Claude McLeod Harvey
It may have gone something like this:
April 3, 1935, United Verde Hospital, Jerome, AZ
‘Thirty thousand square feet. Thirty thousand square feet of ice cold concrete walls, 18 inches thick in most spots. A frigid 5 stories tall, glaring down on this God forsaken dirty mining town that is more corrupt than I can imagine. Thirty thousand square feet of day in-day out work maintaining, repairing, trying to avoid the sickness that escape from the dead and dying around me. I’m no longer young, no longer strong, no longer able to keep up the pace that this building demands.
What am I still doing here? My Elizabeth has been gone 6 years now. What am I still doing here since the kids are on their own? I’m old and tired. Tired of keeping things running, tired of going up and down those darned stairs when the elevator is left open. Tired of people complaining about how noisy this place is. Tired.
The ladies in town have been making eyes at me when I join the tired at the saloon. They make eyes at anyone that seems alive at this point; they’re so desperate. There’s a nurse here at the hospital that I think is flirting with me but she looks at my apprentice, John, too. Sad eyes, eyes that want attention, but not long term. Eyes that want it now, to force the night to go quickly, giving tomorrow another chance for her to help the sick, hurt and dying. Maybe help a baby takes its first breath, cry its first cry in this cold unforgiving world; one less to be buried out on the Hogback. My eyes, my heart ache for Elizabeth.
It’s cold this April morning, still cold enough to keep the boiler running barely into the month. These concrete walls echo as the wind whips through the shaft every time a gurney goes down the elevator. Walls that moan, moan from the cold, from the pain and death entombed beneath these 5 stories. The incinerator glows amid the chill, bringing closure to those that succumb. The loud din of the boiler, forcing steam throughout the building allows my mind to wander when I work back there, avoiding my thoughts of loneliness and melancholy. I miss my family.
John and I met in my apartment above the emergency room earlier this morning to discuss the day ahead. I want John to learn from me, learn what it takes to care for this massive building: the boiler, the Otis elevator, the web of pipes, to be like I was trained to be. I am 63 years old now, stiff and sore from working all these years. Scarred swollen knuckles and creaking knees a constant reminder.
We had a difficult working relationship. John was young and impetuous, wanting to do things his way, which was not always the best way. I knew more, had seen more, fixed more, was better than John at being the maintenance man for this hospital, or so I wanted to think. I wasn’t open to new ideas on fixing old things and we butted heads.
We argued often, nearly coming to blows a time or two and it wasn’t always about work. The young nurses here, those ladies down in town that were not lost on John nor my eyes, sometimes, well, most times, with liquor my wingman, caused the old Scottish jealousy to rear its ugly head. I let my mouth get the best of me, not wise considering my years. Jealous of the attention going toward John and not me. I was ‘Dad’, ‘Scotty’, the trusty old widower to these ladies, not a contender in their eyes. I knew there was no chance, but it still burned a bit.
I left my apartment and headed to the boiler room, plenty to do so early in the day. Heading to the elevator room, I rounded the corner, passed the back of the boiler and alongside the hot incinerator door, when I heard John call out to me, anger meeting my ears from behind. I was focused on greasing those steel cables to keep the Otis running smoothly into the Spring. That’s all I remember.’