Hold Me Closer Tiny Cancer (Part 4)

Inside the building, I was led down a long dimly lit corridor and into an elevator that took us up to the top floor.  We went down another corridor, lined with office doors having metal frames missing their nameplates.  Large double doors at the end of the hallway opened automatically as we approached.

The undercover security guard gestured for me to go inside.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said, pointing to the metal folding chair in the otherwise barren room.  "Your case will be attended to shortly."

I wanted to ask exactly what my case was but the door had already shut, leaving me alone in the room.  I took a seat and stared at a convex intercom speaker, the only feature on any of the four gray walls.  After a few minutes, a man's voice came from the speaker.

"We're not a death panel," the voice said.

"I beg your pardon," I said.

The voice repeated the statement.

"It's a phrase coined to perpetuate misinformation, " said another voice from the speaker, this one a woman's.

"Hate speech is what it is and whoever says it should be locked up," said another man's voice.  "It deserves no more First Amendment protection than child porn."

"Oh Bill, don't you think you're going overboard?" said the woman's voice.

"Am I?  Tell that to the victims' families in Michigan.  The level of violence is rising everywhere.  I'll have you know that just the other day, my own son was attacked on his school playground by another boy and had almost an entire hand stuffed into his rectum.  Are you going to tell me that it is mere coincidence that this happened to the child of a Monos Borrachos administrator?"

"Yes, I'm sorry but I do," she said.

"Bill, Sylvia, please," said the first man.  "I think it's more professional if we reschedule this discussion when it does not waste Mr. Terkel's valuable time.  How about lunch tomorrow?  I'll make reservations at Olive Garden."

Bill and Sylvia agreed.

"Now Mr. Terkel," he went on.  "A facility like ours can only function when certain rules are observed.  It has come to our attention that you were in violation of rule 17i of the patient code of conduct you signed when you were admitted here."

"But I never smoked that cigarette," I said.

"That doesn't matter.  The language on the agreement is very clear.  'No patient shall by deed or intent engage in activities detrimental to either the Monos Borrachos Center for Oncological Care or the patient himself or herself.  The activities include but are not limited to assault, harassment, theft, vandalism, possession or use of controlled substances, libel, slander, inhaling chemical solvents for intoxicating effect, refusal of any procedure or medicine, wanton disregard for team spirit, arson, pedophilia, or tobacco use.'  Mr. Terkel, you were in violation of the rules from the very moment you wanted to smoke."

I asked what was going to happen to me, fearing they might throw me out and that I would have to seek my cancer treatment elsewhere.  I was told to stand by and the intercom fell silent.  The only sound I could hear was the hum of a fan in the ventilation system.  After a couple of minutes, the speaker crackled back to life.

I was told that I was in luck.  The not-a-death panel had unanimously decided to give me another chance.  However, they felt that some disciplinary action needed to be taken.  I was to be transferred here to the Rationed Care Unit (so that's what the letters on the building really stood for) where I would remain until I satisfactorily completed a mandatory progressive-counseling program.

That sounded fair enough.

Elevator doors hidden in the left wall opened.  I was told to take it down to the ground floor where I would be escorted to my new accommodations and also to have a nice day.

I got into the elevator.  There were no floor buttons or emergency stop.  What it did have was a large poster of Obama that nearly covered an entire wall of the elevator car.  It was the blue and red one that was ubiquitous during the presidential campaign.  Well, almost.  He looked less philosophical here, more disapproving.  Also, the word "hope" was conspicuously absent.  The elevator doors closed and the car descended.

Two orderlies without discernible necks took me by each arm when the doors opened on the bottom floor.  I was taken down another corridor (I did a lot of corridor travel that day).  The men on each side of me talked to each other as if I weren't there about the violence in Michigan, how the latest report said that the security breach was an inside job, and how they'd all better keep an eye on Jason the bible thumper who got hired last week.

We stopped at a door that opened into a long hospital ward.  There was a row of beds along each wall with a walkway between them.  One orderly told me that my bed would be the one with my chart hanging from the foot of it.  They gently shoved me forward into the ward and then closed and locked the door behind me.

I walked between the rows of beds looking for mine.  The ward was filled to about two thirds capacity.  Snoring, coughs, and wheezes came from the occupied beds.  A nurse kept an eye on things from an adjoining room behind a plate-glass window.

Down at the far end of the ward, almost at the last bed, I saw a familiar jawless profile.  Les was alive.  When I came up to him and said hello, his eyes met mine briefly and then went back to staring at the ceiling.

"He's not much of a talker," said a woman in a hospital gown sitting on the bed next to his.  "He must be the strong silent type.  Well, the silent type anyway.  My name's Madge."

"Richard," I said.

"Ah yes, Richard Terkel.  They put your chart out just a few minutes ago.  Your bed is two back from mine, just past Mr. Haynee.  But don't bother introducing yourself to him.  He's dead."

I thought she was kidding until I looked at Mr. Haynee's face.  Open mouth not saying anything.  Open eyes not seeing anything.  He was dead all right.

"He wasn't supposed to die," Madge said.  "It's against the rules."

She went on to tell me how she tried to get the orderly who brought my chart to take Mr. Haynee away.  According to her, he said it wasn't his problem, that since Haynee died during third shift, third shift was going to have to deal with him.

"So why do you think you're here in the RCU?" she asked.

"Smoking, or wanting to smoke, same difference," I said.

"No," she said.  "That's not why at all.  You're not here for that anymore than your friend Les is for grabbing a nurse's but or I am for...well...what it was I did.  You're here for the same reason we all are, because, no one out there cares if we're here or not."

"That's not true," I said.  "I'm married.  My wife cares very much."

"And you're expecting her to come see you real soon."

"Not exactly, at least not right away.  But she's expecting me to write her."

"Of course she is."