First, I’m snubbing the whole business. My normal time-killer is to read people’s opinions about the news, whatever the news may be. Now I can’t bear to think about it. My roommate has a tiny radio on which he listens to static and snatches of the news. He said he hoped it didn’t bother me. I told him I was fine as long as it wasn’t about America. If it was, and especially if that name came up, I’d have to leave the room. He chortled and nodded, as is his wont, and said sure, but it was in one ear and out the other. A few minutes ago I heard that name through the static. I got up, shuffled down the hallway, and found a free wheelchair where I could wait out the incident.
I’m up in Canada, where not everyone will be as titanically peeved and frightened about the election as a displaced American liberal. I’m also under medical care, so my choices are not my own. The election fell the night before I was transferred from the hospital to a physical rehab center, where I’m supposed to regain some of the muscle I lost while I was unconscious and doctors worked on my lungs and kidneys. At 11 p.m. I looked at the map; he already had Iowa, and so much for the Selzer poll. I went to bed. At five a.m. the night nurse came in with some pills. Like a fool I asked for the latest. She spoke in African-French: rapid, unemphasized, uncompromising. But the sense of it began to emerge. “Il a gagné?” I asked. “Apparemment,” she cautioned, perhaps to reassure me. “Apparemment.” Me (reacting to the core news): “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” The medical resident came in around 8:15. With an “oh yeah” air, she checked her phone. It was him. Me: “Oh Jesus.”
At 9:20 my transport arrived. A hearty man ushered me into a wheelchair, wheeled me and the chair into a van, and then conferred at length with a buddy in the parking lot. That done, we drove the half hour to the rehab center. The social worker had told me they’d find a place close enough to my apartment, not far to the east or far to the west. It was far to the west.
Inside I was wheeled up and down ramps carpeted by some salt-and-pepper material interspersed with duct tape. The nurse at reception made a call and said my room was being prepared. She pointed next door, to the lounge; I’d have to wait. The lounge is just an open space with tables and chairs, a machine for ice and water, and plentiful clumps of people watching the inevitable TV set. This overlooks the area from a little platform located below a corner of the ceiling. “Bien,” the hearty man said. “Bon chance.” He left me in one of the free chairs. It was in front of the TV, because everyone wants to watch TV.
Up on the set was everything I didn’t want to see. Outlines of states, boxes with glowing numbers—the wrong numbers. Other boxes floated there, these ones featuring earnest faces saying distasteful things. “Sweep of the victory… every demographic group… can’t be narrowed down…”
The chairs here are substantial. Broad seats, tall backs, frames seemingly made from cast iron. My muscles, as indicated above, aren’t much now; in fact, they’re pudding-like. But I got to my feet, put my shoulder to the chair’s side, and butted until the thing had turned around. Then, one hand on each side of the chair’s back, I leaned on it and shoved it. With some lurching and scraping it arrived at the margin between the lounge and the hallway. I slouched onto the seat, watched the busy foot traffic, and put my fingers in my ears. There they stayed for 20 minutes.
A nurse stopped by to see who I was. That ascertained, she said I could wait in my room; the bed hadn’t been made, but everything else was ready. She found me a walker and led me there, meaning to here, the chair where I sit now and type this. I thanked her gratefully.
Another nurse chatted with me toward day’s end. I told her about the TV and sitting with my fingers in my ears. “Oh yes,” she said, laughing. “I saw you.” I kind of like that: with all these patients around, you’ll find at least one of them doing any sort of damn thing. That tells you about medical life, I guess. The rest tells you about the collapse of the West and how I’m taking it.
