Save One
by
Mark Konkel
The voice from
Woodson’s room grabs my attention because it’s the voice of
a man, a middle-aged man, and not a relative. Relatives’
voices tend to have that happy tone, like --
Well! What
are you lying in bed for all ‘forenoon? --
or
-- This is
a nice place they got you in, a real nice place. Isn’t this
a nice place?
But this voice
isn’t like that, so I stop to listen. Please don’t think I
spend a lot of time eavesdropping on the residents; it’s
just that I’m curious about who would talk to Woodson in
such serious and muted tones.
At one hundred and four years old, Woodson was elevated to
the position of Oldest Resident after her roommate, the one
hundred and six year old Lillian Folsom, died. Folsom’s
name plate is still on the door and her bed is perfectly
made with its orange woven cover even though she’s been
dead two days already. The second bed, Woodson’s bed, is
hidden behind the pulled curtain. I can’t see her, or the
source of the strange voice, but I can two legs of a
folding chair and a solitary wingtip shoe.
“Well, I’d have a different opinion, Mrs. Woodson,” the
unknown voice says, “if we were dealing with a different
situation.” The shoe slides backward and the ankle wraps
itself around the chair leg.
“I pray to God every day,” Woodson says. Her voice is
grindingly old, like a wood chipper jammed on railroad
spikes. But though it’s her speaking, somehow her voice is
different. I know Woodson, I know her voice, and this isn’t
it.
I’ve taken care of her for the last six months. She’s a
sensitive and perceptive woman; someone who can sample the
rhythm of the universe by holding out her fingers like they
were phonographic needles. After the first week, she
insisted I call her by her first name, Elna -- as she put
it, Call me Elna-not-Ellen-not-Eleanor, and I’ll call you
Max Factor. Max Factor? I complained. What sort of a name
is that? It’s yours, she insisted. And what sort of a name
is Elna? It’s Russian, she explained, or Iranian, insisting
that she was so old she couldn’t remember which.
Old? You? That made her laugh. She said, seriously, I don’t
know what I’d do without you, Max Factor. If only I were a
few years younger. What if I were a few years older, I
asked, which made her hoot, in her croaky way. Older? Oh,
no, she said. I like you just the way you are. I got enough
broken parts; I don’t need any old man with a bunch more.
“Prayer is good,” the unknown voice says, flipping me ahead
to the present.
One thing about this nursing home is that there’s always
activity someplace, aides dropping off laundry, residents
sitting in wheelchairs or pulling themselves along by the
wall railing, kitchen workers going past to pick up their
paychecks. But not right now. The hallway from the Nurse’s
Station to the Dining room is completely empty and silent.
It’s as if I’ve been isolated for the special purpose of
overhearing this conversation. Which doesn’t set too well
with me, because my biggest desire in life is just to go
through it unnoticed. When you’re singled out, it’s usually
because someone wants something from you. Here, I’ve been
singled out. “I think God finally has answered my prayers,”
Woodson continues.
The ankle uncurls itself from the chair leg. “Well, Mrs.
Woodson, considering the situation and the multiplicity of
conditions, uh, if we were discussing someone in their
eighties, ambulatory, or with family, or stable health,
it’d be something we’d have to discuss for a very long time
and come to a consensus about.”
Okay, so the wingtip probably belongs to her doctor.
“I’ve had seven children total and outlived them all and
two husbands too,” Woodson says.
“Yes, I was very sorry to hear about Stanley--”
“Save one child, still living.”
“Yes, save one.”
“Child.” She laughs. “A man now. An old man. They say a
parent should never live to see one of their children die,
but I have. I’ve seen them all.”
The wingtip lifts its heel and begins to bounce up and down
like a jackhammer. The chair legs start to shift a bit,
quietly. The voice says, “Uh-huh.”
“All die. Save one.”
“Save one.”
“But they don’t know what they’re saying.”
The heel stops vibrating and slides forward out of my view.
“But the way things are, Mrs. Woodson, we’ll just agree,
you and I”
“They just don’t know what they’re talking about. When they
say that.”
“--just agree to this just among ourselves here. I don’t
want you to be in pain anymore -”
“Because the only way you can guarantee
that you won’t
see your kids die is to die yourself during childbirth.”
The ankle slides back and the heel raises, then pauses, as
if expecting something. But it’s quiet, so the voice
continues, “And the prospects, well, we’ve discussed
them--”
Now she starts talking again but he doesn’t stop, then they
both raise their voices and the overlapping conversation
fills the room like a complete collapse of the ceiling
tiles. My knees are locked and I release them a bit. Then
he stops and I can understand her voice again.
“--never did I wonder about that. I just prayed for God to
call me home.”
“As I said,” the voice continues, “considering everything,
your age, the stage of malignancy, your support system, or
lack thereof, it’s appropriate.”
“Call. Me. Home.” Each word is a separate sentence. Her
voice is clearer than I’ve ever heard.
“I’ll change your orders immediately, as soon as I get back
to the Nurses’ Station, Mrs. Woodson, and everything will
be all set.”
The legs of the chair slide quickly backward with a self
important noise, loud and grinding, and the foot steps out
of my view. The curtain begins to sing its opening song,
clips sliding along the aluminum track, and an arm exposes
itself beyond the half open door. I walk quickly away from
the door, back from where I came. I need to turn around and
head to the time clock, but I keep on going until no one
could suspect I was eavesdropping.
About halfway
to the Dining Room, I turn around. A dark-haired man in a
charcoal suit with his back to me stands at the Nurses’
Station. He has to be the doctor; he wears the wingtips and
talks to the charge nurse in the same cadence I heard while
standing outside the door. I walk past the Nurse’s Station,
then turn to see his face.
He is soft and tanned, with a strong and cleft chin, square
cheeks and a broad forehead. Good looking. His eyes are
sunken a bit too much for a man of his age, though, and his
hair is thinning. His shirt is white, beneath a paisley red
tie bound into a Windsor knot. Elna’s chart is open in
front of him. He writes with his silver pen while I try to
translate the motions into words. Look at me!
Look at me! I think, but he
doesn’t. I am just an aide, so there’s no reason he should.
Then he clicks the pen, slips it into his suit pocket and
turns the chart around so the charge nurse can read the
order. Though I plant myself no more than eighteen inches
away from both of them, they act as if I’m not there; as if
they were characters in a play and I am in a front row
seat. She recites her line, “Very good, Doctor,” then slips
the chart back into its place in the cabinet. The doctor
picks up his briefcase, so there’s just one last chance for
me to attack him and save Elna. My mouth opens, and the
rest of me tensely waits for the shrewd, visionary comeback
that would make the doctor turn around and reverse the
decision of the last few minutes. But his shoulder merely
bumps mine when he walks past me, and so my powerful
entreaty, my utterly convincing plea, was limited to two
words: “Excuse me.” As if I was the one who bumped into
him.
Excuse
me? Excuse me? That is all I could muster? I should have
been able to razzle up something -- anything
--
to say to him, some turn of brilliance, some sweetness of
genius. But there is nothing. That’s me, though. There
never is insight during an event, just clever quips and
comments later, when it’s too late. How about I
get you a shotgun, Doc, so you can do a clean job on her?
How about you put a hook in the ceiling, Doc, then twist
her sheets into a noose?
But my eyes
drift over to Elna’s room, and it was clear to me. I can’t
picture her face, but I can hear her say, “Call. Me. Home.”
She did say it. It isn’t right to say anything to him.
Because it’s her idea, her desire, her wishes.
It’s her, not
him. He’s no more than the shotgun. He’s no more than the
noose, the poison. He’s a tool. You could see that in the
way she talked to him.
By the time I look back, the doctor’s gone. So I walk to
the time clock, grab my card and punch out.
A week later,
as I am getting to work, Elna dies. By that time, Folsom’s
name plate is gone, but Elna’s is still there. I think
about taking it, but it would be too much like uprooting a
tombstone, so I don’t.
Elna looks relaxed, but unnatural; head leaning back, mouth
gaping open, arms and fingers extended as if reaching for
something. Whoever made her bed used a puke green cover and
didn’t tuck in the corners. I should remake it with her
personal yellow, but I don’t. I should wash her and put her
teeth in and glasses on and rearrange her limbs before the
family comes to view her body, but I don’t. I should feel
happy for her because she got what she wanted, but I don’t.
I should think about what else I can do with my life except
this dead-end job, but I don’t. I used to think people live
for those who love them, but now I don’t.
Copyright
2008 by Mark Konkel