CHAPTER 18

As the handwriting was on the wall, it soon became the general attitude of all the patients to relax and live it up, as they had never done before. One fellow came up with an amazing idea that was to cause one of the married patients trouble. The sixteen-millimeter motion picture projection machine was routinely left locked on the ward in order to avoid the necessity of having to transport it back and forth from the recreational building for our routine biweekly movies. As access to the keys for the closet where the machine was kept was no problem one of the boys brought in some burlesque films that he wanted to show to the fellows to cheer everyone up. They weren’t “French” or pornographic in any sense of the word, but the same type of grade Z entertainment that you see live in any burlesque house in any state, but New York.
There were female visitors on that ward, and not one of them said anything even after our semi-illicit, semi-secret, but not so bad showing had begun. The wife of one of the patients suddenly jumped up out of her chair, and began to push him from the ward. He let out an agonizing scream that was more than loud enough for all to hear. When deciphered it sounded something like this, “But honey, what’s the matter? It’s not a dirty movie.” He elicited this reply from her, “I don’t care what you or the Johnson Office say, you’re not going to look at those women’s legs.” She then promptly and swiftly pushed him into the nurses’ offices and sat down in a chair where she could keep her eyes glued on him during the entire showing. We felt a little sorry for him as he was a quadraparaplegic, and couldn’t fight back even though he was supposed to be the master of his household. It was an ironic but heartwarming thing to see this display of affection, for many a girl has broken off her engagement, or divorced her husband simply because of his paralysis. Here was a woman who had taken her vows, and truly meant to keep them. She was even jealous of celluloid rivals.
Tommy was her husband’s name, and he was the only patient who was truly unhappy that night. Our personnel had had their gripes also, but for much different reasons. With the closing of the hospital they were forced to face the same problems that all human beings do: “How to make a living.” Being old-timers in the Veterans’ Administration Hospital System and accustomed to its high salaries, they were hesitant about leaving its benevolent shelter. The Veterans’ Administration, despite the unhappiness or inconvenience that it may have forced upon some of its employees, had to maintain a network of first-rate hospitals clear across the nation. When it came to applying for transfers to other Veterans’ Administration establishments, the girls found themselves being offered jobs in such far away places as Kentucky and North Dakota. The hospital in Kentucky was located in a little city called “Outwood,” but the girls’ displeasure soon had them changing the name to “Outhouse, Kentucky.” In plain language, it was a place they wanted to go, but only as a desperate last measure.
Those were terribly painful days, but the girls decided to stick it out the best they could until the new Veterans’ Hospitals were completed in Albany and Brooklyn, New York. The patients had their gripes, and the nurses theirs; together, we made up a more than disgusting picture. One of the boys realized that this morbid state of affairs was quickly getting us nowhere, and because he was a lover of parties and gay times, decided that despite everything we should have one last fling to drown our sorrows. He was a great one for having parties started, but Bobby O’Neil and I eventually would end up with the bookwork, collections, and headaches. Before our moving-out date arrived, we managed to rent one of the smaller nightclubs on the Island, and proceeded with our preparations for the big evening.
All the details were academic save for one. Everybody who was physically able to go wanted to, and that meant that one nurse would still have to be disappointed that evening by staying behind to tend to the bedridden, and being forced to work shift (as the evening tour of duty was called). The problem was rather vexing, so we finally consulted with Johnny the charge nurse. He was a softhearted type of individual, and complained that he didn’t have the heart to make such a decision or the nerve to tell any of the girls that she would not be permitted to go to the party because she had to work. The problem soon dropped itself from our hands, for as we made our rounds of the bedsides to collect the necessary funds to finance our endeavor we encountered an almost unanimous response, but with one stipulation. All would give us the money, for each one liked the idea of having the party, but we had to guarantee that a certain nurse would not be there. In the short time that she had been working on our ward she had made herself highly unpopular. Johnny no longer had to worry about being a louse, so without reservations her name was put on the duty roster for that evening.
They say that no one but the farmer likes rain, but they never mention how badly a paraplegic can grow to dislike it. It seems that every time one of us wishes to go some place it rains, and the night of our big party was no exception; it poured. Most of us grabbed some towels, sheets, or newspapers to throw over ourselves, and jumped into our cars, and headed for the nightclub. We had used our brains when making the contract, and it was agreed in advance that a ramp would be placed at the back door of the club. All we had to do after reaching its parking lot was to unload, roll through the rain and mud, and up the slippery ramp. The party started out all wet, but it soon wound up inundated.
Strangely but truly, you never appreciate anything until it is gone. That evening, despite our having a wonderful time for ourselves, many of us were on the verge of crying. When our assistant charge nurse stood by the club microphone to make her farewell address, she broke into tears. It wasn’t what you might call professional, but before the party broke up she had kissed most of us good-bye. To keep the party from turning into a general bawling session a healthy friend of one of the boys began to sing in an attempt to put us back on the right track.
The nice thing about our Government is that when it orders a person to go somewhere in the Veterans’ Administration Hospital System it also provides him with a nickel a mile travel allowance. It was very little in the way of compensation for giving up the happy carefree life that I had been living at Halloran, but I had no choice, so under duress I started to pack my belongings. When the average person leaves a hospital, unless he’s going out in a box, he takes with him but the few things that he had when he came in and that very rarely consists of much more than the clothes he had on upon admission, a toothbrush, and a comb. Regardless of what condition I left Halloran in I could not depart unless I had a truck for my personal possessions. Six years of continuous hospitalization and using hospitals as a home had given me many an opportunity to accumulate what I termed my treasured possessions, but what the ward secretary called junk. Regardless of how that cute secretary in the sports jacket felt he could not deny that my so-called junk was occupying three lockers, to say nothing of a phonograph and a flowerpot.
On the day that he accepted his job, and walked into our building he never thought that he would wind up in the moving business, but that is exactly where he found himself. He soon learned that I wasn’t the only patient who over the years has come to believe that the wealth of a nation was not only measured in its gold reserves, but also in its worldly goods. Every patient who was to make the trip to Kingsbridge Hospital also presented him with a difficult problem in logistics. He thought that I had been teasing him when I said that a truck or moving van would be needed, but he could find no way out, for if all were to be transferred to the Bronx as the Government had promised the use of an extra large vehicle was inescapable. Crossing his fingers behind his back he reported his dilemma to his supervisors. It didn’t take too long before the little wheels came around to my way of thinking. The necessary red tape was cut, and the first barrier to my transfer fell.
Once I was positive that my precious horde was safely cared for, my thoughts turned to my main problem; namely me. My automobile was in the parking lot in good condition, so whether I liked it or not I had to roll to it, jump in, pull my chair in after me, and make that long unwanted journey to the Bronx. Finally during a breach in the cold February weather I did just that. The trip was no new adventure to me as I had gone home over the same route on many a weekend pass. There could be no new thrills in making that sojourn, but ironically our forced migration provided myself and two other paraplegics who were taking their transfers on that clear but brisk day with an extra strong belly laugh. It seems that when Kingsbridge had been reconnoitered by our second wheelchair scout he discovered to our bitter disappointment that the commode set up in the bathroom was not to our liking.
Realizing that they would be up against a very embarrassing problem once they were billeted in the Bronx, the boys struck upon a very daring plan. Deciding to take no chances with their future bowel movements they snuck into the Halloran latrine, and cut loose one of the sections of the wooden commode that had been prefabricated many years before for their convenience by the Army. Though to all appearances it appeared like stealing, it was, in reality, a case of necessity being the mother of looting, for very necessary it was. Truthfully, though, I doubt if anyone cared as to what was done with it, for when the State took back our building it would have been dumped on a bonfire along with many more items of combustible junk.
The stage was set, and taking advantage of a dull spell in the bedlam that had set in with the hospital’s closing they dragged the smelly thing to the parking lot, and tried to slip it into the trunk of Oik’s car. We call him Oik because we couldn’t pronounce his real name. Their faces grew a dark crimson when they discovered that it would not fit into either of their auto’s trunks unless it were left open. It was a perplexing problem, for they had not planned to display the fruits of their theft.
With time running out and a mob of curious hecklers growing they decided that it would be best to tie the trunk door to the bumper and, regardless of whether or not the darn thing showed, to jump in the car and speedily make for the Bronx before something else went amiss. It was then that I decided not to look back as the time for me to make my fatal move had also arrived. With their ersatz bathroom hanging precariously from that trunk they could not make very good time, so in a matter of minutes I caught up to them as they reached the middle of the Bayonne Bridge to New Jersey.
It was then that I realized the commode was not too securely fastened down, and it would be wisest if I continued the journey tagging along behind them. I knew that if another car had taken up the position directly behind them it would have most likely driven too closely, and had that indoor outhouse fallen loose the second car most certainly would have crushed it. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to complete my unwanted trek, and so I didn’t mind keeping the snail’s pace that my friends had to maintain. Sometimes I failed to keep the vigil that I should have as my eyes were distracted by the ridiculous expressions on the faces of the pedestrians when they gasped and stared at the “portable church seat” that was bouncing along so merrily in front of me. It was very trying to say the least to keep my eyes on the road, an eye on the commode, my eyes off the gapers, and not laugh myself into a serious collision. No driver who had ever been subjected to a road test has had to make the sacrifices that I subjected myself to that day for “junky john.”
Fortunately for us and the New York City police force the route that we had to follow in New York to Kingsbridge did not pass through lower Manhattan Island, and the riot that most certainly would have ensued had Gotham’s millions been given a chance to see that oval-shaped hole as it rolled by was avoided. New York’s West Side Drive may have gotten us past Manhattan’s throngs, but we had to traverse a dozen or so Bronx avenues to complete our trek, and that borough was no piker either when it came to crowds of people. We hadn’t planned it that way, but it was close to suppertime when we approached the hospital leaving us with no serious problems with street crowds for the last leg of the journey.
As the boys in the car ahead saw Kingsbridge come into view they slowed down to a crawl, but no matter how reluctant they were about reaching the hospital’s gate there was no turning back; the die had been cast. They spent a few minutes at the gate while the guard looked them over, and then he saw the commode. He made quite a comical picture standing there with a mustache that was incongruous to his face hanging from beneath his nose. I could hear him shouting questions to the boys about that funny looking box as he called it, but they were very adamant, so he finally threw up his arms and let them through.
He was still scratching his head in wonder when I approached him. General DeVoe had taken over as Kingsbridge’s manager after he left Halloran, and so I said to the guard, “Tell the General I’m here.” To that he gave a halfhearted reply, “You must be another one of those Halloran guys; come in, the General is expecting you.” “Howie” as I learned later was his name may have been attempting to jest, but there was bitter truth in his words. The General knew that we were coming alright, but no one would say that he was any too happy about it.
The sun had but a few minutes left before it set when I jumped out of my car, and though it s1owed my progress in finding my new quarters it was also to serve as a good thing. The commode carriers had already unloaded, and were pondering what should be done with their wooden cargo when nightfall overtook us. It may have caused confusion, but also brought a dozen hours during which my friends’ illicit burden would be concealed without difficulty, and they could determine a plan for sneaking it into our new ward’s latrine before someone in authority caught them, and raised holy hell.
We then all agreed that there was nothing to do but cross our fingers, and trust in fate to see our ill-begotten loot through the darkness. Crossing our fingers may have given us a false sense of security, but we couldn’t keep them crossed for too long. There was no one else around to push our chairs, and so with uncrossed fingers we rolled into the elevator, and then into a new and foreign world. In addition to being alien it was hostile, for when we started to take off our jackets we discovered to our dismay that the inside of our new quarters was as cold as the outside of the building. One thing we soon found to be true was that as badly as we didn’t want to move to the Bronx it couldn’t have been as badly as our not being wanted there.
Under the pressure that was being brought to bear on them by the publication of our story in the 1ocal newspapers the hospital authorities decided upon a crash program of remodeling our ward, and so was started the “Battle of Kingsbridge Hill” before our arriva1. Though not much in the way of a physical change took place, the ward did receive a fresh coat of paint. The painting may have been done to enhance the room, but it only succeeded in amplifying the coldness and hostility. One thing was certain about that paint, and that is it was no fast dryer.
Two boys had proceeded we three by some days to the hospital, and the five of us made a very miserably looking picture as we each under five blankets tried to keep warm in our Veterans’ Administration bed, for the drying paint had frozen the windows open. Whether or not the paint had caused the windows to stick mattered very little as its foul odor would have forced us to leave them that way to escape the fumes. A sweet little nurse who didn’t want to be too sweet was on duty that night, and she made quite an unprofessional impression as she went about her rounds in an overcoat.
Once having survived that cruel night we believed that we could endure anything, and prepared ourselves to face whatever regimen our new hospital might offer. Before the doctors could institute any serious medical programs for us to follow they had to first orient themselves to us and we to they. Things didn’t go too well for the doctors, and as the remainder of the patients came over from Halloran our numerical strength grew, so a rebellion toward the medicos broke out. When the doctors realized what was afoot they saw that they had to either squelch the nucleus of the insurrection, or face anarchy. Doctor Abrahamson decided to lead the counterattack. He made quite a picture rolling through the ward trying to act the part of doctor, diplomat and paraplegic all at one time.
He thought that he was doing quite well for himself when he rolled up to an old-timer by the name of Frank and said, “Frank, you know you’re not supposed to hang clothes on the backs of beds; why don’t you put them in the clothing room?” With a half-disgusted look on his face, Frank turned his head and retorted, “Why in hell don’t you go hang yourself in the clothing room before I have someone do it for you.” Sensing that he was quickly losing the initiative Doctor Abrahamson added, “Now you know Frank, that’s no way to talk.” Frank slowly responded, “Go away; you bore me.”
With that Doctor Abrahamson rolled out, for he must have decided that it was time to hold a strategy meeting with his fellow medical generals. The petty bureaucrats fell back, reorganized and decided that perhaps it would be wiser to present the angry mob with a new face, for the old axiom about contempt and familiarity had again proven itself with Doctor Abrahamson, and so young Doctor Borkin was thrown at us. They didn’t have to worry about the charge nurse being too friendly, for many a month was to pass before we were to acclimate ourselves to her and vice versa.
The doctors hadn’t been too careless in their original planning though at that moment we had them in slightly hot water. Even though they were not able to prevent the large influx of patients from Halloran they had the foresight to have as many as possible of their nonservice connected paraplegics remain in the Bronx. This act, which on the surface appeared as that of Christian charity, was in reality a part of their plan to try and maintain a patient body that consisted of a majority of patients with very few rights, and thus in less of a position to be insubordinate enough to carry their gripes to Washington.
It really didn’t matter how they had tried to cut down on our number, for those of us who had come over from Halloran were damn mad. We were determined to make the world know it. Young Doctor Borkin thought that he was holding down the fort quite well, but when we threatened to call the newspapers because there was no wheelchair phone booth he decided it was time to call back the man who could make the decision; Doctor Abrahamson. He made that decision just in time, for we were secretly trying to figure out how to rip the regular phone booth apart so that we could make phone calls in comfort.
Once we had him back up on the ward we started to hit him up at machine gun tempo for everything we could possibly think of from abdominal pads to use as washrags to condoms for cathouse catheter drainages. Finally in desperation after having yelled with a half reddened face to Miss Tierney the charge nurse, “Order six gross of condoms for these boys,” he turned to us and said, “Now is there anything else?” “Yeah,” we shouted back. “Push out the walls.” He knew that we were not too happy with the size of our rooms, but he also knew that he could not give us a favorable reply. He rolled away to hopefully come again some other day.
The boys left the doctor alone for a while, and decided to concentrate on the dietetic staff. The stories that came back from mess hall were more about the dietitians, and less about patients’ food gripes than expected. The favorite for those early days was of the chubby paraplegic who took a shine to one of the dietetic supervisors, and did an excellent job one day of making half-arsed advances to her as she helped pass out the chicken dinner. This gal to everyone’s surprise was also a veteran, and as the saying goes it takes one to know one”. Being an old hand at handling G.I.’s and ex-G.I.’s, she put the back end of a chicken on his plate, pushed it toward his face, and said, “Here big boy, this is the only piece of tail that you’re going to get in this mess hall today.”
That was enough to quiet his griping for a few weeks only to have him start the next time on the subject of food. It wasn’t that the food was bad, for the old Bronxites told us that it had improved greatly since our coming, but the one thought that always bothered everyone was that the freight elevators were common carriers for both the food trucks and the garbage cans. It was also common knowledge that despite their being at the main entrance to the mess hall the freight elevators were also used to carry out any deceased veteran who may have decided that it was time to leave this unhappy world. It certainly wasn’t fair to blame the dietitians, as it truly was a case of poor hospital engineering and not one of bad menu preparation.
The knowledge of what an unorthodox type of cargo those elevators carried never really bothered any of the paraplegics as the majority of us were longtime hospital veterans, and quite inured to the facts of hospital life. The same didn’t hold true for the medical and surgical patients leaving them open to a case of hospital jitters whenever they happened to find this out. It may not have upset us old Halloranites to see all this for after all they couldn’t very well carry the corpses down the passenger elevators with the visitors, but it did go to a great length to emphasize to us that we were once again in a hospital, not a country club.
We of course also saw it in other ways; the one that hurt the most was the limiting of visiting to several hours a day. That was another bitter pill to swallow, for we had never tasted restricted visiting at all at Halloran. It was an effort to acclimate ourselves to a regimented life, but for the first time in many years we had another problem to contend with. Because of the location of our ward, we found ourselves on a main corridor, which was the central artery of all traffic going to and from the clothing room. Naturally there were signs on the door that led to our ward from the main building, which stated that our ward was no thoroughfare, and that all the traffic was to use the ground floor level. The budget of course didn’t provide for a policeman to force anyone who didn’t care to obey to do what it said.
It wasn’t unusual for an ambulatory patient who was trying to pass through to find himself hindered by a road block of wheelchairs containing paraplegics who were wearing nothing but bed sheets over their laps. Not being permitted to walk out of their rooms unless they had on both pajamas and bathrobes made these men on their feet wonder what sort of world they were passing through when they made their trek past our doors. The explanation was very simple: if we wore all that extra clothing we’d never be able to do anything when we reached the bathroom or shower. Even in our crazy wheelchair life, showers were not taken with one’s clothes on. The shower was another part of Kingsbridge which we had to accustom ourselves to, for it was quite a feat for thirty-five wheelchairs to pass through that cubbyhole of a stall before lunchtime.
The doctors soon were told about our displeasure with our bathing facilities, and decided to counter this complaint with a strong diversionary movement. Miss Barrett, the chief of nursing education, was sent to our ward with instructions to present a program to us that would in addition to being interesting, educational, and helpful would also steer our minds away from our environment, and the thought of complaining about it. Her program was basically very simple, but what the doctor ordered. She decided to teach us the basic facts of medicine which pertained to our injury, and being the clever teacher she decided that “the sex life of a paraplegic” should be the first topic.
This in the business world might be called a loss leader, but the word quickly went around making her makeshift classroom next to impossible to enter. She was an old hand at her trade, and no subject was too delicate for her to present. With the aid of a portable blackboard she illustrated the parts of the anatomy about which she spoke leaving no patient’s question unanswered. When she ran out of new thoughts to pass on to us on the subject of sex she concluded by giving us this comparison about sex life in man as compared to the animal world. “Animal has season without reason while man has reason without season.” Once she completed the portion of her lectures that dealt with sex she found it very difficult to continue, for she could never muster an audience which was interested in medicine for medicine’s sake.
It was during a lull between the duller parts of her talks that one of the boys grabbed her arm, and pulled her into our day room as I sat watching. He then released her and said, “Miss Barrett, I don’t care how rosy a picture you try to paint about a paraplegic’s sex life with your lectures; you can’t deny the fact that paraplegia is a very frustrating existence.” With a grin that looked like the one that belonged to the cat, which had just swallowed a canary she retorted, “You speak about frustration, but what do you really know about it? Look at me. I have experienced real frustration. I am an old maid.” With that the two of us in wheelchairs made a mad dash for the doorway in the hope that she wouldn’t see us blush. I was to meet Miss Barrett in the corridors many times again in the years to follow, and she continued to be the sweet and honest person who had been so frank with us that day.
Not all the interesting tales occurred in the daytime, for occasionally somebody who had not been feeling too well, and who had spent a restless night would bring a tale back to those of us who had been fortunate enough to spend the night restfully. The storyteller related the tale of the night orderly by the name of Haskins whom we referred to as Preacher, for he was always blessing us, and carrying a Bible in his hip pocket. (There was a strong rumor that claimed it was only there to conceal a pint, but no one was ever able to prove or disprove that theory.) About two or three in the morning during the night in question he was caught by the night shift supervisor sitting on a chair in the hallway with his head in his hands soundly asleep. She rudely awakened him, but before she could question him as to why he was sleeping on duty he quickly snapped at her, “How can you be so impolite as to interrupt me when I’m praying for my boys?” Whenever we chanced to call him to our bedsides for our little needs we wouldn’t tease him about this, but would say, “Preacher, what’s your IQ?” His reply to that query was slightly malapropic, but nevertheless interesting: “Twenty, twenty, perfect.”
I was again to learn that a major change had taken place in my hospital life when for the first time for years I found myself going to the dining room with the rest of the hoi polloi. It was no small family affair as at Halloran, but a large institutional machine with a cold factory-like atmosphere. The food handlers who serviced our table were sympathetic to my swallowing problem, and went to great lengths in an effort to provide me nourishment that I could take in easily. Though my problem was prodigious to me, by comparison to the size of the machine that was catering to my needs, I didn’t hardly exist. While I was stomping around between steam tables and dietitians in vain efforts to have a can of soup warmed up I could always overhear the doctors at their table as they discussed their latest case of interest.
For some strange reason the miseries that aroused them the most during meal times a1so seemed to be the ones that produced their biggest laughs. Their greatest comedienne, or so she thought, was the female psychiatrist with a German accent. To rectify these two intolerable conditions there evolved two simple solutions. My swallowing troubles were turned over to the people in the little kitchen on my ward who took over and did noble job of keeping me nourished and alive. The answer to the lack of professional discretion was to build a new personnel dining room for our doctors and nurses, for after all how could there be a breach of good professional ethics, if there were no patients around to hear it?
The Korean conflict was having its effects felt on the patient population of Kingsbridge, for many of its wounded soon began to join our ranks. The thought of having the number of service connected grow at first bothered the doctors, but their fears were soon allayed when they discovered that the new crop of broken backs was of a different caliber. The doctors found it not too difficult to mold these youngsters to their way of thinking; not giving them much of a chance to become as hardened to the medical minds as had their counterparts from the big war. It was an ironic thing to have to depend on those men for our health, for on the ground floor on the medical library hung an alchemist’s chart. Strange as it may seem we were haunted by shades of witchcraft. The Korean veterans may have been what the doctors ordered, but they were more than a sorry disappointment to us.
We had entertained high hopes that when these kids overcame the initial shock of becoming paraplegics they would shake off their depression, and join us as members of the Paraplegic Flying Club. I don’t know what they were lacking, or perhaps we were poor salesmen, but not one of them responded to our membership drive. The handwriting was on the wall for our Flying Club, for not only was our membership rapidly depleting, but Jimmy Conroy, our ace pilot, had gotten himself into marital difficulties. It wasn’t long before the strains of married life caused Jimmy to crack mentally, and he no longer could be considered fit to fly a plane safely. With only one member left who was licensed to fly, and he was more interested in his boat than the plane; Walter Vukelic had no choice but to ask the membership to disband the club. He wrote Arthur Godfrey a letter explaining the situation, and received in return his approval of Walter’s plan to sell the plane with the receipts going to the National Paraplegia Research Foundation’s sadly depleted treasury.
The doctors realized that the influx of Korean veterans despite the fact that the kids were not as hardened to the medical world as we were could eventually be turned against them, and so decided that it would be wisest that if non-service connected patients were again admitted to the hospital to keep a favorable balance in the patient population. Under this new regime there was admitted a paraplegic who had been a patient in a civilian hospital, and who had expended large sums of money for his care, which at that time he could well afford to do. When he came on to our ward he brought with him one stinking habit which is not tolerated in the Veterans’ Administration Hospital system; namely tipping. We were not aware of his illicit activity until it was noticed that for no apparent reasons even our good attendants were giving poor service. Our new patient was not subtle in his tipping efforts, and the boys in his room began to put two and two together especially when it was observed that despite their seniority they were receiving little or no attention. The newcomer, to everyone’s consternation, was still receiving the best that could be had.
We old-timers then put our heads together, and in a heated argument decided what to do about the usurper. Many wanted to give him a sound thrashing despite his being a quadriplegic, and totally unable to defend himself. Since discretion was the better part of valor the hot bloods gave in, and it was decided that it would be best for all if he were simply reported to the Chief of Physical Medicine, Doctor Abrahamson. The doctor blew his proverbial top as only he could, called the patient to his office, and chewed his arse out royally. The patient was taken back by his unexpected verbal spanking, and meekly offered this excuse, “But Doctor I did it in the other hospital, so I thought it was also done here. I’m very glad you called me down to give me hell; you’re saving me a fortune.” It took quite awhile for the aides to realize that their gravy train had been derailed, but when they saw that it was never again to be made to run they decided that it was time to return to work.
Once we were positive that we had him salted away where he could do no more harm our thoughts turned to the mental patients who were using our ward as a gateway to the dining room. The doctors, believing that our type of case could endure noise and idiosyncrasies better than any of the other cases in the hospital, decided that placing us where they did could do us no real harm.
The doctors’ plans were no better than those laid by mice and men, for it wasn’t unusual for a paraplegic to find himself being knocked over by a nut as he passed through the ward oblivious of the world around him. It was with great delight that we all looked forward to the hour of nine in the evening, for it meant that the crazy ones had to return to check into their ward for the night with its door being locked behind them. We knew that our nights in bed would be spent safely, but we hated to see seven in the morning roll around, for it meant that the angry mob would be released from its cell to make another mad dash through our humble quarters to the chow hall at pell mell speed.
It was during one of the quiet interludes between the evening and the morning storms that an elderly lady in a dietitian’s uniform walked up to me and said, “Why are you so skinny?” Realizing that she was a dietitian and a complete stranger I decided that she deserved the courtesy of an answer, as she appeared to be every bit sincere. After finishing my lecture in the most abbreviated manner I could think of I said, “Why do you want to know?” Her reply was very sweet, “I’m the chief dietitian, and I don’t think that it’s right that any of my patients should be as thin as you are. Don’t you dare go anywhere for the next fifteen minutes; I’ll be right back.” She returned in 1ess than fifteen minutes, and to mine and everyone else’s who was sitting around me surprise she came back with a chef who was pushing a cart loaded with all sorts of food and goodies.
I naturally was the first one whom she approached, and as she presented me with a sumptuous fruitcake she said,
“Here, this is for you. I want you to be fat the next time that I see you.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was dreaming, so I graciously thanked her for the cake. She then proceeded to tell the cook to pass out the rest of the cart’s load to the hungry throng, which had so quickly assembled. It wasn’t long before the aroma attracted the nurse, and a good time was had by all.
About that time the two wheelchair phone booths Abrahamson had promised us were instal1ed, and we were soon back at our old trick of answering the incoming phone calls by saying “Hello; City Morgue.” As much as we needed those phone booths there was a psychiatric case from the adjacent ward who decided that since he was in a wheelchair even though he was not paralyzed, he needed the use of the booths more than we. He persisted in monopolizing one of the booths, and forced a bottleneck in our attempts to use it until one day to everyone’s elation, he disappeared. Curiosity got the better of two of us cats, and we decided to sneak into his ward to investigate the cause of our sudden joy. If you ask a stupid question, you receive the same kind of answer in return.
We found him lying in bed with his right foot on top of two pillows that were on top of a chair that was setting on his bed. When he spotted us peering at him from the open doorway he started to moan and groan that his leg was hurting him. The sight of that leg projecting upward as if it were about to be launched into outer space threw us both into a wild fit of laughter. That was all that was needed to set him off, and as we retreated out of range of the objects he started hurling at us we could hear him scream, “Nobody laughs at the piece of shrapnel in my foot.” The next day his fellow patients reported to us as they marched through our ward on the way to the mass hall that X-ray examinations could not discover any foreign objects in the foot about which he had complained. I was tempted to laugh along with everyone else at this report, but I couldn’t, for the memory of what nine months of improper X-ray readings had done to me still lingered on.
We were quite a ward to look at having the wild cavorting of the mental patients at our north end while at the other end toward the mess hall there were the cardiac cases who required a maximum of quiet and rest. It was like living in a buffer zone between the Communists and the free world. The psychiatric cases were as a rule lean and sturdy while the heart patients were almost to a man fat and sloppy. It was a pleasant change of diet when one spring afternoon we were visited by a smartly looking upper classman from West Point.
He had come to the hospital as part of the Point’s Glee Club to entertain the boys, but had taken it upon himself to visit the wards as a sort of moral obligation to the wounded of Korea. We found that unlike many other visitors he was not dismayed by the sight of our broken bodies, and came into close conversation with us all quite easily. When we finally managed to have him speak of himself and his ambitions he could not be swayed from the idea that war and combat were his destinies. We went to great lengths to try to convince him of the severity of our type of illness that war very easily inflicts, but he could not be deterred from his predetermined course. We even added that we had no paraplegic bed space open, but he only answered with a smile and said as he waved good-bye, “I’ll send you a picture postcard from Korea.”
As he so erectly marched off the ward to rejoin his unit for his return trip to the Point two workmen entered, and headed straight for the latrine. Any work project whether large or small was always welcome, for it was to us a positive source of amusement and diversion. The nice thing about the hospital engineers is that they haven’t the closely-knit tightly lipped organization that the professionals in the medical branch of the hospital staff do. With this in mind it was a pleasant and simple task to strike up a conversation as they worked. Rather than be annoyed they were flattered by our friendly interest, and readily disclosed the purpose their labors on the latrine windows.
It seems that one of the patients on an ambulatory ward decided to take his life by jumping out of a bathroom window, and so acting in a true sense of closing the barn door after the horse escaped the manager ordered locks put on all windows which were not under some sort of observation by either the patients or the personnel. He may have saved many an idiot’s life with these locks, but came the summer with its hot weather, and it was rough as hell trying to cool off those latrines as the windows could only be opened seven inches. What annoyed me about the entire project was that the patient who had triggered it had managed to kill himself by jumping out of a second story window. Could that second story man have added something to the law of gravity?
While the patients were taking the easy way to the ground floor not to mention the patient out at Fort Hamilton Hospital in Brooklyn who had decided to make the front pages of the local tabloids by going out the tenth floor window our nurses were confining their efforts to the old-fashioned staircase method. Ordinarily going up and down a flight of steps is no cause for comment, and to say the least harmful. The government, strange as it may seem, has some employees who actually believe in economy though of course never at the expense of their own health.
During weekends and holidays my ward and the ones above and below it were usually down to a shadow of their patient strength as those who were able to took passes, and so the wards were assigned skeleton crews to maintain them. The evening supervisor did not think it an undue hardship to have our evening nurse running up and down the stairwell to tend to three wards whenever one of their orderlies phoned to inform her of a new need of some patient. To add to this burden the nurse who had to make the heart-taxing runs was a woman approaching sixty. The awful paradox of this tale is that it was to be eight years before strangling Government red tape was cut, and the elevator which was so obsolete and dangerous, it was sometimes referred to as a dive bomber by its part-time operators, was replaced by a safe modern self-service one. We had always believed that our evening nurse had been a mean old grouch, but we were to discover that it wasn’t her disposition that was causing her sour face, but the pain in her tired old feet. As we grew to know her we realized that she was one of the most lovable and devoted nurses whom the profession was blessed with.