Summer of '73 - Part 1

Copyright © 2008 Judith J. Bentley

I was 28 years old in the summer of '73 when just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I was sure it had to be some terminal illness and that I was dying a slow death. I was tired all the time and had no energy. I did not know why I felt so bad. My parents were concerned and drove to Atlanta to bring me back to Virginia. I remember little of the drive to West Point, the town where they had retired, except that we had to stop at all the rest stops so I could lie down on a picnic table and try to keep on breathing. Although I had registered and been accepted at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference in Middlebury, Vermont as a contributing writer for the August 1973 conference, I didn't know whether I'd be able to make it because of my health. About two weeks before the conference was to begin, I entered Williamsburg Community Hospital for observation, testing and diagnosis and was placed on a hospital ward with two other women.

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"You might as well put that curtain from around your bed over there, honey. We're all in here together."

"That's right. We wannt meet our new roommate. Old Sara and me, we fuss all the time and we need somebody to referee. Ain't that right, ole Sara? Well, ain't you gonna let us see who we got in here? You been hidin' behind them curtains all morning."

The words startled me awake. My pillow was soaked on both sides of my head from tears that I couldn't stop. I tried to focus. The room smelled of alcohol and disinfectant and a light green curtain surrounded my bed. I sat up, wiped my eyes, leaned over, and grabbed the curtain, pitching it around till it came to the middle of the foot of my bed. I could see a young Black woman propped up diagonally across from me and an old while woman lying on her side directly in front of me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude; I just don't feel so good. My name is Judith."

"That's okay. I'm Cookie and this lump of lard over here is ole Sara." Cookie let out a cackle.

"I wish you'd hush your mouth. Just wait'll I get my gall stones and you get your innerds cleaned out. I'll get you back then. You won't feel like talkin' to nobody then, and I'll be talkin up a storm about my gall stones and you won't be able to do nothin' about it cause you won't be able to move hardly, I reckon."

"Woo, ain't she mean!" Cookie looked at me and grinned.

"Nothing more'n you deserve." Sara turned toward me to see if I was showing any signs of life yet.

"Well," Sara continued, "it's just real nice to have another roommate -- a live one, that is. The last two we had came in live and went out dead. They were in that bed over there next to yours, honey. My God rest their souls."

I stared at the empty bed on my left. I was glad I hand't been put in a room by myself. It was good to have these women to talk to. They obviously enjoyed each other's company and were determined to get me to speak. I pulled the bed sheet up tight around my neck and lay back against the pillow. I looked at Sara and tried to be pleasant.

"I heard you mention something about gall stones? Is that what you're in here for?"

"That's right, honey. I'm in her to get my rocks out, and the doctor says he'll give 'em to me, too, if I want 'em, and of course, I do. I plan to take 'em home and keep 'em in my kitchen winder over my sink. They'll be my consolatin prize for puttin' up with old motor mouth over here. If angels had kidneys, she'd likely give them gall stones. Her mouth makes you long to be deaf as a rock."

Cookie ignored Sara's remarks about her mouth. "Yea, I bet there's real strange things in your house, ole Sara. Judith and me, we gonna cover over when we get outta this palce and see them rocks you got in your winder."

"Lawd, " Sara replied in exasperation, "it's enough to have to put up with you in here. Now you gonna invite yourself over to my house too. I wouldn't mind if you come, Judith, but motor mouth won't let an old woman have any peace."

I smiled at Cookie. "What're you in here for, Cookie?"

"Well, like ole Sara says, I'm in here to get me a good cleaning out--they call it a hysterectomy."

"I'm awfully sorry," I replied trying to be sympathetic.

"What for?" I already got six kids and no husband to help me take care of 'em. I don't need none of that equipment no more; anyhow, it's gone bad on me, and I like my good times too much to be worryin' 'bout havin' another youngun."

"Cookie's trying to tell us that her mouth ain't all that's motorized; other parts of her got connections--all over this city, I reckon." Sara kept on teasing Cookie. "It's a downright crying shame to be stuck up in a hospital room with a hopeless and lost sinner like ole motor mouth, and even though I read my Bible and have my devotion every morning and every night and pray hard as I can for her,it don't look like it done no good. She justkeeps on having a wild hankering for the men folk."

"Ole Sara's just jealous," said Cookie between chuckles, "and wishin' she could get some."

"Hump," Sara croaked as if in disgust, "I'm too old for such foolishness."

They had succeeded. I was laughing.

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The nurse wheeled into the room with her cart of pills and needles.

"All right, ladies, it's time to shape up. The doctors are making their rounds now, and the way you ladies carry on, they'd never believe anybody in here was sick." She lifted two small white paper cups from the tray and stood beside Sara's bed.

"Let's see if we can get these down this morning." Sara let out a moan as she flipped herself over on her back and then with both arms raised herself up. She reached for the pills and popped them in.

"The food service around here sure is lousy. All I get to eat are these durn pills." Sara enjoyed grumbling whenever the nurse showed up with her daily dose of pills.

"Well, you know your doctor wants you to drink lots of liquids today so you'll be ready for your operation tomorrow. You'll be getting some noodle soup for lunch."

Sara scowled at the nurse who had pulled her cart over to Cookie's bed and handed Cookie her cup of medicine.

"There goes ole Sara, again, griping about the service," said Cookie between sips of a white liquid. "You'd think she wants to keep them gall stones."

The nurse started over to my bed.

"And how is Miss Bentley today?"

"Well, considering my leg has been cut wide open, I've got a hole in my chest, and the blood sucker went out of here this morning with four more vials of my blood, I can't exactly say I feel fine. I think I might be anemic because I'm just tired all the time. It seems like I haven't had any energy in years. Is my doctor coming today?"

"Oh, yes," the nurse replied reassuringly. "He'll be around this morning in a little while with your diagnosis and you can tell him all about the way you feel then. In the meantime, he wants you to take these." She handed me a cup that contained a long yellow pill and a round white one.

"What are they?" I asked even though I didn't really care.

"Oh, just something to calm your nerves."

"Yeah, but what do you call them?"

"The yellow one is Vivactil and the white one is Valium. They are tranquilizers, and they'll help you feel better."

I was glad to hear that. I had been shaking for weeks and didn't know why. Sometimes I felt my blood trembling. I swallowed the pills with a sip of water just as the door swung open and a nurse pulled another bed into the room. The nurse at my bedside pushed her cart to the side wall and assisted in lifting an old Black woman--bony, emaciated, and unconscious--into the bed next to me. The nurses began whispering to one another as they pulled the green curtains around the old woman. Then they rolled the pill cart and emergency room stretcher out, leaving an invisible curtain of silence.

I felt tears trickling down my cheeks again. I had crying spells often for no apparent reason. I felt nervous and frightened much of the time. I felt sorry for myself and for the whole human race, too, thinking that we are all like store signs, with not particularly interesting advertisements, having to be here for a time, until the weather had worn us out and we were taken down and scraped. The image of trees in an endless forest came to my mind. Maybe we were like the trees, stuck in one place unable to move, having to endure whatever the weather brought whether we were up to it or not. I thought some were lucky to be cut down without warning. Others had to live into old age until the bugs ate clear through them and they crumbled in decay. After all, life was difficult to stand up to sometimes. I was 28 years old and divorced already. My ex-husband had been a professional seminarian who hadn't wanted a job in the real world. I had supported him financialy for the four years of our marriage which had soured early. I recalled my wedding day, how bizarre it all had been.

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My mother had made most of the arrangements for my wedding. In fact, I felt I had very little to do with any of it, but I had made my wedding dress, a white, floor-ength gown with a long satin train which I covered in expensive French lace. My mother hadn't had a formal church wedding herself but had married at home in a Sunday suit. I wondered if my mother's excitement and fuss wasn't twenty-eight years late. Maybe my wedding was really for her. I would play bride for my mother's sake. Maybe that would bring her some happiness.

I took the long walk down the church aisle on my father's arm. Could I hold up through the ceremony, the meaningless rehearsed words, the turning this way and that, the exchange of rights, the reception's congratulations? If I could pretend hard enough that the total stranger waiting at the pulpit railing in his black tuxedo was someone I loved, maybe I could be a good bride for my mother. My mother's eyes were somewhere behind me, watching through all the years of dark shadows. I had always tried to be a good girl for her but I never felt I measured up. I couldn't make my mother happy. I recalled the words of a favorite Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Anne Sexton, who in describing a miller's daughter, was describing my mother. She was also describing me.

"Poor grape with no one to pick.
Luscious and round and sleek.
Poor thing.
To die and never see Brooklyn."

The grand pageant hadn't work for me. I was in this hopsital room now with a team of medical specialists turning me inside out, naming the parts of me that might still work. I hoped they wouldn't find any. I hoped for the cool, clammy arms of Death. I would at last be held by someone who really wanted me.

I reached for the book of poems on the nightstand that I had brought with me to this hospital. I opened to a poem titled "Rumpelstilskin" and began reading it aloud to Cookie and ole Sara. The poem referred to a Doppelganger.

Cookie and Sara wanted to know what a Doppelganger was.

"It's the ghost inside each of us," I explained," and whenever it decides to come out, Death will show up to meet it. He already came for the two women in her before me and carried off their doppelgangers."

"Ah, shush, Judith, what you want to make up all that silly stuff for?" asked Sara. Cookie was laughing, enjoying the story.

"Just listen to Judith," Cookie said to Sara. They must have thought I was just making something up or maybe I was just nuts because neither had ever heard of a doppelganger before.

Suddenly the light over the ward door began flashing. Cookie saw it first.

"What's going on now?" She sat straight up in bed staring at the door. The three of us could hear feet running to the door. Suddenly it burst open and three nurses rushed in heading for the old woman's bed. One grabbed the curtain pulling it around them while the others hooked up equipment. Then one of the nurses called out, "Ready?"

I could hear a bolting sound and a pounding, followed by silence, then the nurse's "ready" again. I guessed what this meant--one nurse was applying electrical shock to the old woman's chest. This went on for what seemed like several minutes. Then there was only silence. The nurses began whispering again as one pulled the curtains back while the other two rolled the bed out of the room, the old woman covered in a white sheet.

A moment later a middle-aged Black woman entered the room and walked over tot he empty space where the bed holding the unconscious old woman had been. She simply said, "My mother's belongings," as she bent down, picked up a sweater and pocketbook from a chair, and quietly walked out of the room.

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The evening before Cookie's scheduled surgery, the nurse came in to deliver Cookie's usual cup of pills and to remind her that she could have water but was to have no solid food the rest of the evening. It wasn't long after the nurse left that Cookie began to fill in some of the details about what Sara had mentioned about Cookie's "connections" and "wild hankering for the men folk." Cookie let it be known that she was on a first name basis with most of the male chefs in the City of Williamsburg, had been out with most of the single ones and probably some of the married ones, and wasn't about to let her connections go to waste while she was in the hospital. She kept a telephone close at her bedside. It was about 10:00 p.m.

"Ya'll want somethin' to eat? I'm hungry," Cookie said.

Ole Sara piped up. "You know what the nurse just told you about not eating anything else tonight."

"Phoey. I ain't studyin' that nurse," Cookie exclaimed. "If I'm going to get cut on, I think we should have a party while I'm still conscious 'cause after tomorrow morning, I probably won't feel like partying for a long time."

"Okay. Be hard headed then. Can't nobody tell you nothin' anyways." Sara waved at Cookie as if trying to push her away, then rolled over and closed her eyes.

"Whatcha want to order, Judith? Got a hankerin' for anything in particular? I know where the best food in this colonial city is. My fellas'll bring us anything we want."

"I don't care," I replied curious as to how Cookie was planning to manage delivery service in her room this time of night without anyone seeing her."

"Well, in that case, here goes." Cookie picked up the phone and dialed one of her "connections." I couldn't make out what all she said on the phone but when she hung up, she announced that we'd be getting a delivery at midnight sharp.

I liked Cookie and Sara both because they both were always trying to make me feel better, but Cookie was my favorite. She didn't pay too much attention to the house rules if they didn't suit her and the hospital's rules regarding food in-take prior to surgery were getting in the way of Cookie's plans for our party. I was glad we were going to do something sneaky. I couldn't wait. Cookie had already instructed the chef where to bring the food -- to the back door of the hospital.

"Yeah, but how are you going to get it without anyone seeing you?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I've got it all taken care of."

We were in our pj's when Cookie's phone rang a few minutes before midnight. Cookie hopped out of bed.

"Come on, Judith. Let's go get our food."

I couldn't believe what we were about to do - intentionally defy hospital rules with the high probability that we would be caught. I was too doped up on tranquillizers to consider the consequences. I came into the hospital in a wheelchair, but Cookie's escapade had motivated me to get out of bed and follow her down the dark hall to the back of the hospital. Sure enough, a tall black man was standing at the door with a large round silver tray in his hands. Cookie opened the door and reached for the tray, a smorgasbord of an assortment of cheeses, crackers, fresh strawberries, pineapple and grapes, slices of deli meat, and some chocolate brownies.

Miraculously, we made it back to our room without detection by the hospital staff. Cookie placed the large tray on her bedside table. She couldn't convince Sara to sample the gourmet goodies.

"Okay, ya'll are goin' to be sick as dogs in the morning and I don't want to hear a peep out of you either."

"Don't worry, ole Sara. I ain't even goin' to be in here when you open your eyes in the morning."

Cookie couldn't have a party all by herself, could she? I didn't know you could have so much fun in a hospital when you were supposed to be sick.

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I had pulled the curtains around my bed again and was starring at the ceiling when my doctor came in carrying a clipboard of papers. Dr. Mercer was a specialist of internal medicine, a man in his early thirties who drove a black Jaguar to his office very day, who had a wife and two children, along with a private cub plane and a resort home in New Hampshire. His piercing blue eyes distracted me from noticing his short statue and blonde hair. The nurses had forewarned me that he had an abrupt bedside manner.

He brushed back the curtains in a flurry, stood at my bed looking at his clipboard and began reading his report.

"Well, and how's my patient this morning?" My eyes filled up instantly. He didn't wait for me to finish saying "I don't feel so hot."

--"Well, I've got some good news and some bad news. I'll give you the good news first. All your tests are in. The chest bone marrow revealed no presence or history of anemia. Aren't you glad to hear that?" He continued without pausing for my reply or looking up from his clipboard.

"And all the blood tests indicate a healthy balance of red and white blood cells. According to the X-rays, your vital organs are functioning normally, and the muscle biopsy on your right leg showed no muscular malfunction. Reports from the EKG came in this morning negative which means we could find no irregularities in your brain operations. In short," Dr. Mercer went on, taking a seat now on my bed and finally looking into my eyes, "we could find nothing physically wrong with you."

He took my right hand and placed it in his. My hand lay like some dead thing unattached to my body. He slowed his words and his voice took on a softer quality.

"Now for the bad news. Your parents told me of your divorce a few years ago. Your marriage must have been a big disappointment and you're probably carrying around a lot of hurt feelings you've had to repress all this time so you could continue to teach school. But those feelings are still there inside you because you haven't let them out and they're eating you up like a cancer. So you've got to do something for yourself now, Judith. You've got to take your head to the dry cleaners."

I was shocked. "What do you mean?" I had been set on his diagnosis of a terminal disease, even looking forward to it.

"I mean that you are experiencing a chronic anxiety depression, what we call a clinical depression. You need another type of doctor to treat that." He hesitated to say anything else.

"You mean a shrink?" I blurted out, tears welling up. "You mean you want me to see a shrink?"

"Well, I know a very good doctor I would like to refer you to." My head was pounding and his calm, quiet voice did nothing to assuage the pressure I felt in my chest.

"I'm not going to any shrink," I said emphatically. "My father has told me all about shrinks and what they do to people. They just use people and squeeze you dry of all your money and then pronounce you cured and let you go. They even force their patients to have sex with them and I'd be expected to cooperate. I'd be a whole lot sicker when I was 'cured' and more confused. Besides, the people I know who've been to a shrink don't seem to be any better. They're just as neurotic as they were before."

I had managed to work myself into a state of high anxiety and I was on a roll. "Let me tell you about a shrink I read about in Atlanta, Georgia," I began. "He was considered by his colleagues as an up-and-coming psychiatrist, just 26 years old, with great promise. He was said to have had a brilliant mind. He had graduated from medical school summa cum laude. You know what happened to him?"

Dr. Mercer shifted his weight on the bed. I went on.

"One morning he jumped out of his twenty-sixth story apartment in the DeKalb Towers and splattered himself all over the pavement. Then there's a poet I know about whose been going to a shrink for years, even signed herself into a mental hospital. You think it's done her any good? She's still going and she's in her forties. And I remember reading an interview with Tennessee Williams whose shrink told him he'd have to give up writing if he ever wanted to get well. Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard of?"

All this time I had kept my eyes on the ceiling. I turned them now squarely on Dr. Mercer.

"I'm not going to a shrink and that's that!"

Dr. Mercer took in a long breath.

"Judith, you don't have to see a psychiatrist. I was only suggesting it to help you. You certainly don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Since our tests show you are sound physically, I'm releasing you this afternoon. I'll leave a prescritpion for you at the nurses' station. Be sure to pick it up when you check out. It's what you've been taking here for tension. I hope you'll work on getting out the feelings you've been holding in about your marriage, and I want you to call my secretary in about two weeks and set up an appointment to come in. I want to check on your progress from time to time."

I told Dr. Mercer that I had been accepted at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference which was to begin the following Monday in Middlebury, Vermont and that I wanted to go with his permission.

"Sure. I don't think it will hurt you and it might help, but I don't want you to stay for the entire two-week conference. I think it would be too much for you right now. It would be better if you left early to allow yourself a leisurely trip home and time to rest before taking up your teaching assignments, okay?"

I nodded in compliance. "Now you get some rest and after lunch you can get your things together and we'll get you checked out."

"Thank you, Dr. Mercer," I replied as he stood up, carrying his clipboard firmly under his arm. Without another word, he was gone and I felt a strange sensation in my heart. I think it was joy.

My blood was shaking again, but I didn't care. I was elated that I had Dr. Mercer's permission to go to Bread Loaf. Anne Sexton was expected to put in an appearance during the week. I packed what little I had brought with me to the hospital, said goodbye to Cookie and Sara and promised to keep in touch. I wished them well in their recovery. Cookie invited me to lunch the next time I was in Williamsburg and gave me her phone number. Sara promised to pray for me and think about me when she read her daily devotional. "I just wish you could stay to seek my rocks," she said.

"Well, maybe Cookie and I will surprise you and show up at your doorstep, Sara. How'd that be?" Sara groaned.

"Judith, we'll miss your ghost stories. Now we know why we had so many women dying on us in here. Hey, but we did have a good time, didn't we?"

"We sure did," I said. "You two made great roommates." I picked up my suitcase and hobbled to thedoor, dragging my bandaged right leg. I looked back at my now empty bed, then at Cookie and Sara.

"Well, goodbye, ladies." I raised my hand to wave to them as I opened the door and slipped out.

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