Easy as PIE – the rebranding of paedophilia | Morning Star
Book Review; Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
By Richard Devine (22.05.2020)
Introduction
Erving Goffman’s 1956 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is considered one of the most important sociological texts of the twentieth century. His work is often a staple part of the social work curriculum. Goffman invokes language and imagery derived from theatre. This functions as an effective analogy to illustrate the different roles different individuals play in different settings and the use of props and setting to facilitate the expression of those roles. This terminology whilst highly effective on an analogical level can perhaps create the impression that his ideas are somewhat superficial. However, his ideas have considerable depth, both sociological and psychological and deserve serious consideration.
Performances, Idealization and Teams
Perhaps the most succinct summary his ideas is a quote he offers from Robert Ezra Park;
‘It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person, in its first person, is…
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Gaslight
Ridicule
Humiliation
Invalidation
I want to stare through you
To a thousand yards
Where you no longer
Dance
On my pain
Snort
“This is where it happened. Graduate or die trying. I beat you cunts.”
“You need to change the way you think about them. They’re not bad people.”
“There are things you don’t know about your brothers. You don’t know who they really are.”
Snort
I should have walked away then.
But I had to lie to myself.
Black Night Blue Sky
It seems the past is best explored as fiction which is apt because memory is not a video recorder. It’s a reconstructive process in which we impose meaning on experience. And so, in some of these stories, the names have been changed. You can never know whether a thing really happened. It’s very useful that, especially when dealing with things that are criminal. I’ve always protested my innocence of such acts, at least when I’m in the interview room. When asked privately, I usually maintain a discrete silence. Did you see what I did there? I got you hooked. I’m good at this. I may even have a future.
So, sometimes you’ll see substitute names. The third person’s so useful. Look how well it worked for Vonnegut and Ballard. I admire them both, but I must confess I preferred Kurt drunk rather than sober. Mother Night’s a masterpiece; Deadeye Dick plummets into the abyss. Any novel that ends with the words “We’re living in a dark age” should come with a health warning. No, not those “trigger warnings” that pop up everywhere to send snowflakes scurrying into their “Safe Spaces”. It angers me that some who float on a sea of very special privilege, the kind we dare not name (consider this a test) see fit to smack down other, lesser beings with that very word. Behold the new thought-stopping cliché;
“Check your Privilege”.
Where was I? Oh yes; names. The character, who is not me, should have a name that’s neutral yet secretly simmers with layers of meaning. Adam; oh yes, I have uses for you. And what of another character, who is not my sister? Lorna, from the Billy plays by Graham Reid; the elder sibling who sheltered the little ones from our greatest cultural achievement; the substitution of violence for love. You think it’s that simple, do you? Oh no, I’ll take a beating any day. Compared to the rape of the soul, it’s merely trivial. I’ve met my share of Soul Surgeons. Poor Kurt. He should have stuck with the Breakfast of Champions. It was Ballard’s salvation. It helped him raise his children when his wife died. Through the haze he found his own moments of clarity and there were so many of them, and prose I could never hope to match.
I did it again. I got distracted. It’s the medication. And the thoughts. It’s a never ending bombardment. Like Peter Gabriel, I hear that voice again. There are so many of them, so many narratives of unworth. It’s enough to drive a a man to drink. But not me. Maybe I should consider it. We all need something. Poor Kurt.
Anyway, Adam’s big sister has taken him to see a movie in the picture house. That’s what we called it. I remember watching Convoy. I love that movie. It made a very small boy a Peckinpah fan. They’ve got the bus back up to Turf Lodge. All the street lights are dead. They were smashed long ago and nobody fixes them. There are men who crave the night. It’s when they do their best and worst work. He’s holding her hand. Mother Night is pitch black. Underfoot a piece of bottle crunches. He loves it when that happens, which is all the time. The debris of daily rioting scatters the ground like landmines, waiting to slice up children who are human enough to run barefoot in the summer heat. It’s quiet. The air is cold. Dark figures appear,
“Get inside, love.”
They hurry to the gate. She struggles with the latch, pushes it open. He hears the key slide into the lock,
Click!
They’re inside.
Click!
Into the living room,
“There’s trouble.”
“What?”
Bang!! Bang !! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!
Footsteps shudder down the enclosed entry.
Slam!!
There’s a movie on the television. It’s Fu-Manchu.
********
The sun is shining. The sky is blue. That used to happen. The yard door is broken. The men ran through the back garden and away. It’s a big space. There’s a path that runs from top to bottom. His father has his tools out. With his hacksaw, he’s cut metal sheet. It has perforations. Through these he hammers self-tapping screws. No finesse, no cordless drill or any of that; this is the 1970’s. He rams them home the old fashioned way,
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Thud!
He opens a tin of black gloss and thins some with white spirit then paints it on.
Job done. Adam, as usual, is awestruck.
His father must go to bed. He’s just back from the night shift.
Written August 28th 2016
Hospital Diary
via Hospital Diary
These events took place in February and March 2006 in the Mater Hospital
Part One
Fever
He’s cold. He’s shaking. He’s soaked in sweat.
Not again.
He’s hot. He’s thirsty. He tries to drink water. His stomach revolts. He gets up. His head’s spinning.
Kitchen.
He shakes a bottle of kaolin and morphine, swallows a tablespoon of of the minty, chalky mix.
He sips water.
A little bit.
Then another.
Then no more.
He can’t face the minty stuff.
His head’s sore.
His feet are freezing. He pulls on socks, shivers under the covers.
It comes.
He’s not forgotten. How can he?
Paracetamol.
He can barely hold it down.
It’s no good.
Get the spray.
He soaks his chest muscles in Ibuprofen.
He breathes in.
Raw pain.
He breathes out.
Raw pain.
He tries to sleep.
It’s the morning of the third day.
Every movement shoots agony through him. It can only get worse. He has drunk no more than half a litre of water.
He knows. He’s had this thing before.
He has a choice to make.
It’s no way to die.
He remembers watching someone else; a man bigger than he now is reduced to a skeleton, unable to even speak. Just a croak.
He looks at the clock.
9am
If he’s to make the phone call, it has to be now. He will not have the strength later.
Today I die.
He dials the number.
“Surgery. How may I help?”
“I…..”
“Yes?”
“I need a doctor.”
“Yes? What are your symptoms?”
“Fever. Pain. Chest pain.”
“Can you make it to the surgery?”
“No. I….”
“Would you like a doctor to come out to you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
She doesn’t recognise my voice.
“Adam. Adam Miller.”
“You may have to wait a while.”
“Okay.”
He falls out of bed. He can’t stand.
Crawl.
He slides down the stairs, turns the key in the deadbolt. He wants to be able to open the front door.
He shivers on the floor, hugs his knees and waits.
********
The doorbell rings. He panics, moves hand over foot.
Pain!!
He can’t stand. He raps the door to show he’s in.
Reach up.
Click!
The air is ice. She stairs down at him,
“Adam Miller?”
“Yes.”
“What appears to be the problem?”
“It’s sore.”
“What’s sore?”
“Chest. Come in.”
She looks scared.
Please help me. Don’t go away.
He crawls back to his place before an empty hearth. She opens her bag. Cold metal touches his chest,
“Can you breath in…….?”
Pain!!
“And out.”
Pain!!
And again.
Please make it stop!!
“You appear to have a chest infection.”
“I can’t move…..”
“I can give you a script for antibiotics.”
“I can’t get water into me.”
Yes, your eyes look quite sunken. I can give you something for the nausea.”
“Serotonin antagonists?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t take them. I have depression.”
She looks confused. The contagion of his terror appears to have afflicted her,
“I can give you a script now…….”
He’s shaking his head.
Please don’t leave me here to die.
She’s looking around her.
Maybe it’s the filth. I’m sorry. I can’t help it.
“Um……..”
Please………….
“Do you think you need to go to hospital?”
Thank you!
“In a word……?”
“Do you have a phone here?”
“Upstairs. Bedroom.”
She looks anxious.
Say something.
“I don’t blame you. The whole house looks like a bomb hit it.”
“I’ll call from the surgery. The ambulance should take about an hour. Can you wait that long?”
“I’ll have to.”
She’s relieved to be going.
“I would see you to the front door, but, you know…”
She lets herself out.
Get some clothes.
He crawls to the stairs.
Pain!!
Moving’s worse than breathing.
Sweatshirts fall from the shelf.
Rap!! Rap!! Rap!!
He slides down the stairs on his backside, reaches up,
Click!!
“Are you the patient?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have your details?”
“Yes.”
He points to a printout she’s left. and staggers with a stooped gait into the kitchen. He grabs a used polythene bag, and tries to squeeze his clothes into it. They spill onto the floor
The paramedic helps him pick them up,
“Can you walk to the ambulance?”
“I need help.”
They hold his armpits. Pain lances through him.
They’ve made it. The paramedic sits opposite him and clips a monitor to his thumb. There’s confusion and concern. Dehydration has made his blood pressure dangerously low. An oxygen mask slips over his face,
“Breath deep and slow.”
Pain!!
“It’s like a fuckin’ knife!!”
“Don’t swear. It’s like a knife.”
“Every breath, every breath………”
“It’s pleurisy.”
“Where are we going?”
“The Mater.”
His partner puts the siren on. He holds Adam steady as he wobbles with the acceleration.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s not good, but we’ve antibiotics.”
“You don’t get treatment resistant strains?”
“You’ll be fine. We can treat MRSA. At the moment anyway. There’s a new bug. We don’t have it here. Not yet.”
This was interesting,
“We’ll end up going back to the 1930’s, before we had penicillin.”
“It’ll happen.”
“Bad times. A lot of people will die.”
“You’ll be okay. We can treat this.”
His partner calls from the driver’s seat,
“We’re here.”
Arms swing his legs up onto the trolley. They crank it’s back up so he’s sitting.
********
Part Two
The Pain Scale
It’s warm in here.
The doors flap open. Chill wind follows another trolley.
Casualty’s full. He waits.
A doctor comes,
“Where do you rate the pain, between one and five-”
“Five.”
“Take these.”
He sips water and swallows. He’s still nauseous,
“I haven’t been able to drink.”
“I’m gonna put you on a drip now.”
He looks away as the cannula slides into his arm. They inject antibiotic into the valve.
“We’re trying to find a bed for you. It’ll take a while.”
“Okay.”
I’m not going anywhere. I can wait.
Hours pass. He breaths shallow and slow.
Pain!!
The porters come.
********
It’s a surgical ward filled with emergency admissions. Beside him, a drunk argues with his delirium tremens, occasionally noticing the nurses who try to restrain him. They’ve become, it seems, inured to verbal abuse. His shouting and violent writhing do not dilute their concern for him. His cannula works loose and falls to the floor.
“Jimmy, we have to put a new one in………Jimmy……Jimmy……Jimmy……it’s okay.”
He’s old and tired and weak and filled with the strength of his rage. They overcome him, open the valve in the drip, and apply a nicotine patch to his arm. Velcro straps secure him to the bed. They leave him to it and he becomes, not calm, but less distressed.
*********
Adam coughs up a mass of yellow goo and spits it into a specimen cup,
“Must be strep or staff.”
The nurse looks at him,
“Are you medical?”
“No…No….I’ve just……..I’ve read about it”
She looks at his chart,
“You’re on Augmentin.”
“What is that?”
“It’s one of the penicillins.”
*********
He stands facing the wall, wraps the lead gonad shield around his backside and clings onto it. The technician’s talking to him,
“Okay. Just hold your back straight. That’s it. Now I need you to hold your breath………”
The x-ray machine buzzes, then stops.
“That one’s blurred. I need you to stay perfectly still.”
Buzzzzzzzzz…..Click.
“That one’s better.”
The porter takes him back to the ward.
**********
They’ve been phoning for hours and now, finally, she’s come. Maura stands in the doorway, afraid, it seems, to cross the threshold and engage with what’s happening. He looks at her. She comes and sits by his bed.
“The hospital called.”
“You’re my next of kin.”
They have become brother and sister to each other, two wounded souls cast adrift on a sea of loss. He understands the terror in her eyes. She’s facing the sudden threat of imminent bereavement. He thinks back. He’d barely turned eleven, and could not recognize the man they took him to see. He had been huge once, all the more so in the eyes of a child. He was reduced to skin and bone and sinew. His father had hours to live. No-one had told him what a “shadow on the lung” means.
Adam can barely speak. Like him, she has no words.
*********
“Hi. My name’s Emma. I’m a junior doctor. Where’s the pain?”
He points to the bottom of his chest and left side and back.
She nods,
“That’s where the consolidations show on the x-ray.”
She puts a cold stethoscope to his chest,
“Can you breathe in deep for me…”
Pain!!
“It’s sore….”
“If five is the worst…”
“Five.”
She looks at his chart,
“I can give you more painkillers now if you want.”
“Would you do that for me?”
“When did you last eat?”
“Two days ago.”
“You must be hungry.”
“Nausea…… Couldn’t……..”
“Do you want to try something now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see what the canteen has. Lets see what you weigh.”
“You should be eighty-four kilos, and you’re currently seventy-two. You’re suffering from malnutrition.”
********
He swallows the tablets and slowly eats sweet and sour pork. Maura sits beside him. She has respected his privacy and left the doctor to have her little chat with him.
It’s time to go. He gives her his wallet for safekeeping and to purchase necessaries.
********
“I need diazepam at night.”
“We can’t give you it. Your breathing’s too bad. It’s dangerous.”
“What about a sleeping tablet?”
“It’ll be a few hours before a doctor’s available. See how you go.”
He lacks the will to insist.
********
The nightmare’s vivid. It’s family.
He wakes.
Oh Fuck!! Where am I?
The ward’s dark. There’s light and movement out in the corridor.
Try to sleep.
********
The entire ward grumbles as Jimmy wages war on his hallucinations. Adam tries to doze. A nurse checks his blood pressure in the night.
“How are you feeling?”
“I wish he’d shut the fuck up.”
Her rebuke is like a snarl,
“He’s sufferin’ too.”
“I just wanna sleep.”
********
“Hi…Hi……..Adam?”
“Whaaaa…….”
A different nurse, this one young,
“Your fever’s bad. You’re burning up. I’m gonna put this fan here to try and cool you down.”
“Thanks……..”
********
Morning comes with the rattle of the medication trolley. No-one has slept. Jimmy’s private war had taken its toll on all of them.
His eye has crusted over in the night. A cold sore blossoms on his lip.
*********
Doctor Lim is Korean and strictly professional. She shows her medical students the print outs of his x-rays, pointing out the shadows,
“You see the consolidations here and here. Atypical pneumonia and pleurisy. What’s he on? Augmentin. Add Claricid to that.”
The nurses look worried.
********
As she changes his bed, Adam asks Carmel, a Staff Nurse,
“What is it I have?”
“Pneumonia.”
“It’s not TB or nothin’?”
“No.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“There’s a consolidation sitting over your heart.”
“Ah…….”
********
“Zovirax cream is no better than placebo.”
“It works. Use it.”
He does, but when a medical student is taking a blood sample, asks her for an alcohol wipe,
“This is what my old GP taught me. You watchin’?”
He douses the cold-sore with it, burning a fire-break of dead skin to stop its spread.
She’s impressed. She’s learned a new trick. He feels better already. He’s taken some control of things. Every little bit helps.
********
The physiotherapist is young and lovely.
“You need to get oxygen deep into your lungs.”
He tries. The pain is less, maybe a three on the scale. She gets him up on his feet and walking.
“You’re a shoulder breather.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re hunching. Get your back up straight. That’s it. Now pull your shoulders down, breathe in deep, down into your stomach. Slow and deep.”
He’s learning to walk like a man.
********
Part 3
Harry
The nausea has gone. He’s eating and the food’s good. You can’t beat hospital porridge. He loves those lumps. He’s still on a drip, but he’s drinking water. There are special drinks for the malnourished, very, very high fat content. He tries. It’s like drinking banana flavoured engine oil.
I’m not that brave.
********
The shortage of hospital beds has created an absurdity. Emergency admissions are slotted in anywhere a vacant bed can be found. This means that a surgical ward is filled with patients who are not there for operations. Doctors, followed by their gaggles of medical students, walk here, there and everywhere looking for their patients. In his eight days in the Mater, he bears witness to the chaos of a Health Service “Reformed” to the point of perpetual imminent collapse.
********
Harry’s an elderly, quiet and dignified man who’s come in for major bowel surgery. He’s pleasant and appreciates Adam’s little moments of wry humour. They wheel him away to the theatre.
He returns a different man.
*********
He’s confused and babbling. Carla, a senior staff nurse and shift manager, talks his daughter and son in law through the technicalities.
“This is the stoma. You see where the bag goes? Like this. Okay, now you try it. That’s it.”
Harry’s oblivious. He’s back in the Army, during the war,
“Yes, Sergeant. I’ll do that.”
********
Carla’s heard of Jimmy’s antics.
“He’s gettin’ a sleepin’ tablet. I’m not havin’ another night of that.”
Things are looking up.
********
Carla’s dedicated and disciplined. She puts the nebuliser mask over his face to feed warm, salty water vapour to his lungs.
What’s that?
It’s a medal. She’s a nun.
What order does she belong to?
He’s shocked. Her compassion is genuine. He remembers the wimpled and terrifying monsters from the primary school in Turf Lodge.
*********
Evening has come, and Maura sits with him. They listen to Harry, whose outer monologue is fascinating. Carla’s speaking,
“It happens with post-operative shock. They usually recover.”
Carla preparing Adam’s Augmentin. He asks her,
“Why is it given intravenously?”
“It works quicker. It takes forty-eight hours for the antibiotics to kick in.”
“You mean I’m getting worse?”
“The nebuliser helps break up the consolidation. Your infection count should start going down from here on.”
She opens the valve on his cannula and slips the nozzle of the syringe in. She has to force the plunger down hard. Maura flees. She returns a few minutes later, her eyes raw, her tears rinsed away.
**********
“Can I have valium?”
“Your breathing’s too bad for it.”
“What about a sleeping tablet?”
“The doctors are busy.”
He wakes from one nightmare after another. No doctor comes.
Harry doesn’t sleep. He’s driving a truck up the narrow road that never reached Arnhem.
“The Germans were waitin’ for them. The Paratroopers had no chance.”
A shell bursts nearby and he ducks, peering over the steering wheel. He will not get to relieve the beleaguered Airborne Division.
*********
Morning comes. He’s shell shocked. Hypervigilance sends every noise through him like a gunshot. He hasn’t slept in days.
“I need Valium.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I only need two milligrams.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can cut a tablet in two. One milligram.”
She speaks to Carla. They get a pill-cutter. He swallows his slice of salvation like a communion wafer and dozes.
********
Night comes.
“I need a sleeping tablet.”
“We’ll see.”
“Please. I can’t………I…….”
“I’ll speak to the doctor.”
********
“Take this.”
“Thank you.”
Peace comes.
Part 4
Scrubs
He’s off the drip, rehydrated. Wobbly on his feet, yes, but in a stable condition.
It’s late. The night shift are on. The big lights are off. The little ones, above the head of each bed, provide illumination. The corridor, out there, has a soft yellow glow. It’s quiet. Harry’s sleeping. The ghosts of Arnhem’s tragedy no longer keep him awake. A woman comes to Adam. She wears crimson scrubs. He can’t help himself. He has to say it,
“You’re surgical aren’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s the scrubs. They kind of give it away.”
“How would you feel about moving to a different ward? It’s smaller than his.”
“Quieter?”
“Yes…….… We’ve someone coming out of theatre and we need this bed.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you inform my next of kin that I’ve moved?”
“We’ll do that.”
He piles his stuff together on the bed. His head’s spinning. He falls into a chair.
Toilet.
He asks a male nurse,
“Can you help me? Just to get me from here to there?”
“Put your arm around me.”
He bolts the door, shaking with terror and embarrassment at his powerlessness.
********
It’s a mini-ward called a bay. It has four beds and three heart patients. This is apt and surprising. After all, it’s a heart ward. Then again, its patients are mostly emergency admissions. They’re in urgent need of specialist care.
The ward’s quiet, but not the corridor. The nurses keep the door open. During the night he tiptoes up to quietly push it shut.
********
Morning comes and an Indian nurse gives him medication and checks his details,
“Do you need a chaplain?”
“No…..… I don’t believe in that.”
She’s sympathetic. He’s glad.
*******
He’s living from one panic attack to the next. They haven’t contacted his next of kin. He asks for a phone. It won’t work. He’s screaming at a nurse. He draws the curtains around his bed and tried to keep the world at bay.
********
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
“It’s okay.”
No it’s not.
********
It’s the weekend. The junior doctors are on their own. They’ve no consultants for backup.
“We can take that out now and put you on oral antibiotics.”
He looks away as they pull the cannula free.
********
Part 5
Them and Us
“What happened to that?”
Doctor Lim is not amused,
“I didn’t authorise that.”
She looks at his chart,
“You’ve been switched to oral…….. I want you X-rayed. Take care of that please.”
********
The consolidations are disappearing. The nebuliser’s flood of salty steam into his lungs has bought him time. The antibiotics are working. The pain has shrunk down to an ache. The nurses always make sure he gets co-codamol.
********
It’s lunchtime. Two medical students interview him. They’re eagerly accumulating case-studies. Adam tells them his personal history and the onset of his illness. They go away, then come back to examine his hands. They’ve forgotten to look for clubbed knuckles. He has none. The pneumonia is atypical. The nurses are visibly angry. Mealtimes are supposed to be quiet, their charges left in peace.
*********
The sheen of new construction has faded. The Mater is filthy, the cleaners forever overworked. Hardened grime gets a quick wipe with a cloth. A manager comes and watches them,
“I have to see you do the thing.”
She’s taking the piss. Then again, that’s what they pay her good money for.
********
The shower room in his bay has become its own ecosystem. A commode is glued to the floor by an ancient, crusted jay-cloth. He tells Maura to go have a look.
“Holy Fuck!!!”
The whole ward giggles.
********
The cleaner sits down and fumes,
“Who does he think he is? Does he think I’m a piece of shit? I told that consultant to go fuck himself!!”
It’s was as if she has spoken for all of them.
“Good for you.”
*********
Orla is a senior Staff Nurse with twenty-five years on the job. She will not allow it to harden her. She and Adam have become friends and, in a sense, conspirators. They talk about the hierarchy. Consultants are demi-gods, surrounded by their acolytes, the medical students; junior doctors a snobbish clique who treat nurses, patients and auxiliaries with equal disdain. It strengthens the bond between the lesser beings. The little acts of kindness are all the more meaningful because they stand out in sharp contrast to the casual disregard of the “other lot”, who act for all the world as if they are a better class of person. The lower orders beg to differ, but, usually, keep it among themselves.
********
Every day he looks away as a hypodermic is slipped into his arm and blood samples drawn off.
“You can tell I’d never make a junkie.”
Louise smiles. She’s a staff Nurse in her early twenties. He feels an affinity with her, which goes beyond mere physical attraction. She’s working class. Her speech, like Adam’s, is full of colloquialisms and intelligent content. He thinks back to his own years in Sullivan Upper. He can picture her in a grammar school, struggling with the barriers of class, set apart by the “tells” of accent and dialect. In the class war that plays itself out on the wards, she’s one of us, the little people, lorded over by their betters.
Every little act of revenge is delicious. Medical students swoop on a computer terminal like school kids, eager to see his latest X-rays. Louise walks up to them,
“Does any of youse medical students have alcohol gel?”
They have none. Their smugness evaporates.
Adam’s in love.
If you weren’t married, I’d propose to you.
********
Part 5
The Day before Ash Wednesday
The other three men on his ward have just had heart attacks, but they’re not happy with the chaplains who hover like vultures. A near death experience has not brought them closer to God. Instead, one of them gives smoking right away. He doesn’t even ask for nicotine patches. He just stops, and that’s that. It’s how he deals with his existential crisis. Adam’s own, in the aftermath of the fever, is beginning.
********
He’s losing weight as his body devours itself in its efforts to fight the infection. Every day, in the mirror, his face gets thinner. His cheeks become craters. His eyes get ever bigger.
********
They want to send him home. They need the bed and the threat of MRSA is so great that patients are discharged fast, lest they catch something worse than what they’ve come in with.
“I’m not ready for this. I live in a cold house and I have to work real hard to heat it.”
“We can only hold you so long.”
“It’s snowing.”
“We’ll see.”
********
“I need to ask you something.”
He doesn’t want to do this.
I don’t have a choice.
Maura’s looking uncomfortable,
“What is it?”
“I need somewhere warm, ’till I get my strength back. I need your back room.”
“Yes.”
She knows she’s saving his life. He sees the burden of it in her face.
She can barely carry it.
********
It is interesting to Adam that the Mater, a Catholic hospital, has a mostly Protestant workforce, and treats mostly Protestant patients. As he emerges from his fever he notices this. He’s on a ward where people feel comfortable talking to their “own kind” and tries to “pass” for one of them.
Never drop a “H”.
He’d done that once before in a different place. The sudden and terrifying silence had made it clear.
Never drop a “tell”.
********
A contract nurse on the night shift is confirming his details,
“Okay, and your next of kin is Maura….”
“Shhhh……”
********
His last night in the Mater is Pancake Tuesday, and they have pancakes for supper. The night staff are good to their patients, but there’s a hidden layer of solidarity.
“What’s for lunch tomorrow?”
“Chops. But it’s Ash Wednesday, so if you’re one of thowwwwwwse people……..”
She makes window-wiping motions with her hand,
“……..it’s fish.”
He laughs,
“That’s long gone.”
“Chops it is then.”
He’s just become an honorary Prod.
Part 7
Discharge
It’s time. He’s leaving. It’s Ash Wednesday and he gets to have his chops for lunch. They’re tasty. Apostasy may be hard work, but he makes the most of its benefits. It’s the little things that matter.
After he’s eaten, he gets dressed and fills hospital bags with his accumulated stuff.
*********
There’s a problem. They give you a month’s supply of drugs when you leave, but they’ve forgotten to prescribe his diazepam. He has to wait ’till a junior doctor is free.
Orla and Adam exchange a knowing look,
“They’re busy, right?”
“They’re on their lunch. You’ll have a long wait.”
The afternoon wears on, and on, and on. It would have taken a handful of seconds to sign a script. The nurses keep reminding them, but……….
Louise returns from their staff room. They’ve been politely ignoring her requests. She’s not amused. Adam says what they’re both thinking,
“I fuckin’ hate those people.”
She nods in silent agreement.
**********
Tea time comes. He enjoys his last meal.
**********
The sun sets. Still no script.
**********
The day shift is ending and the junior doctors have one last thing to do.
Louise brings his valium. They say farewell. He goes to the nurses’ station. Orla phones him a taxi, and lets him call Maura.
“Thank you.”
“Look after yourself.”
“I will.”
He has yet to learn the significance of that commitment.
*********
On the way home, he feels like his eyes have become enormous. Even in the fading light of dusk, every detail of the world jumps out at him.
*********
That night, in the quiet haven of Maura’s flat, he watches a public service announcement telling us all not to bother the doctor or go to casualty unless it’s absolutely necessary. He thinks back to his panicked conversation with a locum eight days ago.
The Quad
via The Quad
I’ve a thing about quads. They’re so peaceful. It’s almost like you’re in a safe space. Did you see what I did there? There’s one in Sullivan Upper I used to sit in during the summers as I tried to escape the presence of a very very very bad woman. It’s the reason I live alone. You could say I have trust issues. It could be worse. I could have a litter of kids I’ve neither the financial nor emotional means to care for. First do no harm. I’m not proud to have broken the hearts of women. To this day I don’t know what the fuck women see in me. I do know there’s a voice in my head telling me what a piece of shit I am. I’ve more than one. There’s a family reunion I’ll never forget.
This brings me to Queens. I sat there tonight, catching the last of the daylight. It’s a beautiful place. It’s also the sight of my greatest triumph. The stakes could not have been higher; graduate or die trying. I had to fight the voices of unworth calling me an endless malingerer. Finishing the degree was my act of defiance. I knew that I could never walk through that quad having failed. I knew I never would. One way or another. My last year, the tenth, was a fury of activity so intense it blew out circuits that have yet to recover. It’s hard to believe I had it in me, all the more so given the struggle that every day now represents. But I did it. I have the photos. I have the parchment. I asked my sister to pass on the proof to some people. One was fool enough to email me. The other had the wit to do fuck all. I remember screaming at my sister the last time she was over,
“I am not excrement!!”
The narrative never stops. And I’m forever shouting it down. Sometimes I wake up punching and kicking the wall. You just can’t get away from some people. I always wake up exhausted. So it goes.
Sorry Kurt. It’s too good a line to not use.
Tonight I ran a gauntlet on my way to and from the place of solace. The animals are in town for Freshers’ Week. I never knew you could squeeze a full bottle of Buckfast into your back pocket. They wear it like a badge of pride. I passed the Hatfield and the Rose and Crown. On the opposite side of the road. They completely filled up the pavement. The walk through the avenues is harrowing. Malice and menace fill the air. Yokels, incapable of mere speech, shout at each other in accents so thick they may as well be gibberish. It’s therefore apt that the content is just that.
I made it and sat in silence. It’s a soothing space and the sky was beautiful. It’s strange to be in the serene and empty eye of the storm. This institution has brought a tide of horror to a place I used to call home. I miss it. It’s the first house of my own I ever had. I used to wake up sandwiched between two cats whose love, spelled out in purrs and cuddles, kept suicide at bay. Fur Babies.
I heard today that they’re closing the School of Sociology. Academia’s dying. In a different life, I could have studied classics at Queens, done a Ph.D. even. Both the dream and the department are long gone along with Italian, Russian and so much more. I know that History’s in the cross-hairs. Well it would be, wouldn’t it? You can’t build a corporate whorehouse on such disciplines.
On the way home I passed hostels for the homeless. When I was the age of the freshers I was living in such places. On my other blog I’ve written about this. It’s the formative experience of my adult life. I know the government is determined to close every hostel and every domestic violence shelter in the country, so the poor souls within have a deeper circle of hell to fall into. What’s that? You don’t believe me? You think it’s all just, you know, voices in my head? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong.
Click the links.
September 21st 2016
Hitting Bottom
I’m glad
I’m scared
Of Heights
Usurpers
A jibe
A sneer
Everything you do
Is cut
And sniped
By words and
Chuckles
They never leave you
Your head is not your own
You’re the squatter
Waiting eviction
Never having
A Home
Pet Human 
