MONSTER MASH

From the Chapter "Mr. Cleve and Miz Lula Belle"

Mr. Cleve had a stroke not long after he was checked into the mental ward and was transferred to the medical hospital within the complex.  I got tapped to go with my father and sit up with Mr. Cleve one night.  Actually, my father was supposed to sit up with Mr. Cleve by himself, like the rest of the brothers had done, but he didn’t want to do it alone, so he pulled fatherly rank and made me go with him.

The gift of mercy is not one of my main spiritual gifts.  I have other spiritual gifts, but have never been able to work up the requisite amount of compassion and caring for people who are sick and need caring for, or need any other kind of attention that requires a well developed sense of mercy.  That’s not to say I don’t care about people who are sick, grieving, or whatever; I do. I have just never been given the skill sets necessary to emulate Florence Nightingale. 

When my pastor at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta first talked to me about becoming a deacon for the first time, I told him right quick I was not real good at “deaking.”  I will teach, pray for, give money to, paint, hammer, hang sheetrock, cook for, and do many things to help people in need, but visiting them when they are sick just ain’t gonna happen.  The pastor recommended me as a deacon in spite of my failings of compassion and mercy.  I tell you all this to set the table for what happened when this somewhat callous attitude of mine ran head-on into a situation crying out for mercy.

When we got to Mr. Cleve’s floor it became immediately clear why I had been shanghaied into service by my father.  He was scared to spend the night alone in the hospital waiting room.  I didn’t much blame him.  The hospital was a three-story Medieval Gothic style structure built just after Sherman burned up half of Georgia .  It had carvings of gargoyles, and, what looked to me like demons from the books of Revelation and Daniel, everywhere.  The opaque globe lights hung on long cords from the ceiling and they provided just enough light so you couldn’t see doodly-squat. 

The small windows were covered with wooden shutters, cutting off any light from the full moon outside.  The wood floors squeaked and complained constantly.  The sofa in the waiting room was so old the horsehair on it had turned grey.  The big wooden rocking chairs made noises that sounded like someone sawing a person’s head off with a hacksaw, and the steam radiators hissed, popped, and clanged loudly, when you least expected it.  An occasional flash of lighting would cause a brief explosion of stark white light to break through the shutters.  I could hear the wind moaning past the windows, crying out for the hospital to send it another innocent soul.  I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of a Dracula movie.

The doctor, who had a streak of white in his otherwise coal-black hair, came by and told my father it was not necessary for us to stay the night.  He had given Mr. Cleve something to make him sleep and there was no need for us to hang around.  I stood by in amazement as Dad told the doctor that it was our Christian duty to stay, and stay we would.  That was forty years ago and I still do not understand why in the devil we had to spend the night in what would become the waiting room from the abyss, sitting up with someone who has been knocked out with a sedative.  Old habits die hard, I guess.

The waiting area was across the hall from the nurses’ desk, and we could see the nurse, with too much black eye shadow around her eyes, and blood-red lipstick smeared across her lips, settle in for the night with a book.  The small lamp on her desk cast a miniature pool of light, barely overcoming the dark gloom in the room.  I cast a surreptitious glance at her from across the waiting room and swear I saw fangs sticking out from under her top lip.

The orderly left for the night, and finally, it was the nurse, Dad, and me . . . and all the sick, maniacal lunatics in the rooms on our floor.  I warned you about my paucity of mercy.  The waiting area got deathly quiet and the only sound came from the “shush-shush” of the wooden paddle fan in the waiting room, and an occasional boom of thunder. 

The nurse began to nod off and Dad told me, “Why don’t you take a nap on the sofa and I will wake you in about four hours and you can sit up the rest of the night?”

I thought that was a capital idea and stretched out on the sofa.  Just before sleep overcame me I went down the hall to answer the call of nature.  When I got back to the waiting room Dad was stretched out, sound asleep, on my sofa, snoring softly.

I resigned myself to a night shrouded in pure misery.  I lifted up a silent prayer reminding God that duty like this paid double points, and could I redeem the extra points by skipping church a couple of times?  I got no immediate answer and sat there in the gloom of the waiting room, slowly rocking back and forth, listening to the sounds of the hacksaws cutting off heads.

I must have dozed off because I was startled awake by a loud BANG! It sounded like it came from the end of the hall.  Every hair on my body immediately stood straight up.  I felt like a human Chia pet.  I had a quick thought, “I wonder where they would like a new door cut in the wall.”

I heard a low half-moan, half-shriek emanate from the direction of the banging sound.  I could plainly hear someone shuffling up the hall toward the waiting room, dragging one leg.  I shook the nurse awake, and said, “Excuse me, but one of the inmates has gotten loose and is coming down the hall to rip off your arm and beat us all to death with it.”

She shook herself awake, looked groggily at me, heard the commotion coming toward us, looked down the dimly lit hallway, saw what was making the racket, and screamed, “My God in Heaven”, and took off down the other hall.  That move was not exactly a confidence builder for me.

I ran over to where my Dad was sleeping on the sofa and shook him none too gently.  “Wake up”, I screamed. “An axe murderer is on the way and we have less than a minute to live if we don’t get our tail-ends out of here!”

He stammered, “I hear him coming, but I’m so scared I can’t move.”  He was frightened out of his mind and paralyzed from his fear.  I couldn’t very well just leave him there alone, so I decided to stay and defend my father and grandfather.   I toyed with the idea of crashing through the window, making a three-point landing on the lawn three stories below, and running the twenty-five miles to Macon for help, but in the end I resolutely stood my ground.  I wondered if I could distract the axe murderer with some of my snappy one-liners or one of my comedic monologues long enough to smash him over the head with Mr. Cleve’s bedpan.

I was just about to slowly peek around the corner toward the inmate coming up the hall when he suddenly burst out of the darkened hallway into the waiting room, blinking at me in confusion, while scaring the bejesus out of me.  In the weak light he bore a strong resemblance to the actor Lon Chaney.  As soon as I stopped shaking and quaking , and my heart slid out of my mouth back into my chest, I girded my loins, and, exhibiting courage I really didn’t have, said to him, “I don’t want to kill you but I will if you don’t go sit in that rocking chair.”  I prayed he would do what I told him as the only contingency plan I had was to die like a man when he killed me.

He meekly nodded yes and slunk over to the rocking chair.  I knelt beside him on one knee, giving myself plenty off room to jump out of his grasp if he grabbed at me, and softly asked him what was wrong.  He blubbered that the nurse forgot to give him his shot of morphine he needed to relieve the pain of his terminal stomach cancer.  The nurse came trotting back into the waiting room, carrying a tray with a syringe and a cotton ball soaked in alcohol.  She deftly swabbed his left arm and gave him his shot he seemed to need so badly.  He calmed down, and shuffled back down the hall to his room.  I suddenly had a different slant on this mercy and compassion business that lasted for at least the rest of the night.  The nurse and I agreed she would go get my grandfather some barbecue if he asked for it if I wouldn’t mention this bizarre incident to the doctor.

I was too keyed up to sleep, and spent the rest of the night rocking and listening to my father’s snoring.  I drove home the next morning because he said he was too tired to drive.  I just grinned and bore it, and kept my own counsel.

Mr. Cleve had a second, fatal stroke a couple of days later and died in the middle of the night, but not until all six of his boys had been given a high-speed escort by the Georgia State Patrol from Sumter County to the hospital so they could see him one last time before he died.  They used to do thoughtful things like that in South Georgia , but I guess not so much anymore.

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