Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [165]
This didn’t sound good to me, but my mother insisted. I hate to admit it, but it wasn’t that hard to convince me. I despised going to hospitals even more than I despised visiting prisons. Both places scared and depressed me.
Next I heard, the surgery was delayed for a few days. Gaylen was improving, and the doctor didn’t want to operate unless it was necessary. It all seemed less urgent, and I let that suffice as my excuse for not going to see him.
A week after he went into the hospital, my mother called again, at night. “Gaylen had his surgery late this afternoon,” she told me. “He’s still unconscious, but the doctor thinks he’ll be fine.”
I told her to keep me informed.
For the next few days, the reports were good. Gaylen was doing a little better each day. Meantime, I always found some reason not to visit him. He would be out soon, I told myself. I would see him then.
FRANK WAS BEHAVING MUCH MORE RESPONSIBLY THAN I WAS. He visited Gaylen several times during his hospital stay. Over twenty years later, he told me about those visits. I would like to think that if I had known how things really were, I would have gone to see Gaylen every day. I would like to think that, but what I imagine doesn’t matter. The truth is, I never went to see Gaylen once. It would have been like visiting Gary: I could not go see people in places that were built to carry them to death.
This is what Frank told me about seeing our brother:
“One of the times I visited Gaylen, he had several tubes running in and out of him, to feed him food and medicine, and carry his waste out. The next time I saw him, he had pulled the tubes out that were in his stomach because they were bothering him. I don’t know if that effected his death or not. I do know that he was very nervous. He felt people were mistreating him, and he was yelling at everybody around him. One time when I was up there, a nurse came in and just slammed his food at him. I guess he had been giving them a lot of trouble. I spoke up to the nurses and said something about it. I don’t know if that was wise or not.
“In any event, I never once thought Gaylen would die. The last time I saw him, he was sitting up and talking. Said he was eating Jell-O, and he was starting to feel good. I told him: ‘ You be sure and eat everything they give you, then I’ll come up and visit you tomorrow.’ We had been talking all afternoon about Evel Knievel, the daredevil, who was getting ready to make some big jump. Gaylen said: ‘Yes, come back tomorrow and let’s talk some more about Evel.’ He was in fairly good spirits. But he also kept telling me that he was getting a lot of severe cramps in his hands. That worried me. I know that when you get cramps in your hands it can be a serious matter. But I thought, ‘Well, he’s in the hospital. They know how to take care of him.’ That was my last thought, as I shook hands with him and then walked out of the hospital.”
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, ONE OF MY ROOMMATES knocked on my bedroom door. I was sitting up in bed, reading, listening to the radio. “There’s a woman on the phone for you,” he said. “She says it’s important.”
I was used to friends and girlfriends calling me at odd hours. I lived during odd hours.
I picked up the phone.
“Mikal, it’s Janet. Gaylen’s dead.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“He just died on the operating table. He had to go back into emergency surgery.”
I was stunned. There was no reprieve for news like this. When you heard such a thing, you would have to find a way to accept it and still be able to breathe in the next moment. Otherwise, you might fall into a pit of such deep fear and pain, you could never climb out.
“Janet,” I said, “stay where you are. I’m going to call a cab and come out to get you.”
“No,” Janet said, “I don’t want to stay here. One of Gaylen’s friends, John, is here. He’ll bring me over to get you. We have to go tell your mother.”
I hung up the phone and went back to my bedroom. A song by folk and country singer Mickey Newbury was playing on the radio. It was called “An American Trilogy.”
“Hush