The Hospital

Dear Mutti,

(Here is a letter I forgot to give you. It happened long before my appendix operation).

I am in the hospital. This time there are lots of us and we are in the big room. No one can be in the nursery rhyme room with the king and the blackbirds painted on the wall. My ears bang and bang. Maybe nails got in there and the nails are going into my brain. It doesn’t stop. Dr. Megan is here with Nurse Martineau. He looks at all of us and now he comes to me. My heart goes bang bang now. He has a silver little knife. Nurse Martineau is white and soft. She smells like smoke and she coos at me. Usually her voice does not do this. She holds my head down on the pillow and that doctor puts the little knife in my ear. He will push the nails into my brain now. He wants me to be a good girl. Nurse Martineau says,

“That’s a good little girl”
“No, no hold still”
“Oh, squeak, squeak”
“Like a little mouse”
“Such a brave girl”
“Isn’t she marvelous”

She likes me because I do not cry, so I do not cry and it hurts but then the banging has stopped. They did this on two sides of my head.

In the morning there is a green spot on my pillow. The edges of it are dry and inside the spot is gooey. I put my finger in it. It is soft like glue. This came from my brain because there is a hole from my ear to my brain now.

Jewel and Elizabeth are in this room, with others. Jewel says touching the green spot is awful. Elizabeth screams too. I have been bad again. They all make fun of me. I cry because they do not like me. Just Nurse Martineau and Dr. Megan like me because I do not cry for them.

When I wet the bed it is the same. I am disgusting, as my housemother, Mrs. Gradler says. Maybe God puts nails in my ears because I wet the bed and do these things. Melinda’s mother has come to see her. She never came before, but she is going to give Melinda an alcohol rub because she is a sick girl, like we are. She takes her girl’s nightgown off and her girl lays there with no clothes on. That is really awful but no one makes fun of her. Everyone is watching. Quiet.

She rubs Melinda’s arms, then her chest, her belly. She goes slow and smiles and coos like Nurse Martineau coos at me when I am brave. Now she rubs her legs. She turns her on her back and rubs her back. Now the backs of her legs. Mutti, she even touches her on her bottom, on the fat cheeks, she rubs.

Melinda is not fat. They would say I am fat, but I am not fat like Olive May or skinny like Jackie Peterson. I have a big belly because I am so good and eat all my plate up. Now she has put Melinda’s nightgown back on. It is the same kind we all have, long white flannel that has gotten tiny knobs from the laundry washing.

She has soup for this girl. Where did she get soup when it is not lunchtime? There is a kitchen here where nurse and her mother can eat anytime they want to. They do not need to wait for the carts of food to come from the big kitchen building.

This soup she gives her girl on a spoon, like a sick person in the movies.

We sick girls eat from our trays. If it is spinach, we are supposed to eat it anyway. Elizabeth and Jewel go to the toilet and flush it away. I tried this once and was afraid. I do enough bad things because I wet the bed. The girls laugh and nurse is mad. Once I woke up. It was so dark. I knew I would pee before I got down that long hallway, so I sat on the brown trash can fast. I was so glad I didn’t wet the bed, but nurse was “disgusted” and everyone made fun of me for a long time. My cheeks got red and I cried. Then they are quiet but hate me even more.

Melinda’s mother is gone now. How does Melinda feel after all that rubbing. I would not let anyone touch me. That is disgusting, Mutti.

What will Jewel and Elizabeth say to her now?

Once before in this big room, I played with my celluloid doll. I put a tongue blade on her bottom . I know that is bad but I was the nurse and that is what is really done with babies. It’s called an enema. I covered up my doll and went down the hall to the bathroom. When I got back, Jewel was smiling at me. She liked me. I want Jewel to like me. When we lived in grossmutti’s house, we slept in the same bed. She played with me, not Elizabeth. This day she said,

“Look, Betty, we’re all jumping”
“Come and jump on your bed”
“Higher, higher”
“Yeah !”
“Jump”

I thought, they all like me now. I am so glad. When I stopped, I opened my covers and saw my doll was all squashed and crumpled. They did this because I was so bad, pretending things about thermometers and enemas in my doll’s bottom. I cried and cried.

Jewel took a pin and pulled out the doll’s cheeks and the mashed parts. She got her back again. She was not the same, but she was not squashed anymore. Maybe Jewel loves me a little bit.

Mutti, once I had such a doll that was rubber. It was, when I lived with Aunt Elfriede and Uncle Karl. I think maybe you told Santa Claus to bring me this doll when you were alive. I had my doll with me and I was in a row boat at the park. She dropped in the water and I reached for her. Mutti, I could not lose my baby. Oh, no. I reached to get her and fell in. The water came into my mouth like the biggest drink in the world, big cold gulps, and then up my nose the water came and then someone got me and it was all over. But Mutti, I still had my baby.

Love, Betty

_______________

All of the buildings at the Home were made of red brick and grey cement. They were very square and had a wide span of stairs leading to the entry. Five of them were three stories high, but the hospital that was one story, had a double Oak door and two columns on each side. Over the door, in beautiful letters it said Templar’s Hospital.

We came to the hospital for having our teeth fixed on Saturdays, or for the morning clinic in a large white tiled room where Nurse Martineau gave us a big tablespoon of thick sweet syrup called Iradol.

To the clinic we also took our cuts and scrapes for treatment, as Nurse Martineau kept her glass bottles of homemade swabs, gauze patches as well as the glass jars with the round stoppers that held mercurochrome, iodine, benzadoin and benzidine. As a Senior Girl, working there, I learned that benzoin was for canker sores, but benzedrine took tape marks off the skin and they sat side by side on the white starched cloth.

When we were sick we stayed in one of the many dormitories in the hospital. There were enough rooms to accommodate an epidemic, but I never saw more than two rooms in use all the time I was at the Home, so it was something of a lonely place.

My childhood diseases ran from the usual tonsillitis, ear infections and cavities to the more unusual, appendicitis.

In those pre-penicillin days, many children would have mastoid operations, to release the pressure of thickening mucous that could damage the ear drum. I escaped this fate by having my eardrums lanced.

A stay in the hospital was often like a prison sentence as it seemed there was nothing to do. Once I was given a package of chewing gum and after I chewed it, I made a tiny doll of the gum and dressed her in silver and green paper clothes. Nurse Martineau thought it was so charming she asked if she could have it. My older sister and her friend said it was “disgusting”.

Sometimes I was alone in the hospital. If it was winter, the steam pipes clanged loudly throughout the night. In summer the tractor in the orange groves outside hummed endlessly, turning, turning under a rug of yellow mustard plants.

Nurse Martineau was a pretty, flat chested women who ran her hospital in top notch condition. She never wore anything but a starched white uniform and a traditional nurse’s cap on her curls. But she spent much of her time in her room listening to baseball games and probably smoking. Some of the Senior boys and one temporary Housefather shared her interest and laughed with her in her room, but she was all business outside her door, as she did her duties and shared time with her mother who was the nurse’s aide and the more visible of the two women.

Nurse Martineau had a daughter, Bunny, two years older than I was, whose legs were crippled from polio. Bunny lived in her own room in the hospital. She practiced her piano lessons in the sunroom at the end of the long hall and longed for playmates.

The nurses decided that I would be the ideal one for Bunny. At first I liked being Bunny’s friend. But then I learned it was a job.

_______________

Dear Mother,

I’m kicking as hard as I can across the canal between Little Island and Big Island. Am I ahead of Audrey La Voie? There is a spoon in my mouth, between my teeth. There is a ping pong ball on it. We are having contests today. Lots of people are watching.

Kick, kick; paddle, paddle. Audrey’s dad is visiting at camp this Sunday. All the kids are yelling, “Come on, Audrey !”

Audrey has dance shoes. She used to take tap and ballet. She can do the back bend, like my sister.

I can doggie paddle. They told me to be in this contest — all those people up there. I think Audrey won. I think I am second.

Love, Betty

_______________

Today, this child inside me hates competition. But when a husband comes into my aerobics jazz class looking for his wife, I hope he doesn’t notice I’m not only out of step, but three steps behind, wondering how they do that “bubble pop” thing. They go so fast. I get the parts like put your arms in the air and turn around. I’m a good sport, that’s for sure, but I am not a sportswoman.

My husband who runs 3 miles daily used to give me a 10 point handicap before playing Ping Pong with me. I’d still lose. Luckily, we had two sons.

I’m a large boned and things should be different. But I have never returned a decent serve in tennis or even had enough points to open in bridge. When I was a child, I closed my eyes during softball, when I was up to bat and the ball was coming.

The one thing I can do is hike. It doesn’t take too much skill. Then again, I can swim well. I used to do the Australian crawl, when it was fashionable to wear a bathing cap. Now I don’t want the water in my ears. I’m afraid if I shake it out, my brains might come with it.

In the days of Esther Williams, I took a water ballet class at UCLA, so I guess I’m not a complete couch potato, but the thrill of sports eludes me. I like to rally for the serves. My mind wanders when a score is being kept.

I never mastered football, I confess. I like the half time activities, the cheer leader’s antics, and staring at the backs of the heads of other alumni and wondering about them. My husband still marvels that I once read the newspaper at a Dodger’s game.

I like it when games are tied and no one has to feel badly, but I still don’t like being caught not knowing that dance routine in the gym. Is it fear of shame, or remembering the lack of a rooting section when so long ago Audrey La Voie won the Ping Pong Doggie Paddle race?

Audrey grew up and married Richard, her childhood sweetheart. I heard that she was a dissatisfied wife and the mother of two children. When the children were in their teens, Richard in a fit of rage shot and killed Audrey. He may be out of prison by now. I’m not sorry Audrey won that race. And I still marvel that Audrey could dance and be a winner for a while.

_______________　

Dear Mother.

Here is what happened to me. My thumb became completely black. I don’t remember that it hurt, just that it scared me so much when I picked up half of that fat firecracker on the 4th of July .

We go to Balboa Island for the summer, we Masonic Home kids. A Mason donated the fireworks. We each had a big bunch to shoot off. There was a package of punks, like skinny cattails, the sparklers we love best, a big package of lady fingers and a small package of larger dangerous looking ones.

I got used to the lady fingers after a while. And there were so many. I was learning to be a good dynamiter with them.

Some kids liked to light a package and shoot them off all at once.

It was after most of us had shot off our fire crackers, on the sandy lot by the Balboa Canal. I was picking my way barefoot, across the ice plants and stickers. Then I saw half of a firecracker. It was like the big kind I probably gave away, so I don’t know why I picked up that sleeping thing, but it finished its bang in my hand. I went to the little hospital and Mammy Yokum put on some yellow salve and wrapped it up with a big bandage. It doesn’t hurt too much, but it sure scared me. I hate fire crackers,

Love, Bette

_______________

In those days we heard lots of stories about accidents with fireworks and we had been cautioned before getting our treat, but we were also given the usual freedom that made life for us parentless kids often so full of joy.

I don’t remember any other Fourth of July’s as a child. I really hated the noise, and when my husband and I had young children I was glad firecrackers had been made illegal and only the phosphorous star burst kind were allowed.

Most often we went to our beach house at Alamitos Bay for the night of the fourth and I would sit on the rail of the boardwalk with others and watch the children, Andy leaping with excitement, Hilary most likely directing her brothers and Steven grumping about something. They would eagerly surround Don with his box of pleasure that had cost us $40 and was an extravagance for us. He might have been more disappointed than the children that those pinwheels of lights and bouquets of sparks that took so long to light, lasted such a short time. But there were many others on the beach, and we had the display over the Queen Mary in the distance. I stayed on the boardwalk, wrapped in a blanket, my feet in the cold soft sand with a nervous eye on little Steven. I wondered then as I do now, how men in battle endure shell fire. In my lifetime there have been four wars to make me shiver with it.

The part about the Fourth that I loved was the eating. I learned, as time went on and we could afford it, I didn’t have to cook for the Kamins family, who most often became our holiday guests. We bought great buckets of warm fried Kentucky Colonel with cold slaw and corn and lots of biscuits with butter and honey. Then sweet watermelon. Though we were getting more prosperous, the fireworks never got any more interesting.

Each year, some residents at Alamitos Bay start up a citizen’s parade. I love catching sight of it, if I hear it from the couch of my little living room where I am reading, having long ago given up sunning myself on the beach.

The locals are marvelously ridiculous, with a trumpet or a fiddle, streamers, flags, battle jackets, clowns and babies in strollers and everyone shuffling, wheeling and marching down the boardwalk.

One day I will join them, when I’m less afraid of being ridiculous. But I doubt I will ever be at ease with the artillery blast noise of the night of the fourth, when I remember sometimes, that black thumb.

_______________

Dear Mother,

This is what happened this week. I was in that secret room under the pergola. The one that’s locked and they store old furniture in. We can only get in through the window. Pearl’s leg was hanging over the high window sill, and I didn’t know whether she drop her other one over, hang on her arms and come down, or just leave.

“They’re not yours” says Pearl. “I didn’t say they were” I say. My heart was pounding fast. I never fight with anyone, but Pearl should not scare Pocahontas, or she will run away from her kittens. I have tamed this cat. I know how scared she is of people.

“And you shouldn’t make fun of my bucked teeth” Pearl says to me. I’m surprised. I didn’t say anything like that. Now she says I am really bad. The cats belong to all of us, but I am the only one who feeds them.

Pearl goes away and I pet white wispy Pocahontas. For a scared cat, she sure has a loud purr. Her kittens have their eyes closed and they pump their paws on her you know what, that’s where the milk comes out. The whole family has their eyes closed and they are smiling and safe. I saved Pocahontas again, She doesn’t have to run away. She was born when all the Home kids were at the beach for the summer, so she was wild. I tamed her. She came over from the farm to eat with my  — I mean our — other cats. I yell “Heee-re kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty” and all the cats come around the pan of milk I’ve gotten from the empty glasses on the dinning room tables. They make a circle like a big flower: Pocahantas, Bear, Pete, Bugs, my own dear Carlos, and the two new ones.

I’m supposed to clean the sink in the bathroom after I wash out a cat pan. That little bathroom is never used, except if someone has to go during the Saturday night movie. I scrape the stuck milk in the sink. Well, I drop it the toilet now. I try to wash the pan with sand. It’s gunky. Sometimes I don’t wash the pan, but I always feed the cats. I got in trouble for leaving the sink clogged up.

This place is an underground corridor and it has a locked door at each end. Pocahontas found it for her kittens and I put a rug and doll bed here for her. I want it to be secret, but Pearl knows about her now and everyone will come in, but they better not scare her. When I tamed her she clawed so deep, so many times, but I knew that once I scratched her cheeks she was mine and she was. She purred so loud. I had to catch her a few more times and then she came to me for scratching if I got low, moved slowly and said, “It’s ok Pocahontas”.

Once Pat and some other boys caught her. She was after their pigeons. They were going to kill her, but they called me and I ran over there. I was never in the boy’s place before. They have all kinds of cages with birds under the pepper trees across from the baseball field. It was really nice but I was so scared and I said “Please let me have her” and they did. I’m the cat girl. “Betty is so kind,” they say. But now I had a fight with Pearl, but I didn’t say she had bucked teeth, though she does. And Pocahontas and the kittens are all asleep. Safe.

Love,
The Cat Girl

_______________

Dear Mother,

“When I’m calling you ...‘ou ou’ on, ‘ou ’on ‘oou....” Jeannette McDonald, wearing satin, shiny as the water on top of the swimming pool. He waits for her, this Nelson Eddy. They sing long long songs to each other. I am patient. They will kiss before this movies is over. I’m sure. These two are tender. They want each other. Not like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. They fight like cat and dog. She makes him be good, but before long they will kiss too. I love it.

Someone said it’s Spencer Tracy tonight. We are going to see Captain Courageous. Everyone is excited. We go over the cement pergola where you can look down on the playground. And past the swings and things, you can see the green fish pond with those tall trees around it that look like green flames. Then sidewalk leads to the swimming pool. I love the swimming pool.

Then we go down the stairway to the basement, it’s underneath the dining room and that’s our auditorium.

It’s spooky in there, Mutti. It’s always a little dark. There are big square pillars dressed in gunny sack cloth. There are lots of benches and chairs where we sit to see our Saturday night movie. Sometimes we go to the side and look in the old swimming pool. It is so deep and so empty. A long time ago, they used that.

Those big girls whose pictures are in the hallway in the office. The ones whose hair is curled close to their heads and whose lips look like Betty Boop’s lips. The senior girls now wear their hair in big rolls around their faces, like sausages, like Betty Grable.

Mother, Katherine tells us stories at night when the lights are out. She said that once someone drowned in that deep pool. I think she said her ghost is in the auditorium. Mrs. Gradler won’t let us look in that pool too long. If I went down the thin ladder to the bottom, and walked there, and the water came in and in and in, could I doggie paddle until the water took me up ? I think I could do that, but what if the body of the dead girl floated out of the hole in the center ? I would scream and get to the ladder fast.

I have to go now. I wonder if the movie will be scary.

Love,
Your ex-daughter, Betty