Do you do any charity or good deeds in your community? I doubt it. Sorry… maybe you do. Honestly, I don’t know you. I mean, I guess I just assume everyone out there is like me. Strong on good intentions but weak on the follow through. I consider myself a good person though, despite everything.
This happened a few days ago. I was standing in front Mrs. Badi at the hospital. It was one of those hospitals with a vaguely religious name, you know the ones. Anyway, Mrs. Badi is my next-door neighbor, and she is like really old. If someone told me she was a hundred plus, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Damn…seeing an old person cry is so sad and brutal. I mean, old people shouldn’t cry.
Anyway, I was standing there looking at her and I just could not believe how red her eyes were. Her husband, Hanzi, had some kind of accident. Something pretty bad from what I could gather from my fiancé on the phone at the time.
“They don’t think he will survive. The infection, they say…”, Mrs. Badi said in her weird European accident. Then a few more tears trickled down her wrinkled face. I suddenly really regretted offering to come and see her in the hospital. This was too raw, better left to immediate family.
You know, this is going to sound awful, but I think it was the thought of seeing her grand-daughter Esmeralda, at the hospital that got me there. Esmeralda Badi, who I thought of as Esmeralda “Baddie”. I know that’s wrong. I’m just, like recounting to you what I was thinking at the time.
“What do you mean, what happened to Mr. Hanzi?”, I said, referring to his first name like I always did.
“He fell and slipped in the bathtub”, she said and covered her mouth with her liver-spotted hand. I looked over and I could see Esmeralda sitting across the waiting room. She seemed to be on the phone, but I caught her looking at me. Her beautiful, dark eyes were staring daggers right at mine. Damn, it’s been a while since I’ve seen someone look at me with such hatred.
“Mrs. Badi. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need me to take care of anything for you at your house?”, I said to her.
“Ronan, listen to me. He kept saying your name when they brought him here. Over and over and over. He was very upset with you”.
“My name? Why… what happened?”, I said, kind of startled. What the hell did I do that would have made him so angry?
“Hanzi… he was outside trying to mow the grass. It is so hard for him at this age. Before I left with Esmeralda to go to the store, I told him to take a break. He said he was going to take a bath and relax because his arthritis was acting up. He said you offered to help him with the yard the other day, like you always do, but once again you never showed up.”
She paused for a minute or so and then continued.
“He was preparing to take a bath and fill the tub up with water. He started to step inside…. He must have slipped and fell. It seems that he unintentionally kicked the hot water handle to max.”
I was rubbing my hands together. I always do this when I feel uncomfortable.
“When he slipped, he hurt his back and hip. He couldn’t move as the scalding water filled the tub, burning him. He has horrific burns over most of his body! The overflow drain was the only thing preventing him from drowning. Although maybe it would have been better if it hadn’t”, she said blinking away tears.
Fucking hell… I was home when all this must have happened.
“He was there immobile, in the tub, screaming for help. Desperate. He knew you were home and thought that you might could hear him, so he screamed with everything he had.”
Oh no… I swear that I thought he was watching his ridiculous shows at max volume like he always did. The sound always carried the short distance to my adjacent home. The guy was almost deaf.
“He said that he screamed and screamed until his voice gave out. When we got home, we found him and called the paramedics. In the ambulance he kept cursing your name in a whisper. He struggled but managed to say that you offered to come and help install some kind of railing into the tub weeks ago. Was that true, Ronan?”, she asked me. Esmeralda seemed to be muttering something as she stared at me, but I couldn’t hear it, I was too far away.
“I… think I may have mentioned that. Sorry, I don’t know what to say…”
“He thought you were home when he yelled out. Were you home, Ronan? He said it sounded like you were blasting music when he started to scream but it was hard to understand what he was saying exactly.”
How the hell was I supposed to know that was him??? I thought it was their television. I remember the noise…. I thought it was a scream coming from their TV, so I turned mine up louder to drown it out. I must have left for work before the paramedics arrived…
“What am I going to do without my Hanzi??? It’s not right…. in pain and waiting for help that never comes….”, she said before starting to sob again.
I had no idea what to do say. What could I say? I made some excuse, and I got out of the hospital. Before I left, she said he was in a coma and that they were getting ready to go say good-bye when the staff allowed. She warned me that Hanzi said some other stuff directed at me before finally passing out. Some recitations from the old country.
I saw her face momentarily shift from grief to join Esmeralda in throwing a hate-filled scowl at me direction.
This all happened a few days ago but I haven’t been able to sleep since. I can tell that I look like shit. Screams jolt me awake every time that I almost fall asleep. Sometimes the screams are coming from me. Like hypnic punches, punishing me for failing to follow through on my promises to the old man.