14 Stories

CUT

They want to take my leg away. Cut it off just a little below the hip. Gangrene’s set in around the ankle. Spread to the heel and now shoots of it to the skin. Not much blood circulates down there because the aorta’s clogged at the knee and calf. Black tissue they call the cancerous stuff. My wife said to me what else can you do? I said anything better than that. She said the only alternative was the implant but it just wouldn’t take. A fibrous artery to bypass the blocked spots and get some more blood flowing to the foot so the gangrene would dry up. I’m seventy-five. The real arteries weren’t strong enough to stretch far enough to meet the implanted tube, the vascular surgeon said. Or something like that. And that or your life. Plain as that. Horrible as that must sound to you both. Sorry as I am to be so frank. Well I’ll at least walk some more before I go. You won’t walk for more than a month and probably less. The gangrene’s spreading too fast. You mean the black tissue, I said. Call it what you want, he said. Endless trouble’s what I’m calling it, though the worst part of the worst dream I’m now waking up from is what I’d like to call that rot. They all agree. Vascular man, internist, urologist who operated on me to have my prostate removed. That’s what I originally came in here for. I was fine after that operation. Learning to urinate like I used to. Three days away from home. When my wife noticed two ulcers from the friction burns caused by the postoperative surgical stockings they’d bound around my feet but too tight so I wouldn’t shoot an embolism in bed. They said complications like the embolisms they prevented and ulcers they weren’t smart enough to avoid by simply removing my stockings at night often happen to men of my age. And because I’m diabetic and my arteries are crummy, the ulcers wouldn’t heal. Gangrene set in and spread. But I’ve been over that route. Those murderous black shoots. And they only gave my wife fifty-fifty I’ll survive the operation and nobody’s promising my condition won’t get worse and worse if I do. I stick my wrist with the vascular man’s scissors, then the other. Then the blood flows. Better than getting a leg sliced off. Then my head flows. Better than dying like a what? Sitting outside in front. Trouser leg pinned to my behind by two extra-safe diaper safety pins. In time the surviving leg sliced off. Till I’m sitting in front like a what? Like a what? That’s my wife standing by the bed. Comes in every day at noon and here she is at ten. Tough luck, lady, I try to say. She’s ringing, screaming. Running, in the corridor screaming. A nurse comes. Tough luck, I want to say. Runs outside the room and yells call the resident. Too late, I say. And I’m so sorry for you, dear.

The strange thing is what made me come in when I did. I had a feeling. It sprung from a dream. I couldn’t sleep last night and so like the doctor said, I took a pill. Fortunately I did. Because I fell asleep and dreamt of Jay taking his life with pills. I woke up frightened and called the floor he’s on and she said everything’s fine, no complaints from 646. I asked if she could go in and check. She said she’s both the charge nurse and the one who gives injections tonight. And that she only has one aide and he’s downstairs looking for linens for tomorrow and won’t be back for an hour, so though she wishes she could she can’t. I told her I’m coming over to check him then. She said I can’t come over till regular visiting hours at eleven and then all right, she’ll check. She checked. Sleeping like a baby, she said. I felt much better. Only a dream, I thought, and I went back to bed. But I still had to get to the hospital earlier than visiting hours began and get a special pass to go up as I still had this feeling he might take his life. When I walked in his room I nearly passed out. Fortunately I didn’t. He’s still in a coma but out of danger, which is why I can write to you as lucidly as this and with not so much emotion where I can’t. You were always the best one in the family for that and nobody else now is around. I of course hope all is well at your own home and my love to Abe and the kids.

And then back to back another one. Yesterday someone jumps from the tenth. A patient. Not mine, but why’d he jump? Learned he had incurable cancer. Who told him? The question should be why was he told? But they did. Okay, we’ll forget about that mistake. But out he went. Put on his bathrobe so he wouldn’t catch cold. Very methodical. Two neatly arranged instructive notes. Don’t do this and do that. So stupid to tell the patient, even if there’s nothing left to be done for him here and no other place for him to go. Walks from the third to the tenth, so he at least had the strength for that. Though it might have taken him two hours, which could give the hospital an even blacker eye. A visitor downstairs sticking a quarter in the meter said he saw the man bounce. Up about three feet in the air and then of course just stayed there. And now this one. Though maybe I’d do it myself. Lose a leg at the hip? No real chance of recovering even from that surgery, he being diabetic, arteriosclerotic, seventy-five and with Parkinsonism as well. I did my best with his wrists. The nurse was very good. The man was smiling all the time. Maybe that’s part of his neurological disorder. At last, he also kept repeating. At last what? I finally said, though that repetition could also be part of his Parkinson’s disease. His wife got so hysterical we had to hold her down to administer sedatives. We’re not supposed to, as she isn’t a patient here and naturally signed no release, but she took it very well. What a day. What a day. God only forbid the irony of another patient trying to kill himself. I don’t mean irony. I don’t even mean coincidence. I’m talking about some link of chance events which God only forbid happening in threes.

He was such a quiet man. Well, still is. Never used the bell once. Even when he had to. So he messed himself. I used to get angry at him. Ask why he didn’t buzz for the pan. He said he knows we’re busy. Thought he could contain it till we came in on our own accord. Extra considerate like that. It’s terrible. Working here you grow hard to these people sometimes. Like they’re just very little people for all the money they have. Who have to be washed and watched but not remembered. Or else you think they’re just animals of the worst sort. Who mess their own nest. I’ve seen them do that and playing with it in zoos. Gorillas. Animals who stand up like that with intelligence. But he was different. Such a decent man he was. There I go speaking again like he’s dead. Maybe he is. Maybe the dark spirit of death is trying to give me news. His or the hospital news in general. They brought him to intensive care. Who I’ve heard have about given up hope. Right here. Jab jab. Nice and deep too. Not just a threat. Give me this or I’ll do that. Oh no. I hate scenes like that with his wife. I was there soon after she first saw. I can do anything. Cleaning up the filthiest dentures or out the oldest bags. Dealing with the most unsightly sores and smells. You name it. Everything. Throwing up their bowels. Peanuts to us. Human garbage men. But the scene of someone crying for the near or dead I can’t take. I choke up too. The end’s the worst. We’re not all rough and hard. Smoking cigarettes in their rooms. Relatives shouldn’t be allowed in hospitals anymore. No, that’s silly to say. Actually they can be a great help. Pitching in for some of what we can’t. But if I had a list of patients I liked best? His would be up at the top ten. Fourth. Maybe third. The top three left me some blessings in their wills. But he was so cheery till he heard. And it was partially our fault. We should have been more careful with those socks. Even the cleats got stuck in his skin. But if the doctors weren’t? Then who would expect us? But he never put us to blame. Forget the wills. First. Right up there second or first. He said that’s fate. Not by design but by accidents. Said this right to my face. And not just to please me you know. I’m going to call I.C. to see how he’s getting along. I was going to say if they tell me he’s dead I’ll die.

So the old man’s gone and done it. I’d say it was almost a courageous act. And I don’t want any looks at me like that. You even know what it takes to slash your wrists? Not that I’m not glad you don’t know, though I once tried doing myself in. Worse than slashing myself also I thought, though don’t look so scared. I wouldn’t try it again. Though why should I be so confident to say never I don’t know, though I surely have no plans for it now. Threw myself in front of a subway train. It was moving at the time too. Better than moving it was going at almost top speed, which is why I chose it, though I don’t know why. Meaning I don’t know why I actually tried it. I was eighteen. Very morose young man, a depressive-depressive. Felt nothing was going right or even would go anything but wrong, though how could I have been so right at such a young age? I also had incipient belated acne and the first half-inch of premature hair loss, but that’s how strongly I then felt. I fell between the rails. Does all this seem like a lie? Tried catching the train as it shot out of the tunnel at the start of the station platform, but I must have jumped too fast. I’ll never know for sure, though I certainly wasn’t pushed from behind. All I got for my try was a lot of explaining to do about torn clothing and this cheek scar here from the broken glass in the well between the rails. And the perdurable image of what it’s like underneath a train going sixty or so per. Uproarrrr. Powerfulnesssss. But he should have waited till late evening if he wanted to meet with success. You think he did it at ten because he knew my mom was coming in? She says no and for now he can’t say but he could have heard her in the hall. She’s small and her heels are always high and she has a characteristic quick clicking walk. You think I’m talking like this to pluck myself up for the unavoidable when I see my two? Mom and dad, misidentify thy son. But the question should be do I think I’m talking like this to steel myself for what almost must be faced? But I better go now as the plane leaves in an hour. I’ll miss you a load, toots. The key’s where it usually is. The bed’s been rigged to cave in at any weight over 110. Also don’t overfeed the sea horses with baby shrimp, and the mynas, turtles, lizards and dogs. The bees can take care of themselves.

No, it’s not even an endemic. It’s two isolated cases coming within twenty hours of each other at the same hospital but in different buildings, that’s all. One because he’s terminal and inoperable and the other because he believes he can’t go on without a leg that must come off. What’s unparalleled for us is that they happened on consecutive days. What’s not uncommon is that they happen in hospitals. Running this conglomerate is satisfactorily unmanageable without dreary rumors being spread and patients and staff becoming perturbed. My advice is to drop the matter, for there’s no story here other than the most witless yawny feature piece of a hospital administrator earnestly trying to squelch the commencement of a full-scale scandal and the perhaps more heart-tickling subsequent blurb of a reporter being denounced or bounced because he persisted in writing the original story.

Morris leaned over the counter and says so and so your patient? I says he was on my floor. He says was you could almost have said but still is is what you should be saying. I say I know and it was only a minor verbal oversight on my part. He says rather than only a minor oversight it was a major blunder that could have been a total medical center setback and financial clobbering. I say I think I know what you’re saying and I’m sorry. He says I should hope you would know what I’m saying and I’d be a lot more than sorry. I say what else would you like me to be? He says all I ask is that you sec nothing like it happens again. I say you’re not saying you don’t think I didn’t do everything possible to see it didn’t happen in the first place? He says yes I’m sure you did everything you could possibly do to see it didn’t happen but perhaps what I’m saying is you didn’t do enough. I say enough it was, Mr. Morris, believe me. I’ve seventeen rooms and there was only me and the aide Patson, because two nurses had called in sick and the other aide that day quit and every room was wanting some kind of attention. If you don’t like my performance here then you can just say so. He says I’ve just said so. Then is that in so many words a discharge on your part? I say. It’s nothing of the sort on my part since for one thing there’s a nurse shortage and for another I don’t even know whether I still have that power, he says. Then what is it? I say. It’s an admonition, that’s all, he says. A what? I say. A warning to be more careful the next time, he says. I was very careful the first time, I say. Then be even more careful the next time, he says. As I already said I was very careful but he needs private nurses around the clock, I say. That’s up to his family, he says. Then tell his family, I say. You know that even his doctor can only recommend that to his family, and goodnight, he says. And goodnight to you, I say. Was that an admonition on your part? he says. A what do you mean by what? I say. By the way you said goodnight, he says. It’s what you might call a warning, I say. When it gets to be more than a warning then you can say so to me personally and in private, he says. If there happens to be a next time then I’ll do that, I say, while the patients are ringing and from both corridors I can hear them bleating and I’ve a dozen syringes to fill and pill orders to make up and still two patients to put to bed and I don’t know how many sutures to check and the linens for the next shift haven’t yet shown and Patson, Patson, Patson’s saying will I please listen to him a second as he’s ill and a trifle woozy and could I get a replacement for him tonight or at least give him a two-hour rest after his meal?

One day someone jumps off the roof and the next day, yesterday, or the before day, he also tries cutting his wrists. You’ll never get me in any hospital. Not once if I can avoid it, even if it’s only to see a best friend or use their toilet. Because why go there? He goes there, right, and for one thing and gets another thing which leads to an even more complicated thing which gets so awful he’s got to kill himself, and now God knows what that will lead to. At least that’s what the article said. Mr. Jay from upstairs. Nice man, right? Used to sit in front of the house all day on the nice days when his wife got the energy up to walk him down. In the wheelchair, with first those clumps of the chair on the stairs past our landing and then when she got it all arranged outside with his newspapers, glasses, tissues and books, their little steps of her leading her husband down two more flights. And always a nice good nod and hello from him, and no matter how warm it was outside, in a coat. And never any unkind words from him either, if never almost ever a word. But always a smile. Bright and big in greeting and his little hands waving his fingers, and then this. All out of the blue. You go and begin and explain it. I was so shocked. I’m always shocked when I read or see on TV about people I know. Last time was that one who was what was that kid’s name who got killed, I mean jailed, for riding more than a hundred in a twenty-mile zone? Driving around happily down this street we saw him in his stolen car one minute and next thing we see is him on all the local stations on the early and late evening news shows. Oh how I hated that wise-ass kid. Always did. Even when he was a kid. Always with the smirky wise look like he wanted to poke out your pupils in your eyes. Big kid he always was also, but they cut him to size. Two years it was he got, in a place to make us feel safer and him a better member of the human race. But outside of those two I can’t think there was even an article or news film of anyone else we knew than ourselves with our own names in the newspaper lottery list when we were up for the million with several thousand others, but got five hundred instead. That should happen again. Oh, what a day at work. And my head cold’s shifting to my chest and those unknown limb pains are back, so maybe what I need before dinner are aspirins and two glasses of your fresh orange juice first. And what do you say this weekend if he’s alive we go see him and bring a little gift? Say sourballs or those baby pastries, because no matter how I hate those places I still think his being our neighbor these amount years it’d only be right.

Next door’s a man dying from too many cigarettes. On the other side of me to the left’s a lady who doesn’t know she’s having half her insides taken out tomorrow at eight. Across the hall’s a boy who’s spent the past year in a coma and every other hour on the hour only cries mummy mum mum. Next to him on one or the other sides’ a man who tries suicide and I overheard his wife say in the hallway still has to lose his leg. In the next room to his is a woman who no specialist knows what’s the matter with other than for her losing weight at an unbelievable speed. Can’t eat. Next she can’t even speak. Down to seventy pounds for a hefty frame and they don’t think she’ll last the week. Positively no visitors allowed it says on her door. I feel so ridiculous being on this floor. With only a couple of benign polyps to be removed and a little fright, though I might catch something worse from being around all these sorrowful people and horrible news. Is it at all possible to get my room switched to a less sickly floor?

Hello, dad. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Listen, don’t try and speak. Even if you can. They say you can hear. Can you hear? You can let me know by smiling a lot at what I say. Not that anything I’ll say is funny, but I love seeing your smile. My favorite father. You’re looking real well. I would’ve been here sooner but the weather in our country’s been so bad the planes couldn’t go. When they did and the kids and I got here, your airport was on strike so we had to land three hundred miles out of the way and bus in here slowly overnight because it snowed. Then I heard what happened to you. But let’s forget about going into that. My husband Lanny sends his best and says he wishes he could’ve also flown here, and the kids heir love. They’re right downstairs, and after all this traveling by trains, planes, buses, cabs and subways and now only an elevator ride away, it’s frustrating for them not to be let up, and unfair. The youngest I wanted to sneak in here under my coat, as he’s never seen you, but if they saw him they might not let me see you again. You’re their one grandpa and what they know of you is only from what I tell them and old snapshots. I don’t know — but am I speaking too much or too fast? Just relax. But nod if you want me to slow down or shut up. I was saying that I don’t know if you knew that Lanny’s folks died in a car crash together when he was a boy. He was in it too but thrown into some soft bushes so somehow survived. Though he did get a broken neck at the time which he still gets headaches from when he stretches too far. The neck too far. Don’t try it again. All right. There it is. Off my chest. But please don’t make me. I mean please don’t, please make me a silent promise and to yourself you won’t ever try it again. I’ve got to know before I go. It’ll also be a stigma for the kids later on. Worse than anything it’ll kill mom for sure. And you and Jay Junior never got along too well, but you should see how he feels about you now. He’s even postponed going back to his children and job and the new girl he’s going to marry, so if for anything get out of here quick for another wedding. And when mom’s here we often get calls at home from all over from people who are concerned about you. Relatives, friends, and don’t worry about the leg. Whatever happens you’ll still always have your good heart and head and your life. Think of new interests you can develop you never had. Music. And if I was in your position I’d read more and draw. I’d draw the doctors and nurses and how I feel about them and what I see in the room and aides and also my leg. And also my face in the mirror, looking like how I felt about myself in such a state. And in the background I’d get the pills and food and needles and curtains and even this blue urinal here. I’d make a study of it, in fact. A whole portrait devoted to it and whatever else is on the table at the time. I’d draw it all. I’d use my ambition, which you always had plenty of for that, and believe me anybody can draw. You’re smiling. Is it what I’m saying’s so funny or do you agree? Anyway, good. And get out. Your body’s still strong. Your internist only wishes he’d be as healthy as you at your age other than for the other things and says they’ll have to both run you over and then beat you to death to finally get you to go. To go from life he meant. And don’t give mom any more pain. Consent to whatever the doctors say. Then everything will be all right. You’ll be all right. We’re not leaving from mom’s till I’m absolutely sure you’re all right. I’m going out for a smoke now so you get some rest. And don’t pinch, oh, just sleep, just rest.

You can’t believe it, Jay. When they heard at the office they all nearly cried. First the prostectomy. That wasn’t so bad. With fifty percent of us supposed to get it, no man should think he’ll be exempt. But that other thing. Hospitals. When I was in. Not this one, the V.A. downtown, good God what a mess. Same thing, only different. Good hospital, I’m not saying that. Our taxes have at least gone for something and our soldiers are getting treated right, but one thing always leads to the next. Went in to get a few boils on my butt cut off and what happens after that? One week is three. Pneumonia it turns out. You’re telling me pneumonia from boils? Then a bad reaction to the antibiotics to cure up the pneumonia. Then I trip over my roommate’s walker — an ex-major — and he breaks his other wrist and me an arm. Get me out of here, I yell, hand-to-hand combat was never as bad as this. Of course my arm’s set wrong and the boils begin to return. Double pneumonia’s on the way, I begin thinking, and even spare me the thought of what’s following next. You think I don’t discharge myself to have my new boils taken off somewhere else? Just got dressed, packed my gear, slipped down the stairway past the guards and reception desk and went to a private doctor in his office, where in a day he did it for me one-two-three. Also reset the arm and sent me home in an ambulance with a free air cushion and all the drugs in my life I’ll ever need. But how they treating you, Jay? Your wife says they’re making up for all their past mistakes by giving you extra-special food and service. Whatever it is you rate, I’ve never seen better-looking nurses. All Orientals it appears, which I think they’d make the sweetest and most competent. Everyone at work’s optimistic that things are at last working out right for you. They’re also getting you up a plant. Chipping in as if you never retired a hundred years ago. Even half the new help who never heard of you, and a box of chocolates as well, though I’m not supposed to tell. I told them but he’s diabetic and one scimpy bite might mean so long our dearest old pal Jaysie, but Betty the great arranger there said, so, he can give the chocolates to his guests. But you suddenly look tired, as if falling asleep on me. Just go ahead, it’s probably what your body most wants you to do. Their chair’s very comfortable, so I’ll sit here and read my paper and maybe take a nap myself.

Good evening. Your operation’s scheduled for tomorrow morning at eight. It’ll take from two to three hours, and naturally you’ll be totally anesthetized the entire time. After the operation you’ll go to recovery room for several hours and then be returned here. You’ll be getting the best after-surgery treatment available, and at home the hospital’s best physical therapists and homecare nursing staff. I also understand you have an excellent nurse in your wife. I would have preferred getting your written permission, but because there isn’t a day to lose with your leg, I’m satisfied with your wife’s okay. I want you to know I’d never operate if your internist didn’t say you’re a thousand times improved since you were admitted with your urine retention and had your prostate removed. And then your self-inflicted development, which you’ve healed faster than expected and have sufficiently recovered from. Let’s be frank. You were here when your wife asked what would happen if the implant didn’t take. I said we’d discuss that bridge if we had to come to it. Well we’re there now and must cross. I told you both at the time that we were one run behind with two out in the ninth with your leg and what I wanted to do, but unfortunately couldn’t, was hit a homerun with a man on. Now it’s a brand new ball game, one much simpler to win and with negligible trial and risk. I can’t think of anything else to tell you, other than you’ll be shaved tonight, wakened at seven and fed no food or fluids till tomorrow’s I.V. If there are no further questions, I’ll see you in the morning when they bring you up at eight.

Come on now. Breathe deep. Breathe deep. Take a deep breath. I said deep breath. Deeper. More. More. That a boy. You’re all right. He’s okay. Only a little scare.

It’s the anesthesia. He’ll be less groggy tonight. What we’ll have to check daily is how his diabetes affects the thigh’s healing. The Parkinson’s pills we’ve taken him off till he’s well on the road to recovery. Closest I can pinpoint for you for a discharge date is a month or so, most likely more. One thing I never like doing is sending my patients home with dressings or packings or where they still must use drugs, drains or pills.

You think he looks bad now? You should have seen him when he was wheeled in. I was the only person in the room. Your mother was having a cigarette in the lounge. Dotty was down in the cafeteria getting coffees and teas for us all. His face was greener than your shirt. We thought for certain it was going to turn blue. The man who wheeled him in didn’t know what to do. I rang for the nurse. The orderly came in and slapped his face around and called for the doctors and oxygen tank. His color’s about back to normal now, but for a few minutes we thought your father was gone.

Dear? Jay darling. What a morning we had. I’m so glad you slept through it all. Last night I couldn’t get a single wink’s sleep. Right now I’m so exhausted I could pass out on my feet. But I won’t leave. Not at least till the night nurse comes. She called in saying she’d be an hour late. Something about her car stuck in the garage. But isn’t it all so grand? You’ll be home by the end of the month, maybe less. More than likely less. The doctor says it was a complete success. But sleep then. Close your eyes if you can. Tomorrow they’ll try and give you real food.

They’re all excited, Jay. With flying colors you passed the test I tell them whenever anyone asks. I reported in sick for the day. Though if they want to know the truth and dock me, then I was right here. I see all the candy’s gone. What kind of vultures you got for guests? And I don’t see the plant and Mrs. Jay says none was delivered. Since Betty said they said it was sent a day ago, maybe I should call her to check.

Now that you’re well on your way to health I’ll be leaving. I’m sure the person I left my fishes and animals with has glutted them, to death. And my boss is beginning to ask what’s up with me. And the kids are screaming daddy, daddy, and my ex-wife Sondra is writing oh, some terrific father you make. Next time I fly in it’ll be good seeing you sitting up again. So goodbye and best wishes and I’ll be phoning mom periodically to hear how you are.

Lil Bird from number ten. I would only drop by when I knew you were feeling well. Now that I know you are, I came over. The whole building misses not seeing you in front, as on the sunnier days. You were a pretty good watchdog against people who shouldn’t be coming around for things that aren’t theirs. Whether you knew that or not, and my husband sends his hellos also. I don’t mean watchdog in the dog sense but as a watching human protector. Seeing someone there might be just what a thief needs to make the wrong person turn around. My husband likes hospitals worse than I do but thought it was our duty. I was undecided at first but happy I did and if you want anything, or the lights turned off, you tell me to tell your wife and I will.

I was your aide on the fifth when you had your prostectomy. I always like to keep posted on my old patients if they’re still around here, my little boys and girls. It’s fabulous what one higher floor can do, so much extra light making the room so much more brighter. And your chart reads fine and your aides tell me you’ve been good as gold. I’m a bit rushed today but if there’s anything you ever think I can do for you, just holler. Ask for Mrs. Lake from floor five, floor five, and goodnight.

You don’t know me. I’m a patient across the hall. Only some polyps removed. Now that I’m here they’re giving me the round of tests. I only wanted to pop in when nobody was around to wish all the good luck to you. And also to say you got one raw deal and have every right to sue. Not that you’ll collect a cent from suing hospitals. Though you will get the satisfaction knowing they might think twice about being as careless with the leg of someone else.

This must seem so very silly to you. My writing a letter like this almost a week to the day after I wrote a similar letter about almost the exact same thing. What’s different this time is that instead of using a pen I’m typing on my machine. The portable I treated myself to ten or so years ago and which has almost never been touched, which accounts for it being so stuck, though it’s probably also in need of a cleaning. Somehow the dirt must have seeped into it through the portable case. I’m typing to you because I have to. I can’t read and writing by pen is too slow and games like solitaire and needlework and talking to strangers here just won’t help. I suppose I’m making a lot of noise. Not noise like complaints but typewriter noise. Sitting here in the visitor’s lounge on Jay’s floor, I’m sure it must only be my mind where I think they can hear me in the patients’ rooms and hallways and at the nurses’ station, though the nurses have assured me they can’t. And there are closed doors to this room and the walls are padded with soundproof squares and the typewriter is supposedly a silent. I haven’t checked with any of the other patients, though Jay I know can’t hear me as last time I looked he was fast asleep with enough drugs to keep him that way for a while. The only visitors in here I’ve asked said go ahead, type all you want. As you know from your experiences with Abe in hospitals, people here are much more tolerant and kind. The typewriter is on my lap. It doesn’t weigh more than six pounds. The way I’ve balanced it I can type without discomfort and with ease. The children, thinking the worst had come and gone with their father, had gone back to their individual homes. Jay has done it again. This is the story. He tried killing himself again. He’s recovering now. I caught him as I had the last time. This time lying on the floor instead of in the bed, tubes winding every which way around his arms and legs, and a needle from one in his hand with which he just managed to give himself a pinprick. I had got this strange feeling about him as I had before. I called his floor. The nurse said she couldn’t check since she was the only one on duty, but when she looked during her rounds the hour before he was doing fine. I begged her to check again. She said all right, maybe she would. Everything is still fine, she reported back to me, he’s sleeping well. But like the last time I couldn’t take her even rechecking him as a suitable enough answer, and certainly not since that last time, and I took a cab over. It was around 4 A.M. The woman at the hospital reception desk asked what did I want? I said I only wanted to wait in the waiting room on the first floor till the regular permitted visitor’s time, which is 10 A.M. She said do as you like as long as you don’t go upstairs before. I waited for about five minutes. She couldn’t see anything that was happening behind her except through a small mirror. Then when she wasn’t looking I climbed the five flights. A nurse followed me down Jay’s floor asking what did I think I was doing going to his room? There he was. She knew now what I had come for. Saved again. He looked at me crossly. If he could have spoken I’m sure he would have insulted me and scorned. Not for long though, as they soon gave him sedatives to sleep. The nurse and I lifted him onto the bed. The tubes and needle were easy for her to replace and stick back in and the hand wound just took a band-aid. The doctors were called, but it wasn’t that necessary. All they did was strap his wrists to the bedrails with bandages and assign an orderly to his room as a guard. Jay at first refused all sedatives by mouth, so they had to give it in his veins. He had done it by taking down the bed rail and rolling off the mattress onto the floor. I can understand how he feels. But the doctors told him what about your wife if you try it again or were even successful at it one of the last two times? I think he understands now. He promised to everyone he’ll never try it again. But who can say? What’s a promise worth these days? But once he’s medically released from here I’ve been told to institutionalize him for life. In a nursing home or a good asylum if there’s one. The government will pay the whole cost or close to it I’ve been told. Doctors, nurses, my friends and his few old friends and even his own children have urged me to do it. They’ve said mom, you can’t handle that man. It’ll be too much for you and ruin your own health. He has to be watched all the time. And you have the authority now, everybody tells me, as his past two attempts gave you that. But I could never be that cruel.