Chapter 2

Thursday, July 1, 1976

When I woke up, there was a young, unbelievably cute girl in my room. She was putting my lunch on a rollaway tray table. “Hello there,” I say.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. Doctor Albright said you needed your rest. I was just putting your lunch over here, so it would be near when you were ready for it.”

“It’s ok; I need to be awake now anyway. I think I have been asleep for long enough,” I said with a smile.

“Um, yeah, you’ve been in a coma for a long time. I’m happy to see you are awake. My name is Eve, would you like me to raise the bed a bit so that you can eat?”

“Hi Eve, please call me Michael. I would appreciate the adjustment. It’d be great. I’m beginning to get a bit stiff, lying here in this bed. “There was something else getting a bit stiff as well. I had forgotten about 15-year-old hormones. I noticed that she looked down toward the small tent that was rising under the sheet. It was painful. Something isn’t right. It was then I discovered that there was a catheter, and I am sure that was the reason for the pain.

I heard her make a little giggle. She turned her face away from me, but I could still see the corner of an upturned smile. She reached up and pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I decided that she must be shy. She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. She was petite in stature, maybe five feet tall. She’s a stunning caramel mocha-colored African American, um Black, um Negro. (Hell, it was never this hard to describe the ladies I used to date.) She is slender, but she still had the beginnings of curves that showed great potential.

Her face is oval and with bright, expressive brown eyes. She also has dimpled cheeks, with just a hint of baby fat remaining. She has a slender nose that flared at the nostrils. Her lips are thin; she’s wearing lip gloss, not lipstick. Her chin is narrow and pointed. Her hair is cinnamon-colored and medium length. It comes to just above the collar, it’s wavy and combed back away from her face.

I started to feel like a dirty old man. I was nearly sixty, and I’m staring at her like a lovestruck teenager. Yeah, I was a teenager, but I didn’t identify as one yet. It was weird. I saw her, and it was electric. But I kept thinking I’m way too old for her.

After a slight delay, she brought the bed into a more upright position. She wheeled the rollaway table into place, and I could see steam was still rising off the soup. It appeared to be chicken broth. There were no crackers with the broth. There’s a glass of ice water and red-colored gelatin. If I had to hazard a guess, it was strawberry Jell-O.

I thanked Eve for her assistance. She said something about it being no trouble, and then said she’d be back to retrieve the tray later. I noticed that the straps that had been holding me into the bed were no longer employed. Unconsciously, I took a spoonful of the broth. It was so hot that I burned my entire mouth, tongue, and throat.

I immediately grabbed the glass of ice water and drank it down. It was nearly empty after I finished; I poured a few of the ice chips into the broth. They melted instantly, and I dumped the rest of the ice into the bowl. I decided the Jell-O was safe. It was strawberry. After waiting a few more minutes, I was able to eat the broth. It was dull-tasting, and it didn’t address the emptiness in my stomach.

I needed real food like fried chicken, and mashed potatoes, and garden-fresh green beans with bacon bits. I could smell it, taste it. Mom’s home cooking. Not my mom’s cooking, young Calvin’s mother. I was never a big fan of chicken; I was a steak man myself. But the memories of young Calvin had me drooling for fried chicken.

A different nurse than the one who came to see me earlier walked into the room. She was all business and did not have a gentle bedside manner. She talked in a quick, authoritative way.

She took my vitals, barely. When she went to take my pulse, I could feel she was barely touching me. She took a thermometer, wiped it with an alcohol disinfectant wipe, and placed it in my mouth, using a curt, abrupt movement. She removed the thermometer, read it, and recorded my temperature on my chart. She took another wipe and wiped the thermometer again before putting it into her breast pocket.

She’s older, maybe mid-fifties, and had short brown hair that’s going gray. She’s built like and acted like a bulldog. Finally, she emptied the bedpan, then changed the sheets. She is brusque and took little care with handling me; I started to complain that she was hurting me. “You just be quiet, boy. I have a job to do, and the quicker I get it done, the quicker I can be out of here.” Eventually, after what seemed like hours, she was gone.

I had never experienced this kind of behavior before, especially from a medical professional. I began to wonder how she could keep her job as a nurse if this is how she treated her patients. Could this be prejudice, racism, or was she just a cranky old lady? I didn’t know. She did everything by the book. She didn’t refuse to see to my needs, but she didn’t try to comfort me either.

Eve came back sometime later. She came in quickly and grabbed the tray, and walked out the door, all without a word. I interrupted her actions, “Eve! Please stop; come back.” She turned around and told me she had to shake a leg because she was falling behind on her duties. I apologized for taking up more of her time.

“It’s not like that. Nurse Bertha reported me to my supervisor for taking up too much time with some of the patients. And told him I should be fired for being lazy.”

“Nurse Bertha?” I enquired.

“Um, Nurse Dorthey Dodson, a big, mean, ugly woman who hates me and anyone like us.”

“Us? You mean African American; umm I mean Black.”

“Yes, she hates us. She must treat black patients because she’d lose her job if she didn’t. But she does it without any kindness. She treats the black staff like they are the plague.”