Yellow bracelet for no solid food, red bracelet forincommunicado, green bracelet for wanderer and purple
bracelet for Dangerous: do not approach.
Ward C: Deranged Men. That's what it said on my volunteer letter.
That's where I would spend a week. I was excited. I wanted my soul to die and
be twisted into the eternal service of otherness. I wanted to know the extent
to which humanity could be morphed and still maintained, or better yet, if
it existed.
Laguna Honda Hospital is a convalescence home that lies on top of
a hill in San Francisco. Eleven hundred people live there struggling with
AIDS, paralysis, or old age. Laguna Honda is the place where people go that
have no health insurance. Laguna Honda is where people go to die. No one I
have ever talked to in San Francisco knows what it is, or even that it
exists. One person thought it was a hotel. They were very wrong. It is the
only remaining permanent residence hospital that separates its patients with
only curtains.
I, a fifteen year old, naïve busty girl walked into the hall.
Old men milled around, shaking their heads, twitching, all that good stuff.
In the corner was a boy that looked not much older than me. The difference
was that I was walking and he was in a wheel chair, head propped on limp
hand. "Come here, girl, you lookin' good," yelled his big lips. He
wore no bracelet. That meant he was safe. He was cute, besides the whole
paralyzed thing. He asked me my name. I told him. He asked me what I was up
to. I told him. I used him, though. He was the most boring person that I'd
ever met. He was twenty three years old, and he would never walk again. He
chatted me up for over an hour and I just looked at him, nodding and smiling.
I was talking to a paralyzed guy. What a great person I am. He still calls
me. He's at Surgen General Hospital now. He has his own room. He's starting a
record company to help underground rappers. I encourage him. What a stupid
idea.
"Hey Arnie, have you talked to the birds lately?"
"No, Bill."
"Hey Arnie, have you seen the sun? Where's the sun,
Arnie?"
"The sun's outside, Bill."
"Excuse me, mam, what's your favorite color?"
"You asked her that a second ago, Bill."
"Oh, sorry. Hey, Arnie? Have you seen the birds? What did
they say?"
I had never seen such patience. Arnie's rotund smiling form didn't
even flinch as his lanky, twitching companion pestered him. He wore a yellow
bracelet and his friend wore a green. I answered the color question about
fifteen times. Each time I came up with a new color, and each time Arnie's
smile broadened for me.
I heard a weak voice from behind a curtain as I walked passed one
of the rooms. I stopped, even though I was done with my activity therapy
stint and hungry as hell. I looked in the door. A dark hand wrapped in a
green bracelet signaled to me as I approached a white bed surrounded by tubes
and a noisy TV.
I stood in front of the television. "Do you believe in
Jesus?" he asked. Jose had dark lines, darker than his dark skin, under
his eyes. Jesus is a big topic. Paraplegics don't usually beat around the
bush, though, so I engaged him. "I think Jesus was a great guy. I'm
assuming that you do." I smiled… one of those asshole fake smiles
that no one believes but that hhinspire. "No. I'm Jewish." I
contained my laughter. I had never met a Latino Jew. So, I assumed that he
was a convert. I enquired as to what appealed to him about Judaism.
"Nothing. My whole family is Catholic. All they do is drink and drink,
and then go to church the next day and get forgiven." I crinkled my
fifteen-year-old forehead. "What's wrong with being forgiven?"" I
whispered. This wasn't the place to speak in a regular tone. "They
don't deserve to be forgiven."
"I'm an artist. I mean, I was an artist…Before
this." He wants to tell me what happened. He wants to tell me all about
his whole terrifyingly sudden tragedy and then wallow in my childish
sympathy. That was fine with me. "What happened?" I gave him.
"Car crash."
"Do you still paint? "
Jose paints. He can only get up three hours a day because of pain
and since his right arm and left hand are paralyzed, he sticks the paint
brush through the
palm of his cast and paints using the movement of his elbow.
"My paintings are in the drawer over there. Take one. Take whatever you
want." I rifled through the drawer: car magazines and paper. There were
about ten paintings. The paintings had boring subject matter. One, though, of
two women in French Enlightenment dresses caught my eye. "That's not
finished." he croaked. Neither woman had any facial features. Their
bodies were detailed but their faces were not filled in. They were grey.
"It's my favorite." I said.
He gave it to me. It was the first thing ever matted in my house.
I put it above the heater in my room as a testament to my charity. For a year
it curled and faded. The matting was melted by the heat and separated. When I
moved last year I took it down. I put it in the apartment basement with the
lamps that we spent too much money on and couldn't bring ourselves to give
away, but hated anyhow. That painting always disturbed me. I'd told Jose that
I would come back. I'd told him that Ward C was not too much for me and I
would love to come talk to him about his new found religious path.
I never went back. He sits in his reclined hospital bed painting
with his remaining elbow while I sit at my kitchen table, frustrated with the
internet because I need a halter bathing suite for under sixty dollars. It
has to be a halter, and I'd prefer it to be black. I never think about that
painting anymore. I never think about him anymore.
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