View From a Kite (14 page)

Next on the list is a bronchiogram.

“Is it anything like a bronchoscope?” I want to know. I've had a couple of those and I hate them. They spray your throat with novocaine to numb it, but it only partly works—then they shove a big old telescope down your throat and stick in into your lungs as far as they can jam it and look to see what they can see. You can't talk for two days after or swallow much of anything because your throat is so bruised.

“Not exactly,” they say. “But don't worry, you'll be asleep. We'll be in early in the morning to give you a shot.”

This is supposed to make me not worry. I fret all night long, despite a sleeping pill. They come very early, and make me wear a Johnny shirt and a pair of one-size-fits-all, cotton-polyester pants with a drawstring that goes around me three times. Then they help me up onto a stretcher and they give me a pill so I will relax. We go rumbling down the corridor; the joins in the tile floor make noises like the clackety-clack of train wheels, and the lights overhead, which are shining in my eyes because I'm flat on my back looking up, are like strobes. I'm half-wrecked by the time we get to the surgical floor. Then there's a wait, because they're backed up a bit. When, I wonder, did they start? It's not even six o'clock and already they're backed up? I'm becoming much too sober, I think, and I'm cold. They wrap me in a blanket, but they won't give me any more drugs—keeping them all for themselves is my guess. Finally, I doze off.

Rumble, rumble
wakes me up again, and I'm poured onto a table in an operating room and they give me a shot and I pass out.

This is what they do:

When I'm asleep they put that damn tube down my throat again, but this time they aren't looking, they're pouring some white chemical-glop that glows in the dark, or on the x-ray machine, or whatever, into my lungs. They pour this stuff in, then haul out the tube and then, of course, they have to get the glop in as many corners and branches of my lungs as possible. The table I'm on tilts; they strap me on and then turn me upside down, over and around, swirling me this way and that to swirl the stuff around in my lungs. Guess when I wake up?

I'm staring at the floor, and my hands and arms are tied down and my feet are tied up in the air, and there's glop spilling out of my mouth and some of my hair is in it and is stuck to my face. I start screaming then, but evidently it only comes out as meek little groans.

One of them notices.

“I think she's waking up,” she says.

“Well, we're almost finished,” says another. So they don't give me another shot, they flip me over and right side up and make soothing noises at me.

“Almost done,” they coo. “You're such a brave girl.”

This is meant to pacify me.

They prop me up in a corner against a machine and take a million x-rays. Then it's back to the tilt-a-table where they hog-tie me into position, flip me upside down and start pounding on my back. This is to get the glop to run out of my lungs, so I don't get pneumonia, or something. I am heaving and spitting gobs of white glop into a basin. This is all too much for my brain, and it rolls over and plays dead.

I wake up much later in my room. They have left lemon-flavoured throat lozenges on my bedside table. Evvie is asleep, her turquoise robe spread over the top of her bed like a blanket. Late afternoon sunshine is pooling on the floor and climbing up the side of Evvie's bed. I suck quietly, snivel a bit, and watch yellow sun on turquoise chenille.

CHAPTER 28

The social worker back at the San is a guy from Sydney River who comes into the hospital two days a week. He does practical things. He finds places to farm out kids when their parents have to go to the San and don't have any family to look after them. He helps people with their disability applications if they can't read or write or haven't taken a course in bureaucratic gobbledegook. He finds them bus fare when they get released, certifiably healthy but flat broke. Other than the practical stuff, all he ever talks about is bantam hockey, which he coaches at the forum twice a week. He wears brown Hush Puppies and a corduroy jacket of the mustard colour you can always find hanging in Frenchy's or the Salvation Army second-hand store. As far as we know he only owns one tie at a time, and throws it away at Christmas when his kids give him a new one. A decent sort of mind-your-own-business kind of guy.

The social worker here at the Alex is another life form altogether. Miz-Anderson-do-call-me-Alicia has aspirations towards psychiatry; she's planning on going back and getting a degree in that fine discipline. She wants to be Dr.-Anderson-do-call-me-Alicia. She's hoping to compile enough material here for all the papers she'll have to write in medical school. She wants to talk—actually, she wants you to talk while she takes notes. She's a pain in the ass.

She shows up shortly after I arrive for a little bedside chat to welcome me, and suggests I drop by her office sometime. I don't quite get what she is about because it's been a bad day and I am tired and depressed and I think the words “social worker” mean she wants to talk hockey or something.

“Sure,” I agree, politely, thinking sometime-or-other, maybe next month, maybe never.

When I fail to show up she sends her goons after me. They bully me into a wheelchair, trundle me up to her office and hand me over to her. Soon as she closes the door behind them, I begin to get suspicious. It's not like we're going to plan strategy for the next season on the ice together; it's not like the place is overrun with spies for the other teams. She starts prying, in what she imagines is a delicate, sensitive fashion. Alarms go off in my head. I can see by her eyes that when she read my file she practically had an orgasm. I can also see that she is longing to put a couch in her office and force me to lie down on it.

I've dealt with these people before. Never, ever get mad or upset. They really like that. Anything you say can and will be interpreted against you. If you say nothing they put you down as hostile, or profoundly depressed, but that's better than having them pick apart your words like chicken guts for meaning and inventing all kinds of crap about what they think is going on in your head.

For some insane reason people like Miz-Anderson-do-call-me-Alicia are convinced if I talk about “it” I'll feel better. Why is that? What the hell good would that do? I don't even want to think about it, let alone talk about it. Maybe someday, a million years from now, I might want to talk about it. Someday when I'm a million years old and don't care about anything. When my brains are soup. Talking changes nothing, thinking changes nothing, nothing you can do will change one single second of the past. We're moving in one direction and one direction only, and the only thing you can do about the past is to try to get as far away from it as possible.

Fortunately there is a window behind her desk. I stare out at the sky and begin a list in my head.

Papkaos (light, easily manoeuvrable kites, female, with tails)

Chulas (male, strong, slowly moving kites without tails)

Levitor (a string of four hexagonal kites)

Flying Saucers: The Blue Moon and The Pink Moon, The Fish, The Flower

Box Kites: The Hexagon, The Lozenge, The Double Lozenge

Delta Wing Kites: Hummingbird, Seagull, Kingfisher, Pheasant, Golden Eagle, Polynesian Bird, Siamese Owl

Flying Snakes: Longest Snake In The World, Giant Pink Cobra, Little Blue Naga, The Grass-snake

The Crescent of Isis

The Mighty Chinese Dragon

“Gwen,” she says, “if you don't feel like talking right now, I don't want to push you. What are you thinking about?”

“All kites must be perfectly symmetrical to the right and left of their vertical axes.”

“Pardon?” she asks, grabbing for her pad and pencil. I have foolishly given in to the urge to play with her head.

“If the kite spins around in the wind, it means that the tail is not heavy enough and needs to be made longer. If the kite won't lift off, the tail is too heavy and needs to be reduced in size or weight.”

“Are you interested in kites?” she asks.

“Not in the least.” Then I clam up until she has to let me out because it's rest period and I'm supposed to be in bed.

I have refused to go back, though she continually attempts to ambush me in the halls. What she has done is notice that I hang out with Denise a lot, and has started hauling Denise in to see if she can worm some juicy bits out of her. Denise is enjoying it immensely. She makes up stuff and then feeds it into Miz-etc.'s eager ears. First she told her that I only talk when we are out of the ward, walking around, so Miz-etc. has arranged it so that when we split, the nurses don't make a fuss and try to drag us back. As long as we spend two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon resting every day they pretty much leave us alone. We're just supposed to tell the duty nurse where we're going.

“Sure thing,” agrees Denise.

“Why would we tell them where we're going?” I ask her. “If we do that they'll know where to find us.”

She tells them we're going to the gift shop to look for magazines, or Rehab to hook rugs, and we all pretend that's what we do.

“Also, no more liver and cabbage,” says Denise.

“Okay.” I say. “Why?”

“I hate the smell of cabbage,” says Denise, “and I loathe liver. I told Miz-etc. you had liver and cabbage for supper the night your mother got shot and every time you smell it you get to feeling suicidal. She sent a memo to the kitchen that liver and cabbage aren't to be served on this floor until further notice.”

“Tell her I like wine with dinner,” I suggest. “Tell her it makes me want to live.”

Evvie has been sitting up in bed, listening to us, saucer-eyed.

“Youse are so bad,” she says. “Youse are gonna get in big trouble.”

“What's your favourite dessert, Evvie?” asks Denise.

“Lemon meringue pie,” she says. “I love lemon meringue pie more'n anything.”

“No problem,” says Denise and the next day lets drop that lemon meringue pie is the one thing that really cheers me up. The day after we are served lemon meringue pie for lunch. Denise and I give Evvie our pieces and she eats them both, as well as hers, as a sort of pink ecstasy blooms on her face. It's the first natural colour I've seen on the girl. After that we get lemon meringue pie fairly regularly. This does two things: it keeps Evvie happy, and it serves as a distant early warning that Miz-etc. is on the hunt and hoping to corner me in a good mood. Evvie finally starts to gain a few ounces and I know when to watch my back.

“You guys owe me big time,” says Denise.

ALCOHOL

The consensus of opinion on the question of the alcoholic habit especially predisposing to consumption is considerable…it impairs the tissues, making them more suitable soil for the rooting and growth of the bacilli.

The alcoholic cares nothing for proper nutrition, substituting spirits for nourishing food, further causing a decline in health and the ability to withstand the bacillus….

Lack of behavioural restraint, caused by alcohol, leads to situations that threaten the health of the individual, i.e., dancing, exposure to inclement weather, exhaustion, etc.

We may allude to the popular fallacy that alcohol kills the disease germs in drinking water; an idea which is a frequent excuse for taking spirits…

-The Cape Breton Book for Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis

CHAPTER 29

Denise and I almost never get company. The Alex is too far for our families to travel to easily, so when we're wandering about we often hang around the reception desk, pretending to read old
Family Circles
as we examine the visitors. I'm training myself to be observant, to notice quirks of manner, dress, and expression. Denise likes to critique clothing and hairstyles, especially hairstyles. She was training to be a hairdresser before she came to the Alex. Also, we are trying to figure out who the bootlegger is. The hospital does spot checks on the staff, so we don't think it's one of them (there is the possibility of bribery, of course). We think it's a visitor, a fairly regular one, who brings in forty ouncers to one of the patients. It gets divvied up in jam jars and mouthwash bottles and resold at a considerable profit. Patrick buys the jam jars, he knows who brings it in and who divvies it up for sale, but he will not give us any names. He won't even give us a hint. He'll tell you anything else in the world, but not that. For the rest, half a jam jar and he's a spillway.

“It's a sad thing to see the profession of bootlegger come to this. My da, he made moonshine; he was an artist of the highest order. He put his heart and soul into his whiskey, he made poetry in a bottle. His standards were that high, he makes the distillers nowadays look like a pack of dirty little boys pissing in bottles.”

He pauses to roll some pills in his hand—PAS and izoniazed—then swallows half of them with a grimace.

“The Water of Life, he called it. Clear as a mountain stream, it tasted like the North Wind come down off the glaciers and it burned as blue as a sun-lit sapphire. One bottle was enough for an all-night party with a half-dozen good strong men. Overproof? My darlin', the bottle could scarce contain it. It shimmered and shimmied like a djinn in a lamp. Magic it was, magic to make a man shout for joy, to break his heart and leave him a tender, crying babe. It set men free, you see, let them feel and love and believe. And when it had wrung them out and bleached their souls clean, there was no bloody evil devil tom-toming in their skulls, their insides were still inside and they still had a dollar in their pocket. The government's in cahoots with these fellows, making their greedy pile with this crap, this god-awful poison.”

Patrick swallows his last few pills, flushes them with a shot from the jam jar.