Remember Bicycles?
Daily Observer
S.Q.
Lapius’s blimp-like figure was hidden by a white hospital sheet that was tucked
under his chin, exposing his head only.
The side-rails were up on either side of his bed. He inspected the plastic bracelet on his left
wrist carefully, reading his name slowly, and enunciating carefully the name
Gelfand.
He
peered up at me, “Is Gelfand ill?”
“No,”
I said, “it’s you who are ill. Gelfand
is taking care of you.”
“Gelfand
is a heart doctor. Have I had a heart
attack?” He queries, with some degree of
concern.
“No,
you have not had a heart attack. Now
take it easy. Don’t be alarmed.”
“Harry,
I am not alarmed, simply inquisitive.
What am I doing in the hospital?”
“You
are not doing anything of importance. As
a matter of fact I brought you here myself.”
“Why?”
“You
probably won’t believe this, Simon, but you fell off your bicycle.”
Lapius
pondered this for a moment. “Impossible,
Harry. The fact is I can’t ride a
bicycle.”
“That’s
precisely the point, Simon. You
can’t. As a matter of fact I was trying
to teach you how to ride.”
“Strange. I don’t remember a thing.”
“I
shouldn’t expect you would. You had a
bad spill. But you had insisted that I
teach you to ride so you would have a method of exercise to help you lose
weight. I promised. You met me at the front door on a chilly fall
morning, decked out in a blazing red sweat suit, hardly the proper attire, I
might add. We drive to the park in a
taxi and rented a bicycle for you. Do
you remember any of this?”
Lapius
looked blank. “You are pulling my leg,
Harry.”
“Not
at all, Simon. I held the bike for you
while you mounted, and gave you a series of small pushes to teach you how to
maintain your balance. On one such push
you actually went for a hundred feet or so.”
“That
doesn’t sound too dangerous.”
“It
wasn’t, but it gave you unwarranted confidence.
You demanded that I push you once more and leave you to your own
devices. I tried to warn you, but you
would have none of it. I didn’t want to
argue. So I gave you a push.”
“What
happened?”
“Well,
you went along reasonably well for a few hundred feet, but weren’t able to stop
at the crest of the hill. The bicycle
gathered speed, and you disappeared from sight.
There was a resounding crash.
When I arrived you and the bike were tangled in a clump of briars. They account for the scratches on your
face. You were conscious, but unaware of
your surroundings, and asked that I mix you a drink.
I
got some of the park attendants, and with long poles we disentangled you and
the bike from the briars. However, there
doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong with you except for a concussion
and loss of memory. You’ll be out of the
hospital in a day or two.”
“Where
am I now?”
“This
is the intensive care unit. However,
you’ll be moved to a semi-private room this afternoon.”
“Don’t
rush that Harry. I quite like it here.”
I
surveyed the ward-like atmosphere, the several nurses hovering around, the
cardiac monitoring machines, the complete surveillance, the close
quarters. “How can you like it here? You
look like a basket case.”
“I
like it here because I feel safe here, Harry.
Look at all the nurses available to keep an eye on me, to help me in a
moment if I need it.”
“But
there’s no privacy.”
“But
there’s care. If I want privacy I’ll go
to a hotel. The purpose of a hospital is
care, and the intensive care unit seems to provide it in abundance. No I’m quite content.”
Later
that afternoon, they moved him, despite his protestations, by wheel chair, to a
semi-private room. They moved him during
visiting hours, and had a hard time squeezing him into the room because of the
visitors that crowded the bedside of the other patient.
As
a form of protest, Lapius went limp so they had to get two orderlies to
transfer him to bed. He didn’t regain either
his memory or his usually ebullient spirits till he returned home a day or so
later.
“I’m
glad I had the experience, Harry,” he confided.
“It reaffirms my belief that the American public has been conned by the
concept of the semi-private room. They
really mean semi-public.”
“Do
you remember anything of what happened?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“I
remember trying to stop that infernal bicycle.
I pressed my feet on the brakes but nothing happened. The brakes were faulty. You should have checked them first before you
allowed me to use the bike.”
“But
the bicycles today don’t have foot brakes, Simon.”
“Where
are the brakes, then?”
Holy
smokes, I had forgotten to tell him that they are attached to the
handlebars. He would never forgive
me. I changed the subject.
“Did
you think the overall care in the hospital was adequate?”
“Surprisingly,
yes. Even the food was good. They served hot food and cold food. The coffee was cold and the ice-cream was
hot.”
“Simon,
you were a pleasanter man before you regained your memory,” I told him.