Characters

Further excerpts from my 1957 hospital journal:

Note: The names used in my journal are not the true names of the individuals.

This hospital is really full of an amazing collection of characters. Most of the people are old and homeless and alone. They are pitiful, but at the same time you can't help laughing at them. There is Mrs. Standish, clear down at the other end of the hall, who takes spells of screaming "Nurse! Nurse!" in an unbelievably loud voice. What lung power that woman has...she really bellows. And when they go in to see what she wants, it's usually that she needs to know what year it is!

Then there is Mr. Meyerbier, a little German fellow who sings and accompanies is singing by waving his arms as if he were conducting a symphony orchestra!

One of my pets is Mr. Hamilton, who is a tiny little stone-deaf man. He used to be a prize-fighter, and the nurses say that if you walk up behind him and touch his shoulder, he is as apt as not to whip around with his fists clenched, ready to take on all comers. They say he is the sweetest little man and he is always wanting to help the girls out. During the day they give him a dust mop and he happily goes up and down the corridor pushing it. I said he was one of my pets, but that is only recently the case. The second week I was here I awoke in the middle of the night to find him in the room, pawing at my bed and investigating my traction set-up. Not realizing he was deaf, I quietly told him he was in the wrong room and asked him to leave. Of course he paid no attention to me, and I got louder and louder and finally was pretty hysterical by the time Mrs. Pearson came and got him. I was so afraid that he would pull on the rope attached to my leg...he only touched it, but that was close enough for me!

My real pet is Mrs. Lorris, who is the most pixie-like old lady I have ever seen. She is balmy and spends all her time trying to elude the nurses and get outside. When they catch her and bring her back she cusses like a sailor...calls everyone a "horse's rear" and threatens to get a big club to "hit 'em over the head" with. She threw one of those scenes right outside my room one day and in the middle of the harangue, she turned around and gave me a sly wink accompanied by a grin. Then she turned on the girls and really gave 'em hell! They ask her where she is going on these little expeditions. Sometimes she says she is "going fishing", sometimes just "for a walk by the river", and sometimes "it's none of your damned business"!

Last night, hearing a commotion in the hall, I looked up and was somewhat startled to see an old man standing stark naked in our doorway! One of the nurses was urging him back to his room and he reluctantly went with her. Cokie told me later that she found him leaning against the desk in the hall, still without a stitch on. She led him back to his room, where they were both taken aback to see his bed occupied by Mr. Hamilton, whom they could only identify by his little bright eyes peering over the top of the sheet.

Cokie and Nancy and I had our usual laugh session while fixing up my traction. That crazy Cokie usually comes in here walking with one leg stiff and playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me" on an imaginary fife. Ever since the night we both got the giggles after I said something about not being able to see the "knot in my pulley" we've been real buddies, in spite of the fact that it was her cousin I had the beef with the second day I was here. The cousin has since resigned.

September 30, 1957:

What an amazing idea...I write poetry in my sleep! Well, I was almost asleep when I thought of it. I took some phrases from a story I wrote long ago, phrases that I have always liked because the words are pretty and they fit together in a way that pleases me. I rearranged them into blank verse and jotted them down when I first woke up this morning. I think it's lovely: