CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL BOSTON / ARRIVAL
Boston Public Library
CW: depictions of hospitalization/ambulance transportation, epilepsy, childhood chronic illness
Route 3 two lanes to Boston
north New Hampshire through every downtown
in 1948
before fast food drive-throughs, malls, big box stores
parking lots the size of football fields
traffic lights triggered by subsurface signal wires,
uniformed policemen direct traffic
or you sit
waiting for courtesy
cops know eighty percent of drivers,
Friday evening shopping
everybody knows everybody
keep their cars in the same parking spaces
all summer evenings long
sit on the front fenders
to chat with neighbors
whom they live near
whom they hadn’t seen for a week
to share beer.
Travel is slow
no one expects to go
anywhere far fast
we’re waved through
my ambulance is a hearse
an embossed brass plate advertises
my uncle’s funeral home
special favor in pre-Christmas December dark
( I had opened all but seven windows of my advent calendar
with their painted scenes illuminated by back light
when I pulled the paper flaps aside
mother explained them. )
headlights carve a journey through evergreen woods
along roads
just creases in the land
between settlements
solitary houses draped with colored lights
set back on dormant lawns
an electric candle blinks in every window.
Acceleration pulls for faster speed
a straightaway.
Metallic
click
click
floor dimmer switch
vehicle lights rake the cab
I see mother’s face
looking through the glass partition
back at me
strapped in the gurney
bolted to the floor.
No sounds until the ambulance stops
( Massachusetts line
had they made phone calls before they left
( I wonder now )
or flagged down
a state highway trooper? ) then
police car sirens never cease.
Kaleidoscope of city streets
lamps high poles store signs
through the hearse’s horizontal windows
flashing
at me
traffic halted at city intersections
we enter old Boston
more sirens
( Huntington Avenue )
buildings hedge the crowded corridor
concern in my mother’s voice.
I’m alright I assure her.
White gowns surround me at Boston Children’s
( Was the air chilled
Was there snow? )
jerk
lift
set down
wheeled gurney rolls
[ ]
ER
[ ]
reception
[ ]
elevator
cavernous
( I would later know )
( upper floor wing pointing into Brookline )
barricade of the nurses’ station
library lamps hang over desks
phones
beds with children
line long aisles
subdued lighting at night
attendants move from bed to bed,
over some, net hoods cover small heads
no one smiles.
Thrash me
in my restraining straps,
grand mal seizures
( doctor’s record
every twenty minutes ),
gurney to bed
torture
fever sweats wrack.
penicillin
phenobarbital
Dilantin
( eight years journey
in twilight
begins this night ).
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL BOSTON / DEPARTURE
The dull sun low at the end of the wing
grandmother waits to see me
( on a porch I remember
clearly
but in photographs
no porch, no screens,
not summer
memory not what it seems )
she stood by the bed
indistinct
large over me
spoke
( said what? )
I respond
Where is mommy?
( She started my father’s family
four boys three girls
in Brookline a few blocks away
I was told
( or did I learn in nearby Public Library
researching that day
we visited Copley Square
sat for the mass at Trinity
Phillip Brooks’ church
the ornate silent reading room
at the head of the staged marble stairway ))
Nurses prepare the beds near me
remove breathing hoods
canopies
raise safety rails
arrange coat racks of hanging tubes
tuck sheets
talk to small kids
motionless heads
step on clutches to release beds
onto wheels
push pull the bed away
rubber squealing on polished granite.
Midnight alone in the darkened corridor
nurses’ station glows
a fireplace far
shadows move
shades momently obscure
Christmas lights colors
festivity in the building’s other wing
I ask a nurse who walks by
why wasn’t I
moved there
they are too sick to go home for Christmas.
I think, they are going to die
or am I?
Nurses’ station a hard wood barricade
someone unknown brings me a chair,
they ignore me sitting there
confused
your father is coming to get you.
Every space black light subdued
elevator opens noisy doors huge
people leave
people enter
I hear no conversation
nor phones ring
nurses confer lips move
( a play in a theater
anticonvulsants
I wonder )
I fidget
I am uncomfortable
I complain
I wait.
How long could father’s drive from home take?
He is by me
bends over
picks me up
lays me on his shoulder
( I remember flopping across it
no wheelchair
no gurney
( can that be right? ))
carries me
soft jolt of the elevator
descent drop
( that is all )
family 4-door sedan
a blanket strap
in the back
Route 3
Garland Street
cold of northern New Hampshire
car door opens
home
front porch
two benches
(an outdoor setting for Kodak portraits
a box camera with no flash
color film
father in his brown Army uniform
sitting by mother
me in a pea jacket in another
a chevron shoulder patch
with red hair
an aging of film colors?)
front door
hall
living room
red floor carpet
incandescent glow
mother’s joy
Christmas tree
water filled stand at its base
strung lights
white red blue green
tinsel shimmers
in the wind from the opened door
star on top
wrapped gifts.
( My infant sister
six months old
swaddled in blankets
sleeps in mother and father’s bedroom. )
Father carries me upstairs to bed.
I think, I did not die
Christmas eve.
*These pieces were originally published in Bonnie’s Crew at Bonnie's Crew #6 - December 2019 by Bonnie's Crew - Issuu
RON TOBEY grew up in northern New Hampshire, USA, and attended the University of New Hampshire, Durham. He and his wife live in West Virginia, where they raise cattle and keep goats and horses. He is an imagist poet, grounding experiences and moods in concrete descriptions, including haiku, storytelling, recorded poetry, and filmic interpretation. He occasionally uses the pseudonym, Turin Shroudedindoubt, for literary and artistic work. He has published in over 30 digital and print literary magazines. His Twitter handle is @Turin54024117.