Daniel stepped out of the shower and, for the first time since he’d moved to New York, got the nerve to look at himself in the full-length mirror. Like most people, he wasn’t thrilled with what greeted him. He’d put on weight. The scales told him fifteen pounds in the last three months.
Back in Florida, Daniel had left a family full of gun-toting rednecks, a couple of misguided college degrees, an ex-boyfriend who had kept their dog and 75% of their shared belongings. He’d taken what was left and packed it in his Honda, driven to New York and sold the car the day after he arrived.
A new job presented itself and for the first time in his life, when one of his co-workers asked if he was gay, he wasn’t afraid to say yes.
But life in New York wasn’t Punta Gorda, and he missed Chris. Hated Chris, but still missed him.
Freezing rain stung his face as he trudged through runoff on his way to work. The only coat he owned wasn’t near warm enough for the weather and he couldn’t seem to make himself leave the apartment on his days off to buy another one. So he walked briskly, and was near out of breath when the hospital’s glass doors slid open to capture him.
The floor was understaffed for that night, as always. Since he was new and not yet in the charge nurse’s good graces, he got six patients instead of five and was stuck with the guy in 317 for the third night in a row.
Nobody wanted to take the guy in 317. He was dying. Of something unknown and frightening. Daniel had to dress in isolation gear to simply go in and turn off a beeping monitor – something the patient had learned would get him company if he wanted it. A dangerous empowerment. Daniel watched as the patient lifted his gown with clumsy hands and pulled off a telemetry lead.
“Time to go, Daniel,” one of the other nurses’ snickered. Daniel grabbed an armful of supplies and gowned up. The patient moaned. Daniel stared out past him to the window, to the rain drops and light reflecting from the hospital sign. He thought of Chris and wondered if there was another man sleeping in their old bed.
“You have to stop pulling off those leads, Mr. Price.”
“What?”
Daniel dumped a cup of medications onto the side table which was packed down with old People magazines. The insulin syringe landed on Bruce Jenner’s perfect hair. “I stood there and watched you do it. You have to stop. We need to monitor your heart. If you need something-”
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Until Daniel left the room, that was. He exhaled and began popping pills from their blister packs.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Tim Price. May 16th, 1952. It’s Saturday, February 7th, 1981, and that scumbag Reagan is president.” Tim drew in a shaky breath. “I’m getting better at it. As long as Reagan doesn’t get shot or something and no one tells me. The TV’s busted.”
“I can call maintenance-”
“You offered to call maintenance last night.”
Daniel stopped. A pill dropped from his hand into the bed but he didn’t retrieve it. Had he offered? He didn’t even remember.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Price, I’ll call. I promise.” He shook his head. The sudden urge to cry came and went. He inhaled deeply and smelled sterile soap and the bitterness of insulin.
“Call me Tim. That’s okay. No one’s here tonight anyway. Besides, I’m getting very fond of the drama between Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal.”
Daniel smiled but didn’t feel it.
“Here’s your pills.” Daniel handed over the cup and Tim downed them in a single swallow with no water. “Don’t you want to know what was in there?”
“Does it matter?”
Daniel shrugged. Filled the water pitcher from the sink and shed the gown and gloves and mask.
“I’ll be back to check on you.”
“Leaving so soon?”
“I have five other patients to see. I’m sorry.”
Tim nodded, waved him off. Daniel met and drugged five more patients before the woman across the hall decided to go numb on her left side. Alerts were called, doctors came and went. The patient was hauled off to another floor and Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. A stack of paperwork awaited him during his lunch hour.
A blissful twenty minutes without interruption. He plowed into a greasy hospital cafeteria burger so fast stomach acid shot up into his throat minutes later. He popped two Tums.
The clock hit three and Daniel returned to make rounds again. He stood at the counter and made eye contact with the still awake patient in 317. Daniel watched as the patient lifted his gown and popped off the tele lead. Daniel slammed a chart into its holder and stood at the threshold of the door, arms folded.
“I asked you not to do that.”
“You said you’d be back.” Tim’s voice was ragged, breathy.
Daniel sighed quietly. “I’m back now. Did you need something? The TV? I’ll call maintenance.”
“No. You don’t have to do that. Farrah and Ryan, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Methodically, Daniel dressed again at the door. He walked to the window where outside a layer of ice had appeared on the city below. Lights from Manhattan just east of them shone through a haze like the stars of rural Florida. He remembered a night under those constellations next to Chris and his heart squeezed tight.
“Is it pretty out? I can hear the rain.”
Daniel had forgotten someone was there. Ambulance sirens called in the distance.
“It looks icy. I’ve never seen it like that before.”
“You haven’t? Where’ve you been?”
“This is my first winter here. I’m from Florida.” Daniel made his way to Tim’s bed, straightening the stack of magazines on his table.
“Florida? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Daniel was silent. He took the magazines to the window and cleaned off the fake-wood surface of the table with a bleach wipe.
“Oh,” Tim said, nodding. “There was someone in Florida. A boy?”
Daniel hesitated, then replied, “Yes.”
“Mmm, I don’t know that I’d leave Florida, even if I had to get away from a boy. Because there’s plenty of other boys in Florida.”
“But only one that I wanted.” Daniel did smile, but it hurt more than it didn’t. Tim smiled back.
Tim tried to sit up, and his arms shook underneath him. Daniel grabbed him from under his shoulders and pulled. He weighed no more than a hundred pounds, probably as tall as he, and roughly the same age. He looked like a skeleton, skin stretched thin across sharp bones.
“Sit down for a minute.” Tim’s breathing became rapid. He gestured to the chair next to the bed, covered with blankets.
“Are you okay?” Daniel grabbed the oxygen tubing from the wall and placed it around Tim’s ears. “Breathe through your nose.”
Tim did as instructed. His swollen stomach rose and fell until it synced back into a normal rhythm.
“Please sit.”
Daniel frowned, looked from the chair to the patient and back. He collected the linens and sat. His nursing instructor would never have forgiven him.
“You’ve had a rough night. What happened to that patient across the hall?”
“I’m not allowed to say.” Daniel’s stomach still burned from his awful lunch. What did he think he was doing anyway? A load of work awaited him outside the room.
“Oh yes, privacy and all that. Sorry. Well, I hope she or he is okay.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t want me to call respiratory?”
“No. I signed the paperwork. I guess you know that already.”
He did. Or did he? Yes, he had it written on his paper. The one sitting outside the door. DNR.
“They gave me a nice bracelet and everything.” He flung his thin wrist into the air where a plastic blue bracelet dangled. “So tell me about the boy.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Daniel said. Tim’s face drew closed and Daniel felt a tug at his gut. “We’ll say he’s a bastard and leave it at that.”
Tim smiled. “There we go. I’m sure you left all kinds of men in your wake. He’s a bastard indeed.”
Daniel felt his face flush. There hadn’t been all kinds of men. Just the one. And he was a bastard.
“You know, I’m not sure I can do this.” Tim’s breathing remained difficult. His hand fumbled for Daniel’s in the semi-darkness. He clutched him, squeezed so tight Daniel felt his bones crack.
“Do what? We can call the social worker…”
“No, not that. I am a little scared. I’d wanted to be all brave an everything, but I don’t think I can do it. Is it bad to be scared?”
“No. Of course not. I’d be scared too.” He said it and immediately wanted to take it back. Wasn’t he supposed to be an objective party in all this?
“You would?”
“Sure.” Daniel cleared his throat. “Do you, maybe, want me to stay for a little while?”
“Would you?” Tim’s face crumbled. “I’m sorry for being such a prick. I hate being alone in this fucking room.”
Daniel held tight to Tim’s hand. “Do you want me to call someone for you?”
“There’s no one to call.”
They sat in silence, save the bustling of the nurses’ station outside. Daniel heard his patient from next door call his name and the aide put him back to bed. Like fine grains of sand, sleet hit the window.
Tim’s breathing labored again. Daniel removed his hand and turned the oxygen flow up. “I can give you a dose of morphine. For the breathing, if you want it.”
Tim shook his head. “Not yet.”
He could’ve told him that morphine was for air hunger too, not just pain. But he didn’t. Instead he removed his glove and resumed care of Tim’s hand. Cold and wet.
“Where will I go, do you think?”
“Um…” Daniel hesitated.
“I mean, where will they take my body? I asked to be cremated.”
“Can you have a friend pick it up?” Daniel’s throat closed at the word “it.” Tim’s face remained steady. “Your family, maybe?”
“No.” He turned to Daniel. “What about you? Will you take it?”
“What? I don’t know if I can.” Daniel shook his head.
“Why not? You don’t want to?”
“It’s not that.” Daniel cleared his throat. “I’ll ask.”
“Will you?”
“Yeah.”
He’d ask, but what would they say? How do you ask if you can have your patient’s ashes? Daniel was too honest to simply tell Tim he’d do it and then not. His head ached.
The charge nurse knocked on the door, asked Daniel to step outside but he refused. Said he was with a patient. Her face tightened and she stomped off to the nurses’ station.
“Is there… Is there anything in particular you’d like to be done? You know, with your ashes?”
Tim’s face lightened. What remained of his brows rose. “I love the beach. The beach. Anywhere.” His words disjointed, breathing still rapid.
Daniel nodded. Held his hand for another half an hour until Tim fell asleep. Daniel pulled away, stood, replaced the blankets on the chair. He left the sleeping patient and went back to the harshness of the world outside. Again, he shed his skin and wondered what it was like to spend your last days in a room so isolated you were kept even from a window to watch the rest of the world go by.
He finished his shift, gave report to a grumpy dayshift nurse and went to the cafeteria. Had coffee. Waited. Didn’t know what to do. He was sure there was paperwork, but he didn’t know how to approach it. Fatigue pulled at his eyes and he went back home.
Tim never did wake that morning, Daniel discovered as he came into work that night. Never woke and died around eight o’clock when Daniel was in the shower, patting his soft belly and wondering how to claim a box of ashes. Just a few minutes before he took a box of photos from Florida and dumped them in the trash outside. Just before he went for a run in the briskness of early morning, felt the extra weight he’d been carrying disappear from his body.
Lucy McKee is a part time writer and full time RN living in Kansas City. Her distractions include two dogs, two cats, and lots of half-finished knitting projects.
–Art by Denis Olivier