UPON STEPPING OUT of the elevator, Felicia mouthed hello to a staff member as she and Del walked past a nurses’ station. Felicia seemed to know her way around the maze of color-coded, alphanumeric wings. In fact, many people who worked here, from nurses to maintenance workers to cafeteria employees, knew her by name.
Del counted patient rooms as he followed her down a corridor.
Once he discovered she had driven him to a hospital—and recovered from the false notion that she was luring him to a psychiatrist’s office there—wariness settled in. Now Del felt claustrophobic, careful not to touch any surfaces. He could envision himself lying sick in bed tomorrow. He caught himself trying to cover his nose and mouth, and, as a safety precaution, was on the lookout for hand sanitizer. Selfish as it sounded, he hated being around sick people. Perhaps it went back to the few films he’d shot overseas, where he’d feared developing an infection and getting stuck in a foreign hospital, where a third-world doctor would slice him open and start poking around his organs, on the search for solutions.
White institutional walls scared the hell out of him. And he detested hospitals. The pungency of disinfectant reminded him of death. Too many friends and acquaintances had ended up in places like this, more recently due to age issues, but long ago, due to drug overdoses and other tragedies.
Felicia must have visited this patient before. When she found the room number she was looking for, she gave a respectful knock before entering the room. The door was open.
The first thing Del noticed were the closed blinds and the darkness which enshrouded the patient’s room, as if when he walked past the threshold, he’d entered an alternate universe. He pictured the place receiving visits from death each night at the stroke of midnight. A grinning skeleton, cloaked in black and ax in hand, would tiptoe inside, scope out the room, and plan its eventual smothering of whoever lay inside. The vision brought goose bumps to Del’s whole body.
When he and Felicia reached the bed, Del discovered a bony man. He might have been asleep, but Del wasn’t positive. As far as Del could tell, they were the same age, but the man in the bed appeared frail and weak, his breaths labored, his flesh hoary and sick. Tubes everywhere—face, arms, you name it. Wires. A machine monitoring his pulse. And the plastic bag against which Del almost brushed his arm—was that urine inside? This patient looked like death personified. Del wanted to haul ass out of there.
But then, he took another look at the man and felt pity.
Del had portrayed a dying character once, in a scene much like this, but it couldn’t have equipped him for what he saw today. Though he’d done due diligence to prepare for that part, as he looked at this patient before him, Del doubted he had done the role justice. He felt guilty for not doubling his research efforts back then, if only out of respect.
Leaning over the patient’s shoulder, Felicia whispered into his ear. “Mr. Carter, are you awake? It’s Pastor Whitby.”
The man’s eyes fluttered open. He wasn’t asleep after all, just worn down to the bone. He sat up, alert, but quite weak. Del got the impression even a short conversation would exhaust him.
Felicia offered a compassionate smile and patted the man’s arm. A mother’s touch. “How do you feel, Mr. Carter?”
He nodded, mouthed something but couldn’t muster the words. Del saw one corner of the man’s mouth expand a smidgen—an attempt at a smile—and witnessed a fresh dose of life rush into his eyes. Did this man receive many visitors? How many years of heartache had he faced?
“You’re not giving those nurses too much trouble, are you?” Felicia teased.
Another wisp of a smile. He responded with a labored, near imperceptible, shake of his head, his eyes glued to hers.
“Good. I’m glad to hear you’re behaving yourself,” she added with a wink. Then she turned to Del. “I’ve brought a visitor. This is a friend of mine, Del Corwyn.”
With what looked like much effort, the man angled his head toward Del, a quizzical expression on his face, followed by a labored smile when the fullness of Del’s identity registered in his mind.
“Mr. Carter is a member of my congregation.” Felicia shot Del a knowing grin. “He once told me The Changing Tides is his favorite film of all time.”
Suddenly, Del felt uncomfortable, though he couldn’t explain why. It wasn’t a privacy concern; rather, his fame felt inappropriate for this moment, a mismatch, unworthy to enter the hospital room of what appeared to be a dying man.
The man managed to lift his hand, albeit a mere inch from the bed. An intentional movement nonetheless. Del wondered why, and then realized it was an effort at a handshake. Easing closer to the bed, Del gave the man’s hand a gentle pump. When he caught sight of the underside of the man’s arm, he noticed thick, purple veins beneath the pasty skin.
Del hesitated. What did Felicia expect him to say next?
“It’s always nice to meet someone who enjoyed that film,” he offered. Was he handling this the right way? With a tentative glance at Felicia, Del asked the man, “What do you do for a living?”
Felicia gave the patient a tender pat on the shoulder and answered on his behalf. “Mr. Carter taught advanced mathematics at several universities across the country. He retired from UCLA a few years ago. You saw a lot of change in the culture over the years, didn’t you, Mr. Carter?”
The man attempted to nod. As he warmed up to Del, Del could have sworn a dim radiance spread across the man’s face.
Del tried to picture himself ten years from now and grew anxious at the thought. Lying in a hospital bed wasn’t on his bucket list. Then again, he doubted it was on Mr. Carter’s, either.
Del wasn’t heartless, but he couldn’t wait to wrap up this visit and escape the room.
A man Del’s own age, disintegrating in a hospital bed, where any given breath could be his last. Del fought to maintain a straight face, but within his soul, he panicked.