POSITIVE PRESSURE
Catholic Medical Center - 2020
After a week in the hospital, I'm home: physically much better, emotionally disturbed.
I shared a double room with a guy who came in with the same symptoms as me a week or so before I arrived: severe bronchitis, pulmonary congestion, poor cardiac performance. His bed was curtained and we rarely spoke.
Dim outlook.
Aside from brief naps, he coughed and gagged and struggled for air. He maintained a bright, upbeat manner to the doctors and nurses – cheerful and hopeful.
There is no more upsetting sound than the voice of a doomed man playing at nonchalance. His bed was next to the window, mine next to the door, with a curtain between us.
As the nurses spoke with him, chirpy and perfunctory, he responded with valiant attempts at lighthearted comedy. As the nurses left, on my side of the curtain, their brows knit and smiles pulled down.
His quad-bypass wound was unable to heal due to the coughing, his heart was unable to sync up with his brain’s Alpha rhythm, his kidneys failing, and his lungs filled with pleural fluid.
I heard his his phone calls to HIS wife, daughters, and brothers saying a last goodbye.
Heartbreaking.
We were in a Positive Pressure room where our air was pumped in, filtered, and discharged outside the building. No visitors were permitted under any circumstance, not even a turn-collar, to hear the sins, say the time-honored words, place the thumb-crossed forefinger against the brow, and commit one to the heavens.
Other than the man's bypass complications, I had the same symptoms.
I started sending gifts to everyone I could not see a last time. Some would not accept my gift. Some understood a hospital-sent gift needed no message card. Beyond awkward, nightmarish messages.
My miracle redemption is an odd twist in my DNA strand. I have completely clear blood vessels. After a life of thoughtless eating, I suffer none of the reduced flow of atherosclerosis. A genetic gift from the god of gluttony.
My cough cleared. I was tested and deemed releasable. My roommate was told he would, when transportable, go to a hospice – where there is also a no “loved one” rule.
I washed, dressed, and prepared to leave. I could not leave without stepping behind the curtain and seeing him, face-to-face for the first time.
He was pale to the point of being bluish, and I saw that he was bald and smiling.
My teeth gritted for a last jot of control, I said, “Be well, Brother. Keep your chin up.” He looked at me and nodded. “Stay strong…
He repeated, “Stay strong.”
I knew that would be difficult.
I know that half a century ago…
The 24th Evac Hospital in Long Binh on an afternoon so hot that the air seemed to reverberate like the brass bell at the Mau Than orphanage. My driver, Rick was smashed bad. Jesus, he didn't look like a person from the belly down.
Smashed to shit.
I had given him a promotion, a Corporal stripe, and a two-and-a-half-ton truck to run errands for me.
We stole things and worked the Black Market to get our troops what the Army couldn’t. He was so excited that he got the stripe he called his parents in Michigan to tell them how cool Sergeant Higgins was.
A few days later, he pulled the deuce-and-a-half into a fuel line at the gas depot, hopped out, and walked between the front bumper of his truck and the rear of the one ahead of him to chat with other duty drivers. He was so excited he had forgotten to set the hand brake. His truck rolled up and pinned him, crushing him against the next truck.
The surgeons had pieced him back together, and somehow, it all worked for a while. But it wasn't enough because he was broken like nothing I'd ever seen – his vitals were failing – and he was slipping out quick.
“I'm goin' home, Sarge. Fini Nam,” he whispered, bound by tubes and traction to his bed.
I knew he would be home within hours, maybe minutes. I played the crusty sergeant bit, “Bullshit, trooper, I own your ass for another eight months, and nobody skips out on Higgs.”
“Sorry `bout that shit, Sarge. They're cuttin’ my orders right now. It's home, on that big-assed bird. Ciao, G.I.,” he murmured, a burbling cough hiding under each word.
My feet ached in my wet boots, the concrete floor of the ICU pulling them down, heavier and hotter than I could stand, but I could not move. I froze and couldn’t look away.
“Rick...” I said, wanting to drop the game.
Shit, he knew what was happening. I knew. What was the point of this performance with no audience? We were soldiers, and this had always been a possible outcome. Couldn’t we be more -- Christ, what was I asking for here? Honesty? Bravery? Or was it that I just wanted an easier way out for me? Some way to avoid the death and doom and loss that I feared would one day be mine.
“Higgs...” he focused on my eyes for the first time that afternoon. “Thanks, man,”
“For what?” I choked, my throat shut, my eyes starting, my chest a gripped tremble.
Oh, fuck, here I go. I kicked myself. Tough it out, Higgins. Tough it the fuck out! Don't let this boy see his funeral on your face. Say some time-honored words. Make some bullshit happy-talk.
But I couldn't. The time for that had passed. He was where I would someday be. He was setting aside his hope in exchange for his reality. He was accepting a different release from Nam, a different homecoming. I was so very ashamed that I had lived in a war without respecting the simple and inevitable truth.
We die alone.
The inward curving walls of the Med Evac Quonset hut – painted matte olive drab up to eye level, then glossy white above – made the building feel like a stoop-shouldered tunnel. Rick’s narrow section of it was separated from the rest by chain-hung curtains. I searched the walls for something to take notice of, something else to mention and talk about, but found I had nowhere to look but Rick’s face.
His eyes were soft and wet, the whites gone amber, his sight unfocused on me, already seeing past Higgins, past our hut in Bien Hoa, past the war. Past the game.
“Thanks for being my friend.” I remember hearing him say as my emotional restraint broke. There was nothing but empty pain and plummeting sadness. I have rarely felt less connected to life.
“Yeah. Okay, man...” my voice sputtered, “I’ll see you back in the world.”
My dread fear was seeing him actually give up his spirit before my eyes and, standing alone with what remained of him, feeling ashamed of being alive and having a future. Some future.
The room blurred and ran, and I walked away. I didn't look at the bags. I didn't stare at the tubes.
Now, I know I'll cry this out for a few days.
Then, bury it back among all the dogeared photos that wait in a shoebox on a shelf to remind me that I live.
_ _ _
Martin Higgins (c) 2023
all rights reserved
I shared a double room with a guy who came in with the same symptoms as me a week or so before I arrived: severe bronchitis, pulmonary congestion, poor cardiac performance. His bed was curtained and we rarely spoke.
Dim outlook.
Aside from brief naps, he coughed and gagged and struggled for air. He maintained a bright, upbeat manner to the doctors and nurses – cheerful and hopeful.
There is no more upsetting sound than the voice of a doomed man playing at nonchalance. His bed was next to the window, mine next to the door, with a curtain between us.
As the nurses spoke with him, chirpy and perfunctory, he responded with valiant attempts at lighthearted comedy. As the nurses left, on my side of the curtain, their brows knit and smiles pulled down.
His quad-bypass wound was unable to heal due to the coughing, his heart was unable to sync up with his brain’s Alpha rhythm, his kidneys failing, and his lungs filled with pleural fluid.
I heard his his phone calls to HIS wife, daughters, and brothers saying a last goodbye.
Heartbreaking.
We were in a Positive Pressure room where our air was pumped in, filtered, and discharged outside the building. No visitors were permitted under any circumstance, not even a turn-collar, to hear the sins, say the time-honored words, place the thumb-crossed forefinger against the brow, and commit one to the heavens.
Other than the man's bypass complications, I had the same symptoms.
I started sending gifts to everyone I could not see a last time. Some would not accept my gift. Some understood a hospital-sent gift needed no message card. Beyond awkward, nightmarish messages.
My miracle redemption is an odd twist in my DNA strand. I have completely clear blood vessels. After a life of thoughtless eating, I suffer none of the reduced flow of atherosclerosis. A genetic gift from the god of gluttony.
My cough cleared. I was tested and deemed releasable. My roommate was told he would, when transportable, go to a hospice – where there is also a no “loved one” rule.
I washed, dressed, and prepared to leave. I could not leave without stepping behind the curtain and seeing him, face-to-face for the first time.
He was pale to the point of being bluish, and I saw that he was bald and smiling.
My teeth gritted for a last jot of control, I said, “Be well, Brother. Keep your chin up.” He looked at me and nodded. “Stay strong…
He repeated, “Stay strong.”
I knew that would be difficult.
I know that half a century ago…
The 24th Evac Hospital in Long Binh on an afternoon so hot that the air seemed to reverberate like the brass bell at the Mau Than orphanage. My driver, Rick was smashed bad. Jesus, he didn't look like a person from the belly down.
Smashed to shit.
I had given him a promotion, a Corporal stripe, and a two-and-a-half-ton truck to run errands for me.
We stole things and worked the Black Market to get our troops what the Army couldn’t. He was so excited that he got the stripe he called his parents in Michigan to tell them how cool Sergeant Higgins was.
A few days later, he pulled the deuce-and-a-half into a fuel line at the gas depot, hopped out, and walked between the front bumper of his truck and the rear of the one ahead of him to chat with other duty drivers. He was so excited he had forgotten to set the hand brake. His truck rolled up and pinned him, crushing him against the next truck.
The surgeons had pieced him back together, and somehow, it all worked for a while. But it wasn't enough because he was broken like nothing I'd ever seen – his vitals were failing – and he was slipping out quick.
“I'm goin' home, Sarge. Fini Nam,” he whispered, bound by tubes and traction to his bed.
I knew he would be home within hours, maybe minutes. I played the crusty sergeant bit, “Bullshit, trooper, I own your ass for another eight months, and nobody skips out on Higgs.”
“Sorry `bout that shit, Sarge. They're cuttin’ my orders right now. It's home, on that big-assed bird. Ciao, G.I.,” he murmured, a burbling cough hiding under each word.
My feet ached in my wet boots, the concrete floor of the ICU pulling them down, heavier and hotter than I could stand, but I could not move. I froze and couldn’t look away.
“Rick...” I said, wanting to drop the game.
Shit, he knew what was happening. I knew. What was the point of this performance with no audience? We were soldiers, and this had always been a possible outcome. Couldn’t we be more -- Christ, what was I asking for here? Honesty? Bravery? Or was it that I just wanted an easier way out for me? Some way to avoid the death and doom and loss that I feared would one day be mine.
“Higgs...” he focused on my eyes for the first time that afternoon. “Thanks, man,”
“For what?” I choked, my throat shut, my eyes starting, my chest a gripped tremble.
Oh, fuck, here I go. I kicked myself. Tough it out, Higgins. Tough it the fuck out! Don't let this boy see his funeral on your face. Say some time-honored words. Make some bullshit happy-talk.
But I couldn't. The time for that had passed. He was where I would someday be. He was setting aside his hope in exchange for his reality. He was accepting a different release from Nam, a different homecoming. I was so very ashamed that I had lived in a war without respecting the simple and inevitable truth.
We die alone.
The inward curving walls of the Med Evac Quonset hut – painted matte olive drab up to eye level, then glossy white above – made the building feel like a stoop-shouldered tunnel. Rick’s narrow section of it was separated from the rest by chain-hung curtains. I searched the walls for something to take notice of, something else to mention and talk about, but found I had nowhere to look but Rick’s face.
His eyes were soft and wet, the whites gone amber, his sight unfocused on me, already seeing past Higgins, past our hut in Bien Hoa, past the war. Past the game.
“Thanks for being my friend.” I remember hearing him say as my emotional restraint broke. There was nothing but empty pain and plummeting sadness. I have rarely felt less connected to life.
“Yeah. Okay, man...” my voice sputtered, “I’ll see you back in the world.”
My dread fear was seeing him actually give up his spirit before my eyes and, standing alone with what remained of him, feeling ashamed of being alive and having a future. Some future.
The room blurred and ran, and I walked away. I didn't look at the bags. I didn't stare at the tubes.
Now, I know I'll cry this out for a few days.
Then, bury it back among all the dogeared photos that wait in a shoebox on a shelf to remind me that I live.
_ _ _
Martin Higgins (c) 2023
all rights reserved