I’ve hugged more toilets than people in my life. Between the two, I prefer the former.
There’s something to be said about the embrace between forearms and porcelain. When you’re on your knees and the bile starts crawling out of your mouth, sometimes it’s all you have.
Right now, that is all I have.
This is my favorite toilet to puke in—the one I’m holding right now. I’m tucked away in my private bathroom oasis across the hall from the CT scan department. Everbright Hospital has a few of these hidden gems scattered around its web of halls, accessible only by keycard. I earned mine ten years ago when I accepted a position as a patient transporter. Been here ever since. Perks include paid time off, a 401(k), and an assortment of private bathrooms to satisfy all your puking-while-crying needs.
The long, oval bowl of this toilet really gets me. We’re puzzle pieces.
After a final pass of bitter liquids over my tongue, I lay my forehead on the rim. It gives me temporary relief from my everlasting psychogenic fever.
I end my prayer to the porcelain gods. My pager goes off. Back to the grind.
Employees must wash hands before returning to work.
They should provide different paper towels. The single-ply brown ones don’t do my eczema any favors.
I burst into the CT control room Kool-Aid-Man style with the fakest smile.
“Who’s next?” I ask. All the technologists look at me. Their facial expressions cover the entire spectrum of human emotion.
“PW!” Audrey shouts. “Where were you?!”
Audrey is running the show today—coordinating with doctors and nurses, prioritizing the ever-expanding patient list, making and taking every phone call, telling me who to bring down next, all the things. She sits at the desk with the big computer screen.
“Can you please call me by my actual name?” I plead to Audrey.
“But you’re the patient whisperer!”
“Always with the shouting, Audrey.”
I snatch the paper from her flapping hand. Let’s take a look:
Bernard Carruthers. 89 years old. CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis with oral and IV contrast. Sixth floor. North wing. Room 618.
I know that room.
“He’s refusing to drink his contrast,” Audrey says. “We need you to work your magic and get him to cooperate. He’s a pending discharge and they want to get him out of here.”
I don’t say a word. Audrey told me everything I need to know. It’s showtime.
She sings gratitude in my direction.
“Thank you, Julian!”
I take the long way there. The north elevators are the shortest route to Mr. Carruthers, but I’d rather take the path of least human interaction. The south elevators break down every other day with their flickering lights and groaning cables. People don’t use them; they aren’t exactly safe. But I use them. All the time. It’s better to perish in a free-falling elevator than endure the slow, painful death of small talk.
I hear Bernard’s voice down the hall as I exit the elevator. Two nurses flee his room. A steel bedpan flies past their heads.
“You’re not taking me anywhere!” he shouts.
A nurse picks up the phone but sets it back down when she sees me. Her entire musculoskeletal system releases tension. She greets me kindly. Other nearby medical personnel find comfort in my presence. The patient whisperer has arrived.
“What do we got?” I ask as I fill out a transport slip—standard procedure.
She pulls me aside, away from patients and visitors with ears.
“Mr. Carruthers found out about you-know-who,” she whispers. “He thinks we made her disappear. Now he’s convinced we’re going to do the same to him.”
Off to a brutal start, but nothing I can’t handle.
“Can’t we just discharge him?” I ask. “Just let him get an outpatient scan.”
“Where’s my banana?!” Bernard screams. “I was promised a banana!”
The nurse and I exchange glances, silently agreeing to pretend we didn’t just hear that. She forces a smile that reveals her patience, but all goes out the window when a remote control flies from Bernard’s room, shattering against the nurse station counter. A shiny gold AAA battery pinballs in several directions and smacks her cheekbone.
“Excuse me, Julian.”
She flies into Bernard’s room.
Her name is Brenda. I’m talking about her as if I don’t know her, but I do. I know everyone who works here.
“We’ve been over this, Bernard!” Brenda cries. “We want to give you your banana. We want you to eat! But you can’t eat until you get your test done. So just let them take you down there and get it over with. Otherwise, you’ll have to take it up with Dr. Blanchett if you keep refusing.”
Here’s the thing about Bernard.
I may have never seen this man before, but it’s clear to me that he’s afraid. Fear wears many disguises; it can’t be remedied with logic. The cognitive part of his brain understands. It’s satiated. That’s not the problem.
If I was a betting man, I’d say Bernard’s limbic system, or as I like to call it, his “feelings department,” has fallen on hard times. It doesn’t give a damn about logic or reason. It needs something else.
I’m here to give it that something else.
“Go to hell, lady!” Bernard screams. Brenda flees the room. An eel skin slipper chases her on the way out.
“That’s my cue,” I say aloud. Nurse Number Two rolls her eyes. It’s the best.
Nurse Number Two isn’t her real name.
I grab Bernard’s chart from the shelf. This will be a useful prop.
The room looks like someone robbed it, or at least that’s how people describe messy rooms. Everything is everywhere. Nothing in its right place except for a shortwave radio. It rests peacefully on Bernard’s tray table.
This is important. I can work with this.
I start every introduction the same way: Say hello, state my name, and explain why I’m here. All that stuff. Every patient gets hit with the same script until improv is required.
“Hi, Bernard! My name is Julian Poverly.” I tap on my name badge so he can verify. “I’m here to take you down for your CT scan.”
“Like hell you are!”
Hostile but expected. It doesn’t sway me. I make eyes with Brenda and nod toward the door. She takes my hint and walks away. The floor is mine now.
Showtime.
First things first: deflection. Let’s give Bernie the impression that I don’t care about the CT scan or what the doctors want. Instead, I’ll pivot to the shortwave radio. That’s the key to where we go next.
“I’m with you on that, Bernard.”
I chuck his chart behind me and out of the room, all the while keeping eye contact. I hear the chart slide down the hall at light speed. All the nurses think I’m insane. I’m just getting started, baby.
“Let’s talk about more important things,” I say. His brows do a dance. I watch him as he watches me fumble through my scrub pockets. I reveal six AAA batteries, the exact amount and size needed for his radio.
I have his curiosity. Let’s keep it going.
“Are you familiar with skip propagation, Bernard?”
I slip the batteries into their new home. He doesn’t know the answer, but he’s not supposed to. I take him for a casual enthusiast. That’s exactly where I want him.
“It allows shortwave radios to communicate over very—and I mean very—long distances. Shortwave radio waves can bounce off the ionosphere, a layer of electrically charged atoms in the atmosphere, and be reflected back to Earth at great distances. Think of it as a sort of skywave. Pretty cool, right?”
I slide my fingers across Bernard’s radio. I’ve seen characters do this in movies, except they slide their fingers across the body of a sports car or the skin of someone they feel a longing for. Two things I don’t know anything about.
“The question here, Bernard, is how you’ve managed to keep an American Electrola DXC-100 in such pristine condition. Wow! I mean, the wooden housing alone is typically prone to nicks, scratches, and the like. But you, well, you’re a real caretaker of fascinating technology, my good sir. I can tell you really care about this radio. I admire that. I’m very proud of you.”
The scan, this hospital, his health issues—they all fade into the background, into the realm of unimportance. Shortwave radio is king. Nothing else matters, nor should it.
I've conjured a flame in him.
Speak, Bernard.
He moves his lips in various positions without giving them a voice. In a few seconds, he will speak, but no matter what words fall from his pale lips, they will act in service to connecting with my half of the conversation. I’m almost there. We’re on the same team now. We just have to win the game.
Sports.
“WBCQ,” Bernard mutters. “Me and my son listened every day after dinner for years. They called it The Planet. Real fringe stuff. They even offered airtime to people who didn’t have access to mainstream outlets. Free speech! Can you believe it?”
He’s on the hook now. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but you best believe I act like I do. It’s all a matter of reciting the right combination of words.
“I feel you, Bernard. I must admit that I don’t care much for their religious programming. What really speaks to my soul, though, is their willingness to broadcast that fringe content you speak of: UFOs, paranormal phenomena, alternative health practices, conspiracies. I’ll have more of that, please and thank you, am I right?”
Bernard claps, snaps his fingers, and points at me with both hands.
We won. I have him.
“Say…what did you say your name is again?”
“Julian, sir. Born and bred right here in Detroit. I’m at your service and ready to take you down for your CT scan. I need a little help from you first.”
I grab the bottle of oral contrast from the floor.
It’s not that it tastes bad. It’s a clear liquid. Doesn’t taste like much. The problem is they make you drink a whole liter of it. Heavy on the stomach, heavier on the bladder. But I can tell that’s not what’s holding Mr. Carruthers back. There’s something else.
I hold the bottle up and give it a good shake.
“I need you to drink this for me, buddy. It’ll get you one step closer to getting out of this god awful place. Is that okay?”
He’s in room 618. I know what he’s about to say.
“This room is cursed, I tell you. Cursed! Did you hear what happened to the woman who was in here before me? It’s the only thing these nurses talk about for crying out loud. They say the woman escaped, but something doesn’t feel right. I bet you they made her disappear. Poof! Wiped her right off the face of the Earth.”
Her name was Sophie Blanc. Late-twenties, around my age if i had to guess. I didn’t know her personally. Never transported her. I did pass her room around the time she disappeared, though.
The room was much colder than the hallway.
Light from the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling bent unnaturally.
No one saw her leave the room. The security cameras didn’t catch anything. No clues. No leads. Just as Bernard said, poof.
Escaped or disappeared? Either way, it was a strange night.
As Bernard rants about his cursed room, I can’t help but notice the way he clutches his blanket. It’s threadbare but clearly precious, like he’s holding onto something that matters.
“She’s probably in a dumpster outside somewhere,” Bernard continues. “And I’m next!”
There’s a desperation in his voice that doesn’t match his anger. It’s the sound of someone who’s been waiting years to be heard.
Telling him to not worry wouldn’t help. Humans don’t comprehend negatives well at all. That’s like me telling you to not think about elephants. And just like that, one blooms.
I see the elephant in your mind. Clear as the elephant in Bernard’s room.
Deflection seems to be working well with him. Let’s do it again.
“Can I call you Bernie?” I ask. His brows drop. I’ve disarmed him again.
“Umm, sure.”
I clear my throat and give my neck a good crack before diving into my speech. This is the speech I’ve given to thousands of patients over the past ten years. I use it because it works. Doesn’t matter if the patient is frustrated or pissed off or scared of ending up like Sophie Blanc. The speech works every time.
Most of it is true. The rest is theatrics and embellishment.
“Bernie, I know you don’t want to be here. Between you and me, I don’t want to be here either. Hospitals are the worst. I’m not just saying this as an employee. I’ve been on the other end of it more times than I can count.”
He’s stupefied now. Time to close the deal.
“I’ve been a patient at this hospital and many others. Want to know something crazy? Within a single year, I had three of my organs removed. I didn’t know you could have that many things taken out of your body. And it was hell: the long nights, the full liquid diet, the feeling that no medical professional actually gave a crap about me. Months of this. I went through months of this. At times, I was two seconds away from ripping my IV out and catching a cab. But you know what, Bernard? I stuck it out. I fought that fight. I didn’t give up.
“And now, I'm standing here in hopes that I can help you, because I’ve been in your hospital slippers before. These people don’t understand us. Just between you and me, I’m on your side, not theirs. The only thing they do for me is sign my paycheck every two weeks. But enough about that. What do you say, Bernie? Let’s get this thing over with, yeah? Are you ready to fight?”
I hold the bottle of contrast like a trophy.
A single tear rolls down his cheek. He keeps his eyes on me as he fumbles for a straw. “No need,” I say. “I got one right here for you.” I reveal a straw from my back pocket like the medical magician that I am. His shaky hands reach out for me. I stab the straw in the bottle and hand it over.
Mission accomplished.
My cell phone vibrates against my leg.
“Are we going down now?” Bernard asks.
“You have to drink the contrast first, then wait thirty minutes. I’ll be back for you then.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. See you in a bit, my man.”
My leg vibrates again.
I give him a pat on his shoulder, two knocks on his tray table, and a salute.
“All good, all set,” I tell the nurses at the station. “I’ll be back in forty-five.”
People think my job is about getting patients from Point A to Point B. Really, it’s about walking the tightrope between humanity and chaos.
In the elevator, I find a moment to check my phone. I have the latest model, a Nokia 6220. It greets me with two new text messages:
He’s having another episode.
Please go see him.
I could ring Audrey on a nearby hospital phone to see what patient is next, but my head has a date with a toilet. Second vomit fest of the afternoon. Let’s do this.
On average, I experience this three times a day, usually in a cluster after lunch. On special occasions, I do one more in the parking lot after my shift. The perpetual burning in my throat inspired a term I made up the other day: rawsophagus.
I make it just in time to my second favorite private bathroom, the one just outside the cardiac cath lab.
You can wait in the hall for this one. I’ll spare you the details.
***
I burst into the CT control room. The Kool-Aid Man has returned.
“Who’s next?” I ask Audrey.
“You got a phone call while you were wrestling with Bernard.” she says.
I feared this.
“Someone named Clifford. He asked for you specifically. Something about a ghost in his attic? He talked faster than I could keep up.You should call him back before the next one. He didn't sound too good.”
She hands me the receiver and a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“Do you need this or do you know the number?”
I know the number.
If you wander through Detroit’s Indian Village, chances are you’ll find the Rune Estate. It looks like a haunted house, the kind you pay to enter around Halloween time.
I get to enter this one for free. Lucky me.
When Clifford Rune calls me, I answer.
After every call, I go to his haunted house.
Don’t make friends with patients.
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