Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

BUILDING 60

— Do you know why you’re here?

— No. Are you going to hurt me?

— No. But I need answers quick. There isn’t much time left.

— Okay.

— You know the hospital where I found you — were you working there in 2012?

— Yes.

— What is your position there?

— I’m director of patient access.

— Good. Good. That’s what I thought.

— How did you get me here?

— You remember getting into the elevator down to the garage?

— Yes. That was you.

— Yes. Then chloroform and a thirty-minute drive. You were the easiest, next to my mom. Now listen. Some of the people out here have been here for days, so this has to be quick. Do you remember Don Banh?

— No. Are you planning to hurt me?

— Let me spell his name, because I don’t think you know how it was pronounced. B-A-N-H.

— Wait. The guy who was shot by the cops?

— Exactly.

— You knew him?

— I did. Do you remember me?

— You must be the guy who … The arson case.

— No. That wasn’t me.

— What’s your name?

— It doesn’t matter. But I knew Don. Do you remember seeing me the night he was brought in?

— I don’t know. Maybe. It was chaotic.

— But do you remember his mother?

— Yes.

— Do you remember denying her access to her son?

— No. I didn’t deny her. Immediate family is always allowed to visit.

— Listen. I should have prefaced all of this by saying that you need to tell me everything and right away. I haven’t harmed anyone so far, I haven’t hurt the astronaut, but you provoke me when you lie. You’re not behind that desk anymore. Now we have to tell the truth.

— I’m sorry.

— Are you ready now?

— Yes.

— So why didn’t you let Don’s mom see her son?

— The police told me it was a security risk.

— A security risk to let her see her dying son?

— Yes. But it wasn’t my decision. There were a bunch of cops there, and they were talking to the head of the hospital, and I was just a girl at a desk.

— But you called security on her.

— I was told to call security, yes.

— And they removed Don’s mother from the hospital.

— Yes.

— And I wasn’t allowed to enter the building.

— Right.

— You remember me now?

— Yes.

— Thank you. I’m glad you do. When was Don’s mom allowed to reenter the hospital?

— I don’t know.

— Never. She was never allowed to reenter. She first saw her son when he was at the morgue. After the cops had done whatever they needed to do. They said he was only shot three times.

— That had nothing to do with me. But I can understand your frustration, and that it drove you to set the building on fire.

— I told you I didn’t do that.

— Okay.

— Did you know that something untoward was happening in the hospital while you were preventing Don’s mom and me and everyone else from entering?

— No. I didn’t know anything at all. I was told that the patient was in critical condition and that we needed to limit the flow of people in the ER.

— But he wasn’t in the ER.

— He started in the ER and then was moved to the critical care unit.

— And this unit had a half-dozen cops guarding it.

— I don’t know about that. I work on the first floor, and the critical care unit is on the second floor.

— But what do you believe was happening up there?

— I don’t know.

— What have you heard?

— Nothing.

— You lie. It’s way too late to start lying.

— I heard that the police were worried about the whole thing.

— Explain that.

— They shot him a lot. I don’t know. This is all just rumors.

— You know the paramedics.

— Yes. I knew them.

— You knew them for years, right?

— Yes.

— And what did they say? How many bullets did they say they saw in Don?

— I really don’t know.

— Tell me what you heard.

— They said seventeen.

— I knew it. And all this time, you never told anyone that.

— I couldn’t. And it wouldn’t have helped anyone.

— Now do you know why I tried to burn down your hospital?

— Everyone assumed it was you.

— You prevented a mother from seeing her son. I was thrown out of the building, too. You sealed his records, everything. You were complicit in a horrific lie.

— What was I supposed to do? The guy was dying. He died within three hours of being admitted. There was no way to save him. It was incredible that he was alive at all when they brought him in. So nothing I could have done would have changed that outcome.

— But the police covered this up. They made it look like they exercised restraint, twelve cops and only three bullets. But we know it was more. We know they shot the fuck out of him — I heard at least ten times. And there were no repercussions for any of those cops.

— Listen. All of that is far beyond my purview.

— Your purview? Your purview? It’s the Hippocratic oath, right? Does that involve the truth? You perpetrated a lie.

— I perpetrated nothing. And I’m not a doctor. I don’t do that oath.

— You’re disgusting.

— You’re saying that because I heard some rumor from a paramedic I was somehow part of a big conspiracy? If you people wanted so badly to know what happened to the guy, his mom shouldn’t have pushed so hard to have him cremated so soon. She cremated away all the evidence.

— Okay, this is why I tried to burn your hospital. First of all, my friend was dying inside your hospital and you wouldn’t let me see him. Even when he was dead, you wouldn’t let me see him, even when his mother gave her consent. Second, I stayed at the hospital for two days after he died, trying to get in and trying to help Don’s mom get the hospital records and trying to talk to anyone who worked there. But you set your fucking security stooges on me every time, and one of them hit me in the head with a flashlight. Third, you fucking terrible person, Don’s mom never asked for him to be cremated. She had no idea that was happening. They delivered a little box to her, with Don inside, and she had no idea what it was. It was some woman from the funeral home delivering this box to her. But she’d never ordered a cremation. Why would Mrs. Banh order a cremation? She wanted to find out what happened to him. She and I had been talking about it for two days, that once Don’s body was released from the hospital we’d get an independent autopsy done. Then one day she shows up asking about his body, and you, and I swear to god it was you, you look on your computer and tell her he’s been cremated.

— That was me.

— I knew it.

— I was reading a computer screen. I didn’t order the cremation.

— But now are you putting this all together?

— Yes I am.

— Do you know the kinds of crimes you were part of now? First a man is shot for holding a steak knife in his backyard. Then we find out he’s shot seventeen times. Then the cops won’t let his mom see him. Then they burn his body without her permission.

— But she must have signed some form.

— She can’t write in English! They signed it for her. They claimed that she asked for cremation verbally, and then she signed the form. And they thought they were so fucking clever, because they had a Vietnamese woman with limited English, so they could always claim it was some misunderstanding. And you know what else? Your fucking paramedic friends stole his watch.

— That’s not a surprise.

— I bet it isn’t. They steal all the time, don’t they? They stole the dead guy’s watch, probably for the same reason that the fuckers forged her signature on the cremation forms. They figured she couldn’t advocate for herself. She’s some helpless Vietnamese woman. And he’s some kid with bullets in his body. If the paramedics take his watch, they can blame it on the cops, or vice versa. I mean, you guys have a top-to-bottom system of wrecking all hopes of humanity. You strip bare every vestige of dignity.

— I think you know that isn’t true. The case with your friend was incredibly rare. And everyone was very scared.

— You threw a body in an oven to hide the evidence.

— I didn’t do that. I had nothing to do with that.

— You were complicit.

— You think your friend is the only terrible thing that’s ever happened in a hospital? I’ve worked in some good ones, but this hospital we’re talking about is a mess of a place. There are disgusting things every day, and dignity is not an option. It’s a river of human decay and mistakes made in haste. People die every day for reasons no one could ever justify. Too much of this drug, not enough of that. People come in with a cold and leave dead. And above it all we have a code of silence driven by fear.

— Oh God.

— We do more good than harm, for sure, but …

— You know, when your friend is transported from his backyard, full of bullets, to a hospital, you think he’s going to a more honorable place. There are these places where we expect honor, and cleanliness, and a code of conduct. But every day there’s another one of these places that slips from the list. It’s a damned short list now, you know that?

— I do know that.

— I have an astronaut here who did everything he was told to do and it got him nowhere. He’s one example. He reaches the pinnacle of his field and they give him a punch in the gut. On the other end of the scale there’s Don, who wanted to be left alone, who was confused, and the price of being confused in this world is seventeen bullets in your own backyard.