How long will he be in, Doctor?
Only God knows that. I should have seen this child weeks ago.
There are twenty beds in the ward and there are men and boys with
bandages around their heads, black patches on their eyes, thick glasses.
Some walk around tapping at beds with sticks.A man cries all the time
that hell never see again, hes too young, his children are babies, hell
never see them again. Jesus Christ, oh, Jesus Christ, and the nuns are
shocked at the way he takes the name of the Lord in vain. Stop that,
Maurice, stop the blasphemy.You have your health.Youre alive.We all
have our problems. Offer it up and think of the sufferings of Our Lord
on the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails in His poor hands and feet,
the wound in His side.Maurice says,Oh,Jesus,look down and have pity
on me. Sister Bernadette warns him if he doesnt mind his language
theyll put him in a ward alone and he says, Heavenly God, and that isnt
as bad as Jesus Christ so shes satisfied.
In the morning I have to go downstairs for drops.The nurse says,
Sit in this high chair and heres a nice sweet. The doctor has a bottle
with brown stuff in it. He tells me put my head back, thats right, now
open up, open your eyes and he pours the stuff into my right eye and
its a flame going through my skull.The nurse says, Open the other eye,
come on be a good boy, and she has to force the eyelids open so the
doctor can set fire to the other side of my skull. She wipes my cheeks
and tells me run along upstairs but I can barely see and I want to stick
my face into an icy stream.The doctor says, Run along, be a man, be a
good trooper.
The whole world is brown and blurry on the stairs. The other
patients are sitting by their beds with dinner trays and mine is there too
but I dont want it with the way my skull is raging. I sit by my bed and
a boy across the way says, Hoi, dont you want your dinner? Ill take it,
and he comes for it.
I try to lie on the bed but a nurse says, Now, now, no lying on the
bed in the middle of the day.Your case isnt that serious.
I have to sit with my eyes closed and everything going brown and
black, black and brown and Im sure I must be having a dream because
Lord God above, is that the little fella with the typhoid, little Frankie,
the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, is that your-
self, Frankie, for wasnt I promoted out of the Fever Hospital, thank
God, where theres every class of disease and you never know what
germs you might be bringing home to the wife in your clothes and
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