Promise to Cherish (6 page)

The other three all answered yes. Adkins gave Eli a look and pursed his lips. Eli’s body grew warm despite the drafty gray hallway—he was nervous. Groans from the open doors of the rooms around him were getting louder. A distant bawling met his ears and he winced.

“If you think this is bad, you’ll never make it here,” he said, still glaring at Eli. “Which one are you again?”

“Eli Brenneman.”

The attendant marked something on the clipboard.

“At least you’re brawny. As long as you can follow directions, you’ll work out okay.”

Was his size all he would ever be good for? Eli sated his annoyance by remembering what the director of the hospital detachment had said just that morning in prayer. He said that the weak and foolish responded in anger but a wise man had self-control. He gritted his teeth in his attempt to be a wise man and not a fool.

“For your benefit,” Adkins continued, “I will explain to you what your duties are. You will be working forty-eight hours weekly. That equals eight-hour shifts, six days a week. Over two hundred fifty attendant jobs have gone unfilled for several years, so you will need to learn quickly and pull your weight. We need you to learn efficiently since there aren’t enough of us to babysit you. You will be responsible for what we call
custodial care
. This means you will keep the patients clean and do your best to keep them from injuring one another and themselves. If they get violent, be ready to restrain them and yell—and I mean
yell
—for a nurse to bring a sedative. If they soil themselves, shower them and have their clothing laundered. If they refuse to eat, throw their food away—they won’t starve before they learn their lesson. We only have two nurses on this ward and you will be assisting them in handing out medications and when the patients need hydro or electroshock therapy. Also, we actively use straitjackets, bed restraints, and we have one padded room on this floor. Any questions?”

He raised his eyebrow at Eli.

Adkins walked them around and pointed out some of the patient rooms without taking them inside, telling them that
they were mostly empty at the moment and that several contained contagious patients. He showed them where they would be showering the patients in groups. Eli subtly nodded when it appeared necessary but otherwise kept quiet. With each minute passing, each instruction given, his lungs grew overfilled with too much air and the beats of his heart pressed against his chest painfully. Would he ever learn to work with these patients in these conditions?

Eli estimated one of the rooms at having over forty beds. A few patients lay flat on their beds and many of the beds had no sheets. There was an undercurrent of stench that spun around him. He would have to get used to that.

His eyes fell on the patients but none of their eyes met his. The state of the patients disturbed him. Now he better understood his director’s advice—offer to do any duty, no matter how abject. He impelled them to do everything with graciousness and with the patient’s dignity at the forefront. He reminded them that no matter their mental condition, all of them were created by God and were not less important to Him, no matter what society believed.

“This is the day room where the patients spend most of their time,” Adkins said to them. “This is where you will also spend your day when you aren’t cleaning the dorm rooms, showering the patients, or helping with treatments.” He opened the door and waved them inside.

The odor of the room hit Eli before he was completely through the doorway. The acrid scent of urine was so overwhelming he began gagging. He pivoted and walked back into the hallway, gasping for air. He didn’t know how DeWayne, Freddy, and James could stand the stench as they remained inside. He walked to an open window in the hall to catch his breath.

“Here,” a voice came from a few paces away.

He looked up and saw a nurse pushing a white handkerchief into his face.

“It’ll help with the smell. Adkins probably doesn’t remember how bad it can be the first time.” The nurse stood there with a raised eyebrow. Her rapid speech carried a slightly nasal tone.

“Thank you.” His eyes met her chocolate-brown ones as he took the handkerchief from her. The kindness in her gaze couldn’t be hidden behind her glasses.

“Put it up to your nose when you go in. You’ll get used to the smell soon. Your eyes will stop burning so badly, too.”

“We’re waiting, Brenneman,” Adkins walked back through the door, the smell trailed into the hallway with him. He looked at the nurse and smiled. “You playing babysitter, Nurse Freeman?”

“Be nice, Adkins,” the nurse said over her shoulder as she began walking away. “The first time is the worst. I heard you vomited.”

The other three men stood behind Adkins, with furrowed, sympathetic brows as they looked at Eli. He recalled their warnings about the stench but hadn’t taken it to heart. Now he understood.

Adkins let out a heavy sigh. An honest smile warmed his face by degrees as he looked up at Eli.

“She’s right,” he said and chuckled. His mannerisms shifted and he smiled at Eli. He sighed then asked kindly, “Are you ready to try again?”

Eli nodded, holding up his handkerchief.

“You’ll love the smell of that hanky, lucky fella,” Adkins said, waving them to follow him again. “Nurse Freeman wears nice perfumes.”

Eli couldn’t help but look back again to see if he could catch sight of the beautiful nurse again, but the feel of the handkerchief between his fingers reminded him he had to focus
on the task at hand. He turned back around and followed the other three into the room. Adkins was right, he thought, as he breathed in the delicate, rosy sent of the perfume-doused handkerchief. The act of kindness not only calmed his nerves, but the sight of the patients and the state they were in triggered his need to help.

This time he was able to take in the room as he walked through the doorway. The bland, overcast sky tempted more gray into the room. The cold, sticky air chilled him to the bone even though it was already April. The hum of moaning seemed to come from the room itself. A man across the room opened and shut the windows repetitively. Eli diverted his eyes from the patient’s nakedness but looked back as an attendant began trying to turn him around to clothe him. The man put his hands over his head and began spinning and yelling.

Was this what the CPS director meant by mingling with the patients and being a friend to them? How was that even possible? The lack of sanitation in the room turned his stomach.

“Our idea of a good patient is one who minds his own business. It would be great if they would just sit still and keep their hands to themselves, wouldn’t it?” Adkins’s words were insensitive, but by the way he patted certain patients as he passed and even ruffled the hair of a few, Eli could see he was kind to the men he worked with. “We don’t have a lot of talking on the ward. As I said before, you just need to make sure you get them to the toilet, get their baths, clean up the floor from all their incontinence, and generally keep them from hurting themselves and others. It might seem like a short list of duties, but once you’ve started you’ll realize that you won’t stop working through your entire shift. There is always more to do.”

Adkins told them to spend some time walking around and getting to know the different patients. Eli, still holding the hankie to his nose off and on, had to keep his emotions in check.
He’d never been a crying man, but there was something so desperately sad about the men in this room.

He saw a man reading a seven-year-old newspaper. Several were moving puzzle pieces, not actually putting any together. One patient typed on a typewriter with no ink or paper. Then there were the dozens and dozens who just stood around. So many of them didn’t move a muscle his entire time in the day room.

After winding between the men, he began noticing someone following him. He turned around to find a mongoloid man standing there, smiling at him.

“Hello,” Eli said and waved.

The man’s eyes nearly vanished into his round, chubby cheeks as he displayed a gummy smile. His chubby hand moved up, and he waved at Eli.

He pointed at himself and spoke. “Fouyd.”

Eli looked around to see if anyone could understand what the man said, but he was in a sea of patients—no attendants or nurses near him.

“Fouyd.” The man smiled and repeated himself several times.

Was he trying to say his name?

“I’m Eli,” he said loudly.

“He’s not deaf,” the beautiful nurse from before said as she walked up. She lifted an eyebrow, chilling him. She walked toward the office in the corner and unlocked the door using a small key tied inside her apron pocket.

He followed her, partially curious over what the mongol man was trying to say and wanting to thank her for the handkerchief he still held loosely in his hand. He stood in the doorway of the small corner office that appeared to store the medications. The nurse wrote in a book, appearing to log information as she glanced from her watch to the medication bottles, then back to the book, scratching quickly with a dull pencil.

“I didn’t mean to—” he started then stopped. “I’ve been around
special
people like him in my church, but I couldn’t understand him.” His last few words faded some.

Her head snapped up from the book. Their eyes fixed on the others before she spoke.

“Special?” Her voice was breathy before she cleared her throat and looked away.

“That’s what we call them in my community.” He shrugged. “I know that’s not what they are usually called.”

“No, it’s not,” she said with nonchalance as she pulled out trays of small cups from the cupboard, each holding medication. Without a word she shut the bottom of the Dutch door he stood near. Patients began lining up almost immediately. Eli’s heart rate increased, unsure of what he was supposed to do.

“They are special though,” Christine said and handed a patient a cup. He threw the pills into the back of his mouth without any water. He opened his mouth for the nurse and she checked his cheeks with a flat stick.

“What’s your name?” she asked Eli while handing out the next cup of medication.

“Eli,” he said. Then, realizing no one seemed to go by their first name, he corrected himself. “Eli Brenneman.”

Her eyes looked back at him and sized him up. She was tall and had a presence about her that intimidated him.

“I’m Nurse Freeman.” She nodded toward the mongol man. “His name is Floyd.”

“Oh, Floyd, of course,” he said.

A man came up to the Dutch door and started pounding his head with the heel of his hand. A distinct, growly moan came from the patient whose agitation grew.

“Wally,” Nurse Freeman said sternly. “You’re all right.”

Wally twitched and ground his teeth together. He looked in Eli’s direction but their eyes didn’t meet.

Eli inhaled and glanced over at Nurse Freeman.

“He heard who you are—what you are.” Her voice was so monotone it was like a slap against his cheek.

“What?”

“We have a patient, Rodney, who likes to stir up trouble. He told Wally that your group was coming.”

Eli didn’t understand.

“Wally was a soldier—and tortured before being rescued. He went to war and did his duty but returned only a shell of a man.” She paused for a moment and looked at him. “You should’ve seen his parents when they brought him here. Wally lost his mind and they lost their son. But he still knows what kind of man you are and the others in your unit. He knows only cowards duck out of duty and leave the brave to be wounded, if not killed.”

Eli swallowed. He had no comment.

The nurse’s breathing sped up and her lips, which came together, began to tremble. Her eyes did not waver as they locked on Eli’s.

“What have you lost?” Her voice softened but her words dug deeply. She walked through the Dutch door with another tray of medication in her hand, handing them out to the patients who hadn’t lined up.

He wanted to look away from her, but the battle that waged inside between retaliating against her and accepting her argument wouldn’t let him. His anger was so great he wasn’t sure he could work with her. On the other hand, his ache and sadness for Wally made his chest constrict and it hurt to breathe. She was wrong
and
she was right.

“You okay?” DeWayne said, standing next to him.

He inhaled, his nostrils flaring, and with long strides he walked out of the day room. He didn’t hear the door slam behind him and turned to find that DeWayne had followed him
out. He unbuttoned the top collar of the white, stiff jacket. He leaned his hands against the concrete windowsill in the hall.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said. He backed up a few steps, agitated, and ran a hand through his hair. The shortness startled him for a moment. He’d gotten a crew cut only the night before. “I don’t think I can work here. It’s too . . . They hate us. They hate what we stand for. How can we work with and for these people? And the patients are—it’s just too terrible to see every day.”

DeWayne didn’t say a word, which also made Eli angry.

“How didn’t you just completely lose yourself in your last hospital?” Eli asked.

“If you know who you are, you can’t ever really lose yourself. You might stray a measure from time to time but you don’t lose yourself—unless you just don’t know who you are.” DeWayne patted his arm then motioned for him to follow. It was time for them to shower their first group of patients.

Nurse Freeman’s and DeWayne’s words weighed on him for the rest of the day and by the time the thirty-one men sat before the director of their unit after supper, all he could do was listen.

“Ryan Hall is considerably worse than the last ward I worked in.” One man stood. “Here the patients are hit with billy-clubs and barely fed. They have sores all over their bodies and don’t have proper medical attention. It’s no wonder they continue to be so violent. The attendants laugh like it’s a joke.”

Another six men stood with fists pounding the air in front of them as they spoke loudly. The room filled quickly with angry voices. Eli noticed instantly that everyone’s anger was over the patient care, and not over how they were being judged for their C.O. status. His own frustrations had more to do with
Nurse Freeman’s
opinion of him than anything else. He didn’t like someone putting him down, even if it was a pretty girl.