Rosemary

Rosemary

It was the way she looked up from the stretcher that got me. It was a look that all at once seemed to say thank you, why did you bring this on me, and I’m scared. But I think it was the juxtaposition of this person—incontinent, obese, unable to walk, short of breath, old — against the picture of this same person hanging on her fridge— young, bursting, intense— that really got me.

I called her Rose-Murray, even though her name was Rosemary, because that’s how my immigrant parents bastardized it and it stuck. Her house was pungent with the smell of urine, on account of the incontinence. It used to be lovely with the smell of lilacs in better days, when she would invite me in for some candies. I pointed out to the EMT after they had finished walking her from the living room to the front door, then out the front door and into the stretcher, that she was leaking. He shrugged and said:

“Eh, these shoes have seen worse”.

Here’s what happened. I got dropped off at home by a friend after we attended a lecture together called “Using Supernovae to Measure the Age of the Universe.” We were physics majors back then. The age of the universe was 13.4 billion years back then. Now it’s 13.8, give or take a few million. 

As I walked up my driveway, I saw Rosemary sitting there on her porch with two teenagers from my court crowding her. I should mention I lived in a townhouse back then, so our houses (my house and Rosemary’s) were connected. Her door faced my door. Anyways I saw her sitting there on her porch and she was sitting in that weird, upright-yet-crouching position people use when they’re having difficulty breathing. I approached my house and smiled at Rosemary like I usually do when she’s sitting outside and asked how she was.

“Not too well” she says.

“Oh no, why’s that?” I ask.

“Can’t catch my breath”.

I turned to the two teenagers standing with her. They had no idea what had happened and what was going on and I’m nearly certain they were in the middle of a minor drug deal, so I told them it was fine and that I would handle it and that they could leave and thank you.

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” I ask Rosemary.

“Oh no, no.” she replies. “I really don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“Well you don’t have to go to the hospital if you don’t want to, you know. But we should call someone” I say.

“Okay…call” she concedes through labored breaths.  

So I dialed 911 and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible about the whole thing, so as not to scare her. 

“911 this is Tom speaking, what is your emergency?”

“Yes hi, I’m calling about my neighbor. She’s elderly and having trouble breathing.”

“Okay, and what’s the address?”

“36 Rock Court”

“Okay, and your last name?”

“Kozachkov. K-O-Z. A-C-H. K-O-V.”

“Okay and first name?”

“Leo. L-E-O.”

“Okay Leo, tell me again what the problem is.”

“My neighbor is having trouble breathing, she’s elderly.”

“How old is she?”

“Uh, hold one sec.” I pull the phone away from my ear. “How old are you Rosemary?”

“Seventy” she responds “but I don’t want to go to a hospital”.

“Okay, she’s seventy” I say into the receiver.

“Okay, we’re dispatching an ambulance over to your location right now.”

“Okay, thanks”.

“Do you know if she’s on any medications Leo?”

“Uh, hold on again.” I say. “Rosemary. Are you on any medications?”

“Yes” she replies “but I really don’t want to go to the hospital”.

“Yes” I say to the operator.

“Okay, great. If you could just gather up all the medications she’s on before the EMTs arrive, that’d be great.”

“Okay sure” I say.

“Okay, thanks Leo. If anything else happens, dial 911 again. The ambulance should be there shortly.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Putting the phone in my pocket, I turn to Rosemary and say, “okay, they’re sending an ambulance. But don’t worry, they’re just going to check you out to see if everything is okay (which I’m sure everything is) and that’s it”.

“Okay that’s fine” she says. “I just really don’t want to go to the hospital. I was just there. I got back yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I used to be a lifeguard you know”

“Oh really?” she asks. “That’s good to hear.”

“Oh yeah” I say. “And I would get people out of breath all the time. Young kids mostly and some older people.”

“What was wrong with them?”

“You never know. Sometimes allergies, sometimes something else. You never know.” I lied. She shakes her head, eyes closed.

“I just don’t know what happened…”

A police car pulled around the corner with its lights on, stopping in front of her driveway.

“Oh no” she groans, looking embarrassed. “It really isn’t a big deal…”

“Ah, the cops are bored here” I tell her. 

“It’s just a formal thing. Doesn’t really mean anything.”

The police man’s face had the expression of someone who could and should be off doing something else right now. Like coming all the way out here (10 minutes max) was an utter time-waste for him.

“Hello ma’am. Having difficulty breathing?” he declares, more than asks.

“Yes. But I don’t want to go to the hospital”.

“Okay. And have you taken any medications today?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, do you know what they’re called?”

“Um. Thoro…thoro-something. And then Albu…something. I’m not sure.”

“Okay. And what were you doing right before you had this shortness of breath?”

“Nothing” she exclaims “just writing!”

“Okay, just writing, I see. Okay, I brought along this oxygen tank with me that will help you breathe easier. If you just could put these two tubes here in your nose for me just like that…yeup…just…like…that… good. And then take this part here and put it behind your ears to hold it all in…place…just…like…great. Better?”

Rosemary inhales deeply through her nose. 

“Better” she says.

“Okay great. I think the EMTs are almost here…” he puts his ear to his shoulder and presses a button on his walkie talkie. “Ah okay, here they are”. An ambulance truck rounds the corner, stopping behind the police truck, blocking my driveway.

Rosemary says “oh no, oh they didn’t have to call everybody, I’m okay. Really. I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

The five EMTs step out of the car one-by-one, like it’s a clown car, and I notice that one of the EMTs is a kid I used to sort of hang out with in high school. He walks right past me like I’m not ever there. This I expected. They taught us at lifeguard training that whenever the EMTs arrived, your job was done and it was time to stand back and get out the way. So I stood back and got out of the way, watching the five EMTs descended upon Rosemary. I could only really catch snippets of their conversation with her…

“…taking any medication...?”

“…who is the president of the united states…?”

“…happened before?”

Throughout their exchange Rosemary kept looking over in my direction, through the shifting bodies, with that face—thank you, why did you bring this on me, and I’m scared. Finally they decided it was best for her not to be out in the cold (this was around the end of wintertime, it was still chilly), so they brought Rosemary and the oxygen tank indoors. She could barely walk, which came as a surprise to her. As they shuffled painfully inside, with all the EMTs supporting her, she asked to no one in particular: “why can’t I walk all of the sudden? Why can’t I walk anymore?” No one replied.

I stood against one of the support beams outside my house, not really sure what to do with myself. Eventually the kid I knew from highschool came back out, gave me a head nod, and said “sup dude” as he walked over.

“So what happened?” he asked, arms folded.

“I dunno, I came home and she was just sitting there and she told me she couldn’t really breathe. So I called. Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Nah” he replied. “She doesn’t seem too bad. I mean, she should go to hospital.”

“Yeah” I say. “But she really doesn’t want to.”

“I know. But the thing is she answered all our questions, so we can’t force her. It’d technically be kidnapping, you know?”

“Yeah. You should convince her to go though I mean.”

“We’re trying. She says she was just there for something else and the doctors cleared her so she doesn’t want to go back.”

“Ah.”

“I mean I don’t blame her” he continued. 

“People spend like all fucking day just sitting there in the hospital waiting for the test results to come in. Sucks”.

“Yeah…but still…”

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll convince her. Anyway thanks for calling it in.”

“Yeah sure.”

“Hey, so do you see Patty a lot still? I never even see him anymore. Been so busy with this shit.”

“Yeah actually, I was just over there yesterday. I mean you know him…nothing’s really changed” I smile weakly.

“Yeah” he laughs “I don’t think Patty will ever change”. The walkie talkie on his shoulder starts going off, garbled, static voices come through.

“Ah alright, I gotta head back in there. Hey it was nice seeing you again man. ”

“Yeah definitely. Hey, if you need anything or whatever just knock. I’m right here” I motion to my front door.

“Yeah sure. Hey, tell Patty I said ‘sup’ next time you see him”

“Alright man, I will. Take it easy.” I say as I open the door to my house.

“Yup, you too” he says as he walks into Rosemary’s house.

I don’t leave the window by my door. I watch for about half an hour even though nothing is happening outside. I just feel somehow attached to the situation, being the person that called it in and all. Finally I see the EMT I know open Rosemary’s front door again, walk down her driveway to the ambulance and pull out a stretcher. I open my door and say “you convinced her?”

“Yeah” he says. “Wasn’t too hard”.

“Can I go in there?” I ask.

“Yeah sure” he says.

As I opened the door to Rosemary’s house the first thing that hit me was the smell. I hadn’t been in there for I guess probably around two years. The stench of urine was so overwhelming, so acute, I felt lightheaded and my knees buckled a bit. The second thing that hit me was the musty darkness of the place. There was hardly any artificial lighting, just the sun beams coming through the dusty windows. There were papers and Bibles and Jesus Candles strewn all over the place with no logic to it whatsoever. It looked like the inside of a church-turned-office after it had been abandoned for twenty years.

We walked from the front door to the back of the house, where I saw Rosemary sitting on a big chair in her living room surrounded by the four EMTs, still asking her questions. She noticed that I had come in the room and again gave me that look again: thank you, why did you bring this on me, and I’m scared.

“Rosemary, I know this guy” pointing to the EMT from highschool, “you can trust him”. All the EMTs laughed genuinely, she forced it. She looked weak and afraid. One of the EMTs walks over to me and asked if I was the one who placed the call.

“Yup, that was me”, I say.

“Okay” she replies, thrusting a clipboard in my hands “I’m going to need you to print your name here and sign you name here…and…good. Thanks.”

A different EMT, one standing with Rosemary says “okay miss, we’re going to get you up now and get you into the stretcher. Is that okay?” He talks rather loudly, as if she’s partially deaf. And partially slow.

“Yes, that’s fine” she nods.

“Okay, just grab your walker here and…I gotcha…yup, now push yourself off the chair...just like that, good. Now just hold on to me and we’ll get you over there.”

As they tottered past me, again—that look. That obscene, stabbing glare. Thank you, why did you bring this on me, and I’m scared.

I tap the EMT I know on the shoulder to be discrete and point to the puddles trailing Rosemary. He nods understandingly.

“Yeah, she’s leaking a bit” he says. Then he shrugs. “Eh, these shoes have seen worse.”

Throughout the entire excruciating five minutes it took her and the EMTs to get from the back of the house to the front Rosemary was muttering, wondering again to apparently no one but God and herself, “why can’t I walk all of the sudden?” When they eventually got to the door, there was a little ledge between the inner wood and the concrete outside. Rosemary couldn’t lift her leg over that half-inch bump. The EMTs had to lift it for her. And then they had to lift all of her—and she wasn’t a light woman by any means—out the door and into the waiting stretcher.

As she laid all strapped in to the thing I stood in the doorway of her house. I asked her:

“Rosemary, do you want me to turn off the lights in your house?” She closed her eyes and nodded yes and then she said:

“Lock the door too, would you?”

Then they rolled her away and into the truck and the EMTs all thanked me again for calling it in and they left with Rosemary. Right before they closed the ambulance door she looked back at me standing there in her doorway and gave me that look again. Thank you, why did you bring this on me, and I’m scared. That was the last time I ever saw Rosemary. She died a few days later. I didn’t even know her last name. I still don’t. I think it was something Greek sounding.

I turned and walked back into her house, the smell of urine no less forceful in my nose. I went to turn off her kitchen light, which was the only light on. As I looked around the find the switch, I noticed a picture on the refrigerator. It looked like one of those carnival booth pictures, the one you usually take with a boyfriend or girlfriend. A vertical strip, three quick snaps in succession. All three were of a young women. She was beautiful. She had full cheeks and eyes that (even though the picture was in black and white) looked vital and alive. The women in the picture even reminded me of my girlfriend a bit. The date at the bottom said 1950. It took me a full minute to realize that it was a picture of Rosemary. Jesus Christ I thought to myself. How the fuck does this turn into that? I thought about the woman just taken away by the ambulance. Her mind had been slipping for years, and she struggled with weight problems for as long as I had known her. I thought again about my girlfriend and tried to imagine what she would look like at 70 years old. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t see it. Then I thought, what will I look like when I’m seventy years old? 

Again, just couldn’t see it.

Shutting off the light, I walked back to the front door. I took another look at the inside of the house. All the dust, the papers, the clutter, the piss puddles on the laminated wood.

I made sure the door was locked before I shut it. After that I stood on her doormat—which said WELCOME ALL! in flowery print—for a little while, noticing that I had accidentally left the door to my own house open.

Great I thought, now the whole house is probably cold.