“Jesus Christ.” It was a cry of desperation rather than a cry for help. “Isn’t it 6:00 a.m. yet?” Katherine Willows placed her electronic tablet on the counter of the nurses’ station. It was nearing the end of a 12-hour shift at Christ the Immaculate Miracle Worker Hospital in Schaumburg, Illinois. “This shift will never end!” She fell against the counter and rested her forehead on her iPad, containing the intake information of all the patients she had seen during her shift.
Beep. Beeeeeep. Beeep. “Heeelp! I need a nurse! I need to go to the toilet!”
“That’s Mrs. Higgenbottom,” a voice yelled from behind her.
Katherine pulled herself back up and used her face to open KLARA, the hospital’s client-assistant intake program. A wallpaper photo of a younger, happier, well-rested Katherine on vacation with her now ex-husband smiled at her. She wondered why she’d never changed the wallpaper and found humor that March 24, 2022, perfectly covered his eyes. It made her think about angry women crossing out the eyes of their exes after a bitter breakup. Katherine and Ben’s breakup wasn’t bitter, just necessary. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t changed it.
Without looking up, she asked the voice, “Has Malcolm come on yet?”
“No idea, Katt.” A petite redhead sporting a pixie cut and wearing pink scrubs with ribbons all over them answered her. “I’ve been too busy lubricating assholes and removing inanimate objects to keep up with staff.”
An industrial-sized laser printer behind the nurse spat out the papers she needed. “Call it what you want…” the redhead said, grabbing the papers and snatching a pen from the counter. “But the full moon always brings the crazies out in droves. I haven’t worked a normal shift in all my years as an R.N. while the moon was fat.”
Katherine saw the young woman circle back to grab her pink breast cancer awareness stethoscope. Habit. She hung it around her neck and headed toward Bays 1-4. “Page Jessica. See if she’s seen him.” The light-blue curtain in Bay 2 closed behind her. Katherine heard the nurse begin explaining the discharge papers to the patient.
“Talk about crazies,” Katherine said under her breath, thinking about the last time she worked with Jessica. “I’d rather work another 12 hours than ask that strumpet anything.”
Beep. Beeeeeep. Beeep.
“Sweet Jehovah Jireh. Retirement looks really good right now.”
“Hi ya, Mrs. Hichari! Good morning to ya.”
“Good morning, Star. How are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m doing well this morning. Did you get a look at the new golden kiwi? A fresh box was delivered this morning.
“Are they fresh, fresh, Star, or are they just fresh to you?”
“Oh, Mrs. Hichari! You are a stickler for detail, aren’t you? Both. They are fresh to us, but most of them will require a few more days before they are completely ripe. Now can you get fresher than that?”
“Hmphf.”
Star watched the short Moroccan woman walk toward the kiwi. The older woman dragged her burlap shopping bag behind her. Star made a mental note to circle back to that email she sent the fruit stand owner last month about ordering carts with wheels.
A heavy-set young man with adult acne, dirty, dirty-blond hair, and glasses came and stood beside Star. He wore a green work apron with the embroidery of a sunrise peaking above the horizon and shining over rows of corn. Too-big khaki pants hung below the green tie straps tied in the back of his apron. His red Chuck sneakers stood on the chewed-up hem of his pants. A seam in the right sleeve of his vintage Star Wars T-shirt had been stapled shut. Star remembers walking into the owner’s office one day and seeing him do it.
“Dude, I don’t know how the hell you put up with her funky attitude,” Jaxton Marshton said as he took off the green apron. He folded his green apron and placed it under the table where Star kept supplies and additional produce tucked away. “You are such a better person than me.” Jaxton was a seasonal part-time employee. “In between my many fantasies of seeing you naked, I think about choking her out and all the produce falling out of that dumb-ass burlap bag she totes.” Star looked at him, brows furrowed. “And it has the nerve to have ‘Love like Jesus’ on the side.” He noticed how Star looked at him and realized he had said too much. “Hey, I gotta go. I need to run some of these tomatoes to my mom before I head to my other job.” He grabbed his basket of tomatoes and turned to leave. “Star, you good?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. You be good, too. See you next time.”
Star watched Mrs. Hichari pick up and mash every single kiwi hard enough to bruise it. Then she watched her slip two small kiwis into her purse. The older Moroccan woman never looked back to see if anyone saw what she did and nonchalantly strolled to the next table at the Schaumburg Farmer’s Market, lugging her Love Like Jesus shopping bag.
“Wait. You fantasize about seeing me naked?”
“Listen, Gustav, I don’t care what the final numbers may look like. This is something the City of Schaumburg must do to be sure all the citizens will be able to benefit from this funding so that there can be affordable housing…”
“Gustav, listen to me…”
“I know.”
“I knoooow all this Gustav. I am well aware of what the fallout might be. But I still deem this process necessary.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“I know that, too. Gustav…. Jesus!”
“Well, I didn’t say shitload verbatim.”
“OK. Maybe I did, but that was before I realized how much money would be made available to the city. We must move on this, Gustav. Now! We only have a few more days to garner the constituents’ support to make this happen!
Bridget Walsh inch-wormed her way forward in the carpool line at Fairview Middle School. Rachel Simmons, a county commissioner, walked in front of Bridget’s emerald green Range Rover and behind the white Kia Crossover in front of her. Rachel’s daughter, Sammie, walked behind her mother at a snail’s pace. Bridget waved wholeheartedly – maybe too much. Rachel waved back. Sammie never looked up. Crap! I was supposed to call her to make dinner arrangements. She reached forward to mute her conversation with Gustav. She could still hear him pleading his stance on the grant funding. “Siri, remind me to call Rachel Simmons tonight at…7:30 about dinner arrangements.” A male British voice responded, “Got it!” She unmutes and hops back in with Gustav.
“Yes! Yes. I’m listening to you. I hear you, Gu… I’m sorry. I’m in the carpool line picking up my offspring. He’s walking up to the car now. Hey, can we talk about this later? I promise. The last thing I want is for you to think I’m being insensitive about this opportunity. I would rather sit down in front of you and have this talk and work through all of the details of the grant, line by line, and come up with the best solution that will work for almost everyone. Everyone will never be happy, but if we can make most of them an offer they can’t refuse and show them how most Schaumburg citizens could benefit from this, we will all come out the other end smelling like roses. Great! Thank you! Talk to you later.
Duncan Walsh, named after Duncan MacLeod, opened the door, threw his bookbag in the back, and climbed into the car.
“Hey hun, how was school?
“Soccer tryouts start in March. Can I try out?
Bridget said in a teasing voice, “Good, Mom. How was your day? My day was fine, Duncan. Thanks for asking.”
“Hole-leigh hell! What in the world is going on? Lori must have pissed the moon off when she called it fat! It’s like a fresh batch of looney tunes were let loose on the streets, and the havoc spilled over into ER! Have you seen Lori lately?”
“Not since I came in,” Malcolm Little replied. And that was around 6:45 this morning. I saw her in the supply closet getting a new box of surgical gloves. She said she’d had a slippery night and died laughing. I didn’t get it. I figured she was hysterically tired.”
“Yeah, I think she’s had her share of the weirdest cases.”
“Hey, Katt. If you want to go take a nap, I can cover for you.” Malcolm Little was a tall, black, handsome nurse who started working in the ER a year after Katherine began. She loved working with him because he was fast, but thorough, and cared about his patients. “I don’t know how you are still standing.”
“I love like, Jesus, buddy. If I stop to take a break, I’m afraid tiredness will catch up to me. I’d be no good to anyone. Who are you working on next?”
“Um, bays 7 and 8 are about to be discharged, so they’ll be free.” Malcom showed Katt his KLARA intake lineup.
“Crap! Car wreck,” Katherine said.
“Let’s see. Malcolm said, scrolling down for more details. “There’s a pedestrian who was hit, and complaining about severe pain in her right hip. Elderly lady.”
He scrolled down to see the next two intakes. “Mom and her son just got here through ambulatory services. God bless EMTs. They were able to keep them stable. He’s a minor, so they arrived on the same bus. There’s not a lot about them in KLARA until they’ve been triaged. Aaaaand.” He smiled, looking at Katherine. “Good ole Colby Stacks.”
“Noooo,” Katherine said in an anguished whisper. “I’d rather go get my own box of gloves and help Lori grease up assholes than deal with him.” She looked up at Malcolm, who was at least two feet taller than her. “We only have two beds coming up. No one has time for Colby on a night like tonight.” She picked up her device and held it up to her face to access it. “There’s never anything wrong with him. The city really needs to do something about these people who scam their way in here just to have a warm place to lay when the shelters are full.”
“I know, but our lovely hospital doesn’t require insurance, so there is no filtering process to help with that. You can’t just tell someone who comes into Christ the Immaculate to duct tape their appendage back on because there’s no medical billing code for bullshit.” Malcolm said, lightheartedly.
“Welp,” she said, taking in a deep breath. “I have nothing to go home to, the staff is spread thin, so let’s double-team. Start with the elderly woman. She may go fast. You do the preliminary as I organize radiology visits, order medication, etc.”
“Cool,” Malcolm said. “Wonder team, activate!”
“You can tell you haven’t been here long.” They walked toward Bay 7.
“Hello, Mrs. Hichari.” Malcolm approached the right side of the bed and took the woman’s hand. ” I’m Doctor Little. This is my colleague Dr. Willows.” Mrs. Hichari watched Katherine write their names on the dry-erase board. “It says here that you were hit by a car while crossing the street. Where are you feeling pain?”
Mrs. Hichari began to cry.
Katherine looked at Malcolm and then at Mrs. Hichari. She moved the patient’s black purse with two kiwis on top to an empty chair. Katherine moved closer to the bed rails on the left side of Mrs. Hichari.
“How bad is the pain?” Malcolm quickly typed notes into his tablet.
A new shift nurse with several pre-packaged medical items immediately crowded Katherine on the left side of the bed and began connecting an I.V. The elderly woman began wailing. The shift nurse looked at Katherine. “I’m afraid to administer the I.V. right now, Katt. Her arms are trembling too much. We need to calm her.”
Malcom, now even more concerned, asked, “Mrs. Hichari, are you currently experiencing pain bad enough to cause you to cry?” She shook her head no. “OK. That’s good news. We want to do all we can to make you feel better. Let us give you a sedative to help you calm down. Is that OK? Then we’ll move on from there after you’ve calmed down a bit.”
The nurse put the IV packaging away and left the bay, followed by Dr. Little. Mrs. Hitchari seemed to calm down. Kathleen documented and ordered the medication for Mrs. Hichari using her tablet. She gently touched Mrs. Hichari’s thigh and assured her she was in good care. Mrs. Hichari watched her open the pale blue curtain and leave.
“She came out of nowhere. I didn’t see her. Where’s my son? Is he OK? Oh my God! I’m so sorry. I never saw her. I’m sorry.”
“From what we could gather from the scene, the mom was driving. She didn’t see the woman cross the street and hit her full-on. She was dead on arrival. The son was able to get out of the car and tried to help the young woman, but she was already dead. In my humble opinion, the help he’ll need will be from a therapist. He was distraught on the scene.”
“I can’t even remember the first dead body I saw.” Kathleen said. “You get used to it working in E.R.”
“Not me. I’ll never get used to it. I thought the kid was crying because she died. He was upset because he didn’t know how to help her, and everyone else stood by and did nothing.”
“What about the mom? She didn’t help?”
“The airbag had knocked her out. She was still out when we arrived on the scene. They were both wearing seat belts. The police said she was engaged in conversation and didn’t see the red traffic light, so she failed to stop.”
“Wait. Did she hit an elderly lady?”
“No. This was a young girl who worked at the Farmer’s Market. The police said that the young woman apparently was trying to catch up to the elderly lady to give her something.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I learned to listen as I work, and my brother was one of the first cops on the scene.” Just then, the nurse from bay 7 with Mrs. Hichari approached Katt. “Hey. I thought you may want to know that bay 7 will be open in about ten minutes as soon as they change over the sheets.”
Malcom, who had been looking at the latest intake information on the injured driver, heard this and walked over to where Katt, the EMS guy, and the nurse were standing. “Wait. What happened to Mrs. Hichari?”
The nurse placed her medical supplies on the counter. “Mrs. Hichari was crying because she had stolen the kiwi from a Farmer’s Market earlier. She felt awful about it but couldn’t help the compulsion. When leaving the area, she heard the young girl calling her name, but Mrs. H was too scared to face her. She thought the girl knew what she had done. “Apparently, the young woman kept calling and trying to catch up to Mrs. Hichari just as she began crossing the street. Mrs. H said her foot hit the curb, causing her to misstep. Then, she heard a loud BOOM behind her. When she looked back, she saw the young woman lying on the ground in front of an emerald green SUV, and a young boy was trying to help her. Mrs. H saw a bag of kiwi in the young woman’s hands.
“Most likely,” added the nurse, “it was the acute pain from her tripping on that curb that caused her hip to hurt on the walk home.” She began to gather her supplies in her arms again. “She believes her pain is karma. Guilt.”
Malcolm assisted the nurse by placing a box of syringes on top of the pile in the nurse’s arms. “Once she told me her story,” the nurse said. “She seemed very calm and relieved. She refused treatment. I told her I would need to find you and have you dismiss her before she coud leave. I stepped out and stopped at the kiosk to cancel the sedative order. When I went back, she was gone.
Malcom and Katt looked at the nurse and then at each other. The nurse shrugged and said, “Hey, it’s a full moon. We need the bed anyway. There’s a huge family domestic in the waiting room as we speak. Some idiot got too spiked up on energy drinks and vodka and lost his shit over some postage stamps.”
The housekeeping employee checked his nightly schedule. Basement. The morgue. He shrugged his shoulders and put in his wired headphones. He remembered how cold it could get in the morgue. He went to his locker and grabbed his jacket before visiting the supply closet on the first level. After stocking his cart with supplies, he headed to the elevator and poked the B button. He worked two jobs to save money for his mom’s citizenship test. He was born here. He wanted her to be legal, also. Plus, his mom liked living in Illinois, especially Schaumburg. She felt that the city council reallylistened to the residents and helped them live better lives. She wanted to be a part of that.
He loved working the basement level. Dead people don’t need anything. He had heard stories from other employees about how crazy it can get during a full moon. Young kids used to try to sneak into the morgue to see dead bodies during a full moon—urban legend. It got so crazy a few years back that the hospital hired a security guard. Despite the full moon, he felt this would be a breeze.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” was pumping through his earbuds. He scanned his badge. Green light. There were only a few bodies on the slabs. He had expected to see more tonight.
He remembered the first time he worked in the basement. There was a body on the slab that had died of a gunshot wound. Scared the shit out of him then. It wasn’t customary. Bodies are always put away before the late shift began. The employee who made that mistake no longer works at the hospital.
His routine was to first change all the Biohazard bags, then place them in separate trash sections from the regular hospital trash. Afterward, he changed the regular trash. You can learn a lot about a person from their trash. The morgue manager’s trash always had about four or five cans of energy drinks.
He walked across the morgue floor to gather the trash can by the desk. Then, into the cold chamber where the bodies were kept. The bodies didn’t interest him. They were locked in their little cubbies like any other fixture in the hospital. It was hard to think of them as people.
He walked into the back room. Even though they never had trash, he had to check. He didn’t once and was written up for it. The body of a young woman was on a slab. Shit! Someone else is about to lose their job.”
Compelled, he walked closer to the body. When he was close enough to see the face, he jumped back and yanked his headphones from his ears. He nervously blinked his eyes as he tried to gain his composure. He slowly bent down to pick up his earbuds, never taking his eyes off the body. It was his boss from his part-time job. She looked as serene and as calm as she did earlier that day. What happened?
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