Rough Grace

On-call again today. It's 13 degrees outside. I'm sitting in the coffee shop, the Dakota lonely hearts club. "Time it was and what a time it was/a time of innocence/a time of confidences..."is playing. Lilly has a biology final today. She studied so hard--I hope she does well. She was listening to Enya on the ipod on the way to school today, as Margaret, the Mercury swung and slid on the ice to school--she does okay in the snow as long as you never apply the breaks, so we pray for green lights and just pretty much barrel through the stop signs. Elka, my 89 Saab turbo convertible does pretty well in the snow, but the windshield wipers quit working--so that's a problem. I told Lilly it was funny she listened to so much of the stuff I listened to in college (although, to be truthful, I never liked Enya very much) because I didn't like my parents' stuff...but here's Simon and Garfunkel at the Dakota proving me wrong, because I know every word.
This morning, it was Postal Service around the house. I swear, if our lives had a soundtrack, it would be that album. Swimming in November. Last week I had the strangest dream/that everything was exactly how it seemed...
What a relief that would be!
Making it up. Pretending things are okay. There's a strength in that, as long as you don't fool yourself.
My patient yesterday was an 85 year-old man. Severe abdominal pain, respiratory distress, pancreas had a pseudocyst--massively enlarged. He dumped 2 liters of bile out of his stomach once we got an NG down him. He helped us put the NG down. He was so good-humored and stoic. His brother had died last year of pancreatic cancer, so he knew what was up. I was working with our new nurse, Lela, the one from South Beach. I've been kind of avoiding her, because she seems to know a lot of the same places I knew, and you know...I just don't want to go there. We always end up talking about Miami, and I am so different from the person I was then...but I end up remembering things. I loved Miami. I loved my life there. But it was pretty seedy and carny for Little Dixie. I feel that I'm barely hanging on to middle-class and respectable by my bloody bitten fingernails--and I want to keep it that way. No more strangled cats for me. That's a story for another time.
So anyways, we're taking care of this man, and he's crouching on the commode after his second enema (he hasn't had a stool in nine days) shitting blood, his massive, distended cancerous abdomen hanging between his knees, like the devil's in his belly, and I'm squatting beside him, patting his back, like I would with Nick or Lilly, Lela is in front of him, holding his hands which he is squeezing tight, because he is in so much pain. He's vagal-ing, so the right side of his heart is saying "hola jesus" and throwing PVC's, and desatting, and in the midst of all this, he looks at me and says, "You know, even though I'm 85, I can still have sex. I had sex 2 weeks ago."
"With your wife?"
He starts laughing.
Lela says: "No wonder she drives seven hours every day to see you."
"Next time," he says, between cramps, "we're just going to pull the curtains and lock the door."
"We'll leave you two alone." I say.
"No--we'll lock the door so she can't get in! Just be us."
"Conno" Lela says. Christ, I think. Haven't heard that out of anybody's mouth except mine in almost ten years--well, Lilly used to say it, but I made her stop. I can't do the n right on this blog--it's pronounced "connyo" and it's a very bad word.
"I can dream, can't I?"
Rough grace, but grace nonetheless.
Had a dream about Wiz. Ugly old Wiz, with his worn yellow teeth and wrinkled carp-like face, of all people. I astonish myself. Nothing happened in it. He tried to kiss me in the dream. It was summer and we were walking down North Boulevard in our town. He was carrying a paper sack with condoms and chocolate. For some reason there was a beach at the end of the street, even though in real life, it ends at the freeway. "Aren't you married?" I asked him.
"Yeah--is that a deal breaker?"
"yeah."
" I thought it might be." he said. We were sitting on the beach. It was the beach near my first apartment in Miami, the one where the old woman in the Sari would come to feed the gulls at sunset. A small, wild, empty part of the beach. Kind of blighted in its way. The woman was standing with her hands raised up, the sun was setting and the birds were swirling around.
In the dream I started tenderly stroking Wiz's close cropped fish head, patting his cheeks, tracing his wrinkles. 'I'll just pat you." I told him. "that's okay, I think."
Then I woke up.
It's 13 degrees outside. Quiet nights with Quiet Stars is playing now. Another song of my parents I forgot I used to listen to.
That's my 1/2 hour and the phone just rang--calling me in back to the twilight ship.