Organ - Chapter 10
Katie left Oscar in uncertainty, she could feel it when she scurried away from his room that evening, but her paranoia was at an all-time high, what with Boothe being all over her like black mould on damp, her first session with the Chief of Medicine for her “probationary reviews” was due tonight, but she intended to use it for her advantage in getting the information for Oscars betterment. Beverley strolled past the nurses station on the floor below Oscars as Katie picked up her sheets for rounds of patient check-ups, she seemed lost in thought, so Katie left her alone and did not engage. Despite her threat levels being above her usual, she still thought of Nurse Beverly as a friend, her years of service at the hospital meant she was almost impervious to the nonsense operating behind the scenes, her day-to-day was always the same in that she would arrive, do her job, make Katie laugh and go home to her husband and grandkids.
The schedule for her round of patient interactions was shorter today, to accommodate for her meeting with Boothe before he clocked out, his routine was unpredictable, but Katie noticed him lingering in the building much longer since Oscars arrival, even pulling 12-hour stints when things got more exciting with his suffocation near miss or collapses. Treading with familiar patterns through the hospitals various mazes, Katie met with one patient after another for the first hour or so, the normal questions.
“How long will I be here?,” “Why does this still hurt?” and “Did they forget my medicines?” had been asked in almost every conversation with every patient who was in relatively good spirits, but her mind was distracted by the one patient who was most certainly not in good spirits.
“Dreaming are we?” Beverly said creeping up on Katie as she tapped her pen on her clipboard, having forgotten what she was writing down from the last person on her list of check-ins.
Katie jumped at her intrusion; Beverly chuckled at her young colleague for a moment. “Forgot the blood pressure reading I just took from Mrs Basri” Katie said digging deep in her minds archives to remember, she let out a big sigh and blew a raspberry turning to face Bev.
“Want me to go get it again?” Bev asked, Katie sucked in her face and bit her bottom lip in amusing frustration and nodded playfully, Bev disappeared momentarily before popping back with her results.
“140/90, not great” Bev said handing Katie back her equipment.
“Thank you” Katie replied giving her colleague a big smile.
“What’s on your mind? You seem like you are off somewhere else” Bev asked with genuine concern in her big amber eyes.
Temptation grew for a moment she considered telling her everything, about Oscar, about Boothe assaulting a patient, about the request to help him escape and about the surgery that is seemingly being kept a secret from some of the staff in the hospital. But her mind put the hand brake on before she skidded off the road.
“Just worried about this probation review” Katie said with the lie carving wrinkles in her forehead.
Dropping off her clipboard on her long walk to her review, Bev gave her an encouraging thumbs up, much to the confusion of the woman sat beside her in flowing conversation, Katie smiled back with exaggerated grin and made her way to Boothes office. Before she could wrap on the door and let her superior know she was on time, the door swung open, a crying nurse came running out and barged Katie on her way, it ached her shoulder still sore from Oscars grasp, the nurse swung round to apologise by simply waving a hand in Katies direction and fled of down the ward.
“What happened? Is she okay?” Katie asked of Boothe as he walked to greet her at the door.
“These younger nurses are very easily rattled” he laughed as he waved her into the room.
Katie sat down as Boothe stomped to his larger leather chair, it was overkill, but Katie always thought she would get something similar if she basically lived in the hospital like the Doctor did albeit not in leather. Boothe pulled a folder from the top drawer of his desk and pawed it open, flicking through a couple of pages and grabbing up his pen, Katie grimaced internally watching him glob a large blob of spit onto the nib to moisten the ink, his fat lizard tongue flicking out for a glimpse.
“So, Katie, how are you feeling?” he asked settling back into his chair.
“I am okay, glad to be back” she replied, her idea was to keep her answers short and concise to avoid any detours on the road to getting this meeting over and done with.
“Well, I am glad you are back” Boothe said letting out a large smile that pierced right through the back of her head.
He flicked across the pages in front of him with an ungraceful air.
“I need to ask a couple of questions and then we can chat more informally about your role now you are back, is that alright?” he asked glancing from Katies eyes to the paper and back.
“Sounds good” Katie replied.
“Good girl” he replied,
Boothe cleared his throat and began reading tedious questions that sounded like an uninspired artificial intelligence had written them.
“Do you require any reasonable adjustments on your return?” he asked, Katie shook her head, he scribbled some notes down and continued, this went on for fifteen minutes as Boothe asked a handful of corporate safety questions to ensure they could not be touched legally if something went wrong.
Finally, it was over and Boothe slid the file back into his top drawer, slammed it carelessly closed, leaned forward with his forearms now on the desk and let out another big exhale.
“I am sorry it has to be so formal; I would have preferred something a bit more…..personal” he said smiling once again with that red swollen face.
“Is there anything you want to talk about while we are here alone? It doesn’t have to be some formal thing every time we meet up for these reviews you know, we can enjoy each other’s company as like-minded friends” Boothe continued in an odd attempt to lighten the atmosphere that was destined for the murky depths the moment the younger nurse burst from his office in tears.
“Nope, nothing is jumping to mind” Katie explained keeping her secrets locked away from the prying eyes and ears opposite, but the look across his face gave her dark concern.
It was a gleeful look that told her that he knew something perhaps she would not want him to know.
“Katie, I think our relationship…” she hated that he used that word, it sent shivers down her spine, “would be better off if we didn’t keep anything from one another, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked as though there was any other answer she could give besides a passive,
“Of course.”
Boothe sat back in his chair and relaxed his shoulders into the swivelling recliner,
“I overheard that you have been spending sometime with our friend Oscar Rubens” Boothe began elaborating on what he supposedly knew that Katie held in secret, “I don’t mind you having a friendship with our patience, hell I even encourage it, your bedside manner is one of the best in the hospital, but I would encourage you to be careful. He is a very unpredictable young man and has already caused a fair bit of trouble” Boothe said with his expression now very severe, wrinkled at the forehead and tight in the lips.
Katie has seconds to respond before he suspected more to the story, so she jumped in with the first thought that crossed her mind,
“He is a nice kid, I just felt guilty about what happened and wanted to make sure he is okay” Katie explained, it was true, but it was still side-stepping the fleeting elephant in the room that was looking to stampede its way home.
Boothe shook his head looking down at this large belly,
“I know you are a good hearted, just watch that one” he replied and Katie knowing the chance for an exit when it presented itself nodded in agreement.
Boothe gestured towards the door with one upright hand and Katie began fleeing back into the safety of the observed ward, but before she reached the door Boothe interrupted the moment with sinister dwellings wriggling in his voice,
“It doesn’t really matter in the long run, with his surgery in two days’ time, he will no longer be our problem. We can fish that growing mass out of him and ship him off to the asylum where he can get the help he needs” he said with soft sinister conviction.
Katie did not turn around as she still could not give the game away that she was in possession of Oscars idea, but this lingering threat followed her for the rest of her day, when the coast was clear of watchful eyes, she would return to Oscar and tell him what she has been told.
It was an hour later, Katie had been busying herself helping the other nurses finish their rounds to clear out some untrustworthy members of the team, it was a peaceful spell of removed normality sat back at the station doing her same old job and speaking to the same faces, only now she had the nagging notion of identifying the culprit who blabbed about her chats with Oscar to Doctor Boothe. She dismissed Beverly, too weathered and long in the tooth to be sucking up to a Chief of Medicine, especially one she did not particularly care for and a man she has previously described as “Spiders in human skin,” implying of course that he made her skin crawl when he so much as glanced in her direction. But there in was the problem, Katie did not know all these nurses all that well, and it was fairly common for new temporary hands to come in to cover sickness or holidays from other facilities nearby, so the idea of finding the spy was a futile endeavour. Instead, she decided to focus on what she could control, and that was telling Oscar what Boothe had told her, that his surgery was booked for two days’ time and that Boothe left a lingering threat in the words that jumbled themselves in her mind every second since their chat, Boothe was clever enough to possibly be baiting her into reacting and running to the patient, her new friend, and telling him everything with one of his hovering birds fluttering nearby to witness the treason. Her thoughts, plentiful and irritatingly complex, became interrupted by a new face appearing over the nurses station.
“Can I help you?” Katie asked politely shaking the cobwebs loose from her concentration.
“Yes, I hope so, I am here to do some repairs on a bathroom, meant to be meeting a site manager but I can’t seem to find anyone downstairs” the gentleman explained in a gruff voice, his unattractive smell of cigarettes lingering on his clothes.
Katie picked up the phone and placed it between her shoulder and her eye,
“I will try and get hold of the maintenance team” she whispered, and the gentleman nodded, his gaze occasionally drifting off and following a nurse as she strolled by.
“Ah hello, It’s Nurse Katie on floor two, we have the repair guys here looking to get started on a bathroom?” Katie explained down the phone,
“Thank you, I will send one of our guys up to grab them, can you ask him to wait by the elevator please” the maintenance voice asked down the phone before the phone line went dead.
“Someone is coming up now, they asked if you could wait by the elevator for them” Katie explained graciously,
the gentleman nodded again and strolled away.
“Thank you!” he yelled out, clearly not a fan of inside voices Katie thought to herself.
Then the idea struck her, in a moment of pure chance, the universe was screaming out to her, Katie knew how to help Oscar, and it landed directly on her lap. After keeping her profile low for the rest of the day, buying herself some goodwill with whatever spy was hiding in her shadow, Katie wandered down to the first floor and found the bathroom that was now a mess of debris and plumbing parts. Spotting that same man from earlier carrying in various bags of dried cement and barking orders at the two workers that seemed busy removing some ancient looking rusted pipework from the building. What she was here for, lingering in the background of this renovation was to see how this plan of hers would work and if there could be any bumps that would need ironing out before presenting it to Oscar, who she knew was already less than stabilised, understandably, but still at the volatile edge of whatever tether kept him going.
“See anything you like” the supervisor joked seeing Katie lingering around their work area.
“No, just curious to see what’s being changed” she replied being dismissive of his flirtatious attempts to engage.
“How long do you think this will take?” she asked seeking the missing details that could piece together her puzzle.
“Well, if all goes well, and these two move their arses….maybe a couple of days” he answered, clearly losing interest in her after her lack of interest in his advance.
“Perfect” she replied hearing some good news for a change, the workers being in the hospital longer meant that Oscar had more time to use their presence in the patience escape.
“Wow you that desperate for this bathroom?” the forearm joked as his two buddies joined in laughing carelessly loud for a hospital.
Katie ignoring them walked away back to her desk.
Information gathered and now also a rough idea of their time and attire, Katie was pulling the plan in towards her and knew that this was realistically his only chance to get away from whatever Boothe was planning, after her mistake, and what she witnessed the night Boothe assaulted him, it was her duty as a nurse, a helper of those needing help, and Oscar was in desperate need of help before Boothe carved him up and locked him away in some padded hole for the remainder of his days. Katie knew that the Chief was connected enough in the medical field to keep Oscar from ever seeing the light of day again, he had become a dangerous man and after what she witnessed with her own eyes, she could not stand idly by. The coast was seemingly clear, Katie knew the nurses that stayed on shift, Beverly was occupying a large group of others with stories from her past as the patience drifted off to sleep, it was finally safe for her to visit Oscar and explain her plan and deliver warning from the omnipresent Boothe. Not long after her Irish exit from the busy station, Katie was outside his room on the third floor, she could see from the window that he was sitting on his bed fiddling with his phone so let herself in quickly, escaping any eyes facing from the corridor.
“Hey” Katie said as she slid into the room and silently closed the door behind her,
“Hey” Oscar parroted back watching her quickly close the blinds.
“Everything okay?” he asked inquisitively at her sudden insistence on secrecy.
“I spoke with Boothe, he told me something you need to know” Katie explained placing herself in the chair beside his bed and edging it inches closer, adrenaline was buzzing through her body.
Whether she would admit it or not this sneaking around was actually the most interesting thing that has happened to her in years. Oscar waited silently for her to continue her story.
“Boothe said that you have surgery booked for two days’ time” Katie explained staring up at him.
“Shit, what do we do?” Oscar asked now panicking and fidgeting uncomfortably in place.
“That’s not the worst of it” Katie continued ignoring his seemingly frightened question,
“Boothe said to me that ‘you will no longer be our problem after’”.
Oscars face went white, blending into the pillow behind him.
“What….what does that mean?” he asked with trembling voice, “Am I being moved somewhere else? Or is he going to kill me?” he continued growing more erratic with every word.
“I don’t know but it sounds like he wants to get the growth out of you and send you off somewhere for psychiatric observation” Katie answered before being cut off.
“He’s could easily kill me, I will be unconscious in surgery, he could just say it was an accident or complications” Oscar spoke to himself now walking around the bed, ignoring Katies presence entirely.
“Oscar!” she tried interrupting, dragging him out of the void he was sinking into without a rope, “I have a plan” she said, this brought him back to the present.
The worry was clear across his face and showed his age as the innocent untested by life boy he still was.
“We just had a bunch of builders arrive to repair a bathroom in the hospital on the ground floor” Katie began explaining.
Oscar sat back down on his bed not a foot between them which made the whispering easier and the risk of unwelcome ears hearing minimised.
“What I was thinking was, we break something in your bathroom that will need repair, they come here to fix it while in house, they told me it takes around two days, and you slip out with the workers when they are finished for the day!” she said delivering this idea of liberation with a proud smile across her face. “I can bring you some plain clothes that match theirs and drop them off before my shift” Katie added trying to prompt an answer from Oscar, who stared blankly at her with shell shocked eyes, “I know you are scared, but this might be your only chance to get out before he locks you away for good” Katie caught herself, “I mean you wanted the chance; this is it Oscar.”
Colour returned to his face.
“Okay, what do you need me to do?” Oscar asked innocently with his life in her hands.
Katie looked at the bathroom and walked over to peek inside, noticing a shower head that seemed older than the other features,
“That, we break the shower head off and say you did it falling. It’s believable and they know you are prone to taking a fall being the clumsy man you are" Katie instructed, spinning round she saw Oscars eyes.
Petrified marbles sitting in sinking black graves, it was hurting to see him like this, and she gave the young patience a lasting hug, their bodies pressed together sending hope firing through his veins.
“Thank you” he whispered into her shoulder, “I will bring the clothes tomorrow but until then keep calm” Katie explained releasing him from her arms, Oscar wiped his eyes and walked to the bathroom, sizing up the shower head and formatting how this would break off in his mind.
Katie took another look back at him to confirm he was okay.
“Open those blinds in an hour or so, don’t tell anyone I was here” she said as she gave him a scrunched smile and took her leave.
Oscar sat alone in his room, stomach pinging signals of pain as usual “No safe” the growth called out, but his mind was elsewhere now ignoring phantom voices, his next few days would be chaotic and terrifying, but Katie had given him a chance, and it was a chance he was determined to take with both hands firmly.
Organ: Chapter 10 of 30
