thirty days on the paradise
Of course, home care was not covered by my healthcare provider. Said it wasn’t necessary. Said I didn’t need it. Said I didn’t need it? How in the world would a bunch of starched shirts in Omaha, Nebraska, know what I needed?
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been in a coma or just sprained your ankle, once you’re out the door, you’re on your own. What they didn’t know was I was not on my own; I had Nurse Fanny. Take that, Blue Cross Blue Shield.
I had the best goddamn home care in the world. If Fanny wasn’t at work, she was at my place. If she wasn’t by my side, she was on call just across the hall. My luck was changing already.
What I didn’t realize was that on top of a severe concussion, my jaw was broken as well. Looked like I’d be eating my potted meat through a straw for a while yet.
As far as Fanny and I were concerned, on a personal level, it was as if getting hit by that car was the equivalent of ten, maybe twenty dates. I was elevated immediately to boyfriend status. I think.
If I would have known this before, I would have stepped out in front of a car a long time ago. It sure beat the heck out of that vise.
Bam! Just an instant and it was all over. It gave me one hell of a headache, but Fanny made sure I got the Real painkillers. Still, I haven’t even told you the best part.
For the whole next month, I didn’t think once about all those creepy little crawlers. The next thirty days for me was like being on holiday: a vacation from myself. And now, I even had a girlfriend. I think.
One word of advice: if you ever want to take a vacation from yourself—and I know everybody does—I strongly recommend a severe concussion, followed by a coma chaser.
Again, it’s all in the brain cells and how many you can kill. But killing them off with a massive blow to the head can be extremely dangerous. Killing off too many brain cells in any one area can result in blurred vision, slurred speech, loss of muscle coordination, even paralysis. I might as well just become a bubblehead.
First thing I did when I got home was go down and see if the Professor was home. He was not.
“Where did you go?’ Fanny asked me when I returned. She was waiting for me right there on the couch: a dream come true.
“I went down to check on the Professor.”
“The Professor?”
“Yeah, Professor James Aloysius McCarthy. In Apartment 9M.”
“Apartment 9M?” she said.
Yes, I told her. 9M. Down by the elevator.
“Okay, she said. “Is he all right?”
“Sure,” I said, but she knew I was lying. Never lie to your lawyer, your doctor, or your nurse.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t think you should go wandering off again. At least, not so soon. I was afraid we’d lost you there back at the hospital.”
Lost me?
“Did you know that Dom DeLuise, Blake Edwards, and Farrah Fawcett all died at St. John’s?” said Fanny. “Barbara Stanwyck, too.”
Barbara Stanwyck? Why did she mention Barbara Stanwyck? Did she know? How could she? Maybe I’d been talking in my sleep, back at the hospital. But wait a minute: I was in a coma, not a sound sleep. No, she couldn’t know about Barbara and me. Besides, who’s ever heard the phrase: talking in your coma?
That whole next month was like being on a cruise. The Paradise Cruise, like the one they’re always advertising on TV. While my apartment wasn’t exactly overlooking the lido deck, it did have room service, and an ocean view. It had the same sky, too. Close enough.
Fanny and I did most everything together; that is, everything two people can do when one of them has a massive head injury. Mostly we just sat around my apartment watching movies.
I introduced her to some my favorites. I was so excited, I bulldozed right over her. You know what I mean, like when you first want to share those things you treasure with someone else, and the floodgates open? Well, I didn’t. I never knew how exhilarating it could be, sharing something you feel so passionate about.
First, we watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Kevin McCarthy version, not that Donald Sutherland crap. I will admit, however, the French restaurant kitchen scene in the remake where Dr. Thurstonnell finds the rat turd in the soup: Hilarious!
We watched all my favorites, classics like The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, The Satan Bug and The Andromeda Strain, the 1971 version by Robert Wise.
She loved them all. At least, she said she did.
When it came time for Fanny’s turn, it was—go figure—all nursing movies. You see, that’s the thing about nurses: they’re nurses all the time. ALL the time. Even when they’re not on duty, they’re always hanging out with other nurses, going to bars with other nurses, doing shots with other nurses. All they talk about is work, their patients, and what went down in the ER that day. This is when they’re not with their boyfriends, or their patients, of course. I still wasn’t sure which category I fit into.
We watched The English Patient, Sisters of War, and Atonement. All handkerchief movies. Then we watched Night Nurse, starring Barbara Stanwyck. Again with Barbara Stanwyck? I decided just to let it go. If Nurse Fanny was Nurse Hart, then I was happy to be Nick the chauffeur.
If you would have told me one month ago that I would be sitting here in my apartment watching chick flicks all day long, I’d have given you directions to the Vincent Thomas Bridge so you could jump off.
As it turns out, not only did I enjoy them, I cried like a baby. Seriously, those movies turned me into a blubbering idiot: a big ball of soft, mushy goo. I loved every minute of it; Fanny right there by my side.
At first, I felt embarrassed. But when Fanny took me by the arm, held my hand, put her head on my shoulder, honestly, I felt totally at ease. What the hell, I thought, and I let it all hang out. By the time we got to Misery and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I wasn’t paying attention to the TV at all.
Eventually, we got back to my kind of movies. Turns out she was a huge Terry Gilliam fan, too. While she remembered Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys was what I really wanted her to see.
