we can do for you.”
Just then she heard some noise at the door. She supposed that it was Jim trying to balance the dishes while completing the palm scan, so she got up to open the door for him. Instead, she opened the door to a small, underweight, middle-aged woman with unusually large pointy ears protruding through her thin blonde-gray hair. The woman’s severe expression made her look as though she might have been one of Santa’s workers who had resigned her post and moved to Phoenix to take up her new task of persecuting ailing residents of W.
Kris was startled by the angry look on her face as she opened the door. “Can I help you?” Kris asked her.
“I am here to find out whether Janine can resume her community service activities at the dining hall today?”
“What are you talking about? What community service activities?”
“Volunteering at the dining hall. My records show that she has not volunteered in over a week. I want to know whether she is planning to come back today.”
“No, she’s not, and she’s also not going to be there tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. Janine is having a gout attack so severe that she can hardly walk from the couch to the door. She can’t volunteer to do anything.”
“And who are you, exactly?” the severe small woman asked.
“I’m Kris Mitchell. I am the community liaison for W between the residents and the volunteer police, exactly. Take her off your list. Go bother somebody else.”
“You are a Planner?”
“I am.”
“Planners do not have the authority to remove a resident’s name from the community service list—only a doctor can do that. Residents who fail to volunteer are not in good standing with the community. I want a commitment from her about when she will be back. You have no authority in this matter so please move out of the way so that I can talk to Janine.”
Kris pulled the door a little closer to her. She had known this woman for about three minutes, but she already despised her. This arrogant little person embodied the worst of what was wrong with W.
“Let me tell you something, lady. Janine is very sick. You will get into this unit to harass her over some stupid list over my dead body. If it’s a doctor’s note she needs, then that’s what we’ll get. In the meantime, this conversation is over.” With that, she slammed the door in the little woman’s face and left her standing alone in the hallway.
“They come by every day and badger me about coming back. Every day I tell them that I can’t go, but the next day they are right back,” Janine was back on the couch rubbing her sore feet. Kris sat down beside her and rubbed her mother’s toes gently.
“Coming back to what? What did you agree to do?”
“I wash dishes five hours a week at the dining hall. As soon as we moved in that person who was just here came around with a sign-in sheet and told us all to volunteer. I was not going to do it, but then our light bulbs burned out, and your dad called for replacements. They said that they would put us on the list, but we were not considered in ‘good standing’ because we had not signed up for any community service projects, so we would go to the bottom of the list and that it might take months. So your dad volunteered five hours a week for the community garden, and I volunteered five hours a week for the dining hall.”
“I can maybe see Dad in the garden; he always had a green thumb. I volunteer at my community garden a few hours a week, and I kind of enjoy it. But five hours a week washing dishes? That’s ridiculous.”
“I wasn’t happy about it. This is supposed to be my great stress-free retirement courtesy of Uncle Sam. Instead, I stand on my feet five hours a week washing hundreds of dishes because some bureaucrat in Washington thinks dishwashers are bad for the environment. But then I had this attack, and I am in such horrible pain, and they harass me every day. Sometimes I think I would rather be dead than to have to endure any more of this.”
“Don’t say that. I am going to get this straightened out for you. So did you get your light bulbs replaced?”
“No. We’re still waiting for those too. I don’t know where we are on the list now—not that it matters a lot. By 9:00 everything is dark anyway.”
“Okay, as soon as Dad gets back I will go down to the clinic and talk to the doctor myself.”
The next person at the door was Jim; Kris opened it from the inside and helped him get the plates onto the small table next to the couch. He seemed glad to see her; perhaps he was hoping that she could help too.
Kris had not eaten, but she did not want to keep her parents waiting while she walked down to the dining hall and walked back. Instead, she would bring back lunch, and they could eat that together. She was not in the mood for oatmeal and orange juice anyway. After her parents were settled, she left their unit to walk to the clinic and visit with Dr. Kinkaid.
Dr. Kinkaid was with a patient, but after Kris had waited forty-five minutes his PA, Derek, finally came to the waiting area to see her. Derek was in his early thirties—a fitness buff who thought he was a great deal better looking than Kris perceived him to be. As soon as she saw his smug attitude, she
knew she was going to have a problem.
“I’m Kris Mitchell, the community liaison. I am here about one of the residents who is having a severe gout attack.”
“What is the name of the resident?”
“Janine Mitchell,” Derek looked inquisitive, so Kris added, “she is also my mother.”
“Yes, I believe that I spoke to Janine last week. I told her that there is some medication that we can prescribe but only after the attack is over.”
“I understand that, but she needs pain medication now. She is suffering a lot.”
“Well we can’t give her pain medication unless she comes in personally so that we can evaluate her. Why hasn’t she done that?”
“Because she can’t walk. Look, I live in one of these communities myself—the FE community. I know that the clinic there uses golf carts to pick up residents who need help. Surely you have something like that here.”
Derek appeared miffed that she knew about the carts, but he did not deny that they existed.
“We try to keep that on the QT, if you know what I mean. The people here don’t like to do anything; if they see golf carts whizzing up and down, they’ll be demanding them every day.”
“I understand that, but the carts are for people who can’t get down here without assistance, and she can’t. I need for you to send one over to her unit this morning. She should be just finishing her breakfast now. I will help her out into the cart, and then you can ‘evaluate’ her and give her some meds.”
“Alright,” he agreed reluctantly. “I will send somebody over this morning.”
“There’s one other thing, Derek. The community service police keep coming by her unit and harassing her because she has not been down to wash dishes since her attack started. I need a note excusing her from duty.”
“Not happening. All residents are required to volunteer for community service. If she gets some pain killers, there is no reason why she can’t put in a few hours a week on her assignment.”
“If everybody is required to do something, it’s not voluntary. And just because she has some pain killers so that she is not in agony doesn’t mean that she is well enough to stand on her feet five hours a week washing dishes in the dining hall. She needs a note excusing her—permanently.” Kris felt really testy, but she was trying not to show it because she had just gotten Derek to agree to send up the golf cart.
“That definitely won’t be happening. Nobody gets excused permanently. The best I can do is to give her a thirty day do-not-call note. That allows residents to stay in good standing for thirty days without any assignments. But that is the most. If, after I evaluate her, I think it is appropriate, I will write one of those for her.”
“Fair enough. Thank you. So I can expect someone at their unit before noon?”
“That’s what I said,” Derek turned on his heel and walked out of the waiting room. Kris headed back to her parents’ unit. There could be no question that when Derek saw her mother he would realize how much she was suffering, and he would give her the note. At least, the nagging from the community service Nazis would stop, and Janine should be able to rest in a less stressful, painful environment.
Kris walked back to her parents’ unit and waited an hour and a half for a golf cart to appear. When she had helped her mother into it, she and Jim followed Janine to the clinic. Having arrived there, they took seats in the waiting room for another two hours waiting to see the PA. Finally, Derek ushered Janine into an exam room and left Kris and Jim alone again.
Jim seemed upbeat and was more talkative than usual. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what does the W stand for?”
Kris looked at him blankly, “What?”
“Section W—what does the W stand for?”
“I don’t think it stands for anything. It’s just a designation.”
“Well it has to stand for something. Do they have Sections A-Z?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then it must stand for something. What do you think it stands for?”
“I don’t have a clue.” Fortunately, at that moment Derek reappeared and stopped this line of questioning. But Kris was a little annoyed that she and her parents had waited over three hours for a ten minute office visit.
“I have prescribed pain medication and an anti-inflammatory. These should help her feel much better.” He handed Kris the prescriptions; she could walk across the hall to the in-house pharmacy to get these filled.
“Great. What about the note?”
“The note?” Derek stared at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
“The do-not-call note—for the cafeteria.”
“Oh, she doesn’t need that.”
“What! She certainly does, Derek. Just because she has a stronger pain medication doesn’t mean she can stand on her feet for five hours washing dishes. She needs that note so that the workers won’t bother her.”
“She’ll be back up in no time. And the visits from the community service board will be good for her—they will motivate her to get up and get on with her life instead of just sitting around and doing nothing for a month.”
“This is ridiculous. My mother does not need motivation. I want to talk to Dr. Kinkaid, right now.”
“Dr. Kinkaid is at lunch, right now, and then he is taking the rest of the afternoon off. You can call him and talk to him if you want to, but he won’t tell you anything different from what I just have.”
Kris looked at her watch. Most of the day was gone; she needed to get her mother’s prescription filled and take her back to the unit. She took down Dr. Kinkaid’s number. “Is he working tomorrow?”
“Half a day, until noon,” Derek wore a smug, knowing expression that said, “Call if you want to, but it won’t make any difference.”
“Fine, I will call him tomorrow.”
After Janine was back at the unit, Kris got her settled on the sofa and then went to get her a drink of water to take her medication. As she opened the cabinet, a cockroach practically jumped out of the cabinet at her. Kris jumped back and shrieked; she had always been afraid of roaches, even as a little girl, and she had never gotten over it. The roach was running across the floor, but Kris chased it and stomped it to death before it reached Janine’s couch.
“I am going to tell the maintenance people to spray this place. This is unbelievable.”
“They were actually spraying the building last week. I don’t know why they don’t just use sugar water—the roaches would probably like it better, and it would work about as well,” Janine quipped. Then she added, “the problem is that everything here has to be environmentally friendly, so they can’t spray with anything that would actually kill the bugs.”
“Maybe, but I’m thinking they can do better than this,” Kris finished filling the cup and brought it to her mother. “I will check with maintenance tomorrow.
“Mom, you need to let me know when you are sick like this. I can help you.” For the first time since leaving her own unit she thought about the phone she had brought with her. “That reminds me. I know that the internet connection can be terrible here, so I brought you something so that we can stay in touch with each other.” She pulled the phone out of her purse. “Look, it’s a Smart phone. I got it for you on my plan, so we are on the same network.”
“I think we have enough ‘Smart’ things in this community already, Kris.”
Kris smiled, “This is one ‘Smart’ idea worth having. Look, you can use it to get on the internet. You can call me; my number is pre-programmed. I set up an account for you on Friendshare,” Kris showed her mother the “Janine Mitchell” page. “I will upload a different picture for you if you don’t like this one; I thought it was nice. You and I are already friends; you can post updates and tell me if you need something. If you ‘friend’ Karyn she can share pictures of the kids with you. It will make it much easier for you to let us know if you need something.” Kris spent another hour showing her mother the phone’s featu
res before she finally had to leave to return to her own community.
The next morning, she started calling Dr. Kinkaid as soon as the clinic opened at 8:00. Each time she called, she was told that he was not in yet, or that he was with a patient, or that he was unavailable. By 11:30 she knew that her window of opportunity to reach him was fast disappearing, so she sat at her table in the dining hall with her phone up against her ear on hold waiting for Kinkaid to come to the phone.
At 11:50, after about forty-five minutes of continuous elevator music, she heard the call disconnect on the clinic’s end. She had never spoken with Kinkaid. She swore under her breath as she hung up the phone just as Cindy, the Planning receptionist walked by.
Cindy was twenty-two, blonde and tan, and in excellent physical condition. She had a perky personality for a government employee—of course, she had been a government employee for only a few months. She handled all of the calls for the Planners, and like all of the unmarried employees of the Planning Division, she was required to live in the FE singles’ housing as a condition of her employment. She made friends easily, both because she was young and pretty and because she was a very outgoing person. Kris had surmised that Cindy was working her way through school with this job, and when school ended, so would her employment at FMPD.
“What’s the matter?” Cindy observed how angry Kris was as she put her phone back in her purse.
“Oh, nothing. I just spent the entire morning on the phone trying to talk to the resident doctor out at W, and he would not come to the phone. I have been on hold for forty-five minutes, and I just got disconnected. Stupid jackass.”
“Why do you need to talk to Kinkaid?”
“My mother is having a gout attack, and she needs a do-not-call note from the clinic so that the dining hall volunteer crew will stop harassing her. The PA won’t give her the note; so I have to get it from Kinkaid, but he apparently can’t be bothered to come to the phone.”
W: The Planner, The Chosen Page 11