Dr. Step Hen
by Brenda Ross

"Well, Aniska," said her father as he jerked away from her kiss. "Where you been?"

"I just went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee, Dad," she said.

And then the doctor walked in. "How are you, Josef?" he asked. "The nurse tells me you found your teeth."

"They was hid under pillow," he grumbled. "Nurse damn fool, Dr. Step Hen."

Anna laughed. "I'm sorry, Dr. Stephen," she said, "I'm afraid he's always going to call you that."

The doctor smiled. "Well, Josef," he said. "I see you are going to have a talk with Danny today."

The old man became agitated. "No see him again! He a damn psycho."

Anna tried to calm him. "Nobody is going to hurt you, Dad,"

Josef was adamant. "I no see him, Aniska. He a rapist."

"Don't be so foolish."

Josef rummaged in the drawer of his night table and produced a business card. "There you are," he said. "Daniel J. Malkin - Psycho the Rapist."

Anna looked. "Oh, dad," she said. "That's Psychotherapist!"

But Josef was no longer interested. "Whatever," he shrugged.

Anna looked at her father with affection. She wanted to take him home, away from condescending doctors and intolerant nurses, and look after him herself. She did not approve of the counseling sessions with Daniel Malkin. She did not believe that strangers were the answer. Josef was the same as he had always been - no better and no worse. He was her father with his own distinctive ways. He had always raged at the incompetence of others and she was horrified when his angry tirades were diagnosed as senile dementia.

"People no fool me when they busy, busy, busy," he would grumble. "Busy don't mean nothing."

"Oh, Dad." she sighed. "They do their best."

"Humph," he snorted. "Best not good enough."

When the doctors suggested that Josef's mind was failing, Anna was angry. "His memory is no different to mine. I've been using lists for years and how would hospitals manage without notes?"

When Anna approached her husband, he had some reservations. "We'd have no privacy, Anna."

"You won't even notice he's around," she promised.

"I don't know. He's full of demands these days. Your father is well looked after at the hospital. Why burden yourself, Anna?"

"I like looking after people. You know I do," she said. "He deserves some happiness in his old age."

"You're not getting any younger yourself, Anna."

She had to admit that her father seemed to thrive in the hospital. She often saw a twinkle in his eye as an exasperated nurse hurried in to silence his ever-ringing bell. "Nurst," he would insist. "Someone stole my teeth."

"Now, Josef. Who would want to do that?"

"They's damn good teeth. Never been no trouble for twenty years."

Some times he went on a hunger strike. "Can't eat that garbage!" he would say.

"Now, Josef."

"Better I starve!" He would lie in bed, with his stash of chocolate bars brought by Anna in the drawer.

He enjoyed taking his medications, and became enraged if they were late. He developed a repertoire of reasons for extra Tylenol. He would summon the nurse with a pathetic whine "Nurst! Nurst!" punctuated with frantic jabs on the bell.

"What is it Josef?"

"The pain!" he would moan clutching unlikely parts of his body - his inner elbow or a quivering nostril. He was undismayed when they said no medication was due.

He knew, and the nurses knew, he would try again in half-an-hour. It was how he passed the time.

When she finally brought him home, Anna fluttered around in an ecstasy of martyrdom. "Do you want to sit outside, Dad?" she would ask. "How about a chocolate brownie right from the oven?"

"No," he would say humbly. "I ain't gonna be no trouble."

"You're no trouble, Dad."

It was not long however before Josef became demanding. "Aniska," he would yell, "I need take a piss."

"Coming, Dad." She would guide him to the bathroom, where he would tell her he had only been asking for a kiss. He refused to use his walker, preferring her sturdy shoulder. He was all innocence when she found the TV remote or his much traveled teeth at the other side of the room. "Must've been the Nurst," he would mutter.

After a while Anna's husband began to feel neglected. "Anna," he would say, rifling helplessly through the morning newspaper. "Do you know where the sports section is?"

"I'll be there in a minute, dear. Dad needs me right now."

She would bustle in with a lukewarm pot of coffee, take the sports section out of the paper, hand it to him and bustle out again.

"Anna," he would call. "The coffee is cold."

But Anna was busy with her father. "Aniska," he would demand, "I need drink."

"How about a cup of tea, Dad?"

"No. I not want tea."

"Coffee, then?"

"I not want coffee."

Anna would patiently list the alternatives - milk, juice, or water.

Each time he shook his head.

"Not cognac, Dad?" she said. "It gives you indigestion these days."

But, that was exactly what he did want - and he wanted it neat. Next time, it was something else - a cup of cocoa or a glass of orange juice.

The more Josef demanded, the more Anna determined to anticipate his every need. She never left him alone. She plumped his cushions and massaged his aching limbs. She always knew the whereabouts of his teeth. And slowly she won the battle.

"Aniska," he would call. "The pain!"

"Here you are, Dad. I was just bringing you a Tylenol."

She didn't understand that such attentiveness had deprived the old man of his reason for living, and she was dismayed when Josef's condition worsened.

"Aniska," he said one day. "You too good to me."

"You know I would do anything for you, Dad."

The old man sighed. "I sleep now, Aniska," he whispered. "No want pills - no want drink - no want eat."

"But, Dad, You must eat so you can be strong again."

"No need be strong - I sleep now."

Brenda Ross has had several articles published in Canadian Writer's Journal and Canadian Author, some of which have been included in her book "On The Other Hand," which illustrates two opposing points of view about some aspects of the writing process and is printed by White Mountain Publications.

Recently her stories and articles have appeared in Cenotaph Pocket Edition, A Freelance Writer, Kudzu Monthly, Seven Seas Magazine, Writer's Life, Thoughtcafe, Rainy Day Corner and Wynterblues Thunder. In May she won first prize for her short story "Take me to Your Cleaners" at Doorknobs and Bodypaint's Dorsal contest. More of Brenda's work can be found at her three websites:

Shaking the Kaleidosope
The Silver Arrow
Rosie and Me