Fears and Cautions

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 05/03/09

Pam Lowe pushed the aluminum mobile stand carrying the vital signs monitor, faster and faster, along the corridor. She swung the thing into the next patient’s room, rolled it up to the bedside, and said in a cheery voice, “Good morning, Mrs. Daniels, time to take your vitals!” With smooth and competent motions, Pam applied the pulse oxymeter — like a clothespin on the index finger of Mrs. Daniels’ left hand. She secured the blood pressure cuff, pushed the button on the machine that started the inflation and deflation process. She punched the thermometer into its plastic sheath and stuck it securely in just the right place under Mrs. Daniels’ tongue.

After jotting down her results, she chatted briefly with the patient, and then maneuvered her equipment out of Mrs. Daniels’ room and into the hallway again. She dragged the stand behind her as she hurried to the nurses’ station.

The nurse manager, Lois, glanced at her as Pam parked the monitor and plugged it in, and then headed around back of the nurses’ station to the small nurses’ lounge for her break. Lois was an older, stocky woman who thought of her RNs, LPNs and assistants as family; which meant, their business was her business. She followed Pam into the break room.

Two other LPNs were in the lounge when Pam walked in. They looked up and waited until she sat down. “Well?” They said in unison.

Lois came in behind Pam. She shut the door and sat down at the table with the others. “So, what happened? Did you really agree to go out with this guy?”

Pam was beaming. “We’re meeting tonight at the Lion’s Den.” She felt giddy. She felt like she was walking on soap bubbles. After so many months of being alone, after her messy divorce two years before, she was going out with a man she had met online, a man who seemed like such a good match.

One of the LPNs nodded, “That’s a good choice,” she said. The Lion’s Den was a British-style pub in Charleston, West Virginia. A female-friendly place with booths, smooth jazz playing in the background, and a congenial atmosphere. It compared favorably with the usual bars found in the area, replete with loud music, dark and dirty crannies, dancing girls, mechanical bulls, and obnoxious drunken men.

Lois’ face wrinkled into a frown. “It’s not a good choice. It’s not a good choice at all,” she said forcefully. “You don’t go out with men you meet over the internet. Not after what happened to Lucy.”

There was an audible gasp from someone, and then a few beats of silence as the three LPNs were reminded against their will of what happened to their colleague, Lucy, and her daughters.

Pam shook her head, feeling just a twinge of self-doubt. “I’m not stupid, Lois. It pains me a lot, what happened. What do you want me to do? I’m a single mom, there are no men around here for me. I’ll be careful.”

“Well let us know if you have any trouble. Call me, okay?” one of the LPNs said.

Pam hurried through the rest of her shift, riding high on a beam of both excitement and mounting anxiety. Once she got home, she fixed dinner for herself and her daughter. Her mother was going to watch five-year-old Iona for her while she was out. As she showered and dressed and applied her makeup, it occurred to her that she was getting more and more nervous, and she was becoming more and more angry with Lois.

Lucy was a nurse who was murdered. She had two beautiful daughters, aged nine and two, and she worked on another floor of their hospital. Lucy lived in a more rural area, some miles from Charleston. Lucy had found a man on the internet. The man wasn’t from West Virginia. No one knows for sure where he originally came from, but he seems to have moved to the Charleston area while courting Lucy. He dated her a few times, but the first time she invited him home, he raped her nine-year-old daughter, and when Lucy caught him she attacked him to defend her daughter and he strangled her. He then beat the nine-year-old to death, set the house on fire, leaving the two-year-old to burn in her crib. All three bodies were found in the charred remains of their home by Lucy’s parents. The monster was caught; one of his own relatives turned him in, finally disgusted enough by his crimes. It turned out he was a sexual predator, more interested, it appears, in Lucy’s daughters than in her.

Now Pam began to feel more apprehensive than happy. She was an excellent nurse, a good person, smart, life-smart as well as book-smart. When she kissed Iona goodbye, and waved at her mother, her stomach began to sink.

She looked at herself in the mirror by the front door as she left. She was a bit overweight, but usually liked the way she looked in her dark-wine pantsuit paired with simple gold jewelry. Suddenly she didn’t feel any confidence or pride in her appearance. She actually thought of removing her elegant earrings, her necklace and rings, in order to make herself look more plain.

She arrived at the Lion’s Den parking lot around seven. As she unlocked her car door to climb out, she noted her hands were shaking.

Damn it, pull yourself together, she berated herself. It seemed that her emotions were melting and oozing all over her intellectual mind like objects in a Dali painting. “Everyone is nervous on a first date,” she said to herself as she entered the pub.

She asked one of the waitresses if “William Basky” was there. The waitress pointed her to a booth, right near the center of the room. Good sign, that, thought Pam. He chose a location where everyone could see them.

Her knees felt like water as she came up to the booth and made eye contact with Mr. Basky. She knew her face was starting to shine under the makeup. I look so weak, she thought. Her stomach heaved as she said, “Mr. William Basky? Hi, I’m Pam Lowe. Sorry if you had to wait.”

He was dark, with dark eyes and dark complexsion and black hair like silk. He looked to be around forty years old. He was not very tall. He didn’t look like he came from West Virginia. It was hard to tell what ethnic group he was from. He was clean shaven and he stood up as she spoke. “It’s so g…g…good to meet you,” he said. His internet profile described him as a hospital tech, working in critical care.

They sat down. She sat across from him, back against the side of the booth. He ordered two lagers from the waitress Pam had first talked to; she had followed Pam over. Pam clutched the fingers of her left hand with her right hand as the waitress darted away. “Um, well, so you said in our chats that you are divorced, and have three children. Tell me about them.”

William Basky did so, stumbling over his words a little, stuttering a bit. He looked uncomfortable.

Pam studied him as he spoke. What am I doing here? she thought. It doesn’t matter if he seems to be the nicest man in the world, he could still be a child molester.

William Basky’s eyes looked sad. Large, brown, expressive, and sad. “You seem really nervous, Pam. Is something wrong, did I say something to offend you?” he eventually asked.

Pam tried to appear chipper and nonchalant and assured him he was fine. “It’s just that … you know … you … we don’t really know each other. We met in a chat room. I’m just not sure what … precautions to take.”

“Precautions?” he smiled as he asked. He shook his head.

The date didn’t last beyond the next round of drinks.

While driving home, as she left the Charleston suburbs and her headlight beams revealed the moths and bugs of a summer’s night, Pam suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness. All the adrenaline seemed to drain out of her at once, and she was left with an oppressive feeling of loss. What the hell just happened? she asked herself. What the hell? What did I do?

The next morning, in the hospital, on her floor, as the entire morning shift gathered in the break room for shift report, someone pushed the STOP button on the recorder and everyone looked at Pam.

“Oh, Jesus….” Pam raised both hands in exasperation. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, what happened?” One of the RNs asked.

“Nothing….” Pam said impatiently. “Let’s just go on with the report. I’ll tell you later.”

During lunch, in the ladies locker room, she flung open her locker door, and dug around in her purse for her cell phone and held it for a moment, hesitant to check her messages. Was she afraid Mr. Basky would leave a message? Was she afraid he wouldn’t? She was afraid of both possibilities, she realized. She was just afraid.

She held her breath, and turned the phone on, and indeed it chirped indicating a message was waiting. She looked, and … indeed, it was a message from Mr. Basky.

Pam Lowe winced with both elation and foreboding as she listened to the recording.

“Pam,” Mr. Basky’s soft voice said into her ear, “I’m so sorry our date didn’t go well. You know, I feel so sorry for women. I understand how you must feel, and what you must be going through. My wife is dating, and I’m so afraid something will happen to my two little girls and little boy. I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, and I want nothing but happiness for the women in my life; my ex-wife, my daughters, my mother. I could see right away what a nice, patient, wonderful person you are, Pam. But you are so scared. Do you want a relationship? Do you want to date? Sometimes it seems we can always find a way to rationalize our fears, to explain to ourselves why we can’t take chances or meet new people. I hope you will find someone who is good enough for you, Pam. It was very nice to meet you. Like I said, I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I hope we can continue to be cyber-friends. Bye now!”

Pam stood with the phone to her ear for several seconds after she heard “Bye, now.” She slowly slipped the phone back into her purse and shut the metal door. She leaned her back against the locker and began to cry.