“Not even ice chips?” I whined.
“Noffing till Misser James say.”
Well, who on earth was this mysterious Mr. James? Ooooh! Maybe he’ll be gay, which would mean we’d instantaneously adore each other. Also, if he was gay, he might look past the fact that I stank worse than a vomit-caked bathroom in a frat house after a toga party. He’d adore me just for being revolting li’l ol’ me. I imagined a lifelong friendship: me, Mr. James, and his hot boyfriend, Mr. Allastair, arranging yearly trips to Ibiza, where. . .
Uh-oh, I was losing her.
“Well, where is this Mr. James?”
She looked at me as if I were nuts. Which I most certainly was, but she didn’t know that yet.
“He in surgery. Misser James your surgeon.” Oops. “I can’t give you noffing till Misser James say.”
Okay, I heard you the first time, you nasty wench. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t call my surgeon “doctor.” I found out later that in the UK, doctors were called “doctor” and surgeons were called “mister.” Don’t ask me, I’m an ice cube lover.
“Doctah Smyjoes will check on ye t’morr.” She started to leave, her duty done.
“Wait, sorry. Who’s Dr. Smyjoes? I mean. . . maybe you could call him?”
She gathered the little strength she had left. “He’s part of your team, ’ssisting Misser James on your case.” With that, she left, shutting the door behind her with finality.
That did it. I finally gave in and burst into baby tears. Poor ME.
I think we’re alone now, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. . . .
Time passes at a hellish pace when you’re not only feeling sorry for yourself but you can’t eat, talk, breathe, drink, smoke, read, walk, sit up, or stand. It’s just you, you, and more you. Mr. M is busy dealing with intestinal stuff, so He can’t help. No one can. I remember looking at the clock on my bedside, which said 13:15 p.m.
Hours passed.
I looked again.
It said 13:18 p.m.
Dammit, I wanted to be home, where 13:18 meant 1:18.
I wanted to be home, where I could handle a bitchy nurse, and where doctors were called doctors and where my friends could visit me and bring me People magazines and pace with worry instead of cramming my tiny room with thousands of flowers, as if I were already dead.
An uneasy feeling washed over me, one that I knew all too well. I didn’t mind being alone, but this was a kind of alone I’d felt only once before and didn’t want to feel ever again. My biggest and most terrifying bout of depression slammed me right after 3rd Rock hit the airwaves. Which was perfect, because as I think we’ve already established, I’m obviously quite skilled in the art of bad timing. I knew I should be HAPPY, SUPER-DUPER HAPPY. Everyone was THRILLED for me. After all, hadn’t I worked my ass off my whole life for this? Wasn’t this everything I’d ever dreamed of, surpassing even my wildest fantasies? Yep. And yet I was only filled with anxiety and grief.
Not until years later did I understand why. I no longer had the one thing that safely protected me from having to look too closely at myself: I no longer had ambition.
Most people don’t know this, but ambition is one of life’s great painkillers. And I had it in droves. How could I possibly have any concept of who I really was or what hurt me or what I liked or didn’t like when all my thoughts, power, energy, and passion were poured into “getting the job”?
I wisely understood that I wasn’t exactly an ingenue and was convinced that success, if it came at all, would come much later, when I was old, like in my thirties. Which of course meant that, because of my aforementioned timing issues, I wasn’t in any way prepared for the success that slammed me face-first right into the pavement. Overnight, at age twenty-seven, without so much as a warning, I was suddenly far more successful than I could ever have imagined. Which should have been lovely, except that in that exact moment, the one thing that drove me for years, my stabilizing force, the one thing that prevented me from having to really feel things or really know myself—my ambition—was suddenly gone.
I was bereft, in deep mourning, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, fathom why. I suppose I was also grieving for the loss of the unfeeling, jokey, impenetrable me. I was constantly filled with a sense of dread and overwhelming anxiety, and I was baffled. It felt like I had been kidnapped and shoved into a suffocatingly tiny, dark, airless closet with nothing but myself to keep me company. Like Patty Hearst’s, my will was utterly broken by the dark room that was now my mind.
A huge percentage of the recovering drug addicts I know seem to have a few things in common, other than their disease: intelligence, creativity, individualism, humor, and, yes, they all seem to have or have once had enormous amounts of ambition.
Now, don’t get me wrong, plenty of drug addicts are just narcissistic, suicidal, boring, or simply mentally ill. I’ve come across a few in church basements all over this fine city I live in. And obviously there are many reasons one becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol: genetics, a trauma, access, peer pressure, childhood abuse, boredom, depression—the list goes on and on. But I truly believe that one of the main culprits of my addiction was the loss of my burning need to succeed.
Oh, you probably wouldn’t have noticed, at first. But ever so slowly, the more successful I got, the more unhappy I was. Then, the harder I tried to fake being “normal” and “happy,” the more I failed miserably at it. My emotions were all over the place; one day I’d be fine and perky, the next I’d be grief-stricken and morose. As a happily weeping John Lithgow said to me (through copious tears) a few years ago when I told him I was now sober and much happier in my life, “You know, I always knew something was really devastating you and you were battling some demons. But I was always amazed at how you were able to push it aside and do such great work.” (His words, not mine, okay?)
He followed that with one of the reasons I was doomed to remain sick and suffering for so long: “When it came to doing your job, you’d never know anything was wrong.”
My loss of ambition quickly morphed into an all- consuming depression, and as anyone can tell you, depression and addiction absolutely adore each other. Just when my depression became too difficult for me to battle alone, I discovered, purely by chance, that narcotics made everything much better, for about four hours. Of course the problem with “treating” depression with drugs or alcohol is that your sorrow then simply becomes one hard ball of need. So instead of being depressed, you’re simply a sobbing loser who counts pills or constantly vomits on your friends’ laps. You’ve become a poor imitation of someone being alive. But, hey, it’s better than being depressed! Isn’t it?
Lying in this bed in London, I started to feel the walls close in on me again, which filled with me with grim panic.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. . . .
After a long, sleepless, click-filled night, it was morning. Once my vitals were checked by Florence Nightmare-gale—Why, and a good morning to you, sunshine!—a dashing young doctor almost as hot as Mr. James swept into my room. Maybe they purposely hire hot doctors as recompense for the curmudgeonly and occasionally nasty nurses? I tried to smile winningly at him, which I regretted instantly because it pulled on my nose tube and made my eyes water in pain. Ouch.
He was busy looking at my chart, thank God.
I had now gone four days without showering, which perhaps I could’ve pulled off back in the old days, back when I had a stomach. I honestly can’t imagine how he managed to resist me. But he did.
He cleared his throat and introduced himself as Dr. Smythson-Jones, and I instantaneously knew these three things about him: he was an excellent doctor, he was an arrogant, womanizing narcissist, and he smoked like a fucking chimney.
Yummy, exactly my type.
Unfortunately, at that same instant I knew that I was most definitely not his. I wondered what the problem was, other than the fact that I wasn’t a bulimic, twenty-year-old model. Could it be the horrors coming ou
t of my nose tube, the clammy odor of eau de disaster emanating from my every pore, or that I was weeping uncontrollably?
He cleared his throat again. “Ms. Johnston. I’m part of your surgical team, and I must tell you, we’re all a bit transfixed by your case. You see, not one of us had ever come across anything as shocking as the condition your intestines were in, at least in someone alive. Truly, it was as if a bomb had gone off. It took us hours to clean up the mess. In fact, we’re all rather amazed that you managed to pull through.”
Oh, so that was it. I guess putrid intestines were a deal-breaker for him. Shallow asshole.
“When can I eat or drink?” (God, shut up, whiner.)
“Not for another day or two, when we remove your stomach tube. And then I’m afraid only liquids for three days.”
A fresh geyser of tears squirted out.
He cleared his throat once again, which I quickly realized was his way of saying, You’re in England, m’dear. Stiff upper lip, if you please!
“I must say, I’m rather surprised you’re hungry.”
“I’m not, really, I just want. . .”
“A cigarette?”
Oh my God, was he hot and psychic?! Then I remembered the party line: cigarette smoking caused an ulcer that then burst.
“Yes, yes, I really just want a cigarette.”
“Mm-hmm!” He nodded smugly, as if to say, That was precisely my diagnosis. “Well, do keep in mind that one of the reasons you’re so highly emotional is that you’re withdrawing from nicotine, as well as recuperating from a very invasive procedure. Now, I’m a smoker (as if I didn’t smell it the second you got out of the elevator, Dr. Dickhead)and must say I’m really quite sympathetic to your plight. I quit once and it was absolutely horrific. I wept for days.”
Despite his condescending, model-adoring personality, I found myself kind of liking this guy. I wondered if he’d lend me his blazer to smell, just for a few hours?
“I’ll tell you what.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “How would you like a bahth?”
Did he mean bath? I pictured him sexily trying to wash my crusty hair.
“I’ll call the nurse to help you.” Oh. Hey, it was an honest mistake. “I truly think you’ll feel loads bettah after a nice hot bahth.”
To make him happy, I said, “You know, that does sound mahvelous.”
He left and must have really cracked the whip, because just a scant three hours later my nurse shuffled in. I honestly don’t remember her name. I kinda want to call her Vagina Mouth, but for decorum’s sake let’s go with Nurse Wretched. Now, to be fair, I can’t begin to imagine how difficult a nurse’s job must be. The smells, the pooping, the sores, the vomit, the whining, the dying. . . all for next to no money. But back then, I didn’t care about any of that. All I knew was that the one person I saw the most often at the very worst time in my life seemed to resent me simply because I’d had the gall to be placed on her floor.
She rolled her eyes. “All right now, baf time. Doctuh’s odus.”
She then brought in some sort of plastic chair, and through the open door to my bathroom I watched her place it in the tub. Then, with great reluctance, she started the arduous journey toward me.
Trust me, babe, I’m not all that excited, either.
Nurse Wretched unplugged me from all the machines—bye-bye, Mr. M, I’ll be right back—except the nose tube, still connected to the blech-filled pouch. She took the pouch off the hook and unceremoniously plopped it on my legs. What an honor, I had been bequeathed the blech! After about ten long minutes, I was finally untethered. She pushed a button and the bed made a loud bang, which scared whatever crap I had left out of me. Soon I realized the bed was slowly, creakily moving me into a sitting position.
“Swing your legs to the side and stand. But do it slow. Slow, eh? I don’ want a big girl like you fallin’ on me.”
Oh, isn’t that smashing. Even in the hospital, I’m given shit about my height. Lord have mercy. Just to be ornery, I quickly started to stand, and white-hot agony pierced through the protective curtain of painkillers and I immediately saw white stars.
She sat me back down and scolded me that I had gotten up too quickly. Once the pain had backed down to a dull roar, I croaked, “Sorry, I’m not an expert at the postsurgery stand.” I thought I felt her smile as she readied me for try number two. Or it could’ve been a grimace. Together, we slowly, slowly began the journey from sitting to standing. Well, crouch-standing would be more appropriate. It was only then that I understood her height comment. Even as an upside-down L, I positively dwarfed her. Nurse Wretched was tiny. Like, a few inches from being a little person. No wonder she was worried. If I fell on her, chances were high she’d be crushed to death. I was sorely tempted, but in the end I decided it would just be too much bother.
But damn if she wasn’t a strong little thing. She carried most of my almost two hundred pounds (I was busy holding the blech), and we slowly inched our way to the bathroom—Look, Mommy, Grandma’s walking! Then she carefully helped me get into the tub-chair.
The only problem was that by now I was utterly exhausted. I couldn’t even reach the tiny bottle of shampoo next to me, let alone lift my hands to my head.
A spurt of shame reddened my face. “I’m sorry, I need help, I can’t wash. . .”
“It’s notting, I do this all the time.”
As she washed me (with the exception of my privates. I’ll handle that area, thank ye kindly) and shampooed my hair three times, I realized that this might be the first time in my adult life I asked someone for help. Then actually let them.
She had definitely done this before and was thankfully quite businesslike. But it was her gentleness that surprised me. I can still remember the simple joy I felt at being cared for. And the amazing, unbelievable difference I felt being clean. For days I had felt like some revolting, nonhuman, half-dead creature, like the swamp thing or the elephant man. But as that water rinsed away days of horror—I am not an animal, I’m a human being—and I watched it all drain down, gone forever, I felt baptized. As she towel-dried my hair, I’d never felt so powerfully alive.
While I had been in the bahth, someone had changed the sheets on my bed. Well, cot, really, but I’m not complaining! It’s fine! Wee Nurse Wretched patiently inched me over, got me in bed, and proceeded to reattach me to everything. And a click, click, click back to you, Mr. M! I snuggled into the warm (only slightly scratchy) sheets, and after every bag was on its correct hook and everything inserted in its proper place, she went to the closet, took out a bunch of blankets, and put them on my legs. Then, in her special tender/brusque manner she actually tucked me in, which made me wonder if it had felt as good the last time someone had done this for me, circa 1971.
For the first time in a very, very long time, maybe years, I felt happy.
“Thank you so much, really,” I said, smiling at her. Which made her roll her eyes and shuffle toward the door. Then she stopped as if she wanted to say something.
She looked at me. “Hmmm. . . Yes. Hmmm. G’night, Ms. Johannson.” With a nod, she shut off the light and gently closed the door.
“G’night, Nurse Wretched,” I said softly into the inky blackness.
I think we’re alone now,
There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.
Click.
nine
THE SUFFOLK STRANGLER
in the first week or so postsurgery, the doctors said I’d need at least three weeks of recuperation in the hospital. However, since I played a nurse on ER for six episodes, I was quite sure that two would be more than enough. Which is precisely what I told Sonia, the brilliant producer of the play, when she visited me on the third day.
Sonia is shrewd, tough, brutally honest, and insanely successful at what she does. Sonia does not, however, have a soothing bedside manner, and she couldn’t disguise the dawning horror on her face as her eyes drank in the Freak show laid out in front of her.
When people visit you in the h
ospital, they bring in fresh air and ruddy cheeks and life. But soon, this remarkable transformation occurs—they seem to become part of the hospital. It’s an astonishing thing to bear witness to—all the life drains out of them, any amusing story they couldn’t wait to share on the way over becomes stuck to the roof of their mouth. The bouquet of peonies in their hand wilts. They enter smelling like Chanel No.5 or soap, but once they leave, for the rest of the day, they’ll trail the subtly unpleasant scent of death, Pine-Sol, and formaldehyde in their wake. The hospital sucks everything delightful, new, and fresh out of you. Like the hotel in The Shining, it wants you.
Every now and then I was struck by the queasy thought that if that was what happened to someone who was here ten minutes, what in God’s name was it doing to me? But I’d furiously click, click, click until that thought was banished.
Since the cast of Love Song (bad title, but trust me, excellent play) was only four people, we had all grown extremely close over the course of the intense four-week rehearsal. They were all so lovely and terribly understanding of my plight. I wonder how understanding they would have been if they knew the real reason my guts blew up? They each visited a few times and e-mailed and called. Thank God for them. Other than the people involved with the show, my only visitors were my friends Joanna and Daisy. Cillian, the stunning Irish actor who played my brother in the show, seemed traumatized by the place and basically tossed the book he’d brought for me on the bed, kissed the air near my cheek, and backed out. I remember watching him as his walk turned into a run down the endless, Jim Bob Kubrick–designed corridor. How could I blame him? If I could’ve figured out how Nurse Wretched cranked this bed into sitting, I would’ve hobbled right on out after him. I’d be drizzling blech, it’s true. And I’d be bent in half. But I’d be free.
One of the best qualities about Sonia is her inability to bullshit. Most people run in fear from her, but I’ve always had a soft spot for an up-front gal who doesn’t seem to need to please others. Sadly, a rare breed. So it didn’t surprise me one bit that she was easily able to ignore the life-sucking desires of the hospital. She was too busy dealing with the dawning comprehension that her brand-new smash-hit show on the West End had turned into a rotting money-pit overnight.
Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster Page 9