To The Man with the Crooked Smile
The man with the Pearlescent smile strides gracefully over shiny floors that smell like chemicals. Standing out among those in scrubs and faded old threads, he is adorned in a finely tailored suit. He smiles, his pearlescent smile as shiny and sterilized as the floors, the big man. He is a treasure here and he knows it. Nurses blush, elderly in wheelchairs perk up under the glow of his attention and even busy overworked doctors stop to say hello. He makes his way past a withered small woman in a wheelchair asking for help, speeding up. He makes his way past a confused elderly man asking for his mom, waving him away. He makes his way past the woman with down syndrome, trying to show him her new stuffed rabbit, shushing her. He escapes to his large office with the big windows and then his smile fades as he drops down into his comfy desk chair, newly ordered and more expensive than the many wheelchairs in this gloomy haven. He calls his mom, to tell her how things went on his first day as the new director, a job his uncle got him. He whines about the smell and she assures him, you will only have to be on site for a little while before working at corporate headquarters and never having to see a patient again.
The man with the crooked smile makes his way over the shiny floors, loud in his old big boots, adorned in a pair of old blue scrubs, a slight limp to his step, a heaviness. He is not a nurse though. He never finished high school. He has a troubled past. As a kid there was never money to fix his teeth and it never came as an adult. He got a job as a server, at this place of despair and of death, haven of the abandoned, hideaway for the untouchables, because it was a job he could get. He never intended to be a caregiver, but he became one. He smiles his crooked smile to the nurses who smile warmly back, warm because he sometimes helps them. No blushes though, no those are for the pearlescent. He smiles and stops to help the elderly woman in her wheelchair. He stops to guide the confused man looking for his mom to breakfast and talks him down from fear. He stops to admire the stuffed rabbit that is shown to him. He goes into the dinning room and gets busy, bustling all day to try and do enough to make a small difference, even if only for today and for this moment. He doesn’t have time to think much or whine. He is used to the smell. He knows he will never move on from this place and he never did.
The man with the pearlescent smile, gathers everyone up to hold a meeting. We need to save money, he says and smiles and smiles until his face seems about to crystallize into something non living. It is a smile of pain. Yes, even he can feel pain. No nurses are blushing now, all their heat toward him iced into hard stares or surrendered into resigned bitter sighs. Use less gloves. We are deducting breaks from your checks even if you don’t have time to take them. Spend less money on food for the patients. We are cutting staff on the floor. No staying over no matter what is happening. He says and smiles and smiles and smiles. He speaks of good. He speaks of ideals. He praises us all for caring. He says we need to use less food, less masks, less medications. But you care and god is with you. Less wound supplies. We are doing good, good, good.
As he listens there is no longer a man with a crooked smile, not right now, not in this moment, only a man with crooked teeth and sad plain brown eyes. I thought he was handsome when he smiled, crooked teeth and all. Do the nurses sometimes now blush when he walks by and smiles his crooked smile?
I follow the gleam into his office. He just sat down to his gluten free, paleo, grass feed, dairy free meal, perched in his plush seat, looking very handsome in his tailored suit, a picture of his beautiful wife and son, the small boy already smiling a false pearlescent smile, upon his desk. I ask him, how can we use less gloves we already don’t have enough? What food is there extra to cut back on? He stabs his organic sweet potato smothered in coconut oil with a fork and says. “Figure it out sweetie, you can and you will, I know you are smart.” I look down at the budget cut paperwork on his desk and think about the bonus he is getting, paid for taking sliced bananas from the elderly and the sick. He takes a bite, a big greedy bite.
And the man with the crooked smile, gets his smile back despite it all. He brings in peaches from mom’s garden. He goes to Good Will to bargain for bags of clothing to bring back to those without. He shows up, day after day, still admiring rabbits, still smiling his crooked smile and still guiding whenever he can. His is a persistent joy and I used to think a naive joy. I don’t think that anymore. Isn’t he mad? Isn’t he mad he doesn’t make more than minimum wage? Isn’t he mad that those we care for don’t have more and he smiles and smiles, his sincere and gentle smile. He doesn’t seem mad.
When Covid hits, it comes to them, cut back on gloves, or course it comes to them. It comes to others like them, there are many like them. I have left long before Covid, moving as many girls like me do, overwhelmed with sorrow, with despair, lured by better options, we never stay. But the man with the crooked smile remains.
In another state, they send out a gleamer who smiles his pearlescent smile at the camera, going this is unprecedented. He looks nervous. Are the pearlescents frightened? Paramedics on the news express shock at how few staff there were and now limited the supplies. And a pearlescent boy, much like the pearlescent boy I know, keeps saying unprecedented. But I was there and late at night when nobody can see is a good time to save money, smile, smile that pearlescent smile, a face that becomes marble doesn’t break, a soul vanishes.
The man with the crooked smile goes to work. He is not young. He is not healthy. He smiles his crooked smile to those more isolated than ever. He shows no fear so that others will not fear. The health aids are there. The dishwashers are there. The housekeepers are here. The cooks are there. The servers are there. The nurses are there. The man with the pearlescent smile is gone. The man with the crooked smile was there. The man with the crooked smile is now gone
for much of the mush community.