Chapter 27 Hope Paradox and reason

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Chapter 26 Ladies don't fight

“Have you ever had any instances of missing time?”  Burt fishing for a UFO abduction?  Surely not UFO abductions sooo 70’s.  Satanic ritual in some clown themed day care, very 80’s but still a very popular item in some circles.  ‘Course some evil clown waving his willy at me is just that sort of thing that would defiantly stick in my mind.

“Once, when I was ten.”

“What happened?”

“I was ten.  It was fall, the start of a new school year in a new school.  

School bullies are nothing if not predictable.  The first few weeks of school its all about establishing dominance and pecking order.  And its about finding the victim or victims that give the most pleasurable tear filled surrender.

I had been watching these two boys make their rounds and I knew it would only be a matter of time before they got around to me.

So it was no surprise when their shadows blocked out the sun.  I was sitting on a big tree stump with my back leaning against the school yard fence, reading.’

“You’re sitting in our spot.”

First thing a bully does, attempt to establish their ‘right’ of ownership over territory.

“It’s not ‘your’ spot.  It’s a tree stump in the school yard.  But, its plenty big enough, you want to sit down, I don’t mind sharing.

They didn’t want to share.

They smirked and said they were going to stomp me to the ground, and stuff dirt in my mouth.

I had seen them do this to others so it was a credible threat.

I remember sighing and carfuly setting the book aside.  It was a library book and I didn’t want to damage it.

Then I was sitting in one of the little blue plastic chairs outside of the principal’s office.  Like a cut in a movie.  Scene one, school yard, scene two hallway outside of the principal’s office.  There was no dizziness no disorientation like waking from a dream.  I wasn’t scared or worried just puzzled. 

 (How did I get here?)

I remembered the two bullies and since I was now outside the principal’s office I concluded that there had been a fight.  I did a quick check of myself and I seemed undamaged.  Nothing bleeding, sore or swollen, my dress wasn’t torn or even dirty enough to cause my grandmother to scold.

I could hear the two boys yarping in the office, which meant I was the one in trouble here.  They always take the bad kid in last.

Normally after a fight when you are sitting around waiting for the principle of the school to lay down the heavy weight of adult disapproval you would feel a bit upset over it all.  I wasn’t upset, not worried, not even interested truth be told.  I was resigned to tedium.  Like I was sitting through some dumb TV show I had seen about a hundred times and would be forced to watch a hundred more.

Things were winding down in the office.  The door opened.

(Now) I thought to myself (The two boys will come out and act all cool like they don’t care. Til the door closes then as they walk by me they will threaten to ‘get’ me after school.)

The two boys came out.  If I had gotten out of the fight without a scratch the same could certainly not be said of the two boys.  One had a black eye, the other a bloody nose, both had torn shirts and one appeared to have been crying.

(wow, I did that?)  and I realy regretted not remembering the fight.

The door closed and the two boys sauntered by me hissing under their breath how they will get me after school.   Of course threats are more effective when your not pinching your bloody nose and trying not to cry.

(They will come after me.  Not today, not till next week I think, Tuesday probably maybe wensday.  They will bring a few friends with them just to make things more fair)

(Now the door will open and the principle will say: “Miss Warren would you come in please)

The door opened and the Principle said “Miss Warren would you come in please.

It was strange but reality had become a book I had already read.  

(now he will say “well Miss Warren what do you have to say for yourself?”)

“Well Miss Warren what do you have to say for yourself?”  He said.

“I had been sitting with my back against the fence when the boys came up and said they were going to stomp on me and shove dirt in my mouth.”  I paused not sure how to continue as I didn’t remember what had happened after that.  “I stopped them from doing that,”  Which seemed to be what had happened as far as I could tell.

“Girls don’t fight.”  He said and frowned at me in stern disapproval.

“If someone hits them they do.”  I said.

“Why didn’t you run away?”

“Because, as I said, my back was against the fence and they were in front of me.  There was no place to run to.”    Not that I would have run. Even as a child I considered running from bullies as an option to be taken only as a means to achieve a better fighting position.  Running away only encourages bullies gives them the joy of the chase and gives them the idea that pushing people around is fun and easy which only makes it more likely that bullies will push other people around.

 “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“Why would I do that when it wouldn’t do any good?”

“What do you mean?”  

“I mean those two boys beat up some kid just about every day.  And no matter how loud the kid getting beat up yells, no ever stops those boys, no one comes to help.  So since calling for help doesn’t bring help why would I do that?”

“Ladies don’t fight.”  He said like it was the eleventh commandment then added with grim disapproval. “Only a low class kind of girl would even think to make a fist.”

Up until now I had been in a strange emotionless space.  It was all a TV show I had seen before and just didn’t care about.  But when he said that my emotions came back in a red flare.

(How dare he?  How dare he?  There he sits a full grown man telling a little girl she’s bad for not laying down and letting her ass get kicked?  One of those boys is half again my weight let alone two older bigger boys, you can just bet if one of those boys laid so much as a finger on him, he’dd have something to say about it.  A low class kind of girl because I’m not bleeding and broken?  How dare he?)  If I’dd been a grown up I would have slapped his face.

And then all the anger and outrage just, went away. And that strange quite in my head returned.

(What he thinks of you doesn’t really matter now does it?)  And it really didn’t.

“I’dd rather be a low class kind of girl with a nice clean face, than a lady with two black eyes and a mouthful of dirt.”

He blushed and became very interested in straightening the papers on his desk.

“I’ll let you go with a warning this time.”  He said as though imparting a favor.  But don’t let it happen again.”

I gathered up my books and before I closed the office door behind me I said.

“If no one hits me it wont.”

The next week, Tuesday, the two boys did try to ‘get’ me after school.  They had indeed brought friends with them to even out the odds.  Three of them.  I led them a merry chase.  I had had a few days to ready the obstacle course.

After that I became a kind of school yard gun slinger.  Every once in a while a boy wanting to move up in the pack would call me out.  If any one was successful in bringing on my beat down their leadership in the pack would be assured.  No one ever did.  The boys responded by making getting your but kicked by me an initiation rite into their little group of puppy hooligans.

I just wanted to read my library books in peace.  Which I would guess is pretty much the attitude of all gun slingers.

Chapter 25 Librarians do more then dust books

“Are Cheetoes bad for you?”

Librarians are asked many unusual questions.

  Tommy walks into the library clutching a little open bag of cheetoes to his emaciated chest.  Tommy is an old testament prophet who dresses like an extra from the fiddler on the roof.  Other than his conviction that bathing is an insult to God, he is a very sweet person.  Rather like a severely OCD Christopher Robin.  Due to the fact that the cafeteria offers neither locusts nor wild honey he pretty much lives on a diet of white rice and lettuce.

“Well I guess that Cheetoes aren’t exactly health food.”  I venture cautiously. 

“It has preservatives doesn’t it?”  He asks.

“Yes it does.”  A librarian must never lie.

“Then it’s bad for you.”  He sighs sadly.  “I shouldn’t eat them than.”  His shoulders slump as he closes the little bag of cheetoes.

(Ahh hell, the guy eats almost nothing as it is and I have just removed a source of needed calories not to mention a small pleasure from his life)

“Hold on a sec.  I thought you told me that you are going to live forever?”  I ask him.

“Ohh Yes that’s true.”  He tells me a sweet smile on his face.  “I’m going to live forever and ever and never die.”  He assures me in his lost little boy sing song voice.

“Well than I guess a little ol’ bag of Cheetoes wont hurt you none.” 

“ohh yes that’s right.” He says, and goes wandering off happily munching his cheetoes.

Mad people are by in large intensely logical.  It’s just logic base eight.

An election was coming up so of course I had to ask.  One of the functions of a librarian is to be a pillar of support for democracy.

“Voting?  I’m not sure you can vote from here.”  I probably shouldn’t have started my inquires with Charles.

“Ohh of course I can.  Insanity is no impediment to democracy, that’s one of it’s great beauties.”  

So I turned to Burt with the question.  And we started the mad house get out the vote drive.  I helped patients puzzle out the absentee ballots.  Biggest challenge was using the English version of the ballot to explain the Chinese version of the ballot to someone who only mostly understood English.

It was a mad house republican landslide.  I felt that deep satisfaction one gets when something you always thought about the world gets confirmed as fact.  I went for Ralph Nader, I felt he totally deserved the mad house vote.

Tax time and Andrew is out on the smoking patio grousing about American taxes.  There is just something about America.  Take an American plant him in any country and fifty years later that man is still talking acting and thinking like an American.  Take someone from any other country plant them in America and before they have eaten their first cheese burger they are talking like a native.

“Yeh they can hit hard.  But fortunately in the nursing field you can use all sorts of deductions and that helps.”  I tell him as I light one of my camels.

“Deductions?”

“Yes deductions.  You have to take continuing education courses right?”

“Yes.”

“Well right there all kinds of deduction.  The cost of the course, books and materials, food lodging even transportation, all that shits deductable.  Why do you think Americans fight over the receipts for everything, some sort of national paper fetish?”

Librarians are often called upon for taxation information.

And so I ended up giving a few foreign nurses an informal talk/ Q & A on American taxes.  I can handle helping other people fill out paperwork It’s just any official form with my name attached anywhere that shuts my brain down.

In the modern library some computer skills are called for and it helps if you can hook up the vcr.

Movie night.  This is a special event.  Rose has a new toy a ten thousand dollar projection system that apparently was purchased just so us poor mad people could watch Spiderman.  I couldn’t work out the thought process behind spending only ten dollars a month for crayons but blowing ten thousand on a jumped up dvd player was just fine.  But ok what ever, I wanted to see Spiderman (one of my favorite super heros, geek makes good)so I wasn’t going to bitch about priorities.

Unfortunately the new toy was of sufficient, size complexity not to mention the expense that it scared the crap out of Rose.  She dithered she fluttered she popped pop corn, she made sure everyone had a seat.  And she tried to start the movie.  The movie played the first ten seconds, big music spiderman whooshes by on his web ….. and repeat,,,,,,,, and repeat.  The first ten seconds of the movie kept playing and playing and playing. And Rose couldn’t make it stop, or move on from the first ten seconds.

Rose is fluttering and dithering about something awful.

“Hey Rose would you like me to see what I can do to fix it?” I ask.

The staff at the MHRF are people who are very smart about a lot of things, but they are all complete ninnies when it comes to hooking up vcrs or getting the karoke machine to run.     I am not hugely mechanically inclined but I can hook up the vcrs and got the karoke machine running so any time there was something that needed a good kick I was called in.

“Ohh Hmm OOhhh ohh, hmm, It it cost ten thousand dollars you know. I , I, well, if it were broken.  I’m responsible you see..”  And she dithered and she fluttered and spiderman whooshes by.  She wont let me fix it.  She is terrified that I might break it. Or issue the norad launch codes for which she would be blamed.  

Half an hour later, watching spiderman whoosh by and Rose flutter about had become dull so I wandered upstairs to read.  An hour later I popped back down out of curiosity.   The only thing that had changed was everyone was now out of pop corn and getting restless.  Rose was practically in tears.

“I promise I wont break anything, I swear.  Let me see what I can do.. or “ I look over at the restless audience of popcornless mad people.  “I think they are going to eat you.”

She finaly relents and allows me to approach the ten thousand dollar toy.  It looked like doc. Octopuses corpse with cables and what all tangling around the floor.  I stepped gingerly over the cables toward the brain of the thing, a lap top.    Oh for heavens sake is that all?  I was totally expecting something much more monumentally challenging.  

Rose Dithered, Rose fluttered.  “Ohh please be careful.”

Three clicks of the mouse later spiderman finally landed on the roof top.  (I should have made it look so much harder, maybe then I would have gotten real butter on my popcorn)

chapter 24 do you even know what your doing?

“Do you even know what you’re doing?  Charles demands in the high pitched outrage of a dedicated queen who has found his straight roommate putting his favorite angora sweater in the washing machine.  I have always considered it a most unfortunate mismatch for overly bulky men to have high pitched girly voices.

Do I even know what I’m doing?  I am sitting at a table in the activity room painting.  My now months long campaign to sooth Rose’s twitterpatted nerves had succeeded somewhat.  She still slyly edged any Barbies lying about out of my reach.   Today I had actually been able to clear off a table for a painting project without inducing Rose to more than nervous knuckle chewing.

I had rescued a painting sized piece of plywood from the trash and had painted it thick wavy lavers of black paint.  Then I even got Rose to allow me to use some of the blank wooden tiles she had in a big mayo jar in the supplies closet for my project.  The tiles were a little larger then a scrabble tile, the tiles I was painting black, except for around the thin edge this I was paint a deep blood red.  The idea was to glue the black tiles on the black board so when you look on it straight on all you see is black, approach it from an angle and you see the red edges in all that black.  Just something to pass the time.

So I’m painting little tiles black when Diana walks over watching me curiously.

“What are you doing?”  She asks.

I tell her describing the project.

“Can I help?”

“Why sure.”

I set her up with a paint brush, some paint and some tiles to paint.  Before you know it I have two more assistants.  Move over Andy Whorhol, and my assistants are actual mad people not just spoiled little rich brats looking for attention.

So there we all are sitting around the table painting little tiles black when I feel a large unfriendly bulk filling the air behind me.  Charles is one of those annoying people who looks into the library door (never more than looking through the open door, Burt is the only staff member who enters the library.)  only to tell me I can’t be drinking coffee in the library.  

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”  He demands again with lip pursed ill temper.

I glance over my shoulder at him and smile.

“Why yes, yes I do.”  I turn back to my painting.

“Well?”  He demands.

“Well what?”  I flash him the wide eyed smile of the merry child and flash Carol the quirked eyebrow of shared mischief.  She ducks her head to hide her surprised grin.  A sly grin shared by my entire crew who are all caught between trying to be very small so the big scary man won’t see them, and giggling as they all catch on to my little bear baiting fun.

“Well, what are you doing?"

“Ooooh, well see we’re painting all these little wooden tiles black.”  I hold up the tile I’m workingon, giving him the wide eyed blinking innocence of the pig tailed five year old.

“I can see that.”  He snaps.  Everyone around the table is trying very hard to look very busy painting little tiles black.

“Ohh, well than.”  I smile and shrug and turn back to my painting.

I feel his tongue chewing anger filling the air behind me.

“What’s is going to be when you’re done?”  He finally asks me.

I turn back to him and pause for a moment before answering with one word.

“Interesting.”

He flushes red, purses his lips, huffs arms crossed trying to find some thing to vent his temper on.  Failing to find even any fantasy reason for his ill temper he snarls and stomps off to the computer room.

“Why is he angry at you?”  Diana whispers to me, “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“I have no idea.  I never even go into the computer room.  So far as I know I’ve never once pissed in his Wheaties.”

Everyone cracks up

We finished the painting project and it was interesting.

A couple of weeks later Anna, the nurse in charge of the occupational therapies, asks me if I could help her organize the thrift closet for the patients.  It’s a room where donated clothing is available for the patients.

( A room of used clothes?)

  Thrift stores and flea markets are a particular passion of mine.  Organizing a room of donated clothes sounded like fun to me so off we went, Anna and I and Diana came along to help shift boxes.

The room was about the same size as my library closet, and it was a trash heap.  Two over loaded and broken racks leaned against each other in weary surrender,  a beaten down rack of miss matched shoes crouched in one corner all buried in boxes of used clothes that people have been apparently dumping in this room for a year.

Anna stands in the middle of the room and spreads her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“I just have no idea where to begin.”

I look around the room and quickly made an assessment and made a mental plan for making the space work for its purpose.

“Ok than first lets clear the clothes off the broken racks, then I’ll see if I can fix them enough for use.  There are too many clothes to lay it all out so I think the best thing would be to use these two racks, if I can fix them.  We can pack away the seasonal clothes and put out a rotating selection of clothes the patients can  ‘shop’ through.  Once its set up we can go in once a day and put out new things and organize any new donations.  That way the patients always having something new to look at.

The plan proposed and accepted I turned to the broken rack closest to the door.

“I’ll lift up the rack and you two can take the clothes off.  Then I’ll see if I can fix it.”

“What do you think you're doing?”

From out on nowhere Charles appears and grabs the other end of the rack I am lifting up and yanks on it.  I have the rack about half  way up and the only thing keeping the thing and all the clothes from crashing back to the floor is me.  I stumble forward and somehow manage to keep hold of the teetering rack.

Once second I am helping a nice occupational nurse organize some used clothing then, bang. This screaming queen is playing tug of war with me over a broken rack of donated clothes.  My brain was taking a moment to catch up.

“Anna asked me to help her organize the clothes closet.”  I gasp out as I manage to get my shoulder under the sagging rack.

“Well, not alone you’re not.  Not without supervision you’re not.”  He snaps out and danged if he didn’t give another great tug on the stupid rack that was at this point about to crush me.

I glanced over to Anna who was herself jaw dropped flummoxed and poor Diana would have fled from the room in terror if Charles had not been so completely blocking the only door.

“She’s not alone.”  Anna had gotten over her mental????  “Diana is here and I am here to supervise.  I asked her to help me.”

A look flashed across his face, you know I really think that until Anna spoke up he honestly hadn’t seen her or Diana.  Considering that this was a small cube of a room with no exits, not seeing them took some real dedicated focus.

“Well,, you’re not in charge around here, you don’t tell people what to do.”

(I swear if he says ‘you’re not the boss of me’ I’m going to have to give him a wedgy)

“If you want to help fine.” He said as though he were extending a great favor toward me.  “You can help me set this rack up over there.”  And danged if he didn’t give the rack another tug.  Everything is teetering, the rack is groaning in protest as are my weary shoulders.

Through gritted teeth I hissed out.  “I was asked to help out here.  I am in fact a vol-un-teer.”  I pronounce the words very slowly as he clearly has just crash landed here from bizzaro world.  “If I’m not wanted, I don’t have to be here.”

“Well I guess you don’t.”  He snapped.

“Ok fine.” I say pleasantly, I smile and atlas shrugged.

Large men with very bad backs shouldn’t play tug of war I thought as I stepped over him and the fallen rack.

I left more puzzled than pissed.  Why he was trying so hard to become my nemesis I had no idea.  The real pity of  it for him is that I just didn’t have enough interest in him to hold up my end of the conflict.

A bout half anhour later Anna finds me reading in the day room and asks me if I would come back and organize the closet.

“If you’re sure it’s ok?”

“There will be no trouble I promise.”

“Ok then sure.”  I tuck away the book and follow Anna back to the closet.

“You handled that really well.”  Anna sighs and bites her lips.  “Thank you”

“Any idea whats got his panties all in a bunch?”  I ask Anna.

She ducks her head to hide her smile and demurs answering.   The staff/patient line you just don’t cross, I don’t press.

We get back to the closet.

“I’m sorry but if you don’t mind,, can I leave you here alone?  I’m backed up on paperwork.. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“No worries, it will take me a couple of days to get this all sorted out.”  She gives me the key.

Pretty soon I had a couple of patients asking if they can help.

“Why sure.”  I say and in no time at all I am setting up the racks and directing my crew in the packing and unpacking of boxes.

Three days later the clothes closet opened for business and the patients lined up for their chance to shop.  Mad they may be but at least their well dressed.

chapter 23 GLOOM DISPAIR AND AGONY ON ME

It is a gray day, gray clouds covering the sun, there is that damp mist in the air, not enough to inconvenience a cigarette but heavier than dew.  I am sitting in the smoking patio with a few other dedicated smokers.  We are all sitting silently smoking staring out through the chain link fence into the gray mist.

“Hey you all ever watch that old TV show Hee Haw?”  I ask.

“I wasn’t allowed to watch TV when I was growing up.”  Says my roommate Mary Ann blowing a smoke ring as she speaks.  She is very good at blowing smoke rings, a trick I’ve never mastered.

“Well that explains why you’re here.”  I quip.  “How about  the rest of you?”

No one had.

“You didn’t miss much.  I hated that show.  I’m not a fan of country music and all that cutsie, fakie hay seed hillbilly shit works on my nerves like a dull dentist drill.  My grandparents watched that show every week.  There was one bit in that show that I liked, the gloom and despair song.  Would you all like to hear it?”

No one objected.

So in my very best down home country twang I began to sing.

Gloom despair and misery on me.  Deep dark depression excessive misery, If it weren’t for bad luck I’dd  have no luck at all.  Gloom despair and misery on me.”

I ran it through a couple more times.

“Ok now you all join in. A Onea and A Twoa..

And they did.  The Gloom and despair song rang out.  Everyone really got into it, grinning and rocking back and forth in their chairs.  Until a helpful nurse looked in on us with a worried frown.  Laughter makes the staff nervous.  As soon as she popped her head in everyone dummied up.  But after that from time to time I would hear the song being softly sung from patients through out the hospital.