Actions Speak Louder
by
Lida Bushloper
Everybody knew he was there. Don’t talk
to me about HIPAA. If there was a
famous person in the hospital, everybody knew in minutes. Housekeepers, IT
techs, every staff member found some excuse to pass by the surgical ICU to see
him. When I managed to get to the 7th floor, he was still in his post-surgery
coma. The attached monitor recorded the beating of his newly repaired heart. Of
course, there was no reason for me to be there. He wouldn’t be given regular
food for a couple of days. But in my dietary assistant’s uniform, nobody paid
me any attention. I was counting on that. I was still nervous and I jerked in
fear when I heard a voice behind me.
“Come to see our star patient, Amy?”
I whirled around to see my
supervisor, Derek. I should have known he’d follow me. We had just been talking
about the patient a few minutes before, as we prepped the trays for breakfast
delivery. Gossiping or sharing patient information was against the rules, but
hey, let’s get real. It happens.
I turned back to look at the man on the bed, hooked
up to the best medical
technology money could buy. All on the taxpayers’ dime. The prison hospital
wasn’t equipped to handle the complicated heart surgery the convicted murderer
needed. So, he’d been transferred here, to the premier cardiac surgery medical
center west of the Rockies. Derek was whispering behind me.
“Are you hoping he’ll die?”
“After what he’s done? I’d rather
he be cut to pieces. Like he did with
all those poor people he killed. You know some of them were kids. He went after
entire families.”
“Yeah. And they never did figure out how
many he ended up butchering.”
“At least 20. But even one’s too many.”
“They say he ate their hearts. Maybe he
knew somehow his own was wonky and
he was trying to fix it.” I shook my head at Derek.
“You’re giving him too much credit.
I think he just had a fetish. Did you
see where he cut a heart shape into his own forehead after he was caught?
Everybody could see the scar in the courtroom during his trial.”
“Well, at least he’ll die in prison.”
But I wondered. Would he? Anything
could happen. He could get a reversal of the verdict on a technicality. He
could escape somehow and vanish into the wilderness. He might even cut out the
heart of another inmate to munch on. How could anyone rest until he was well
and truly dead? I’m sure there were plenty of other people who felt the same
way I did. I was also sure none of them would take any action. They were all
here to preserve life, not end it, no matter who the patient might be.
Derek saw the doubt in my face. He knew me better
than anyone. He had
loved me since high school. But that was years ago. Now, he would never cheat
on his wife. He loved her too, in a different way than he still loved me. But
it wasn’t his love for her that kept him faithful. What he loved even more was
his identity as a family man. Back then, I was too addicted to my wild ways to
create that with him. So, he did the only smart thing and found someone who
wanted the same thing he did. He was happy. Being part of a family unit made
him feel whole and valued and brought meaning to his life. He would never risk
that for me. He had other ways of showing his love, like when he got me hired
for this job when doors were slammed in my face all over town. But he would
never, ever touch me again. I was okay with that. I could still bask in his
discreet admiration.
Derek motioned for me to follow him back down
to the hospital dietary
department. We needed to start the lunch line. I took my place at the end of
the conveyer belt. As each tray glided past, I meticulously checked its
contents against the attached list. No tray went on the delivery cart unless I
was sure it was perfect.
You have to be careful in a hospital kitchen with
condiments, seasonings
and ingredients. There were cautions
that prevented negative drug/food interactions. Some patients might have
allergies: peanut products, shellfish, tomatoes. A mistake could kill someone.
I had the early shift that day, so I was off right
after lunch. I could
have left the complex. But my co-worker Marge had a sick child and she was
anxious to get home to relieve the sitter. I volunteered to trade a couple of
hours. I would stay and cover her menu rounds. It would give me the excuse I
needed. I picked up the handheld computer with the menu app and started at the
top of the building, stopping in each patient’s room to get their breakfast
orders for the next day, then made my way again to the 7th floor. The
monster in the bed still seemed unconscious. I studied the equipment, the
monitors, the IV drip. Was that for pain or nutrition? I had no idea. I didn’t
know how any of this stuff worked. I’d heard about injecting poisons into the
lines that were connected to the veins, like insulin or anti-freeze. But I
wouldn’t know how to begin. I logged into the computer in the room and brought
up his chart, then clicked through the pages till I got to the dietary
instructions. I saw what I’d hoped to see. This was going to be easy. I took
one last look at the guy in the bed. Even with his prison pallor I could see he
was gorgeous, with his thick golden hair, strong jaw and wide forehead. Under
his closed eyelids, you couldn’t see the cold, predatory stare. I wondered. Did
his being so beautiful make what he had done even worse? I thought so. How
could such horror be buried under such perfection? Had his stunning outside
appearance helped him deflect suspicion for so long? Probably. It was one more
advantage he’d used so skillfully to gain the trust of his victims. I finished my
rounds and left the building. I knew I didn’t have much time. As soon as he was
healed enough to travel, he’d be transported back to the prison hospital to
recuperate.
I wasn’t gone long. Just enough to get what
I needed. There was a skeleton
staff in dietary at night. I left my purse in my car. No need to make a noise,
rattling open my locker door. I grabbed another computer from the shelf, just
for an added touch of reality, then slipped out to the freight elevator.
The surgical ICU ward was quiet. My rubber soled
work shoes made barely a
whisper. I didn’t have to pass the nurse’s station, as his room was just this
side of it. There was no guard at this stage. As soon as he became wakeful, one
would be stationed outside his door, day and night. This was my one and only
chance.
I stepped into his dimly lit room. No need to
turn the lights up. The vial
in my pocket was tightly stoppered. I didn’t want any accidents. I hesitated
before twisting the stopper off the tube. I’d heard that even the scent of
peanut oil was enough to affect super sensitive people. His mouth was slightly
open. I imagined what would happen a few minutes after the first drop of oil
touched his skin. The swelling, the redness, the asphyxia. I touched the
stopper, then jerked my arm back. I couldn’t do it. I was no killer. If I
killed him, I would be no better than he was. I had done a lot of bad things in
my life. Nothing this corrupt. I was finally on the path to turning my life
around, with Derek’s help. I wasn’t ready to throw all that away. I returned the
vial to my pocket, then calmly made my way back out of the room and down the
hall. It would have been suspicious if I had looked up, but it seemed to me,
peeking out of the corner of my eye, that not a single nurse noticed me at all.
When I reached the ground floor, it, too, was deserted. Maybe I would regret
not taking action when I had the chance. But the more I thought about it, the
more relief I felt. It wasn’t just fighting down an evil impulse, even one that
seemed so justified. I wasn’t ready to face the consequences of getting caught.
Praise and gratitude from some folks, maybe. But prison for sure for me.
I made my way home. I poured the small amount
of peanut oil back into the
bottle I kept in my pantry. I slept soundly through the night.
The next day at work, the kitchen was abuzz. He
had coded. They hadn’t
been able to save him. His perfect new heart, with its steady beat, had not
failed. Then what? Rumors flew. Maybe a stroke, brought on by the stress of the
procedure. Maybe a drug overdose, too much blood pressure medication, causing
his blood pressure to plummet. Maybe an undetected nick in an artery, causing
him to bleed out internally. We would probably never know. We would also never
know other details, like if someone, with hot rage like mine, but with less
self-control, had ever so slightly delayed calling the code, or responding to
the code, or acting on the code. Even a few seconds could have made the
difference. Of course there would be an enquiry. Video tapes would be reviewed.
Interviews conducted. I felt another wave of relief that I would escape all
that.
I finished the breakfast service and was pushing
the empty cart out of the
service elevator back into the kitchen area. Derek rushed over to help me get
the heavy wheels out of the tracks where they were stuck. I looked up
gratefully and made eye contact. I could tell Derek had something he needed to
say. No one was near us. He leaned closer.
“If I needed you to, would you swear you
and I were together last night?”
I trusted him completely. I didn’t care about why he was asking. Anyway, I was
pretty sure I knew.
“Of course. Just fill me in. Like the time?”
He did.
“Got it,” I said. “We can say
we were at my place, okay?” He nodded. It
was a big lie for him. A big risk to his cherished family life, if he ever needed
to tell it. A risk he took for me. In return, I refused to allow myself to
think less of him for what he had done. Or what I thought he had done. I could
never be sure. I was okay with that.
