Christmas Eve
They say the work hardens you, makes you cynical. I was already hard, and cynicism was my middle name. I booked myself in for the Christmas Eve shift on purpose. Told my girlfriend I had no choice. Same with my sister, my only family. She was celebrating with her husband and two kids in another town. I’d been invited to stay there for a few days and celebrate with them but I never felt comfortable around there. Anyway, I took the Christmas Eve shift. It seemed fitting. Sidra Patel was on with me. Dressed in a white blouse with a red brocade vest, she looked quietly festive.
‘Bobby, I’m surprised to see you here. Thought you’d book off for Christmas Eve.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘Aren’t you Christian?’
‘Does lapsed Catholic count?’
She smiled.
‘I’m not religious, Sidra.’
‘We all are. Sometimes we just don’t know it.’
I gave this a moment’s thought. Maybe she was right.
My first booking was with Barry Gomes, a bitter paraplegic. Barry had been shot in the back of the neck while visiting Jamaica. He hated the world, and most of the world hated him back. He treated me indifferently, courteous in a perfunctory manner, his directions brief and clear. He knew next to nothing about me, and I knew nothing about him except that he’d been shot in Jamaica. His leg bag needed draining. He sullenly sat in his wheelchair.
‘How are you this evening, Barry?’
‘Just dandy,’ he said.
The television was off, no radio, no Christmas tree, no Christmas anything. Not a card, not a ribbon, not a single piece of tinsel. I didn’t bother wishing him a Merry Christmas. Barry’s urine was pale yellow from drinking gallons of water. He sat there, dark eyes looking through me. I had no inkling of what was on his mind, and that was fine. I finished with the leg bag and washed my hands in the bathroom.
‘Anything else?’ I asked.
‘A glass of water,’ he said.
I filled a glass in the kitchen and brought it out to him.
‘I’m going to bed at midnight,’ he said.
‘See you then.’
I answered the telephone in the staff lounge. Dick Wong needed assistance. Told him I’d be up in a minute. Dick had to go to the bathroom but refused to be moved from his bed because of the pain. I brought him his pot. He looked at me with disgust.
‘Number two,’ he said.
I put on latex gloves and got out the bedpan. I shifted his hips and slid the pan under his buttocks.
‘How’s that?’
‘Under more.’
‘And now?’
‘More.’
I shoved.
‘Okay,’ he said.
I stepped out of the bedroom. A Buddhist, Dick had no family, no friends. I don’t think he would have celebrated Christmas even if he were Christian. He’d have wondered why his prayers weren’t being answered. Dick had muscular dystrophy, his body a wonder of asymmetry, his skeletal limbs monstrously warped and bent. His ventilator breathed for him, a feeding tube nourished him.
‘Bobby. I need help.’
He needed his belly pushed. I held my breath and pushed with the palm of my hand. I didn’t look.
He groaned. I pushed.
Finally, it was done.
I wiped him, emptied the bloodied bedpan. I threw out my gloves and washed my hands with anti-bacterial soap.
‘Anything else?’
‘A glass of water from the fridge, please.’
I got him the water and held the straw to his cracked lips.
‘Okay,’ he said.
‘That’s it?’
‘Yeah.’
I returned to the staff lounge. Sidra was eating a rice dish.
‘Hungry?’ she said.
‘Uh-uh.’
My next booking was at nine thirty with David Field, a quadriplegic, but that didn’t mean no one would call in the interim. These men were needy, high maintenance. The women Sidra cared for were far more independent and self-sufficient. Part of it had to do with the illnesses. At our facility the men had it worse. Every one of them lived on a sort of death row. I’d been around for five deaths myself. Only a week ago they’d found Chris Cops dead in his wheelchair just outside his apartment door. Heart attack. Just made his twenty-sixth birthday. He weighed about fifty pounds when he kicked it. David Field called. He needed his tea warmed up. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sidra. I stomped out of the lounge. David always made these annoying calls before scheduled bookings. His wheelchair rested by the door and he sat in it with an expectant look on his big doughy face. He had on the red plaid shirt he’d been wearing for most of the month. A Christmas tree stood in the corner of his living room, decorated with tiny candy canes in wrappers, a small real tree.
‘Hi, David.’
‘Hello, Bobby. My tea’s lukewarm. I like it hot. You know that. And how are you this Christmas Eve?’
‘Fine, David.’ I nuked his half-filled cup of grey tea and stared at the timer as it ticked down the seconds.
‘I need suctioning, Bobby.’
My heart sank. He could have waited until his booking. I think he got off on it, though I don’t know how anyone can get off on having a catheter stuck in their throat. I gloved up, unhooked his ventilator tube, and switched on the suctioning pump. I poked the catheter into his inner canula and pushed down until he nodded. Then I engaged suction. Yellow clots with red filigree flashed through the catheter and the suction tube. I had to hold my breath. I repeated the process six times till nothing but red showed. He wanted more.
‘You’re bleeding.’
His eyes watered, teeth and tongue stained with blood. I re-hooked his ventilator.
‘You stop when I tell you,’ he said, a red bubble forming over his lips.
‘David, you’re bleeding.’
‘Again!’
‘I’m not doing it.’
He fell silent. I propped his tea cup on his chair stand, and left.
Back in the lounge Sidra held the telephone up.
‘It’s David Field, he’s gurgling.’
‘God.’
I went back up. Blood frothed from his mouth and out of his stoma. I grabbed a towel, wiped him up, and readied the suction pump. I tried to
suction as much of the blood as I could but it just kept coming.
‘I’m calling 911.’
He shook his head.
‘Fuck you. I’m calling.’
I was put on hold. I started panicking.
David’s eyes bulged and he made great sucking sounds. Finally, I got through; an ambulance was dispatched. My First Aid training never covered haemorrhaging lungs. I tried suctioning again, and this time got it under control. I cleaned up his canula and the tubing and washed the blood off his face.
‘That was close,’ he said.
‘The ambulance will be here soon.’
‘What do you think they’re going to do for me?’
‘Well, I can’t help you.’
‘I wish I’d just fucking die sometimes.’
I said nothing to this. I didn’t need his head trip. I didn’t disagree with his position, but I kept that to myself. The ambulance came in time and they took David away.
‘Is he going to be all right? Sidra asked.
‘Who’s to say?’
In the staff washroom I drank water right from the tap. I looked at myself in the mirror, looked away. A booking with Don McCoy loomed. His multiple sclerosis with brain involvement made him bewildering to be around. Only a year ago he had been articulate, energetic. Now he was a babbling fool.
‘Bobby Bobby Bobby, get my feed bag. I’m ripe for some cheese and fruit. Toast me brown bread too, wouldja? Ma’s not coming tonight. Said she would. She’s sixty-six- years-old. Doesn’t look a day over forty. Ha, that’s my age.’
‘Yeah, Don, it is.’
‘The cheese tastes like shit,’ said Don, spitting it up like a child. ‘Did you affect it?’
‘I just sliced it.’
‘You affected it.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘That’s okay. I won’t eat it. The fruit will help me poo tomorrow. Are you doing my BT tomorrow? Are you?’
‘No, I’m not, Don.’
‘That’s too bad. It would have been good, I swear. The whole kit and caboodle.’
He was fucked. He barely touched the apple and the pear I had peeled and sliced for him. A few Christmas cards were arrayed on the coffee table, one with a glittery white angel. At least he had a few people thinking of him. I catheterised him and he fell into a stupor, his eyes staring at the ceiling. I left Don to his own devices. Maybe his mother would visit tomorrow. A mother should visit her damaged son on Christmas Day.
In the staff lounge I made myself a quick coffee. I was drinking it on the sofa when the telephone rang. For a second I dreaded a call from Barry to get his leg bag drained, or David Field, but then I remembered David was in hospital. It was my sister.
‘Bobby?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How you doing?’
‘What can I say? I’m up to my elbows in blood and shit.’
My stomach fluttered. I looked at the time. Ten minutes to my next booking: Barry Gomes.
‘Bobby?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We missed you tonight.’
My sister had drunk a glass or two of wine. Her voice was slightly higher pitched than usual, always a giveaway. ‘Hey, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.’
‘You couldn’t say no to the shift.’
‘That’s right.’
‘How are things there?’
Suddenly, the staff lounge was blurry.
‘Bobby?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Merry Christmas, eh.’
‘Yeah, you too.’
I hung up. Sidra entered the staff lounge.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, pulling up a chair beside me.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I said.
‘Bobby?’
I felt her hand on my shoulder. I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. Sidra’s hand was warm.
‘Hey,’ she said softly.
‘Just give me a sec, ha?’
She handed me a Kleenex.
I blew my nose and dabbed my eyes. I looked at the clock. Almost midnight.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
Sidra smiled and that smile was like a balm. I stepped into the washroom and splashed water on my face.
I went up to Barry’s place. He sat in his wheelchair sound asleep. ‘Barry,’ I whispered. He startled easy when sleeping. ‘Barry,’ I said more loudly. His head jerked up. His dark eyes studied me. His shoulders relaxed. His leg bag was bursting. He nodded. I emptied his leg bag. Then I pushed him into his bedroom and transferred him from wheelchair to bed. I undressed him, removed the leg bag and hooked up the night bag. He fell into a soft snore instantly. I pulled up his comforter and dabbed his cheek with my palm.
In the bathroom, I washed my hands. Then I stepped into the living room, straightened magazines on the coffee table. I rinsed a few glasses in the kitchen, wiped the counter. I stepped out on the balcony. It had started snowing; the city lights shimmered. The air was pleasantly cool. I remembered I had to call my manager and let him know David was in hospital. And with the snow falling, and the lights shining, and the carols tinkling in the distance, I wanted to feel something. I wanted God or whatever it was to fill up that space inside of me, to stir me, to convince me that all of this had a purpose, that I wasn’t here just spinning my wheels. But then these feelings seemed so vain and self pitying I felt embarrassed for myself, and wiped away the tears that had started.
‘Bobby.’
‘Yeah, Barry.’
‘Bobby – some water.’ He nodded to the empty glass on the night-stand.
I hesitated for a moment. Then I went into the bathroom and filled the glass from the tap. I thought I heard my name being called again and paused. The glass slipped from my hand, cracking against the white ceramic sink. I waited. I waited while the shards settled and the last of the water trickled down the drain.
