'Waiter!'
Varga, Michael
THE LAST WORD 'WAITER!' Michael Varga At the age of forty, I recently took early retirement from the U.S. Foreign Service because of serious medical problems. With more time on my hands and...
...The next day, as soon as Mr...
...Bowers relaxed, folded his hands on his chest, and started humming an old German song...
...As I get ready now for my own end-times, I realize that the important thing is not the labels we attach to reality but our response to it...
...Go, tell him...
...Just lie back and let me wash you...
...Gradually I realized that what Jerome Bowers had taught me years ago I had forgotten: We are constantly called to step beyond the definitions, categories, and identities to which we are accustomed...
...The lunch crowd would be here soon and the tables were not set...
...I was Jerome, reporting on how well the lunch crowd was being served, how many of the reservations had already shown up, how quickly the dishwashers were working, etc...
...Bowers this way for over a week, I finally saw the light: Jerome Bowers was dying, abandoned by his family, and I was the only person having human contact with him on a regular basis...
...Why was I insisting on turning this one daily encounter into some sort of argumentative wrestling match...
...So, when I went to wash him the next day and he called me Jerome and asked about the lunch crowd, I answered, "Yes, we've got a few couples at tables fourteen and twenty-two...
...After tussling with Mr...
...Bowers signaled me and said, "Tell Jerome that time is running out...
...They're not your concern anymore...
...As the days passed and his physical condition deteriorated, the doctors increased his morphine dosage and he gradually grew less lucid...
...Bowers I could tell he was panicking...
...Bathing him was not pleasant...
...I washed him easily, shaved him without a nick, and together we jabbered about the daily special: French onion soup, a lean slice of roast beef with vegetables au jus...
...and I signaled back that all was OK...
...With more time on my hands and intimations of mortality at every turn, a character from my past came to me, a cancer-stricken man named Jerome...
...He put the fork down, nodded his head, and as I wiped his face, he died...
...By then, he wasn't able to speak...
...The maitre d...
...He was deathly thin, and his skin had a yellow pallor...
...Now, I was Jerome...
...Michael Varga is an author and playwright who lives in Cape May, New Jersey.e May, New Jersey...
...The tablecloths were all changed by 10:30, and all the silverware is out...
...I'll tell him later," I said, but as I started to bathe Mr...
...But he kept asking if the lunch crowd was in yet and if we had run out of the daily special...
...What mattered was how I responded to him...
...Get the silverware out, and make sure the tablecloths have been changed...
...Don't worry about the lunch tables...
...The first morning I came into the room, he got very nervous and said he didn't have time to wash...
...I asked...
...The fact that he keeps appearing to me now seemed bizarre at first: Of all the people I have known in life, why would one I'd long ago stopped thinking about reappear...
...This didn't allay his panic, so I finished quickly and went on to my other patients...
...He held up a fork from his luncheon tray, as if to say, "Is all the silverware out...
...The next day when I arrived, Mr...
...Many years ago, as a Jesuit novice, I worked as an orderly at Calvary Cancer Hospital in the Bronx, New York, where I cared for terminally ill patients...
...Every day for the next month we did the same thing...
...Mr...
...In my encounter with Jerome Bowers, it wasn't important whether he called me Michael or Jerome, or whether he thought he was at the Waldorf...
...I was with him the day he died...
...This was all a puzzle to me, so I washed him as best I could, said little, and went on to the next patient...
...I quickly discovered that it is not easy to give a bed bath to someone who is so fragile and weak...
...My very first patient was Jerome Bowers (not his real name...
...The tables must be done now...
...What was the point...
...I'm here to wash you, not worry about the silverware...
...This was quite a change from the first day...
...I decided to explain: "Your name is Jerome Bowers, mine is Michael...
...You're here in Calvary Hospital because you have cancer...
...Which Jerome...
...He was at ease...
...My name is not Jerome," I said, "your name is Jerome...
...And he was at peace...
...For once, the panicked fever was gone, he enjoyed the bath, and I found fun in the role-playing...
...Bowers spied me, he started yelling, "Jerome, get to work...
...When we do, a new creation can be born...
...He had spent his entire adult life as the maitre d' at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel...
...And at the end, he could utter only a few words...
Vol. 123 • August 1996 • No. 14
