The crying nurse

Paul H. Williams, Contributor

Claudia Jones' mother has four children for different men, none of whom settled with her. Domestic days work is her main source of income, so the children, except Claudia, didn't go to school beyond grade nine.

Claudia, the youngest, persevered through the hardship and became a nurse, and now works at a Kingston hospital. She is a nurse who is not emotionally connected to her patients.

Sometime last year, she was assigned a patient who was boisterous and feisty. Initially, Burchell White had to be tied to his bed. From time to time, he would throw a tantrum, asking why his children forsook him, and calling out the names of women, who seemed to be the mothers of his children.

Claudia found Burchell White annoying and was offended by his curse words. One evening, in one of his outbursts, he said something that pricked Claudia like a syringe.

"Tell Bev from Maxfield fi come look fi mi," Burchell White bellowed, "Tell har mi sorry, tell har say mi sick bad, and a ungle she cyaan help mi!"

The following evening, Claudia's supervisor missed her from the ward for quite a while. In her search for Nurse Jones, her supervisor found her crying in the nurses' lounge. She assured her supervisor that she was OK, and resumed her duties.

Yet, over the following days, her colleagues saw that her eyes were constantly red, and sometimes her face was tear-stained. She took an unusual interest in Burchell White's well-being, and would tell her colleagues to "treat him nice" when she was leaving her shift. She would stand over Burchell White and stare, even when she wasn't assigned him. This, too, was quite unusual.

One morning when Claudia turned up at work, Burchell White's bed was empty. Her heart beat fast. She looked around at the other beds. Burchell was on none of them. She then went farther up the aisle. Her pace was brisk, and she looked bewildered. Burchell White was not on the ward. In an anxious tone, she asked her colleagues for him. One nurse replied, "The brute dead last night."

Claudia James's bag fell from her hands, as she screamed and fled to the nurses' lounge. Her shocked colleagues went after her. In the lounge, she sat on the edge of a chair crying uncontrollably. As her colleagues surrounded her, memories of the evening when she made a certain visit to her mother crowded her mind.

That evening, Claudia didn't call to say she was going by her mother's house. Moreover, she did not normally visit on week days. But, it was a visit she had to make.

After the surprise, her mother asked, with pride, "So what a gwaan, mi nurse daughter?"

"Is you a come to tell mi."

"Eh, eh. Mi no have a ting new fi tell yuh. Mi wudda call yuh."

Claudia sighed loudly before asking, her mother, Bev, from Maxfield, "Yu know a man name Burchell White from Gordon Town?"

Bev shot up from the upturned keg on which she sat, and widened her eyes while asking Claudia, "Who? Burchell White? A whey yuh know him from?"

"Down at the hospital. Him very sick. All kinda complaint."

"Drink too much, man. A dat fi happen. Dat ole drunkard," Bev blurted out as she turned her back to Claudia and lit a cigarette.

"So, yuh really know him?"

"Dat deh man deh, him lucky!" And Bev took another draw.

"So, a Shanice father?" Claudia asked impatiently. Shanice was the sister that Claudia followed.

"Why yuh no leave that alone!"

"But the two a yuh seem to know each other."

"Everybody a Gordon Town know drunkard Burchell. Dat's why mi lef him. A yuh wukliss pupa. Yuh never get him name, but a yuh father. Why yuh never gi him two injection and tek him outta him misery, wukliss!"

And with that Bev grabbed the keg from the verandah floor, and entered her little room. Claudia slowly sat on a white plastic chair. She rested her head against a wall and closed her eyes as tears flowed freely.

From the little room, Bev yelled, "So yuh no hungry? Is a good ting mi did left some a de food. Whey yuh deh, Claudia?"