Chapter Twenty Six - The Police Station
The Misery of Mrs. Geesky Number 26. The Red Reticule.
Before Chapter Twenty Six
Have YOU ever been laid off or fired from a job thinking and believing you were doing your very best?
It happens, doesn’t it. We give what we got and it just ain’t good enough. There are many things we get involved with in the material world only to find ourselves disappointed, hurt, angry, fearful, worried - and the pain goes on.
Pain and suffering are inevitable when we get attached to the material realm. Guaranteed.
And the injuries may last a lifetime - unless and until we get a glimpse at what is not painful.
Notice there are two categories: pain and not pain. Which one is more appealing?
Many of us want happiness, pleasure, gain, fame, the high life of wealth and recognition - but we fail to recognize the path of materialism is a roller-coaster of pain and not pain with fleeting moments of pleasure. It never gets to bliss unless one is hooked on drugs. It never is at peace or rest unless one is knocked out.
Mrs. Geesky is an independent sort. Focused on her mantra, “I made them happier.” Her interest is in death and dying. She sees herself as “the expert” when it comes to being with the dying. She is not concerned with herself as much as she is concerned with her duty to be with those who are dying.
Has she emptied herself when it comes to her work? Is she selfless? Are you?
Chapter Twenty Six - The Police Station
The Police Station
After many hours of waiting at the police station Mrs. Geesky receives an emergency text to attend to a patient in County. She is being questioned by an officer.
“Let’s go over this again, shall we?” The officer pulls his chair closer to the long table in a pale tinted room.
Mrs. Geesky is at one end of the table reading a text.
“Ma’am?” The officer makes an effort to get her attention.
“I have to go!” Mrs. Geesky blurts out. “I have to go now!” She uses the word now as if it were a club.
The officer raises one hand to caution her to stop. “Ma’am, we have just a few more questions.”
“No. No. No more questions. I have to go. Look here. I have to go to County. A patient is dying, and I have to go.”
“Ma’am, please sit back down.”
“I have to go!” She yells at the officer and sticks her phone into his face. “Read this! I have to go.”
The officer moves to take the phone from her hand when she jerks it away. “I didn’t say take the phone, I said read this!”
The officer’s intention is to calm her down and goes along with her correction. “Yes. OK. You could read it to me.”
“I already told you…. but somehow you don’t believe me. I have to go. I have a patient at County who is dying.” Again, she shoves the phone under the officer’s chin. “Read it.”
After the officer reads it, he pushes his chair back and looks up at Mrs. Geesky. “OK. It does say you are needed at County hospital, but I don’t know who sent the text.”
“It’s my job!”
“Ok. Hold on.” He pulls back to the table and begins to flip through the pages looking for her employment information. Before he can find it, she bangs at him.
“Here!” She again shows him her phone.
“What is this?” He says as he points down at a phone number.
“That’s my office. Call it. Ask for the day dispatch manager. Or better yet, ask for Mr. Robert Kirkwood. They’ll tell you I need to go to County. NOW. Not later, but NOW. My patient is dying! What don’t you get?”
The officer writes down the number and once more pushes away from the table and tells her to sit down while he goes and checks it out. Mrs. Geesky begins to pace but recognizes he won’t leave until she sits down. “Ok.” She yells at him with her hands raised up to her shoulders. “Ok. I am sitting down. I need to go. Make it fast.”
The officer leaves. When he returns Mrs. Geesky is tapping the table with the palm of one hand. The officer has a paper in his hand which he puts down in front of her.
“What is this?” She says still unruly.
“We need you to get this signed.”
“What do you mean?” She stands up.
“We are going to let you go. Your job confirmed you were requested to tend to a patient at County, but we need you to get this signed by your manager. The person who is in charge of ordering you to the hospital.”
“Ordering. Ha!” She attacks the word. “No one orders me.”
The officer keeps his composure and refers to the paper in front of her. “We need a signature from someone in authority in your office. You need to come back here tomorrow with that signed and we must finish the interview.”
Mrs. Geesky disregards his directions and slides the paper back at him.
“Ma’am, all it says is that you were needed at the hospital. It’s not a big deal. You’re in the middle of a serious car accident investigation here. Don’t make things worse for yourself.”
“I told you all I know. The kid hit my car. His parents are negligent. You’re wasting my time. The kid got up and rode off home on his bike. I am not suing them for damages to my car!”
“I know. I know.” He remains calm. “Ma’am like I said, don’t make things worse. We need to have this paperwork signed and finish the accident report.”
She rips the paper off the table and leaves the room without a word.
The rain beaded and bled across the windshield as she drove South along the center of the City. “Don’t let him die.” She prayed as she pulled into the fast lane. In and out she drove passing and honking her way to the County hospital.
When she arrived, she was told the boy had been moved from ICU to a private room. She knew what that meant. He was put in a holding room until they moved him to the hospice annex. The nurse explained.
“He’ll be here for a while. Hospice is full.”
“You know as well as I do. He’ll die in that room!” Mrs. Geesky snarled back at the nurse. The nurse ignored the rebuke and gave Mrs. Geesky the following information.
“As far as the hospital knows he has no relatives. He was part of a gang. Was pushed off a roof. He’s unconscious and at the end of the hall, last room on the right.”
“By the exit?”
“Yes.” The nurse never looked up and moved away from the station.
“Good Good.” Mrs. Geesky said with each disclosure. “Good Good. I’ll take care of him.”
The room was small. No windows. His bed was in the center of the room. There was no bathroom connected to the room. There was one chair set beside the bed. The boy’s breath was rapid and made louder by the small oxygen mask over his nose.
Mrs. Geesky stops at the end of his bed and feels his toes. They are icy to the touch. She walks around the bed to check his body. She counts the number of sticks and bruises on his arms then pulls up his gown and counts the number of red marks where tubes once kept him alive. One, she taps his side, two in his chest, three, on his other side. One, two, three up to five, maybe six.
“Tsk!” she clicks in disgust. Some of the red marks have turned a dirty yellow. She knows what this means. With a sickened sigh she feels his legs. They, too, are cold and unmoving. She squeezes his young hand, no response. His face is the color of cinder; his young cheeks hang along his face bones like a loose drape. She leans over his face and imagines the color of his eyes. ‘Dark brown,’ she decides brushing his black silky hair off his joyless brow. With her eyes she follows his thick eyebrows which form a single shaggy fringe over his closed lids.
Before her feelings ripen, she turns and pulls the chair close to the head of the bed and sits down. “There is nothing to be sad about. Everyone is happier. The Great Matter makes everyone happier.” She says out loud when the blare of the hospital P. A. system overrides her voice.
“Code blue, code blue room 56A, code blue, code blue room 56A.”
“Everything blasts in some code, here. Don’t worry, it’s not for you.” She pulls his gown down and covers his chilly body with a single sheet. “You’re ready. Nothing to worry about. It’s coming.” She reached under the sheet and ran her fingers down his arm until she found his hand. “I’ll hold your hand. Don’t pay attention to those sounds.” Everything she said to the boy was clear, well-stated as she settled in to wait in silence for the Great Matter.
A doughty nurse pops her head in to tell her the hospital chaplain will be up soon. “He is held up by an emergency.”
“Tell him not to bother. I don’t need any assistance.”
The nurse responds with the stamp of an imposing indifference. “It’s hospital policy.”
Sometime later a spurious, happy-as-a-lark man, dressed in creased, black trousers, a professionally pressed shirt and dark tie comes in. “I am sorry. I got caught up in the hospital emergency room. A kid passed out at the festival. Got hit on his bike yesterday. He’s out like a light. He’s in bad shape.”
“I don’t care about your emergency.”
“I’m the hospital chaplain, Ray Borte” He says ignoring her disdain. He extends his fleshy hand over the boy’s body.
Mrs. Geesky looks at him and does not offer her hand in return. Her withholding goes unnoticed at least in any recognizable way.
“I saw him a few times in ICU.” He clicks his tongue as he gestures with his head toward the dying boy. “Bad luck. No family to speak of….no one. It’s good you’re here. It won’t be long. They put them in here when they know.” He talks and gestures to her as though she is the uninformed, while he glances at the body. “It’s great you can relieve me. It’s been a week-long day. I’m sure you know what I mean. OK. I need to skedaddle. But good. Good. All is good here.” And with his smiley declaration of good, he turns and leaves before Mrs. Geesky can tell him to get out.
It wasn’t long. Mrs. Geesky held the boy’s hand until his body grew colder, stippled by low blood pressure until the purple color reached his lips. The Great Matter quaked and shivered through his unconscious body until the tremor of life stopped. It ended before midnight. His breath stopped before the rise of another day. She didn’t know his name, his age or anything else about him.
“Well done. Well done.” She whispers in his ear. Her voice, more intimate and warmer as though he was someone dear to her. She looks in his face and tells him “You’ve done your job. I’ve done mine. I’ve done mine. Everyone will be happier.” She holds back what looks like the gesture of a kiss to reach across his face to remove the oxygen mask. Standing up, she looks at him. She vibrates her head from her shoulders. She quivers a final ovation before she turns to leave in a satisfied silence.
The corridors are empty. There is a young man in dark blue scrubs behind the counter at the nurse’s station. He is looking at a computer screen. He doesn’t look up. Mrs. Geesky leaves the hospital unnoticed. In this prized moment the streetlight finds itself cascading across the dark, wet parking lot in a reflective glimmer.
With very little sleep she drives home where she knows her tom cat will greet her, where she will perform her oblations. Wash. Eat. Read. Where she will sit at her counter and recall the changes in his body. Flaccid. Cold. Colder. Tightening. She will chant I made them happier. I made them happier. She will write in her guidebook. She knows the hospital will wash him and bag him.
It is here… at the counter amid her offerings she is interrupted. Her phone rang. It is not quite dawn.
“Hello.” She is once again full-voiced and alert. “Yes. Yes. This is Mrs. Geesky. Yes. Yes. I am on call. Who is this? Yes. Yes, I was there. Yes. He died. It was before midnight. Yes. He doesn’t have any next of kin. No. No. I did my job. No. No. I did my job. You should be thanking me! Yes. That’s right. He was. I know when someone is dead.” A long silence followed by an indifferent explanation. “I didn’t have to tell him. That is not my job. I did my job. I know how to do my job. Don’t call again!”
She pulls her phone away from her ear and punches off the computer screen. It goes dead. Her tom cat howls as he gads between her dangling legs and the counter. “I’ll take them to court. His body should’ve been cleaned and bagged by now.” She leans down, lifts her tom cat in his middle as though he is a rolled wet towel. She begins to stroke his fur from his head along his back as he curls onto her lap. “Stupid…. stupid, stupid. OK for them! OK for them!” She began to speak in a churlish, bad-mannered possessive tone…. a childish threat. “They’ll get what is coming to them, don’t worry.” The cat has given way, his weight in her hands as she holds him out in front of her face. “Don’t worry. They’ll get what is coming to them!”
She sets the boy cat down on the floor under the counter. Each time she witnesses the Great Matter she musters up her ill-natured complaints. But this morning was different. The phone call, what she called the unfriendly phone call primed her pump to a high level of irritability. The denizens of the hospital were no match for her fractiousness.
She went to her desk and began to search for pen and paper. For a moment she can’t remember… jumbled by exhaustion she feels attacked.
“Who shall I report them to?” She asked herself as she placed both elbows on the desk. She beat the end of the pen against her mouth as she tried to come up with names of those who knew of her good work as a chaplain. Tap! Tap! Tap! The pen continued until she set it back into the desk drawer along with the piece of paper. “I’ll handle this on my own.” Her voice strikes the previous quiet and her tom boy blinks open his eyes to the rise in her voice. “Don’t worry, they’ll get what’s coming to them. If at first, you don’t succeed….” With these words she slaps the palm of her hand on top of the desk shifting her mood to an impersonal, almost formal air that lifted her to get cleaned up and go into the office early.
The night rain stained the bark on the trees. The blacktop streets looked slick and distinct. The air was fresh. With no sleep, in her clean clothes she brushes her pale yellowy brown thick hair in front of her bedroom mirror. She is huffed up, ready to go. She collects her keys, her purse and looks at her phone. Several missed calls. No voicemails.
“The school made me better. The school made me better.” She dropped these words then punted more out over her imaginary battlefield. She decides not to ring the caller back. “I don’t know who it is and if it is the hospital. They have some nerve! I don’t work for them.” Once she kicked her calls away, she ran on tiptoes to her car through the drizzle from the trees.
“There is always someone on call, always someone on dispatch,” she reminded herself. She knew the early morning hours were always the busiest time. Lots of death. Mrs. Geesky checked her car clock as she parked in front of the reserved space for the On Duty Chaplain. She sees the form from the police station stuck in an outside pocket of her purse. ‘He better sign it!’ She checks the clock again.
“I wonder when Mister Robert Kirkwood will be in this morning?” She speaks to the reflection of her eyes in the mirror on the pull-down visor. Prepared, she flips the visor up and reassures herself that because he is slow-witted, he often comes in early. “He’s always behind in everything.” When she gets out of her car, she notices Mr. Kirkwood’s car is parked in the Director’s reserved space. “He’s here.” She mutters feeling blessed with luck. “How about that.” She congratulates herself, full of hope.
She buzzed herself in and headed straight for her desk passing the closed glass door of Mister Robert Kirkwood. Without apology she slowed down and stared at him sitting in front of his computer. “He’s pretending to be busy.” By the time Mrs. Geesky reaches the end of his glass wall she dismisses her interest in him.
She trudges for over an hour through the necessary paperwork for the boy’s death. She rummages through a pile of papers. Skims them. She finds a yellow sticky note with the words READ THIS and a date stuck to a file folder. She flips open the folder. Best Practices for Hospice Chaplains. She lets the folder close and pushes it out of the way replacing it with the blank form from the police. She looks up to see what Mister Potato Head, (her new name for Mr. Kirkwood) is doing. When she sees he has stopped his obsession with his computer screen she grabs the form and raps on his glass door.
She steps forward, close enough to appear as though her face is about to press against the glass. She raps again. Without looking up Mr. Robert Kirkwood motions her to come in with one hand. She pushes the door open and stands close enough that her skirt brushes against the edge of his desk. Knowing he will not look up; she places the form between his face and the paper he was working on.
“What’s this?” He asks in a plain, dreary voice.
“I need your signature.”
He puts his pen down…. picks up the form and begins to read it out loud. “City Police Department of….” before he goes any further Mrs. Geesky interrupts him. “I was in an accident and the police need to know my professional connection to this hospice.” With this Mr. Robert Kirkwood lifts his head upward enough to look at Mrs. Geesky over the top of his glasses that have slid to the middle of his nose. “I was at the police station when I was called by dispatch to go to the hospital. I don’t know why they need to know such things….” She begins to sound flustered.
“What such things do they need to know?” Mr. Kirkwood’s words seem like an interruption.
Impatient, “I told you. My professional association. I don’t know why they need this, but they do?” Mr. Robert Kirkwood sat back removing his glasses as he adds. “Maybe they need to know why you were called away while being interviewed for an automobile accident. Could that be it?” His voice had taken on a more serious tone. Mrs. Geesky circumvents his deliberate insinuation. “Are you going to sign it or not?” Not wanting her to have a fit, Mr. Kirkwood ignores her watered-down intimidation, leans forward, his pen still in hand and signs the form. Before he hands it back to her, he speaks in his most formal voice.
“Reverend Mrs. Geesky, you need to take some time off. I’ve taken you off the on-call schedule. I’ve alerted Human Resources. A few days. Take a few days off to sort out this accident.” He flaps the form up and down.
“I don’t need any time off!” She tacks on the word sir as an afterthought.
Mr. Kirkwood stands up. He repeats. “Take a few days off. It’s not a choice. Everything is in order. All you need to do is to clear off your desk. I’ve left some files for you. Collect your things. Take a few days off starting right now.” His last words were fixed as he thrust the form across the desk pushing her back. She grabs the form and looks back at him through the glass.
“He’ll be sorry.” she promises.
She returns to her desk in silence and looks down on the files with scorn. ‘He wants me to read these files. Thinks I don’t know this stuff.’ She jabs the files with her index finger. Within a few minutes she is back at his door.
Rap! Rap! Rap! Without waiting to be invited in she pushes open the glass door.
Mr. Robert Kirkwood jumps up from his desk and comes towards her. “This better be it!” He warns her.
“Why?” she asks with impudence.
“Why what?” he raises his voice.
“Why me?”
Mr. Kirkwood laughs a quick audacious laugh. He wants to be short, curt, and as overconfident as she is but steadies himself as he waves her into his office. He closes the door.
“If the car accident weren’t enough!” He waits. Swallows. “You did not report the death last night at the hospital.” Mrs. Geesky starts to interrupt but this time Mr. Kirkwood stops her. “No. You don’t get to say anything. Nothing. You did not report the death. That’s plenty big. We are not going to talk about this. Take a few days off. Clear off your desk or I will have security come and escort you out.”
“Are you firing me?”
“Do it now.” He opens his door and points for her to leave. He looks up at the clock on the wall. “You’re off duty. Unscheduled. Get your things and leave.”
She returns to her desk a second time and pushes all the files together, shoves her chair under the desk and leaves. Reluctantly she goes along without too much push back but sends a text to the dispatcher from her car.
*CALL IMMEDIATELY* *WHEN NEEDED! DAY OR NIGHT*
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