The Devil's Playground

The ham for dinner was nothing more than a dry sliver on the plate, and George impatiently drummed his fingers on the table – waiting for someone to voice his complaints to. Finally, the girl serving his table rushes by and when George attempts to catch her attention, he is answered with an impatient index finger pointed upward as she hurries on. George, visibly frustrated, brought together his pale hands draped in translucent skin and interlocked them with the index fingers pointed in the shape of a steeple. He then brought those fingers to rest on his dry lips and closed his eyes.

George’s wife looked on with disappointment. "Why don't you try to eat everything else while you wait, George?" He didn't answer and maintained his meditative form of obstinacy. After a few minutes, Juanita turned to me with a sad, polite smile. "He hasn't been eating. All he'll eat is soup."

 "It's all garbage." George broke his silence with a Big Apple accent that weighed heavily on his words when he complained. He pinched the dried pork between his fingers to demonstrate his point and threw it back on his plate. "And their servings aren't worth the effort spent putting it on the plate."

 "Maybe that is all they can afford to give you? You know their budgets are tight."

 "It looks to me like they couldn't even afford this." Steepled fingers returned to his lips and his eyes closed again. The table remained silent until his server returned and asked if a grilled cheese sandwich would be a suitable replacement for the lackluster protein. George agreed and was brought a wilted hot sandwich with cheese running onto the plate.

George ate half of the sandwich before easing back into his wheel-chair and nodding to me. “Let’s go back to the room.” I took the handles of his wheel chair and weaved through the tables of limp bodies either waiting for the same plate of dried shoe leather or to return to their rooms. Overworked staff - attempting to keep up with dirty plates and food dribbling down slack, toothless jaws - made the job of navigating increasingly difficult. However, once we were clear of the dining hall and ran the gauntlet of residents lined up on both sides of the hall outside of it, our moods seemed to lighten a bit.

Meandering through the corridors, George talks about all of the ham still left on the plates of many residents and how it validated his criticism. Juanita would recount how she made her ham during Easters past while her husband would interrupt with a list of several other dishes his wife would offer during the holidays that he missed. Occasionally, nurses who adored George and Juanita would interrupt the flow of conversation to check on the couple. "I'm doing great," George would announce, "I don't know why they insist on keeping me here." Juanita would mouth the words "He's not eating" to the nurse to clue her in on the situation and she would wink back. After minutes of polite conversation, we allow the nurse to carry on with her duties and make a final push for George’s room.

We turned the corner into the corridor where George’s room was located and the maddened screams of a woman bound to her bed across the hallway from my friend’s room greeted us. Juanita’s shoulders slumped, “Dear Lord, she is at it again.” 

“It sounds like someone is torturing her. Is she in pain?”

“I don’t think anyone knows, Jack. And the nurses can only give her so much medication. It’s just terrible.”

Amidst all the wailing, we tried to finish the visit talking about family, spiritual matters, and doctor visits; but, the banshee fighting against demons of her dementia was an oppressive distraction. Occasionally, George would look into the room across the hallway and say in a low, sober voice, "Jack, this is the Devil's playground."

 Without the polite smile she had before, Juanita shrugged with tears in her eyes. "It’s like she's in Hell."

We sat, again in silence, while the words "They're hurting me! They're killing me!" were screamed over and over. Finally, a nurse gently  slipped a needle into the arm of the screaming corpse to silence it once again.

The visit finally ends with a prayer for George's health and the woman across the hall. As I leave, the elderly couple wearily escorts me down the silent hall and through the front doors of the nursing home. George offers some last minute encouragement and says he'll continue to pray for me and the church. Juanita warmly embraces me as she thanks me for the visit. I then drive away with the vision of the screaming woman still echoing in my mind, and a picture in the rear-view mirror of two prisoners wishing they could occupy the empty seats beside me.