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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Science / Science Fiction
- Published: 04/21/2013
Hope
Born 1941, M, from Santa Clara, CA, United StatesI am not sure where this story really begins. I think it was when I was a little boy. How old was I? I’m not sure. I do know that I liked to watch those medical shows on the public television channels, so I must, at least have, been in my early teens. I have to smile when I think of those days, you see, I would be clicking through the different channels looking for cartoons or some wrestling program to watch. I really liked wrestling, but my dad was a cynic. He told me wrestling was nothing but a big fake. I didn’t believe him; wrestling was too real to be faked. I mean when a guy gets hit with a chair in the head there was always blood all over his face. How could they fake that, right! Don’t get me wrong, I think my dad was smart, but when it came to wrestling, he had a lot to learn. Consider there were too many people in the audience to be fooled up close. But when I offered this as proof positive, my dad would only say, “Isn’t it scary, those idiots vote.”
Anyway, I would be looking for something to watch, and once in a while I would come to a doctor operating on someone for something or other. When I saw that, I would stop to watch. My mother, on the other hand, would get sick and ask me to change the channel. When she saw that I was really into what I was watching, she would leave the room fearing she would lose her lunch if she stayed there with the television and me.
You might be thinking, because I liked those kinds of programs, that I was some kind of sick-o, but I must disagree. I think that I was as normal as any other kid on the block was, and believe me; we had some strange ones in my neighborhood. Take Hypo, as an example. When I was growing up my mom told me about a drummer that was famous. She said he would have been a real good musician if it hadn’t been for his smoking. Now, you have to know my mother to understand how little she was able to tell to me about drugs. She was so sheltered when she grew up, I had to wait until I was in my twenties before I found out he smoked marijuana. Anyway, I knew something about drugs when I was little, but not much. Well, Hypo was a kid in the, now days the kids call it the “hood,” and he was more up on the drug scene than any of us. He used needles and that is why everyone called him Hypo, makes sense, doesn’t it?
Let’s see if I remember the whole story. Hypo, and no I don’t remember his real name. In fact I don’t think any of the guys I hung around with ever heard it. Anyway, Hypo’s dad left him and his mother when he was born. I think Hypo was told that his father “did the right thing” when he found out that he had gotten Hypo’s mother pregnant. He married her, and when the baby was born, he skipped out, some kind of man right? Well, the fact that Hypo’s dad left devastated his mother. She compensated for her loss by drowning herself in alcohol and other men. Often she would go out and get so drunk; she would end up by taking anything in pants home with her. It didn’t matter that Hypo was there and would see everything. Hell, she was so drunk that often she wouldn’t even remember the night before. The men in her life helped a great deal in this regard because they would leave when she passed out, and there was nothing more they could get from her. In fairness to a few, some of them would leave money on the nightstand. It was never more than a twenty, but it was enough to buy her another bottle.
This went on for some time, until one night Hypo’s mother, brought home a guy that wanted to stay. This last man was the one that introduced Hypo and his mother to heroin; Hypo was seven at the time. This nice guy got them hooked, and then he played them for everything they were worth. He kept Hypo’s mother on the string because she controlled Hypo, and he kept Hypo because he could get into all kinds of places and steal. The man of Hypo’s mother’s dreams turned a seven-year-old into a master thief and a hooked heroin user. I’m not sure but I seem to recall the man's name was Ted.
Ted would “case” a job, school Hypo on all the details, take him to where ever the theft was to occur and Hypo was expected to do the rest. After the job Hypo would bring the loot to a prearranged location and Ted took over from there. Naturally, Ted reserved the most dangerous part for himself. The reward for Hypo was in the pay off. For profits received, Ted kept Hypo and his mother supplied with heroin. It was a lesson Ted took from dog trainers, the kind of trainer that doesn’t care too much for the feelings of the dogs. I think they call it deprivation training. You withhold something the dog wants until the dog gives you what you want and then you reward the dog. Ted would hold back on the shots until the pain got to be so great that the mother would sell the son and vs-a-verse. Even at age seven, however, Hypo was a quick learner. He was small enough to fit through those little pet doors that some very rich folks have cut in kitchen doors, and this was very much to Ted’s liking.
Hypo was caught several times, but because of his age the juvenile courts didn’t do much to him, and Ted was always there to remind him where his loyalties lay, and to provide the needle. This went on until Hypo was sixteen.
Fed up with his mother and her connection, Ted stopped being a lover years before, Hypo struck out on his own. He learned where to buy what he needed and thereby eliminating the need for a middleman. With sources of his own, there was no longer a need for Ted. On his own, Hypo figured he could hang on to part of what he made in each heist and maybe someday retire, could you believe that, retire? The problem was, on his own, he was a very poor judge of places to rob. The money he made was barely enough to supply his growing need. His habit was bigger than his ability to provide adequate funds for. He had to get more money and fewer things. Things could be turned into cash but at far less than they were actually worth. Money on the other hand, well as the comedian said, “What you see is what you get.”
Drugs have a funny way of helping people think. Hypo was so hooked that his mind, whatever was left functioned not at all. He reasoned that the best way to pick up cash was to resort to armed robberies. It, therefore, followed, he had to be armed. But, when your arm is getting most of what you make that doesn’t leave much in the way of funds to buy a decent handgun. He did, however, have enough to pick up a pellet pistol. In the dark and under the stress of a robbery, well it was all he had, and it had to work. On his first two nights as an armed robber, he took on a couple liquor stores, and his luck held. He made cold cash, no “things,” real money. There was enough to make his next buy and some left to believe that retirement was in his future. The difficulty with this kind of life style was in the success itself. He began to think that he was invincible. His plans became bolder. Instead of one robbery a night, he could double or even triple his earnings. He began hitting several places within walking distance of one another. Being the great thinker he thought he was, and still encouraged by the drug stupor he lived in, he never thought of the police. He didn’t think of them either because he felt they were too stupid to figure out what he was up too, or his drugged state just wouldn’t allow him to think of too many things at once. As fate is wanted to do, one night he walked up to a gas station attendant and after pointing the pellet gun at him, demanded money. The attendant was so frightened, he would have to change his underwear, but that was later, now he was doing as he was instructed.
Hypo was pleased with the way the night was going. Earlier he had hit a mom-and-pop deli a block away, and from there the drugstore two doors down. He had already made over three hundred dollars. Truly this was going to be a good night. Oh, but here is where the police come in. The owner of the mom-and-pop called the police. The police, because of the harshness of the crime, dispatched a unit, yes only one police car with one police officer in it. As luck, certainly not Hypo’s would have it; the unit drove past the station during the robbery. Being the genius that Hypo was, he was standing in the middle of the pump island holding a gun under all the lights the station had. Screeching to a stop, the officer came out of the police car with his gun out. Startled by the noise behind him, Hypo turned. All that the officer saw was Hypo gun in hand pointed directly at him, and the rest is history. The officer went home feeling bad that he killed a drugged out sixteen-year-old boy, and Hypo went to the morgue with one more hole in his body.
I think this is where I learned to feel sorry for those suffering. I think this is where I developed the desire to do what I could to help them. But is Hypo the person that taught me to behave the way I did in my latter years? I don’t think so. Hypo was only one of the guys. There were other guys that I knew and they too influenced me, in positive ways. I had normal friends, many more than the strange ones. In fact I have to say that Hypo was the exception to the rule. I had a friend; for example, who closely resembled “the Fonz” in the television show Happy Days. Since the television show postdated my buddy, they had to have copied him and not the other way round. He had the leather motorcycle jacket, was gifted with his hands, had a minor criminal past, and he could get the girls. The only thing he didn’t have that “the Fonz” had was the motorcycle. My friend was limited to an old Cushman motor scooter, but he was bad none the less. In his case, his brushes with the law were limited mostly to having a big mouth and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His offenses got him slaps on the wrist and a kick in the ass, because in those days the cops could do things like that. He wanted money, as did we all, but in his case he worked and worked hard for it. He saved, went to one of those community schools, learned the body and fender trade and was on his way to becoming a millionaire. The one thing he wasn’t taught was the dangers of using lead based paints to paint cars. No one knew, or at least didn’t care to tell him that something should have been over his nose to protect him from the fumes. When he died from leukemia, he had a wife, a son, a house and a prosperous business.
Then too, there were the two imitation Mafia want-a-bees that grew up to be police officers. The last time I had any contact with them, one was an under chief and the other was a captain. And, there was the dork that wanted to join our “gang,” a term used by us long before it became popular in referring to groups of Hispanics or blacks. We called ourselves the Mao Mao's. They were a kick ass group somewhere in Africa, what did we know. Our families couldn’t afford television and none of us would be caught dead listening to the news on the radio. All we knew was those guys were bad and so were we.
Just a little confession, if we ever got close to a fight only “the Fonz” had the balls to stick it out. The rest of us would have stood there wetting our pants too scared to run.
But, back to the dork, he would do anything to join us. Empowered with this knowledge, we did everything to make his life a living hell. Among other things, he was the gofer. He did every dirty thing we wanted him to do and never got any closer to full membership, but what did he know. One night we were on our way to a bowling alley we claimed as our turf, he was with us. His proper position in the rank structure of our group was five paces behind us. On this particular night, he had all he could stand and presented us with an ultimatum. He made it clear that he was to become a member this very night or we would be sorry. Just what we would be sorry of was never made clear. Any way, a vote was taken and it was decided that tonight was the night. We were about two blocks away from the bowling alley. His right of passage was simply to run the distance to the bowling alley, on the lane marker in the middle of the street. Proudly, he stepped off the curb and into what he hoped would be his glorious entry to the Mao Mao's. He hadn’t gotten more than five yards when a police officer pulled alongside uttering those immortal words, “OK Mac, pull it over.” We all denied knowing him. Our betrayal soured him, and after leaving us, he went on to become the superintendent of a school district. Who knows what he would be today, if he stayed with us?
There was even one guy that became a priest; I still find that one hard to believe. He wasn’t as talented as the Fonz, but he did all right with the girls until one night he had a little too much to drink and was nearly killed in a car accident. He told me later, he had a vision and the vision is what turned his life around leading to the priesthood.
I never had a vision, but I do think that in some way I was told what I had to do. No I’m not the son of Sam. I didn’t talk to dogs, and they didn’t talk to me. Still, I feel that something was telling me what I had to do. I think even as young as I was then I knew that I would have to get into medicine, or at least something connected with hospitals. I needed to fulfill a mission in my life, and that mission was connected to the medical field.
While I knew what I was expected to become, my brain was not in tune with any other part of my anatomy. My grades in high school were poor at their best. I spent way too much time with my friends. For one thing, they never made outrageous demands about doing homework, or getting good grades. If we planned an event, there was never a deadline. Oh well, medical school was out, but there were still jobs involving the medical profession. I would just have to find one to suit my diversified background. There were nursing positions, x-ray technician; therapists, you name it there was something in the hospital for me, but remember I would not be satisfied with just any old job. The job I wanted had to involve patients and working directly with them. I wanted hands on and nothing less. I knew that if a doctor couldn’t end a person's suffering, I sure as hell would.
I witnessed people at the state hospital three blocks from my house wasting away in the halls because the patient count was so high that there weren’t enough rooms to house them. I remember once I went there to visit my grandfather’s brother. He was a man from the old country and while he wasn’t poor by any stretch of the imagination, he had limited funds. His financial situation and the fact that he was nearly ninety made the state facility more practical than one of the more expensive downtown hospitals. I was fifteen, if my memory serves me correctly, at the time. We drove the three blocks and parked in the staff lot right in front of the place. Now you have to picture the grounds and buildings. They were well kept but plain. Large front lawns with sycamore trees tastefully placed here and there giving the overall effect of a gracious southern manor. The buildings, there were five, were all constructed of red brick with white trimmed windows and doors fashioned after Independence Hall. The fifth building was much smaller and located to the rear of the other four. This smaller building was designed to handle the people leaving the world without enough to pay for a decent barrel, it was the crematorium. It was in operation until the advent of apartment living and city expansion. It seems the odors were not conducive to good neighbor relations. Not only were the odors problems, but the boot hill the apartments were to be built on had to go as well.
Anyway, back to the other five buildings. At age fifteen, I wasn’t really sure how the administrators allotted space. I knew that the grounds housed not only the poor and sick but the mentally disturbed and many others that society didn’t want in its midst. How I found this out is a story for another time suffices to say, only the outside of those buildings looked nice. I wish I could recall the words of the poet describing the finery housing the rot and decay within. They wouldn’t be adequate to describe this place. I remember walking down a long hall and on both sides of the hall was the old, I mean really old people, sitting in wheelchairs or laying on gurneys. I remember passing an old women, even at my age, I could tell she was dead, still here she was in the hall with all the other old people. I couldn’t help think what the sight of her made the others think. Anyway, I told my dad. He notified an orderly, who said, “Yeah, I know. She died last night. We just don’t have the staff to take her to the morgue.”
Then there was my great uncle. He was in a room by himself thanks to some political connections my dad had. I remember it was a big room with one-inch square black and white tiles on the floor. There were larger black and white tiles going half way up the walls. The remainder of the walls and ceiling were a sickly pail green. On the wall opposite the door were three large windows with no drapes or shades to keep out the sunlight that streamed in bouncing off the white tiles hurting our eyes. The other walls were bare. On the floor was dust in piles heaped in the corners and around the legs of the bed. A mouse darted between the piles. The little critter was so brazen that he didn’t wait for night when the like of his kind normally comes out. Amid all this splendor, right in the middle of the room, was a white tubular hospital bed raised slightly, so that uncle would not drown on his own saliva. He was on his back with his arms at his side, a white sheet pulled up to just below his chin. Thinking back, I believe this was staged to please visiting relatives. I am sure before we got there; he had been wheeled in from the hall, and pushed out into the hall when we left.
This one experience, more than anything else in my life, had to have been the strongest influence on my choice of careers. I would never let an old person be exposed to the kind of treatment, or rather the lack of treatment I observed in the state facility for the socially deprived. My poor great uncle and those others reminded me of a parking lot for a cemetery. All they had left was the time it took them to die. I can still see them with dirty dippers under their chins to catch the drool. The looks on their faces was the same for them all, a look of despair. The same look you see on the faces of the holocaust victims. No, I might not be doctor material, but I sure as hell was someone destined to help him or her, some how I would make the grade.
Speaking of which, I had to build up my grades. When I got through high school, by the skin of my teeth, I enrolled in a community college in the nursing program.
A smile just crept over my face thinking how the school hopes I don’t mention its name in light of my present predicament. You're safe, I won’t. I will say that their ethics, not mine, were of the highest quality. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with my ethical approach to patient care, but I leave it to you to judge for yourself.
Anyway, I worked hard and got my grade point average up to a respectable 3.0. Considering the amount of work that took, it was more than respectable. From there I went to college and continued my studies, sounds like a lead into a story about some famous scientist, and he continued his studies until he discovered something or other. Well, maybe for someone but not me. I completed my bachelor’s degree and looked for a hospital in which to work. I was now a licensed registered nurse. Do you remember the comedians Stiller and Mira where they do a mother and son bit, and the son tells his mother he is a nurse? When I got my license that’s how I felt, “mom all the money you and dad invested in me and medical school, well now I’m a nurse.” Everything as it may be, I was a nurse, and I was going to help people.
Checking the files at school and the newspapers I found a position at the Hope Hospital, no, for reasons of prudence, that's not its real name either. I guess it is only fair to protect their good name too. Now, I was in my element. My assignment, handle the seriously injured patients. Their injuries, most often, were the direct result of traumatic stress. Don’t you just love medical terms? Traumatic stress, why not just say the guy was crushed beyond recognition as the result of contact with a ten ton truck while riding a bicycle. In all too many of my cases, my only purpose was nothing more than to prolong suffering and render little hope of recovery. I watched as patient after patient came in only to die after weeks, months or even years of suffering. Probably, the worst of them all were the coma victims. They just lay there with loved ones talking to them, crying over them, playing music, praying and crying and praying and crying. They had hope but the patient had nothing. All too often they just lay supplied with life from tubes and machines until their brains shrunk to the size of a peanut, and still their relatives hoped.
I couldn’t stand to watch. This was the kind of thing I swore to prevent, but how? It came to me one day while I watched a seventy-year-old man in a coma. He had no chance of recovery and the machines were just keeping him barely alive. It would be a simple matter of introducing a drug, a little at a time, into his IV. The amounts would be small enough to be masked by his natural body’s failure, and death would be painless and quick. I would not only help him out of an irreversible situation; I would save his family months of grief. It was scary for me the first time, but it was so easy. It went just as I had planned. No one, the doctors or the family, suspected a thing. My confidence grew two fold with my first success, and by leaps and bounds after that.
Oh, you might be thinking that I limited my services to only the elderly, but you would be wrong. No, I helped all ages and both sexes. I reasoned the young suffered as much as the elderly. No, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t just pull plugs on people, even I had standards. I worked them out carefully. I have to admit it was easier for me to help an older person than it was to assist a younger one. But, if they met my ridged standard, I didn’t falter in my duty to them. To be completely honest, I must admit, however, I felt more for the children than I did for the adults. I always thought, we were put here to care for the children and not the other way round. I would look down at their poor crippled little bodies and think how we as adults had failed them. The thought of another adult failing made the decision to assist them easier for me because it was them and not me that made it necessary.
Would you believe, I was honored not only by the hospital but the Mayors Committee of Good Citizenship for my service to the sick and dying. I even received a letter from the President of the United States, yes-another name I have to protect. I have all the awards hanging on my office wall next to the pictures of me shaking hands with dozens of different dignitaries. I am even up for a promotion here at the hospital. I am being considered for the position of Staff Supervising Nurse. Filling that post would put twenty-five nurses and ten orderlies under my personal supervision. This job would put me right below and reporting directly to the hospitals Board of Governors.
I guess this proves that I am doing the right thing. I mean, would God reward me if I were just another murderer? I have never helped anyone who even had the remotest chance of pulling through. The best doctors on staff screened all my patients. I never under took any action until the doctors rendered their final diagnosis. In all the cases receiving my special attention, not one caused the doctors any doubt as to their final out come.
I guess it is human nature; still it seems to me that the only people for whom I ever had any concerns at all were the family members. Yes I had feelings for them and their families. No, I’m not some animal devouring its young. I know how it is to lose someone you love. I know how they must feel seeing their father, mother, son, daughter, husband or wife lying in a bed with a doctor pulling a sheet over their faces. Don’t you dare stand there looking like you are talking to some psychotic sonofabitch! I am as human as the rest of you, maybe more so because I am doing something about all the suffering in this world, albeit a small part of the world.
Wait a minute! Did you hear that? I hear someone talking. Did you hear them? It sounded as though they mentioned my name. Don’t shake your head no. You must have heard them. Listen, they are coming closer. What do you mean you still don’t hear anything, damn they sound like they are screaming. Listen, one sounds like Sally. She is a young nurse on the swing shift. She is assigned to the ICU. She is a nice girl, and one I have been able to confide in. She and I share the same feelings when it comes to the care our patients are entitled to. But, to whom is she talking? I can’t make out the voice.
Wait, Sally said something about an accident. Damn, I can only make out every other word. Whom did an ambulance hit? When? Where? Why don’t they come in? I guess I will have to go to them. Come on, this should be interesting. It will give you an idea of how we handle the cases we select for our special attention.
That’s funny. I can hear her voice but I can’t see her. Ha! I know the second person now. He is Doctor Stevenson. He is the head of the neurology department here. He is the one person whose opinion was the most important to me. I don’t care what anyone else said, he would have to give a judgment about a patient before I would make any decisions. I can hear him more clearly now. This sounds like a case Sally and I would take on. The poor man was hit by an ambulance right in front of the hospital. I didn’t get that. Did Stevenson say he worked here? He had just gotten off his shift? I wonder whom they are talking about. Listen, his head was crushed and he is in a coma, there is no measurable brain activity. See this is the kind of stuff we need to make a decision.
There you are. Did you hear Sally ask the doctor what his prognosis was? Didn’t he just tell her, “There is no hope for this man,” and didn’t he just say, “All we can do now is make him as comfortable as possible until the end?” The only thing he didn’t say is when the end will be. This is what I have been telling you. The family of this poor sap will come here, and in some cases one or more will even move in. They will sit, talk, play music, cry and cry and nothing will happen. He is dead. Why, prolong the agony? Let him go and move on with living. There is nothing medical science can do, right? Well you’re wrong. There is plenty we can do. People like Sally and I are doing it. We have saved peoples sanity and their money. There is no reason to pump more money than necessary into insurance policies. The only ones getting anything out of all this are the insurance companies and the lawyers; everyone else just gets shafted. Sally and I, on the other hand, are saving the families all this heartache and grief. How wrong can that be?
Wait, they said something else. Damn it, I missed it, did you hear them? No matter, Sally sounds like she is coming in. I’ll find out what is going on now.
“Oh Bob. Did you ever think it would come to this?”
Come to what Sally? What are you talking about? Who was the guy hit by the ambulance?
“Oh Bob. I never thought I would be standing here like this. I never for one minute ever expected to have to do this.”
Damn it Sally! What in the hell are you babbling on about? Stand where? Do what? And, just where the hell are you standing? Why can’t I see you?
“Bob, for the love of all that’s holy, why weren’t you looking where you were going? Was the news conference so damn important that you stopped thinking of all the things around you?”
Oh, I forgot to tell you about the news conference. I was just honored by the State of California for my concern over the seriously ill, wait! She is talking to me.
“Bob, I never thought I would have to do this to you. You were my teacher. I thought we would be together until we retired. Why, Bob? Why couldn’t you come out of that cloud you lived in for a minute to open your eyes and look around before you stepped out into the street? I was beginning to wonder just whom you were thinking about more, your reputation or our patients? Can you tell me? Look at you lying there. Can you hear me? What a stupid question, there isn’t any brain activity. How can you hear?”
God she is talking to me! Sally! Sally! They are wrong! I can hear you! Oh, God let me open my eyes so she can see I am all right. Sally! Damn it Sally, I’m OK. What was that? She touched me. I can feel her hand on my arm. She is stroking my arm like she is petting a cat. Sally! I can feel you. Please hear me.
“Well Bob, at least you won’t have to suffer long. This should be painless, after all we never saw any side effects on all those others.”
Sally! NO! Sally, don’t please, don’t! Sally?
“Good bye Bob. May God take you to a better place.”
Hope(Anthony Colombo)
I am not sure where this story really begins. I think it was when I was a little boy. How old was I? I’m not sure. I do know that I liked to watch those medical shows on the public television channels, so I must, at least have, been in my early teens. I have to smile when I think of those days, you see, I would be clicking through the different channels looking for cartoons or some wrestling program to watch. I really liked wrestling, but my dad was a cynic. He told me wrestling was nothing but a big fake. I didn’t believe him; wrestling was too real to be faked. I mean when a guy gets hit with a chair in the head there was always blood all over his face. How could they fake that, right! Don’t get me wrong, I think my dad was smart, but when it came to wrestling, he had a lot to learn. Consider there were too many people in the audience to be fooled up close. But when I offered this as proof positive, my dad would only say, “Isn’t it scary, those idiots vote.”
Anyway, I would be looking for something to watch, and once in a while I would come to a doctor operating on someone for something or other. When I saw that, I would stop to watch. My mother, on the other hand, would get sick and ask me to change the channel. When she saw that I was really into what I was watching, she would leave the room fearing she would lose her lunch if she stayed there with the television and me.
You might be thinking, because I liked those kinds of programs, that I was some kind of sick-o, but I must disagree. I think that I was as normal as any other kid on the block was, and believe me; we had some strange ones in my neighborhood. Take Hypo, as an example. When I was growing up my mom told me about a drummer that was famous. She said he would have been a real good musician if it hadn’t been for his smoking. Now, you have to know my mother to understand how little she was able to tell to me about drugs. She was so sheltered when she grew up, I had to wait until I was in my twenties before I found out he smoked marijuana. Anyway, I knew something about drugs when I was little, but not much. Well, Hypo was a kid in the, now days the kids call it the “hood,” and he was more up on the drug scene than any of us. He used needles and that is why everyone called him Hypo, makes sense, doesn’t it?
Let’s see if I remember the whole story. Hypo, and no I don’t remember his real name. In fact I don’t think any of the guys I hung around with ever heard it. Anyway, Hypo’s dad left him and his mother when he was born. I think Hypo was told that his father “did the right thing” when he found out that he had gotten Hypo’s mother pregnant. He married her, and when the baby was born, he skipped out, some kind of man right? Well, the fact that Hypo’s dad left devastated his mother. She compensated for her loss by drowning herself in alcohol and other men. Often she would go out and get so drunk; she would end up by taking anything in pants home with her. It didn’t matter that Hypo was there and would see everything. Hell, she was so drunk that often she wouldn’t even remember the night before. The men in her life helped a great deal in this regard because they would leave when she passed out, and there was nothing more they could get from her. In fairness to a few, some of them would leave money on the nightstand. It was never more than a twenty, but it was enough to buy her another bottle.
This went on for some time, until one night Hypo’s mother, brought home a guy that wanted to stay. This last man was the one that introduced Hypo and his mother to heroin; Hypo was seven at the time. This nice guy got them hooked, and then he played them for everything they were worth. He kept Hypo’s mother on the string because she controlled Hypo, and he kept Hypo because he could get into all kinds of places and steal. The man of Hypo’s mother’s dreams turned a seven-year-old into a master thief and a hooked heroin user. I’m not sure but I seem to recall the man's name was Ted.
Ted would “case” a job, school Hypo on all the details, take him to where ever the theft was to occur and Hypo was expected to do the rest. After the job Hypo would bring the loot to a prearranged location and Ted took over from there. Naturally, Ted reserved the most dangerous part for himself. The reward for Hypo was in the pay off. For profits received, Ted kept Hypo and his mother supplied with heroin. It was a lesson Ted took from dog trainers, the kind of trainer that doesn’t care too much for the feelings of the dogs. I think they call it deprivation training. You withhold something the dog wants until the dog gives you what you want and then you reward the dog. Ted would hold back on the shots until the pain got to be so great that the mother would sell the son and vs-a-verse. Even at age seven, however, Hypo was a quick learner. He was small enough to fit through those little pet doors that some very rich folks have cut in kitchen doors, and this was very much to Ted’s liking.
Hypo was caught several times, but because of his age the juvenile courts didn’t do much to him, and Ted was always there to remind him where his loyalties lay, and to provide the needle. This went on until Hypo was sixteen.
Fed up with his mother and her connection, Ted stopped being a lover years before, Hypo struck out on his own. He learned where to buy what he needed and thereby eliminating the need for a middleman. With sources of his own, there was no longer a need for Ted. On his own, Hypo figured he could hang on to part of what he made in each heist and maybe someday retire, could you believe that, retire? The problem was, on his own, he was a very poor judge of places to rob. The money he made was barely enough to supply his growing need. His habit was bigger than his ability to provide adequate funds for. He had to get more money and fewer things. Things could be turned into cash but at far less than they were actually worth. Money on the other hand, well as the comedian said, “What you see is what you get.”
Drugs have a funny way of helping people think. Hypo was so hooked that his mind, whatever was left functioned not at all. He reasoned that the best way to pick up cash was to resort to armed robberies. It, therefore, followed, he had to be armed. But, when your arm is getting most of what you make that doesn’t leave much in the way of funds to buy a decent handgun. He did, however, have enough to pick up a pellet pistol. In the dark and under the stress of a robbery, well it was all he had, and it had to work. On his first two nights as an armed robber, he took on a couple liquor stores, and his luck held. He made cold cash, no “things,” real money. There was enough to make his next buy and some left to believe that retirement was in his future. The difficulty with this kind of life style was in the success itself. He began to think that he was invincible. His plans became bolder. Instead of one robbery a night, he could double or even triple his earnings. He began hitting several places within walking distance of one another. Being the great thinker he thought he was, and still encouraged by the drug stupor he lived in, he never thought of the police. He didn’t think of them either because he felt they were too stupid to figure out what he was up too, or his drugged state just wouldn’t allow him to think of too many things at once. As fate is wanted to do, one night he walked up to a gas station attendant and after pointing the pellet gun at him, demanded money. The attendant was so frightened, he would have to change his underwear, but that was later, now he was doing as he was instructed.
Hypo was pleased with the way the night was going. Earlier he had hit a mom-and-pop deli a block away, and from there the drugstore two doors down. He had already made over three hundred dollars. Truly this was going to be a good night. Oh, but here is where the police come in. The owner of the mom-and-pop called the police. The police, because of the harshness of the crime, dispatched a unit, yes only one police car with one police officer in it. As luck, certainly not Hypo’s would have it; the unit drove past the station during the robbery. Being the genius that Hypo was, he was standing in the middle of the pump island holding a gun under all the lights the station had. Screeching to a stop, the officer came out of the police car with his gun out. Startled by the noise behind him, Hypo turned. All that the officer saw was Hypo gun in hand pointed directly at him, and the rest is history. The officer went home feeling bad that he killed a drugged out sixteen-year-old boy, and Hypo went to the morgue with one more hole in his body.
I think this is where I learned to feel sorry for those suffering. I think this is where I developed the desire to do what I could to help them. But is Hypo the person that taught me to behave the way I did in my latter years? I don’t think so. Hypo was only one of the guys. There were other guys that I knew and they too influenced me, in positive ways. I had normal friends, many more than the strange ones. In fact I have to say that Hypo was the exception to the rule. I had a friend; for example, who closely resembled “the Fonz” in the television show Happy Days. Since the television show postdated my buddy, they had to have copied him and not the other way round. He had the leather motorcycle jacket, was gifted with his hands, had a minor criminal past, and he could get the girls. The only thing he didn’t have that “the Fonz” had was the motorcycle. My friend was limited to an old Cushman motor scooter, but he was bad none the less. In his case, his brushes with the law were limited mostly to having a big mouth and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His offenses got him slaps on the wrist and a kick in the ass, because in those days the cops could do things like that. He wanted money, as did we all, but in his case he worked and worked hard for it. He saved, went to one of those community schools, learned the body and fender trade and was on his way to becoming a millionaire. The one thing he wasn’t taught was the dangers of using lead based paints to paint cars. No one knew, or at least didn’t care to tell him that something should have been over his nose to protect him from the fumes. When he died from leukemia, he had a wife, a son, a house and a prosperous business.
Then too, there were the two imitation Mafia want-a-bees that grew up to be police officers. The last time I had any contact with them, one was an under chief and the other was a captain. And, there was the dork that wanted to join our “gang,” a term used by us long before it became popular in referring to groups of Hispanics or blacks. We called ourselves the Mao Mao's. They were a kick ass group somewhere in Africa, what did we know. Our families couldn’t afford television and none of us would be caught dead listening to the news on the radio. All we knew was those guys were bad and so were we.
Just a little confession, if we ever got close to a fight only “the Fonz” had the balls to stick it out. The rest of us would have stood there wetting our pants too scared to run.
But, back to the dork, he would do anything to join us. Empowered with this knowledge, we did everything to make his life a living hell. Among other things, he was the gofer. He did every dirty thing we wanted him to do and never got any closer to full membership, but what did he know. One night we were on our way to a bowling alley we claimed as our turf, he was with us. His proper position in the rank structure of our group was five paces behind us. On this particular night, he had all he could stand and presented us with an ultimatum. He made it clear that he was to become a member this very night or we would be sorry. Just what we would be sorry of was never made clear. Any way, a vote was taken and it was decided that tonight was the night. We were about two blocks away from the bowling alley. His right of passage was simply to run the distance to the bowling alley, on the lane marker in the middle of the street. Proudly, he stepped off the curb and into what he hoped would be his glorious entry to the Mao Mao's. He hadn’t gotten more than five yards when a police officer pulled alongside uttering those immortal words, “OK Mac, pull it over.” We all denied knowing him. Our betrayal soured him, and after leaving us, he went on to become the superintendent of a school district. Who knows what he would be today, if he stayed with us?
There was even one guy that became a priest; I still find that one hard to believe. He wasn’t as talented as the Fonz, but he did all right with the girls until one night he had a little too much to drink and was nearly killed in a car accident. He told me later, he had a vision and the vision is what turned his life around leading to the priesthood.
I never had a vision, but I do think that in some way I was told what I had to do. No I’m not the son of Sam. I didn’t talk to dogs, and they didn’t talk to me. Still, I feel that something was telling me what I had to do. I think even as young as I was then I knew that I would have to get into medicine, or at least something connected with hospitals. I needed to fulfill a mission in my life, and that mission was connected to the medical field.
While I knew what I was expected to become, my brain was not in tune with any other part of my anatomy. My grades in high school were poor at their best. I spent way too much time with my friends. For one thing, they never made outrageous demands about doing homework, or getting good grades. If we planned an event, there was never a deadline. Oh well, medical school was out, but there were still jobs involving the medical profession. I would just have to find one to suit my diversified background. There were nursing positions, x-ray technician; therapists, you name it there was something in the hospital for me, but remember I would not be satisfied with just any old job. The job I wanted had to involve patients and working directly with them. I wanted hands on and nothing less. I knew that if a doctor couldn’t end a person's suffering, I sure as hell would.
I witnessed people at the state hospital three blocks from my house wasting away in the halls because the patient count was so high that there weren’t enough rooms to house them. I remember once I went there to visit my grandfather’s brother. He was a man from the old country and while he wasn’t poor by any stretch of the imagination, he had limited funds. His financial situation and the fact that he was nearly ninety made the state facility more practical than one of the more expensive downtown hospitals. I was fifteen, if my memory serves me correctly, at the time. We drove the three blocks and parked in the staff lot right in front of the place. Now you have to picture the grounds and buildings. They were well kept but plain. Large front lawns with sycamore trees tastefully placed here and there giving the overall effect of a gracious southern manor. The buildings, there were five, were all constructed of red brick with white trimmed windows and doors fashioned after Independence Hall. The fifth building was much smaller and located to the rear of the other four. This smaller building was designed to handle the people leaving the world without enough to pay for a decent barrel, it was the crematorium. It was in operation until the advent of apartment living and city expansion. It seems the odors were not conducive to good neighbor relations. Not only were the odors problems, but the boot hill the apartments were to be built on had to go as well.
Anyway, back to the other five buildings. At age fifteen, I wasn’t really sure how the administrators allotted space. I knew that the grounds housed not only the poor and sick but the mentally disturbed and many others that society didn’t want in its midst. How I found this out is a story for another time suffices to say, only the outside of those buildings looked nice. I wish I could recall the words of the poet describing the finery housing the rot and decay within. They wouldn’t be adequate to describe this place. I remember walking down a long hall and on both sides of the hall was the old, I mean really old people, sitting in wheelchairs or laying on gurneys. I remember passing an old women, even at my age, I could tell she was dead, still here she was in the hall with all the other old people. I couldn’t help think what the sight of her made the others think. Anyway, I told my dad. He notified an orderly, who said, “Yeah, I know. She died last night. We just don’t have the staff to take her to the morgue.”
Then there was my great uncle. He was in a room by himself thanks to some political connections my dad had. I remember it was a big room with one-inch square black and white tiles on the floor. There were larger black and white tiles going half way up the walls. The remainder of the walls and ceiling were a sickly pail green. On the wall opposite the door were three large windows with no drapes or shades to keep out the sunlight that streamed in bouncing off the white tiles hurting our eyes. The other walls were bare. On the floor was dust in piles heaped in the corners and around the legs of the bed. A mouse darted between the piles. The little critter was so brazen that he didn’t wait for night when the like of his kind normally comes out. Amid all this splendor, right in the middle of the room, was a white tubular hospital bed raised slightly, so that uncle would not drown on his own saliva. He was on his back with his arms at his side, a white sheet pulled up to just below his chin. Thinking back, I believe this was staged to please visiting relatives. I am sure before we got there; he had been wheeled in from the hall, and pushed out into the hall when we left.
This one experience, more than anything else in my life, had to have been the strongest influence on my choice of careers. I would never let an old person be exposed to the kind of treatment, or rather the lack of treatment I observed in the state facility for the socially deprived. My poor great uncle and those others reminded me of a parking lot for a cemetery. All they had left was the time it took them to die. I can still see them with dirty dippers under their chins to catch the drool. The looks on their faces was the same for them all, a look of despair. The same look you see on the faces of the holocaust victims. No, I might not be doctor material, but I sure as hell was someone destined to help him or her, some how I would make the grade.
Speaking of which, I had to build up my grades. When I got through high school, by the skin of my teeth, I enrolled in a community college in the nursing program.
A smile just crept over my face thinking how the school hopes I don’t mention its name in light of my present predicament. You're safe, I won’t. I will say that their ethics, not mine, were of the highest quality. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with my ethical approach to patient care, but I leave it to you to judge for yourself.
Anyway, I worked hard and got my grade point average up to a respectable 3.0. Considering the amount of work that took, it was more than respectable. From there I went to college and continued my studies, sounds like a lead into a story about some famous scientist, and he continued his studies until he discovered something or other. Well, maybe for someone but not me. I completed my bachelor’s degree and looked for a hospital in which to work. I was now a licensed registered nurse. Do you remember the comedians Stiller and Mira where they do a mother and son bit, and the son tells his mother he is a nurse? When I got my license that’s how I felt, “mom all the money you and dad invested in me and medical school, well now I’m a nurse.” Everything as it may be, I was a nurse, and I was going to help people.
Checking the files at school and the newspapers I found a position at the Hope Hospital, no, for reasons of prudence, that's not its real name either. I guess it is only fair to protect their good name too. Now, I was in my element. My assignment, handle the seriously injured patients. Their injuries, most often, were the direct result of traumatic stress. Don’t you just love medical terms? Traumatic stress, why not just say the guy was crushed beyond recognition as the result of contact with a ten ton truck while riding a bicycle. In all too many of my cases, my only purpose was nothing more than to prolong suffering and render little hope of recovery. I watched as patient after patient came in only to die after weeks, months or even years of suffering. Probably, the worst of them all were the coma victims. They just lay there with loved ones talking to them, crying over them, playing music, praying and crying and praying and crying. They had hope but the patient had nothing. All too often they just lay supplied with life from tubes and machines until their brains shrunk to the size of a peanut, and still their relatives hoped.
I couldn’t stand to watch. This was the kind of thing I swore to prevent, but how? It came to me one day while I watched a seventy-year-old man in a coma. He had no chance of recovery and the machines were just keeping him barely alive. It would be a simple matter of introducing a drug, a little at a time, into his IV. The amounts would be small enough to be masked by his natural body’s failure, and death would be painless and quick. I would not only help him out of an irreversible situation; I would save his family months of grief. It was scary for me the first time, but it was so easy. It went just as I had planned. No one, the doctors or the family, suspected a thing. My confidence grew two fold with my first success, and by leaps and bounds after that.
Oh, you might be thinking that I limited my services to only the elderly, but you would be wrong. No, I helped all ages and both sexes. I reasoned the young suffered as much as the elderly. No, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t just pull plugs on people, even I had standards. I worked them out carefully. I have to admit it was easier for me to help an older person than it was to assist a younger one. But, if they met my ridged standard, I didn’t falter in my duty to them. To be completely honest, I must admit, however, I felt more for the children than I did for the adults. I always thought, we were put here to care for the children and not the other way round. I would look down at their poor crippled little bodies and think how we as adults had failed them. The thought of another adult failing made the decision to assist them easier for me because it was them and not me that made it necessary.
Would you believe, I was honored not only by the hospital but the Mayors Committee of Good Citizenship for my service to the sick and dying. I even received a letter from the President of the United States, yes-another name I have to protect. I have all the awards hanging on my office wall next to the pictures of me shaking hands with dozens of different dignitaries. I am even up for a promotion here at the hospital. I am being considered for the position of Staff Supervising Nurse. Filling that post would put twenty-five nurses and ten orderlies under my personal supervision. This job would put me right below and reporting directly to the hospitals Board of Governors.
I guess this proves that I am doing the right thing. I mean, would God reward me if I were just another murderer? I have never helped anyone who even had the remotest chance of pulling through. The best doctors on staff screened all my patients. I never under took any action until the doctors rendered their final diagnosis. In all the cases receiving my special attention, not one caused the doctors any doubt as to their final out come.
I guess it is human nature; still it seems to me that the only people for whom I ever had any concerns at all were the family members. Yes I had feelings for them and their families. No, I’m not some animal devouring its young. I know how it is to lose someone you love. I know how they must feel seeing their father, mother, son, daughter, husband or wife lying in a bed with a doctor pulling a sheet over their faces. Don’t you dare stand there looking like you are talking to some psychotic sonofabitch! I am as human as the rest of you, maybe more so because I am doing something about all the suffering in this world, albeit a small part of the world.
Wait a minute! Did you hear that? I hear someone talking. Did you hear them? It sounded as though they mentioned my name. Don’t shake your head no. You must have heard them. Listen, they are coming closer. What do you mean you still don’t hear anything, damn they sound like they are screaming. Listen, one sounds like Sally. She is a young nurse on the swing shift. She is assigned to the ICU. She is a nice girl, and one I have been able to confide in. She and I share the same feelings when it comes to the care our patients are entitled to. But, to whom is she talking? I can’t make out the voice.
Wait, Sally said something about an accident. Damn, I can only make out every other word. Whom did an ambulance hit? When? Where? Why don’t they come in? I guess I will have to go to them. Come on, this should be interesting. It will give you an idea of how we handle the cases we select for our special attention.
That’s funny. I can hear her voice but I can’t see her. Ha! I know the second person now. He is Doctor Stevenson. He is the head of the neurology department here. He is the one person whose opinion was the most important to me. I don’t care what anyone else said, he would have to give a judgment about a patient before I would make any decisions. I can hear him more clearly now. This sounds like a case Sally and I would take on. The poor man was hit by an ambulance right in front of the hospital. I didn’t get that. Did Stevenson say he worked here? He had just gotten off his shift? I wonder whom they are talking about. Listen, his head was crushed and he is in a coma, there is no measurable brain activity. See this is the kind of stuff we need to make a decision.
There you are. Did you hear Sally ask the doctor what his prognosis was? Didn’t he just tell her, “There is no hope for this man,” and didn’t he just say, “All we can do now is make him as comfortable as possible until the end?” The only thing he didn’t say is when the end will be. This is what I have been telling you. The family of this poor sap will come here, and in some cases one or more will even move in. They will sit, talk, play music, cry and cry and nothing will happen. He is dead. Why, prolong the agony? Let him go and move on with living. There is nothing medical science can do, right? Well you’re wrong. There is plenty we can do. People like Sally and I are doing it. We have saved peoples sanity and their money. There is no reason to pump more money than necessary into insurance policies. The only ones getting anything out of all this are the insurance companies and the lawyers; everyone else just gets shafted. Sally and I, on the other hand, are saving the families all this heartache and grief. How wrong can that be?
Wait, they said something else. Damn it, I missed it, did you hear them? No matter, Sally sounds like she is coming in. I’ll find out what is going on now.
“Oh Bob. Did you ever think it would come to this?”
Come to what Sally? What are you talking about? Who was the guy hit by the ambulance?
“Oh Bob. I never thought I would be standing here like this. I never for one minute ever expected to have to do this.”
Damn it Sally! What in the hell are you babbling on about? Stand where? Do what? And, just where the hell are you standing? Why can’t I see you?
“Bob, for the love of all that’s holy, why weren’t you looking where you were going? Was the news conference so damn important that you stopped thinking of all the things around you?”
Oh, I forgot to tell you about the news conference. I was just honored by the State of California for my concern over the seriously ill, wait! She is talking to me.
“Bob, I never thought I would have to do this to you. You were my teacher. I thought we would be together until we retired. Why, Bob? Why couldn’t you come out of that cloud you lived in for a minute to open your eyes and look around before you stepped out into the street? I was beginning to wonder just whom you were thinking about more, your reputation or our patients? Can you tell me? Look at you lying there. Can you hear me? What a stupid question, there isn’t any brain activity. How can you hear?”
God she is talking to me! Sally! Sally! They are wrong! I can hear you! Oh, God let me open my eyes so she can see I am all right. Sally! Damn it Sally, I’m OK. What was that? She touched me. I can feel her hand on my arm. She is stroking my arm like she is petting a cat. Sally! I can feel you. Please hear me.
“Well Bob, at least you won’t have to suffer long. This should be painless, after all we never saw any side effects on all those others.”
Sally! NO! Sally, don’t please, don’t! Sally?
“Good bye Bob. May God take you to a better place.”
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