Sunday, September 03, 2006
Rampant Roaches, Flat Asses and Naked Fathers
This week my 82-year-old father fell on the floor of his bathroom and lay there for 36 hours. My husband found him naked from the waist down with a pajama top on. "Am I glad to see you!" my dad said lolling his head back to peek at Bruce. Bruce called 9-11 and then he called me with the super-zen tone so I wouldn't freak out. Pop didn't remember how or why he passed out, but he knew he couldn't get up.
When the EMS guys came they pointed to a purplish-red rash on Pop's leg. "Mr. Gewirtz, where did you get that?" they asked.
My dad looked quizically at Bruce. "Where did I get that rash?" he asked.
"Arthur, I don't know. Where did you get that?" Bruce asked; Zen tone in tact, I am sure.
"Well how about that, no one knows where the rash is from," my dad tut-tutting his teeth with his tongue in wonder as if inspecting a tree that had been knocked down in his yard by a random storm. It turns out its highly infected cellulitis with open soars that medics feared had spread to the bone.
"Viagra" was what my dad blurted out when the EMS guys asked him about his last ingested medicine. Except he was probably lying. We figured out he hadn't seen his girlfriend for three days and had probably taken his heart medicine last. "Eiiw. That means he was just bragging," my sister said to me on the phone.
"I guess that's a good sign, right?" I replied.
In the ER that night, I found my dad alone with his girlfriend and her husband. My dad is sleeping with his former student whom he taught when he was at a university in China in the '80s. Back then she was newly married and just having a son. She made my dad -- her special American professor -- the godfather of her son and then they named the child after my grandfather Shmuel(name changed for privacy) with his last name Chin (also changed). You got it -- Shmuel Chin. Hmm. Somehow her husband and my dad's then-girlfriend found nothing strange about the situation. Later the family moved from China to the States where my dad's LoveStudent became an English teachers like him. Hmm ... stalker? When my dad's wife died three years ago, Pop and LoveStudent began a raging passion -- with the help of Viagra. Somehow her husband, who doesn't speak English after 20 years in the U.S. either doesn't know or just simply doesn't care about their jaunts to Atlantic City and such. Hell, he has a kid named after a Brooklyn Jewish baker who he'd never met, I am gonna go with the latter.
Upon arrival at the ER, my sister found LoveStudent leaning over my Pop practically making out with him. Pop was barely lucid from the fall and was asking repeatedly how this all happened. Then LoveStudent pops up and says "Oh, I left my husband in the car. I'll be right back." She brings him in to the ER where the nurse says, "I can only let family." My sister assured that they were family. When I got there, my sister was out on a little break and the husband was holding my dad's hand, assuring him he would be alright. It was all a little exhausting, frankly.
The next day when my dad begins to come around to a little lucidity, I found myself alone with him and a nurse named Esther. She is in her '50s, has all of her dyed hair swooped up in a pile on top of her head, bright blue eye shadow, striped socks, green clogs and a rainbow medical shirt with paisley pants. I am guessing there are not under ten cats in her house and that she pays 10 percent of salary in vet bills. She is shuffling around adjusting wires and hooking in IV bags, and my dad is examining her closely as if she were the rash on his leg. He scans her body up and down, down and up. Reaches over to find his glasses so he can get a better gander. She weaves out of the room, one shoulder higher than the other and a little disassembled. "Her belly just sticks out. It is the most absurd thing I have ever seen. And her ASS IS FLAT. It's just the queerest thing. Her body is TOTALLY DISORGANIZED. I don't like the look of her one bit," my father says.
"You can't walk and you have bedsores on your ass. You shouldn't talk,"I said.
"Poo poo. You are right," my father says. "But poor thing, she is horrible looking.
Later LoveStudent comes in and starts talking about teaching in a decrepit Brooklyn public school. "There are cockroaches just running down the hallway. They drop from the ceiling." LoveStudent also teaches special needs kids in their homes and is paid by the city to do so. "They live in horrible homes," she says. There are rats everywhere." My dad in his bed tut-tutting his teeth again.
"That's a shame he says. Just a shame."
"I once found a roach running around in my car!" she says. "It must have come from one of their houses ... jumped into my bag or something. Now I don't bring my bags inside my house. I leave them in the car."
I guess she has a little respect for her husband after all.
When the EMS guys came they pointed to a purplish-red rash on Pop's leg. "Mr. Gewirtz, where did you get that?" they asked.
My dad looked quizically at Bruce. "Where did I get that rash?" he asked.
"Arthur, I don't know. Where did you get that?" Bruce asked; Zen tone in tact, I am sure.
"Well how about that, no one knows where the rash is from," my dad tut-tutting his teeth with his tongue in wonder as if inspecting a tree that had been knocked down in his yard by a random storm. It turns out its highly infected cellulitis with open soars that medics feared had spread to the bone.
"Viagra" was what my dad blurted out when the EMS guys asked him about his last ingested medicine. Except he was probably lying. We figured out he hadn't seen his girlfriend for three days and had probably taken his heart medicine last. "Eiiw. That means he was just bragging," my sister said to me on the phone.
"I guess that's a good sign, right?" I replied.
In the ER that night, I found my dad alone with his girlfriend and her husband. My dad is sleeping with his former student whom he taught when he was at a university in China in the '80s. Back then she was newly married and just having a son. She made my dad -- her special American professor -- the godfather of her son and then they named the child after my grandfather Shmuel(name changed for privacy) with his last name Chin (also changed). You got it -- Shmuel Chin. Hmm. Somehow her husband and my dad's then-girlfriend found nothing strange about the situation. Later the family moved from China to the States where my dad's LoveStudent became an English teachers like him. Hmm ... stalker? When my dad's wife died three years ago, Pop and LoveStudent began a raging passion -- with the help of Viagra. Somehow her husband, who doesn't speak English after 20 years in the U.S. either doesn't know or just simply doesn't care about their jaunts to Atlantic City and such. Hell, he has a kid named after a Brooklyn Jewish baker who he'd never met, I am gonna go with the latter.
Upon arrival at the ER, my sister found LoveStudent leaning over my Pop practically making out with him. Pop was barely lucid from the fall and was asking repeatedly how this all happened. Then LoveStudent pops up and says "Oh, I left my husband in the car. I'll be right back." She brings him in to the ER where the nurse says, "I can only let family." My sister assured that they were family. When I got there, my sister was out on a little break and the husband was holding my dad's hand, assuring him he would be alright. It was all a little exhausting, frankly.
The next day when my dad begins to come around to a little lucidity, I found myself alone with him and a nurse named Esther. She is in her '50s, has all of her dyed hair swooped up in a pile on top of her head, bright blue eye shadow, striped socks, green clogs and a rainbow medical shirt with paisley pants. I am guessing there are not under ten cats in her house and that she pays 10 percent of salary in vet bills. She is shuffling around adjusting wires and hooking in IV bags, and my dad is examining her closely as if she were the rash on his leg. He scans her body up and down, down and up. Reaches over to find his glasses so he can get a better gander. She weaves out of the room, one shoulder higher than the other and a little disassembled. "Her belly just sticks out. It is the most absurd thing I have ever seen. And her ASS IS FLAT. It's just the queerest thing. Her body is TOTALLY DISORGANIZED. I don't like the look of her one bit," my father says.
"You can't walk and you have bedsores on your ass. You shouldn't talk,"I said.
"Poo poo. You are right," my father says. "But poor thing, she is horrible looking.
Later LoveStudent comes in and starts talking about teaching in a decrepit Brooklyn public school. "There are cockroaches just running down the hallway. They drop from the ceiling." LoveStudent also teaches special needs kids in their homes and is paid by the city to do so. "They live in horrible homes," she says. There are rats everywhere." My dad in his bed tut-tutting his teeth again.
"That's a shame he says. Just a shame."
"I once found a roach running around in my car!" she says. "It must have come from one of their houses ... jumped into my bag or something. Now I don't bring my bags inside my house. I leave them in the car."
I guess she has a little respect for her husband after all.
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