Plague

CHAPTER 16

Ele Henano sat in the back of Queen’s Medical Center with Tiffany Leath and smoked pot from a joint. The weed was freshly picked from his grandmother’s backyard and it had a purple tinge that you could see in the fading sunlight.

They smoked half the joint and then leaned back on the old lawn chairs they’d taken out of a patio storage closet. He’d found that if he smoked more than half a joint with another person, people could usually tell something was wrong. He’d been fired from one job previously because his boss, the head nurse, could instantly tell he was high. The smell, the red eyes, the greenish tongue, he could hide all of those. But he couldn’t hide his goofy personality or the giggles that pot gave him.

“What’d you do this weekend?” he said, passing a Gatorade to her.

“I met some guy at a bar and hung out with him.”

“Just hung out.”

“We fucked around, but nothin’ too hot. He got all limp ‘cause we smoked too much weed.”

Ele giggled. “That’s why you need a real man.”

“I don’t mess around with people I work with,” she said, taking a swig of the drink and handing it back. “I got fired from my last job doing that.”

“Where at?”

“It was a psychiatric hospital on the mainland. It was pretty fucked up. This one patient was a soldier in World War Two and he had a head injury. So to change his diaper, you had to play the national anthem ‘cause he would stand up and salute. And then you just had to hurry and change it ‘cause otherwise he’d fight you. Then there was this one dude that thought cats had filled his room. He thought he had like thirty cats in there and you had to be careful where you walked ‘cause if you stepped on one of his cats he’d attack you.”

“Man. That sounds fucked up, yo.”

“It wasn’t fun. But they paid good. ‘Cause you got your hair pulled and got gassed and shit. You know what gassing is?”

He shook his head.

“It’s where they shit or piss or both and then throw it at your face. Some a the patients gassed the staff all the time so with some of ‘em you had to wear gasmasks. If I ever get old, just fucking shoot me.”

Ele took a deep breath. “Ready to go back?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They went inside and up to the locker rooms. Ele went into the men’s and changed into a fresh pair of scrubs. He brushed his teeth, used eyedrops, and washed his hands and his face. He ran some cold water through his hair-he knew the hair could hold the scent of marijuana as good as anything-and then dried off with some paper towels and headed into the corridor. Tiffany was already waiting for him.

He had hit her up at a party once when they first started hanging out, but she didn’t show any interest. She said it was because she didn’t date people she worked with but Ele didn’t believe that. She only dated white guys, never islanders. He wondered why she would move to Hawaii if she didn’t like Hawaiians but people were like that he guessed. They came out here for all sorts of reasons and few of them made any sense to him. Hawaii was expensive, you made less money, many of the locals didn’t like whites, and it was difficult to get all the conveniences of the mainland. But the grass was always greener. While people were trying to move in, he was desperately trying to move out, but money was always an issue.

“Where you gotta go?” Tiffany asked.

“Up to six.”

“Nuh uh. I thought no one was supposed to go up there?”

“Nah, they got barriers set up. You just can’t touch the people. What you think they’re sick with?”

“I heard it was AIDS.”

“That don’t make sense ‘cause I heard Dr. Hennessey saying that patients were getting infected faster than they thought they would. So AIDS wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really care. I just wanna get outta here and chill with a bottle a wine at my house.”

They passed the elevators and Ele said goodbye and hopped on. He headed to six, where the patients were quarantined, and when he stepped off the elevator he grabbed some rubber gloves that were hanging in a box on the wall. Several nurses were up here but they wore facemasks and plastic suits over their scrubs. He didn’t get any of that because he was only here to empty the trash.

He went from room to room, trying to catch a glimpse of the patients. No one told the orderlies anything and there were a lot of rumors about what exactly was wrong with them. In one room was a young woman who lay back with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He would’ve thought that she was dead but her chest kept moving. It creeped him out and he left and went into the room next door.

This one had an older man with a bald head and a big pot belly. He was laughing with one of the nurses who was preparing a meal for him and he smiled to Ele when he walked in.

The man’s name was Phillip Bourde and he’d been committed to level six yesterday when he had vomited blood and displayed a rash over his chest and arms.

“How you doin’ today, Ele?”

“Good, boss. You?”

“Oh hangin’ in there. Did you see the Chargers play last night?”

“Nah I was with my girl and she hates football,” Ele said as he began emptying the trash.

The nurse said a few things to the man about relaxing and not stressing himself and then left as Ele went into the small bathroom that was off to the side of the room and emptied the trash there. Water had splashed onto the sink and he began to clean it with supplies that he carried with him on a belt.

“What’s your girl like?” Phil yelled.

“She just one a my girls. She cool. Big fake tits.”

Philip laughed. “Thatta boy. You get ‘em while you can. When you hit my age if a woman even smiles at you, you think it’s your lucky day.”

Ele stepped out of the bathroom. “So how’s everythin’ lookin’? Doctor got good news?”

“They haven’t talked to me since last night except to tell me I can’t have any visitors and they gotta put this plastic sheet over my bed. But I guess no news is good news.”

“Well you look good. I’m sure it’s just the flu or somethin’.”

“I hope so. I’ve been feelin’ stronger today so hopefully it was just a bug. Hey, do me a favor, will ya, Ele? My phone’s in my pants pocket over there. Can you hand it to me?”

“Yeah.”

Ele walked to the stack of clothes on a shelf and pulled down the jeans. He took off his gloves and ruffled through the pockets until he found a Blackberry. He walked over to the bed.

A chart and a set of instructions hung on a clipboard next to the bed. Ele noticed that notes were scribbled in on a few lines near the bottom of the page. One note said, MEETING LAST NIGHT ABOUT HANDLING PROCEDURES. He wondered what that was about. He’d found that meetings for nurses, doctors, and staff were frequent but that usually they forgot to notify the orderlies and custodians to attend. Or, it was done on purpose.

He moved the clipboard so he could open the plastic canopy hanging from the ceiling over the bed.

“Thanks,” Philip said, taking it from him.

“I gotta run. You take care, boss.”

“You too. Get some T and A for the both of us.”

As Ele left the room to head down the corridor, he checked his cell phone for messages and emails. He had an itch on the corner of his eye and he rubbed it with his finger, and put the phone away.