Darryl tried to be brave.
A veteran registered nurse, until three weeks ago he usually staffed emergency room shifts. Now supervisors assigned him other duties throughout the hospital, working floors and patient rooms where he felt inadequate and unskilled. Darryl thought of himself as a good nurse. But now he sensed a nervous edge to his otherwise calm demeanor.
Worried he might lose it sooner or later, Darryl questioned whether he possessed sufficient discipline to handle the increasing heat. Under pandemic pressure everybody could bug out or get the bug. Infection always posed a problem. Today’s disease felt different. This was the big bug.
He once saw a fight in the ER waiting room, another male nurse and a cop battling over a junkie who started to cry about his girlfriend who died from an overdose he administered. The cop slapped the junkie. The nurse slapped the cop. Darryl ran down the hallway and hid in the morgue. The next day he told police he didn’t see anything. He told his supervisor the same story. He told himself he panicked because he was scared.
But he was a good nurse who paid attention and learned as he went. A doctor once wrote a note for his personnel file commending him for comforting an eight-year-old who lost two fingers playing with fireworks. Another time he pounded to no avail on a fat man’s chest for what felt like an hour. And he’d never forget the doctor who stitched double-strength catgut through a homeless drunk’s eyebrow and tied the loose end to the bed railing. When the patient sat up to argue and screamed in pain the ER doctor smiled.
“I asked you to lie still,” he said.
None of those experiences prepared Darryl for going to work afraid.
His brother, Jimmy the cop, was different. He’d shoot you if he had to. He’d shoot you even if he didn’t have to. He feared nobody and nothing. Jimmy lived life tough and strong. He sometimes called Darryl a punk and a sissy when they were kids.
The head nurse’s voice brought Darryl back to now. Two more intensive care nurses have tested positive, she said. That’s seven critical care nurses altogether. One dead. All from the virus.
When Darryl got home that night he disinfected, threw his scrubs in the washing machine, took a shower and ate three tortillas and a can of Progresso lentil soup. Then he laced up his Adidas and headed out for a run. Climbing three flights of stairs to his apartment when he got home at the end of a sprint felt good.
The man stood at the top of the steps.
You a nurse?
Throughout the city, appreciative people drove past hospitals honking car horns, applauding first responders and clapping for front line health care workers who put their lives on the line each day.
Shy Darryl smiled.
I am, he said.
Move.
The man turned and walked away.
Hey, whoa, wait a minute, Darryl said.
But the man was gone.
The next morning Darryl walked a little more cautiously in the hallway as he made his way to the stairway. Looking for the man from the day before, he sensed his pulse rate rise. Darryl saw none of his neighbors on his way out of the apartment building.
The man stood across the street and yelled.
I told you to move.
When Darryl started to cross the man yelled louder.
Get away from me. Stay back. Keep your social distance.
Darryl retreated and ran back up the stairs. He bolted the lock as soon as he got inside. In the few minutes it took to leave and return, somebody had slid an unsigned note under the door that asked one simple question.
How do we know you’re not carrying the disease?
Darryl texted Jimmy.
I got trouble.
Most of the people in the building seemed to get along. A mix of black, white and Latino, his neighbors minded their own business. Gay and straight, they seemed to respect the differences that existed between them.
White, bearded, tattooed and muscle pumped, the man on the street dazed Darryl.
Fighting to control his breath, Darryl tried to stay calm. He worked too hard to get to this stage in his life. He was a nurse. He had a job to do and, goddammit, he was going to do it. That fast, Darryl no longer felt fear.