Anomaly

Chapter One

This beginning now meant that I only had 18 long weeks of boring lectures, disgruntled students, and, quite simply, useless enslavement left before I would finally be able to begin the rest of my life. It’s not that I hated school. I just never saw the real reason why I was there. To me, it was a useless means to an end I never saw. I’m sure somewhere out in this vast cosmos in which we live there is a person who would kill to be me. That’s not the point. I hate money. But there’s something I hate more than money. It’s people who think they are something when they’re really nothing. Those who would kill to be me are the people who spend their whole lives trying to make a name for themselves in their world. Quick! Name the team, head coach, and starting quarterback of the winners of Super Bowl XXXIV. At the time, everyone (and I use this term loosely, because in the middle of Podunk Africa I don’t think some poor pigmy gives a care about American football. In fact, I don’t think that anyone outside of an American cares about American football. I don’t even think that anyone outside of America cares about America, much less the football we play here. Just a thought.) knew their names, but with time, people forget (They were, in this order, the St. Louis Rams, Dick Vermeil, and Kurt Warner). Hell, I don’t even know the name of the CEO of McDonalds, and I eat there just about every day. Though I’m sure he thinks that he is the most important person in the universe as he drives to work in his BMW, or whatever the hell kind of car he drives, listening to his 6+ speaker stereo surround sound system while he tries to figure out how to save the company thousands of dollars on health insurance. Maybe he should take a lesson from the Wal-Mart executives. Make the people do harder, more physically demanding work. That would force out all of the sick and elderly that really need the company provided (but God knows not company paid for) benefits. But is that all that life is about? Is life simply a lot of working, driving to and from work, and squeezing out a few choice moments to be with the people we love? Microsoft advertises a slogan Great Moments at Work. In it, they show normal people with normal jobs becoming excited about the special achievements they are able to accomplish at their jobs. If I did something good at my job (and wasn’t going to be rewarded in some way) and I pranced around like those people do, I’d have to shoot myself. Who cares if you took an impossible amount of data and turned it into something really good? I certainly don’t. Bad Company said it best when they sang about Johnny in the song Shooting Star. Everyone loved him, but then he died. Afterwards, no one gave him a second thought. I bet, though, if he’d have stayed at home with his mama, he would’ve made a better name with her than with any of the morons in this world that he was trying to please. She’d still remember him, and her children, and her children’s children, and so on. All his life was about was a bunch of vanity. It was chasing after the air. He reached, but came down with nothing. There’s no way that would be me. He must’ve realized that when he took the sleeping tablets and the whiskey. Hell, I’d have done the same thing if I would’ve been Johnny. Basically, right now I’m simply lamenting that the new spring semester at my community college was already upon me, ready to meet me head-on. That’s all.

My mother was also visiting the hospital with a greater frequency. It seemed a month never went by anymore with her not spending a week or so there, stuck in captivity. Those weeks were the worst. (Note to Microsoft: This is life. Hospitals are an everyday reality, not someone taking a water cooler and dumping it on some overpaid paper pusher. Understand?) Whenever she would be there, my whole week would be wasted. Between worrying about her while I wasn’t there, trying to be as positive as possible around her and my little brother so they wouldn’t be discouraged, and running back and forth between home and hospital with my brother several times a day, I was stretched very thin. We wanted her to get better. That was our objective. Why bother to go for treatment if you know ahead of time that one day you’re going to give up anyway? Why fight if you think you’re going to quit someday anyway just because the going got a little bit rough? Is there any point in fighting if you don’t even believe that you have a chance, no matter how minute that chance may be, to win? That fight kept us going, me included. As long as she was breathing, there was a chance. As long as there was a chance, there was going to be a fight, even if that fight was going to cost us everything we had, which by this time wasn’t much. Sure, there were many times when I wanted to give up, but that light at the end of the tunnel, that’s what kept me going, sometimes for weeks at a time.

My father couldn’t have been better. I may sound like a broken record when I express my highest regard for what I saw in him, personality wise that is, but it’s all true. He never left her side. I can think of no one else who would sleep in a rock hard hospital chair for eight straight days, all the while being forced to watch the love of his life fight for each precious breath right before his eyes. He’d plead for her, help her, encourage her, and, most importantly, fight for her when she simply lacked the strength to keep going. I know I’ve never seen anything like it, and many of the healthcare workers have joined in echoing my sentiment. He was the best caregiver ever.

Unfortunately, however, everyday I had class, and everyday I would pick my little brother up from kindergarten so he could visit our mother. Ironically, he had the same kindergarten teacher I had when I was his age, way back in the day. She was a rare breed of teacher. Old school definitely. If you had her as your teacher, you could expect to learn new ways to refer to your body parts. For instance, your butt was your gloudious (anyone caught saying butt in reference to that part of their anatomy was instantly thrust into the corner), you couldn’t talk about your eyeball, and any reference, spoken or implied, to your own personal private area gave you an instant earful from your parents after she’d call and inform them of your crudeness. I never really got into a lot of trouble when I was in her class, though. Sure, I did have to spend fifteen minutes in the corner once, but it never happened again. I learned my lesson, believe me. I hate punishment, and I hate to let another person down. Another thing I must say about myself is that I’m a lightning quick learner. I picked up on how to survive in her class instantly, even though I was only five-years-old. My brother was like that, too. He just had that knack about him.

My little brother, however, was quite different from me in another regard. In stark contrast to my aloofness, he possessed quite a gregarious personality. Whenever we were in the hospital, however, I could sense a sadness in him that he would never dare express. He would just clam up, and that just wasn’t like him. Usually he was talking to everyone he met, asking them for their autograph or something. It got on my nerves sometimes, but I never suppressed it. After all, one day he just might get the autograph and number of a supermodel or something. Then, I would be totally set up without having to do anything, which was how I liked it. The way I see it, if you have to work for something, it isn’t worth it.

It wasn’t like I could blame him for his discomfort while in the hospital, though. They are depressing places. The decorum is always so dark and cold, and the patients are always packed in like sardines. No one cares about you the patient. All they care about is making money, and lots of it for that matter. If that wasn’t true, then everyone there would have a private room, but then, I guess, I would maybe miss getting to know each new annoying personality my mother was stuck bunking with.

While sitting there this day, I took a quick glance at her new roommate. Both her and my mother were sleeping, so the room was quiet. Well, it was hospital quiet. Hospitals are never quiet. There’s always some stupid nurse running around taking everyone’s temperature, blood pressure, and whatever else they do on their vitals check. Then there’s the hustle and bustle of the nurses station. The constant gossip, annoying stories, and useless patient information. They never shut up! There’s only one thing I hate more than school, and that’s nurses. Why couldn’t they just give us some peace? It’s not too much to ask for.

This roommate was different from the one she had the day before. Her roommate the day before was a talkative middle aged woman who kept getting blood transfusions. She also was lonely, because she kept feeling compelled to inform us of how much she gambles and about all of the places she has been in the world. Don’t even bother to ask me to explain why she thought I actually cared that she’d taken a tour of all the Indian reservations in South Dakota, stopping at each one to throw her money away at each slot machine, or about the time she had hit it big ($10,000. Big deal. I know she had given them way more money than that over the course of her life.) at the gambling boat on the Missouri River a few miles away. One time she started lamenting about the time she actually went to the casino and they were closed (In Missouri, casinos can’t operate between 1 and 5am for some stupid reason). I told her if she wanted to gamble that badly all she had to do was take her money, put it in a sack, and shove it under the door for the owners to get it in the morning. It accomplished the same thing. She didn’t like that too much. I don’t understand why she didn’t like what I said. I was simply being honest. I think she wished that she was in Vegas instead of the hospital. But I still can’t figure out why she wanted me to know about it. Information is strictly on a need-to-know basis, and this was not something I needed to know, that’s for sure. I can’t explain it. She just liked to talk, I guess. I hope I never get like that.

To interrupt the quiet and wake up all who were sleeping, an older man in blue jean overalls walked in the room. I didn’t know him from Adam, so I correctly concluded he was there to visit the other woman. The two engaged in much small talk about their car and its problems, an orange he had brought in to munch on that she wanted him to share with her but he wouldn’t, and I guess it was their grandchildren. All old people like to talk about their grandchildren. I think they must be a badge of honor or something. My mother didn’t even have any yet, but she still would often talk about how one day she was going to see them, teach them, and, this was the one she looked forward to most, spoil the mess out of them. She deserved it. My grandmother used to spoil me rotten, too. I guess that’s just every grandparent’s right. Hell, if I make it to 60-years-old, you better believe that I’m doing some spoiling of my own. Spoiling other people’s children is cool. Some cultures really value the grandparents. All I hoped for was that my children would be able to know theirs.

Eventually the nurse made her way into the room for vitals checks. This was a regular routine for whatever CNA was on duty at the time, and it took place about every two hours I think. My mother hated this part of hospitals. They always seemed to know the worst times to come, either when she had finally gotten into a good sleep or when the conversation had begun to get deep and important. They must have a class at nursing school on how to intuitively know when the worst time to walk into a hospital room is. That’s all I could figure, anyway. Everyone of them must’ve aced that class, too.

This nurse was good at vital checks, though. She was so quiet while checking my mother’s that my mother kept sleeping through the whole process. That’s a remarkable achievement when you consider how light of a sleeper my mother really is. This nurse also knew all of the right questions to ask a patient. She began on our neighbor, saying, How are you today?

The caring tone in her voice was admirable. I know if I worked there day in and day out that I would already have been beyond crazy, but she wasn’t. Maybe there was somebody still left in that God forsaken place that had retained a shred of dignity and compassion. It was a good thing that I found her. Now I could keep hoping that one day my mother would find a doctor just like that, who would care enough about her to help her even when the condition seemed hopeless. Trust me, doctors like that aren’t easy to find. We hadn’t found one yet, and I bet my mother had seen just about every doctor in the whole country.

I’m doing great, the old woman enthusiastically responded. She must have picked up on the caring and compassion also, for she answered very cheerfully, which is also rare in these parts. I like it here.

Hell no! How could anyone like it here? She must’ve been on some heavy drugs or something. That was the craziest thing I had ever heard. No one in a sane and logical mind would ever say that without the aid of narcotics. Narcotics are a wonderful thing if they can turn this hell hole into paradise. I should’ve been on whatever she was having. I remember one time when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I went with my friend to visit his fiance. Anyway, my teeth were really hurting me, and the doctor had given me a prescription of codine to help me make it through the weekend. I had my pills with me, and when the pain got bad during the movie we were watching at her house, I popped some pills. To make a long story short, I popped the pills, passed out on her couch, and now I don’t remember a single thing that happened that night. This woman must have forgotten about all of the horrors of her new environment, or simply taken enough narcotics to sleep through them. Somebody give me some codine please!

You do? the nurse answered, sounding surprised to actually hear her enthusiasm for this wretched place reciprocated. Maybe I would have a more optimistic outlook on hospitals, too, if I was being paid to be there. And some of those nurses make good money. I’m by no means saying that they don’t deserve it. Hell, you couldn’t pay me all the money that Apple Computers makes in a year to spend eight hours a day in a hospital (though I spent more than that there some days now anyway, and I wasn’t being paid dime one. Go figure). But being paid to do a job has a tendency to make it a bit more palatable. That’s wonderful. What do you like about it so much?

I feel secure here. It’s a lot better than home.

What a sad plight. Coming to the hospital because that was the only place where you could feel secure. I was over at my friend’s apartment once and the neighbor downstairs got shot to death while we were playing video games and I felt more secure then than I do whenever I’m in a hospital. Wherever she lived must’ve been just terrible, because to me this was as bad as it got. I shudder when I imagine someplace worse. The nurse, however, seemed to enjoy this woman’s optimism. I’m sure it makes it a lot nicer having company? she asked, referring to the older gentleman dressed in the overalls in the room with her.

Oh him? He probably puts me here.

The nurse choked back a laugh. Personally, I didn’t think it was that funny. To me, it was more of a cliché than humor, and a cliché is never funny. Athletes are the worst at speaking in cliches. We have to play within ourselves. Or, we have to take it a game at a time. Or, my personal favorite, I just wanted to go out there and give 110%. Fortunately we won. What a load of absolute garbage. How can you give 110%? Then, there’s the infamous Our backs are against the wall now. Think of something original for God’s sake. I always wanted to be an athlete. I always said that if I didn’t have all of these family duties that I would’ve taken my show to the big time. I’d be making the big bucks throwing some ball around. Who am I kidding? Those athletes are dedicated. I wasn’t dedicated. I don’t think that I ever stuck with anything for longer than a week before abandoning it to obscurity. One time I even wanted to be a trash man for God’s sake.

Anyway, the drama continued to unfold before my eyes as the nurse responded, Well, a lot of other patients aren’t so fortunate. I hope my husband would never leave my side.

How long have you been married? You look young, the old woman asked. Granted, the nurse might have been young by the old woman’s standards, but I still bet she was every bit of thirty, which was definitely a time to be married if ever there was one.

Thank you. You’re too kind. Really, I’m 25, and I just got married last year. What about you two?

25? That was the oldest looking 25-year-old I had ever seen. She’s going to have a terrible time when she hits 40. She’ll probably look 60 or something. Her poor husband. I remember one time when I was at school, and I met these two Finnish chicks. They were awesome. They were always talking to each other, joking with each other, and sometimes they’d even joke with me. Normally, I don’t like it when fellow students try and talk with me, but for these two, I made an exception. They were flat out hot. They seemed to always sit right in front of me, too. They had so many stories. So many experiences. They had been all the way around the world. How many people can say that they’ve actually circled the globe? They could. Anyway, when I first saw them, I placed them in their early 20’s. As I heard their experiences, I figured they had to be mid-20’s. Well, one day I asked how old they were. They were 32 and 34 respectively. My mouth just dropped open. Come to find out, they had been transferred to USA for work, and they needed to take this English writing class to keep their job. Something about how their English didn’t meet company standards or something. I thought they spoke fine, but who am I? That’s what I need. A chick who’s going to look 20 when she’s 40. Not some chick who looks 40 when she’s 20. After I heard that, I wanted to go to