“Nurse!” I bark. “Nurse!”
One of them looks up and catches my eye. Since it’s clear I’m not dying, she takes her sweet time getting to me.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Jankowski?”
“How about getting me some real food?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Real food. You know—that stuff people on the outside get to eat.”
“Oh, Mr. Jankowski—”
“Don’t you ‘Oh, Mr. Jankowski’ me, young lady. This is nursery food, and last I looked I wasn’t five years old. I’m ninety. Or ninety-three.”
“It’s not nursery food.”
“Yes it is. There’s no substance. Look—” I say, dragging my fork through the gravy-covered heap. It falls off in glops, leaving me holding a coated fork. “You call that food? I want something I can sink my teeth into. Something that crunches. And what, exactly, is this supposed to be?” I say, poking the lump of red Jell-O. It jiggles outrageously, like a breast I once knew.
“It’s salad.”
“Salad? Do you see any vegetables? I don’t see any vegetables.”
“It’s fruit salad,” she says, her voice steady but forced.
“Do you see any fruit?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact I do,” she says, pointing at a pock. “There. And there. That’s a piece of banana, and that’s a grape. Why don’t you try it?”
“Why don’t you try it?”
She folds her arms across her chest. The schoolmarm has run out of patience. “This food is for the residents. It’s designed specifically by a nutritionist who specializes in geriatric—”
“I don’t want it. I want real food.”
There’s dead silence in the room. I look around. All eyes are trained on me. “What?” I say loudly. “Is that so much to ask? Doesn’t anyone else here miss real food? Surely you can’t all be happy with this . . . this . . . pap?” I put my hand on the edge of my plate and give it a shove.
Just a little one.
Really.
My plate shoots across the table and crashes to the floor.
DR. RASHID IS summoned. She sits at my bedside and asks questions that I try to answer courteously, but I’m so tired of being treated as though I’m unreasonable that I’m afraid I may come off as a bit crotchety.
After a half hour she asks the nurse to come into the hallway with her. I strain to hear, but my old ears, for all their obscene hugeness, pick up nothing but snippets: “serious, serious depression” and “manifesting as aggression, not uncommon in geriatric patients.”
“I’m not deaf, you know!” I shout from my bed. “Just old!”
Dr. Rashid peers in at me and takes the nurse’s elbow. They move down the hall and out of earshot.
THAT NIGHT, A new pill appears in my paper cup. The pills are already in my palm before I notice it.
“What’s this?” I ask, pushing it around. I flip it over and inspect the other side.
“What?” says the nurse.
“This,” I say, poking the offending pill. “This one right here. It’s new.”
“It’s called Elavil.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s going to help you feel better.”
“What’s it for?” I repeat.
She doesn’t answer. I look up. Our eyes meet.
“Depression,” she says finally.
“I won’t take it.”
“Mr. Jankowski—”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Dr. Rashid prescribed it. It’s going to—”
“You want to drug me. You want to turn me into a Jell-O-eating sheep. I won’t take it, I tell you.”
“Mr. Jankowski. I have twelve other patients to take care of. Now please take your pills.”
“I thought we were residents.”
Every one of her pinched features hardens.
“I’ll take the others but not this,” I say, flicking the pill from my hand. It flies through the air and lands on the floor. I toss the others into my mouth. “Where’s my water?” I say, my words garbled because I’m trying to keep the pills on the center of my tongue.
She hands me a plastic cup, retrieves the pill from the floor, and goes into my bathroom. I hear a flush. Then she comes back.
“Mr. Jankowski. I am going to go get another Elavil and if you won’t take it, I will call Dr. Rashid, and she will prescribe an injectable instead. Either way, you are taking the Elavil. How you do so is up to you.”
When she brings the pill, I swallow it. A quarter of an hour later, I also get an injection—not of Elavil, of something else, but still it doesn’t seem fair because I took their damned pill.
Within minutes, I am a Jell-O-eating sheep. Well, a sheep at any rate. But because I keep reminding myself of the incident that brought this misfortune upon me, I realize that if someone brought pockmarked Jell-O right now and told me to eat it, I would.