RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,382
(hospital days with Arthur, pt. TWO)
(please read pt. ONE first for this to make any sense)
Arthur resembled an old Jewish bagel
seller or one of those tough, hard-working
short and strong sales merchants who make
a few pennies on each pound of nails they
sell and manage to sell a thousand pounds
and end up making a ton of money on that
alone. I always envied those sorts, and I
knew - while in the printing business -
a few of them as discount paper-sellers.
They'd buy secondary stock, or off-cuts,
and always manage to turn it into profit
and resale potential. George Levine was
almost exact to Arthur. He had, along
his wife and sone, 'Standard Paper Company'
on Hamilton Boulevard in South Plainfield.
George was a real paper go-getter, and he
represented again an older, Jewish, mercantile
world that you just don't see anymore. His
wife, known to me only as 'Mrs. Levine',
would prince paper to me, on the phone, and
say 'We sell and buy paper just like bananas!
By the pound!' Then they'd do their
calculations and give us a price.
-
Back in those same 1980's printing days, I
used to frequent places on the Bowery, in
NYC, and then the guy I worked for decided
to buy and open a restaurant - actually right
up here where I live now - and re-do it, and
all the fixtures and equipment, with Bowery
(known as the Restaurant Supply District back
then, when not just hosting drunks, homeless
men, and roustabouts or vile criminals), supply
houses as his budget resource. It worked! So the
Bowery suddenly became, instead of just bars
and Chinese Restaurants, for us, a street for
pots, pans, dishes, cups, ladles, and saucers,
among many other things - it was a real life
restaurant supply strip. Gigantic mixers,
churners, warmers, and any and all of the
stuff needed to get and keep a restaurant
running and up to speed. Every merchant
there, I would swear to, was some Jewish
finagler always making deals. They ran from
the Long Island swagger of a slick and ready
dealmaker in a Caddy, to the lowliest Old
Testament penny-grubber you could find,
selling straws and plastic cups by the zillions
if he could for a penny a dozen. All of that
I could truly see, while in my hospital bed,
as Arthur's heritage and his Grandma's days.
-
Arthur, the time I was there, was a real
failure as an overnighter. Every two hours
he'd begin puking again. Then he'd press
the damn nurse-call button, and start yelling
out loud, 'I'm dying! What's wrong with
me?!' One of his nurses would come in,
tend to him, give him new puke bags, take
the old away, and clean him up. He'd be
extremely loud and agitated, and they'd
sedate him; but my night was already
ruined. I had to begin all over. By daybreak,
all would be calm again, but then the daily
hustle started and kept me awake, tired or
not. Shift-change of 7am nurses, then the
breakfast carts and food, and the 'take your
vitals' nurse patrol. Then Arthur would get
a visit from the Diabetes team, or some
doctor trying to figure out why he was
puking and rejecting food. Then the apologies
would start - to me, to nurses, to the walls.
'I'm sorry I made messes last night. I'm sorry
I kept you up. I'm sorry I kept puking.'
No one, including me, every claimed to
have been annoyed. He never did say
'I'm sorry about the TV.'
-
However, my last day there was just about
it for me. I awoke at about 8am, the food
cart had just come around, the little breakfast
things were out, my tray was ready. The TV
comes on. Hallmark Channel! What the hell?
I was then subjected to three and a half hours,
however many episodes that is, 4 maybe? With
a zillion asshole, fat, usually black, dancing
people celebrating their ailments, needs, wants,
and online desires in a hundred commercials!
TV is one, large, absorbent, shit-sponge of an
irksome oil discharging its gook. Did I say
three and a half hours...of 'Golden Girls!!"
That was a garish, disgusting show I recalled
my mother watching, loving, and talking
about. What the tarnation was it doing on
here in my presence? I wanted to kill that
Jewboy, grandmother dearest or not.
-
People like Arthur usually get 'accepted'
just by being laughed off, cancelled by their
own being. Here he was, however, as an
active, controlling presence lording it over
me! I was furious, and determined to be OUT
of there by one PM. (That goal, thankfully,
was met, after their announced 11am
departure was cancelled because my own
urine was still running red. Yes, another not
pretty sight). But, before my release, or
departure, or removal, or whatever hospitals
call it, I had one last disaster to undergo.
The nurse had cleared me, I had undergone
my Zoom interview with the online IPAD
lady, read all the rights and stipulations
presented, and my new prescriptions. My
nurse told me to close the curtain and I
could get dressed for leaving. She had
disconnected my IV, which ran into the
back of my right hand, into the large
veins there, by means of a large spike
and needle fixture - which she neglected
to remove. Unknown to me; as I finagled
to get into my shirt, that spike caught a
sleeve and was torn rudely from my hand.
Ripped out, I should say. There was now
suddenly a stream of red blood flashing
everywhere (I'd been given, 2 hours before,
an injection into my belly, of blood thinner),
and pooling on the floor and soaking my
pajamas, on that same floor - which
pajamas just ended up being used as a
blood-mop and dumped into the Bio-Hazard
trash bin. Ha! So, there went another half
hour getting the bleeding stopped properly,
bandages installed and making sure it was
all kept with enough pressure so as not to
begin bleeding anew.
-
Arthur was not present for any of this, having
been wheeled away himself just previous, for
some tests and evaluation. No goodbyes; I
left without being able to APOLOGIZE to him!!
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