a loud voice that made several nurses wince, since they apparently preferred it to be quiet. "Glad you could make it. Is this your kazoo band?" The doctor looked at us all knowingly, while we just stared stupidly back at him. Peter just nodded his head up and down, grinning like a sick mongoose.
What followed next was total, chaotic insanity. Peter 'tuned us up' on our kazoos and made us play, and the noise was worse than a catfight. Then he marched us through the room of each patient, where we were horrified to find people literally on their deathbeds. Most of them were old, but sadly a few were young. They were all hooked up to IVs and some of them to oxygen, and most of them just lay there limply looking at us. But every one of them smiled as we filed past making our horrible racket.
After that, we spend the next two hours going into individual rooms and talking to them. Now I understood why Peter had said to not only bring a kazoo but also a handkerchief. It was like having my guts wrenched out to see these people literally dying before my eyes. We talked with them of course, trying vainly to cheer them up. But I could see that the thing that had cheered them most was the insane kazoos. Several of them told us they wanted to hear our kazoo band again.
One lady in particular was very emphatic. "Young man," she said to Peter who was standing next to me by her bedside as we looked down on her pasty, white face. "You look like a hoodlum. A disgusting hoodlum with all those piercings. But I'm grateful to you. Do you know, it's probably been five months since I laughed. Five months!"
"Then we'll come back in another five months and do it again," said Peter insanely.
"I won't be here," she said sadly. "Won't you do it again now? They say I've only got 'till the end of the week."
"The end of the week, is that all?" bellowed Peter with horrible irreverence, making her smile. "Why listen to kazoos then? By the end of the week you'll be listening to a heavenly choir, and it'll be much better!"
"No, it won't," responded the lady, shaking her head weakly. "No sound could be more angelic. Do it again, won't you? For me? One last time."
So we did. In fact, Peter and I played a kazoo duet that sounded truly awful. And suddenly the lady started to laugh and laugh as if it was the funniest thing in the world. And with Peter dancing around like he was the pied piper, I could see why. As for me though, he looked a bit blurry since my eyes had unaccountably gotten rather watery.
I never thought I would be sad to leave a 'terminal illness ward,' but I was that night. As we walked down the hall everyone was smiling, and nurses were trailing after us thanking us again and again. Peter seemed absolutely ecstatic, and was not at all sad as he'd been coming in.
"I always feel so much better when I come here," he said. "Sad on the way in, but happy on the way out. They lift me up, you know that? Those people make me feel better."
I just stared at Peter in amazement. It seemed impossible to me that he was clueless about who had made who feel better.
But the people in the hospital that night knew.
May 25
So there, journal! Did you see that? There was hardly anything in my last entry about abortion! Hardly anything at all! My therapist would be extremely pleased. And Mack had been right after all. What I needed was the 'Jesus raiders,' and the chance to do something worthwhile that didn't remind me of abortion every day. I never forgot my abortion of course, and I still had the dreams of Jonathon (but no knives in the dreams anymore, thank heavens!) and I still had to keep forgiving myself about 50 times a day. But working with Peter was restoring my soul. I felt in a way that my life had started over, and that it was truly a wonderful life, and was a life worth living after all.
There were difficult moments of course. Mom was still as bad as ever, and Oscar was still missing. I had to report for evaluation once a week since I'd spent all that time on suicide watch. And Clarice had Michael born to her in Florida and sent me a picture--and true to my word I threw her letter away unopened. I knew I wasn't ready for that just yet. But I also knew I was progressing, that things were getting better, and that someday I might be able to handle receiving a letter from her. The main reason was because of love and forgiveness, Jesus and Peter.
I found out one day just how far I'd come while I was on my way to Peter's dumpy house for another one of his 'gang jobs.' I was still not allowed to drive because of my suicide history, and my car was still totaled in that accident I'd had anyway. So I took the bus down to Peter's house like normal. As I walked along the street towards his place I saw what looked at first like a lumpy bag of old clothes someone had tossed in the gutter. But as I got closer I saw this was not a bundle of clothes--it was a human being. And as I arrived at the side of this person, I sucked in my breath in surprise.
It was none other than Dorothy Malk, that awful lady I'd seen that day at the abortion clinic. She lay there as if she was dead. Just like before she reeked of alcohol, and her clothes were unkempt and dirty. Her hair was straggled over her closed eyes, and there was a rash down the side of her face that had not been there when I'd seen her last.
In a rush, the horror of that day when I first saw her at the abortion clinic came crashing back into my mind. I felt an involuntary urge to suddenly throw up as her vivid descriptions of abortions took over my memory.
My initial impulse was to turn and run, to put as much distance as I could between myself and that awful woman. It made my blood curdle to think of the babies she had killed in the late terms of her pregnancies, and how callous she was about having done so.
But as I looked down at her, whether because of Peter and the 'Jesus Raiders,' or my reading of the Bible, or what I'd learned about forgiveness--I don't know what caused it, but suddenly I felt a wave of compassion and pity for her. She suddenly didn't look a demon in the flesh as I'd thought before, but more like a worn out old woman who had made many bad choices, but who still needed love.
I kneeled down and tapped her shoulder. "Dorothy," I called softly. "Are you all right?"
She stirred and groaned, then stretched stiffly. After that she opened one eye and looked up at me.
"Who are you?" she asked in that gravel voice of hers.
"A friend," I answered simply. "Are you all right? Do you need help getting to your house?"
"Ain't got no house, sister," said Dorothy, struggling unsuccessfully to sit up. "No house except this here gutter!" She looked up at me again with one eye, and I realized suddenly she couldn't open the other one because of the rash on that side of her face.
I bit my lip, not sure what to do. "Is there something I can do to help you?" I asked.
"Now that you mention it, you could give me a little something to freshen up my spirits." She looked at me expectantly and held out her hand. At first I was clueless what she meant, but then I understood.
"No, I think you've had enough to drink," I replied.
"'Taint for drink, honey," she responded. "Just for a bite to eat." I looked around the street we were on. There were two bars nearby, and also a seedy looking hot dog stand not far away. "I'll buy you a hot dog then," I said firmly. It seemed pretty obvious that any money I gave her would not go to food with those bars so close.
She frowned, but just shrugged. Then she struggled unsuccessfully to rise to her feet. This time I reached out and tried to help her, taking hold of her soiled, stinking, alcohol soaked clothes. Between the two of us she staggeringly made it. And boy was she heavy!
"Thanks, toots," she said brusquely. "But you don't need to buy me no food. I can get my own. Just give me some money."
"No, I'll buy it for you," I said, shaking my head. "Here, I'll help you get over there." Together we staggered toward a bench next to the hot dog stand, looking for all the world like two drunks who'd had a night out on the town (and one of us had!)
We finally made it. After I got her on the bench and made sure she wouldn't fall off, I went over and bought us both a hot dog. Even though I wasn't
that hungry, I decided it might not be polite for her to eat alone.
"Thanks, sweets," she said as she took the hot dog from me. She ate it ravenously, as if she had never eaten before. I suddenly felt guilty for having taken a bite out of my hot dog, which I could have given to her. But that problem was easily solved by going to buy her another one.
After she finished she gave me a quizzical look. "Do I know you?" she asked curiously. "Seems like I've seen you someplace before."
"We may have met once," I answered vaguely. Then I changed the subject. "Where will you go now?"
"Don't know, sweets," she said huskily. "Got no place to call my own. And this bum leg won't let me walk far. That's why that spot of gutter became my home."
I shook my head. This would never do. But I was clueless about what I could do to help.
Peter. The thought suddenly leapt into my head, and I knew instantly what to do. I turned to Dorothy. "Will you stay here and wait for me for a few minutes?" I asked anxiously. "I've got to go talk to a friend who can help you."
Dorothy smiled ruefully. "I'm not going anywhere toots." Then she glanced at the glowering hot dog salesman who was not pleased that she was on the bench usually used by his customers. "'Cept maybe back to my gutter."
"No, stay right here," I said firmly. I frowned over at the hot dog