The Complete Collection. William Wharton

used to, ‘instead of niggers pawing him over.’

      ‘Mother, you can’t take care of him. If we bring him home, I’d have to do it and I’m sure they can do a better job with him at the hospital.’

      Dr Ethridge finally calls at four.

      ‘Mr Tremont, I saw your father and at this time he seems confused. I also talked with Dr Santana and he feels you’ve attacked his professional judgment.’

      This gets me.

      ‘Dr Ethridge, Dr Santana was absolutely wrong telling my father he had cancer after I’d warned him repeatedly concerning his unnatural fear of this disease. The result is there now. My father fell into this state immediately after Dr Santana told him.’

      ‘Mr Tremont, these are decisions we doctors make. If your father uses our hospital facilities, you must trust our judgment in these matters.’

      Then he goes into a harangue on the theme ‘we know our business.’ I listen till he winds down.

      At this point, I’m ready to drop Ethridge, Santana, Perpetual, the whole mess, and start over. But I don’t; I’m too unsure, angry, scared.

      Dad’s in the hospital five days. I spend all the time with him I can. Joan spells me with Mother. I talk to Dr Santana every day and he’s getting more and more nervous. I never let a day go by without asking for neurological and psychiatric testing, observations. I’m combing a new copy of the Merck Manual I bought at the UCLA medical library, looking for some reasonable explanation to what’s happened.

      I’m up against stone walls with the hospital staff. At the same time, I’m trying to stay calm at home around Mother, assuring her everything is proceeding fine.

      At the hospital they keep telling me it will all go away when he recovers from the shock. But Dad continues in his deep, disturbed, anxious, removed condition. He’s lost control of his bowels and bladder. He needs to be hand-fed and it’s very difficult feeding him. He doesn’t have any desire to eat, and is beginning to waste away. All his senses seem cut off.

      The nurses are too busy to get sufficient food into him. I take over the feeding; they don’t mind much. It can be two hours just getting half a small meal down. It’s worse than feeding a six-month-old infant. He bites down on the spoon so it’s hard to get out. He twists his head back and forth. A good part of the time I’m waiting for him to swallow. He’ll tuck the food into one side of his mouth or the other like a squirrel, or sometimes spit it out. He avoids my eyes or stares at the spoon, or nothing, but not my eyes. I talk to him about the food, about Mom, about Joan, anything I can think of, but there’s no response.

      Now the hospital starts taking up Mom’s idea he might ‘come around’ at home. I’m beginning to agree.

      But I know it would never work with Mom there. She’d have to live with Joan and that would be hard. But something happens which decides me.

      A part of Dad’s dilemma is he’s constantly twisting, turning, trying to escape. He’s also continually pulling at his catheter. After the first few days, they lace him into a sort of straitjacket. It’s tied behind and has straps attached to wristlets which can be slipped over his hands. He has relative freedom but can’t reach down to the catheter.

      He fights against this; it’s pitiful watching him struggle, like a puppy on a leash. When I feed him, I take it off but keep an eye on his hands.

      The nurses are also afraid Dad will develop bedsores. He’s losing weight fast and with the constant twisting-turning of his struggle, he’s rubbing his butt and back sore; the skin is wearing off.

      Starting about the fourth day, they sit him in a chair beside the bed while they change sheets. They leave him out there an hour or two to get air on his back but he’s secured by his straitjacket.

      I come in one evening for the dinner feeding and find Dad still tied to the chair. He’s defecated and somehow pulled out the catheter so he’s soaked in his own urine. He’s twisted and one of his hands is caught under the handle of the chair. The circulation is cut off; the hand is blue. Also, he’s wiggled around so his hospital gown is twisted up to his waist and he’s naked from there down.

      I’m shocked. I kneel beside him and his legs are ice cold. This is all happening in the surgery ward of a modern hospital, not in a nineteenth-century mental institution. I don’t know how long he’s been this way but his legs and feet are mottled red and white and the urine is drying on them.

      I ring and holler out. A nurse comes running in and I lay it on her hard. She helps me untie Dad and change his gown. We slide him back into bed. I yearn to comfort Dad but he doesn’t seem to realize what’s happening.

      Next day I plow into both Ethridge and Santana. They say it’s difficult to care for somebody in my father’s state at a normal hospital. I tell them I’m taking him home; he’s not getting proper care at Perpetual.

      I go home and try to avoid Mom. I sneak back into the garden bedroom with a can of beer. I drink in the quiet and try to think. I want to do the right thing for Dad and Mom, not just work off my own anger.

      I get Mom down for her nap and phone Joan. I want to tell it straight, not too much artist-type exaggeration, no heightening for effect. When I finish, there’s a long pause. She’s crying.

      ‘That’s awful, Jack. We’ve got to do something. Mom’s right; we must bring him home. Could you take care of him there if Mom comes out here with us?’

      ‘I think I can do it; I know I’ll do better than they’re doing at the hospital. But can you handle Mom there with Mario and all? You know how she is.’

      ‘We’ll manage. I’ll put her in Maryellen’s room; it’s next to the bathroom and I’ll keep her in bed as much as possible. Mario can work out in his garage or in the garden. With playground supervision, he’s not home till six anyhow. Mario understands; don’t you worry about it.’

      So it’s decided. When Mom wakes, I tell her. She wants to stay with me and help. I’m firm. I tell her it’s impossible. She’d have another heart attack for sure and I can’t take care of them both at the same time. She can come visit when Dad’s better.

      I help her pack. We get in the car, she puts on her eyeshades, and I drive her to Joan’s over Sepulveda, not the freeway.

      When I go get Dad next day, the nursing supervisor comes tearing out. She’s a big matronly type and gives me a time about telling off the nurse yesterday, but I’m not so easily managed. I tell her to get out of my way. All these people are only thinking of their own prerogatives.

      She calls in the security man. I explain to him what’s been going on. He nods and pretends to listen. Together we get it worked out. He helps me dress Dad in his pajamas and bathrobe. I gather the rest of his personal effects in a paper bag. I tell the supervisor to hurry it up, to get me discharge papers and a wheelchair.

      The security guard gives me a wink; perfect man for the job. Together we maneuver the wheelchair into the elevator. Dad’s sitting there shivering, jibbering, worrying his bathrobe with his fingers. It’s hard to believe this could ever have been a functioning human being. Even his fingers and toes are curled under, practically cramped; his head hangs as if it’s too heavy. He looks like the drawing van Gogh did in an insane asylum, the one with a man pushing his face into his fists, only Dad doesn’t even have enough control to do that.

      I roll him across the parking lot in the wheelchair and struggle him into our car. He has no idea what’s happening. I drive him home.

      I almost have to carry him across the patio, up those steps and into the house. He puts one foot in front of the other but they don’t take any weight; it’s like walking a giant doll. He’s wearing his old aircraft-carrier cap and it gets twisted around to the side. He’s nodding and mumbling, not noticing where he is.

      I decide to dress him in his regular clothes. He’s not actually sick, only debilitated. I’m sure if he can regain the feeling of being his