Brizzles Basket

I work at a nursing home. I arrive there today at the last minute. I open my car door and immediately a rooster greets me.

Yep. A rooster. I work off of Hurstbourne Lane. There’s miles of shopping, heavy traffic. It’s an area where you don’t expect to encounter roosters.

This one’s red, a bit on the thin side and doesn’t want to let me pass. I fake to my right and then cut left to get around it. I enter a side door and find the usual mob gathered around.

“HI, BILL!” Wilson screams. I fall and trip over old people while trying to get to the time clock before it clicks 2:31.

Ahhh, I made it. It’s then that I notice how hot the place is. The new air conditioner is still not installed. I put my book bag down.

Reba sidles over and rolls her eyes up at me. “I’m glad you came curry curr standin’. I need to go to daddy’s and fortitude with you maybe.”

I have come to the conclusion Reba could be an Al Quaida operative, or maybe in cahoots with my first wife. Driving me totally mad seems to be her main purpose in life. I’m tempted to tell our government about her. She could be quite a helpful tool. Put her in a cell at Abu Ghraib or some such place with a terrorist you want information from and I guarantee in 30 minutes he’ll be singing like a drunk Supreme and reminiscing about the good old days, when beatings and sexual humiliation were all he had to suffer.

“Reba, please, I have to get a report.”

“Well, I know you do, but all in all you could fly forth.”

I ignore the crazy old crone and turn to the day nurse on duty. She looks utterly wilted as she tells me about a new admit in 203. “Polly Spencer. She’s continent and ambulatory and as crazy as the rest of them,” Day Nurse says.

“There’s a rooster in the parking lot,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says. “It’s been out there awhile.” The day nurse gathers her purse and keys.

“It looks hungry,” I say to no one in particular.

Day Nurse tells me to have a good day and hurries out.

I count narcotics with Bobby, the cute Cuban CMT. Today he looks flushed and sweat beads his nice forehead. “Jonquil Doonan has name the bird Randall,” he says.

“Randall The Rooster. I like it,” I say.

I open the cart. Bobby punches out and I watch him weave his way through the old people and leave.

Reba is again at my side. “Wind for swing to the store and cracked corn?” she asks.

“I have no idea what you’re asking, Reba.” I open my medication book.

“Well, if it’s hungry feathers wide open, feed it.”

“I can’t go to the store, Reba, and that Rooster is not my responsibility,” I tell her.

“Well, somebody did for too long a time and it could die.”

I sigh and start getting medicines together. Reba moves away. A woman I’ve never seen is walking slowly toward me. I figure she must be Polly Spencer.

“Can I help you?”

She narrows her eyes. “You killed Marvin.”

I roll my eyes heavenward.

“RUNNERS!” Wilson screams, and points to the glass doors.

I run. Shit! Reba and Jonquil have followed the lab guy out.

Wilson pounds the arms of his wheelchair. “GET ‘EM, BILL!”

By the time I punch in the code and dash through both sets of glass doors, Reba and Jonquil have broken into a jog. I quickly catch up to them.

I run alongside Reba for a minute or so. She looks over and smiles.

“Where are you going?” I ask, casually.

“I need to fly around to Daddy’s… ”

“Is that where you’re going too, Jonquil?”

Jonquil smiles and nods. She’s even smaller than Reba.

“Come on ladies, I know the way!” I say excitedly and run ahead of them.

They look at each other, like “is this the greatest guy in the world or what?”

I jog them through the flower garden, around the back and straight into the building.

A door slams shut and locks behind us and Reba skids to a stop. Jonquil crashes into her.

“This is where they trolley back and began!” Reba says disgustedly.

Drenched in sweat, I return to my cart and look at the clock. Only 18 minutes of my workday have passed.

“BILL CALL THE KKKKKKITCHEN AND FFFFFFIND OUT WHAT WE’RE HAVING FOR SSSSSSSUPPER,” Wilson starts his ordering me around shit. I go to the phone. I talk to someone in dietary and hang up.

“Fried chicken, Wilson.”

“FFFFFFried cccccchhhhhhicken on Tuesday?”

“That’s what they said, Wilson.”

Don Davis steps into the hallway. He has an accordion strapped to the front of him. Don can’t remember his room number or his daughter’s name but he can play 23 different polkas. Apparently in no mood for polkas today he tears into “In the Sweet By and By.”

Reba’s at my elbow again. “This ain’t Daddy’s place,” she says, like, ”you bastard.”

“Reba, go sit down.”

“Well you ran and mere blister pack to quick where we started. I know that!”

“I couldn’t leave you outside, Reba.”

And so it goes for a while.

At around four o’clock, I sneak out back for a smoke. I see the four hunky, mouth-breathers that’ve been working at installing the new air conditioner are chilling in a van.

I put my cigarette out and go back in. Another hour slogs by.

We’re not suppose to give anyone medication while they’re eating, but I sometimes do. The dining room is pretty crowded today. Mrs. Beeker smiles at me. “Did you know we’re having fried chicken for supper?” she asks.

“I did know that,” I tell her.

“It’s Tuesday,” she says, and shrugs her shoulders.

“I know, Flora. Doesn’t it seem strange to you we’re having fried chicken on a Tuesday, and that rooster out front has suddenly gone missing?”

“Oh, you don’t think… ”

“I don’t know, Flora. Draw whatever conclusions you want,” I say.

“You’re bad!” Carolyn Coffman says. Carolyn, only 41 years old, has suffered a massive stroke. Her right side is as firm and supple as a hard-working dancer’s. Her left side is as stiff and useless as a nerd’s dick. You can see that once, not too long ago, both of her sides were pretty.

At a nearby table Jonquil takes the lid off her tray. She stares at a fried wing and thigh. “RANDALL!” she wails and throws the lid straight up in the air.

Wilson spits out a mouth full of chicken and I hurry out of the dining room.

I get back to my cart. Relentless Reba is waiting for me.

“Do you have time to take mooser foo toward Floyd County?”

I glare at her.

“Well, all I asked was!”

“GO SIT DOWN,” I say through clenched teeth.

Reba’s eyes go all mean. She shakes her head, turns, and I’m pretty sure she mumbles, “You don’t want no fucking Jihad up in this mother!” as she walks away.

Waiting To Die Manor has a number of bird feeders mounted on poles. While everyone is at supper, I go out, open them all and scatter birdseed around the parking lot. Randall watches me from under a bush.

As my residents finish eating, they stop by my cart and line up like geriatric junkies to get their meds.

At 10:15 most everyone is in bed. It’s still unbearably hot on my wing and I’m trying to finish my paperwork. Abigail Fischer rounds a corner.

“Hey woman.” I smile.

“Hi, Bill. I want to use the phone. I need to call Money Grubbin’ Whore.”

I hand Abigail the phone.

Polly Spencer peers over the high desk. “You got by with killing Sheila and the baby but you’ll never get away with Marvin’s murder,” she says.

I ignore her. She eventually turns around and heads down the hall to her room.

While talking to her daughter-in-law, Abigail grows frustrated. “I don’t want to talk about that. That’s the PAST and I refuse to talk it. I don’t want to talk about a future that may never take place, either, but we can talk about the present if you want. I fucking love talking about the present. I even think it’s a great name for it, don’t you? The present, you know, present — like a nice, unexpected gift. I’ve always said screw yesterday and screw tomorrow, but unwrap today, and every damn day you get, one at a time and then treat each of them like the gift from God they are.”

I finish my work and check the time. 10:29. I grab my book bag and at 10:30 I punch out. My testicles feel like two marbles in an old gym sock after eight hours of unspeakable heat.

Nearing my car I see Randall is pacing in front of the driver’s side door. “You should be in bed,” I tell him. “Don’t you like have to be up at the crack of dawn?”

I go around and climb in on the passenger side and scoot over and behind the wheel. I start the engine.

“In the sweeeeet… by and byyyyyyyyy… we will meet on that beautiful shore… .” While driving home Don’s damn accordion plays in my head.

I climb the few steps to my front door and put my key in the lock. Cool air hits me as I step inside my apartment. Max is back-flips-glad to see me. A smiling D-Brizzle greets me, too.

“How was your day, Dad?”

“It was Hell, like usual. Like “Night Of The Living Dead” meets The fucking “Golden Girls… ”

“Unwrap today and every damn day you get… one at a time and then treat each one like the gift from God they are,” I remember Abigail’s words and smile at my son.

“Actually, Dan, my day was fine.” I change my mind.

“How was yours?” I ask.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Pills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.