F
Marge
By
Christopher Nadeau
I want to
tell you about the crazy lady and the monster that came for her in her hospital
bed. I want to describe what I saw that night and what I will always carry with
me. I want to, but I’m afraid I won’t do it justice.
It’s hard to
wrap my brain around what happened that night and even more difficult to figure
out when it all started.
I was
recovering from a broken leg in Room 320 at Benevolence Hospital, the recent
victim of my idiot friend Jerome’s drunk driving and desire to show a concrete
median who was boss. Fortunately, the car swerved at the last instant, forcing
the driver to take the brunt of impact.
Fortunately
for me, anyway.
Jerome, on
the other hand, was on the sixth floor in a coma, the prognosis discouraging. It was difficult for me to feel bad for him
when I thought how that could have been me up there.
Asshole.
Maybe I’d
visit him when I could walk again, maybe I wouldn’t.
It was during
my last few weeks of convalescing that I first heard her. She’d been brought in from some nearby
nursing home; seizures or a stroke or something.
Her voice
announced her presence before she was rolled past my room. It was the voice of pure confusion, of raw,
unfocused age. It was also the voice of
a woman who had taken no shit in her
younger years, before time and dementia took their toll. Her words were garbled nonsense, but her tone
was undeniable.
“She hit me!”
an orderly yelled. “I asked you to tie her down!”
“Sorry, man,”
came the sheepish reply. “She looked harmless.”
“Nobody is
harmless!”
Just what I
needed. A troublemaker to distract the nurses from anything I might need. The
gurney squeaked past my room and I sat up as far as I could without causing
myself to see the new arrival. At first
I saw her gray mop moving from left to right, turning in time to lock eyes with
me for what was probably only an instant but felt like hours.
I froze. There was emptiness in those eyes that
enveloped me, a pervasive sadness that seemed to possess its own life
force. Then she was gone and I was
released. I collapsed back onto my
propped up pillow, exhausted for no reason that made any sense.
I tried to
place the aggressive old lady out of sight and out of mind, but she had other
ideas.
#
The night
nurse was in my room administering my pain meds the first time she
started. It was such a loud, sudden
intrusion, the nurse nearly dropped the tiny paper cup she’d been holding.
“Jesus,” I
said. “What was that?”
Visibly
shaken, she told me it sounded like someone was having a nightmare. She advised me this was a rather common
occurrence, especially when dealing with heavy doses of medication and patients
suffering from dementia.
“Nothing to
worry about, Ron,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting---“
This time she
did jump at the even louder wailing. It
came out in a long, rising and falling flat note born of despair and misery.
The pain in that wail filled me up and my arms broke out in gooseflesh.
“What’s wrong
with her?” I asked.
The nurse
didn’t respond. She was even more
freaked out than I was. Slowly, she set
the cup down on my tray and excused herself.
I watched her
go and sighed saddened by the sight of
someone who was able to do normal things like walk and go where they
pleased.
The sound of
the nurse’s voice drifted into my room from the hallway, her tone indicating
concern and no small amount of trepidation.
“Can I get
you anything?” she said. “The doctor said you can have water now.”
The old woman
responded with a single guttural and drawn out word .
“I’m sorry?”
“Mmmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhh.”
“I’m not sure
what you’re---“
“Mmmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhh.”
“Meds?” The
nurse’s tone turned hopeful. “Sorry, sweetie, it’s not time yet.”
Then the old
woman said it. The name. The word she would say over and over until
that night when the monster…I’ll get to that. The first time she said it, I
snickered, thinking she was bat-shit crazy, delusional, all the things that go
along with age and dementia.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
“There’s
nobody by that name on this floor, hon,” the nurse said.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
The nurse
reappeared in my room a moment later looking frazzled and slightly amused. “She’s asking for someone named Marge.”
“I heard.”
Shifting as much as I could while she administered my pain pills.
“Poor old
thing,” I said.
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound all that
sympathetic to me.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
I glanced at
the hallway and sighed. “So, what time
does she take her meds?”
The nurse
chuckled. “In about ninety minutes.”
I
grinned. “I think I can survive that
long.”
She returned
the smile and, for the first time, I got the impression she was attracted to
me. Of course, it could have just been
the medication kicking in and combining with wishful thinking. She was most likely on some doctor’s radar
anyway. Doubtful she’d want to date a
customer service call center supervisor when she could have some generously
paid God complex possessing quack.
I drifted off
to sleep with lovely thoughts like that filling my head until everything stopped.
#
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
My eyes
popped open and I gasped, feeling my heart beat increase by about a thousand
beats per second. I felt adrenalin surge
its way throughout my body, insisting on movement that was currently
impossible.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
For Christ’s
sake, she was still doing it! How long had I slept?
I craned my
neck to the left and saw the first rays of sunlight peeking in through the
chintzy blinds. Apparently, I’d slept
through the night.
“That’s some
seriously strong shit,” I muttered just in time to be heard by a male orderly.
“What is?” he
asked.
“The pain meds. Knocked me out
all night and then some.”
He smiled. It
was a genuine smile, probably the kind he only used with people who seemed
“normal” and didn’t remind him how he would most likely wind up one day. How we
all wound up eventually. Like the old
lady in the room next door.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
The orderly
grunted. “Sorry. We would move you but we’ll all full up at the moment.”
I shrugged,
tried to look unconcerned. The orderly
helped me sit up and glanced at my suspended broken leg. He told me he’d be back in a minute with a
bedpan and I told him I’d just give him a cup of coffee if he was thirsty. Laughing and shaking his head, he left my
room and me alone with…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
Who the hell
was Marge anyway? Was she real or some
conjured version of reality originating deep within the mind of a so-called
demented woman?
Once, when my
grandmother was still alive and in a nursing home, I entered her floor in time
to hear an elderly man named Tom telling someone they were fired and to “Get
the hell out of here and go some other place!”
He wasn’t talking to anybody I could see and I often wondered if the
person being “fired” had been real or just some bit of beef Tom consumed. I felt the same way about the old lady in the
room next to mine.
I had to
know.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
There was too
much emotion in her voice, too much meaning in the way she dragged out the
name. I was convinced the old lady was
calling for someone real, someone she needed or had known. Maybe somebody who would make everything
better.
As if on cue,
the word was joined by more.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge! I’m sorry, Marge! I’m so sorry!”
I felt a tear
forming in the corner of my eye and blinked it away. So much anguish and pain trapped inside a
failing mind. I wanted to go to her, to
tell her Marge wasn’t available but I was, and if she needed anything at all,
she just needed to…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
But God help
me, she needed to shut up!
#
The old lady
didn’t shut up. She kept going, day and night, diminished less and less by
whatever meds were administered. The
nursing staff grew weary of her, making inappropriate and unprofessional
comments about the customer they’d begun calling “The Wailing Wall.” I wanted
to admonish them for this behavior, but having seen what happens when nurses
and aids and orderlies decide they dislike a patient, I kept my fucking mouth
shut.
But when I
got out…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
One of the
nurses snickered from the hallway. “I think she wants Marge.”
“I’m sorry, Marge! I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t you
wonder what happened?” I said.
The nurse
looked up as if remembering I was a human being and blinked. “What?”
“Aren’t you
even slightly curious about who Marge is or was?”
She laughed.
“Sweetie, there is no Marge. That lady is mentally ill and the sooner she’s
back where she belongs, the better.”
I think my
jaw dropped because I remember getting really thirsty and having to close my
mouth. What a bitch. Did these nurses think they were immune to
the ravages of time because they worked here? How could they be so goddam
callous?
“I’m sorry, Marge!”
Okay, maybe
it wasn’t so hard to see how.
#
It was on
either the fourth or fifth night of the old lady sharing the floor with me that
things became a little strange. By this time, she’d graduated to simply telling
Marge she was sorry to actually imploring her for forgiveness. She also said something about not meaning to
“do it,” whatever “it” was.
I used my
newfound increased mobility to turn over enough to pick up the hospital phone
and call my brother Ned. In case you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned that
anyone came to visit me, it’s because I neglected to mention I’d recently moved
to this state within the past few months and hadn’t know anybody except Jerome
the Vegetable. Ned wanted to come see me but was too busy looking after our
cancer-stricken dad.
“Leaping off
tall buildings yet?” he said.
I closed my
eyes and absorbed the familiarity of his voice in this strange place where
everyone was like some extra in a late-night movie. “I am the proverbial one-legged man in an
ass-kicking contest. How’s Dad?”
Ned sniffed.
“In remission.”
It was as if
the room decided to leave me behind. I
felt removed, set aside, preserved for a special, gleeful moment. Sadly, I did the fist pumping thing a bit too
hard and paid the price deep inside the cast enshrouding my leg. I cried out.
“No dancing!”
Ned said through laughs.
“Thank God,”
I said. “Thank God, thank God.”
“You might
wanna thank Doctor Bashir, too.”
I let the
moment last a bit longer. We’d lost Mom
a couple years ago to childhood Diabetes and the last thing we needed was to
lose…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
“Godammit!” I
yelled.
“That’s an
interesting way to celebrate,” Ned replied.
“I need a
small favor and your research skills will come in very handy.” Ned worked in
the research department at the local community college and could find out anything
about, well…anything.
Ned, now all
business, asked me what I needed. I told
him. He asked me if I was sure. I told him I was. He said okay, he would see what he could dig
up. He just needed the old lady’s name.
“I’ll get
that,” I said.
We hung up. I stared at the white walls of my prison,
gaze passing the silent yet running TV, and wondered if I was doing the right
thing.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge! I didn’t mean it! I was scared. Do you
forgive me?”
I nodded; I
was definitely doing the right thing.
(To Be Concluded)
Note: This is a copyrighted story that appeared in The "Hospital" anthology in 2012
(To Be Concluded)
Note: This is a copyrighted story that appeared in The "Hospital" anthology in 2012