Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  "Meestah De Coco, ah don care what you are. You work in de hospital, you got to do all jobs."

  "Oh yeah? When do I get to hire an' fire nurses?"

  She glared at him for a second, then marched out of the room. Behind him in the room came a high-pitched cackle. Stony wheeled around.

  "Das sweet!" A short, thirtyish Puerto Rican in a gray custodian's outfit was mopping the floor, a galvanized steel bucket with a wringer attachment at his feet. "Dat bitch sometin' else!" He slapped the mop around, making semicircles on the already immaculate floor.

  Stony grimaced as he approached Mr. Beckerman. A stainless steel bowl half filled with an antiseptic-smelling green bubbly solution lay on the radiator. A small yellow sponge floated on top like a dead fish. Stony took the bowl over to the bed, squeezed out the sponge and took two half swipes at Mr. Beckerman's face. He avoided looking into his eyes. The stench made him tear. He dropped the sponge into the bowl, splashing the bed. "Shit!"

  "Aw, fuck dat chump!" The custodian winked.

  "I can't swing it, Jack." Stony slapped his thighs in exasperation. Mr. Beckerman blinked.

  "Hey!" The custodian tapped Stony on the shoulder. "Look." He placed the bowl on the floor next to his bucket. "Take off his shirt, man." As Stony gingerly removed Beckerman's pajama top, the custodian wrung out his mop, splashed it in the steel bowl and then proceeded to swab down Beckerman's face and chest. He wrung out the mop, dunked it into the remainder of the soapy solution and gave him a second coat. Beckerman's eyes were blazing with outrage. Stony was caught halfway between laughing and crying. "Das all dere is to it, man." He wrung out his mop again, flung it over his shoulder, stooped, picked up his bucket and left the room. Stony grabbed a towel off the radiator, patted Beckerman's dripping face and chest. He wouldn't look into Beckerman's eyes on a bet. When he finished he tore ass out of the room.

  ***

  "Lifter!" Resisting the temptation to duck into the john. Stony walked into the room. A young nurse leaned over another stiff, naked this time, who looked like Beckerman's twin. "Lifter, I need some help here. Mr. Garro had a little accident. Can you just lift him a sec so I can pull the sheets out?" As Stony headed to the bed someone behind him clawed his sleeve. Stony jumped. The old woman was about four-foot-six. Her hospital gown hung down, revealing withered breasts the size and shape of Santa Clara prunes—Stony looked. Her face had more cracks and crevasses than the Grand Canyon. She was almost bald—the scattered wisps of white hair on her scalp reminded Stony of an empty cotton candy machine before it's cleaned. She squeezed his arm with an anguished urgency. "Be careful."

  "Mrs. Garro!" The nurse charged around the bed. "I told you not to hinder the help!" She gently pushed the doddering old lady into a second bed. "Just lift him real quick." She hustled over to Mr. Garro. As Stony lifted him from behind he noticed the old guy had gigantic balls. The nurse pulled out the sheet like a magician yanking a tablecloth without disturbing the dishes. There was a four-by-four shiny black oilcloth underneath. "O.K., drop him." Stony did and stepped back. This was a his and hers private room. Between the twin beds on a night table stood an eight-by-ten gilt-framed photo of Mr. and Mrs. Garro sitting in a restaurant. They were both laughing, he had his arm around her shoulder. They wore leis around their necks, his over a loud pineapple shirt, hers over an aqua blue sleeveless dress. The inscription read "Tommy and Marie—Oahu Hilton 3/2/62."

  Stony backed out of the room as Mrs. Garro struggled out of bed and fluttered around her naked husband like a bird with buckshot in its wing.

  ***

  Stony wheeled an old guy named Valentine Valentino to the john. As he lifted him out of the chair, he slipped through Stony's fingers, bounced off the toilet seat and fell on his side, his pajamas wrapped around his ankles, his flaccid skin pressed against the cold tile. Stony gasped, grasping him under the arms to lift him onto the seat, hoping nothing broke.

  Reynard wheeled a patient wearing a Yankees cap into the john. Stony and Valentine were holding each other face to face, knee to knee, in a semierect crouch.

  "He's peein' on ya! He's peein' on ya! Get 'im onna toilet! Get 'im onna toilet!" the old fuck in the baseball cap yelled like a wheelchair general.

  Stony looked down. The legs of his baggy whites were slowly turning yellow. "Shit!" Stony almost dropped him again, as he twisted and turned, trying to get out of the line of fire.

  Reynard ran behind Valentine, slipped his forearms under the hairless armpits and dragged him backward to the toilet. Straddling the bowl, his spine against the upright toilet lid, he deposited Valentine on the seat, swinging his leg over the old guy's head to free himself. Stony furiously wiped the piss from his dripping pants with a fistful of toilet paper. Reynard's charge wheeled himself over to Valentine on the pot and shouted in his ear, "Yer awright, Valentine? Yer awright, Valentine?"

  Valentine sat hunched over, gloomily staring at his white kneecaps, his lips moving, the expression on his face a cross between Buster Keaton and a basset hound.

  "Where's your head, Jim?" Reynard rubbed his hands together as if just finishing a grimy job. Stony didn't answer, still wiping his pants. "Don'choo know how to lift someone? You coulda killed the dude!"

  "If that's a dude, I'm James Brown."

  Reynard turned to his charge in the wheelchair, jerked him up and swiftly deposited him on the toilet seat next to Valentine. He turned back to Stony. "You better get your act together, bro"

  The piss trickled into Stony's shoe.

  "Hey, Reynard! Hey, Reynard! I'm finished! I'm finished!"

  Glaring at Stony, Reynard roughly jerked his patient off the toilet, wiped his ass and almost threw him back in the wheelchair. He started out of the bathroom, then turned. "Valentine's finished."

  Stony tossed the ball of toilet paper on the floor, lifted Valentine off the pot, pulled up his pajama bottoms and tried to maneuver him into his wheelchair. He forgot to lock the wheels and as he began Valentine's descent the wheelchair rolled away from him. Reynard pushed the chair back and braced it as Stony sat Valentine down.

  "You forgot to wipe his ass," Reynard reproached.

  "He didn't shit."

  After depositing Valentine back in his room, Stony stomped through the corridor, eyes straight ahead.

  "Lifter!"

  Stony ignored the nurse and ran down six flights of stairs to Personnel.

  ***

  "Miss Guardino, I can't hack it." Stony shook his head as he leaned forward hunched over in his seat. "It's too depresso up there. I'm up to my elbows in shit, I got piss on my pants, and I got death up my nose. Excuse my language."

  Miss Guardino regarded him with a half smile, played with a pencil on her desk. "Well, this is a hospital."

  Despite his misery Stony noticed she had some fine bosoms on her. "Yeah, I know, but this isn't what I was promised. What's the story on the children's ward? Because I'll tell you honestly, if nothing's gonna happen, I'm gonna hafta quit."

  She picked up the phone, dialed once.

  "Three-four-three, please." She winked at Stony. "Yes, Mrs. Pitt, please. Thank you. Florence? Rae Guardino. Hi. Listen, I have a boy in my office now who's been working on six and he was promised last week that he would be working with you. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Yeah. Thomas De Coco Junior. D-E-C-O-C-O. Uh-uh." She lightly scratched her nose with a chipped pinkynail as she talked. "Well, he's been having a rough time on six and ... Yeah, O.K. O.K. Thanks. Bye."

  "Go up to the fourth floor, Room Four-o-one, and see Mrs. Pitt. She'll try to switch you over today." She winked again.

  "Fantastic." Stony got up. "I was really gettin' the horrors up there."

  "Geriatrics isn't for everybody."

  "You can say that again. Thanks a million." As Stony left the office Miss Guardino studied his ass, whipped out a brown paper bag and a thermos from her desk drawer and had lunch.

  ***

  "Have you ever worked with children before, Mr. De Coco?" Mrs. Pitt was a short, heavyset woman i
n her sixties who wore her gray hair in bangs. Stony could tell by her patient smile that she had worked with kids for two hundred years.

  "Nah, not really, unless you wanna count my kid brother. He's eight. I take care a him pretty good. He's anorexic." Stony scratched his jaw and glanced at a photo cube on her desk, stuffed with Instamatic shots of a family around a Christmas tree.

  Mrs. Pitt followed his gaze. "That's my son's family, they live in Hawaii."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "He's a sergeant in the air force at Pearl Harbor."

  "Pearl Harbor? Far out," he said, still scratching his jaw.

  She picked up the cube and rotated it, revealing a photo of a six-month-old infant wrapped in a blue blanket. "That's the newest addition, Tracey."

  "Wild." Stony tried to appear impressed.

  "Tell me about your brother." She tossed the cube on her desk.

  "Albert?" Stony straightened up in his chair. "He's all right. I mean, there's nothin' wrong with him except that anorexic thing. He's really skinny. He's pretty nervous too. I just sort of look out for him, you know? See, my mother ... she's not exactly what you would call a portrait a mental health. I mean, she yells a lot and I don't know how to put it exactly. It's like there's two kinds of people in the world. Her and the enemy, right? An' she takes it out a lot on Albert. I just try to cover for him from time to time. Hey, look, she's my mother, right? An' I love her as such, you know?" Stony leaned forward, lightly touching his fingertips. "But just between you, me 'n' the apple tree, she's a stone whacko sometimes."

  Mrs. Pitt leaned her cheek on her hand, still smiling. "Do you like kids?"

  "Hell, yeah!" Stony sat back. "I dig 'em a lot, more'n I dig adults."

  Mrs. Pitt laughed briefly.

  "I mean, no offense." Stony felt like he had just tripped on his dick. "I dig adults too."

  "O.K." She brushed his apology aside, righted the photo cube so that Tracey was visible. "It's twelve now, why don't you take the afternoon off. What's tomorrow, Wednesday? Come in at eight and we'll see what we can do for you."

  "Fantastic." Stony stood up. "Lissen, after geriatrics you can throw me in a dress an' call me a candy striper. I'd get into it."

  "I don't think we'll have to do that." Her chair, on casters, squealed as she pushed away from her desk.

  Stony hesitated at the stairway, debated whether to pop up to six one last time to tell Reynard that he had swung the switch. Fuck him. He was a full-time chump if Stony ever saw one.

  14

  IN THE DAY ROOM on the children's ward at Cresthaven, early morning sunlight filtered through soiled beige curtains in a crossfire from three huge windows. The white linoleum floor was littered with the remains of Lincoln logs, Tinkertoys, playing cards, assorted multicolored balls, crayons and scraps of brightly colored construction paper. The pale green walls were decorated with drawings of houses, stick people, boats and animals done in crayon on manila paper. Against the only windowless wall forty metal folding chairs leaned against each other like a collapsing chorus line. Four high-wattage unshaded overhead bulbs were always on so that despite the clutter the room had a merciless and barren air.

  As Stony walked down to the day room, his baggy white pants and oversized short-sleeve white shirt made him feel filthy and helpless as if he hadn't had his diaper changed all day. When he heard voices from the day room, his first impulse was to backtrack down the corridor, but he sucked in, put his hands in his pockets and casually sauntered into the room. Two black kids about Albert's age sat in wheelchairs by one of the windows. They wore the regulation St. Joseph's aspirin orange bathrobes over loose, pale yellow pajamas. They were arguing with each other, but when Stony walked in the conversation stopped.

  At first Stony ignored them and made a big deal of examining a drawing of a boy sitting on an ocean liner taped to the wall. The liner docked on the lawn of a house. When the silence persisted he became intensely preoccupied with the texture of the curtains.

  "Hey, man, you new here?"

  Stony wheeled around a little too fast for his liking. "Yeah, I just started today." Stony felt terrified of the wheelchairs; they were too big for the kids, making them look like they were sitting in government issue thrones, with numbers stenciled on the sides. He tried to keep his eyes at shoulder or head level. They sized him up again. Stony was just about to split when one kid said to the other, "Let's as' him."

  "Aw, man, he don't know."

  "You just afraid he gonna say you wrong, sucker."

  "What's the problem?" Stony forced a smile.

  "Who you think is badder, Shaft or Bruce Lee?" demanded the fat kid.

  Stony made a what-kind-of-question-is-that face. "Bruce Lee."

  The fat kid laughed loud and flat. "This dumb motherfucker think Shaft is badder." He laughed again, teasing the other kid, a small big-eyed boy with a pointy head.

  "All ah know is, that kung fu sucker come at me, I fuckin' drill him through, bawh, just like mah man Shaf'." The small kid glared at his friend and Stony.

  "Yeah, an' Bruce Lee go choo!" The fat boy karate-chopped an imaginary bullet speeding toward him. He looked up at Stony. "You know kung fu?"

  "Nah, I know somethin' better."

  "What?" they both said.

  "Garlic." Stony was thinking a mile a minute.

  The fat boy frowned.

  "Yeah, if some guy is comin' at you, you eat some garlic real fast an' when he shouts 'Kung fu' you just stick your face in his and say 'Wwhhoo cares!' "

  Nobody laughed. Stony was trembling even though he tried to chuckle at his own joke.

  "Man, you better get back to bed before they find out you missin'." The fat kid rolled his eyes. The other boy laughed as they slapped palms.

  "Yeah, you better get back to bed." He looked at his friend again, then made circles with his finger at his temple. He was absolutely tickled at his own wit.

  Stony flushed even though he kept smiling. His hands were soaked with perspiration. He hadn't taken them out of his pants pockets since he walked into the day room. "Little nigger bastard. I'll throw you right out the fuckin' window," Stony thought to himself.

  As if reading his mind, they both stopped laughing. Suddenly the air stank with fear. Stony looked at his two antagonizes. They were studying their laps, faces brittle. He didn't understand what had just happened. All he knew was that he felt deep shame, and his anger U-turned onto himself. He plunked down a folding chair in front of them.

  "What's your names anyways?" He addressed them both.

  "Tyrone," the fat one answered sulkily.

  "Derek," the small one pouted.

  "Yeah, well, my name is Bruce Shaft," he said.

  Tyrone smirked.

  "No, it ain't," said Derek. He began rolling himself back and forth in place, his hands on the rims of the large spoked wheels. "O.K., you want to know what my real name is?"

  "I know your name." Tyrone squinted as he read the tag on Stony's chest pocket. "T. De-Co-Co." He screwed up his face with the strangeness of the sound.

  "Hey"—Stony raised a finger—"you know what that means in Italian? T. De Coco in Italian means 'Enter The Dragon.' " He nodded his head seriously.

  "Aw, man," Derek dismissed Stony with a wave of his hand.

  "You don't believe me?" Stony challenged. "You know what my brother's name is?"

  "My brother's name is Martell," Tyrone said. "He's in the marines."

  "Oh yeah?" Stony was impressed.

  "Yeah, he could kick your ass."

  Stony ignored the last comment. "Derek, you got a brother?"

  "Got a sister, she's twenny ... two I think."

  "Yeah, an' she got nice titties," Tyrone giggled.

  Derek leaned over and punched Tyrone on the arm. "You shut yo' face, motherfucker, or I shut it for you." Derek pointed a finger at Tyrone, staring at him with all the menace he could muster.

  Tyrone sucked air through his teeth as he rubbed his arm. "He hit hard for a little mouse," he co
mplained to Stony.

  Derek let loose with another shot in the same spot.

  "Cut it out!" Tyrone bawled. Stony was up and between the wheelchairs in an instant. He didn't know what to do. The feel of the cold metal of the armrests made him dizzy.

  "Hey, you guys, whynchoo be cool?"

  "Then you tell Fat Albert not to call me a mouse!"

  "See? See?" Tyrone whined in protest.

  "Well, you are, you fat motherfucker." Derek raised his eyebrows and leaned around Stony to see Tyrone.

  "Hey look ... look." Stony raised his hands like a referee. "You guys wanna hear a story?"

  Tyrone winced, rubbing his arm.

  "I don' wanna hear no fuckin' story." Derek propped his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair and rested his chin on the heel of his palm, staring away from Stony and Tyrone.

  "C'mon, you guys, it's a really good story."

  "Is it 'bout kung fu?" Tyrone asked.

  "Nah, it's about Indians."

  Suddenly Derek whipped around furiously in his chair. "An' you tell that motherfucker to lay off mah sister!" There were tears on his cheeks. He bit his lip in an effort to stop his chin from quivering. Tyrone got frightened by Derek's teary display. So did Stony. Stony sighed. "O.K., Tyrone, whynchoo apologize to him."

  Derek roughly wiped at the tears on his face, waiting for Tyrone's apology.

  "I'm sorry," Tyrone said down low.

  Derek pretended he didn't hear as he busily wiped his tears, but Stony could sense the small boy's rage subsiding.

  "O.K., look, you guys wanna hear a story or no?"

  "I do," Tyrone said. He shot a quick glance at Derek as he spoke. Stony didn't bother to ask Derek for the go-ahead but got right into it.

  "Thousands a years ago, there was this desert tribe a Indians in the desert."

  "What was they called?" Tyrone asked. Stony couldn't remember the name that the scoutmaster used when he told the story in Boy Scout camp. "Ah, the Hondos. Anyway, this tribe lived in the desert an' you know there ain't much food or water in the desert, so it was really important that everybody eat an' drink only a little at a time an' share what they got with everybody else. But this tribe was cool. They been at it a long time an' they pretty much had their act together."