Antiquated Amor

   Being a nurse aide is a trip. Being a night nurse aide is even trippier. And when the full moon hangs bright in the night sky and dementia patients feel it's the most opportunistic time to sundown, it's the trippiest. Although... I can only imagine how frustrating and surreal it feels to not know where you are or who you are. Just the other night I had my feet kicked up at the nurses' station scrolling through Facebook when I heard a yell from a room at the end of my assigned hallway. It was two in the morning, and I didn't want the disturbance to wake anyone else up so I headed toward the source of the noise. A small man lying in his bed wearing nothing but a white t-shirt and brief (a respectful word for "diaper") had his hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice.

"Corporal!" he repeated.

"What can I do for you?" I laughed. He dropped his hands and looked in my direction.

"Will you look in that top drawer for something sharp? I should have a spam opener in there." This man is not what we call "with it" and therefore had no business obtaining anything serrated. He continued, "I need to cut this metal off my leg." He pointed to a white cloth wrapped around his left leg that kept his bandages intact. My eyes did that sorrowful sympathetic thing as I walked over to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer.

"There are Belvita crackers and socks in here."

"Keep digging around," he insisted. I lifted all four contents out of the drawer to exemplify my honesty. "Well then check the second drawer." I pushed the top drawer in and opened the second one.

"There are only t-shirts in here."

"I just need to get this metal off me. It's hurting my skin." I heard another resident's call light so I came up with a distraction for the mean time.

"I'm going to see if we have something in the kitchen, okay?" I lied.

"Oh... that would be wonderful. You're a good woman." My heart only broke a little. I left his room to help my other resident. She needed to go to the bathroom, so I pulled back her covers, squatted down to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, and helped her transfer to her wheelchair. When we got into the bathroom, I asked her to put her hands on the rail next to the toilet in order to help with her equilibration. I pulled her nightgown up and brief down. She groaned as she eased herself onto the toilet and I heard her bones creak. A few minutes later, she was holding the rail again as I cleaned her bum with a wet wipe. I lifted her underwear around her waist and dropped her nightgown down to her thighs. I got her back into bed and placed the call light on top of her quilt, reminding her to ring if she needed me. I removed my gloves and the trash from her bathroom and put it in my bin. From a distance I heard,

"Corporal!" I walked down to the small man's room. When I got to his doorway, he was lying on his back with both his legs dangling over the side of his bed, trying to get up. 

"You put your legs back in that bed, private," I demanded. I laughed at myself. His thin legs slid back into his bunk.

"Will you look in that top drawer for something sharp? I should have a spam opener in there," he said. "I need to cut this metal off my leg." He pointed to a white cloth wrapped around his left leg that kept his bandages intact. I walked over to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer.

"There are Belvita crackers and socks in here."

"Keep digging around," he insisted. I lifted all four contents out of the drawer out. "Well then check the second drawer." I pushed the top drawer in and opened the second one.

"There are only t-shirts in here."

"I just need to get this metal off me. It's hurting my skin." I walked over to his bed and looked at his leg. Large purple bruises covered his saggy epidermis like patches on a worn quilt. Thin tears tried their best to heal but left shallow grooves instead. "I'm sergeant of the first cavalry and they're throwing everything at me." I wondered how oriented he was so I asked him if he knew what country he was in. He responded confidently, "America... where everything is fair." My eyebrows furrowed in disagreement, but I didn't say anything. I held his fragile hand and asked him if he would like a cup of tea; his poison.

"I will have some when you go to make yourself some," he said innocently. I smiled as I had no intention of making myself any libation. 

"I can do that," I replied loud enough for him to hear me. He squeezed my hand and announced, "I read you. I think you are going to do things wonderful." Taken aback, I withdrew my hand. Could this be true? I asked myself. Is this man senile or an oracle? I giggled at the thought and retreated to get his tea. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a plastic, navy blue mug and went to the coffee maker, pulling down the red lever and watching steaming hot water fill the orifice to the brim. I started toward the small plastic drawer that housed the tea bags. Seeing a label reading chamomile, I snagged it along with one packet of sugar and headed back towards the hall. I put the bag in the water watching it bob to the top. Before I returned, I went into the nurse's workroom. I took a blue blinder with my friend's name on it off the shelf and opened it. He was born in 1926 in Iran, though he was a United States citizen. He was army intelligence as well as a computer scientist. There's this blurry line between reality and a distorted disconnect within a dementia patient's brain. It's wise to take what they say with a bag of salt. It might be true. It might not be.

"Here's your tea," I said, setting it down on the nightstand. Even though elderly people lose their sensitivity to temperature, I didn't want him to burn his mouth. It needed to cool off for a few minutes.

"Let me see your hand," he began. I slipped my hand into his. "You're a creator, you're an observer, and you're rich. I just need to know what your decision is." I cackled.

"Decision for what?"

"If we are going to be together," he explained. I busted out laughing.

"Darling, you're 91. I'm 23."

"So?" he retorted. I laughed some more. "In the eyes of god, nothing is more sacred than the union of two people." I hesitated before I revealed, "Awe, doll... I'm Atheist."

"I don't want to change your opinions, " he assured. "Just be what you want to be." My heart melted and dripped on the floor in a puddle. That was the smoothest shit I'd ever heard.

"Vous êtes la vie," he purred. I smiled and told him I don't speak French.

"Do you speak any other languages?" I inquired.

"Oh yes. I speak Spanish, Hindu, Indian, Australian..."

"Australians speak English."

"It's a different English," he insisted. I bent over in laughter. "We would be pure, wonderful, and decent. You have independence." I was smitten. I was half-tempted to accept his offer. I could only imagine all the things he could teach me; all the beauty and horror and pain and elation and life his experiences encapsulated. The physical can incite curiosity, but it's knowledge that reels us in to love.

"What year were you born?" I asked. 

"Nineteen-twenty... five? Six?"

"Do you know what year it is?"

"Eighteen-eighty..." he started. I laughed and pointed out the impossibility of that if he were born in the 1920's.

"These things are complicated." I smiled in agreement. I glanced down at his brief to see two blue stripes down the crotch area.

            "I need to change your underwear," I observed. "You got urine on your shirt, too, doll. Let me get you a new one." I walked over to his dresser as he blurted, "Will you look in that top drawer for something sharp? I should have a spam opener in there. I need to cut this metal off my leg."