This piece is a little dated, and a little artsy for my taste.  But I thought that I would share with you my experience working at a hospice in New Orleans last summer, and a few of the people that touched my life during that miserable time. Names have been changed for obvious reasons. Hope you enjoy!

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The aging pony’s shit tumbles across the floor of Chateau de Angelica hospital.  The pony looks Ms. Marie L’Angell in the eye.  The eye looks right back.  Ms L’Angell’s lips pull back over elongated yellow teeth to a disapproving scowl.  The pony does likewise, and exhales hot mist.  Ms. L’Angell scratches some canary-colored goo from the corner of her one remaining eye, rolls it into a glob, and flicks it at the pony.  The pony flinches, bares its teeth, and backs away cautiously.  It shits on the clean linoleum floor. 97 years old and Marie can still win a Mexican standoff against an inbred horse with an irritable bowel.

Photo Courtesy of Equestrian Angels

Ms. L’Angell rolls her head towards me and grins.  An orderly takes the wheelchair by the handles and swings it around so violently that Ms. L’Angell’s head whips in the opposite direction, exposing her empty eye socket.  She chuckles, and as the orderly whisks her away, she tosses the flyer up in the air behind her, which flutters down to settle on some pony shit.  The flyer shows a retarded child wearing a helmet caressing a dew-eyed pony.  EQUESTRIAN ANGELS THERAPEUTIC OUTREACH PROGRAM~An Equestrian Encounter is the Best Medicine.

Down the hall is another standoff.  Two Gomers, recently infused with the passion of hatred toward fellow human beings, refuse to acquiesce the right of way to each other.  They sputter and snap like bratty children.  You would think that people whose remaining life can be measured in weeks would have something better to do.

Gomer.  Get Out of My Emergency Room.  So old that they don’t seem to have any specific ailment.  Or rather, they’ve just ordered everything on the menu-cancer, viruses, parasites, neurological disorders, hereditary degenerative diseases, cardiovascular breakdown, diabetes, arthritis, iron overload, mineral deficiency, erectile dysfunction, and restless leg syndrome. They have managed to keep breathing longer than what is healthy for anyone.  Usually this is accomplished by a surplus of boredom or spite, as Gomers never do anything remotely worthwhile.  They don’t read books or watch television because their eyesight is too poor.  Modern radio doesn’t appeal to them, and human contact seems to agitate them.  Their time is usually spent thinking about what their next meal is, the suspicious ethnic makeup of their caretaker, and whether any other Gomer is receiving special treatment, say, an extra fruit cup or (dare I say it?) a candy bar.

A diagnosis of this condition is determined by administering a Gomergram.  The patient is unable to explain what is wrong with them, so every available test is run at great expense, tedium and irritation all around.  Having determined the multitude of symptoms and causes, the Gomer is given a ballpark life expectancy, a few bottles of pills with as many refills as legally possible, and then promptly shipped back to the nursing home to wait for fruit cups and hope they outlive that bitch Lydia down the hall.  If they have been given less than 6 months to live, and are so inclined, they accept the services of Involved Care Hospice. And this is where I come in.

……………….

I left New York a failure.  My girlfriend had left me for another man.  My academics had gone down in flames.  Waves of depression engulfed every day.  The black dog, as Churchill would say, was scratching at my door.  Aimless.  Drained of passion.  Drained of hope and will.

My car followed one road to the next.  Highways and then country roads. Through Pennsylvania. Maryland. Virginia. Kentucky. Tennessee…  I stayed in hotels with nicotine-stained walls, and ate the same Subway sandwich day after day after day. Georgia. Alabama. A motor-home engulfed in flames by the side of the road, expelling a pillar of smoke visible for miles.  Mississippi. Louisiana.
I finally reached the ocean.  The white heat of the sun burned my skin as I stood next to my dusty Subaru.  Birds flew in unison, shifting from one amorphous shape into another, as though they shared the same mind.  The hotness of the sun made me think of the burning RV.  A family vacation gone terribly wrong.  Their odyssey had started out with hope and ended with tragedy.  Mine had started with failure and I didn’t know how it would end.

…………

My room in the Best Guest House on Canal St, New Orleans is hot.  So hot.   And I’m out of quarters.  Better go knock on the office door, get some more from Sam.  I open the door, and get hit with a wall of wet, sticky heat.  An ice-cream truck is playing carnival tunes somewhere down the street.

James is leaning on the handrail, looking down at the street.  His face is battered from his years in the Golden Gloves.  Now he’s a bouncer at the Swamp Juice bar; they had to move him inside, because he never remembers the regulars. I don’t know if his boxing career contributed to his short-term memory problems. Every time I see him, the conversation is the same.  And I say his words in my head before he opens his mouth.  This must be how a psychic feels.

“Hey buddy, tell me your name again?”

“Howdy, James.  It’s Kyle.”

“Carl.  Right.  I was sleeping, but that goddamn circus music woke me up.  It reminds me of clowns, and clowns scare the shit out of me. “

“I’m going to get some more quarters from Sam.  Take it easy James.”

“Yeah have a good one buddy.”

Sam’s sitting in his office with his shirt off, showing 50 years of tattoos.  After I get the quarters I ask him which is the oldest.  He puts his left leg up on the oak desk and pulls back his pant cuff, revealing SAM in faded gray ink.

“I got that when I was 13 years old, down at the docks in Boston.  A bunch of us from the swim team went down there one day.  They all got Mickey Mouse or cartoon characters, but I got my name.  Next swimming competition all the parents saw us with those tattoos and nearly rioted.  Most the kids had them removed surgically.  My daddy was a Merchant Marine, though, and he just thought I was taking after him.”

A quarter slides into the air conditioner control box in my room, and the unit rattles awake, blowing blessedly cool air.  The timer on the control box reads 59:59, 59:58, 59:57….

…………..

I pulled up to the hospital and entered the code.  The enormous iron gates swung inwards.  I can hear Jacob’s motorcycle before he rolls into view, and walks his bike back into the space next to mine.

Jacob is working for Involved Care because he is a lightweight.  In Louisiana, you can get alcoholic slushy drinks at certain drive-through restaurants.  They’re called “Hurricanes.”  Most people can drink one and drive, because they aren’t drunk.  Jacob was drunk, and then he got pulled over.  Penance: 300 hours of community service.

I didn’t particularly like Jacob.  He was a would-be holistic healer and new-age aficionado.  He believed that Western medicine was obsolete, and that George Bush bombed the World Trade Center.  Jacob had a very peculiar body.  His belly was round and protruding, but his chest was shallow, and his thin, hairless limbs were almost child-like.  It was his strong convictions on the topic of health coupled with his wan composure that made me vaguely distrustful of Jacob.

We walk together through the front doors.  Jacob is carrying a bouquet of tulips and baby’s-breath for Rosa.  Rosa is our darling.  Of all the irritable, semi-conscious Gomers, Rosa was special.  She always smiled when we came to visit.  She was the only person in the hospice system that showed us appreciation, and we loved her for it.

Jacob and I turn left and walk through the enormous dining hall.  Gomers in wheelchairs sit at long tables, accompanied by nurses or attendees. Whoever’s idea it was to carpet this room was a jester or a sadist.  The green carpet has a Van Gogh-esque smattering of stains from years of shaky hands and dribbling lips.

Up three flights, we take the left turn down the hall and walk to Rosa’s room.  She shares it with another Gomer, who always smiles at me but doesn’t talk.  Jacob pulls back the curtain, and Rosa’s bed is empty.  Jacob and I look at each other.  Rosa can’t be out of bed.  Her rectal cancer makes it unbearable for her to be in anything but a reclined position.  An empty bed.  She died. Fuck.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jacob drops the bouquet on the bed.

We jog down the hall, asking orderlies and nurses when Rosa Beliveau died.  “Oh, she’s not dead yet.” One nurse says with a smirk. “I think Nurse Simmons took her to sit by the window somewhere on the fourth floor.”

Now we’re running, dodging wheelchairs and bursting into the stairway.  We take the stairs three-at-a-time.  Walking down the fourth floor ward, we open the door to each room that faces West, as only those have windows.

In a room at the end of the hall we find Rosa.  She’s parked by the window, just like the nurse said she would be.  Her body is twisted to the side, and she sobs and groans.  I pick her up and we walk back down to her room.  She had shat herself some time ago.

The nurses had left her sitting there for four hours before we found her.  Rosa sobs into my shoulder (the pain was so intense it didn’t ease for several days).  She sobs that she’s sorry that she relieved herself.  The loss of dignity is nearly as bad as the physical pain.  She’s beginning to feel heavy, so I rush to lay her down on her bed, crushing the tulips.   Jacob stays with Rosa, who won’t stop weeping, and I go to find Nurse Simmons, my shirt still smelling like Rosa’s shit.

Once I find the bitch, I’m going to rip her goddamn lungs out.

Nurse Simmons doesn’t give an inch.  “Every day at 8 the patients are supposed to be moved around so that they don’t get restless.”
“Didn’t you read her FILE? SHE. CAN’T. BE. MOVED.”

“It’s hospital policy.”

“You fucking cunt.  You read her file. You’re just a sadistic witch.  I’ll make sure you lose your job.”

“Listen, sonny, you are a volunteer here.  You have no authority, and if you use such profanity in my vicinity again, you will see consequences.”

I call the hospice home office and talk to Sharon, my supervisor.  Sharon hangs up the phone, and drives to the hospital.  I wait with Jacob and Rosa until Sharon arrives, and tells us to go home.

I wait outside for Jacob, using one cigarette to light the next.  He emerges ten minutes later with red eyes.  He asks for a cigarette, and he takes it with a shaking hand.   We sit outside in the shade of the gothic hospital for some time.  Jacob tells me that the Hospice is going to get Rosa a new mattress to compensate for the hospital’s negligence.

One week later I’m scheduled to visit Rosa again, and notice she is still laying on the stiff spring mattress on the hospital’s metal bedframe.  I call the home office, and they assure me that the new mattress had been sent.  Nurse Simmons.  I track her down within an hour, and corner her by some IV stands.

“Why isn’t Rosa Beliveau laying on her new mattress? Don’t say it didn’t come, because I know it did.”

“Yes, it came.  But in order to switch mattresses, Ms. Beliveau would have to be moved.  And as you pointed out, she can’t be moved, can she?”

…………

We open the door, and the bar is overwhelming.

Hi, welcome the Brewhaus, can I get you a table? Right this way please. It’s hard, man.  You’re supposed to be cool, you know? I told him to leave.  He brings this girl over, and she has this attitude, you know, and I just didn’t appreciate it. Like, be able to see anything with your own two eyes and take it in stride. Is this booth okay? Great. Your server will be Dianne, she’ll be right with you. Everywhere I turn there she is!  Be professional.  Now, how are your hush puppies? Can I try a bite? Mmm, those are good. Like when that Gomer coughed blood in your face.  You just wiped it off, no big deal. No, if you’ll just listen to me I’m telling you you’re wrong.  The public option makes sense.  And if you don’t want it, you don’t have to use it.  I don’t get what the big damn deal is about the whole thing.  Tell you the truth, I’m just sick of talking about it. Let’s change the subject.  I’m trying not to worry about it too much. There’s no time to think about expansion when Tim can’t get his shit together.  I believe it’s pronounced Muffalleta. There’s no reason to get snippy with me, young man.  Doctors go through this in med school all the time. NO! Well then send it back if you want it on the side. You think surgeons are born with the ability to peel back someone’s skin-no problem? Yeah, so I had a plan along those lines.  A man without a plan is not a man. Actually, she’s very good. I’ve been systematically desensitizing myself to death and gore. HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW! It’s all on the internet, if you look for it. GogogogogogogogogogogogoYESSS! You can look at some of the worst, most horrific things imaginable online.  I know it sounds like a really bad idea.  I spend all day around death, and I don’t really want to go home and watch that ugly stuff. Refill darlin?  Have you ever heard of “Faces of Death?”  That’s child’s play. If she wants to be a part of this family at a fancy restaurant, she’s gonna have to use the spoon for what it’s designed for. It’s not every day we get to go out, and I don’t want to look like a family of chimpanzees.  Try men pumping their scrotums so full of saline that they swell to the size of basketballs. So you’re tellin’ me that the world’s gonna end because of some movie? Tell you what: I’ll bet you 500 bucks right now that not a damn thing happens in 2012.  It’s just a bunch of Y2K bullshit all over again.   It goes down from there. No, it’s this ancient Mayan calendar system that’s kept perfect time until 2012, but they made a movie about it.  How about guys slicing open their scrotum and exposing their testicles to the air? God-bless you.  Sounds like horseshit. Have you ever heard of the pain olympics? I seen a lot of folk come back since the flood.  There are whole groups of people devoted to making themselves eunuchs with scissors or hatchets. I need your truck, I still got that storage shed in Metairie with all that crap to sort through.  It’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Tuesday?  Did you know that child pornography is a 6 billion dollar industry? John and Sam haven’t come back. There’s a popular method of suicide called de-sleeving, where a man sticks his penis in an industrial vacuum cleaner, and it sucks the skin off. Now as far as I’m concerned, Glenn Beck is a goddamn phony.  They bleed to death. Oh my god, I did a semester at Liberty after Katrina, and they don’t let you drink beer even if you’re over 21.  Have you ever seen a prolapsed uterus? That is so unfair.  Or a prolapsed colon? When is the next time you’re headin’ up to to Baton Rouge? For years the FBI has been looking for a genuine bonafide snuff film. Let me think about it first.  They even had a department specifically designed to look for snuff. My boyfriend was pissed at first.  But for years they couldn’t find any.  I mean, there are plenty of videos of people committing suicide.  But a “snuff” film has to satisfy certain parameters. Someone put some fuckin quarters in the jukebox.  There’s a line at the women’s restroom and it’s an e-mer-gen-cee!  It needs to be a movie featuring a murder, where the production is aimed at making a profit. Hello? Hello? Nevermind. The closest anyone came to were the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs.  They were a couple of Ukrainian teens that killed 21 people, and videotaped the torture and murder of some poor man. I heard they aren’t even going to accept my art credit.  They hit him in the face with a hammer, poked his eyes out, and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach with a screwdriver. All on tape. God, I can’t hear myself THINK in here, you want a cigarette? The man drifts in and out of consciousness over the course of the video. Well you have my support.  Sometimes this job makes me feel like there is no hope for anyone. Hey! Someone left 20 bucks in the ATM! There can’t be a god... I hate that bitch… that allows teenage kids to kill 21 people, and videotape torture and murder. I don’t see why I need to fix the damn windshield wiper when I just bought the damn thing three days ago.  And what are we doing every day? There’s right, and there’s wrong, there’s good and there’s bad, and he’s just plain bad. They’re all dying! We can’t stop it. Someone change the music, I hate Santana.  We don’t even like any of them!  I want to die. It’s a digital jukebox with thousands of songs and all this asshole has played is 5 bucks of Carlos-fuckin-Santana. No, I’m serious, I want to die. There has to be something in the relationship scale between dating and just being regular pals.  I’m not going to kill myself.  I dunno what you’ve heard, but that Zach Nance’ll take the shirt off your back.  I think that if he went to Church more, he’d realize that he has a family.  But I thought that I could numb myself to anything and everything.  Will Smith, is he that colored fella from the UFO-catcher movie?  I like him!  But I can’t.  There has to be something for her to live for, and her husband isn’t it.  No, I can’t leave. No one knows.  Because I still have 250 hours of community service left. And then he says “My name is now……. Betty”  HAHAHAHAHA. This job is killing me. Holy hell, they have beer from Vietnam here, Chuck! I need more beer.  I wish they would all die.  I’m sick of taking Gomers to the bathroom, and then having to look to see if there’s blood in the stool. You’ll know what to tell him when the time comes. I’m sick of the smell.  I know what you’re trying to do.  And there’s no appreciation.  Every day you come in and tell me it’s my turn, well it’s your turn now!  There is no way I’m going in front of that Nazi again to save your skin.  I’ve been here for five months, and no one has said “Thank you, Jacob.”  I wish they would all die.

………………

The next day Jacob called in sick.

………………

I shot a rabbit once.  Al pointed to the nibbled tomato plants and bought me my first pellet gun.  I lay down among the pine needles and waited for almost an hour before the gray cottontail lopped into the garden, and lounged behind a fencepost, obscuring my line of sight.

The rabbit hopped into my line of sight, and I squeezed the trigger. The pellet gun made a soft crack. The rabbit tried to run, but fell over and clawed the earth.  I picked it up in my shirt and looked for the hole in its side.  At first it was hard to find through the dense fur, and then I felt the wet spot.  I took the wounded animal into the cabin, and put it in the big plastic container Mom used to make cheese, and gave it some lettuce.  It just looked up and breathed hard.

I thought that the rabbit would recover.  It even ate some of the lettuce.  But after the third day blood started coming out of its nose.  It died that night, and I gave it to my dogs.