While I was in Farmville today I went to Trinity Mission to visit Nathan. They now have it set up that you can’t just walk in—you have to push a green button and someone buzzes you in. A ferocious wind blows at you when the door opens. I guess to keep pollen, flies and mosquitoes from entering. That nursing home smell; of Pine Sol, baby powder, pissed in sheets and old flabby skin; assaults your nose from the minute you enter. Dionne Warwick was singing “Do you know the way to San Jose” out of the ceiling speakers to no one in particular. The air conditioner was on and it felt good.
There was no one at the desk to keep an eye on who might dash out the door or to direct me to Nathan’s room so I just wandered around. I went to the cafeteria and he wasn’t there, just dozens of zombie-like people sitting in wheelchairs pointed to a TV screen that no one was really watching. A nurse appeared and I asked her where Nathan’s room was and she said it was on the other side of the mission. I had to walk back the way I came, and there right by the front door, was Nathan himself wearing a hunting jacket and cap and seated in a wheelchair. I hadn’t seen him when I came in.
He looked SO good that I hardly recognized him. We shook hands and I pulled up a chair, sat at the front desk, and we talked awhile. After ten minutes or so he said, “I wonder if anyone’s feeding my dog?” and I told him that Lloyd was. “NOW I know who you are!” he said. “At first I didn’t know WHO the hell you were but now I do.”
He said that Lloyd and his sister don’t visit. That Lloyd did come once, but left after two minutes and has never been back. His sister has never come. The whole time we were talking some man in a room down the hall kept howling. I guess when you’re confined there you get used to it and don’t hear it anymore, but for me, each time he howled I looked down the hall like I expected to see a wolf standing there.
Nathan said he doesn’t understand why Lloyd or his sister don’t bring one of his cars there so that he can go out and drive around. (Maybe because they know you won’t return and because you’re blind in one eye and can’t drive for shit, I thought). He didn’t seem to comprehend how long he’s been there ( “I don’t know, maybe a week or two” ) and at the same time didn’t seem to mind being there at all. I asked how the food was and he brightened. “Right Good!” was his answer.
He was in a wheelchair just like everyone else. He said that he doesn’t need one but every time he gets out of it and walks they yell “Nathan! Get back in your wheelchair!” “So I just go everywhere in this chair now”. I guess they’re warehousing him now and grooming him to become an invalid.
There wasn’t much more to talk about, and I wanted to get home, so I said farewell and shook his hand. I hope he remembers who I am … and that I came to visit him.
